Hot Pink!

Today has been great. Since yesterday, Abbie seems to be feeling fine, thank goodness and we are all thrilled that she is back home with us.

This morning at 7:20, Big G called me, so we could do our weekly Utopia segment on his radio show and Marie Osmond was his Pet of the Week.

"Big G, we love Marie Osmond. She is a great dog and she is about a year and a half old. She is always happy and she loves to go on walks, down to the creek, with her brother Donny. She's medium sized and probably part Whippet," I said, as Mama, my great Great Pyrenees, let herself out the front door, because Belle was outside, barking at a rabbit or an armadillo.

This morning I did some paperwork, returned a few phone calls and e-mails, before I cooked lunch for Brandon, Tony and me. Yesterday, my friend Carol and I were talking about baking chicken using Panko, instead of frying it. "Ronnie told me that he only cooks thighs instead of chicken breasts, because the meat is so much tender and juicier," I said. 

Carol laughed and then she teased me. "Well, if Ronnie prefers cooking thighs instead of breasts, then I will too, because Ronnie always knows best..." After we had quit laughing, Carol told me, "Nancy, if you really want to make the best panko chicken in the world, mix equal parts of Parmesan cheese and panko..." Before we adios-ed each other, Carol had also given me her baked Brussels Sprouts recipe, which is now Cousin Nancy's Oven Roasted Brussels Sprouts. And to say the least about our lunch, "Brandon and Tony ate all of the thighs and wanted me to cook them more. Thank you, Carol! I'm going to give Ronnie the recipe."

Early this evening, the phone rang—it was Kinky. "Nance, the movie guys are already here for tomorrow's shoot and they just told me that they want to shoot me riding a horse. Could I ride Maya?"

"I'd love it! Maya is going to be a movie star horse. Like Mr. Ed was or Trigger or Buttermilk or..."

"Do you have a saddle and bridle for her?"

"Yes, I do. Oh my god!"

"What!" Kinky asked, excitedly.

"Her saddle blanket is hot pink, Kinky," I answered.

"Hot Pink! I can't be riding a horse with a hot pink saddle blanket. Nance, this is supposed to be a cowboy western movie, set in the late 1800's."

"Okay, let me call Carol to see if she has a saddle blanket that we can borrow and then I will call you right back." To Be Continued...

Y'all have a great evening and let's hope that The Cowgirl Sisterhood saves the day for Kinky and that Maya becomes even more famous than she already is!

Tuesday!

Today has been really great. This afternoon we met our good friends Denise & Les and Kris & Jim, the Mineral Man, for lunch and Tony and I had a blast. In fact, we were having such a great time, our lunch date lasted nearly two hours.

Standing in the parking lot, as we did our handshakes and hugs, I overheard Les say, "We've got to go to the new H-E-B before we go home and it made me chuckle to myself, because we had to go to the big H-E-B. After we adios-ed each other we all headed off in different directions.

When we got back home I returned a few phone calls and e-mails and then I took a sleepless, but restful nap with our dogs and Lassie. While I napped Tony was in Medina, at the hardware store, buying a roll of wire, so he could use it to put up a temporary hot-wire on The Osmond's pen, because this morning, while we were outside doing our chores—Donny & Marie climbed out of their pen.

You know when things all seem to happen all at once, well things started happening here at 5:01, when Kinky called me to talk about our day. When I started to tell him about the fun lunch we had with Les & Denise and Jim & Kris he interrupted me and says, "I know all about it, Nance. I ran into Denise & Les at the H-E-B."

"Kinky, Tony has taken some new pictures and they are really beautiful. We showed them to our friends at lunch and they thought they were totally awesome."

"I'd love to see them. Why don't y'all come over right now and show them to me?"

"Okay, we'll be over there in a minute," I unintentionally lied, because the minute he and I disconnected the phone rang. "Rescue Ranch, can I help you?" I asked, as I put the call on speakerphone, so Tony could listen.

"Ma'am, I really need your help. My name is Cooper. A few minutes ago, as my wife was driving home, in Kerrville, she saw a man in a pickup, open his door and toss out a dog. She pulled over and rescued the dog and now we don't know what to do, because we can't take her home. We've called all of the shelters and they are full and because she is a Pit Bull mix, we're scared that she will be euthanized. She is about 6 months old and she is a beautiful dog and is very sweet. Please tell me you can help her."

"Sir," I said, as Tony smiled at me and nodded a—yes we can take her. "We are at capacity too, but we do have one small pen open for emergencies like this. We can take her."

"Thank you, so much. What do we need to do to get her to you?"

"Please take the dog to Hoegemeyer Animal Clinic, on Sidney Baker and drop her off. I will call them immediately and tell them about y'all bringing her in for us..."

As soon as we had adios-ed each other, I punched in Hoegemeyer's phone number. "Hi, Susan. This is Nancy and we've got a dog coming in...."

After telling Susan about the situation, Susan asked, "What are you going to name this dog?" Susan asked, which kind of caught me off-guard.

Thinking fast for a senior citizen, I said, "Her name is Tuesday Weld. You're too young to know who Tuesday Weld is."

Susan laughed. "She is a famous actress and once married to Dudley Moore," Susan stated. "I guess I'm showing you my age..."

At 5:23, Kinky and The Friedmans came out of the Lodge to greet us. "Hi, Kink. We're running late, but I am not sorry about it, because we just rescued a Pit Bull..." Which made him smile. "And I've named her Tuesday Weld." Which made him chuckle.

"I'm so glad we had room for her, at the rescue ranch," Kinky said. "I won't get to meet Tuesday Weld until Monday, when I return to the ranch, after doing the "Tour-Ette" for the rescue ranch...."

Then the three of us went inside the Lodge, to show Kinky some of Tony's latest photographs. "This one is my favorite of these," I said, as Kinky picked it up to admire it.

"Tony, this is really beautiful," Kinky said. After Kinky had looked at all of the photos, we went outside and had a fun visit, sitting in his rocking chairs, on the front porch. And that is about it for tonight.

Y'all have a great evening!

Donny & Marie! or 10,000 Miles!

Today has been great, but no thanks to M.I.R., because around 10:00 this morning we sadly discovered that our central air conditioner system was no longer working, so we called Bobby, our air conditioner man, because he is the best there is, in the Texas Hill Country.

Around noon, while Tony was getting feed, in Medina, Baxter & Bella arrived and poor Baxter wasn't real happy, because he had been carsick and thrown up, from his and his sister's trip from Mason.

Jennie and her husband Chris, who delivered B& B to us late this morning, work with a small, devoted rescue group and Jennie is also Ben Welch's sweet, older sister. The group had rescued these two precious pups, back in January, and when the nice woman, who had been fostering these siblings, husband suddenly died, she was devastated and overwhelmed with grief. So, when we heard about the group scrambling to find B& B a safe place fast—we said, "Yes, we can take them."

Baxter and his sister are two of the coolest pups. When I first met B&B, they were calm and wagging their tails, as Jennie cleaned up Baxter, before we took them to an empty pen. We stayed in the pen with them for about twenty minutes and visited and when the dogs seemed fine about their new digs, I gave Jennie and Chris a grand tour of our rescue ranch, which included The Okay Corral, my writing cabin, Outer Space and our trailer, I mean The Cabin and I really enjoyed it, because it was the first time for me to meet Ben's sister and her husband, that Ben is always bragging about. Around 1:00, after we had hugged and adios-ed each other, they took off to go back home.

Ten minutes after they had left, Tony returned to the ranch and he was sorry that he had missed seeing them. A few minutes later, when we took off, in Kermit, so T. could meet and feed B&B, he asked me what their names were and I said, "Donny and Marie Osmond. You're going to love them..." Here's Donny & Marie's pictures, that I took, after Tone had fed them and had fallen in love with them too. Girl's first and Donny's the one wearing a dog collar:

By 2:00 this afternoon, Mama, Roy, Belle, Abbie, Toto and Beau were the happiest dogs on the planet, because Bobby had replaced a capacitor and we had air conditioning! Thank you, Bobby!

Late this afternoon, my brother Ronnie called me just to chat and when I started telling him about how much I love my new, pink iPod Nano's Nike+, I said the dumbest thing, because I was so excited and Ronnie caught it immediately and he started teasing me. It all started when I mixed my words and should have said, "steps,"but instead I bragged, "Ronnie, I'm walking 10,000 miles every day!" 

Ronnie burst out laughing and half-hollered, "Nita! Nancy just told me that she is walking 10,000 miles every day!" Then I heard Nita roaring with laughter. 

Thinking fast about my dumb word mistake, I quickly shot back, "And, I'm doing it in 10 hours a day! I'm walking 1,000 miles an hour!" Then Ronnie echoed my words back to Nita and we must have laughed about it for at least two minutes. And when it was time for us to disconnect, I got Ronnie one more time, "Listen, Ron. I need to go now, because I only have an hour left to go walk off my last 1,000 miles for the day."

Y'all have a great evening!