god save the queen

we all knew it would EVENTUALLY happen…

…and i almost feel like i saw it coming.

on tuesday i saw a new story about the new prime minister of england, and part of the bit showed her meeting the queen. i remarked to nik that “either the new pm is really tall, or QE2 is getting close enough to her end to be shrinking”.

(i took a moment to google what her height might be and the first ten articles that popped up, in their previews, seriously listed eight different heights starting at 5’3″ (that one referred to her as a “tall woman”) and going up to 5’8″ (which, in my head, is an ACTUALLY tall woman)…

but i suppose my “close enough to her end” comment was more on than i thought as she passed less than forty-eight hours later. i was actually doing new hire shit for a new tattoo artist when i looked up and noticed the footage of the queen at phillip’s funeral and when i remarked about it the girl just casually said, “oh, yeah…she died today”.

oh, these kids…bet if it was cardi b or something it wouldn’t be such a casual observance.

it’s probably pretty obvious i never met her, but we DID stay across the street from one another in windsor one pleasant summer day in june of 1989. we did the tour, posed by the guards, etc, and then the next day as we were leaving i noticed the flag and guards were different. when i asked the innkeeper if they changed daily, he said, “no, they change it to that when her majesty’s here”.

now, of course, this is windsor castle, so saying “we stayed across the street” in like if i was sitting in abuello’s in austin and she was somewhere in barton creek mall, but not the point. it’s probably closer to her than you ever got, ain’t it?

QE2 – 1926-2022