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From Salon.com's War Room, the best headline I have read in a while:
McCain Makes Play for Key Killer Robot Vote
And then, sure enough, the Governator endorsed him. What a funny world in which we live. Isn't it grand?
That is all (I'm still hiding from the penny).
I picked up a bad penny this morning. I never do this but was possessed by the ebullient spirit of one who was, for a change, going to have household help. As this is a rare occurrence, I obviously lost my giddy little head.
Although I am not typically a superstitious person, I refuse to pick up tail-up pennies. Anyone with a lick (or not) of sense knows they are bad and avoids them at all cost. Around my house, they gather like dog hair. Occasionally, I’ll kick one to try to flip and reform it but, honestly, once a penny has gone bad, it’s usually rotten to the core. It’s one of the sad facts of life.
Yet, as I said, I was possessed. Someone was actually going to come clean the house for me. Two saints were traveling in my direction to clean my dust bowl blinds, sweep my furry floor, and scrub my rusty bathrooms. I, being both delirious and appreciative, decided I needed to pick up as much detritus as possible and, as I was bustling (as in those funky give-me-more-back-because-I-don’t-have-enough-already skirts), that’s when it happened. My fingers were already around it by the time I had realized what I had done. Even though I’m not Catholic (because of that whole Henry the VIII wanting Anne Boleyn and her three breasts thing, I am Whiskeypalian which is basically the same thing except we don’t have to confess our many sins), I said ten Hail Marys and did the sign of the cross (spectacles, no testicles, wallet, and watch) in an effort to counter what I had just done. Alas, it was too late.
It started innocuously enough; the Pint-Sized Farmer began testing me more than usual. Any direction or correction on my part fell on deaf ears. His excitement over having two women cleaning our house surpassed mine and he became plain out of control. Releasing his joy, he jumped onto Robert’s bed, the bed that had just been militarily-bounce-a-nickel-on-it made, threw his baggy of un-inflated balloons everywhere, and destroyed any hopes I had of retaining the room’s pristinity until Robert’s arrival home from school.
Take him somewhere, I decided. I had errands to do. Since Hunky Husband was working from home and could supervise/answer questions, I decided to run Forest, run as fast as I could. In my hightailing sprint, I got lost going to the bank, a bank I had been to at least ten times. Even though I had left the scene of the crime, the penny was still after me. After 45 minutes of driving, I found it (okay I had to call David and ask where I had gone wrong but I got there).
Next, we went to Target, got a few needed (and a few unneeded) items, and as I was holding a toddler and plastic bags on hip and in hand, I searched in my pocketbook and realized I had no keys. Grrr. Turning 180 degrees, I went back inside Target, thinking I had perhaps placed them on the counter as I paid and left them there. Nope, that would have been too easy. Once again, I had to call my knight in shining armor to come to my by-now emotional rescue. He called me back; he couldn’t find the spare set. Breathing deep, I opened the back of our thankfully shell (not the sea kind)-covered pickup and tried umpteen million times to open the back cab window.
Finally accepting failure and resigned to my copper-caused fate, Pint and I sat in the bed of the truck eating Captain Crunch with Crunchberries out of the box and sharing a Mountain Dew. Please don’t lecture me on what that consumable combination will do to a toddler or about the fact that I bought these things in the first place. I had a three-year-old in Target. Captain Crunch box-holding shuts him up; the Mountain Dew was supposed to be for me and I was going to hide it but, by now, I was in survival mode. HH called; he had located the keys, in Jessica’s possession at work. Thank goodness he is her boss and was able to dispatch her in my direction.
Twenty minutes or so later, she showed up with rescue keys in hand, which thrilled Pint beyond belief until he realized he was staying with me, the Wicked Witch of the North (Carolina), his terrible grandmother who only bathes and feeds him and reads “Everyone Poops” to him over and over even though it grosses me out every time. Do you know how hard it is to buckle a flailing, in-full-temper toddler into a car seat? Damned penny.
I’ll just gloss over the fact that, once home, the school nurse called to say Robert has an infected toe and was in great pain, and the other fact that when he came home, he broke a bowl and cut his middle finger so deep that it almost made him faint and did make him vomit. I’ll just say this.
I will never, ever, ever again pick up a bad penny.
Oh, and my house is clean (except for the balloons).
Since before Christmas, this feathery fellow has decided to adopt us. He is a Harris Hawk, a bird usually known for hunting in groups of at least three. This guy, however, for one reason or another, has been ostracized from his ilk and, seeing the assortment of critters already welcome here, has moved in (or up as it is… to that deluxe rooftop deck in the sky).
I often see him pensively staring into the distance, perhaps wondering how he has come to be alone in this world or maybe reliving the circumstances that have brought him this solitude.
Our comings and goings don’t ruffle his feathers (pun intended). Instead, he just watches us from on high as we take out the trash, head to the store, or walk the ½ mile to the mailbox. He’s at one with himself, composed, and Zen-like. I imagine any day now he is going to call me “Grasshopper,” or at the least instruct me to “Wax on, wax off.”
I welcome our Harris Hawk. He serves as a more-than-worthy mascot for Rancho Laurena, a noble diamond in our cactus-filled rough and, through his sky-high presence, he lifts us all that much closer to him.
Yesterday was the 4th Annual RVHA (Rio Verde Horsemen’s Association) Chili Cook-off. As always, we entered because in my insecure but somewhat-confident-in-my-cooking-skills mind, I think I make darn good chili. In truth, it’s my mother’s chili recipe; but through the years, we’ve tweaked it by adding different meats, additional spices, a greater bean and chile assortment, etc.
David and I began cooking early in the morning, chopping, sautéing, frizzling, sizzling, and by ten the house smelled sublime. I love chili; I love my chili. We taste-tested, adjusted for spice and heat, and declared to each other that this was the year; this was the year that we would win the Chili Cook-off.
We’ve now entered the cookoff three times, our sole absence being due to HH’s back surgery. The first two times we took third place. I don’t like taking third place. Maybe my psyche has been invaded by too much American “We’re #!” culture but it is what it is. I want to win. Honestly, I don’t care if there’s a prize; I just want to win.
I guess you have figured out by now that, once again, we took third place. I won’t torture you with the resulting emotions that this “show” welled up inside of me, e.g. this is so indicative of my life, yadayadayada. Somebody warm up some crybaby soup and send it my pathetic way.
These very cute 4-H girls took second. As much as it is killing me, I can’t get all catty about the fact that they entered two chilis and how I don’t think that’s fair. This is due to the fact that they are very cute 4-H girls and were very excited to take second place. The whole little-girls-jumping-up-and-down-together-and-shrieking-with-joy thing saps the feline out of me.
First place went to a man with admittedly very-good-but-different chili. It was dark (unsweetened chocolate perhaps like they use in molé?) with chopped meat instead of ground. As much as I hate to cave this way, considering the uniqueness of his chili, he deserved to win. There, I said it. Don’t tell anyone.
Ridiculous emotions aside, we’re already thinking ahead to next year. I think that, instead of the usual ground beef, we’ll add chopped Chuck. That was the name of the first place winner, wasn’t it?
It arrived Monday or was that Tuesday, encased in a gianormous Ziploc bag and lily-gilded with an assortment of soothing teas. With colors ranging from salmon to red to purple, it was royalty to unfold. Putting in on and feeling its warmth, I caught the subtle but sublime scent of childhood, of Kool-Aid drink mix, something which was verboten in my home, adding the slightest bit of sin to an otherwise chaste garment.
Months ago I had sent the white homespun Merino to Beth, deciding to cull my stash and concentrate my limited knitting and spinning time on the wool we shear from our own sheep and goats (and alpaca and llama). This fleece I had purchased on Ebay. As I didn’t know the name of the ram or ewe who grew it, even though I enjoyed spinning the soft wool, I decided my four-young-kids-in-tow, harried cyber-friend Beth deserved it more than I.
Little did I know the machinations of her generous brain. First she hand-dyed it (with the Kool-Aid) then spent untold late night hours knitting it. The gift was a complete surprise, a triangular shawl perfect for chilly mornings and cold evenings. I’d take a photo of the entire masterpiece but that would mean taking it off and I’m just not ready to do that.
Thank you, Beth; our friendship has been a welcome serendipitous bonus of this blog. Plus you give really good presents.
 | My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Honourable Lady Lauren the Sophisticated of Waterless St Mildred Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title |
They got that waterless part right.
Morning farm chores have taken on a new urgency, unseen before the Great Coyote Massacre of 2007. The small envelope between darkness and dawn is now a crucial time, a time in which the coyotes are still on the prowl and Lauren, the sole surviving turkey (irony noted), gets the urge to alight from her roost in the over-the-coop Palo Verde tree and take a morning stroll. Why she does this I don’t know. She’s seen bloodshed; she’s seen an all-out poultry massacre as a matter of fact but she still needs to get out. I suppose I can identify with my turkey namesake.
It is during this ominous timeframe that we Pretend Farmers are on tenterhooks.
Has she come down from the tree yet? Is the yard safe? Is Spartacus on guard?
On most days, it works out just fine and our worries are for naught, that is as long as we do our duty as good farmers and open the coop gate for Lauren, stand back, and let her decide on her own (because no one living on these premises named Lauren can be forced into doing anything against her will) to deign to enter the enclosure. At this point, we open the locked-up hen house to witness the pullets and cockerels pop out the door and throw scratch to one and all.
By the way, the GCM-surviving elder stateswomen stay perched on their roost, staring down their beaks with disdain at the grain-gobbling teenagers.
They are so new poultry.
On Monday, however, all went to Hell in a handbasket. As I have told you before, we Supermaxed the duck pen. Impenetrable (knock on wood) steel mesh covers its ceiling, chicken wire and rebar is dug three feet into the ground around it, and a block wall that one day I will get around to painting finishes the sides. The chicken coop now has ten-foot fencing and similar ground reinforcement.
What used to be the turkey pen has been neglected. Sadly abandoned, its structure has begun to resemble the rotting tobacco shacks of my North Carolina youth. Since we do not have any more turkeys except for Lauren who prefers the company of chickens to no one, it has not been Supermaxed. Back to Monday.
With three bloodhounds in tow, Hunky Husband headed out to insure Lauren would follow her routine and that our fine feathered friends were all safe. Instead, what he found was a scrawny and wily coyote in the abandoned turkey pen. I suppose normally the coyote, seeing a human heading his way, would have swiftly jumped over the non-Supermaxed gate and high-tailed it out of there. You should all know by now, however, that we are not normal and normal things do not happen to us. This is my life; this is how it has always been. David just happened to acquire it by marriage.
David opened the gate but the coyote, paralyzed by the fear of three snarling and bellowing 120+ pound bloodhounds whose volume out-crescendo-ed the Met just backed up and snarled (the featured photo is a re-enactment). He tried to exit via the back of the pen but that part was Supermaxed with the ten foot fence and although he made it a good seven or eight feet, ten was too much for him. Enter David, assuming his Biblical namesake and persona.
Armed with thick pigskin gloves, he grabbed the coyote and the beast bit him (but thankfully did not break the skin or that would have been a whole ‘nuther story). Chaos ensued and I’m actually not completely sure how the match went for a while (and could certainly not give you a take down, reversal, or pin point count) but, in long, David managed to muzzle the creature with clenched hand and throw him over the ten foot fence to the mercy of the German Shepherds next door. Adrenaline is a beautiful thing.
Thus ends the tale (and maybe the tail) of the RVCWA’s (Rio Verde Coyote Wrestling Association’s) latest match. Hunky Husband came out the victor and all the farm animals, both fibered and feathered, stood high and proclaimed, “I am David.” (I suppose it was a pre-emptive measure in case the coyotes were planning to punish the man.) Me? I’m just proud of him… and also glad it wasn’t me out there.
One day last week, as I was struggling with demons real and imagined, I had a sudden urge to drive to Vermont. Now I realize it is a long way to Vermont and I also understand it is the middle of winter and Vermont is a very cold and snowy place. Yet, impractical person that I can be spent a good day planning my trip. Never mind that no laundry was done, leaving me to think I was going to have to find a Goodwill along the way in order to stay both non-odiferous and un-arrested. Heaven forbid I tackle the still un-navigable laundry room and actually clean my clothes. Never mind that the truck (four-wheel drive, I have some sense) needs new tires and, above all, never mind that I would insist on taking my traveling buddy, Robert, who just returned to school after winter break. Whether it was from too many viewings of Newhart (the inn one, not the psychologist one) or too few covered bridges seen in my lifetime, I wanted to go.
Then I Mapquested. 40 hours. Ouch, even I am not that impractical.
You see, I am trying to make some major changes in my approach to my dumb disease. This was my main New Year’s Resolution and I actually began it before New Years, i.e. Boxing Day. The meds don’t work, flush ‘em; the doctor’s not helping me, fire him. It’s time to bring in the big guns of naturopathic and integrative medicine, plus a few other weapons. Letting go of years of chemicals whose worth I am either still unsure of or have demonized has been an adjustment and my writing has obviously suffered but I am trying to be back. Plus it is so hard to go without vices; I’ve always thought one needs at least a few.
Granted, someday I’d still like to go to Vermont, albeit with clean laundry and well-treaded tires, and hopefully with the whole family but for now, I’ll put it on my “bucket list” and hope I have a long time to cross it off.
Lots of love to all of you and thanks for your patience.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll tell you how Hunky Husband just this week wrestled a coyote out of the old (and empty) turkey coop and came away with small bruises and a big story as proof. The things that man can do.
