I Might be a Girl After All

It started out innocently enough. I walked into the office to write a check for my round bale of hay, and the office smelled so good. I sniffed around at the girly products, enjoyed the scents, and left.

The next trip, I picked up a tester and put some lotion on my hands. So amazing. I sniffed at all of the other stuff, wrote my check and left.

The following trip, I bounded into the office to pay for my hay and was poking around at all the girl stuff. I saw a little card noting that some of it was on sale. Being before Christmas, I picked up six of the packages for stocking stuffers. My hay lady and her kids loaded me up with samples and a catalog. I squeezed a bit of the tester lotion on my hands, wrote my check(s), and left.

Not two days later, I found out that Momma Fargo has started selling the same good stinky stuff that my hay lady was selling. Well, hell, I did was a good blog sister would do, and placed an order.

And that's how my obsession with Perfectly Posh started.

I love this stuff, I really, really do.

What started off as a little bit of lotion has turned me into a girl. Not a girly-girl. More like ... a better smelling cowboy-girl.

Because I love this stuff so much, I'll be sharing some reviews of the products I've fallen in love with over the next few days (or weeks, or months, you know how terrible I am at posting).

Grandpa Ed

Grandma Juanita's death has definitely made me nostalgic, remembering my childhood.

Grandpa Ed was the grandpa I grew up with, and he brought a lot of laughter into our lives. I have stories for days about Grandpa Ed, but mostly I wanted to share with you my favorite thing ever.

Jay says Ed's legs are creepy; they just make me smile.

Grandpa Ed was an auto body man, and an excellent one at that. Today, he would have his own TV show "flipping" cars. He was always covered in Bondo and paint.

Grandma Juanita met her match with Grandpa Ed when it came to orneriness. He had this table commissioned just to see how she would react when she came into the house and saw his legs. It mysteriously disappeared, and we didn't dare ask about it, considering how heartbroken we all were with his sudden death.

Imagine his dismay when she loved the table. Found it hilarious and proudly showed it off to everyone.

When we found "Ed's legs" in a shed, I quickly claimed them and rushed home to set them up in a corner to surprise Jay.

He thinks Ed's legs are creepy. He just doesn't appreciate them.

They make me smile every time I look over and see the table, so they're staying. (Even if not one single one of my children wants them when I die.)

And Then There Were Three

One of the things that was important to my family, especially my grandmother and great-grandmother, was the fact that we had so many living generations. But not just living generations, no, living generations of women. That was very important to them. (I can't get the picture to insert properly, sorry 'bout that.)

Grandma Juanita, Ashinator, me, Great-Grandma Wheeler, Mom

Great-Grandma Wheeler died twenty or so years ago, leaving our family with only four generations. It was sad, but the hope was always there that we'd get back up to five. After all, we come from some tough stock, but we couldn't count on it, because Ashee was just a baby. When she and Micky got married in August, Grandma Juanita started wondering when we were going to get five.

Sorry for the blurry picture, it's the only one I have.

Sadly, it looks like we'll never make it to five generations again. Grandma Juanita passed away on Saturday, January 27 at 89 years old. It's been a shock, because up until the week before Christmas she'd been her usual ornery, sassy self.

On her 89th birthday

Her hospital visit before Christmas was short - she'd pulled a muscle in her back, but when she went to have it looked at, the docs realized she had Congestive Heart Failure. Now, CHF always sounds terrible, but there are a lot of people who can manage it well, and it appeared Grandma was one of them. Some diuretic and potassium and she was good as new. Well, as good as she was before.

Her back healed up and she resumed life as though nothing had happened. She had always said she was going to live to 107 (it started as 104, but kept getting prolonged), and we had no reason to doubt her.

Unfortunately, she developed a UTI and got severely dehydrated. Mom took her to the hospital, where they found not only a UTI and dehydration, but pneumonia and sepsis. Some IV fluids and antibiotics, and it looked like she was going to beat it. Mom made arrangements for her to go to a nursing home until she was strong enough to move back into her own place. Grandma never made it to the nursing home.

As incredibly hard as it is to lose Grandma, I'm thankful that she didn't suffer a long, protracted illness. She was fiercely independent and able to live on her own right up until she was hospitalized. Pneumonia is the great killer of the elderly, and it strikes fairly quickly, for which I am thankful. I know it would have been devastating for Grandma to lose her quality of life through cancer or a stroke.

Mom might be the bionic cowgirl, but she got her basic toughness from Grandma Juanita who suffered from polio as a child. You wouldn't know that one leg was two inches shorter than the other, or that she had scoliosis so bad that one side of her rib cage touched her hip bone. Not once did she complain, she just did what needed doing her whole life. I hope to be half as tough as those two women.

It's very weird knowing we only have three generations now; this is the "smallest" my family has ever been. It's very weird that Mom is now the matriarch (she can't ever, ever die).

I never got over the fact that there was no longer Lava soap in the bathroom after Grandpa Ed died (31 years ago, and I still look for that stupid soap), and I'm not sure I'll get over the fact that Grandma will no longer be sitting at her kitchen table, deck of cards in hand, ready to kick our butts in Gin Rummy.

Adventures with Christine, Part 6

I was telling my work wife about some of these adventures and mentioned in conversation the car's name. She looked at me and asked, "Didn't Christine kill her owner?"

Ummm...I didn't know what to say to that. I mean, she had a point, but I'm not Christine's owner, Deejo is. I love my brother and all, but she is his car, so if she chooses to live up to her name sake, well, I'll miss him. (Jokes, y'all, jokes, just chill out.)

At this point in our adventures, I'd learned to laugh at the absurdity of it all. I was beginning to feel like Christine and I had sorted each other out and that we were getting along fine. There was the occasional, "really, Christine?" moment, but our adventures were petering out. At least, I thought they were.

A day or so before Deejo and I traded cars back, Christine and I drove to work without any problems. It was just a plain ole commute, and kind of boring. Like I said, I was beginning to feel like we'd reached an understanding and we were going to live in harmony until she went back home.

I thanked her for nice ride to work when I parked. I got out of the car and went about three steps before she beeped at me. Not the normal "doors are locked" beep, but more of a "hey, pay attention!" beep. I walked back and opened the door, but didn't see anything amiss, so I closed her door and walked away. Again, she beeped at me.

I still didn't know what the beep meant, but everything looked okay, so I reached into my coat pocket for the keys to manually lock her doors.

The problem was that there were no keys in my coat pocket.

So I checked my other coat pocket.

Nope. Nothing.

I frantically patted all of my pockets: coat, pants, shirt. There were no Christine keys anywhere.

At this point, I was beginning to panic, but tried to calm myself down by reasoning that if the keys weren't in my pocket, they had to be in Christine. I opened the door and looked everywhere, but there were no keys.

The thought struck me that she had allowed me to start her and drive off with the keys still hanging in the kitchen. It's about ten feet from the key hanger to where I park and there's a window. Now, I don't know if those things work on line-of-sight or what, but I know that I've never had a push button start car and, frankly, how the shit works is magic in my eyes.

By this time, I'm in full-blown Oh Shit mode and attempt to call Deejo. If she did, in fact, allow me to start and drive away from the house with the keys still hanging on the hanger, I was now stuck at work. I took some comfort in the fact that if I couldn't start her to drive home, no one else could start her to steal her.

I left Deejo a terse, "call me" voice mail, then shot off a quick text to Jay asking him to bring me the keys when he got off work. I frantically and obsessively checked all of my pockets again, just in case I missed them the first time.

There was nothing to do but laugh at the situation. I was laughing so hard at the absurdity of it all that I had tears. I shared with my co-workers what I believed to have happened, and they were laughing along side me (or maybe at me).

I thought, "Bill is going to love this story," so I called up to the lodge and, in between laughing fits, told him what happened. By this time, I was convinced Christine had allowed this. She had already shown me her wicked sense of humor and I wouldn't put it past her. Bill calmly explained that there was no way I could have driven out of range of the keys, that the push button start cars all have a kill switch so things like this didn't happen.

I told him that Christine had her own mind and she did what she damn well pleased. She might have a kill switch, but she also loved messing with me. Under Bill's advisement, I went back out to her and looked for the keys again. I'd already been through her interior looking for the keys the first time (and the second and third), but to humor him, I went back out.

I climbed down into the driver's seat, and started searching all over again. They were nowhere. Seriously, there were no ... wait, what was that little glint of metal? I shifted position and looked where I thought I saw the glint of metal between the console and the seat. At first I didn't see it, but when I shifted position, I saw it again. Barely a quarter of an inch of the key ring was visible, but it was lodged between the console and the seat adjustment bars. I couldn't reach them.

There was nothing to do but laugh again, though this time there were swear words involved with my laughter. Back into the building I went to find something to fish out the keys. With the help of two work study students and a wire coat hanger, we were able to finally retrieve the keys.

As I walked away from Christine with the recently recovered keys, I'm certain I heard her laugh when she gave her "doors are locked" beep.

Now, there are some people who would say the keys just slipped out of my pocket and fell between the seat and console. Those people have not spent enough time with Deejo's curvy girl, Christine.

Adventures with Christine, Part 5

Not only does Christine consider herself an agent of Karma, she has also appointed herself Chief of Food Consumption.

The day after I rushed her through her meal, I offered to run and pick up lunch for my co-workers. Deejo had warned me that ordering through a drive-thru could be ... challenging. I assumed the challenge was because Christine is so low-slung. I mean, at five-foot tall, I have to climb down into her. In Salome, I'm pretty level with the drive-thru windows, so I mentally prepared myself to have to reach UP to the drive-thru windows.

I placed my order and drove to the first window to pay. Yep, had to extend my arm almost all the way up to hand my card to the cashier. No problem, I'd planned for that and pulled as close to the building as possible so that I could reach up to the window. I was mentally patting myself on the back for navigating the "challenge" of going through the drive-thru.

At the next window, they passed my sodas down to me and I got them settled into the cup holders. I reached up for the bag of food, grabbed it, and tried to bring it in through the window.

Christine said, "nope".

Like with the laundry, I thought I'd angle the bag and give it another go.

Christine said, "nope".

I panicked slightly, and went to open the door, so I could reach around the door and bring the food in through the door. Except that I'd pulled in so close to the building that I couldn't open the door without dinging up Christine.

Remembering that we solved our laundry lesson by removing some of the clothes, I took part of the order out of the bag and set it on the passenger seat, then tried again.

Christine said, "nice try, fatso. Nope."

Christine showed me I hadn't fully learned my lesson and refused to allow me to pass the bag of food in through the window again. So I took more of the order out of the bag and set it on the passenger seat. We repeated this over and over until just one item remained in the bag, at which time, she graciously allowed me to bring the bag into the car.

I'm certain the people in the car behind me were laughing their asses off watching me struggle. I mean, if the roles were reversed, I would have been laughing right along with them.

I quickly put all of the removed food back into the bag and drove back to work, alternatively cussing at Christine for being a pain in my ass and trying to explain to her that all of that food wasn't just for me.

She didn't care.

Lesson learned, you Chief of Food Consumption bitch.

Adventures with Christine, Part 4

The time finally rolled around to feed Christine. She gets excellent gas mileage for a sports car, which meant I had to fill up after two and a half trips to work.

I pulled into the gas station and swiped my rewards card. I knew we had accumulated enough points for $0.10 off per gallon, but was pleasantly surprised when the computer asked if I wanted to use our $0.30 off per gallon. Being only partially selfish, I opted to use $0.20 off and leave the remainder for Jay to use next time he filled his tank.

Smiling with happiness at my good fortune, I began feeding Christine. But, good lord, she was taking forever. Even with the gas pump handle open all the way, she was taking her own sweet time filling up.

I watched the counter on the pump ever so slowly tick upward. My happiness quickly turned to frustration.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Christine, hurry up! I've got to get to work at some point this morning," I grumbled at her.

Seconds later, the pump clicked off.

"Thank you," I said and removed the nozzle. I glanced at the pump and was slightly puzzled that she only required seven and a half gallons to fill up, but the pump had clearly clicked off and I wasn't going to risk overfilling a car that wasn't mine.

I slipped down into the driver's seat, waited while Christine kindly moved my seat to my programmed settings (she sometimes goes on strike and I have *gasp* manually move my seat into position), and started the engine.

When I noticed the gas gauge only move to half a tank, I just shook my head. Christine obviously considers herself an agent of Karma; rushing her meal was definitely an offense in her eyes.

Well played, Christine, well played.

Adventures with Christine, Part 3

I feel so guilty driving Christine on our dirt roads, as she's definitely a city car, not a country car. I know I've said the same about Salome, but Salome has a little higher clearance than poor Christine does. Christine is one sexy beast, with a nice, throaty purr and curves forever, but she's a little low-slung.

Even on our dirt road, being low-slung shouldn't have been a problem.

A few times a year, the county "resurfaces" our road; they run blades along the road to smooth it out, put down gravel, and spray it with something (magnesium chloride, maybe?) to seal it and control the dust and mud. Of course it would be the week I have Christine that the county chose to work on the road. I didn't think much about it until I reached the end of the driveway and realized that blading the road resulted in a dirt mound bigger than her front bumper.

It doesn't look that big, but the mound is 10-12" tall.

The first day the worked on the road, the dirt mound ran down the middle of the road, so I was able to turn right down the road, pick up a cross-street, and get to work while only going 2.5 miles out of my way.

The next day, I was greeted with a dirt mound running across the base of the driveway without any way across. On my way home the night before, the dirt pile was missing, so I assumed that they were finished with their project. I was wrong, as I am about many things.

Christine and I idled at the end of the driveway for a moment while I tried to figure out how I was going to get to work. I wasn't sure I could get away with taking a personal day because I was unwilling to drive my brother's car across a pile of dirt. As we sat there, looking at the mountain of dirt, I remembered that the farm access road could get me over to the cross-street I used the day before.

We back up, turned around, and headed down the farm road. We had to have been a sight, creeping along between the recently cut corn fields. I felt very much like we were in an episode of Knight Rider (Silent Knight, 1983), when KITT and Michael were chasing bad guys through corn fields. Except all I was trying to do was get to work, instead of chasing bad guys.