Long Live the Queen

My sweet friend, Hannah, sent me this pic as she strolled around Seattle.  Her blog, Letters to Henry,  is one of the places I most like to be when I’m online here, and you’d do yourself a favor to look her up.

While I love the pic, I was a bit disappointed to discover that the 3$ Greyhounds mentioned on the sign didn’t involve actual greyhound squeezin’s.  I’m sure that the greyhounds are much relieved by that, but…

It’s been too cold here to do much of anything but sit in front of the fire and pretend I’m at a fabulous Swiss ski resort.  A few nights ago it was 35 below zero with the wind chill, and so cold that a bottle of water I’d sat on the table beside my bed had a thin layer of ice on it when I went to take a drink during the night.  I have the heat up, sure, but this is such a drafty place that I might as well be sleeping outside.  Both the dog and I are wearing thermals these days – how sexy an image is that? – and I have on so many layers of clothing that I feel like one of those overdressed children trying to play in a snowsuit.

I’ve caught up on a lot of work, but…I don’t like working this much.  In fact, on my list of Things I’d Rather Do, working falls below braiding the hair between Rosie O’Donnels’ cheesy toes.  It’s made me think about becoming a bum in some warmer climate.

I’d be a good bum.  I have a dramatic flair, plus – being on the small, slight side – I could engender more sympathy as I stagger towards my targets with my little paw out.  I’d follow them, too, if they didn’t gimme a dollar.  I’d press my little nose up against the glass of the windows of the restaurants they dine at; I’d stand outside their house, leaving urine stains on their sidewalk, with tears running down my face; I’d follow them to work and tell their co-workers that they promised to buy me a pot pie if I had sex with them…but they LIED; they didn’t gimme no pot pie!  At some point, my reputation would precede me, and on seeing me approach, people would simply fling money at my feet, and run away…fast.

I’d become the Queen in my torn, gold, evening gown and bent rhinestone tiara, and I would wave my snot-encrusted hands, smiling, at the crowds who came to beg for an audience with me, their beloved Queen.  (And I wouldn’t allow them one unless they brought me a pot pie, dammit!)  So…you all had better be nice to me because, eventually, you will want to say that you knew me when I was just a commoner, bitching about the cold…