memorial day "fun"?

i've hesitated putting this on the blog...just because i didn't know how i should spin it...this story can go two ways~ nice and clean cut, or the truth. i've decided to do BOTH. so, here we go, hold on to your seats, it's going to be a bumpy ride...

NICE & CLEAN CUT VERSION (not a lie, but not all the truth)

this last weekend j took both monkeys to go ride our horses oakley & harley (right now they are being boarded till the house is finished being built). i took that time alone to work out in my little garden, plant some flowers and piddle quietly around the house. he called a few hours later and said that there was a chuckwagon race/rodeo going on that night in arkansas, and asked if i wanted to go.

everytime i go to a rodeo, or something like it, i am so filled with pride of our country. it amazes me how attending a rodeo can bring tears to my eyes from being so prideful of our great country.

at the beginning, they go through the flag ceremony, mention the troops, pray, you know, all the stuff that makes an event an "all american" event. plus, there's something about rodeos that get you in that "down home country" mood. (smell of maneur & grilled burgers probably helps)

cowboy hats. nachos. cattle. spurs. cowboys. horses. chaps.

think "sweet home alabama" / "hope floats" kinda feeling.

although i'm not a real "country girl" (being born and raised in the "wilderness" of los angeles), i LOVE pretending to be "country".

i say *pretending*, because i love hunting, but if i see a snake or something equally *satanic*, i BOLT outta there and i won't be back to that part of the woods.

i love being outside, but will spasam at the first mosquito or bug bite, and seek safety indoors. (just ask my hubby, i'm a *blast* to go camping with, honest)!

i love our horses, but i'll admit i'm still intimidated by their power & size.

i love cowgirl boots, but think their cutest when worn with a girly babydoll dress.

so all that being said, rodeos make me feel like an organically grown country girl. hometown homecoming queen. boot scootin' boogie line dancing cowgirl (minus the western outfits)...

so. that was the clean cut version. it's not much, but it's all i've got.

now. THE TRUTH.

saturday morning, j takes the kids to the horses, i piddle in my garden, and am feeling quite content knowing that j and the kids will come home, we will lay the outdoor carpet in the screened in porch (which was the last thing needed in order to finish that project), bbq burgers on the egg (for those of you that don't know about the *big green egg*, it's a whole new level on grilling. go ahead, google it if your a die hard bbq'er. once you taste a steak or burger on the egg, you'll NEVER use a regular grill again. EVER. )...got a little side tracked, but seriously, check it out.

then, after grilling, we were going to take a leisurely boat ride and fish for a while. (love to fish. REFUSE to bait my own hook.)

so j phones, and tells me about this chuckwagon race/rodeo. i told him i didn't want to go, we had "plans" and i was quite happy staying home. he finally convinced me to go after promising that he'd come home and lay the carpet before we went. the kids went on with his stepmom and her husband, and he came home. we laid the carpet, put all the furniture back, i decorated it a bit, then we cleaned up and headed to the backwoods of arkansas. (mind you, i still wasn't too happy about going, but he assured me that there was going to be bull rides, so i was "okay" about heaving my plans to the trash bin)

anyway, the drive to get there should've sent red flags and warning signals to us. shoot. it should've sent clowns (which i hate) on stilts with HUGE signs saying "don't go!" and "you won't like it" or "it's going to feel like hell on earth!" but it didn't. well, it kinda did, but we shrugged it off. we get there, and find j's stepmom. we park the truck right up to the arena, and let the tailgate down.

first sign that 4 people (us & our two monkeys) don't belong at this event~

1. everyone is drunk. everyone. the entire collection of "rodeo" participants. the onlookers. everyone. i see kids ages 3-6 carrying and playing around with their parents beer and cigarettes. seriously. there's a huge group of 14-16 year old hammered a few tailgates down from us.

2. the "rodeo" is supposed to start at 6pm. it starts at 8. yeah. okay, i'm chronically late, it's an illness, but even i'm never 2 hours late, but whatever.

***side note: we had to be at both services at church the next morning because j convinced me that my two head ushers were going to be out of town. i had thought they weren't going to be out of town for another couple weeks, but he assured me i was wrong... meaning we have to leave our house at 7am to get to church on time...meaning we have to get up at 5:30-6am to get everyone ready by 7am...*** okay on with it.

3. the first "event" was steer wrasling. (i'm spelling it the way they say it) not WRESTLING. WRASLING. i've seen this type of event before, one team ropes the steer, then the team ties up the back legs and one front leg and they're timed. okay. this was unlike ANYTHING i've ever seen. picture 4 drunker than drunk guys fighting and chasing a steer around a huge arena, not being able to rope the poor thing, and at one point FALLING OFF THIER HORSE. here's the clincher. THE HORSE WASN'T MOVING. IT WAS STANDING STILL. and they fell off. yeah. that's when i really thought i was in the twilight zone. an alternate universe. hell. these poor steers were pulled down by 3-4 men, held there with their tounges flailing around and them groaning while their legs were tied up. now, don't get me wrong, i love animals and i love rodeos. all the rodeos i've been to, i've NEVER felt like the animal was treated unfairly, or harmed in any way. but this. this was disturbing.

4. it went from bad to worse, each event worse than the one before. people got drunker. said people started invading my personal space. (can't handle that...don't they know about my invisible bubble?) at one point, i look over at our trucks tailgate (i was sitting on j's stepmoms) and a band of wild drunken teenagers ( and one ICE CREAM CONE EATING three year old) had pretty much taken over the bed of our truck. when i say taken over, i mean, their stash of alcohol, their plates of food, and their RUMPS were all over the tailgate of our truck. sitting there texting, kissing, laughing, yelling, drinking...this made me one unhappy camper. with each event i got more and more uncomfortable. and bored. and in desperate need of some normalacy. i cleaned out my purse. i did my nails. TWICE. i started texting friends with urgent SOS messages.

5. they announced at one point that evening that the next event was "wild cow milking".

i looked over at j, who looked as puzzled as i was, and glared at him. i blamed him.

i wanted to stay home (enter background calming music, birds chirping, scents of flowers and lemons filling the air), grill hamburgers (sounds of kids playing, crickets cricketing and picture perfect picnicking) and go on a nice, quiet boatride (picture sun setting in the background, wide open lake surrounded by gorgeous views, you see the boat and our silhouetted family of four peacefully boating away) that's what I wanted. HE instead, brought me HERE. to the backwoods-honkey-tonk-sorry-excuse-for-a-rodeo place.

the time came for the WILD COW MILKING. 4 guys, *ahem* 4 drunk guys, running after a poor momma cow trying to wrestle her and milk her enough to get a few drops into a little old bottle, then run to the middle of the arena to a judge that tips the bottle down to see if anything comes out of it. one team didn't get anything. fight breaks out. security steps in. they don't want to leave the arena. they're saying it's rigged. they've been jipped. they're pretty upset judging from the use of 4-letter words they were yelling...my kids don't know what to think. neither does the judge whose still being yelled at. they FINALLY leave the arena. things calm down. they finish up the wild cow milking. then they announce it. the main event. the thing "we've all been waiting for" (i hadn't been waiting for it, i was kinda hoping that was the end) the cherry on top of this huge rodeo sundae...THE PORTA POTTY PULL.

6. yep. the porta potty pull. 3 porta potties. 9 teams of 2. one person gets IN the porta potty. the other ropes it while on a horse. they pull the porta potty by horse across the arena (mind you only ONE of the porta potties didn't fall over and have brown "goo" spill out of it...i'm trying to be gentle with my descriptions) they did this 3 times, and then took the 3 that won and they {raced?} pulled against each other. it was disgusting. we didn't stay to find out who won. the winner would win the pot. $200. i'd GIVE $200 to NOT do that.

we got in the car after explaining to j's stepmom that we were going to "beat the crowd" and headed for home. it was 11:45. it was an hour and a half home. i told myself i wasnt' going to tear right into him...so i asked him what he thought of the "rodeo". he shook his head and started chuckling. his feelings matched mine, and i took that as an invitation to unleash my thoughts that had been building all night. needless to say, j knows better than to EVER go to one of these things again. (and just to let you know, we didn't want to look "rude" and leave even earlier...long, boring, detailed story)

we got home at 12:15am. the kids had to take showers because they were filthy (forgot to mention it rained while we were there, and they were so dirty) by the time we got to bed it was after 2am. we woke up at 6. on the road to church by 7. (it takes an hour and a half to get to church from the lake house). we pull up, j drops me off at the door. my main ushers (father and son that were supposed to be "out of town") are standing at the door greeting people. another glare is cast at j.

i knew i should've called my ushers and made sure that this was the weekend. i knew my gut was telling me different than what j said. as i had thought, it was another 2 weeks before they were leaving for texas.

we took a 4 hour nap that afternoon. i told j thats a clue that we can't handle late nights anymore. aging. pathetic little detail of life.

i was able to laugh at it after the nap. but i've told j (playfully, of course) that this will be held over his head for the rest of his life. he thinks the whole thing is hysterical. i'm starting to see the humor in it...kind of...

**BONUS** j's stepmom informed him when we got there that she was wrong about the bull rides. they weren't until the next day. all of that, and no bull rides. makes a girl wanna cry.

have a great weekend!