Tag Archives: humor

When you live with your parents…

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This summer seems to be slipping away into the horizon all too quickly. Since the house fire temporarily transplanted us we have been on a fast track schedule to get our new house ready for the arrival of all of the crap we don’t really need that’s currently residing in my parent’s garage. I’ve been wearing the same three shirts for the last month because I don’t have the energy to dig through the giant plastic Tupperwear bins that are currently serving as my drawers. I’ve also been feeling a bit too comfortable in the only pair of cutoff shorts I can find. I’m not sure when I officially became a rag-muffin (does anyone else say that or is that just something my Pops made up?), but apparently I don’t seem to mind that my shorts are covered in paint and grout and sweat and Lord knows what else. At the end of the week I just throw them in the wash with my pink socks and black tank top and I am ready for Monday.

It’s funny when all of your things are packed away how quickly you realize how little you actually need to get by. Apparently I’m pretty low maintenance.

And apparently, between the grouting, painting, scrubbing, sawing and cleaning I should consider bathing a little more frequently.

What I have become?!

Before my eyes I’m turning into a woman who leaves the house donning pink socks, hiking shoes, stubbly armpits, not a shred of makeup and paint in her ponytail.

A ponytail that hasn’t been washed for days.

Since the realization that I am on the verge of ‘crazy cat/bag/stinky/wilderness lady’ I have tried to pinpoint what has gotten into me. I try to blame it on being in the moment, or being frazzled with deadlines and things scattered in all corners of the ranch. I try to make excuses for myself that include little phrases like “Oh, I was laying tile and I have to do it again in twelve hours so what’s the point of scrubbing the mortar off of my legs.”

Or, “Oh, the paint will just wash right out of this shirt. But I have to paint some more in twelve hours so what’s the point of changing”

And my favorite “It’s hot. I was sweaty. Now I’m tired. I’ll shower tomorrow.”

And then I find myself alone in a room, crinkling my nose and wondering what stinks.

Now I know it’s me.

I need to get it together. So after much consideration, contemplation, analyzation, self-deprecation and meditation I have come to the conclusion.

It’s my parents’ fault.

Hear me out here as I explain myself.

See, since we have been essentially homeless, my parents have done everything they can to make us feel comfortable. They are lovely people who are very aware of their actions and very good at taking care of the people they love. They felt bad for us and didn’t want to see us living in a tent on their lawn, so they gave us a room like any parent would. Then they made us a hearty meal full of every vegetable, listened while we complained, handed us a cocktail and never once have mentioned that perhaps I should consider using their shower more frequently.

I haven’t lived with my parents since I was seventeen, and now, more than ever, I am grateful I hadn’t come back until now.

I would have never left.

Because something shifts when you find yourself as an adult living between your parents’ familiar walls. I’ve often wondered about this when hearing about those bachelors who never get married, who stay in their mom’s basement for years, whittling wood or playing computer games in their free time.

Why? Why do they stay?

Now I know.

Because your momma makes banana bread and Rice Krispy bars on Sundays and then leaves you home alone with them all week as you find the sweet tooth you have repressed since childhood.

When you go to the fridge to try to locate the ketchup or the ice cream topping, all it takes is one call out to your momma and she is at your side, showing you exactly where it is.

She also knows where you set your cell phone, keys, missing boot and sunglasses.

When you live with your parents there is always someone there to worry about you, so you don’t have to take the time to worry about yourself. If your momma walks into the kitchen to catch you with a big knife in your hand, prepped and ready to cut into a giant watermelon, she will quickly locate your father to remove that knife from your hand and take over the job himself.

See, your momma knows you, and knows that giant knives could mean a disaster.

You will protest for a moment, explaining that you are an adult and have cut up many watermelons in your life thank-you-very-much, but you will start that adult conversation with something that sounds like “Moammmaaa, geeezzzeeaa” before you hand over the knife to your father, secretly grateful that you won’t have to struggle with the task.

Apparently this man is better suited for the dangerous task of cutting watermelon…

When you live with your parents, despite your best efforts, the laundry gets done more often. You have a never-neverending stack of clean towels and, while she’s at it,  cheese and crackers on a tray waiting for you on the counter at any given moment.

Right next to those blasted Rice Krispy bars that are quickly going to your ass.

But Rice Krispy bars won’t be the only thing you have a hankering for. No, when you find yourself living with your parents you will also find yourself searching the cupboards for Honey Nut Cheerios and Lucky Charms. You will ask if they have fruit roll-ups.

Your mom will buy you popsicles and tell you you look skinny.

You will believe her.

You will have another Rice Krispy bar and curl up on the couch with her while she watches “The Real Housewives of Wherever.”

She will make you one of her signature vodka tonics and you will fall asleep under the fluffy blanket with your head on the arm rest of the couch and your mouth wide open as you drool on her throw pillow.

Your husband will see this. He will be horrified.

He will order you to go to bed.

You will oblige, wipe the drool from your mouth and wish your momma and pops good night only to crawl into a bed that you haven’t made for a month…

because you’re living in your parents house…

and the way you’ve been behaving, you might as well give up adult status.

If you need me I’ll be painting something, tiling something, taking a shower and scheduling a hair-cut.

If I don’t move out soon, I am afraid I never will.

Improving my home improvement attitude…

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I married a man who knows where he can get a surplus of washing machine motors in case of a clothes-washing emergency. I fell in love with a guy who has hauled a broken down three-wheeler to all five of the places we’ve moved in the last six years with the intention of making the thing run when he has a spare moment (or twenty-thousand).

I am living with a person who has seventy-five Tupperware containers full of drill bits, little pieces of wire, nails and screws of various sizes, scraps of leather, broken saw blades, old speaker cords, empty shotgun shells, half-used rolls of tape, weird shaped things made of metal, something that looks like an electrical box, loose change from years of emptying pockets and a partridge in a pear tree because he might need it someday.

He’s a handyman, a carpenter, a Jack of all trades.

He’s a man who once spent the summer of his sixteenth birthday helping his father build a garage so that the next summer they could use it as a space to rebuild a tiny wooden boat from when Jesus was born into sleek and shiny yellow watercraft complete with a motor made to propel them around the big lake at speeds safe for a boat of a much bigger size.

He’s ambitious, a visionary, a guy with a tool for everything and a “why pay someone else to do it when you can do it yourself…and do a much better job…” attitude.


I am none of those things.

In fact one could argue that I’m the exact opposite. Where Husband has the impressive ability to breathe life into objects that belong on the bottom of a junk pile, I am the culprit who sent that thing to its grave in the first place.

I break things.

But it’s not my fault. Like Husband inherited his skills and interest in nailing things together, I was born to find a way to break them apart.

See, we’re neck-deep in working on the finishing touches it’s going to take to get us living in our new house. It’s an exciting time for a man who has been planning this home in the blueprints of his mind for years.

It’s a frightening time for a woman who once saw her life flash before her eyes when she got her head stuck in a ladder in her attempt at house painting.

But I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit around and make sandwiches while my husband is measuring and cutting and making sawdust fly.

Nope.

I’m gonna help.

But before I could strap on my tool belt and suspenders that look like rulers,  I was sent with Pops to go get supplies.

And when I say supplies, I mean, hook up the giant trailer, grab your coffee and be ready to set up camp in the store for a good  five to six hours…because the man’s got a list…

And he wrote on both sides.

Shit.

Fast forward through the part where Pops and I  got a flat tire and had to pull over on the highway to change it only to discover that the spare was a little skimpy on air as well.

Then skip the next part where I had a mental breakdown in the plumbing section trying to explain Husband’s hand-drawn diagram of a small piece he needed with a male end that connects to another piece with a female end that needs to be threaded and bedazzled with rhinestones and copper and is a 1/2 inch wide (or is that 1/3?) with metal studs while Pops mastered the art of sleeping while standing up.

Then zip on through the fourteen hours it took the two of us to load 750 square feet of hardwood flooring, 300 slate tiles, three bags of mortar, two bags of grout, a nailer, 20 pieces of sheet rock, six oak doors, a bag of painting supplies, electrical boxes, a roll of wire for something,  thirty-seven thousand plumbing parts and a bag of licorice onto the trailer, covering it with a giant tarp while the wind blew the thunderheads in.

I don’t want to talk about the monsoon that tore through that tarp on the way home in the dark or the fact that Pops may or may not have hit a small tree with a trailer full of soggy supplies as he slid sideways in the sticky mud outside the garage and proceeded to get stuck up to the floorboards.

I won’t mention the words he used to explain his emotions or the fact that we had to get the tractor to lift the trailer away from the tree and then hook it up to the front of the pickup to pull it out of the mud.

We don’t want to talk about it.

And I don’t want to talk about the grumbling that occurred the next day when I was sent to town again because there was a missing piece in the bag of 3,000 plumbing supplies we picked up in our life-altering journey.

Nope.

I won’t go there.

But I do want to tell you that when our supplies were accounted for and we got line out, after I painted the ceiling and the walls, organized our area and brought over some beer and snacks, someone did give me a tool.

A hammer.

And I was elated to be thought capable enough to help lay the wood floor.

So excited that in approximately 3.4 minutes of weilding that hammer, I forgot about moving my thumb out of the way.

And I do want to tell you that even though my thumb print is forever altered, Husband gave me a second chance and trusted me to learn the art of tiling.

And I thought I was doing ok, really. I mean, after two full days of being left alone to mix mud, haul and cut heavy tiles, space them out and skip the parts where I actually had to use math skills to measure, I still had a few places on my body that weren’t completely crusted in mortar.

I was focused, I was sweaty, I was becoming a tiling expert intent on getting the project complete in a timely manner. There was no time for breaks, no rest for wicked and apparently no room for manners, which I quickly learned was something that remains important in my handyman’s world no matter the time constraints and focus placed on the project.

Because when he came to check on my progress at the end of two days of laying tile he took one look at this woman with sweat dripping down her back, wild hair escaping from her two-day pony tail and arms and legs covered in mortar only to be greeted with an order to go get her a rag.

Apparently there was something about my request that didn’t sit well with my husband. Perhaps it was the tone of voice, or the fact that I didn’t look him in the eye or use the words or any form of synonym for “please” or “thank you”. Whatever it was, Husband couldn’t contain his disdain for this version of his wife morphed into some kind of intense and ragged construction obsessed animal.  He couldn’t understand why she wasn’t the calm, cool and collected species he becomes in this sawdust and testosterone infused environment.

He was confused.

He had to express himself.

I glared up at him from my place among the tiles and wet mortar.

“Where’s my rag? I need my rag? I’m almost done!!! Did you hear me?!!!”

He took two steps backwards, looked down and pointed at me, wagging his finger up and down to emphasize his disappointment as he said…

“Look at you. You’re bossy, you’re a mess and I don’t know if I like working with you…”

He took two more steps backward and stood still for a moment waiting for my reaction.

I looked down at my jeans, unrecognizable at this point as anything but pants made out of mortar. I ran my dirty hand through my hair and pulled out a glob of crusted mud.

Sweat trickled down my back and into my butt crack as I took in the words this kind and patient man has never before uttered to me.

I took a deep breath as the stress and worry of the past two weeks came unglued from my insides and out of my lungs in a fit of laughter that I couldn’t contain.

Husband stared at me as I worked to apologize through my giggles and belly laugh.

He shook his head and lifted his cap up to run his fingers through his hair, his lips curled up in a reassuring smile as he turned on his boot heel and left the crumpled, ornery and unnecessarily intense version of his wife to consider improving her home improvement attitude.


And I was left with the conclusion that I’d better shape up, because for the next few weeks while we finish this house I’m living in this man’s world, and if I ever want to cook a meal in this kitchen in our lifetime, I’d better whistle while I try to avoid hammering my arm to the wall and do what I can to keep him around…

Because I break things.

And he fixes them…


Pug: For Giveaway

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When I’m out and about in the world–working, shopping, grabbing a drink with friends–there’s  a common question people from all corners of my life make sure they stop to ask me. It isn’t “how ’bout that weather,” or “how’s the new house coming along?” (the answer is “slow” in case you’re wondering). No, it’s not even “why’s your hair weird?” or “where’s your husband?”

It’s “How’s the pug?”

Followed by “Any more run-ins with porcupines?”

And then “Does he still think he’s a cat?”

“Has he peed in your husband’s boot lately?”

“Is he still wandering around the countryside?”

And finally “Oh that dog, he makes me laugh.”

The damn pug. Everyone just loves him.

These days, as his behavior has moved further away from domestic lap dog and closer to wild hound I’m trying to figure out, despite all of the reasons I shouldn’t, why I don’t send that damn dog packing.

Because as I run through the answers to the questions it’s pretty evident that’s exactly what I should do.

I should just let him run away like the wild wind he thinks he is, tell him that the next time he hits the road, curly tail in the air, nose to the ground sniffing out which oil rig or neighbor has steaks on the grill, I should just leave him there to fend for himself.

Yeah.
I should.

I had this discussion with myself yesterday when a friend I work with in town popped in my office to tell me she had received a phone call.

About the pug.

See I hadn’t seen him ever since I pried him off of the couch a few days earlier and shoved him out the door to find a spot to poop.

Well apparently he likes a little privacy to do his business away from the house…like far away.

And apparently it takes him a while…or maybe he just gets distracted by things like butterflies, wandering coyotes, the herd of cattle up the road and, well, life in general.

Each time he goes missing I imagine him sitting shotgun in a big rig finally fulfilling his dream of traveling the country by highway, front paws up on the edge of the open window as he leans into the wind, letting it blow through is floppy ears sending the drool trailing off with the dust of the 18-wheels. I think of him looking over at the truck driver with the white beard, bald head and Harley Davidson t-shirt, and saying something like “Hey, thanks for picking me up man. I’ve been trying to get out of here for years. Life on the road…now this is livin'”

In my imagination the pug’s voice sounds like one that would come out of the lungs of a middle-aged biker who’s been smoking cigars and Marlboro Reds his entire life.

Anyway…it’d been a few days since I’d seen the damn dog,  but I wasn’t concerned. Aside from the one recent episode where my momma was on her way home from a trip to the city and spotted a black dot out in the middle of our neighbor’s pasture nearly four miles away from home, the dog has generally been making his regular rounds. When I decide it might be time to get him back on his diet, I’ll get in the pickup and start my searching ritual: up to the oil site south of the house, then the one across the road. If he’s not there, I’ll check mom and dad’s. If he’s still MIA,  he’s usually at the rig near the highway.

It’s getting ridiculous, but each time I arrive to load his fat ass into the pickup I have to spend a good ten to fifteen minutes talking to the guys about how awesome he is, how bad-ass he looks with one eye, how much fun they had with him and how they fed him T-bones and let him sleep in their campers with them that night.

No wonder the little bastard won’t stay home.

How can I compete with T-bones?


Anyway…back to yesterday. The pug was missing and I was starting to get a little concerned because he wasn’t in any of his usual locations. And the lab was home.

When the lab is home and the pug is not, that’s when things get hairy. The pug, left to his own devices, has the potential to go rogue and stay that way until someone comes looking for him. And he never calls to tell us how late he’ll be out.

But I decided I had reached an all-time low when I got a phone call about the bandit AT WORK!

This electrician who had been working on a site on the highway tracked me down to let me know that  the little shithead had been hanging around the site for days (shithead might have been my word and not his) and I suddenly felt like a mother who’s kid had been sent to the principal’s office.

And I would have never thought to check there. The pug would have been missing forever, because Lord knows he wouldn’t have made his way home until he was certain there were no more steak dinners coming out of those campers.

So on my way home from work I got to make a pit stop to pick up the pug who pretended like he didn’t hear me when I called his name across the muddy field.

But when our eyes finally met he did do me the service of at least acting happy to see me. Like he suddenly remembered he had a previous life away from this construction site. A life that maybe wasn’t so bad after all…I mean, I do occasionally let him sleep on my favorite blanket and feed him leftover dinner scraps. Come on buddy, what more do you want from me?

But I guess I’ll keep him…

tied up in the yard with a “For Giveaway” sign tied around his neck.

You love him?  Come get him!

Shit.

A good day to be the pug.

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Ahhh, Monday.

I’m not going to lie, I’m a little scared of the days of the week that are to follow. The hustle and bustle that comes with the short North Dakota summers is now officially in full swing. Yeah, we’ve gotta cram it all in before the snow flies again.

And all I want to do is lay next to this guy in the sunshine and soak it all in.

Monday. I have been dreading you and all of your promises about grocery shopping, finishing the laundry, meeting deadlines, cleaning up those dishes that have been sitting over the weekend, returning phone calls, sorting through emails, attending meetings, planning events and being forty-seven places at once with a homemade dessert.

Monday, I’m not ready for you yet.


It’s cloudy, the blue birds are chirping outside my window and my bed and the coffee are still warm.

Sigh.

Days like these remind me of when I was a teenager moping around with that little gray cloud of dread over my head about a chore I didn’t want to do or a class I didn’t want to attend. I remember looking at my cat stretched out on the couch in a spot of sun and wishing I was her…with no responsibilities, no chores, no dishwasher to unload, bed to make or homework to fuss over…nothing to concern herself with but sleeping and eating and pooping and lounging.

At these moments in my life I experienced the same jealousy toward anything with fur and four feet. The dogs and the simple lives they lead. No deadlines or term-papers.

The cows grazing on the hilltop, blissfully unaware of the life and death situations humans had to deal with regarding what to wear to prom or failing your drivers license test.

I wondered if horses felt humiliation. I figured they didn’t.

And I figured the grass and grain would suit me just fine if it meant I didn’t have to worry about being the only teenager in the world to never gain the legal qualifications to drive a car.

I wanted to lounge.

I wanted to graze.

I wanted to stand on a hilltop and let the breeze blow through my mane, my only concern to be switching my tail to keep the flies off of my back.

And it seems today I am regressing. Yes, facing this over-scheduled week I am once again experiencing those pangs of jealousy toward my furry companions who’s only chore is to walk past the food dish a few times to check to see if it’s full.

I want to snore away the morning like the lab at my feet.

I don’t want to make dessert.

I don’t want to do the dishes.

I don’t want to worry about supper or the business of picking out pants…or shoes.

Dogs don’t wear shoes.

And Pugs don’t have to make Jello Salad. Pugs hate Jello Salad.

And meetings.

And showers.
 Today would be good day to be the pug…

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Ahhh, country living.
The peace and quiet.

The gravel roads and sweet song birds.


The barbed-wire fences and big blue skies.


The green grass and horse poop in the yard…

The lack of a liquor store within an acceptable distance when you desperately need to find out who starred in that 1998 movie with Nicholas Cage, go to your computer in anticipation of the answer only to find that “Google” cannot be displayed….and probably won’t be for a good two to three weeks…because…well…you live in the middle of nowhere

That sinking feeling when you come to realize that you are not smart, you don’t have a good memory, you don’t know how many ounces there are in a gallon, how to actually make a hamburger casserole, what “decoupage” means, or the remedy you should use to treat that weird growth on the old horse’s ass…

you just know how to use the internet.

And now you don’t have it.

And you are in the middle of nowhere.

And you can’t Google anything.

So you go to town.

Get five bottles of wine.

Find a computer in civilization and Google “how to survive in the middle of nowhere without access to Google.”

And then laugh, because you just “Googled” “Google.”

But just a little, because, well, there are some things “Google” can’t help you with…

Especially when you don’t have internet.

Ahhh, country living…

The Steers vs. Pops vs. The Brush

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I think it’s time I address some things that have been making an appearance in my stories, walking past my camera lens, stomping at the pug, pooping in my yard, leaning up against the house and looking in my windows…

Yes, it’s time I explain…these guys.

There are five of them out here on this landscape. And they are the only cattle we have on this place through the winter until springtime when a whole mess of angus beef cattle arrive. Pops purchased these misfits from a neighbor who runs a herd for roping practice and rodeo events in the area. Before they stepped off the trailer and into the buttes of the ranch, they had spent their lives in arenas being chased by cowboys and cowgirls and moved around from pen to pen.

They are “the steers,” and they are here “for fun.”

See, we’ve always talked about having a small herd of cattle out here that look like the old west,  and these “longhorns” fit the bill. Each day they are on the wild grass and alfalfa hay they grow a few inches…both their bodies and their horns. I have enjoyed taking their pictures and meeting them on the trail on a walk or a ride through the pastures, but that’s about as far as their worth goes…unless we, ahem…decide one of them might make a good cheeseburger….

Because, well, they are “steers” and “steers” lack the adequate parts necessary for, ummmm, shall we say, “growing a herd.”

But up until this week that was all we really needed from them: to look pretty, munch on grass and stay home. Once the other 100+ cattle arrive at our place in a few weeks it will be no big deal to have them run with the ladies. We were looking forward to it. But it turns out the steers couldn’t wait for the women to come to them.  So they huddled up behind some bullberry bushes and made a plan to casually meander up the road and cross the cattlegard that has been filled in by the dust of the traffic to hook up with the hot momma’s grazing in our neighbor’s pasture on the highway. They all agreed that not only was the grass greener on the other side of the fence, but their chances of getting lucky increased by like 1,000%.

I mean, I can’t blame them. The only creature that has shown any interest in them in the past six months has been the pug, and, well, we can all agree that he’s generally confused…


what with the thinking he’s a momma cat thing and all…

Anyway, it turns out that just because a bovine is missing necessary reproductive parts does not mean his is missing any, uh…urges. And when Pops and I saddled our horses on a beautiful Tuesday afternoon to go retrieve them, we were sorely, sorely mistaken in our anticipation for a casual, laid-back ride. So much so that I let my stirrups hang a little long and my reigns a little too slack. By the time Pops and I made it to the cattlegard that was responsible for the possibility of an escape, we had settled into a comfortable ease, and so had our horses.

On the other side of the fence, just across the highway we spotted our white steer staring back at us from a black sea of cattle.He was nuzzling and sniffing and grazing close to his new-found lady friends. About 200 yards to the south one of the red guys was showing off, chasing a couple mommas around the pasture.

Figuring the other three couldn’t have strayed to far from the herd, we left White and Red to hang there while we searched for their brothers. The plan is always to get who you want together and then move them toward your destination. So we rode south around the tree row, down through our neighbor’s barnyard, in the creek bed, and back north across the highway again. We saw black cows and calves, a hawk, some oil-trucks, a few hundred birds…and no steers. Not too pleased with the outcome of our short hunt, we decided to chase the two located steers north toward home. Pops had me convinced it would be pretty easy, that they knew their way and we would just follow them up the road and put them in the corrals until we found the others.

We didn’t give much thought to the possibility that this plan had potential to turn into a shit-show. Because when two steers find themselves surrounded by 100 eligible and voluptuous women, they aren’t about to go home without a fight.

And fight they did.

The entire three miles.

After a strategic and high-speed move that separated the two steers from their girlfriends and sent them flying across the highway with Pops at their tails, I held my breath and prayed for a reprieve in traffic as Whitey veered back toward the road and toward his women before Pops cut him off from his plan and sent him through the gate of our pasture. I stayed back to close the gate as Pops continued following them toward the barnyard. I was thinking we were out of the woods, that they had been defeated and would get the hint to head toward home…pretty easy Tuesday afternoon ride. Just the right amount of excitement…

But as soon as I my head popped over the hill to discover Pops riding his sorrel at speeds we hadn’t yet hit on horses this spring to cut Whitey off as he escaped from the thick brush of the coulee and veered back toward the cattlegard of destiny, I regretted not shortening my stirrups and my reigns. This wasn’t going to be easy.

Now I’m not an expert in cattle maneuvering, and I sure as shit am not a cow-whisperer like my father, but from my experience once a couple stubborn cattle hit the brush in the middle of a roundup, you’d better cowboy-up. Because hitting the brush is a bovine’s way of giving you the middle finger. And I’ll tell you, the bovine middle finger was flying last Tuesday…

And this wouldn’t have been such a harrowing move on the steers’ part if the three miles that separates our barnyard from the neighbor’s wasn’t filled with some of the most gnarly, thick, bur infested, boggy, fallen-log-ridden brush in the county. It wouldn’t have been a big deal if the steers just walked through it and came out on the right side eventually. But that was not their plan.

Their plan involved an escape back to the south. Camouflaged by the now-budding trees and scrubby underbrush they figured they would get in the thick of it, and then when the cowboy on their trail was crossing a creek or leaning over to keep from being decapitated by a low-hanging branch they would turn on their heels and high-tail it towards the neighbor’s.

As for the girl on the paint? I guess I didn’t look too intimidating bouncing along after my Pops at high-speeds on the back of a horse that had different ideas about the situation. Ideas that included a fast trot through the trees regardless of whether there was a trail, a high jump across the creek and ignoring any signals received from her rider to stop.

Damn the stirrups.

Damn the reigns.

Damn the branch that just slapped me in the face…

And this is the way it went as I struggled and failed to keep up with Pops as he and those rebel steers weaved back and forth across 1,000 acres of land.

In one patch of brush and out the other, they zig-zagged their way toward the barnyard, the steers stopping only to hold still and try their luck at out-smarting the cowboy. But Pops is stubborn and those steers, those worthless runaways, weren’t about to get the best of him. Between tree branches snapping and black mud sloshing, I think I might have heard him wonder out loud whose idea it was to buy these damn things.

And from a quarter of a mile away I might have wondered out loud if Whitey would look good on the living room floor of the new house.

An hour and a half and seventeen brush patches later,  the steers found themselves in front of the barn where Pops latched the gate and I dismounted to pick my wedgie. His horse was lathered and sweaty and I was questioning my cowgirl skills and wondering if I would get bypassed in the plan to go with him to find the rest of the small herd.We locked the steers in the corrals in front of the barn until we could get a handle on the cattlegard situation and go back for the others later on.

But it turned out that during the night those rebel steers put their heads together and conjured up another successful escape route. And when Pops got to the barnyard yesterday to saddle his horse and finish his roundup, he discovered that although those two steers lost the battle on Tuesday…

they sure as shit won the war.

My thoughts exactly…

Love. Lust. Romance. It always wins in the end.

Essential parts or, ummmm, no essential parts…

Paddlefishing. Who said Rednecks aren’t fancy?

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Oh, the river. So calm, so peaceful. So beautiful and serene. Take a look at this scene and you would never guess that during the first week of May the shore is filled with hundreds of rednecks, grilling bratwurst, pitching tents, sporting camouflage, making small talk and casting their fishing poles and hooks into the current on a hope that emerging from the surface will be one of the North America’s largest freshwater fish.

Husband was one of those lucky rednecks.

He pulled this from the river on Friday afternoon.

It’s a paddlefish. 74 lbs of a prehistoric, dinosaur-esque creature with fins and no scales, tiny eyeballs and a long flat nose from which it gets its name.

Husband’s smiling because he’s managed to snag one with a giant rod, reel and hook at the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers where, ironically, the state’s biggest and brightest rednecks work to harvest a creature that supplies some of the best and most coveted caviar in the nation.

Who says hicks aren’t fancy.


I can say this because I’m one of them. And I am behind my camera-phone barely able to hold the thing up while my dearly beloved basks in his victory. Because I have been casting and whipping my giant fishing rod into the channel of the river for nearly three hours and I haven’t caught anything but a couple of logs, lots of sticks and my father-in-law’s boat.

Yup.

Caught that thing on the first cast.

But I was happy for husband. And so were the 20+ people down stream from him when he hollered “FISH ON!” and worked to keep the creature on the line. The other fisher men, women and kids who shared our sandbar came running toward where they saw the fish roll to the surface to assist with its capture. Two kids appeared with a gaff (a long stick with a hook on the end used to pull the giant river-dwelling creature to shore), a girl came over with her camera and muck boots, a couple older men chimed in with advice, our friend waded through the strong current to try to locate the thing and I screamed and started running toward it with my video camera fully engaged.

That’s the way it is out there during the few short weeks when these massive and strange creatures are up for catch. Sports-people from all over the region gather at the banks of the river, pitching tents, making little cities with their campers, revving the engines of their pickups, barbecuing, drinking beer and sharing fish stories. Depending on how the fish are moving fisher-people generally have less than two weeks to snag their fish before the limit is reached and the season is closed. So they move through campsites and shoot the breeze, asking about the catch-count so far, exchanging stories about the one that got away, the one that weighed almost 100 lbs, and the one their friend’s, sister’s grandmother caught yesterday up river from them…

Yup, if you happen to be down river from someone who snagged a paddlefish, their fish story becomes your fish story. Because one man cannot reel one of these creatures in on his own. It seems it takes a village of men and women in muck boots and ball caps cheering you on, offering advice, grabbing supplies, hollering, and leaning in toward the water to see what’s on the other end of the line that’s bending the pole and making the fisher-person attached to it sweat and squirm for a good five to fifteen minute fight.

If it sounds intense to catch one of these buggers, I tell you, it is.

But it doesn’t take skill.

I know because once upon a time I caught one myself. I was somewhere in-between the first verse and chorus of a Disney song as I cast that giant hook as far as I could throw it…(ahem…three feet in front of me)…into the current. I looked over my shoulder to my audience shaking their heads at me on top of the steep banks. I  laughed and threw one of my arms in the air to really hit the punch line of Pocahontas’s “Just around the river bend”  and just as I started in on my grand finale my hook caught something and jerked me dangerously close to the edge of the bank and ironically close to a literal image of the song I was performing. I gripped my pole and worked to regain my footing just as my brother-in-law came bounding down the riverbank to grab the back of my shirt to prevent me from becoming just another casualty of the sport.

It was the hardest I’d ever worked at the sport of fishing–a sport that usually involves me sticking my pole in the sandy banks of the river while I kick back with sunflower seeds and a brewsky and wait for the catfish to bite.

But it was exhilarating leaning back against the weight of the fish and the current of the river, reeling the beast toward shore as the party of people hanging by the river with me scrambled to help retrieve my catch with nets and gaffs and rules and superstition.

We got the fish to shore and, at 25 lbs, it wasn’t a whopper in paddlefish land, but it was the biggest fish I’ve ever caught. And ever since I  stood on the banks of the river in the rain and my camouflage coat, channeling every red-neck fiber in my body as I held that fish up for the world to see, I’ve been itching to re-live that feeling.

And so have the hundreds of other fisher-people who flock to the banks of our rivers each year.

They come with their coolers and sleeping bags to hash out the game plan, meet up with friends, and re-live past year’s catches the same way we re-live my fish story every year when I meet my in-laws and friends from college and Canada at the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone River at the beginning of May.

Yes, paddlefishing is a tradition for us that includes matching t-shirts, beer darts, barbecue, laughter, bad jokes and memories of each fish caught.

And this year husband gets the bragging rights as the only man in our party of twenty who actually pulled something living from that river.

Oh, it doesn’t matter if he only casted like seven times.

It doesn’t matter that me and two of my friends stood in ice-cold water up to our crotches casting and reeling in the current of the two converging rivers as the water and paddlefish floated on by for hours.

It doesn’t matter that we wanted it so bad we held our breath and made up our own superstitious chants as we pulled back our lines, visualizing, sending positive energy into the river as our bare legs turned raw in the deep mud of the river and our arms turned to noodles with each hefty cast.

We were not bitter when husband pulled that whopper of a fish right out from under our noses. Nope. We dropped our poles and went screaming toward him with cameras and hands clasped in delight.

We took his moment with him. We oooed and awwweed over the event that was to be a part of our story too. We shared our reaction: how S had jumped out of the boat and into water up to her knees when she heard husband holler. How L threw her arms in the air and grabbed her camera. How B and my father in law were convinced husband lost it when the fish didn’t reappear…

How husband stayed calm, cool and collected as I screeched and ran and jumped up and down…

How the clouds were fluffy and the sky was blue and the sun was so warm we could wear shorts and tank tops and walk around in bare feet…

How husband caught a paddlefish on his seventh cast…

and how I caught the boat on my first….

a log on my second…

the river bank on my third…

a buzz on my forth…

and fifty-seven sticks in between.

Paddlefishing.

It’s not a sport…

It’s a lifestyle.

I might as well grow fur.

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I live in a barnyard.

Literally.

I can walk out my door and, if I forget to look down, I will more than likely step in horse poop.

I can watch the steers graze from my bathroom window while I brush my teeth.


There’s more gravel and mud in my entryway than there is out in the corrals.

Somedays I think I am literally growing fur just to fit in.

But then I remember it’s been three weeks since I shaved my legs.

Civilized women shave their legs.

But what’s the point? Really? I mean I’ve been back  home at the ranch nearly two years and it seems that whatever refinement I picked up while I was away living along city streets has slowly dissolved out here where the racoons help themselves to the cat food and pets show up at your door missing eyeballs.

I mean surrounded by characters like these, it’s only a matter of time until I start taking on their behavior and characteristics.

I’m afraid it’s already happening.

Because I’ve been known to show up to the hair salon or shopping mall with woodticks stuck to my head, find cockleburs in my bed and arrive at the office with horse hair on my jacket and mud on my fancy shoes. I’m afraid if I already smell like my barnyard friends, I might as well start rolling around in the grass…

chewing on sticks…

sneaking up on mice…

and howling in the kitchen….

Search: Delinquent Pug Therapy/Rehabilitation Program

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Yesterday I awoke at 6 am from my usual spot nestled underneath a stack of pillows to the sounds of cursing, heavy sighing, a constant stream of “Whhhyyy?! Whhhyyy?” and other sounds of disbelief coming from the entryway of our little house, about thirty feet away from where I was dreaming about falling out of airplanes.

“Are you ok?” I whimpered, poking my head out from under the covers, holding my breath for a reply from my dearly beloved. “What is going on?”

To which dearly beloved replied with a stream of curse word combinations that I am quite sure had never been used together up until that morning.

“#@$%$, #$#@@!, #$#@! Whhhyy?! WWhhhyy? %*#&@!”

Well, 6 am is pretty damn early and as I stretched out and rolled over underneath the covers I took a quick inventory of the situation, trying to decide if it would be worth sacrificing the last half-hour I was allowed in blissful sleep to get my butt out of bed and check on the poor man I promised to have and hold until death due us part.

Surely he wasn’t dying.  But after husband got it together enough to utter the answer to the sounds of misery coming from his body as he attempted to lace up his boots for a work day, I decided that perhaps the best choice for the planet would be to pull those pillows back over my head…maybe just until I heard his pickup door slam and pull out of the drive.

Maybe forever.

Because I might need a while to figure out the question I am going to pose for you today. I have been contemplating it for a good full day and haven’t come up with the answer yet.

I am not sure I ever will.

But if I can find an answer, a solution, a good therapist, or even a decent excuse, it might mean that the pug will be allowed to live to see another day.

And so I ask you, what turns a (relatively) good dog bad?

What switch flips in the mind of a perfectly innocent animal that converts a lazy, grunting, face-licking pet into an all out delinquent?

What traumatizing experience knocks the already crooked halo off of the dog’s head to make way for the devil horns that have sprouted between his floppy ears?

I can’t pin-point the event that turned my lovable clown dog into a deviant werwolf, but I think yesterday morning made it official: he’s acting out.

I should have seen this coming, I should have sent him to the rehabilitation center before it came to this, but I thought I could handle it. I thought I could keep him from running away to the oil location behind our house. Or if I couldn’t keep him home, at least I could understand that a dog follows his nose, and you can’t blame him if his nose smelled beef jerky and Gatorade.  But I could have saved myself dozens of trips to retrieve him if only I would have called the pet therapist when he first packed his bag and ditched us.

But no. I had a solution. More food, comfortable kennel lockdown and long walks at night.

I love my dog. Surly he would behave and stick around on this program.

But I’m beginning to think he doesn’t love us in the same way…

 

Oh, I know we all have our quirks. We all make mistakes. And although I have not quite forgiven his runaway antics, I have full intentions of reconciliation after he has decided to discontinue the reckless and disrespectful behavior he has recently displayed.

But it hasn’t happened yet.

And neither has his affinity for digging in the garbage when my back is turned, shitting on my floor at 4 am after his one meek attempt at waking us has failed, consuming and digesting my pens and the heel of my favorite black pumps, and jumping  on the forbidden couch and hiding under husband’s favorite blanket as soon as he leaves the room.

The pug. He’s slippery and slimy and knows exactly how to use that look (you know, the one that Puss N Boots gives on Shrek?) to his advantage. Only the pug’s look is even more pathetic, because, well, he only has one eye.

But I am working on forgiving him because he’s part of the family.  He’s pretty much good for nothing, but I admit, he makes us laugh.

But nobody was laughing yesterday morning when he committed the most heinous, disrespectful, criminal act of his short (and I fear,  nearly complete) life.

Nobody was laughing when husband got showered and dressed for the day, combed his hair, filled up his coffee thermos, pulled on his nice new socks and stepped right into a sopping wet puddle that had somehow formed on the inside of his work boot.

“WWWHHHATTT THEE HELLLL?!!!” (I think that’s the part that woke me up from my terrifying skydiving dream…right before I hit the ground…)

And after much pacing and more cursing and arm waving, husband assessed the situation and the stale odor that had wafted its way up to his nostrils.

He came to only one conclusion.

Nope, no one was laughing...except this guy...

And now again, for my question: What would posses a pug to piss in the boot of the one man on the planet who could destroy him, make his life miserable, keep him off the couch indefinitely and ensure that he spends the rest of his days in that dreadful Santa suit and trapper hat?

Are you ready for a long and tortured future in this outfit pug? I don't think you are...

And most importantly, how can a wife, a wife who had the brilliant idea of bringing a pug puppy home to the family in the first place, the same wife who has been similarly tortured by her pet throughout the years, find a way to adequately channel her anger while stifling her hysterical laughter at the despair and contempt laced with curse words flying out of her husband’s mouth?

I mean, I will eventually have to come out from under those pillows and deal with the situation…

But you have to admit, that $#!t’s funny…

Anyone know of any pug rehabilitation centers?

Victoria’s Secret models don’t get wood ticks…

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Feel it? You do don’t you? That tingling crawling up your bare leg, on the inside of your pants, towards parts of your body you’d rather not mention. You’ve got a creepy feeling, and now that feeling has spread to the back of your neck where you’re sure something is there poking up toward your hair-line. Go ahead, slap it. Scratch it. I’ll wait.

Ok, now it’s moved to your arm where you feel like the hairs are standing on end. There’s something there you’re sure, and it ain’t a mosquito. What is it? Where is it? You crank your elbow around and retch your neck toward your back to reach it.

Nothing.

But something! It has to be something! There it is moving up your leg again.

Oh, oh dear. You’re stripping off your pants? No worries. I understand. I’ll look away while you inspect your pale white stems, leaning over to rub them down, scratching, calling to your husband, your momma, your sister, your preacher to come and look! Come and check! I think I have a tick!

A tick?!

Yup.

You found it didn’t you.

Invasive little bastards (sorry preacher).

They’re here. It’s official.

He looks innocent, but crawling under that fur and those floppy ears is a nightmare...

Yup. It’s tick season and I’ve rung it in in typical ranch style fashion, celebrating by discovering my first little friend while on a shopping spree to Victoria Secret. I had showered, combed my hair, put on some makeup and made the long trip to the big town for undies. I was feeling good. I was feeling a little less like a grubby ranch girl and nearly presentable, dare I say damn sexy while I thumbed through the racks of impractical underwear. I was wincing at the thought of a permanent lace wedgie when I reached up to scratch my head only to discover one of the many reasons I will never be a Victoria Secret model.

And it's too bad, I mean, I showed so much promise in my early years...

Because I can’t imagine Heidi Klum has ever discovered a wood tick stuck in her hairline while frolicking amongst the ridiculous push-up bras and butt-crack revealing undergarments and smelly lotions and powders and weird music only to wonder just how long the damn thing had been there.

Nope. Victoria Secret models shave their legs…

Victoria Secret models have other people comb their hair for them…

Victoria Secret models live in places with white sand and big sunglasses and gentle winds that blow their hair in just the right direction.

Victoria Secret models don’t have to check for ticks.

But dammit, it’s April in Western North Dakota and I have been reminded, once again,  I am no model. And unless I want to show up to a meeting with one of the world’s most loathed blood sucking insects taking up permanent residence on my body, I have to check for them everywhere and on a regular schedule.

Because out here surrounded by grasses and trees and fallen logs and dogs that never stay home, they are indeed everywhere.

Yesterday I found a really large family of them having a Thanksgiving style meal inside the pug’s left ear.

Disgusting.

I  wrestled my pudgy black mutt to the ground while I applied Frontline to his back and wondered if they make something like that for wild humans who live in wild places.

Seriously people, after finding a wood tick in my bed last night I have decided I’m not above wearing a tick collar. I mean, I am sure I wouldn’t be the first human to go to these lengths to avoid the plague of the pests. Maybe I could make some sort of fashion statement.

Ugh, it’s intense people, the hatred I’ve had for them ever since I was a kid who would come home from the trees at night only to strip down to my underwear while my momma pulled up to sixty or more wood ticks from my skinny, pale body.

When I was that age, nothing could keep me from those woods. But the ticks? They tried their damnedest.

And we still hate each other.

Well, I hate them.

They love me.

They love the place behind my ear, the spot where my waistband rests at my back, my arm pits, my thick head of hair and even my damn belly button for the love of Martha.

Scratch…scratch…scratch…

You feel itchy don’t you. You’re running your hands through your hair, huh? Calling your husband?  It’s that spot on your leg again?

Go ahead, take off your jeans. Inspect for the insect.

I’m doing the same.