Judgement Day!

Today has been another great day, as most of mine always are, thanks to my dear friends: Sandy and Jon Wolfmueller, Mari Villanueva, Lori Graham, Sharon & Rose Kemp and Carol & James!

This morning while Tony fed the dogs outside, I bundled up and cleaned the dog pens for him, because we had some urgent business to take care of in Kerrville, before having lunch with Mari and Lori.

When we arrived at Wolfmueller's Books we were twelve minutes late when we walked inside the bookstore. Mari, who was sitting in a chair, visiting with Jon, behind the front counter, greeted us and then I apologized for running late for the judging of the soup contest and yes, I blamed it on the Full Moon, of course. "Where's Sandy?" I asked, as I handed out copies of the six contestants entries on why they thought they deserved to win my soup contest and receive a free copy of the Easy Soup Recipes cookbook.

"Sandy is out buying more books," Jon remarked. "She told me to vote for her if that's okay with y'all?"

After we agreed that it was not a problem, I said, "Listen y'all, I've got a real big problem on how we are going to judge this thing, because all of them are hilarious."

"Don't worry about it, because Mari has got it all figured out," Jon said. "Tell them about it, Mari."

"Okay," Mari said, as Jon passed out pencils to us. " I think Nancy, since you are the writer amongst us, you should read each one out loud to us and using a scale of one to ten with ten being the best, then we secretly give each entry a score and then we add them up at the end and the highest number wins."

"That's great, Mari," I said. "I like that. And oh, by the way y'all can all mark off Karin Pohlmann's entry, because she has already received a copy of the cookbook, because I sent it to her in Germany, the same day that I mailed Ben his copy of the cookbook, which he loves. Karin was the "Mystery Friend," but, I think we should all take turns reading these aloud." And that is when Mari ignored me—making me feel like I was suddenly invisible. "Okay, I'll read "Lori of the NoMad's" funny one first..." When I finished reading it aloud we all laughed and then we wrote down our secret scores. Then there was the sound of silence.

"Go ahead, Cousin Nancy," Mari said. "We're ready for the next one." Jon, Tony and I looked at each other and burst out laughing.

"No, it's your turn to read one, Mari," Jon said, followed by a laugh. "Nancy wants us all to take turns reading them." After we all chuckled, Mari read, "Displaced Texan Polly's reason—which we all thought was hilarious, too. Then we secretly wrote down our scores, again. Then Jon read what "Dogmom" wrote and we laughed throughout Jon's reading and then we once again wrote down our secret scores.

By now, I, Judge Cousin Nancy, was starting to feel like a real pro at judging this soup cookbook contest and I could not wait for Judge T. to read Garnet Sheffield's reason why she thought she deserved to win the free soup cookbook.

Tone stood up, cleared his throat, because he has "Cedar Fever," a Hill Country allergic reaction to cedar pollen, that affects just about everyone who lives down here, and then he began slowly reading Garnet's, more than funny, reason why she thought she should win the contest and we laughed throughout Tony's reading and then we wrote down our secret scores, again.

After we had quit laughing I read what "Anonymous" aka Lynda Peters, wrote and like the other entries—it was so funny that my back started aching, because I had been laughing way too much. After writing down our scores for Lynda, Mari took over. "Okay, everyone give me your scores for Lori." After we gave Mari our scores to tally up, we gave her our scores for "Displaced Texan Polly," then "Dogmom," Garnet Sheffield and "Anonymous." Then Mari added up all of their scores and said, "It was really close, y'all. Guess who won?"

To Be Continued...Will it be Lori, Of The NoMads, Displaced In Texas, Dogmom, Garnet Sheffield or Anonymous aka Lynda Peters who won the contest? And also find out tomorrow about our lunch with Lori and Mari, which lucky dog found his fantastic, forever home, late this afternoon and what happened and what we got when Carol and James came over to see us, early this evening and lastly, what Kink had to say when he called me, a couple of hours ago, from Nashville!

Have a great evening and May the Force Be With Y'all! I'm going to bed.