Confessions of a Pioneer Woman

New Location...

2006-10-20T06:19:00.000-07:00

Head on over!

www.thepioneerwoman.com

And the Winner Is...

2006-10-19T04:04:00.000-07:00

Drumroll, please...

CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT!

"Give That Photo a Name" Contest - Enter Now!

2006-10-18T03:29:00.000-07:00

This photo needs a name. And this scenario needs an explanation. I posted this photo once before, the same evening I captured it. You can read about it here. Immediately after posting it, however, I regretted wasting it on a mere post when it could have been offered up as a Photo Contest Sacrifice for all of you brilliant folks.

To enter the contest, study the photo. Look upon its beauty and irony. Let it slither into your soul and live. Then leave your suggested photo title in the Comments section of this post. One entry per person, no entries after 7 p.m. Pacific Time. The most creative and descriptive photo title wins.

Winner will be announced Thursday morning, in a very special manner; tune in to find out. Grand Prize is something very near and dear to my heart, and most fitting for this very special occasion: a $60 Starbucks gift card. Just think, a week's worth of legal stimulants could be yours! Good luck.

My Rust-Colored Satin Sassoon Panties

2006-10-17T03:12:00.000-07:00

I was in eighth grade. I'd just finished Nutcracker rehearsal that Sunday afternoon and still had time to make it to my church youth group meeting. On that particular Sunday, the meeting was to take place at a local funeral home, where we highly impressionable young people would be treated to the grand tour of the facilities. What a thrill. Running a little late, I asked my ballet carpool to drop me off at the funeral home so I could join the tour, which had already commenced.

I caught up with my youth group in the coffin room---the place where mourning family members were taken and permitted to browse the available caskets in search of the perfect final resting bed for their loved ones. The funeral director, a tall, dark, and most decidedly non-handsome lug of a man, continued his speech, already in progress: "We give the family members all the freedom and time they need to look among our many designer caskets. To touch them. To lift the lids and look inside. To caress the fabric and envision their deceased relatives lying within."

And just like that, it happened, out of the blue, and without malice aforethought. It happened, and I've been trying ever since to figure out the reason I did it. Quietly and deliberately, and without being noticed, I reached into the ballet bag that hung on my shoulder. I felt around inside until I found what I was searching for: the rust-colored Sassoon bikini panties I'd changed out of before Nutcracker rehearsal. Once the panties were in my hand, I pulled them out of the bag, eyeing carefully the casket closest to me. It was light blue aluminum with matching satin trim and brass accents. Better yet, it was half open, half closed. Perfect. And as quickly as you could say, "Sassoon", I tossed my crumpled panties into the closed end of the coffin. Then I simply filed out behind the rest of the youth group, which, by that time, was headed for the embalming room.

To this day, I can't explain why I did it. It wasn't at the prodding of some mischievous friend standing nearby. I didn't do it as a dare or a prank, nor did it stem from any anger I felt toward either the funeral home in which I stood or the patron who would ultimately browse the coffin room looking for light blue caskets to house beloved Aunt Fern or Grandpa Claude or Cousin Bill.

Sometimes I think it was simply a bizarre, isolated release of built-up pre-teen angst. You know, the kind that causes some kids to key cars, to vandalize buildings, to self-mutilate, not to make light of that in any way. My own particular brand of angst was perhaps a little more benign than others, but on that particular Sunday afternoon, it might have been at an unusually high level, perhaps too high for my little eighth grade soul to absorb: "Steve Kerr is cute." "I wish I was skinnier." "I'm not preppy enough." "I think Steve Owen laughed at me when I walked in." "I don't want to ride the bus tomorrow." "My boobs are getting bigger." "I want to quit ballet." "I have a retarded brother." "My math teacher is mean." And on that day, at that moment, tossing my rust-colored satin Sassoon panties into a half-closed coffin while on a youth group funeral home tour provided the very release---and relief---that I apparently needed.

To the mourning person or persons who unwittingly stumbled upon my panties while you were innocently selecting the final resting bed for your loved one: I'm sorry. I hope it didn't worsen your grief or confuse you or make you question the quality of the funeral home you'd chosen. They do good work. I hope the sight of my crumpled panties inside that particular light blue coffin isn't chief among your memories of the days following your loved one's passing. Or if it is, I hope it provides you a moment of levity in the midst of your memory and not horror or shock or additional discouragement.

And most of all, I do sincerely hope that my panties were clean. If you happen to be reading this, will you please call me and let me know? Because this thought occasionally causes me to sit up in bed and scream at night. And I'd really love some resolution.

Thank you. And I'm sorry for your loss.

New "Give That Photo a Name" Contest This Wednesday

2006-10-16T07:13:00.000-07:00

Come one, come all and participate in another exciting, stimulating, riveting, and always-cerebral photo naming contest. If you've never jumped in before, c'mon! Walk on the wild side. Grand Prize will be a f-f-fabulous item from my junk drawer.

Tell your friends, tell your parents, tell your spouse, tell your postal carrier, tell your dental hygienist. See you Wednesday!

You Talkin' to Me?

2006-10-16T05:19:00.000-07:00

Just look at this guy. He's so tough, it's almost scary.

"What're you looking at?"

"You talkin' to me?"

But wait! Look what happens when he holds his baby boy:

Awww, he ain't so tough after all.

Driving Home From a Party With My Punk-Ass Little Sister

2006-10-15T06:02:00.000-07:00

My punk-ass little sister is visiting me this weekend, so she agreed to be my date last night for a fundraising party I planned to attend. And Marlboro Man was all too happy to hand over the reins to her so he could stay home and watch football.

My sister and I had a jolly good time at the party, but once we left we had to drive over 45 minutes to get back home. For awhile, we just enjoyed the drive, taking in the scenery of the small towns we passed through:

But then my sister became a bored and started maniacally snapping pictures of the scene inside the car. Here's me talking to my children on the phone and trying to stay on the road after going blind from the nuclear flash of her camera:

That shot wasn't enough for her mischievous little soul, so she did it again, including herself in the next shot:

And what is UP with my fingers? They look like Freddy Kruger's blade claws. Which of my parents is responsible for those things? My whole life, I've wanted tiny little fingers. I'm going to file a complaint.

By that time, I was sick of driving and bored to tears myself, so I joined in her little sophomoric shenanigans. She made me do it.

It was all for show, I promise. No boogers were harvested as a result of this picture.

Suckers.

2006-10-14T03:04:00.000-07:00

Oh, What a Beautiful Morning

2006-10-13T20:29:00.000-07:00

It's the perfect morning to gather some cattle. The sun is shining and the air is deliciously cool and crisp. Better yet, I'm in the car with a big cup up coffee and the heater running, following along with my camera. Life is sweet!

Here are the two middle children, sticking close together as they round up the herd.

Our oldest daughter has become very confident on her horse and is now able to go off by herself and round up a stray. She's a really good rider, Marlboro Man tells me. And I take his word for it since I wouldn't know what a good rider looked like any more than an Eskimo would recognize a good golf swing.

Her younger sister isn't too far behind, you know.

It helps that their dad always takes time to help them.

He even falls back and takes it slow so he can help the kids bring up the rear. I just love that dude.

Have a Beautiful Morning, everyone!

French Fries, Ketchup, Mayonnaise, and Poop

2006-10-12T02:02:00.000-07:00

I took the kids to the zoo yesterday. I forgot my camera (of all things) but it's really just as well because if I'd taken it along, I would now be posting the following shots:

- A chimpanzee with its finger in its bottom.
- Eight African penguins pooping in unison, underwater.
- A tiger licking its bottom.
- An elephant pooping. We seem to have shown up just in time for everyone's morning routine.
- A zoo employee scratching his bottom. Digging, actually.
- A lemur pooping. It became difficult not to take it personally after awhile.
- Children larger than my nine-year-old riding around in strollers.

After a good fifteen minutes of riding the train around the entire zoo, we'd worked up quite an appetite. So we parked ourselves at the zoo snack bar for a little replenishment. Now, because we were at the zoo and not in the real world where 37-year-old women who wish to remain on the western side of the weight continuum don't eat such things, I took the liberty of feasting on french fries dipped in my favorite Freshman Fifteen Condiment: ketchup mixed with mayonnaise. It had been years, but it was so wonderful. I could just feel the pink ooze squeezing out over the waist of my black yoga pants.

Problem was, I didn't have the courage to order my own fries, so I was just helping myself to my childrens'. My food-possessive four-year-old withstood only a minute or two of my stealing his fries before he finally--and very clearly--voiced his complaint:

"Mommy, I'm gonna poke you in a hole and make you dead."

Nonplussed, I asked for clarification. "Do you want me to be dead?"

My younger daughter intervened. "No!" she said, glaring at her brother. "She brought us to the zoo!"

My oldest daughter got involved. "Yeah!" she said. Then, after a long pause, she continued, "And we wouldn't have anyone to drive us home."

I was still staring at the pigeon perched on the ledge directly above me, certain that it, too, would soon be pooping on my spirit, when she continued, "Oh...that's okay. We'd have her cell phone."

I polished off the rest of their fries. Just to teach those punks a lesson.

Marlboro Man Likes Football

2006-10-11T04:33:00.000-07:00

Marlboro Man likes football. It's a lifelong interest. A passion, really. And he knows it like a surgeon knows his science. And fortunately for our marriage, he isn't the obnoxious breed of football fan---the kind that paints each half of his face a different color and parks in his recliner with a cooler of beer and a Playboy and beats his wife on Superbowl Sunday. No, he's rather a silent Football Surgeon, prefering to watch his game in peace, analyzing each and every play within the privacy of his own mind.

My sister had a boyfriend in college named George. He was such a rabid, ridiculous football fan that he'd convulse and scream any time his team made the slightest mistake or received a remotely questionable call. Wetsy tolerated it for awhile, but one day during his football game antics, George jumped up and accidentally whacked himself in the face, causing his eyeglasses to fly across the room and break as they landed on her dorm room floor. This image infested her brain and her heart, and it turned out to be a dealbreaker for their relationship.

I'm not a natural sports fan, but a couple of years ago I took the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" attitude with Marlboro Man, and began watching---and eventually enjoying---football games. It didn't exactly hurt that my alma mater, USC, was just beginning their winning streak at the time. But surprisingly, the interest has really stuck and I've become a pretty steady football fan alongside my Football Surgeon husband.

So I love football and all. But I want to talk about it while I'm watching it. I want to talk about the intricacies of the game as my feeble mind processes it. Last weekend was an example. Deep into the third quarter of the 'SC game, I begin: "Okay, here's what I think about..." I notice my loving husband try unsuccessfully to keep from rolling his eyes as I continue. "You know when one team's about to score and the ball's on, like, the one-yard line, and it's really really close, and they start the play, but the defense is so intense that the offense can barely move the ball even one inch?"

"...Yessss?" Marlboro Man asks, inviting me---practically begging me---with his pained tone to end this torture by finishing my question as soon as humanly possible so he can return to the game.

I surge on. "Well, what I think about is, why doesn't the defense play that well when they're on, like, the SIXTY-yard line?"

My husband shifts uncomfortably in his comfortable chair. He begins, "Okay, first of all, there IS no sixty-yard line." He takes a deep breath and starts again, "But in answer to your question..."

"STOP!" I say, pressing my palms to both my ears. "I don't want to talk about it any more!!!" And I didn't. It just wasn't fun for me after that. And there IS a sixty-yard line. It's just that they---the ESTABLISHMENT---call it the "Other Team's Forty." How euphemistic is that? I'm sorry, but I just can't be expected to be a party to that kind of flawed, ridiculous logic.

I like close-ups. And I like your thoughts.

2006-10-10T03:48:00.000-07:00

Which one do you like?

No, you have to pick one. Even if you don't like any of them. Say a stranger knocks on your door and you answer it and he has a paintball gun and says he's going to pelt all of your white furniture with violet paint if you don't pick one. Or say the proprietor of all the cacao beans in the world says he'd going to withhold international shipments so no one on earth can manufacture chocolate until you pick one. Or pretend Ed McMahon is on your doorstep holding an envelope in one hand and a lit match in the other and he says you have to pick one within four seconds or he's going to torch it.

Which one would you choose? And why?

Tickleback Mountain

2006-10-09T04:48:00.000-07:00

I need to talk about Becky again. I'm sorry, but she's the kind of person who can really get inside one's head to the point that one can't really purge one's self of the thoughts until one talks about her to the point that one can get on with one's life.

There are just some activities in this life that are so tremendously gender-specific, it's beyond laughable even to imagine the other sex doing them. Tickling backs is a perfect example. When girls tickle each other's backs, they take turns, well, tickling each other's backs. It's as much a part of girlhood as slumber parties and Hello Kitty, and there's not a man on earth who can relate to it or even begin to comprehend what it's about. And I suggest they not try. Becky and I used to tickle each other's backs. It was such a normal, everyday activity that we never even had to spell out an entire phrase or say anything like, "Hey! I've got a great idea! Let's tickle each other's backs!" It was always just a certain look, followed by one word: "Tickleback?"

We tickled backs, Becky and me. But Becky wasn't content just to mindlessly tickle. She had to have some angle, some purpose or objective to her tickling or nothing would compel her to do it. So she developed a sort of "Guess That Picture"-type game, wherein one of us would, with our index finger, sketch an imaginary picture on the other's back while the other would try to guess what the picture was.

This turned out to be way too difficult, though, translating the random sensations we were feeling on our backs to a random object in the other's mind like a tree, a shoe, or a cat. So Becky narrowed down the field and declared that we would from here on out limit our Tickleback drawings solely to the characters from Family Circus, a comic book series we were obsessed with during the greater part of the late 70's/early 80's.

Becky's new Tickleback method really took, and soon we had quite a rhythm going. When we drew Dolly, with her long, smooth ponytail, we'd make long, graceful, swooping motions with our finger. Jeffy's short, wavy hair, translated to squiggly, tickly movements, and Billy and Barfy the Dog were easy enough. But PJ? Ahhhh, PJ. PJ felt so good. His little baby crew cut required the tickler first to make a round circle for the head, then quick, abrupt pecking strokes for the short little strands of hair. Gosh, did it ever feel good. "Ahhhh, it's PJ!" we'd guess. "It's PJ! Ahhhh."
It's so fun being a girl.

Family Circus was a good time; a glorious time. But alas, once we mastered drawing and guessing all the characters, Becky soon grew tired of it and felt the need to move on. She announced that the new Tickleback Guessing Game would be based on our second favorite comic book series, Archie. Now, discerning Archie from Jughead was usually as simple as feeling the difference between a normal, oval-shaped head and a clunky, rectangular one. But since Betty and Veronica's heads were similarly shaped and their hair was smooth and the same length, we had to rely on other anatomical attributes to highlight their differences so the recipient could make the most accurate guess.

Becky decided that Veronica's boobs were bigger. I stared at the comic book pages for awhile and really couldn't see it. In fact, on some days, Betty seemed to most definitely out-boob Veronica, if only ever so slightly. But for Tickleback purposes, and because Becky made not only the Tickleback rules but pretty much all the other rules in the tiny microcosm that was our friendship, Veronica's boobs were much bigger. So when the tickler made the finger-drawing of a human form followed by a huge, curvy brush stroke that abruptly left then suddenly curved back toward the body, the recipient knew and could shout out the answer with certainty: "VERONICA! VERONICA!"

We stuck with Archie for some time, but then Becky, to this day my only Baptist friend, unilaterally declared that it was sinful for us to be drawing boobs, let alone with our fingers, let alone on each other's naked backs. And just like that, our Tickleback days were over.

But I wasn't ready to let go. "Can't we go back to Family Circus?" I begged. But Becky said no. There was no going back. Our innocence was gone.

These days, Marlboro Man will sometimes affectionately rub my back and occasionally, when I feel a familiar swoop here or curve there, I feel the words come to the tip of my tongue, words I want to say and words I would have said to Becky 25 years ago had she not lowered the Baptist boom on me and closed the door forever on our Tickleback Days: "Draw PJ! Draw Jughead! Draw Veronica!"

But I don't. It would take way too long to explain. And besides that, it makes me miss Tickleback Mountain too much.

I wish I knew how to quit it.

Sisters on a Trampoline

2006-10-07T17:18:00.000-07:00

Earlier today, I was typing the intended title for this post, "Trampoline Shots of the Week." I slipped, and without even flinching, typed "Trampoline Shits of the Week" instead.

I even saved the post to add more photos later, and never even noticed. Just now, when I opened the post and became aware of my massive Freudian Slip, I quickly changed the "i" to "o"...but then it all just looked wrong so I immediately changed the title altogether. Then I started emotionally spiraling downward, wondering what in my psyche could have caused me to refer to my darling daughters as shits, and thinking I must need a break or a massage or a pedicure or something before I really start to go bad.

But then I saw that the "i" is right next to the "o" on the keyboard. So now I'm convinced it was just an innocent typo. Yeah. I'm sure it was just a typo.

Can I still have the pedicure, though?

Six Plaguing Questions I Have About This Photo, Ca. 1986 (alternate title: "Hell")

2006-10-07T05:04:00.000-07:00

1. Why the hell are my bangs that short?
2. What the hell am I looking at?
3. How the hell many hours did I spend in the tanning booth to get my skin that color? (hint: ask my dermatologist.)
4. How the hell many layers of blush am I wearing?
5. Why...why...why the...why the hell did I feel compelled to match my eyeshadow to my clothes?
6. Why the hell didn't anyone tell me?

Hell.

Guess What Happened to Me Once?

2006-10-06T05:05:00.000-07:00

It was 9:30 p.m. I was seventeen and was leaving the ballet studio I'd gone to my whole life. Rehearsals for The Nutcracker had started and we'd gone later than expected that night, and, in a hurry to get home and talk on the phone with the band geek I had a crush on that fall, I threw on my street clothes and left the building before any of the other dancers.

As I walked toward my car, I noticed a few human figures walking on the sidewalk a couple of blocks away, but because I was in the town in which I'd been born and had grown up on a golf course surrounded by trees and green grass and not one person who didn't love me and care about my well-being, I didn't give their presence a moment of thought.

I got into my car and started the engine. My windows were down, and just as suddenly as I heard the pounding of approaching feet on the pavement outside my car, I felt the jolt of a hard, metal object being thrust into my left temple. It was a shotgun.

"Get out of the car!" the male voice ordered. I did. And when I got my bearings and looked around, I saw that I was surrounded by not one, but six men. Immediately, two of the men grabbed each of my arms while the man with the shotgun said, "You're going to get in this car and drive us." And then, just as the two men holding my arms started to shove me back into my vehicle, one of the others suddenly pointed to the house across the street and yelled, "There's someone looking out the window!"

That moment, that fraction of a second, that smidgen of a moment in time, distracted the six men just enough to allow my agile ballet limbs to wriggle loose of their grip and run. I ran, knowing, but at the time not caring, that a shotgun was behind me. I ran, because instinctively I knew that the alternative---getting into the car and leaving with them---was unthinkable. I ran until I found the familiar door of my ballet studio, which I flung open and entered quickly. By that time, the six men had sped away in my car. I was safe. And did I ever have a story to tell my fellow ballerinas.

My car was gone. Along with my purse. And my Chorus Line tape and my Best of The Beatles tape and my Violent Femmes tape. But I wasn't, and the next three days, though rough, were tempered both by gratefulness that I'd successfully fled the abduction and the assurance that those criminals were probably nothing more than punks who'd been hellbent on rabble-rousing that one particular night.

But on the fourth day, my mom came upstairs to my bedroom at 6 a.m. and flipped on the light. The police had just called with the news that my car had finally been found, as had the criminals. They had, the night before, shot and killed a woman while attempting to steal her car. Seems my car had run out of gas on a country road right about the time she'd decided to go searching for her missing dog. They'd flagged her down, she had resisted, and they'd shot her in the back.

I testified at their murder trial, and they're in prison to this day. Though I wouldn't point to this one experience as the only thing that's shaped my life, it has definitely left its mark in definite ways. Some of them are good, some not. But twenty years to the day after it happened, I remain certain of the following things:

1. I was not meant to die that October night.
2. Most women who resist abduction do ultimately survive.
3. Being limber does have its advantages.
4. Life does go on.
5. Oh, and that house across the street? The one with the person in the window who distracted the criminals so I could get away? It was condemned at the time. No one lived there. *Chills*

6. Oh, and one more thing. Thank you, God.

How To Cook a Steak

2006-10-05T04:08:00.000-07:00

It's Thursday - time to think about what's for dinner this weekend. How 'bout a nice, juicy steak? Don't be intimidated; it's one of the easiest things in the world to cook, and it'll make your soul sing.

Let's cook a rib-eye today.

Look for a boneless rib-eye with "good marbling", which refers to the tiny lines of fat distributed throughout the steak. Marbling adds flavor, juiciness, and tenderness to the cooked steak. This particular steak is about 1" thick.

For this lesson, I'll use my trusty (but not rusty) iron grill pan/griddle. Any grill pan will do, or you can certainly use a regular (but not nonstick) skillet.

Go ahead and turn the burner on medium to medium-high heat; you'll want the pan to be very hot when you're ready to start cookin'.

Here's my never-fail arsenal: Lawry's Seasoned Salt, McCormick Lemon Pepper, and a nice stick of regular (salted) butter.

Look no further for steak seasoning, ladies and gents. I've found nothing better.

First, sprinkle a light layer of Lawry's...

...Then follow with a very generous sprinkling of Lemon Pepper.

Now that the pan's nice and hot, rub the stick of butter all over the cooking surface.

For one steak, I'll melt about a fourth of a stick of butter.

Now, let the butter sit on the pan for a couple of minutes...

...long enough for it to become nice and brown, as shown in the second photo. NOTE: Some form of cooktop ventilation is advisable for this cooking method, as the butter smokes like crazy. Turn that fan on high!

Next, place the seasoned steak on the hot pan.

Press it down firmly so the pan will leave nice, black grill marks on the meat.

1 minute, 45 seconds later, rotate the steak 90 degrees.

The purpose of this rotation is to form a criss-cross pattern in the grill marks, and to cook the surface of the steak more evenly. Notice that before I rotated it, the grill marks only went in one direction.

Two minutes later, go ahead and flip the steak over to the other side.

Notice the nice criss-cross pattern of the grill marks.

After 1 minute, 45 seconds, rotate it 90 degrees and finish cooking for another two minutes.

The Finished Product

It doesn't get any better than this.

This is medium-rare, my favorite. Remember, you can always throw it back on the pan if it's too red for your taste...but you can't UNDO it if it's overcooked, so be careful. If you begin with a thinner steak, decrease the cooking time on all sides. And don't be afraid to cut a little slice in the steak to check the doneness as you're cooking. And remember that the steak will continue to cook slightly after you've removed it from the heat.

If you follow the aforementioned instructions carefully, here are some possible scenarios that will result:
1. If you cook it for your boyfriend, he will propose to you.
2. If you cook it for your girlfriend, she will give you a ninety-minute foot rub.
3. If you cook it for your husband, he will tell you he can't imagine being married to anyone else in the world.
4. If you cook it for your wife, she will give you a ninety-minute foot rub.
5. If you cook it for yourself, you'll decide you don't need no stinkin' spouse.
6. If you cook it for your friends, they'll never invite you over to their house for dinner again. You will have permanently raised the bar.

Go get 'em! And report back to me when you've completed the task.

I Have a Retarded Brother. His Name is Mike. Part Quatro.

2006-10-04T04:19:00.000-07:00

Growing up, it was always fun making My Retarded Brother, Mike mad. I tell ya, you just never knew what would come out of his mouth if he was pushed far enough.

In the 70's, my other, more normal, but still kind of retarded, brother, WDS, and I used to fling the typical Welcome Back Kotter insults at each other on a regular basis. "Up your nose with a rubber hose," WDS would shout at me. "In your ear with a can of beer," I'd reply. "Up your butt with a coconut," my loving brother would shout back. Ahhh, the nostalgia. How I miss those days of innocent sibling love.

All that time, My Retarded Brother, Mike was paying attention. He was storing up those choice Kotter phrases in case he needed to pull them out and use them on us one day. And eventually, he did. 'Cept Mike got so mad, his mind couldn't quite process the insults correctly so he came out with this: "IN...YOUR...EAR...WITH A...WALNUT!!!"

From time to time, just for kicks, I'd tell Mike I was going to call the cops on him. This was his biggest fear as a child, to be arrested and booked and put in a jail cell, so when I'd threaten to call the police, he'd get pretty worked up. One time, when I later told him I was just kidding, his face turned beet red and he shouted angrily, "REE!!!! YOU...ARE...A...DAMN!!!"

I am a DAMN?

Then there'd be the typical Mike Holiday Meltdown, which usually occurred either on Thanksgiving or Christmas because he became overtired and overstimulated and overstuffed, and when it happened, look out because the walls could very well come crumbling down. One Thanksgiving, for reasons I can't remember, Mike got ticked off at me and, lacking a well-though-out, more cerebral quip, simply started firing off whatever one-syllable missiles he could manage: "REE!!! YOU TURKEY DAMN BUTT ASS HELL." I'll always remember it was Thanksgiving because of his inclusion of the word "Turkey" at the very start of his list. Another memorable doozie that I think took place around Christmastime was "FART DUMB PIG BUTT!!!"

And I tell you, this stuff can really get in your head. There've been more than a few occasions in my years as an adult that I've become frustrated to the point of wanting to hurtle insults at people, not that I ever have, thank God, because all that usually comes to my mind is "IN YOUR EAR WITH A WALNUT YOU TURKEY DAMN BUTT HELL ASS FART PIG DUMB!" Seriously, I think as a penalty for my years of harrassing Mike, I was rendered handicapped by his repeated use of those insulting words to the point that I generally avoid conflict in my life because I know if I'm forced to be confrontational I won't think of anything normal or coherent to say.

I am a damn.

And a turkey butt hell.

Working Ranch 101: Shipping Cattle

2006-10-03T04:45:00.000-07:00

It's shippin' time! Yes, cattle ranchers eventually do have to actually sell the cattle they raise.

The cattle we shipped today are the same ones we weaned a few weeks ago. Out of that weaned bunch, we separated off the larger ones and sold them to a cattle buyer for a large feed yard in Texas. Once there, our little bovine buddies will live out the rest of their days eating whenever--and however much--they want.
Oh, how I'd love to be bovine...

On shipping day, the cattle trucks show up early and line up on the road to our house. The drivers hang out and shoot the breeze while we prepare the cattle for shipping.

The cattle are gathered and taken to the pens. They follow the call of the sook truck...

...while the rest of the guys bring up the rear on horseback.

Here's Marlboro Man with our oldest girl, keeping the herd moving along. I just love watching them ride together.

And now for the Moment of Truth: it's time to weigh the cattle and see just how much they've fattened up on our ranch. The formula's very simple: pounds equal $$$!

My pesky brother-in-law, Tim, pushes the cattle in groups onto the large scale.

After M.M. weighs the cattle in the small scale house, he hustles out to open the other side of the scale and count them as they file out.

After all the cattle are weighed, the trucks pull in, one-by-one, right up to the loading chute.

Our cowboy pushes them in groups up the loading chute and into the truck for their long journey to Texas.

"Aww, man! And I was JUST starting to like this place.
Oh, well...so long!"

Bye bye, girl. Thanks for the memories.

Hernia? JESUS!

2006-10-02T04:12:00.000-07:00

Ever seen Summer of '42? It's the coming-of-age story of Hermie, a 16-year-old vacationing on Nantucket Island who develops an enormous crush on Dorothy, a twenty-something beauty whose husband is off fighting in WWII. Hermie takes the liberty of helping Dorothy with odd jobs around her house while her husband is away, and one day offers to move some heavy boxes into her attic. Trying to come across as the big, strong male, Hermie warns Dorothy, "You shouldn't try to move those boxes yourself. You could get a hernia." Immediately, you feel Hermie's thick embarassment and later, as he's walking away from Dorothy's house, he chastises himself: "Hernia? JESUS!"

I can totally relate. My mind is positively swimming with heinous memories of times when I said the stupidest things. I've done a pretty good job of pushing them back into the dark recesses of my brain so I can function on a day-to-day basis, but when they do occasionally sneak out to the forefront, I squint violently and my hiney cringes like crazy.

Once during my senior year of high school, I stopped by the house of a junior boy - a boy with whom I was enjoying a friendly flirtation at the time. His parents, who were already somewhat skeptical of my older-woman intentions for their precious boy, were seated at the kitchen counter when I entered the scene. Their little scruffy dog scampered into the room, wet and muddy from playing out in the rain. The mom said, "You'll have to excuse Tippy; she doesn't smell very pleasant at the moment." Nervous and just wanting to make a good impression by being friendly and playful, I leaned down, scratched the dog's ears and said, "Awww, you're such a cute little smelly muff!"

Smelly muff? JESUS!

Then, one Saturday night in college, my boyfriend and his parents dropped by my apartment to pick me up. They had tickets to Phantom of the Opera and were taking us out for a big dinner beforehand. Walking out the door, his dad asked me, "Well, are you hungry?" Not content to leave it at that and simply answer yes, I attempted to spout off an impressive vocabulary word, thereby solidifying my status in their minds as a total keeper that their son would be nuts not to marry because I had such an extensive vocabulary and brilliant mind: "Oh, yes," I said, "I'm simply ravishing!"

Ravishing? JESUS!

A few years later, I was discussing a business concept with a new friend of mine. It was my initial idea, and I wanted her to bring her expertise to the table for a share in the profits. I was making my pitch to her and, trying to appear like a woman who had all the answers, I laid out my terms to my prospective partner as professionally and concisely as possible: "It'll be 60-30 all the way," I assured her.
"Ree?" she said, after a long, uncomfortable pause, "It's 60-40."

60-30? JESUS!

I'm a ravishing idiot. With a smelly muff, apparently.

Not really on that last part.

Cinderella...Dressed in Yella...Went Upstairs to Kiss Her Fella...

2006-10-01T04:52:00.001-07:00

Made a mistake...

Kissed a snake...

How many doctors did it take?

One...Two...Three...Four...

What are YOUR jump-rope rhymes? This is the only one I've ever known.

Lost and Bound

2006-09-30T19:00:00.000-07:00

Congratulations Snafu! Great thinking. "Lost" perfectly describes the forlorn expression on my girl's face, while "Bound" nicely explains the doll's predicament. Email me @ pioneerwoman2006@yahoo.com to claim your fabulous prize. A bevy of Staples paper clips awaits!

This was definitely a tough one, wasn't it? Creating an entire story to accompany the photo wouldn't have been such a challenge, but summarizing it all in a single title was no walk in the park. As usual, however, I was awed by the creativity and cleverness of my readers. Great job, all!

I held this unannounced, surprise contest today simply to reward you guys who took time out of your Saturday to drop by and visit. I also want everyone to know that I won't always warn you of impending photo naming contests; I'm liable to drop one on you at any time. Yeah, that's me - Miss Unpredictable, Miss You-Never-Know-What-to-Expect, Miss Keep-Everyone-On-Their-Toes, Miss Fly-By-the-Seat-of-My-Pants...yeah, that's me.

Thanks again, folks - I always love seein' ya!

* SURPRISE * "Give That Photo A Name" Contest

2006-09-30T03:03:00.000-07:00

Are you here? Are you paying attention? Good! 'Cause this photo needs a name. And this situation desperately needs an explanation. I'm still looking for one myself. It's a completely candid shot of my daughter and her favorite doll, strung up by the ankles. Don't ask; I don't know who, what, when, why, or how.

To enter, leave your suggested photo title in the comments section of this post. No entries after 6 p.m. Pacific Time. Winner will be announced at 7 p.m. Pacific Time. Grand Prize will be a STAPLES $35 gift card I received as a refund and never used and no longer deserve.

A photo like this needs a creative a descriptive name to explain it to the world. This'll be a toughie. Good luck!

Friday Confessions

2006-09-29T17:03:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I feel like I'm just one post away from running all of you off, I really do. And this is one of those posts. So do I proceed? Do I throw caution to the wind and let it all hang out, despite my fear of losing you? Isn't honesty what this process is all about? Or do I self-censor and post something more safe, like a photo of a box full of testicles or a recording of my burping the National Anthem?

Oh, what the heck. I guess I'll proceed and pray you don't leave me forever.

I received the following note from Becky, shortly after she read the story I wrote about her the other day:

"You forgot to mention that the very few times I did make it through the entire night, we both would pee all over each other and make a giant friendship circle of pee on the sheets. We could have cared less and were not the slight bit embarrassed!"

Confession #1: Okay, yes. I neglected to mention in my story the very few times that Becky did make it through a full night in my house. There were maybe two or three. I should have been fully forthright and honest, but really, what I mostly remember are the times she crumbled and went home.

Confession #2: Okay, yes. Becky and I used to wet the bed like racehorces, if racehorses slept in beds. Those of you who did not wet the bed or have never lived with a bedwetter will not understand this. Please stop reading now. Those of you who did or have will jump for joy that someone else out there did it, too. And boy, howdy, did we ever do it.

Becky and I wet the bed. Becky's younger sister wet the bed, as did my younger sister, Wetsy - hence the nickname. The four of us have tried for dear life to analyze and figure out the possible connections behind this bizarre phenomenon, how four children from two different families could wet the bed so regularly and unabashedly for the better part of their childhood.

I've actually considered that there could have been something in the water in the small town where our four parents grew up. They were all friends in high school, and I wonder if there was some toxin or metal in the water supply that affected the genetic make-up of the town residents' offspring's musculature that affected bladder control. 'Course, the issue really wasn't bladder control (we were perfectly able to hold it during daylight hours), so perhaps the water toxin affected the genetic make-up of the town residents' offspring's sleep areas of the brain, the areas that affect how deeply a human sleeps. I've always been told bedwetting is more a matter of depth of sleep than weakness of bladder, that some children simply lack the ability to be awakened by the urge to go.

I should point out that this theory of mine has a fatal flaw - that neither my older brother nor Becky's older sister wet the bed. So either the mutation doesn't begin to manifest itself until after the first gestation, or, more likely, this theory is dead in the water.

But then I pondered our mothers' treatment of this little, um, problem. At no time in all the years we flooded our beds do I remember either of our moms really protesting all that much. One would imagine at least one of them would have had at least of smidgen of a problem with having to change and wash sheets every day of their life, but they just didn't. There were heavy-duty plastic mattress protectors on all the beds (they were smart women), and I guess they reckoned no permanent harm was being done. Having four children myself, none of whom seem to have inherited this urinary idiosyncracy, I can't begin to imagine being that laid back about something so unpleasant. So was their casual approach actually part of the problem itself? Did they effectively enable our bedwetting? If they had strung us up by our bladders and beaten us a little more - or hung one of the urine-soaked sheets out of our bedroom window for all the neighbors to see - would we have been jolted into sleeping just a little less deeply, just enough to ensure we'd awaken and make it to the bathroom?

Speaking of enabling, there was the issue of the four of us exclusively spending the night at each other's homes because we knew we could wet the bed without consequence. (See Becky's note above.) Our worst fear was to spend the night at a non-bedwetting friend's house and flood their bed and have to explain that we weren't freaks, that we were nice, normal girls from nice, normal neighborhoods who had sweet but pee-permissive moms who didn't really mind it, so why should they, and besides, something might have been in the water supply where they grew up so it's really not our fault anyway?

Some things are better left unsaid.

This fear of ours was well-earned, by the way. When I muster up the courage, I'll share that unfortunate tale with you. It isn't pretty.

My Favorite - and Only - But Still Favorite - Sister in the Whole Wide World

2006-09-28T03:04:00.000-07:00

She really was the cutest little thing, even though she had some nerve being conceived in the first place, totally usurping my six-year reign as Baby of the Family and inflicting me with a nasty case of Middle Child Syndrome that would last the rest of my life.
Little butthead.

I swear, she looked like this all the time. Just look at those dimples. Little brown-noser.

She continued to blossom into a beautiful little girl...

...and had only a few, shall we say, unfortunate fashion slip-ups along the way.

She was even purty with a mouth full of mangled metal.

She was Maid of Honor in my wedding.

...and tried with all her might to catch the bouquet, bless her eager little heart.

And a few years later, she married the man of her dreams.

Yep. She's my favorite sister in the whole wide world. And she's 32 years old today. Happy Birthday, Wetsy!

Punk-ass.