Geaux Tigers!!
My life has been inundated the past couple of weeks by football. Of course I live with a woman whose eyes light up when the Monday Night Football song comes on. At eight o’clock she starts leaning closer to the television, waiting, then here comes Hank Jr. and when it is all said and done there is an audible sigh. Can you feel my muscles tensing? Unlike me with a good Lifetime movie, C wants me to share in this moment with her. I usually try to have a good book handy.
This past weekend however, LSU was playing and I did not have to fake my interest as this is my father’s team. I don’t care so much about them winning but it makes me feel strangely closer to my father to cheer his team on. The game was closer than anyone thought (a statement shamelessly stolen from overheard conversations between people who actually know what they are talking about). With me uncharacteristically involved in the game, our conversation went something like this:
Me: “I’ve been to that stadium”
C: “Uh huh, I know.”
C (at top of her voice): “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?”
Me (a few minutes later): “Did you see Mike the Tiger just now?”
C: “No, did they show him?”
Me: “Yes. I hear he has a new habitat”
C (again at top of her voice): “COME ON!!”
Me: “Are you going to help me with the Christmas lights?”
C: “I thought you wanted to watch this game?”
No, clearly I had no interest in the game. What I preferred was to watch my own childhood in my mind’s eye. I wanted to tell her again that the one time my father took me to Tigers Stadium it was snowing in Baton Rouge and that I didn’t have a heavy winter coat so I wore my Smoky the Bear Halloween costume. That we watched the teams warm up on the field and before kick off my father lied and said we had won. Now that was my kind of football game.
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Monday, November 28, 2005
Baby Jesus Drives a Hot Rod
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas around our house. C and I put lights up on the house this weekend and around the crepe myrtles in the front yard. I have a great desire to go Clark Griswald on the place but she is keeping me in check for the most part. I will be holding out for that snow machine I asked for on Christmas Eve but won’t be too disappointed when it doesn’t arrive.
On Thursday we called our friend with the twins to wish them a Happy Thanksgiving. It is so great when kids get to the age that you can ask to speak to them on the phone and they will actually talk to you. So, I interrupted their playtime which included two Rubbermaid bins formally containing Christmas ornaments to see what they want for Christmas.
J. went first and asked for a blue truck. Not just any blue truck but one that does a whole bunch of stuff because he went on and on. It is too bad I have no idea what he was saying. Miss. May wants cookies and milk. I guess if it is good enough for Santa it is good enough for her.
When I made a follow up call to Mommy today to see if the Christmas ornaments that were displaced from the Rubbermaid bins had made it to their respective spots around the house she said they had but that she had made an effort to keep everything breakable on higher ground. One thing that does keep popping up is a shiny red Hot Wheel in the nativity scene. I guess J. thinks the Baby Jesus deserves a nice car after being born in a manger and all.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas around our house. C and I put lights up on the house this weekend and around the crepe myrtles in the front yard. I have a great desire to go Clark Griswald on the place but she is keeping me in check for the most part. I will be holding out for that snow machine I asked for on Christmas Eve but won’t be too disappointed when it doesn’t arrive.
On Thursday we called our friend with the twins to wish them a Happy Thanksgiving. It is so great when kids get to the age that you can ask to speak to them on the phone and they will actually talk to you. So, I interrupted their playtime which included two Rubbermaid bins formally containing Christmas ornaments to see what they want for Christmas.
J. went first and asked for a blue truck. Not just any blue truck but one that does a whole bunch of stuff because he went on and on. It is too bad I have no idea what he was saying. Miss. May wants cookies and milk. I guess if it is good enough for Santa it is good enough for her.
When I made a follow up call to Mommy today to see if the Christmas ornaments that were displaced from the Rubbermaid bins had made it to their respective spots around the house she said they had but that she had made an effort to keep everything breakable on higher ground. One thing that does keep popping up is a shiny red Hot Wheel in the nativity scene. I guess J. thinks the Baby Jesus deserves a nice car after being born in a manger and all.
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Close Encounters of the Bar Kind ~ 3
Taking a Bite Out of the Big Apple
When C took me to New York for my birthday two years ago the smoking ban had just gone into effect. You have no idea just how addicted you are until you stand outside in twenty-eight degree weather smoking through blue lips, trying to cup the cigarette so a giant snowflake doesn’t put it out causing a nicotine induced meltdown. In addition to seeing the usual tourist traps, it became our mission to find the secret smoking bars in the city.
My aunt, who lives in Brooklyn, told us to go to Campbell’s Apartment because she had heard you can still smoke inside. Campbell’s Apartment is inside Grand Central Station so needless to say we were skeptical but our dinner reservations weren’t until 11:00 (p.m. that is) so we decided to give it a try. Walking into Campbell’s Apartment was like taking a drink of water after forty days in the desert. There was a big toasty fire, fluffy couches, a long dark wood bar and best of all an ashtray on the table. We couldn’t get our coats off fast enough.
The only thing Campbell’s Apartment does not have enough of is seats so when three couples approached us about sharing our space we were more than happy to oblige. Sharing with these people ended up making my birthday a truly unforgettable experience. They drank, they smoked, they told funny stories of children left at home while the adults grabbed a weekend in the city.
While sitting there on our big fluffy couch our little group incorporated another patron into the fold. A woman sitting on the couch behind us was clearly alone and wanting to join in. She was missing her tap recital by being in NY for the weekend so she performed her routine for us all. Very interesting seeing a grown woman tap dancing.
A few bottles of champagne and a dozen or so Vodkas later, we were all a few sheets to the wind so at the time bad ideas sounded really good.
Bad ideas disguised as good in chronological order as they occurred on December 14, 2003:
1. Ordered not just glass, but bottle of champagne at 6:00 when dinner reservation was not until 11:00.
2. Allowed new friends to buy me second bottle of champagne because at this point I really couldn’t feel the giant hole bottle one was burning into my stomach lining.
3. Blew off dinner reservation at one of NY’s top dining establishments because we were having way too much fun.
4. Met fellow Sound of Music fan and began singing “I Am 16 Going on Seventeen” (in public no less).
5. Decided to make the experience more authentic by pretending to be Liesl while new friend pretended to be Rolf. Was asked by waitress to please stop jumping on the couches.
Taking a Bite Out of the Big Apple
When C took me to New York for my birthday two years ago the smoking ban had just gone into effect. You have no idea just how addicted you are until you stand outside in twenty-eight degree weather smoking through blue lips, trying to cup the cigarette so a giant snowflake doesn’t put it out causing a nicotine induced meltdown. In addition to seeing the usual tourist traps, it became our mission to find the secret smoking bars in the city.
My aunt, who lives in Brooklyn, told us to go to Campbell’s Apartment because she had heard you can still smoke inside. Campbell’s Apartment is inside Grand Central Station so needless to say we were skeptical but our dinner reservations weren’t until 11:00 (p.m. that is) so we decided to give it a try. Walking into Campbell’s Apartment was like taking a drink of water after forty days in the desert. There was a big toasty fire, fluffy couches, a long dark wood bar and best of all an ashtray on the table. We couldn’t get our coats off fast enough.
The only thing Campbell’s Apartment does not have enough of is seats so when three couples approached us about sharing our space we were more than happy to oblige. Sharing with these people ended up making my birthday a truly unforgettable experience. They drank, they smoked, they told funny stories of children left at home while the adults grabbed a weekend in the city.
While sitting there on our big fluffy couch our little group incorporated another patron into the fold. A woman sitting on the couch behind us was clearly alone and wanting to join in. She was missing her tap recital by being in NY for the weekend so she performed her routine for us all. Very interesting seeing a grown woman tap dancing.
A few bottles of champagne and a dozen or so Vodkas later, we were all a few sheets to the wind so at the time bad ideas sounded really good.
Bad ideas disguised as good in chronological order as they occurred on December 14, 2003:
1. Ordered not just glass, but bottle of champagne at 6:00 when dinner reservation was not until 11:00.
2. Allowed new friends to buy me second bottle of champagne because at this point I really couldn’t feel the giant hole bottle one was burning into my stomach lining.
3. Blew off dinner reservation at one of NY’s top dining establishments because we were having way too much fun.
4. Met fellow Sound of Music fan and began singing “I Am 16 Going on Seventeen” (in public no less).
5. Decided to make the experience more authentic by pretending to be Liesl while new friend pretended to be Rolf. Was asked by waitress to please stop jumping on the couches.
Monday, November 21, 2005
Close Encounters of the Bar Kind ~ 2
Cantina Calamity
Bound and determined to add some authenticity to our trip to Cancun, C and I inquired about a local salsa bar and were told it does not get hopping until at least 11:00 p.m. In an effort to stay awake we dressed and ate around 6:00 (an hour late for those of you who know us) and decided to relax in the hotel lobby bar until it was time to catch a cab.
Before taking our order the waitress informed us that it was happy hour. Two drinks for the price of one. Imagine our surprise when she came back with four drinks. So as not to seem oblivious to local customs, we accepted the four drinks vowing to only order one the next round. This had less to do with excess and more to do with keeping our ice from melting before we made it to the second drink.
Not halfway into the first drink the entertainment arrived in the form of a tank top wearing, short-short sporting, twenty sheets to the wind, VERY Southern sounding woman named Lucinda. Lucinda is from Tennessee where her father knew Elvis. I know this and the rest of her past because ten feet away from her perch at the bar everyone could listen in. In fact, it would have been more difficult not to hear her.
Lucinda was extremely thrilled about the happy hour tradition of two for the price of one and you don’t even have to wait for the second. She ordered Corona after Corona all the while babbling on to the any man brave enough to sit at the bar. At one point she did shut up to take a tiny cat nap, head hanging over the back of her barstool while her bare feet were propped up on the one next to her. Not one to sleep through a productive happy hour she quickly woke up to choose her next victim.
Ready and willing was a single guy with a mullet to match his mustache who owns an appliance store somewhere in the Midwest. I know this because before hitting on Lucinda he struck out at our table. Mr. Appliance was more than happy to shell out the sixty pesos for Lucinda’s double Coronas. She was equally as happy to have him until a young, mocha skinned boy of half Mr. Appliance’s age made the mistake of walking up to the bar right next to her. Lucinda moved in like a black widow and just as quickly was turned down. You know the expression “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”? Well, add a few cocktails to fuel that scorn and see what happens. Lucinda jumped off her barstool and began screaming racial epithets at the man. For his part he did the best thing and walked out without saying a word.
Not one to be easily let down, Lucinda again turned her attentions to Mr. Appliance who asked the woman to dance!! She could barely walk! However, she did manage to begin dry humping his leg during their Dirty Dancing routine. She also kept a hold on her Corona the whole time. Problem is those glass bottles get slippery with condensation and have a habit of just slipping out of your hand which hers did. A moment later, Lucinda followed landing in heap on the broken glass.
As if they were waiting in the closet for a moment such as this one, three paramedics were on the scene in a matter of seconds. They sat Lucinda in the table directly behind us. C and I could not believe our luck! While the paramedics doctored Lucinda’s bleeding hand, the bartender came over to check on her and their conversation went much like this:
“I’m a gooood tipper hunh?”
“Yes”
“Will you get me a drank?”
“How about some water?”
“No, I want a draaaank.”
“I can give you some water”
“Come un bay-bee. Brang Lucinda a drank.”
“I can’t bring you a drink.”
Leaning over to get as close to his face as possible, Lucinda musters her exorcist voice and says:
“Assface!”
Cantina Calamity
Bound and determined to add some authenticity to our trip to Cancun, C and I inquired about a local salsa bar and were told it does not get hopping until at least 11:00 p.m. In an effort to stay awake we dressed and ate around 6:00 (an hour late for those of you who know us) and decided to relax in the hotel lobby bar until it was time to catch a cab.
Before taking our order the waitress informed us that it was happy hour. Two drinks for the price of one. Imagine our surprise when she came back with four drinks. So as not to seem oblivious to local customs, we accepted the four drinks vowing to only order one the next round. This had less to do with excess and more to do with keeping our ice from melting before we made it to the second drink.
Not halfway into the first drink the entertainment arrived in the form of a tank top wearing, short-short sporting, twenty sheets to the wind, VERY Southern sounding woman named Lucinda. Lucinda is from Tennessee where her father knew Elvis. I know this and the rest of her past because ten feet away from her perch at the bar everyone could listen in. In fact, it would have been more difficult not to hear her.
Lucinda was extremely thrilled about the happy hour tradition of two for the price of one and you don’t even have to wait for the second. She ordered Corona after Corona all the while babbling on to the any man brave enough to sit at the bar. At one point she did shut up to take a tiny cat nap, head hanging over the back of her barstool while her bare feet were propped up on the one next to her. Not one to sleep through a productive happy hour she quickly woke up to choose her next victim.
Ready and willing was a single guy with a mullet to match his mustache who owns an appliance store somewhere in the Midwest. I know this because before hitting on Lucinda he struck out at our table. Mr. Appliance was more than happy to shell out the sixty pesos for Lucinda’s double Coronas. She was equally as happy to have him until a young, mocha skinned boy of half Mr. Appliance’s age made the mistake of walking up to the bar right next to her. Lucinda moved in like a black widow and just as quickly was turned down. You know the expression “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”? Well, add a few cocktails to fuel that scorn and see what happens. Lucinda jumped off her barstool and began screaming racial epithets at the man. For his part he did the best thing and walked out without saying a word.
Not one to be easily let down, Lucinda again turned her attentions to Mr. Appliance who asked the woman to dance!! She could barely walk! However, she did manage to begin dry humping his leg during their Dirty Dancing routine. She also kept a hold on her Corona the whole time. Problem is those glass bottles get slippery with condensation and have a habit of just slipping out of your hand which hers did. A moment later, Lucinda followed landing in heap on the broken glass.
As if they were waiting in the closet for a moment such as this one, three paramedics were on the scene in a matter of seconds. They sat Lucinda in the table directly behind us. C and I could not believe our luck! While the paramedics doctored Lucinda’s bleeding hand, the bartender came over to check on her and their conversation went much like this:
“I’m a gooood tipper hunh?”
“Yes”
“Will you get me a drank?”
“How about some water?”
“No, I want a draaaank.”
“I can give you some water”
“Come un bay-bee. Brang Lucinda a drank.”
“I can’t bring you a drink.”
Leaning over to get as close to his face as possible, Lucinda musters her exorcist voice and says:
“Assface!”
Friday, November 18, 2005
Close Encounters of the Bar Kind
C and I meet a lot of interesting people in bars. I don’t know if we secrete some undetectable pheromone that screams “Here, right here, tell us your deepest, darkest secrets” but that is exactly what happens everywhere we go. Two cases in point:
Last weekend we attended a cow show and sale in Fort Worth. By Saturday at four, the sale cows were all beginning to look alike and the auctioneers droning was putting me to sleep so we decided to cut out early. We headed back to a restaurant in the historic stock yards that caters to out of state tourists. Half of the bar stools are saddles. No self respecting Texan would sit in a bar stool that is a saddle. We grabbed two normal bar stools, ordered drinks and settled in.
The woman next to us struck up a conversation and before long was revealing her idea for a new strip joint in Fort Worth named “Chubbys”. All plus size all the time. This would be perfect she thought for other men like her husband who are “chubby chasers”. I had never heard this term before and it more than struck me as odd that when her friend’s called her husband a chubby chaser she didn’t turn around and eat them on the spot. We began discussing livestock (of course that would be the natural progression of any conversation about a larger than life strip joint) and bad quickly went to worse. How long should you know someone before they tell you that they walk around in their pasture naked? She was a great girl and as far as entertainment factors go it did not get much better than this for free.
Last night was yet another chance encounter of the bar kind. We weren’t even there to drink but were being forced to sit at the bar to eat because Houston has passed this crappy smoking law that limits where we can eat and smoke in peace. Health nuts be damned! The woman at the bar next to us was going on and on and on to the bartender a mile a minute when (and I am not sure how) we began a conversation with her about her recent bout of depression. In a nutshell, she was estranged from a family member who left her quite an inheritance which became a problem with her loser boyfriend then they broke up and now she is depressed. Rich and depressed, but depressed none the less. This woman listed the medications she is on and I am telling you there is not one second of the day her mood isn’t being controlled by one chemical or another. She could medicate the state of Texas with one swipe of her medicine cabinet.
These are just two of the recent stories. My memory is overflowing with many more that vary from the strange to deranged.
C and I meet a lot of interesting people in bars. I don’t know if we secrete some undetectable pheromone that screams “Here, right here, tell us your deepest, darkest secrets” but that is exactly what happens everywhere we go. Two cases in point:
Last weekend we attended a cow show and sale in Fort Worth. By Saturday at four, the sale cows were all beginning to look alike and the auctioneers droning was putting me to sleep so we decided to cut out early. We headed back to a restaurant in the historic stock yards that caters to out of state tourists. Half of the bar stools are saddles. No self respecting Texan would sit in a bar stool that is a saddle. We grabbed two normal bar stools, ordered drinks and settled in.
The woman next to us struck up a conversation and before long was revealing her idea for a new strip joint in Fort Worth named “Chubbys”. All plus size all the time. This would be perfect she thought for other men like her husband who are “chubby chasers”. I had never heard this term before and it more than struck me as odd that when her friend’s called her husband a chubby chaser she didn’t turn around and eat them on the spot. We began discussing livestock (of course that would be the natural progression of any conversation about a larger than life strip joint) and bad quickly went to worse. How long should you know someone before they tell you that they walk around in their pasture naked? She was a great girl and as far as entertainment factors go it did not get much better than this for free.
Last night was yet another chance encounter of the bar kind. We weren’t even there to drink but were being forced to sit at the bar to eat because Houston has passed this crappy smoking law that limits where we can eat and smoke in peace. Health nuts be damned! The woman at the bar next to us was going on and on and on to the bartender a mile a minute when (and I am not sure how) we began a conversation with her about her recent bout of depression. In a nutshell, she was estranged from a family member who left her quite an inheritance which became a problem with her loser boyfriend then they broke up and now she is depressed. Rich and depressed, but depressed none the less. This woman listed the medications she is on and I am telling you there is not one second of the day her mood isn’t being controlled by one chemical or another. She could medicate the state of Texas with one swipe of her medicine cabinet.
These are just two of the recent stories. My memory is overflowing with many more that vary from the strange to deranged.
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Hoo-Ah
C and I saw Jarhead last night. This is a miracle in two ways. First, we see a movie about every six months so the fact that we chose to go is special enough. Second, C doesn’t agree with the Marine Corps so the fact that I got her to sit through two hours of nothing but the Marine Corps is another act of God. We both enjoyed the movie but what I really enjoyed was the tiny glimpse I got into my father’s past.
My father enlisted in Vietnam. He felt it was his duty and that is why he enlisted in the Marine Corps. This morning when I spoke to him (you should stop now if you haven’t seen the movie) I was telling him about the main character saying “I may have made a big mistake” his first day at boot camp. My father said not one man didn’t lie down on his bunk that first night thinking “What have I done? It can’t get any worse.” Unfortunately for every one of them it did.
Like the Marines in the movie my father was at Camp Pendleton before being shipped overseas. This was the staging area before he was sent to Vietnam. He also took a commercial airliner to war. Traveling from California to Hawaii and then on to Vietnam. Strange the contrast between stewardesses in prim uniforms, familiar with serving tourists and business men, serving soldiers going off to war. I wonder if it was hard to look at so many young faces and know that very few of them would return uninjured and many of them would never return at all.
The movie was predictable in some ways. There was the Marine who is mentally slow but committed, the Marine who wants nothing more than to be a soldier and sees it as his job to instill honor among fellow Marines, the Marine that is a sociopath who wants nothing more than to smell the blood of his enemies and the main character who mixes a bit off all of them. I relayed this formulaic cast to my father who said “That is what all of these movies about the Marines get wrong. Ninety percent of them are the sociopaths who are barely literate while only ten percent are normal.” Yes, he is in the ten percent.
Ending my call with my father I wished him Happy Birthday to the Marines. The Marine Corps celebrate 230 years today. My father got off the phone to go hang his Marine Corps flag in front of his house. I am proud of my father and his service. I didn’t walk away from Jarhead with any life changing revelations but I did get the a small look into a world so unfamiliar that at times you feel no one on the outside can ever fully understand.
C and I saw Jarhead last night. This is a miracle in two ways. First, we see a movie about every six months so the fact that we chose to go is special enough. Second, C doesn’t agree with the Marine Corps so the fact that I got her to sit through two hours of nothing but the Marine Corps is another act of God. We both enjoyed the movie but what I really enjoyed was the tiny glimpse I got into my father’s past.
My father enlisted in Vietnam. He felt it was his duty and that is why he enlisted in the Marine Corps. This morning when I spoke to him (you should stop now if you haven’t seen the movie) I was telling him about the main character saying “I may have made a big mistake” his first day at boot camp. My father said not one man didn’t lie down on his bunk that first night thinking “What have I done? It can’t get any worse.” Unfortunately for every one of them it did.
Like the Marines in the movie my father was at Camp Pendleton before being shipped overseas. This was the staging area before he was sent to Vietnam. He also took a commercial airliner to war. Traveling from California to Hawaii and then on to Vietnam. Strange the contrast between stewardesses in prim uniforms, familiar with serving tourists and business men, serving soldiers going off to war. I wonder if it was hard to look at so many young faces and know that very few of them would return uninjured and many of them would never return at all.
The movie was predictable in some ways. There was the Marine who is mentally slow but committed, the Marine who wants nothing more than to be a soldier and sees it as his job to instill honor among fellow Marines, the Marine that is a sociopath who wants nothing more than to smell the blood of his enemies and the main character who mixes a bit off all of them. I relayed this formulaic cast to my father who said “That is what all of these movies about the Marines get wrong. Ninety percent of them are the sociopaths who are barely literate while only ten percent are normal.” Yes, he is in the ten percent.
Ending my call with my father I wished him Happy Birthday to the Marines. The Marine Corps celebrate 230 years today. My father got off the phone to go hang his Marine Corps flag in front of his house. I am proud of my father and his service. I didn’t walk away from Jarhead with any life changing revelations but I did get the a small look into a world so unfamiliar that at times you feel no one on the outside can ever fully understand.
Monday, November 07, 2005
Life Couldn't Get Any Better
There are moments in life you wish you could live inside. It is when you feel totally at peace. You are not thinking about work, or family, or friends. All you think about is how totally right this moment feels and that you wish is would never end. It is a moment that you want to capture on film to replay over and over again in your mind’s eye.
I had one of these life couldn’t get any better moments this weekend. We were at the ranch in the front yard. C was using Isaac as her pillow and I was using her leg. We just lay in the grass looking up at a perfectly blue sky. The wind was blowing. The temperature was perfect there in the shade. A bird flew right over us and the sun seemed to shine through his wings. The bird was a buzzard who must have thought he hit pay dirt. C raised her hand to let him know we were alive and well and to keep on flying.
If I could relive those few minutes at will it would be the best thing in the world.
There are moments in life you wish you could live inside. It is when you feel totally at peace. You are not thinking about work, or family, or friends. All you think about is how totally right this moment feels and that you wish is would never end. It is a moment that you want to capture on film to replay over and over again in your mind’s eye.
I had one of these life couldn’t get any better moments this weekend. We were at the ranch in the front yard. C was using Isaac as her pillow and I was using her leg. We just lay in the grass looking up at a perfectly blue sky. The wind was blowing. The temperature was perfect there in the shade. A bird flew right over us and the sun seemed to shine through his wings. The bird was a buzzard who must have thought he hit pay dirt. C raised her hand to let him know we were alive and well and to keep on flying.
If I could relive those few minutes at will it would be the best thing in the world.
Friday, November 04, 2005
Field Trials
It’s opening weekend and at 4:00 we’ll be hitting the road with every red neck, weekend warrior in Houston. Nothing like a convoy of pumped up hunters in their pick up trucks pulling four wheelers. It is a weekend we dread if we know we will be on the road. I can’t stand the thought of killing a deer. Before anyone goes responding with statistics on over population, culling the sick and diseased, I said I can’t stand the thought of killing a deer. I did not say that I disagree with hunting or that I don’t enjoy a nice venison medallion now and again. It is just the thought of me doing it that gives me the creeps.
I have gone hunting with my father. Once. Not for anything with fur, but birds down in South Texas and just across the Mexican border. In preparation my father bought me a brand new gun, a green vest and boots. We loaded up the motor home and took off. I shot my gun exactly one time before he realized his mistake by bringing me and banned me from shooting the rest of the trip. It is apparently very serious to shoot a bird other than the species one is actually hunting. In my defense, unless you have done this before they all look similar when flying overhead.
With my gun now resting safely out of reach my father went to Plan B. He would shoot the birds and I would retrieve them. Okay, I agreed. After his next shot I ran in the general direction I thought the bird went down. I found it, took one look and, yep you got it, turned right around. There was NO WAY I was touching a bird that had been shot.
Plan C. My father would go with me and actually touch the birds which he would put in the large back pocket of my vest. I had wondered what the big pocket was for but never did I imagine. Plan C failed also and I ended up spending the rest of the trip pretty much hanging around the motor home. I wonder if there are any other men taking their daughters hunting for the first time this weekend that will have quite the trouble.
It’s opening weekend and at 4:00 we’ll be hitting the road with every red neck, weekend warrior in Houston. Nothing like a convoy of pumped up hunters in their pick up trucks pulling four wheelers. It is a weekend we dread if we know we will be on the road. I can’t stand the thought of killing a deer. Before anyone goes responding with statistics on over population, culling the sick and diseased, I said I can’t stand the thought of killing a deer. I did not say that I disagree with hunting or that I don’t enjoy a nice venison medallion now and again. It is just the thought of me doing it that gives me the creeps.
I have gone hunting with my father. Once. Not for anything with fur, but birds down in South Texas and just across the Mexican border. In preparation my father bought me a brand new gun, a green vest and boots. We loaded up the motor home and took off. I shot my gun exactly one time before he realized his mistake by bringing me and banned me from shooting the rest of the trip. It is apparently very serious to shoot a bird other than the species one is actually hunting. In my defense, unless you have done this before they all look similar when flying overhead.
With my gun now resting safely out of reach my father went to Plan B. He would shoot the birds and I would retrieve them. Okay, I agreed. After his next shot I ran in the general direction I thought the bird went down. I found it, took one look and, yep you got it, turned right around. There was NO WAY I was touching a bird that had been shot.
Plan C. My father would go with me and actually touch the birds which he would put in the large back pocket of my vest. I had wondered what the big pocket was for but never did I imagine. Plan C failed also and I ended up spending the rest of the trip pretty much hanging around the motor home. I wonder if there are any other men taking their daughters hunting for the first time this weekend that will have quite the trouble.
Thursday, November 03, 2005
Farm Living is the Life for Me
This was written last weekend, never finished, and not published until now because quite frankly I forgot all about it until now.
Anyone who has never traveled two lane back country roads in Texas needs to do so. The drive up here was so beautiful. Rolling fields of freshly cut hay. Big round bales sitting in a row waiting for the winter. Cows grazing. The sun rising in the East and throughout it all we had some of Willie Nelson’s greatest songs blaring on the radio. Can’t tell you how wonderful it is to be sitting next to a girl who knows the words to every song. Oh, and who could resist the face in the side mirror. All yellow fur and lips flapping. A truly happy city dog.
When we arrived the cows all came up to beg for cubes. Cow crack that is, a true addiction. Our mission this weekend was to take photos of all the cows on the ranch for a new program that keeps track of everything for you. While the cows were pleading their case for cubes we walked through them squatting for pictures. There we were, perched precariously above giant piles of shit making sucking noises trying to get them to look our way. The morning hours yielded fifty-five photos. A handful will be good enough to import into the program.
Midday our bellies were grumbling and mimosas had begun to burn holes in our stomach linings so it was off to Westhoff for chicken gizzards. Disclaimer here: I do not eat gizzards but the love of my life loves them so that is where we went. Again, the drive was spectacular. We ate at tables covered in vinyl tablecloths, drank long necks and for dessert- played a game of pool. I lost. For those of you who know me this is no surprise.
Anyone thinking of moving to the country must know there are some rules:
Before your home is complete you MUST have an old piece of farm equipment that is no longer functional. This equipment must be so rusted that no amount of refurbishing could bring it back.
You must place this piece of equipment in the front or side yard. Putting it in the back where no one could see would completely defeat the purpose of having said equipment in the first place.
It’s hard keeping landscaping looking pretty in the country. With all of the livestock and fields to tend to there is just no time left to water regular ole yard plants. To remedy this, place plastic flowers in your yard. Stick those suckers right in the dirt next to the painted wood cut outs.
This was written last weekend, never finished, and not published until now because quite frankly I forgot all about it until now.
Anyone who has never traveled two lane back country roads in Texas needs to do so. The drive up here was so beautiful. Rolling fields of freshly cut hay. Big round bales sitting in a row waiting for the winter. Cows grazing. The sun rising in the East and throughout it all we had some of Willie Nelson’s greatest songs blaring on the radio. Can’t tell you how wonderful it is to be sitting next to a girl who knows the words to every song. Oh, and who could resist the face in the side mirror. All yellow fur and lips flapping. A truly happy city dog.
When we arrived the cows all came up to beg for cubes. Cow crack that is, a true addiction. Our mission this weekend was to take photos of all the cows on the ranch for a new program that keeps track of everything for you. While the cows were pleading their case for cubes we walked through them squatting for pictures. There we were, perched precariously above giant piles of shit making sucking noises trying to get them to look our way. The morning hours yielded fifty-five photos. A handful will be good enough to import into the program.
Midday our bellies were grumbling and mimosas had begun to burn holes in our stomach linings so it was off to Westhoff for chicken gizzards. Disclaimer here: I do not eat gizzards but the love of my life loves them so that is where we went. Again, the drive was spectacular. We ate at tables covered in vinyl tablecloths, drank long necks and for dessert- played a game of pool. I lost. For those of you who know me this is no surprise.
Anyone thinking of moving to the country must know there are some rules:
Before your home is complete you MUST have an old piece of farm equipment that is no longer functional. This equipment must be so rusted that no amount of refurbishing could bring it back.
You must place this piece of equipment in the front or side yard. Putting it in the back where no one could see would completely defeat the purpose of having said equipment in the first place.
It’s hard keeping landscaping looking pretty in the country. With all of the livestock and fields to tend to there is just no time left to water regular ole yard plants. To remedy this, place plastic flowers in your yard. Stick those suckers right in the dirt next to the painted wood cut outs.
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