The cow. Got out.
Repeat after me: Green Acres is NOT the place to be. Farm living is NOT the life for me.
My husband, the cowboy, was out of town. WAY out of town, buying a registered quarter horse, because… you know… we didn’t have one yet.
I was hosting something we called “Friday Night Hangout”, where a bunch of high school kids would come over to the house on Friday Nights to – you guessed it – hang out.
And since the cow (affectionately known as “Patty”) was a relatively new phenomenon at Reynolds Ranch, the kiddos wanted to go out and see her.
And, apparently, pet her.
The problem: She is a COW. She does not wish to be petted. She wants to be left alone. The kids approached her. She backed away. They moved closer. She ran in circles. They continued to advance. She disengaged her hindquarters (which, in the animal world, has something to do with submission. In marriage, however, it has an entirely different meaning…but that’s another blog altogether.)
Patty tried to dissuade them from petting her. She spoke to them in Bovinese:
“Children, lovely children… I do not wish to be touched.
I do not wish for you to come closer. I prefer that you not force me to…”
Then she squealed some sad-sounding cow scream, bolted to the north, and jumped a 4-foot chain link fence, yes she did.
Kevin immediately ran into the house to inform me of the Cattle Coup, and I instantly did what city people do in a farm emergency: I made some phone calls. After many calls to multiple sources all giving me the same ludicrous advice (“just go find her and herd her home”), I did the other thing city people do in an emergency: drive. I put on my 2 1/2″ black wedge sandals, and took the car up the road, all the while muttering to myself as to why I wasn’t living somewhere – anywhere – that didn’t offer a view of manure-freckled hay fields.
I found Patty a few tenths of a mile west in a neighbor’s side yard. I parked the car, got out and walked toward her, wondering exactly how one persuades a cow to go home. She just stood there. So I waved my arms (hoping to scare her back the direction of the house). She waved back. I stared at her. She stared at me.
We stood there
Just staring,
We stood there
We two.
And I said,
“Oh, I wish
I knew how
to speak Moo.”
And since Dr. Seuss rhymes seemed ineffective as a herding tool, I went back to the house to herd the kids up to the cow. Kevin drove up in a second car.
I was now finally able to reach the cowboy by phone. Though he was 320 miles from our house, I felt it imperative that he know what was going on.
“COW JUST GOT OUT!” I yelled.
“How are the trout???” he queried.
“THE COW HAS GOTTEN OUT!” I yelled again.
“The power has gone out?” he asked, confused.
“NO NO…YOUR STUPID STUPID COW HAS JUMPED THE FENCE AND RUN OFF!!!!”
I declared in no uncertain terms.
“Then go find her and herd her back home,” he responded calmly.
Ohhhhh . . . this ticked me off.
“Well, honey,” he asked sweetly, “What do you want me to do?”
What do I want you to do? WHAT DO I WANT YOU TO DO???
WELL, FIRST OF ALL, I WANT YOU TO PANIC WITH ME, DOGGONE IT, BECAUSE FREAKING OUT MAKES THINGS SO MUCH MORE MANAGEABLE. AND SECONDLY, I WANT YOU TO GIVE ME THE STINKIN’ CODE TO THE COW SIGNAL YOU HIDE OUT THERE IN THE BARN SO I CAN SUMMON SUPERHERO ‘SADDLE BOY’ TO COME RESCUE ME! THAT’S WHAT I WANT YOU TO DO!!!
So, basically, I hung up on him, somewhat angry and incredibly frustrated that this Big Dumb Future Shish-ka-Bob was going to make a beeline for the interstate and cause a 7 car pileup resulting in death, dismemberment and a really big e’splosion, and I would be responsible.
I went back up the road and found Kevin driving his car through somebody’s backyard and a conga-line of kids dancing in circles and flailing their arms. Patty darted left, then darted right, and eluded them. We lost her again, and since it was nearing dark, it was becoming virtually impossible to locate a black cow in the country.
Thankfully, a couple of cowboy superheroes-in-training had been viewing our slapstick routine, and came out to join in the chase about the time Patty reappeared on a side road. After another half hour and a 9-person team of rodeo clowns, we managed to herd her into somebody else’s field, via somebody else’s gate, where she joined a herd of somebody else’s cattle.
Our Friday Night High School Hangouts included a lot of weirdness: playing “Murder”; having finger-dart wars; heckling bad movies; playing Hide & Seek at night, and glow-in-the-dark ultimate Frisbee. This, however, was a whole new experience. Just as I wondered what they would tell their parents, Erin answered the question for me: “This was the MOST FUN Friday Night Hangout . . . EVER!!!”
For those of you who are concerned about the cow, the answer is “no”, Patty never made her way onto our dinner table…
but have you seen my new black leather boots?
Wool tennis-like balls used in place of dryer sheets to fluff, minimize static, and speed up drying the laundry. And while they are somewhat less creepy than the Snuggle Bear, they are the epitome of All Things Annoying.
However, the real pain-in-the-you-know-what about
good Heimlich maneuver to unlodge the ball. I quickly, but unsuccessfully, drop to all fours in an effort to catch said ball, then speed-crawl across the floor like a puppy playing fetch.
7:57 – Finish make-up. Change dirty top to coral one. Throw aqua one on floor. Think coral is too orangey and looks too Halloweenie with black pants. Change to aqua striped top. Throw coral one on the floor. Stripes make me feel fat today. Who am I kidding? Stripes make me feel fatt-er today. Change to gray top. Throw stripey one on floor. Gray top requires a bra change. Throw first bra on floor. Top off with silver earrings and necklace.
8:15 – Curse humidity, blow dry some more, contemplate chopping hair off.
8:36 – Calculate lateness. While doing mental math, space out and miss parkway entrance. Forced now to take longer route through town.
8:49 – Pull into parking lot. Ridiculously late. I blame the toddler. And the cowboy. And the mouse. And the humidity. And the sneeze. And the full moon.
I have a pair of stuffed animal racoons from high school days dubbed “Smokey” and “Bandit”.
For her 4th birthday my daughter received her first Barbie. She could have named her Buffy or Ariel or Jessica, but instead, she chose the prettiest name she knew: LEONARD.
But of all the weirdly-named things in our little world, my favorite was Kevin’s first Beanie Baby. It was a lobster, which, as a preschooler, he pronounced “lomster” and christened it with the biggest word in his little vocabulary: APPARENTLY.
I experienced a brief wave of panic this afternoon as I was brushing my teeth. Midway through the process, the battery in my Sonicare toothbrush DIED.
Myers-Briggs classifies me as an 
I am at my best when: my surroundings are clean and uncluttered. (I know what Einstein said about messy desks, but my inner minimalist NEEDS things neat and orderly and at nice right angles lest she feel completely out of control.)
The trips we did take, however, had one common denominator:
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.
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?
Complaining about the odor of manure when the wind shifts toward the house.
Kevin responded, “Dad, the cows are now T-bones. Consider what I did as pre-tenderizing.”
she said 
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