83. Important notice on noxious weeds from Missoula's foremost doomsday expert

Missoula's #1 puppy says heyyyy.

Guys. It's been a while since you've heard from me. You've probably been coming here every day, hitting F5, hoping something would change. Well, today is your lucky day!

Everything's fine. The puppy is well, although he was a little under the weather over the weekend.

However. I've come to you today to warn you about a growing menace that is threatening the very fabric of our fair city, Missoula, the Garden City.

Creeping bellflower.

Look at this shit.

Creeping bellflower is a bad, bad weed.

People. Creeping bellflower is everywhere. Missoula is covered with it. It's growing in alleys and parks and lawns and in my motherfucking yard. I pulled out every single one of those motherfuckers last year, not one of them went to seed in my yard, I dug up pound after pound of their carrot-like tubers, and this year we've got more creeping bellflower than ever. I even bought Roundup and who am I now? I'm some person who buys Roundup now, and you know what, I don't even care, fighting the creeping bellflower is worth it.

I see it everywhere I go. Northside, Westside, University district, downtown. Greenough Park is filled with it. Your yard too, probably. Go look!

You think this is pretty? It's not!

Beware! If we let this menace continue to spread it will be our doom!

Unfortunately the creeping bellflower is nearly impossible to eradicate because it is so wily. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

Creeping like an asshole.

Creeping bellflower. If you see any of these motherfuckers out there, beat the crap out of them.

Oh! A baby one! It looks easy to kill but it's not. But you should still try to.

82. Puppy, and exciting blog news

Missoula's #1 puppy

Last week I made the puppy pose for pictures while wearing a bow. He loved it. As you can see, he remains adorable.

Good news: I've been listening to some of my old radio shows to try to get myself interested in that again. So far it hasn't worked, but at least I'm trying.

Because a fine lady can never have too many blogs, I've started another one. Building off the success of this blog, as well as the successes of all my other blogs, Beauty Boxes for Jerks will bring fresh, smart stuff to whoever reads it. I'm out of description. It's at beautyboxer.blogspot.com. I'm not hyperlinking that just to be a jerk. I'm not done with this blog, I'm just stepping back for a while. Being Missoula's go-to authority for weather, shopping, news, and gossip for so many years wore me down a little.

81. Missoula's #1 Puppy

Zeke moved to Montana from Idaho in late August. He's a good dog.

There's nothing else to talk about anymore.

80. Missoula would be a good place to be retired in

But it's not quite as nice when you have to go to work.

79. Further evidence of giant fish

Perhaps my last entry did not scare you as much as it should have. I was lucky to snap the following photo a few days after the previous photo was taken.

Innocent summer day, monster lurking under the surface.

This photo has not been altered in any way, except that I added a life-sized figure of a human person for size reference. As you can see, the giant fish is half the size of a person - for those of you who are bad at math, this means the fish is 2.5 to 3 feet long.

Take heed, Missoula.

78. FISH

As if anyone needed another reason to stay the heck out of the river! Look!

Summer storm. Fishmonster in foreground.

(Photo has been altered - you couldn't actually see the fish in the picture so I had to draw it in.)

There's a huge fish in the river! It's at least two and a half feet long! That's not an exaggeration - TWO AND A HALF FEET LONG. I've seen it twice! It just sits there on the bottom of the river by the California Street bridge all day long waiting for people or bodies to float by!

Yeah, I know. I'm not stepping a toe in that water (until it's made its way to Idaho and becomes a large lake - then it's fine and all the fish and bodies have been filtered out by the dams).

77. bird, injured

Here's the latest avian news from Missoula:

The other day I walked out my door and there was a robin standing right by my stoop looking up at me. Scared the crap out of me - psycho menacing bird - but he hadn't moved an inch and I realized he was injured. I sat down on the steps and he just looked at me. I told him I couldn't help him but didn't want to hurt him, and then I got sad - adults, stupid, always finding metaphors in things. Blame all those German literature classes I took in college. I can't help an injured bird, I can't help an alcoholic.

An hour or two later the robin was on the other side of the yard, right wing slightly askew, hopping on one foot, eating things from the lawn - a good sign, right? I couldn't help him but I put out a little bowl of water. I don't know what injured robins or alcoholics need but I put out a bowl of water because it was a hot day and I don't know, robins need water like everyone else.

That night I dreamed of feathers on the ground, the scene of a cat-bird encounter, but in real life there's no feathery scene of death in the yard, and there's also no bird, alive or dead. I haven't decided yet what kind of stupid metaphorical reading I'll make up for that.

Tomorrow will be three seconds longer than today. The solstice occurs tomorrow at 5:09 p.m. and then we'll begin the long terrible descent back into winter. I am sorry to have to tell you that but as Missoula's foremost astronomical blogger it is my duty.