In August of 2006 one of our friends was trying to get people to take the puppies of his brother’s dog and brought two of them for us to see.
On the way home with both puppies sleeping in my arms I said,
Ben! They are so, so sweet!
He said,
That’s a whoooooole lotta dog you’ve got there in your arms.
I said,
Huh?
He said,
They’re probably going to weigh 80 pounds each.
I said,
Nooooo…seriously?
and then started calculating dog food and veterinary bills. Because one of my tendencies is to calculate the cost of everything.
Even today when we were taking a break from working with the…
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Horses: Food, farrier, pasture and barn maintenance, training, equipment, professional membership dues, veterinarian, fencing, etc…
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A flat tire on the riding lawn mower: Where’s the best place to get one of those little tires and how much is it going to cost?
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And me nearly loosing a digit because I decided to check the weed eater string when it was still kind of moving and thinking,
Jeezuh, Joseph and Mama Mary! Wow! That would have hurt and cost a mint between the hospital, lab, and some ass hole at the insurance company deciding my monthly bill needs to go up just because I got a little distracted.
And Ben stopped my head from ticking for a bit when we were still on our little break by saying,
Wow! What’s up with that?
He was looking into the bright blue sky and watching a single cloud go over that was in a shape that caused me to ask,
Is that some kind of worn out jet plane trail that’s been whacked around by the wind?
because the cloud was long and white and thin like that, but in the shape of a horse shoe.
He said,
I don’t know. It’s almost too much like a cloud to be that.
I said,
It looks like one of those little hair pieces out of the paper doll kits I had when I was a kid.
He said,
Oh yeah?
I said,
Except that hair piece looks like it could go on some kind of dumb ass rock star from the 1980’s that always wore spandex pants and too much hair spray. Like David Lee Roth or somebody like that.
He said,
Oh yeah?
And then I calculated a little bit and said,
I’ll bet somebody could make a mint with some kind of paper doll kit of dumb ass rock stars from the 80’s. They could come with the bodies of David Lee Roth and those guys from White Snake and Motly Crue in their underwear and there could be all kinds of choices of spandex pants and mid-drift shirts and long puffy hair and head bands and high heeled boots and stuff. It would probably be nostalgic for some folks around my age.
Ben said,
Well, I’ve never seen a cloud like that.
And then another cloud came by that looked like a turtle and I was done watching clouds because pretty much every cloud looks like a turtle anyway if you’re calculating too much.
Later in the day I was wrangling our dogs around and having a moment of thinking about how glad I was that Ben had said,
That’s a whoooooole lotta dog you’ve got there,
because it caused me to, at some point when they had become 30 pound puppies at four-months-old , realize they were going to be huge and start giving them as much training as I could so we wouldn’t some day be run over by a whooooooole lotta dog.
And now I’m glad for it because today we have two dogs that are sisters and best friends and weigh 80 pounds each who also know how to walk with respect on a leash and sit, stay, speak, shake and, for the most part, choose to listen to the words down and no!
Except for the part when I had one of the 80 pounders on a leash earlier today and, just as I said,
Good girl! Good lead!
she decided to burst into the back door when I opened it and take me for a little ski trip across the kitchen floor which caused me to say,
Never mind on that praise sister! Did I remember to teach you the term never mind?
And then she and her sister followed me into the bathroom and me and 160 pounds of dog inspected the fact that I’ve become a new breed of red neck that I’ve decided to call…
The New Bohemian V-Neck
because of that article Ben read the other day about hilbillies being the ‘New-Bohemians’ and because I had on a short sleeve, v-neck shirt all day and had the tan lines to proove it.
And I’ve considered getting a bunch of those very low cut (front and back), very thin shoulder strapped tank tops and a bunch of Daisy Duke shorts that I see country women wearing all the time when they are on their riding lawn mowers.
But I just haven’t been able to bring myself to do it because I’ve noticed that some of those women continue wearing those outfits for yard mowing when they are well into their 80’s.
And I’ve already had to have at least one conversation with a close friend about the possibility of keeping my upper arms close to my sides when I’m applauding because of underarm flap.
And, even though I’m luckily not yet to the point of causing additional wind currents for those around me when I applaud something, I do think it might be a good idea to start the practice of keeping my upper arms at my sides now so that I don’t forget to do it when I’m at that age of thinking things along the lines of:
- I don’t care if they bother you! My arms are what they are! Deal with it!
- I’m just glad to be alive and applauding something, so causing a wind current with my upper arms ain’t nothin’ honey! Deal with it!
- You don’t like my old and free body, just move on down the road or deal with it!
But this also always causes me to think about some of the faces of the women I see out here in the country when they are not on their riding lawn mowers in their aged Daisy Duke outfits. They are at the grocery store and the farmer’s market and the feed supply store and have the kind of faces that make me stare a little bit and always have the inner desire to say,
Ma’am? Excuse me? Could I ask you a few questions?
And, if they would let me, I would ask them all kinds of questions about life. Because I’m much more likely to ask people questions about life if they look like they’ve been doing something.
I started thinking that way during my Sophmore year of college when I had a literature professor who looked like a cross between a goat farmer and a back woods serial killer. It turns out he actually was a goat farmer, but also happened to have done more analysis of Shakespeare and writers of Southern Literature than most anyone.
One day he said,
If somebody’s old and isn’t gray and wrinkled I just can’t bring myself to trust them,
when we were studying the story of an aged woman who simply needed someone to talk with but whose daughter kept thinking taking her to get fancy hair-do’s with lots of color to cover up her gray would make her feel better.
And that’s why I always say,
Don’t put color on my gray streak,
to the girl who puts color in my hair. Which is probably a little calculating when it comes to going gray. But I really do love my gray streak.
And I will probably soon be found looking for tank tops that won’t leave me looking like a ‘New Bohemian V-Neck’ kind of red neck after I’ve been mowing the lawn.
And those 80 pound dogs we have that are sisters and best friends ended up being quite sick for a few weeks when they were puppies and it always seemed to make them feel better when I would pick them up and squish their little heads together on my chest and say,
Come on. Come on girls. Let’s have a biiiiig hug!
And to this day they still come up to me and squish their big heads together at my knees and stand very, very still when I say,
Come on girls. Let’s have a biiiiiiig hug!
And, just when I think I sound a little goofy for saying that, they press their heads against my knees a little harder and wag their tails and I know it’s not goofy at all.
And now I’m sitting here thinking some things just cannot be calculated. Such as…
- Women at the feed store who look like they could tell me a lot of things
- Having a husband who really gets it that looking at the clouds is a great way to take a break, and who doesn’t make fun of me when I manage to turn looking at the clouds into some kind of business idea for making David Lee Roth paper dolls
- And having 160 pounds of dog snuggled up at my knees who like to have big hugs
Except for the part where they are still capable taking me for a ski trip across the kitchen floor just when I’m praising them for being so good on the leash.
Now that could have been a serious calculation.
