FUN!

Ok, humor me for a moment and close your eyes. Imagine a gathering of the most intelligent, entertaining people you've ever heard of, all in one place.

That's where I was yesterday.

I'm vaguely embarrassed to say that I didn't get a chance to really talk to everyone there, people were cycling through all afternoon and some of 'em, it seemed we were just circling each other around the party all afternoon.

I did, however, get a great opportunity to just sit around and listen to some of the most amazing war stories (some of them literal) and joke around with folks.

Right now I'm just gonna mention a few of the many, many people I got to meet yesterday, I'll try to get up links and snippets about everyone else, but I'm short on time at the moment... we have orders to meet folks for a shoot. A very, very big man looked me right in the eye and said "Ten thirty. Braums. Be there."

........ I don't intend to disappoint the nice giant*...

Phlegmmy is a gorgeous woman, with a grace and poise that just has to be the southern thing. I know I ain't got it, but she does in spades.

Bayou Renaissance Man is quiet spoken, and has that wonderful South African accent; I thoroughly enjoyed visiting with him.

Holly and JPG are fabulous people, and I'm so glad I got to meet them both in person.

OldNFO is an inveterate smartass. Gotta love it!

AEpilot Jim is... oddly attached to bacon. No, really. I think if you wrapped a cyanide pill in a strip of bacon, he'd probably plan his own funeral before he pounced on it...

MattG is... well, he's Ginormous. He's also very gracious, if only slightly put upon, when I requested a picture of my tiny hand next to one of his meathooks.

I was lucky enough to get to meet LawDog and even though I knew what his voice sounded like from his call in to my Blog Talk Radio interview, it was still a bit of a shock... for some reason in my head he's always got just a bit of a gravelly growl in his voice.

He said he liked my blog.... *buffs nails*.... On the way out the door he said "Love your blog, keep doing it."

"Thanks, I plan to keep going... I love your blog too!"

"Mine's ok... just don't you stop writing..."

I did manage to keep from squeeing like a little fan girl, which means I'm ahead of AEPilot Jim by just a little bit.

Everyone laid out their bring-along toys, which sat on Phlegmmy's kitchen counter (AD will post pics) for everyone to fondle. I got a little bit of crap over the new toy being re-blued, but since it was a gift everyone cut me a little slack.

Somehow, I think there's something wrong with the world when the biggest guy in the room picks up a gun, hefts it a moment, and proceeds to complain about how heavy the gun carried by the smallest girl there is.

It just seems...wrong.




*Sorry, Matt. I couldn't resist. We just don't grow em like you back home!

Dallas

Now that I've slept and am no longer in food nirvana (now I'm in coffee hell.. why is the in room coffee in hotels always naaasty? And why is there never enough creamer or sugar?) I'll post a little bit more.

I rolled into the Dallas area about five last night, and immediately got lost. Not my fault! Google maps was on crack and told me to get off the interstate and then right back on and I figured that couldn't be right... so I pulled into La Quinta and tried to get my bearings. Figured out they really DID mean for me to get off and back on, so I went back and got back on, took the immediate exit after the one I'd already gotten off of, and then battled my way over to the right hand lane because I was pretty much on top of my hotel.

Got my room key, got everything hauled up (with a hug in there somewhere) and started making phone calls to let everyone know that I had arrived, safe and sound.

Got three invites to dinner (damn, I'm popular) and had already accepted the first one.... Sorry guys!

I kind of wished I had taken a minute to change when we got to the restaurant (Hannibal Lecter was giving us directions... weird!) and saw that it was pretty fancy. Hey, they said steak house, not magic meat palace (no cracks about magic meat, please) so I went in my baggy, comfy sweater, and Carhart coat.

Kudos to the staff of the place, they neither looked down their noses at my clothes nor gaped in amazement at the amount I ate... although, I was on my best behavior and there was actually enough talk at the table to distract me from the food on occasion.

I did... *cough* sort of threaten to stab someone with my fork.......... but he was trying to steal my cake!

And he promptly offered me his pocket knife to use instead of my fork.

"But if you stab me with your fork, what are you going to use to eat your cake?"

"My fork."

"Wow... that's a whole level that I'm not even going to touch."

And from the other end of the table "You're really not squeamish, are you?"

Oh, and Farmdad? Your Valentines Day present to me is a hit.

"That's my kind of dad!"

See, you can't hide redneck, and for Valentines Day my loving father gave his two girls guns. Farmmom got a Judge, and I got a Walther PPK that he'd just gotten refinished.

I didn't show it off at the restaraunt, it's not home, after all, but they'll get to see it this afternoon.

The rest of the weekend:

Party, a shoot at which I may get the guts to actually fire a weapon in front of people who are far better than I, and a Japanese Steak House. I promise to stay away from the Sake, Farmmom!

Oh. My. God.

Texas De Brazil. It's a restaurant. Find one. You must go there.

Its like a fancy cocktail party, where waiters circulate with various drinks and such... except it's MEAT.

Seriously. Good stuff.

Farmmom... they bring by whole skewers of bacon-wrapped filet mingon. Like, three foot long sticks packed with the juciest, tenderest, most flavorful beef ever.

And the chocolate cake... well lets just say I changed my undies when I got back to the hotel.

Yes, it is that good.

Combined with good company, no awkward silences, and a lot of laughter... it was a good night.

To Do List:

1. Pack for the weekend. For me, and for the dog... I'm gonna have to borrow a tote or something from Mamaw for the pup's stuff, the bag I was going to use got... sidetracked, during the move.

2. Clean out the hazardous waste site that is my car and wash the windows. Considering how much crap I keep in my car, this may take all afternoon.

3. Wash dogs. Both pups need a bath, especially the fuzzy one (the schnauzer) and the Farmdog and I will be company this weekend, so she needs to look (and smell) her best.

4. Drop the fuzzy dog off at the Farm Parents' to save me time in the morning.

5. Try to get to sleep before midnight. This insomnia crap is really annoying me.

Tomorrow, I'll spend the day in the car. I'm gonna be saying thank god for satellite radio before I even make it to Amarillo.

On the bright side, I'll be taking my baby girl Farmdog to the same Petsmart where I got her... think she'll remember? I need to pick up a couple of things, so we're gonna stop on the way through.

Once I get back from my little mini vacation (neener) it'll be back to hauling hay and water, working on remodeling my house, and working with my ponies, along with the paying test rides for the horse rescue and the paying job helping to train horses to harness.

When folks tell me they envy me my leisurely country existance, I laugh, and laugh.

Usually I can stop laughing before they call the nice men in the white coats with the I Love Me jacket....

Too Many Clothes...

Entirely too many clothes.

That's what I've got. Out of two laundry baskets, three suitcases (one being of the "New York Apartment" size, this thing is huge) and four black garbage bags, I went through all of my clothes and got rid of the things that don't fit, or that I never wear.

One bag. Out of allll of those clothes, I was only able to eliminate one single garbage bag.

Sad.

I would say a good fifty percent of it is t-shirts and jeans. Another twenty five percent is pj's. Yes, I have that many pj's.

The rest is my few dressy shirts, a couple pairs of nice slacks, tank tops, cold weather gear, sweaters, and the miscellaneous clothing items that always seem to accumulate.

I haven't been buying clothes, either! I'm not one of those women who is constantly buying clothes. Every once in a while I'll see a shirt with a cute saying on it, and buy it, but generally I only buy clothes when I need them.

The last things I bought (or had bought for me at my request) were nice shirts for necessary occasions.

Before that, it was my Wranglers. Necessary purchases.

It just accumulates... and I'm not real sure where the heck I put it all in either apartment...

Maybe that's why I always put off doing laundry... I didn't have room for all of it if it was all clean and had to be put away....

Farmdog

Last year, before I got the Farmdog moved up with me, I got a call from Farmmom. She was practically in tears, and terrified that I was going to be mad at her.

See, Farmdog had had a seizure. The local vet was out on farm calls that day, and Farmmom wanted to know if I thought she should wait for the vet at home, or bring the Farmdog up to one of the vets where I was.

Of course, I voted for the faster option of bringing her to another vet, and started calling around to see which one could fit her in the fastest.

Farmdog was not a happy camper when they got her up there, the seizure scared her almost as much as it did Farmmom.

The vet said he couldn't be sure what kind of seizure it was, but he'd work with us to find a medication that worked for her.

Luckily, the first med he put her on, Primadone, did the trick. Farmmom got to find the proper dosage ("start her on three pills every day, to get the levels up in her system, and back it off gradually... if she has another seizure, go back up a step on the dosage") of one pill, every other day.

He also told us that if she has a seizure, if we can get her to take a pill during or right after, it will reduce the severity.

Well, in the bustle of the move, I forgot her pill the night before last, and the stress of the move (the dawgs were not happy when they were put out in the yard in the morning and the house was full of stuff, and came back in in the afternoon and it was empty) triggered a seizure last night.

At first I thought that she and the Farmpup were just playing in the hallway, until I called out for them to come in the living room and the Pup came running in totally freaked out.

I looked up and Farmdog was trying to get into the middle bedroom with two legs clenched tight to her body.

I don't remember my feet touching the floor between the chair on the opposite side of the table, and the Farmdog.

I got to her and grabbed ahold of her so she wouldn't try to go anywhere and hurt herself in the process, one arm around her neck with her head against my shoulder and the other reaching in the tub full of the dawgs' things for her pills while Mamaw got me a hotdog to stuff the pill in.

This is another one of those situations where a part of me panics, but that part gets locked in a box and the rest of me has to be calm and comforting... if I'm scared, it scares Farmdog. If she's freaking out, the seizures get worse. So, I have to be calm. It ain't easy, when my baby is having a seizure and I don't know until it's over whether or not it will actually do damage to her brain, or tear a muscle or ligament.

Once the worst of the seizure was over, I offered her the bite of hotdog, pill side first... don't ever tell me that dogs are dumb. If I try to feed her a bite of hotdog during or right after a seizure, without letting her smell that there's a pill in it, she won't take it. She'll take her pill, though, every time. She's tried to get the pill while her jaws were still locked shut in the seizure. She may not know how the pill works... but she knows that it works, and that's good enough for her.

She finally relaxed a little and laid there, but I knew another one was coming because she was drooling all over the place still. The second one was worse than the first... in the first one she was still present and accounted for, the second one she wasn't.

Ever wrestled a fifty pound dog in the middle of a seizure trying to keep her from smacking her head into a doorway or flipping over backwards when her muscles all clench up at once? Its not easy. Farmdog doesn't thrash during her seizures, unless she panicks and tries to use limbs that aren't listening to her in the mild ones, but when her muscles spasm you never know if they're going to go stiff or jerk her to the side.

And, she is a pit mix, and I'm never sure how much of her brain is involved in the seizures, so I try to arrange myself so that she won't have an opportunity to bite me if she starts coming out of it in fight or flight mode, being held down.

She hasn't snapped at anyone after a seizure yet, and if she does, I'm not going to hold it against her, but I would like to avoid a full bite from the Jaws of Tennis Ball Doom, if possible.

Once the pill started getting into her system, she started feeling better. Twenty minutes later she was playing tug with the Farmpup like nothing had happened....

But it sure scares the crap out of mommy when that happens....

Home Sweet... wait! Where's that paper I need???

Well, the move has been accomplished with a minimum of bloodshed... really I think mine was the only blood, and that just from a little divot on my hand that I'm not really sure where it came from.

Got all my stuff back to the Old Homestead... now I just gotta sort out what I need with me and what goes in storage.

What? My stuff filled a thirty foot gooseneck trailer, a pickup, and my car, with barely enough room for me and the Dawgs. Like I said I have too much crap.

I've got to get all of the clothes up to Mamaw's, and start sorting... I'm getting rid of some of them... because I have entirely too many and a lot of it is stuff I don't even wear.

I feel bad throwing away clothes that are still usable, though, even if I don't wear them anymore. I would be more than happy to give them to someone else to use, except for the small problem that I don't know anyone that they would fit, that doesn't have more clothes than I do.

Monday, I have to go back to the old house and get the cable box and modem, and turn them in so that the cable company doesn't charge me like five hundred bucks... turn off the cable and gas and electric, after calling the landlord to make sure that they get it put in their name.... and possibly stop by the college to watch the freshmen, and a couple of unlucky sophomores that had to take classes this semester, ride.

I also need to stop by the vet's office up there and get some more of the Farmdog's meds... I'll do another post explaining that in a bit...

Tuesday, call the folks that I was going to intern with and see about test riding some of the new horses for them, for das moola.

It'd be nice to have a little extra cash come Friday.

Wednesday, and Thursday, I'll work on my house, and cleaning out my car... and probably checking cattle and hauling water and hay at some point.

Friday, I'll be going out of town. Not sure if I'm gonna have a free moment over the weekend to post, but I'll try.

After the weekend, things should slow down as far as the running all over the place goes. I'll be down to hauling hay to horses and cattle, working with an older gentleman to harness-break a couple of horses, and working on my house, instead of that stuff and four other things....