Mari Rocks!

To Be Continued...(Warning! This is a long one!)

Last night Tony and I had so much fun with our friends. As soon as we pulled up to Carol's house in Trigger we were greeted by Carol's friendly dogs, Scout and Jake and then James came out the front door and welcomed us and told us that everyone was outside on the deck and then he took off to go buy some ice because they had run out.

When T. and I went around the side of the house we heard laughing and then we saw Lorri and she gave us big hugs and then she introduced us to "Jeff from California" who we liked instantly. After handshakes Brenda walked up and gave us big hugs even though she was wearing a big cast on her foot.

With box in hand I then went inside the house to pour myself some of my fine-boxed wine and found Carol working on our dinner in the kitchen. After hugs she handed me a glass for my wine. "Are y'all totally out of ice?" I asked. Carol opened her freezer and there were three ice cubes left so I took them and plopped them into my wine. Then Jeff came into the kitchen to refresh his drink and I felt guilty for taking the last three ice cubes but I didn't say anything. Then we all went outside to the deck to visit with each other.

Within seconds Jeff had all of us laughing with his funny story about him deciding to open for Willie Nelson at a private party held at Billy Bob's in Fort Worth for his friends, the Minnicks and then I asked him about his NFL football career and I was blown away when he told us about playing for the Red Skins,  the Oilers and the St. Louis Cardinals and playing in two Super Bowls. Then we had a fun discussion about him playing against the the Dallas Cowboys back when Tom Landry was Head Coach.

Then I saw James down by the road closing the gate. "The ice man cometh," I said which really cracked Brenda up. "Carol told me that you are a great guitar player, Jeff. Please play something for us." Oh my god, Jeff was fantastic on the guitar and the songs that he had wrote were hilarious and had all of us rolling on the deck with laughter. Tony and I were having a great time as was everyone else.

After his last song Jeff asked me to play something on his guitar and he tried to hand me his beautiful, old Yamaha guitar, but I refused because he played much better than me and everyone was enjoying his music. Thank God, I didn't take his guitar and try to play something because when he sat back down and strummed his guitar we heard a loud "ping!" I figured he had popped a string and so did he, but when we looked at his guitar all six strings were still intact. "What?" Jeff said as he stared at his great-sounding guitar in his hand. "The bridge just broke," Jeff said in amazement as he showed it to all of us. "Does anybody know what time it is because I have to do a call in interview at seven?"

Tony looked down at his watch and said, "Five minutes before seven," while I'm thinking it is really five minutes till six, because I still haven't adjusted to the stupid time change. Then Lorri and Jeff went inside so Jeff could call in and do the show.

When they returned outside Jeff said to me, "I just talked about you on the air and I told them the title of your new book coming out..." Needless to say I was speechless and as you know that rarely happens to me. Then we sat down around the table and began eating our delicious Fajita dinner.

I was having so much fun because the conversation flowed and went back and forth across the table from one person to another until it always led us to laughter, then the subject would change and in no time flat we would all be laughing again.

After dinner T. and I had to get back over to the rescue ranch even though we didn't want to leave, because we were having so much fun with our friends. Before leaving Jeff told us a joke that he wanted us to tell Kinky and it was hilarious!

Today has been really fun and then it went weird. This morning around eight o'clock, Kinky called me about our breakfast date this morning with our good friends Tinkerbell and her father in Kerrville because he wanted to know if I was going to ride with him. After all was said and done we decided to take separate vehicles because I needed to get back to the rescue ranch to take care of some business.

When I stepped inside the restaurant I was ten minutes late and found Tinkerbell, Bob, T-Bone Herring  from the Rose 99.9, Frank and Kinky sitting at a table by the front door. Our breakfast was fun and full of laughter.

After taking pictures with Tinkerbell and Kinky we said our goodbyes to everyone and headed for our trucks and that is when I told Jeff Severson's joke to him and he about fell over laughing. "That's a good one, Nance. I like it. Tell Jeff I liked it." Then he told Jeff's joke to Frank and Frank thought it was really funny too. Then we climbed into our pickups and took off  in different directions.

When Trigger and I arrived back at the rescue ranch Tony, Lisa, Matt and Meghann were leaving to go feed the cows so I visited with our great volunteers for a few minutes and then they took off. As Trigger and I were coming in Jim McMahon another one of our great dog-walking volunteers was on his way to return two happy dogs back to there pen so he and I had a short visit too.

When I came inside I had nineteen new phone messages and forty-seven e-mails to return. After returning all of the phone calls I started returning e-mails and was over halfway done when Kinky called.
"Nance, are you having phone trouble?"

"Yes, Kinky, I am. I have just returned nineteen calls and my ear is starting to ache. Why?"

"That's not what I am talking about," Kinky said. "I can't make long distance phone calls since about twenty minutes ago. Will you call me to see if I get your call." We hung up and I punched in Kink's number and Kinky picked up on the second ring when he saw my number show up on his new giant Caller ID. "Thanks, Nance."

"Kinky, Tone and I have got to go to Kerrville and we've decided to eat lunch in town. Do you want to join us?" There was a pause and then he told me he would love to so we decided on a time and then I hung up on him before he hung up on me.

Tony and I first to arrive at the restaurant and Kinky sat down at our table two minutes later. "Nance, my cell phone isn't working either," Kinky said. "See if you cell phone is working." Then we gave our waitress our order and that is when things started getting weird.

I pulled out my cell phone and punched in the rescue ranch's phone number and after no rings there was a beep and a  message appeared that read: "All signals are busy," so I tried again as Tone nibbled on some chips and Kinky stared at me. After trying to call Ronnie in Dripping Springs and Wolfmueller's Books and getting the same dead phone response I said, "Kinky, this is really weird. Maybe we are being attacked by..." T. and Kinky started laughing.

"Or space aliens have landed and..." Then we all started laughing.

When our sweet waitress set our plates down I asked her if the restaurant's phone was working and she shook her head no. "All of our lines are down and so is our credit card machine. They've been down for over an hour now..."

After she left our table I told Kinky that Tony and I were going to go over to Wolfmueller's Books before going to Walmart to see if their phones were working. Kinky thought it was a good idea, then we ate our lunch.

When we showed up at Jon and Sandy's bookstore Sandy told us that her cell phone and their store phones were working so we had a short visit with them and then we took off for H.E.B. to fill up Trigger.

After writing a check for Tone's and my supplies at Walmart for over one-hundred and fifty dollars as we were walking out of the store an announcement came over their intercom: "Attention all Walmart shoppers! Due to the phone lines being down we cannot accept any checks over the amount of one-hundred dollars. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you and..."

As we exited the store I said, "Whew, we just made it under the gun. If we had been checking out five minutes later we would not have been able to buy all of our supplies..." As we drove home I kept trying to use my cell phone but got nothing.

When we got home we found out what was going on with our phones from a local newscast that said that an optical fiber line had been cut between Fredericksburg and Comfort causing most of the area phone, cell and internet connections to be down and it could possibly take up to eight hours for it to be completely restored.

It is now seven-twenty and Kinky just called to tell me that his phone is still down and then he invited me to come over for a visit but I told him no, because I am fixin' to watch the movie "The Blind Side."

P.S. I want to do a big shout-out to thank Mari of the NoMads for offering to help us pick up Ben Stiller and Gracie. Mari Rocks!

Y'all have a great evening!