The summer of our discount tent…

Posted on August 1, 2015September 17, 2015 by stephanie2morrow

a Shakespearean tragedy in six acts

I’m planning our second vacation within a year. The REAL kind where you stay in hotels with spa services and see “bucket-list-worthy” things and indulge in food that rivals art.

I’m being spoiled, and I gotta admit, it’s glorious.

To date, most of our vacations haven’t gotten past the dream state. We’d talk big, but when reality set in there was either no time, or no money, or no time and no money. tent The trips we did take, however, had one common denominator:
A little, gray nylon two-person tent. We probably still have it somewhere in that hoarder’s paradise we like to call a garage. And we used to sleep in it. The tent, not the garage.

Act One
To pee or not to pee
That is the question. Many moons ago, I went on an overnight retreat with some college friends to an island in the middle of the lake. We were armed with a few coolers, fewer tents, and a bass boat. I was fine with the tent arrangements, but it never occurred to me to ask what the arrangements were for the, uh, facilities. Turns out, there were none. No arrangements. No facilities. We were completely sans potty. No bathhouse, no wooden outhouse, not even a respectable bucket. So, “to pee or not to pee?” The answer was not. Not to pee. Not once. I “held it” for 36 hours.

Might be my proudest accomplishments to date.

Act Two
The lady doth protest too much, methinks
I was a whopping 8 months pregnant when we set out on this next little adventure with a couple of friends. My body desperately needed sleep, but I did not want to be tossing and turning, as this was the point where I had to wake fully, lift my belly with both arms, and roll carefully in order to avoid stretch-marking. So why we thought tenting was a viable option at this point in my gestational journey I will never know. Yet there we were, camping on the beach on our way to ‘The End of the Road’ in Homer, Alaska. Pam and I got the tent. In retrospect, I have no idea where the guys slept, rocks but I suspect they snoozed on a king-sized air mattress under the stars while she and I were left to sleep on the rocky beach. Rock. Not those cute little pebbles for landscaping. Rocks. Boulders, really. The pitting alone lasted a good week. The resulting stretch marks I carry with me still.

Act Three
To sleep, perchance to dream
Two years after “tent on the rocks”, I volunteered as the activities director at Midnight Sun Camp. Kacey was two and tagged along easily. Half the camp was comprised of teenage girls who refused to let her walk. My toddler fell asleep one night after dinner in the arms of one of these sweet girls. When we settled into our tent at bedtime, I was exhausted, having been awake since 4:30 that morning. Kacey, however, was bright-eyed and bouncy.

Being a good mommy, (or at least being moderately concerned she would escape from our tent and encounter a hungry bear), I stayed awake and sang songs. Lots of songs. Repetitive songs. Annoying songs. I think I was hoping to bore her to sleep. “Old MacDonald” had an enormous farm. “Found a Peanut” took me from a rotten nut all the way to playing a harp in hell, Dear Liza nagged on and on about “The Hole in her Bucket”, I caught dozens of “Baby Bumblebees”, and “The Wheels on the Bus” went round and round and round and round and…

Act Four
Sweets to the Sweet
Up to this point in my parenting I had opted not to give Kacey sugar, in any form. No soft drinks, no cookies, no M&M’s, just a healthy little girl who was happy eating fruit and veggies. So, as the Wheels on the Bus went round and round and tried to coax her to sleep, I was the one who drifted off… and woke at sunrise to find my baby girl face down on the tent floor, deep asleep in a self-induced sugar coma, encircled by a rainbow of wrappers from eating an entire BAG of Starburst she had discovered in the suitcase. An ENTIRE bag.

Act Five
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears (and your washer)
When Kevin was tiny, we went to Gatlinburg on the absolute cheapest vacation possible. Our plan was to hike, fish, swim in the river, grill our own meals and sleep in the two-person tent… yeah, all four of us. It really had to be cheap because we had no money. I mean, we had NO money. If we had, you KNOW I would have hired a team of dogs to sniff out the nearest Marriott, but there was absolutely no wiggle room in the budget.

My “shoot from the hip” husband didn’t want to make reservations. After all, we were just tent-camping. We’d “wing it” and find a perfect place. My IOP protested (that’s Internal Organizer Person). She screamed inside my head, “NO!!! We have children and I’m neurotic about spontaneity if it’s not properly scheduled in advance.” But I played along, mostly so I could say “I TOLD YOU SO” later.

We went in June. I mentioned Gatlinburg, right? And June? And the fact that we had no reservations?

Well, I had reservations alright, but not the kind that held a place for us to pitch our tent.

So at 5 p.m. we started looking for a spot to camp… and at 11 p.m. we finally found ONE open site.

Act Six
Out, Out Damned Spot!
The elkmont camp site (2) spot we got was on the trail to the bathhouse, so every person who walked by woke Kevin, who at 18 weeks old, had one skill: screaming. And he showed of his talent all night long, every night. Kacey was forced to sleep at a 79-degree angle with her head above ours and her feet in my kidneys. Did I mention she was a kicker?

The following night our car broke down, and I was left on the side of the road for three hours with two hungry kids while Greg dealt with mechanics and tow-trucks. Three hours of “Mama, I’m hungry” from one, and wailing from the other. At least the screamer could use me as his personal vending machine. I quieted the other with a stick of Trident.

Paying to repair the car meant the travel budget had now crossed over into credit card territory. We caught no fish. It rained. And a tick the size of Bora Bora embedded itself into Kacey’s cranium.

By the time we left, we didn’t even have enough money to do laundry, so we made a bee-line straight for Mom & Dad’s house. When we arrived, I placed Kevin on their doorstep. I rang the bell and ran back to the car, leaving a note on his chest that read, “My family is destitute. Will you please feed us, give us a dry bed, and let us wash our dirty laundry?”

At the end of our “vacation” we were frustrated, beyond broke, and taking home a child with a serious lymphatic infection.

Our clothes, however, were spotless.

The Naked and the Delicious

Posted on July 23, 2015September 17, 2015 by stephanie2morrow

Norman Mailer is dead.

Wait, wait. That’s not where I want to start this story. I’ll come back to that, okay?
Let’s start here instead:

As Jami Gertz exclaims in Twister, “We got cows!”.

And when I say “we”, I mean my husband, the cowboy, has a small cattle farm. My involvement with the cows is threefold:

Complaining about the odor of manure when the wind shifts toward the house.
Taking parts of them, neatly wrapped in butcher paper, out of the freezer to thaw. And…
Ironically naming the ones I can see from the kitchen window.

My naming venture began with Patty Cow. (Hamburger patty, Patty Melt, “Don’t step in the cow patty”). When she had her first calf, he was so little, I named him Slider. Probably would have been funnier if he had been triplets.

When the cowboy got his first “herd”, I named them Wendy, Hardee, Krystal, Arby and, of course, Mickey D.

Once the cowboy started buying Angus cows, the names upgraded accordingly: Morton, Doe, and Ruth’s Chris. (Since his cattle venture is becoming lucrative, I’ve decided the next few will be Cash, Sacred, Holy! and Mad.)

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, the obituary.

Norman Mailer is dead.

No, not the Pulitzer Prize-winning author (though he has been “Naked and Dead” since 2007). The Norman Mailer to which I’m referring was a cow. Or rather, two cows. Greg thought it would be cute to name his first calf after the one Billy Crystal brought home in “City Slickers”. Hence, Norman.

Mailer got his name because once you have a calf named Norman, well, duh. The two writers in the family thought It was the obvious, whimsical choice.

After a happy little cow life grazing in the sun, Norman and Mailer grew up and took a field trip to the slaughterhouse. It was then that our son confessed to punching Mailer dead in the nose one time when the cow kicked him. The cowboy was shocked by the disclosure, and made a snarky comment about children who abuse animals going on to become serial killers.

t-bones Kevin responded, “Dad, the cows are now T-bones. Consider what I did as pre-tenderizing.”

Norman Mailer. It’s what’s for dinner.

Down on the Farm, Just Funny

why aren’t they called horsegirls?

Posted on July 11, 2015September 17, 2015 by stephanie2morrow

11boot As I sit in the National Equestrian Center this weekend, trying hard to be a supportive spouse, but about as interested in this “Saddle Boy” Competition as a toddler in church, I looked around and realized I was the only person in this arena who brought alternate forms of entertainment. I also learned THIS…

Fifteen Reasons I Can Never Be a Cowgirl:

The only ranch I want to visit is on the salad bar.
I don’t own any belt buckles that can also double as serving platters
I was completely bummed to find out that a burro is not a deep-fried, chocolate burrito.
None of the real cowgirls keep Doritos in their holster, but darn it, I hear you get hungry out there on the trail.
Hay? Straw? Same thing, right?
Wearing a wide-brimmed hat would totally obscure your view of these great highlights in my hair.
Pretty sure there’s no wifi in Montana.
I’ve never breathed deeply and proclaimed, “I love the smell of horse manure in the morning!”
I don’t smoke. That’s not to say, however, that I’m not smokin’.
It’s considered bad form to pull a 24’ stock trailer with a Honda Odyssey.
To me, the term green-broke means I’m out of cash.
Playtex cannot possibly make a bra with enough support for me to comfortably take the girls horseback riding.
I once went to a movie I assumed was a British comedy, only to find myself watching Tobey Maguire on a horse. TeaBiscuit. That’s what I get for not wearing my glasses.
To my knowledge, they don’t make open-toed cowboy boots.
The only cow I care to ever rope better be served medium rare with a side of potatoes.

I also learned that cowgirls become mean girls when you call them “horsegirls”.

Just Funny, Parenting

oh say, can you see?

Posted on July 4, 2015September 17, 2015 by stephanie2morrow

For those of you who have known me for say, longer than 28 minutes, you have surely already heard this story. But I refuse to apologize for the retelling of this July 4th classic. Much like our other unique holiday traditions: grilling pork chops for Thanksgiving dinner, sleeping in on Black Friday, and watching “Die Hard” at Christmas, this family classic must be revived in honor of the Fourth.

The summer I was barely pregnant with Kevin, my daughter, Kacey, was a very precocious, almost 6-year-old. One day in June, she marched down the hall of our apartment, donning her blue daisy outfit, hands on her hips as she proclaimed, “Okay mommy, I’ve been thinking about this. If I’m gonna be a big sister, there’s some stuff I need to know. I know it takes a mommy AND a daddy, but what I don’t get is how they get together!”

Bother. She’s FIVE. I had hoped I wouldn’t have to have the sex talk with her until she was like 12 or 35.

However, I’ve always held the belief that if a child is old enough to ask a question, she is old enough to deserve an honest answer. But exactly WHICH answer? How do I explain this simply enough for her to grasp without damaging her innocent little psyche? (“Well honey, you know on Sunday afternoons when mommy lets you watch a Disney video and daddy closes our bedroom door..?”)

Um, no. That probably falls under the “Scarred for Life” category.

And then I remembered Lennart Nilsson’s book, “A Child is Born”. Perfect. It even has tasteful photographs.

sperm human So I dug through all of my hippie birth books and soft-porn breastfeeding manuals, and proceeded to show her anatomy diagrams (i.e., “boy parts” and “girl parts”). After that, we moved on to images of the egg and sperm. We talked about how the female usually just has one egg, but the male has millions of tiny sperm and they swim around really really fast.

This is the point where swirling finger gestures were involved.

We moved on to prenatal ultrasound images, and ended with birth photos taken from a “northern” perspective. She seemed content with the explanation, and I breathed a sigh of relief that “the talk” (or rather, the first of many talks) was satisfactorily accomplished.

Fast forward ten days. We went out to the lake, along with my parents and 10,000 other people to view the July Fourth Fireworks Extravaganza. We sat on the bank of the lake amid the throng of spectators, when one particularly interesting firework exploded. First it burst white, then hundreds of tiny little swirly sub-bursts followed. It was gorgeous. The crowd “OOOOOHHHED” and “AAAAHHHED”, then my diminutive, but very loud daughter declared…

“Mommy, LOOK – SPERM!!!”

A hush fell over the crowd. Eyes stared and glared. Pretty sure my dad swallowed his tongue. My mother gasped in reactionary disbelief as though to say, “WITH WHAT SMUT HAVE YOU BEEN CORRUPTING MY GRANDDAUGHTER”S MIND?”

I, well I was mortified.

Kacey and I then had another talk. “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to candidly proclaim your truths, please, PLEASE remember we hold this truth to be self-evident: there are some things you never, ever say in front of your grandparents.”

Just Funny

mattress mayhem

Posted on June 10, 2015September 17, 2015 by stephanie2morrow

(Dearest paternal units, please forgive me in advance for the story I am about to share!)

Once upon a time when we lived in our little roach-infested one-bedroom castle in southern Georgia, my family came for a weekend visit, bringing an air mattress along with them. air-mattress-3 That evening we made a bed on the couch for my sister and began manually inflating the balloon-bed on which Mom and Dad insisted they would sleep. And when I say “manually” I mean “orally”. Yep. No self-inflating mattress here. No simple vacuum attachment. Not even a measly little foot pump. We huffed. We puffed. We huffed some more. We puffed some more. And we blew that giant overpriced pool float right up. . . over the course of, say, two or three hours.

Eventually we were all peacefully sleeping in our respective beds when the apartment complex came under attack. We were awakened by an explosion akin to a sonic boom or an anti-aircraft missle, and being near a huge military base, we took these things seriously.

BOOM!!!!

It hit us so hard we literally screamed ourselves awake. “WHAT WAS THAT?! ARE YOU OKAY? ARE WE UNDER ATTACK? IS EVERYBODY ALIVE?” I hurdled over the end of my bed (I could still hurdle in those days), out to the main room to witness the Ground Zero mayhem:

The air mattress had exploded. Amidst the rubble, Dad was lying FLAT on the living room floor, pillows and blankets thrown clear of the wreckage. The bubble of air (and saliva) remaining in the mattress was mushrooming out past their toes. And Mom…well, Mom was awkwardly draped over Dad like the winning wreath on American Pharoah.

Recalling this event still makes me laugh out loud.

I’d give anything to have an actual photograph of the aftermath. Then again, the mental picture in my head is so worth these thousand words.

Hippy-Dippy Stuff, Just Funny

my best day ever … it’s not what you think

Posted on June 6, 2015September 24, 2015 by stephanie2morrow

The following story is true and is intended for mature audiences only. This blog contains: unspoken language, mild peril, sexual innuendos, processed food, and swashbuckling action – not necessarily in that order. Do not attempt to try any of this at home without the oversight of a professional. This blog was manufactured in a facility that uses tree nuts and soy. Oh, and multiple mice were harmed during the making of this production. That’s all. Sit back and enjoy.

My name is Stephanie. I’m wearing wedges. The blog you are about to read is overdramatized. The names were changed to protect the innocent, but since there were no innocents, I changed all the names back.

The story started in March when I decided to fully embrace REAL food. No more processed junk, no more bleached white flour, no more high-fructose corn syrup, no more artificial sweeteners, NO MORE FAST FOOD, and no wire hangers. EVER!

Some time later, several friends organized an organic food delivery, which would have to be picked up once a month, 60 miles from where we are. We were set us up as a ‘satellite group’ with one contact person. If there are issues, they will coordinate with her. The rest of us simply have to make the 2-hour round trip when our turn rolls around.

June was my turn. I was to meet the Covenant truck on Monday afternoon at the designated truck stop.

Since this was my maiden voyage, I left early to avoid any complications. I arrived 45 minutes before the driver was scheduled to be there, drove around the truck stop, but seeing no sign that he and his Covenant semi had also arrived early, I parked and waited.

And waited.

The driver was now a half hour late. At 4:00 I texted our contact person to be CERTAIN I was in the right location (a moderate-sized truck stop), and to verify I am looking for a semi with ‘Covenant’ on the side. She does not return my text. I drove through the truck stop again, just to be sure I was not missing something.

At 45-minutes past time, I CALLED our contact person. She did not answer my call. This is NOT normal. I drove around the truck stop another time, again just to be sure. My stomach was starting to growl, but the only food off this exit is a McDonald’s and, as I said earlier, fast food is NOT on my Real Food Agenda.

truck stop hooker At an hour late, I called the girl who had picked up last month, and she verified the semi does, indeed, say Covenant on the side, and added the fact there will likely be 2 people in the truck. A few minutes later she called back with phone numbers. So I called the organic grocery company, who gave me the number to the trucking warehouse, who gave me the truck driver’s number, who chased the cat, who killed the rat, who ate the cheese… who didn’t answer his phone.

Another quarter-of-an-hour later, the driver called back to say he’d had a breakdown (I assume he meant mechanical and not emotional). He had left a message with our contact person earlier in the day, but she hadn’t responded. He apologized, but said he wouldn’t arrive for another 2 hours.

I was supposed to have dinner with my daughter. I phoned her to say “that ain’t happenin,” as I won’t be back to the house before at least 8:30.

Now all the girls in our grocery group are texting and calling and wanting to know what time they can expect their healthy goodies, and I’m scrambling to return their texts, all the while I’m stuck at this truck stop exit for another two hours waiting on my organic avocados and steel-cut oats and sweet potato crackers, which I should happily be snacking on at this point instead of listening to my tummy rumble.

Since I have time to kill, I look around for something – ANYTHING – to do besides languish in the van another 120 minutes, sweating and grumbling. It’s 104 degrees in the shade – and there IS no shade – the only things that ARE here are the truck stop, an interstate, a McDonald’s and a large tacky touristy gift shop. I don’t need diesel, I’m not eating fast food, so “Eenie, meenie, miney… tacky gift shop!”

I spent an hour taking pictures of gaudy gadgets and sending them to my daughter:”Things I am buying for your house.” I was especially fond of the 4-ft-tall-Mystic-Fairy-statue. This amused her somewhat and kept me entertained for a bit.

After strolling past the ceramics and do-dads and knick-knacks and bric-a-brak and CRAP that nobody should ever spend money on, I perused the candy aisle. Mmmmm…. gummy worms and orange marshmallows. Obviously, I’m starving now, as it’s 6 p.m. and I haven’t eaten since my 11:30 bowl of field greens.

So, while I waited on my organic fruits and veggies and gluten-free bread to arrive… I compromised all my principles and drove through McDonald’s for some pink slime and a cup of sodium phosphate. Shut up. It was delicious.

At least I was less grouchy now, and since it was nearly truck-arrival-time, I returned to the truck stop just in time to see a Covenant Transport truck – with two men in the cab – pull into the line of semis in the back. I drove in front of them and waved (as they would be expecting me). They didn’t acknowledge me with anything other than quizzical looks. I had a hesitant feeling, as they didn’t look like truck drivers so much as vagrants in a police line-up, so I pulled back around to the front to wait some more.

After a couple of minutes, my brain started to reason with me. “Steph, you’ve been here HOURS longer than you were supposed to. You have missed dinner with Kacey. You are tired and hot and bored and there is a Covenant Truck parked back there, likely with your boxes in it! Go back there and ask!”

Bravely I got out of my car and walked over to the cab of the Covenant Transport truck. There was now only one man in there. He was wearing a gold necklace and a sweaty black tank top (I’m assuming to coordinate with his sweaty black hair) and holding a brown glass bottle. He lowered the window and looked down at me. I called up something like, “I’m here for my Azure pick up?” But because there are dozens of trucks lined up here, and it was very loud, and because I got so hot sitting in the van that I took off the camisole under my shirt that WAS keeping the girls tucked in, I’m pretty sure what he heard was, “I’m here to ensure a pick up”.

Naturally, he invited me up for a beer.

And that’s the story of how I was mistaken for a truck stop hooker.

The end.

Just Funny, Parenting

delusions of (summer camp) grandeur

Posted on June 4, 2015September 24, 2015 by stephanie2morrow

It’s June. Time for swimming pools and lightning bugs and baseball and yard work and afternoon thunderstorms…and camp.

Most every summer of my childhood and into young adulthood included at least one week of camp. Some of the best memories and most important moments of my life took place under a pavilion or in a cabin or on a hike.

Then I grew up. I had children. I took a break from camp. A long, long, long-long break. But after a 20-year hiatus, I decided to go back. A nine-hour ride in a noisy kid-filled van. Seven days in a cabin with 8-year-old girls. The smell of teenage boy sweat permeating everything. Heat. Mosquitoes. Snakes. Metal-framed thin-mattress bunk beds. It was pretty great.

sku_272203_1 In preparation for my return to camp counseling, Kacey bought me “The Coolest Mother’s Day Gift of All Time!” A camp survival kit: Red hoodie, red hairdryer, red water bottle, red electric fan, red rain poncho . . . you get the idea.

Now, while the gift itself may not seem like the coolest of all time, the sentiment behind it does. Maybe I should tell the whole story…

Kacey was a wee little thing. Seven to be exact, and she was going to camp for the first time. She was uber-excited. Chattered about it every day. Friends, swimming, sports, singing. Summer camp was right up her alley.

Being a super cool mom, I got her all matchy-matchy stuff for camp. new ultimate - hotpink[1]_001 I bought pink towels to match her pink sheets and the pink buttons I hand-sewed onto her yellow blanket. We even bought a pink Rubbermaid container to use in place of a suitcase and puff-painted her name on the top.

We prepped in practical ways as well. I taught her how to do her own ponytail. We worked on it for days and days so she could get it just right and be the cutest little princess at camp. We talked about hanging wet clothes on the line outside. We practiced tying up her sleeping bag. I rolled up her clothes so they wouldn’t wrinkle, and labeled them according to each day. Shorts and tops rolled together with clean undies on the outside (so they could be easily gotten first, as she would be showering each night BEFORE bed, per my instruction, thus keeping her sheets and her pj’s clean all week). Anyway, her clothes were rolled into 6 little rolls, one for each day of the camp week and secured with matching socks and scrunchies to complete her ensembles. She was set for a perfect week of camp cuteness.

Sunday afternoon came, and we drove to camp and got registered. We met her counselor, got her bed made and her shelf organized with towels and toiletries, and her container tucked under her bed. At 112 muggy degrees in the shade, I opted not to stay for the entire afternoon. I gave her a hug and told her goodbye.

girls_cabin_900x430_1 A look of panic swept over her little face. “You’re not staying with me?????” No, honey, mommy is going home to take care of your baby brother, but I will be back to pick you up on Friday evening. (What we have here is a failure to communicate. I ASSUMED she knew I wasn’t staying. SHE assumed I would be playing Robin to her Batman in the adjoining bunk all week.) As I got in the car and backed out, I caught my baby girl’s face in the rear view mirror… crying. CRYING??? My baby doesn’t cry. Oh, what kind of mother am I? But I KNEW in my heart she was going to love camp. I blew her a kiss and drove off into the sunset.

I sent her goofy letters all week. Some written backwards so she would have to read them in the mirror. Some in multiple envelopes with only one word per page. I even sent her ice in a baggie so she could “stay cool”. But I could not get the image out of my head of those tears streaming down her cheeks as I left her.

It was the longest week ever. Friday evening did not arrive any too soon. I drove back up the gravel road to camp, envisioning Kacey running to meet me (ponytail bobbing, wearing the cute little polka-dot fish outfit that was labeled for Friday), happy she had stayed, but happier to see me. Instead, she was nowhere to be found. I checked the tennis court, the bath house, the dining hall, the back of the milk containers…but she was still missing. I went on to her cabin and loaded her things into the car. Alone. Her belongings were just as we had practiced. I was so proud. Clean. Organized. Pink Rubbermaid box tightly closed…

with all her clothes still neatly packed, rolled, and scrunchy-wrapped!

I stuck my head out of the cabin door just in time to catch a glimpse of somebody’s nasty little child wearing… wearing the same outfit my daughter was wearing when I dropped her off 6 days before!!! Only much, much, much, much much dirtier. And this urchin had black fingernails and a grubby face and was wearing a cap she had made herself, matted, greasy hair sticking out from under it. Her first words were not, “I missed you, Mommy!” or even “YAY, you’re here!”. They were simply, “Can I stay another week?!”

Needless to say, Kacey loved camp. I knew she would. She continued to love it 12 or 13 more times. I think by the second year she even showered and changed clothes once or twice.

When it was my time to go back, she brought it full circle for me. I had sent her with pink towels and pink sheets and rolled up scrunchies. She sent me with a red hoodie and a red hair dryer and a red water bottle, etc. And, of course, I bought myself a red suitcase to complete the matchy-matchy ensemble. After all, the only thing that separates us from the animals is our ability to accessorize.

Down on the Farm, Just Funny

may the horse be with you…’cause the cat sure ain’t

Posted on May 28, 2015September 24, 2015 by stephanie2morrow

My husband is fuming about our cat. Smoke-billowing-from-his-ears angry. Curiosity better move over, ‘cause the cowboy is first in line. When he went out to feed the cows and horses, the cat dared not to give him the time of day. puppy kitty

Brushed him off, you might say. (Never mind she is a CAT. Snubbing is her native language.) Probably doesn’t help kitty’s personality that we named her Puppy. Sarcasm and contrariness seem to run in the family and clearly the cat is not immune.

The cowboy believes all living beings can be trained like horses and should be submissive when called upon to do so (including me . . . but that’s a WHOLE ‘nuther blog!).Hubby is what equine savvy people call a “horse whisperer”. He first began this undertaking when his patience level defined him as more of a “horse yeller”, (not to be confused with “Old Yeller” who had to be put down), mustang but in the past few years he has become fairly reputable and talented with the whole “breaking wild mustangs” thing. (Ironically, I always wanted a mustang too – just one from 1967 in Candy Apple Red. Sigh . . . )

Anyway, I digress. Because the cowboy can adeptly take an unbroken mustang and have him following, loading, eating out of his hand, and disengaging his hindquarters (yeah, that’s a thing), sometimes in a matter of minutes, he believes he should be able to do this with all living creatures.

Our cat disagrees.I’m eager to see who wins this battle.

Down on the Farm, Just Funny

award-winning cockroaches and beached manatees

Posted on May 21, 2015September 24, 2015 by stephanie2morrow

This is my bedroom. e2626-mybedroom
I like my bedroom.
It’s dark and cool.
It’s comfortable.
The mattress is firm.
The pillows are fluffly.
Getting into bed is a wonderful end
to most days –
not generally an olympic event.

However, while we were in Fort Worth for the cowboy’s “Sadde Boy” competition, we bunked in the horse trailer. (No, not WITH the horse…the back 9/10 is the horse part, the front 1/10 is “living quarters”) I use the term “living quarters” very VERY loosely. It was akin to sleeping in an aluminum shoebox on wheels. The floor section, shaped like the state of Nevada, only had enough room for Kevin’s military-style cot, the step stool, and one standing human. As you can see from the picture, the interior has been gutted, so the walls were bare except for the lovely remnants of brown wood glue. Everytime we turned on the light it threw a breaker. Our “camping spot” was on the gravel parking lot wedged between dozens of $200K motor homes. We looked like the redneck MIssissippi cousins.

One aspect of the weekend I found particularly enjoyable was the 2-block hike to the bathroom located upstairs and inside the dormitory of the Fairground Swine Building of the Will Rogers Equestrian Center across the street from the National Cowgirl Museum. Yee. Haw. When I first stepped into the dark, abandoned concrete shower, which was creepy enough to be the setting where my horror movie doppleganger will die gruesomely, I was startled by an enormous hog left behind from last weekend’s judging – no wait, that’s just a prize-winning cockroach. He and I did NOT get along. It was a quick shower.

The most entertaining part of the weekend, for those lucky enough to witness it (my 14-year-old son), was me, trying to get into the sleeping bunk of the trailer. Even with the step stool, I was only chest-high to the metal platform. After numerous and wildly unsuccessful attempts to fling my leg up onto the platform, I finally had Kevin stand on his cot, and lift the air mattress up to the ceiling. This allowed me to bend to a 90-degree angle, then roll my entire body onto the platform under the air mattress, much like an injured manatee rolling herself onto the beach. I then spun the opposite direction until I was against the wall, allowing Kevin to drop the mattress. At this point I got onto my hands and knees and crawled onto the mattress. Lying down, there was a good 7 inches between my face and the ceiling. Now to get undressed. Uh oh. I couldn’t lift my legs – no room. Tried lying in a fetal position and wiggling. No luck with that either. No matter what I did, I couldn’t seem to manage the removal of my clothing. Why didn’t I get into my pj’s BEFORE I clamored up there? I DON’T KNOW. But I sure as heck wasn’t getting back down and then up again! So I called down to Kevin,
“Kevin, help me pull my pants off.”
“Yeah, right, mom.”
“Please, Kevin, I can’t do it.”
“Like that’s gonna happen. I don’t think so.”
“But Kev, I need help!”
“Suck it up and sleep in your clothes, mom!”
“Kevin, please please.” (Imagine a whiny, cartoony voice at this point.)
Kevin begins to giggle hysterically at the thought of my not having enough room to perform this function for myself, and at the audacity that I would even dare ask his help with undressing. Then, of course, there was the mental image of him actually helping me with this, which, I have to confess, was really really funny.
“Keeeeevvvvviiiinnnn, pleeeeeaaaaassssseeee!!!!!”
More giggling. This time from both of us.
This went on for about 20 minutes until we were in tears.

After we fell into a good sleep, probably from the exhaust fumes of all the other motor homes, we were awakened by an 8.3 earthquake – a crash, a jolt and the sound of breaking glass. Oh wait, that was just the cowboy backing his truck INTO our trailer. Luckily, the only thing he broke was his passenger side mirror.

Extreme Mustang Makeover – reservations for next year have already been secured at the Hyatt Regency downtown Fort Worth.