Aunt Jerry

All my life, I've had an Aunt Jerry. Aunt Jerry isn't related by blood, but by love, and has always been a fixture, and the one who spoiled myself, and my brother, unmercifully.

Oh, and Aunt Jerry is a man. He's the roughest, toughest old style cowboy I've ever found in north Texas, and he does a fabulous Reba MacEntire impersonation.

It never seemed strange to call the cowboy with the chest hair peeking out of his shirt collar "aunt," mostly because thats what I always knew him by, and my parents never made a big deal out of it. When my brother and I were old enough to understand that there was something "different" about Aunt Jerry, and ask questions, he answered them honestly, fully, and always.

I love my Aunt Jerry.

He also has a very twisted sense of humor about his sexuality, when he wants to. Homophobes beware, he'll turn from down home country cowboy to flaming butt pirate in 2.5 seconds, if you can't treat him as a human being.

Most guys my age who have met him, generally push past a slight homophobia when they find out that years ago, he was married to a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, if only to ask him what the hell he was thinking, being gay.

Aunt Jerry claims veto rights on my boyfriends, which is why he rarely gets to meet any of them (ok so they don't always last long enough to make it to that stage...) This story shows exactly why I take care who I introduce to my favorite Aunt....

A few years ago, I was dating a kid from up by Pueblo... not much of a cowboy, but he knew what to say to get my attention, and I was young and stupid. Still am, but I hope I've learned some lessons along the way.

Wes was in need of a job, so I got him in on flagging, and the Farm Parents agreed to let him stay with us until he could get a place of his own. Except somehow it never happened.

He would sit around, drink beer, and watch tv all day, not help out around the house, not pay rent, and generally just leech off of anything he could find. By the time we went to Aunt Jerry's house for an evening, we'd already had a couple of discussions about this. Farm Mom was getting pretty exasperated.

So, we haul him with us for dinner with Aunt Jerry and his boyfriend, on Jerry's ranch out in the middle of nowhere.

As we walked in the door, Jerry brushed aside both of my parents, his long time friends, and picked me up in a big bear hug, exclaiming over how beautiful I was getting, and bemoaning the fact that I didn't dress to show off my figure, as he always does. Then he turned to Wes.

"So this is the boyfriend, huh?" Jerry stuck out his hand to shake Wes's, and Wes, knowing from talking to me how important this man was to me, stepped forward with a smile, holding out his own hand.

Jerry did something I'd half expected, and decided to "play" with Wes.

At the last second, Jerry changed direction, and grabbed Wes's crotch.

He spent a moment feeling around with a puzzled, thoughtful expression on his face.

"Where is it?? Did you leave it at home?? Farmgirl... do you have it?!?"

At this point I was shaking my head over Jerry's antics, knowing he was just playing around, but Wes was terrified. His smile was half frozen on his face, his eyes looked as if he might bolt for the back forty, and his hand was still hovering, outstretched, to shake a hand that wasn't there. A strange man had hold of a favorite part of his anatomy, was insulting said favorite part, and to top it all off, Jerry had thrown in just a dash of his you-go-girlfriend gay attitude.

"I... Um.... That is...."

"That, honey, is not a dick. I'll show you a dick. TONY! Come in here, darlin, and show this boy what a grown up looks like."

At this point, I had to step in, before I had to track Wes across half of Texas when he spooked.

"Aunt Jerry, I'm young and impressionable, I don't need to see that."

"Oh, you're right, fine, fine. But does your boy toy at least know how to use it??"

"I wouldn't know."

"Good girl. Come on folks, steaks are almost done!"

Jerry played nice as everyone ate dinner and had a couple of beers. Later on in the evening Jerry put some music on, and herded everyone into dancing, at which point he decided that he simply must teach Wes how to dance properly.

So he taught Wes a ballroom style dip.

By dipping Wes.

Repeatedly.

When Wes started getting uncomfortable with the whole process, my much loved Aunt looked down at him from the upper hand of the dip, gave him a sultry wink, and said in a low, seductive tone "You're cute when you blush."

Wes struggled out of Jerry's grip, ended up on the floor, and spent the rest of the night sulking because I was laughing too hard to help him up.

He didn't last long after that night, and shortly I'd chalked him up as one of those young and stupid mistakes we all make, and moved on. Jerry helped me realize the mistake sooner than I might have, and I still chuckle to myself every time I think of the deer in the headlights expression on Wes's face when "the gay dude" had ahold of his tallywhacker, making comments to the room at large.

I love my Aunt Jerry.

Silence

Hey folks, just dropping a line to say I AM alive still... just been really busy and really exhausted when I'm not running my butt off, so I fall into bed like a sack of potatoes.

I do have several ideas fomenting in the back of my head for good long story updates, I promise! I just have to get one of them to ferment past the vague cloudy stage and into the put it down in words stage.

I'll try to do that tomorrow (blessed day off, how I adore thee!) because I hear the ugly mutterings about torches and pitchforks, and I like my skin the way it is.

Say WHAT?!?

Human Greed takes Lion's Share of Solar Energy

This is just insane. Its what Law Dog might call rabid Moonbatism.

Apparently, humans are taking up twenty four percent of the available energy produced by plants. Yes, the title of the article is about solar energy, and the subject of the study is about plant energy. Granted, the one fuels the other, but come on.

Oh, and the biggest majority of that so called "greed" is harvesting crops.

Um. I planted the dag blasted crop, I'll do whatever I danged well please with it, thank you very much.

The study basically says that we take up too much of the plant life on the planet, which in some instances might be true. I'm all for replanting trees, and such, but it can be taken too far.

"Here we are, just one species on the earth, and we're grabbing a quarter of the renewable resources … we're probably being a bit greedy."

....................... Re. New. Uh. Bul.

That means... they grow back! Surprise, plants grow, get eaten by LOTS of things, or die at the first frost, and then... miracle of miracles... they grow back!

Apparently in addition to not eating meat (which is a whole other rant) we're not supposed to grow crops and eat them either.

Thats it folks, lets have a world-wide fast. Everyone who believes this bunk, stop eating all together. And don't drink coffee, or tea, either, they're plant products. And don't drink water because as you know its a water conservation century. Ya'll just go sit in your corner, don't eat or drink, and I'm sure that our worldwide consumption of plant energy will decrease.

The study also doesn't take into account situations like here in the US, especially here in Colorado, in which wild herbivore populations have exploded since large scale farming operations have been here. When this area was settled, deer and antelope were few and far between, but since they have a steady, reliable food source, and hunting is controlled (and also paid for in the form of licenses, thus funding programs through the Fish and Game organizations to help the critters that NEED it) the populations have expanded to suit the food supply.

Not to mention... apex species. Even though sometimes I wonder about whether the human race actually is the "best" species out there, we are an apex species, ecologically speaking.

*sigh* We can't stop here. This is bat country.

Freedom

For me, the best expression and feeling of freedom is riding.

I love to ride, whether its riding to accomplish something, or just going out and going riding. There's a lot of it that is mediative for me, and there's a proud feeling when I teach a horse something new, and they get it right the first time.

There's also that wild, free feeling when you give the horse its head and take off across a field at full tilt, like riding an avalanche.

Its a stress release, and a joy.

Its a rush, its humbling, and its the time when I feel that anything is possible, and everything is probable.

The sun shines a little bit brighter, the breeze is just a bit sweeter and all the cares of life just wash away in a feeling of contentment and quiet partnership with a gentle giant.

I guess its appropriate that I finally got to ride one of the new horses on today, of all days.

Happy Independence Day, folks. I hope that each and every one of you gets to have a moment today where you feel completely free.

Answering a Question

Anonymous said...

A litte curious here. I completely undertand the State trooper doing 80 in a work area being reckless and uncalled for. But your comment "But, we can make you wait, no matter what the call is, until the pilot car gets there. Yes, we can, even if you're running hot. Courtesy goes both ways, Officer, not to mention the safety of the general public." Bothered me a touch, so maybe *we* can elaborate a little. Running hot lets say to an officer assist call in other words my buddy down the road is fighting for his life, I encounter your road construction. I understand fully BOTH my need to help my buddy and not to kill someone else or myself getting there. But can you actually consider any reason you would stop me from going? you stated you had radios. whats wrong with me stopping, informing the nearest worker with a radio of my delema(sp?) informing him to have a path cleared and I continue on at a safe speed? I am taking into account roads which may not permit this. But I think most of us are bright enough to know where to, and where not to drive by the tell tale little orange cones. Barring the thought of bridges or large drop offs can you seriously expect me not to continue on as safely as possible? Please understand this is not intended as an attack just a request for further information, as it is an interesting predicament, which I do intend to pass on to my supervisors. I do respect the work you do, and also understand how intimidating standing on the side of any roadway can be, with just my clothes betweem me and someones bumper. Thanks for your time, be safe out there. -TxPo

TxPo-- I said that we *can* do so. Not that we do. Too many officers get used to being king of the road and forget that sometimes others have the "power." We do try to work with law enforcement and the emergency response people, but they have to understand that we're there to make sure that everyone goes home. I've been on jobs that had fatalities because of stupidity of people driving through... I don't want to be on another one, if I can avoid it. Everyone goes home at the end of the day in one piece. We can't ensure that if people do dumb things.

It is never safe for ANYONE to continue through a construction site without knowing whats going on, and without at least traffic control personnel knowing that they're coming. It poses a serious safety hazard, the workers are used to the timing between lines, not all of our flaggers have radios to be informed of them coming, and they don't know whats going on. They might run into something bigger than they are, that can't get out of the way fast enough. We generally try to get the supervisor to the end where they are, and escort them through the site in a safe manner, as fast as possible. I have personally escorted an officer through a site at eighty, BUT we didn't have any equipment on the road, I was able to direct him around any hazards, and he knew his job going through the site was to follow as exactly in my tracks as he could.

As for our radios... I guess from your sig you're a police officer of some kind. Let me tell you something... you're spoiled. We've got eight miles of road shut off, the pilot car and the supervisor's truck have big base units in them, and everyone else who has a radio, have handhelds. The base units will reach about four miles... five on a good day. The handhelds, depending on terrain, will reach about two to three miles. We can't hear both ends of the site at once.

The situation I was talking about there... the flagger on the end could not reach me in the pilot car to inform me that the officer was coming, the officer did not stop to find out about any hazards which he might run into, where traffic was, nothing. It was an entirely unsafe situation.

That said... most of the time we work with officers and ambulances. We'll hold all traffic for a few minutes and let them run on through, or escort them through in a safe manner, if we get a call that they're coming, or if they stop at the flagger and let us know where they need to go.

Situations where I would hold an officer or an ambulance are those in which it is safer, and will get them through faster, to wait a couple of minutes at an end, rather than running head on into a bumper to bumper line of traffic thats around two miles long. If traffic just left that end I would send them to catch the end of the line, or escort them down the dead lane, if possible.

My issue with the officer that I posted about is not that he was doing his job, or that he was in a hurry. My issue is that he failed to even attempt to accomplish things in a safe manner, and put me, my coworkers, and the traveling public in danger.

An extra couple of minutes is not worth someone's life, and you're not going to get there any faster if you get into an accident or kill someone. Its much better to check with traffic control before you start through than to have to explain to them later why their friend is smeared on the highway.

Tired

Sorry for the silence, lately, folks. Due to a couple of mix ups at the construction site, and the fact that granddad decided to work cattle yesterday (which turned into the largest circle jerk in the world... more on that later) I've been pretty much exhausted the last few days.

I'll try to find something interesting to talk about soon.

Welcome

Well, my popularity seems to be growing by leaps and bounds, which leaves me somewhat flabbergasted, to be honest. I'm glad you're all enjoying, though. Welcome, welcome, have a seat, kick off your shoes, make yourself to home.

I do want to send a couple of special welcomes... perusing the site meter pages for my blog (I'm addicted to that danged thing, I swear) I noticed several visits from other countries... Welcome!

Also... to everyone joining us from Law Dog's blog, welcome. I hope my little notes will live up to your expectations.

And Law Dog... I am deeply, deeply honored. *Curtsey* Thank you sir, for the linky love, and the praise.