5-22-26: Remembering 10 Years Ago.... "Longmire—Texas Style!"

 Howdy folks. This morning I realized it has been over 10 years since making the video spoof Longmire—Texas Style. The Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch volunteers, Chet O'Keefe, Lady Liz and Big Jim at the Grey Goose Saloon and friend Gerry Olert helped me make this hilarious video in hopes of making Little Debbie, my adorable, adopted, one-eyed-Chihuahua even more famous. And it definitely made her more famous! So thank you dear friends for helping me.

Thank you in advance for watching this and if it makes you laugh please click the Like button.

Longmire—Texas Style

God Bless Ruth Buzzi!

Kinky Friedman, Tony and I loved Ruth Buzzi so much and when Tony and I heard the sad news about Ruthie's passing our hearts were broken once again this year, because we lost Kinky back in June, and now we've lost Ruthie. 

Tony and I are so blessed that Ruthie was our dear friend and that we got to spend so much time enjoying her and her husband Kent Perkins many visits at the rescue ranch and Big Foot ranch . And I will never forget the hilarious time that Ruthie taught me how to make her famous, Italian beignets, inside our trailer and I can't believe that was over 20 years ago.

While Kinky, Tony and Kent sat outside, in Outer Space (aka our screened-in-porch), talking about ranch life, etc., Ruthie and I were inside cooking up her delicious beignets. Or should I say trying to cook up her "secret beignet recipe," because we were laughing so much. And please note that my kitchen counters and stove were all covered in powdered sugar and flour and so were we! And it still makes me laugh just thinking about it and the big mess that we made.

In fact, we were cutting-up with each other and laughing so much, the men actually came inside our trailer just to see what was so funny. (And to also refill their coffee cups and to eat all of the beignets that we had just cooked.)

Anyway, the bottom line is that We Loved Ruthie so much. And Tony and I will always treasure all of those precious, good times and the fond memories that we spent with sweet Ruthie and Kent. 

And not to brag, but to really brag big time—I am so honored to say that Ruth Buzzi once chased and hit me with her purse, onstage at one of our Bonefits. And I am so proud to be an exclusive member of the "Ruth Buzzi Hit Me With Her Purse" club, which includes famous members such as Elton John and Muhammad Ali— just to name a few.

Here are just a few of my favorite pictures of Ruthie that I want to share with you:

Kent & Ruthie and Little Debbie at Big Foot Ranch

Ruthie, Kent and Tony listening to Chet O'Keefe playing guitar, in our trailer, at the rescue ranch. Just before I grabbed my keyboard to let Kent play along with Chet.

                                           Best friends: Ruthie and Little Debbie

                                   Ruthie signing the door inside my writing cabin!

                                                        Ruthie and me in Kerrville, Texas

This is my favorite of all. Ruthie signed and sent us this picture of the famous character Gladys Ormphby that she played on Laugh In!

On the evening of November 20th, 2014 Tony took this short video of Kinky and me, standing outsidehis lodge, for an upcoming Tribute to Ruth Buzzi event, in Dallas. It is one of my favorite videos because Kinky, Tony and I loved Ruth Buzzi so much. Rest In Peace Ruthie. You were the BEST!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsLuePP-ulw/

Episode: 34 Longmire—Texas Style!

If you would like to listen to this podcast rather than have to read it please click here on: The Cousin Nancy Show or click on The Cousin Nancy Show on the right side bar. 👉 )

This story took place in the spring of 2016.

Tony and I and all of our great Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch volunteers loved the Longmire series on Netflix. In fact, we were all hooked on the show and we could not wait to watch the upcoming Season 5, on Netflix.

Seriously, all of us loved the Longmire show and the fabulous cast so much that we all owned Longmire caps, T-shirts, buttons, mugs, bumper stickers, etc. And also had Craig Johnson’s Longmire books. 

And not to brag I actually had been given two autographed Longmire books—thanks to our dear friends Kris & Jim and Sandy & Jon.

Anyway before I go any further with this story, I must tell you that at that time I had recently received an unexpected inheritance and since the money was sort of burning a hole in my pocket, so to speak, I thought it would be fun to make a Longmire video spoof, so I could make Little Debbie, my precious, one-eyed, rescued, Chihuahua more famous than she already was. 

Big Jim, Little Debbie, Me & Lady Liz

So the first thing I did was hire our dear friend, Gerry Olert, The Greatest Video-grapher in Texas, to help video and edit the Longmire spoof for me. Even though there wasn’t even a script written, yet.

And luckily for me, Gerry cut me a really great deal—$300.00. One-fifty upfront and one-fifty when it was done. And I was more than thrilled about it, because it would be the very first time for me to produce and to be a director of a short film!

So the next thing that I did, after hiring Gerry, was to ask our dear friends aka “The Best Dog Walking Volunteers in Texas,” if they would like to be actors in my short movie. 

Gerry Olert—The Best Video-grapher in Texas

Bottom Line: They all wanted to be in the video spoof and they immediately started picking which Longmire character that they wanted to play. And luckily for me—my dear friends Eileen and Lisa then volunteered to help me write the script. Which to say the least was pretty important in the making of Longmire—Texas Style!

Anyway, a few weeks later the first scenes were shot in one day, at the Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch, by Lisa and Tony. And please note that the cast members and I made our own costumes to wear, including wigs, alien-attracting-helmets, a deputy uniform and Little Debbie’s adorable wardrobe including her tiny eye-patch.

Eileen & Me

Little Debbie with Lisa & Me

Chet O'Keefe

Lady Liz with Bob the alien

Chet O'Keefe, me and Gerry Olert after filming

The Longmire cast & Longmire Posse's Facebook Comments about our spoof

Everyone knew there lines, but when it came time for us to actually start shooting the scenes—I basically forgot the script and ended up ad-libbing almost all of my lines which then caused the cast to have to ad-lib their lines, too. And those scenes turned out to be hilarious and none of us could believe how well it had turned out so far.

So the cast members were so excited about the video that they could not wait to finish it and they wanted to do it as soon as possible. But being the producer and the director I had to make a decision and tell them that we had to wait for a few weeks to shoot the final scenes of the spoof with our dear musician friend Chet O’Keefe, at our dear friends Jim & Liz Cravotta’s authentic1880s saloon.

So needless to say, the volunteers were disappointed with my decision to delay the final shooting of Longmire—Texas Style for a few weeks. But after all was said and done it was worth it.

Finally, a few weeks later Chet did return to the rescue ranch. And a few mornings later we all met up, at Big Jim’s & Lady Liz’s Grey Goose Saloon, for Gerry Olert to finish shooting the final scenes of Longmire—Texas Style video spoof.

And after we wrapped it up— Gerry did his awesome editing and I uploaded the short movie to my Cousin Nancy Channel on YouTube. And the rest is now history.

If you would like to watch Longmire—Texas Style please click on it and to watch the short video Longmire—Texas Style Behind The Scenes, that I made using Tony’s fabulous behind the scenes pictures that he took during the filming of the spoof please click on it, too. 

*****

Okay. Now here’s a Cousin Boomer Update for y’all:

Boomer came over yesterday and his left leg and arm were in casts and he was all bruised-up and he was mad. Tony asked him what had happened to him and Boomer told us that he had bought a can of fly spray that was on sale at the grocery store. Then he went home and sprayed it all over himself and then he climbed up on the roof and jumped off—and he did not fly. And after the doctor had patched him up he went back to the grocery store to get a refund, but they wouldn’t let him return it, because it had been on sale.

******

Now it is My Thought For Today Time And I Have Two to Tell you:

Imagine if you will…An atheist is stuck at a green light, behind a car with a “Honk If You Love Jesus” bumper sticker.  

And, Imagine if you will…A world where dogs take bad owners to the Pound.

*******

Okay now it is Make Me Laugh Time!

 

A man walks into an elevator and there is a beautiful blonde inside the elevator and after the door closes, she looks over at the man and says, “T.G.I.F.” 

So he looks at her and says, “S.H.I.T.’’

They go up a few more floors and she looks at the man and says, “T.G.I.F.” 

So he looks at her and says, “S.H.I.T.”  

When she reaches her floor, she looks at the man again and says,“T.G.I.F means thank goodness it is Friday, duh?” 

So he looks at her, and says, "S.H.I.T means sorry honey it's Thursday, dud?”

If you’re happy and you know it—it’s your meds.

A clown held the door for me today—that was such a nice jester.

People are shocked when they find out that I am not a very good electrician.

Now here are a couple of Tony’s jokes:     

A blonde is trying to sell her car, but the only problem with it was it had over 400,000 miles on it. 

So she was upset, because she couldn’t sell her car, so she went to a bar and she met a woman that was an auto mechanic. And the blonde told her the story about her mileage problem and the lady mechanic said, “I can help you, but it is illegal.”

 

So the next day the mechanic rolled back the miles on the odometer.

A few days passed and the blonde runs into the mechanic, at the bar, and the mechanic asks the blonde, “So, did you sell your car?”

And the blonde said, “No! I’ve decided to keep it, because it only has 40,000 miles on it!”

A brunette went to the doctor and she told him, “Doctor, I hurt all over. Every where I touch myself I feel pain.”

 

So the doctor says, “Show me.” So she touches her elbow and screams with pain and then she touches her knee and she screams with pain, again.

    

So the doctor says, “You’re not really a brunette are you?”

And she replies, “No, I dye my hair. I’m a natural blonde.”

And the doctor says, “Well that explains it then—you’re finger is broken.”

And here is my last joke. A teacher asks a Billy, “If I give you two cats today and then give you four cats tomorrow how many cats do you have?”

Billy says, “Seven cats.”

And the teacher says, “No. Two plus four equals six. You’re wrong.”

And Billy says, “No. You're wrong, because I already have a cat.”

And this concludes this segment of Make Me Laugh Time. 

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Well, folks I do hope that my podcast has made you laugh at least once, but if it didn’t—who cares! I want to thank y’all for listening. And please remember my favorite quote: Life is short.And so am I!Y’all take care and keep on laughing!  Adios y’all!

One of My Fondest Memories of Kink! or The California Texas Grudge Match!

God bless Kinky Friedman and may he rest in peace. One of my dearest and best friends, Kinky Friedman, passed away this past Wednesday evening, June 26th, and since then I've been sad and thinking about all of the fun times and good times that we shared over the past 38 years of our friendship.

I've written volumes over the years about Kinky, our beloved Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch and our long lasting friendship in books and on my blog, etc. And to say the least he was one of my all time favorite people.

Today I was looking at some of the funny videos that I took of Kinky and us and this video stood out and it made me laugh out loud. And trust me I needed to laugh.

Anyway, to set this video up, on May 31, 2009, Kinky, Tony & Kink's famous Hollywood friend John Mankieiwicz, who was at the ranch visiting Kinky, had decided to have an eight-ball pool tournament.

Kinky and Tony already had their pool-playing-nicknames. Kinky's was "The Hummingbird Man" and Tony's was "The Medina Bulldog." 

So before the pool tournament commenced, just to rattle John's nerves—Kinky and Tony jokingly nicknamed John—"Mr. California Wussie." And John thought his newly given nickname was pretty funny, too. 

But "sadly" for Kink and Tony their plan backfired, because John ended up winning the tournament—big time!

So later that day the five of us were outside, sitting on the porch visiting and Kinky decided, just for the "heck" of it, that I should make a video of Tony and Kinky presenting John with a pool championship trophy! 

So after we had all quit laughing Kinky sent me home to get my camera while he searched around The Lodge for an appropriate trophy for him and Tony to give to John. And the rest is history and it is also funny.

To watch this video please click below:

The California Texas Grudge Match

For Kinky's eyes only: "Hey Kink. Sadly, it looks like you won our long standing bet about who's horn God would honk first and unfortunately it was yours. And Hummingbird Man please know that I already miss you. Love Always, Nancy"

Episode 31: Age Doesn't Matter!

 If you want to listen to this podcast rather than read it please click here on: The Cousin Nancy Show or click on The Cousin Nancy Show on the right side bar. 👉 )

Now I am going to tell you another story about the non-profit Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch that Tony & I and our dear friend Kinky Friedman co-founded in 1997. And we ran our rescue ranch until the three of us decided it was time to retire and shut its doors, in 2018.

This morning I had to clean our trailer because ABC’s affiliate, KSAT, out of San Antonio, was coming out to do a story about Kinky, his cigars, and to also see our rescue ranch. 

So I cleaned our trailer until it looked like Tony and I didn’t live here. Mission was accomplished by ten o’clock.

The cameraman interviewed Kinky early this morning for about an hour over, at the Lodge, and then Kinky and the television cameraman arrived over here about eleven-thirty. 

Tony, our dear friend John, and I were, in the kitchen, drinking coffee and trading funny stories when those two arrived. So Tony went outside to greet Kink and the cameraman.

A few minutes later Tony returned to the trailer and announced, “Kinky just told me that the cameraman is going to shoot him and the dogs first, and then he wants you to come outside to be interviewed and shot, too.”

I was mildly depressed by Tony’s news. Because the trailer had been cleaned up for nothing—and knowing full well that within twenty-four hours or less that it would be obvious to anyone who came inside—would instantly know that Tone and I live here. 

Anyway, twenty minutes later, the three of us went outside. Kinky quickly introduced John, Tony and me to the smiling cameraman. After shaking hands, the friendly cameraman put a wire and microphone on me, and then Kinky and I strolled past the dogs in their pens as the cameraman shot us.

When we reached Jedi’s pen with her two, yellow Lab-mixed pups I went inside their pen to visit with the dogs and then to be interviewed and shot some more.  

The cameraman asked me many questions, and I did pretty good until he asked me, “Do you get many calls from people wanting to bring you their dogs?”

“Yes, I do,” I said, as Kinky and John stood behind the cameraman, watching me with smiling faces. “I get about twenty calls a day from all over the country with people begging or trying to bribe me to take their dogs or cats. Unfortunately, pets have become disposable items to many people. And these people all have excuses why they want to dump their loving pets. It is very depressing.”

“Tell me,” he asked. “What is the most common excuse?”

“The number-one most common excuse that I hear, is from a young woman who is crying and begging me to please take her sweet, eight-year-old dog that she dearly loves, because her new boyfriend doesn’t like her dog—and he is making her get rid of it!”

“What do you tell them?”The cameraman asked.

Looking straight into the camera’s lens, I said, “Euthanize the boyfriend.”

Tony, Kinky, John and the cameraman all started to laugh! “That’s a good one, Nance,” Kinky remarked, as the others smiled and nodded their heads in agreement.

Feeling like I needed to explain myself a little further, I continued: “So I ask these young women,“Where are you going to be two years from now—with a creepy control freak like that? Will he be giving you permission to go outside or telling you when you can talk on the phone? Listen, if he truly loves you, he would never ask you to do something so horrible like that. Please, take my advice and keep your dog—because your dog loves you, and knows what real love is—and your stupid boyfriend doesn’t love you or even have a clue as to what love is all about.”

With that said, the interview lasted a few more minutes, and then I removed the wire and the microphone and handed it back to the cameraman. Then I returned to the trailer to return several phone calls.

This evening when the KSAT news ran the story, that television station had cut out my part about “euthanizing the boyfriend.” And that is the end of that story. Thank goodness.

*******

Okay. Here’s a Cousin Boomer Update for y’all:

The other day Cousin Boomer was over here and he told me that he didn't understand cloning and I told him, "That makes two of us.”

And Boomer also told me that he went to a sporting goods store last weekend to buy some camouflage pants, but he couldn’t find any.

******

Now it is My Thought For Today Time!

And this is it—I think that age is something that doesn’t matter—unless you are cheese.

*******

Okay now it is Make Me Laugh Time! Thank goodness.

Where do fish keep their money?—In the river bank.

What do you call two ducks and a cow? Quackers and milk.

Did you hear about the cat who ate a ball of yarn?—She had mittens.

What did the cucumber say to the pickle? You mean a great dill to me.

And lastly, what did one hat say to the other? You stay here. I'll go on ahead.

And this concludes this segment of Make Me Laugh Time. 

*******

Folks I do hope that my podcast has made you laugh at least once, but if it didn’t—who cares!

Thank y’all for listening. And please remember my favorite quote;

Life is short and so am I! 

Y’all take care and keep on laughing!

Oh. Wait a second. Here is one more joke to hopefully make you laugh.

My dear friend Fourth sent me this joke that Milton Berle at 80 years-old told:

“I get sex almost ever night of the week!!!

Almost on Monday

Almost on Tuesday

Almost on Wednesda, etc.”

Adios y’all!

Episode 30: The Jerk!

Please note that I am dedicating this 6.5 minute podcast to my dear friends Clive & Curtis, in the beautiful Texas Hill Country. And I hope that it makes them and you laugh out loud. And if you want to listen to this podcast please click here on: The Cousin Nancy Show or click on the The Cousin Nancy Show on the right side bar 👉

Now I am going to tell you a funny, true story about the non-profit Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch that Tony & I and our dear friend Kinky Friedman co-founded in 1997 and operated until we decided to retire and shut its doors in 2018. 

Back in 2007, on a beautiful spring morning, a church group of about twenty young children, along with a few adults, came out to the rescue ranch to let the kids do community service for us for a couple of hours. But because the children were so young, we decided the safest thing for them to do, was to let them remove the rocks from our huge pigpen. 

The kids instantly fell in love with our rescued pigs. And they were disappointed when their work was completed, and it was time for them to leave our rescue ranch. In fact, one of them even started crying and begged to live at the rescue ranch and I guess live with the pigs.

Anyway while the parents were loading up the children into their vans, trucks and cars, one cute little seven-year-old girl pointed over to our pigpen and screamed, “Look at that pig! What is he doing?”

Everyone looked back toward the pigpen and then gasped at what they saw! The children were laughing and screaming with delight, but the parents were more than mortified!

Apparently after we had left the pigpen, a three-hundred-pound black-and-white-spotted wild hog had wandered up to the pig pen, because of Alice, one of our new sows that was in heat. 

And this wild hog was outside of the pigpen, standing up on his hind legs, leaning on the fence trying to get Alice’s attention! From where we stood, it looked like male wild hog was doing that popular Sixties dance—the “Jerk!"

As Tony took off to run the “lovesick” hog off, I was thinking fast! I told the smiling children, “Oh, he’s just dancing. That’s our neighbor’s dancing hog. He loves to dance.”

With the children inside the vehicles, laughing hysterically at the "dancing" wild hog, the parents quickly thanked me, jumped into their vehicles and quickly sped away! 

That wild hog made several more visits to our pigpen during that week, and he did do a lot of dancing, so to speak. And fortunately for us, Alice didn’t feel like dancing with him and we got her spayed soon after that. But unfortunately for us, that nice church group of kids never returned to the rescue ranch to do volunteer work.

Now it is My Thought For Today Time!

And it is ten simple words to live by—Always forgive your enemies, because it messes with their heads.

Now it is Make Me Laugh Time!

If you have 13 apples in one hand and 10 oranges in the other, what do you have? Big hands.

Now here are a couple of bar jokes for you:

What did the man say when he walked into a bar? Ouch!

The past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.

A few days ago I was watching some Johnny Carson Show reruns.

In fact, I watched an hilarious episode where Johnny interviewed the late great Robin Williams.

And to say the least I loved Robin Williams and his humor. He was absolutely brilliant. 

So I am going to try to tell you one of my favorite jokes that he told Carson on that episode.

Robin Williams was wearing a straight face when he looked at Johnny and told him, “I suffer from dyslexia.

As a kid I was the only kid on my block on Halloween that would go—Trick or Trout!

And the neighbors would go—Here comes that Williams boy—Better go get some fish.”

******

Rodney Dangerfield is another great comedian that I loved. And one of my favorite jokes that he told is:

When I was a kid my Dad didn’t like me. He gave me my allowance in traveler’s checks.

******

And this concludes this segment of Make Me Laugh Time. 

I do hope that my podcast has made you laugh at least once, but if it didn’t—who cares!

Thank y’all for listening. And please remember my favorite quote;

Life is short and so am I! Take care Curtis & Clive and y’all keep on laughing!

Episode 14: The Cravotta's Close Encounters of the Famous Kind!

 I had one heck of a good time interviewing Tony's and my dear artists friends: Liz & Jim Cravotta for The Cousin Nancy Show's 14th episode.

Tony and I love Jim & Liz and we have know these two, extremely talented artist for nearly thirty years. Over the years the Cravotta's have helped out our Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch many times and they have even adopted a dog from us, Arkey Blue Heeler and they also helped us get many of our dogs adopted to great homes.

In this super fun interview I had with Liz & Jim they told one hilarious story after another about how they met, their first date, their world famous wedding, "The Great Hippie Wedding of 1975, in Montague County" and many other fascinating stories about their famous friend Burt Finger, Liz's close encounters with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Jim's close encounter with the Kennedys, etc. And we also discussed Liz's art and her fabulous cards and Jim's whimsical Bare Bones Sculptures.

At the end of the interview I suggested that everyone check out this blog, so they could see some of  the Cravotta's world famous art and sculptures, their popular Space #42 inventory, at the EAST END MARKET, in Kerrville, owned by Cindy & Rick Burton and managed by their always smiling, friendly store manager Aislinn Byrne. Located @ 1712 Water Street (Between G Street and H Street). And please note that besides the Cravotta's Space #42 the East End Market also has all kinds of great collections in their huge building and some of the best vibes, in Kerrville. Please click here to visit the East End Market website.

So let's begin shall we:

First, here are a couple of photos of Liz's awesome cards and a couple of pictures of Jim's whimsical Bare Bones Sculptures:

Here are a few more pictures of the Cravotta's Space #42

Here are the links to:

Longmire—Texas Style:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbDlR1AzvZA

East End Market: https://www.facebook.com/eastendmarkettx/?ref=page_internal

And here are three pictures when we were at the Grey Goose Saloon shooting the final scenes of Longmire—Texas Style!

The first picture is Liz behind scene, holding up a prop. The second picture is of Liz & Jim talking with Little Debbie and me after the filming of Longmire—Texas Style. aThe 3rd shot is the entire cast and crew of Longmire—Texas Style that was taken on the steps of the Grey Goose Saloon.

To listen to The Cousin Nancy Show: Episode 14: The Cravotta's Close Encounters of the Famous Kind! Please click here or near the top of the right-hand side bar.

I hope that y'all will enjoy the podcast and it will make you laugh at least once of twice. And please remember my favorite quote: "Life is short and so am I."

Y'all take care and keep on laughing!

Episode 12: Guess Who Is Coming To Dinner!

 In Episode:12 podcast—Guess Who Is Coming To Dinner, I tell the story about the time Kinky Friedman called me at the Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch, to ask me to please cook dinner for him and the famous Christopher Hitchens, one of the best known journalist in America, and for Hitchens' camera crew, and for our dear friends Sandy & John Wolfmueller.

It was the fall of 2004, and unexpected when, late in the day, Christopher Hitchens and his camera crew came out to Kinky's ranch to visit and interview him for a documentary that Hitchens was currently working on.

The documentary Texas: America Supersized can be viewed on YouTube, so if you are interested in watching it please click on Texas: America Supersized.

I had a lot of fun doing this podcast and besides telling that funny story about that night, I also included a Cousin Boomer update and a funny newly wed joke to make you laugh even more.

To listen to my 12th podcast please click on The Cousin Nancy Show or on the upper, right-hand side bar The Cousin Nancy Show.

Y'all take care and keep on laughing! And always remember my favorite quote: "Life Is Short And So Am I!"

Cats Have Staff!

Today has been great even though this evening the weatherman has predicted heavy thunderstorms tonight for the Hill Country. Which to me means giving Big Al(ice) a tiny tranquilizer, putting her thunder jacket on her and then unplugging everything.

I am not complaining and this is totally doable as long as I can locate which unpacked box or garbage sack we packed it in. And Tony and I plan to start hunting for her jacket as soon as I finish writing this. So tonight is going to be a short post.

This afternoon after we ate lunch I decided to build another bookcase for our bathroom, so we can store more stuff. It took me less than an hour to make this smaller bookcase/storage cabinet and that included me spray painting two boards needed to complete the doors. Here is the unused space between the bathroom sink and the doorway where the bookcase/cabinet will go.

After taking measurements for it I went outside and used the chop saw to cut my 1"x4" boards. Then I came back inside and started building it, on top of the island. And in this picture knowing that I wanted to store toilet paper, I stacked two rolls of toilet paper and added a board, before I screwed the shelf in and I did it on both sides, so the shelf would be level.

After the bookcase was assembled, I took measurements for the doors and realized I was 2 boards short, so I went outside and I found 2 unpainted boards and chopped them to size. Then I came inside and studied the colors of my almost empty cans of spray paint. And as you can tell I used hunter green and colonial red. Then I built the two doors. 

And after Aaron helped me put the hinges on it I took it into our bathroom and secured it to the wall, using 2 L-brackets. Then I filled it with more of our stuff.

In the above picture you will see the embroidered sign, on the top of the bookcase/cabinet that reads:

DOGS HAVE OWNERS

Cats have staff

 I love that sign that I made, in 2003, because I remember making two of them. One to give to First Lady Laura Bush and one for me.  

The reason that I made the sign for Laura Bush, was to thank her for helping our rescue ranch, because she did a fabulous fundraising luncheon for us, at the Four Seasons, in Austin. 

And thinking back to that fun event I have to laugh at myself for doing something really stupid that day. You see Kinky had asked Tony and me to meet him, at the Four Seasons, about an hour before the luncheon began, so I could give Laura, a big time dog and cat lover, my embroidered sign and we could thank her for helping our Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch. 

Well, to say the least Tone and I were pretty nervous about the event and getting to meet the First Lady and all.  

Anyway to make a long story shorter, when we arrived at the Four Seasons Hotel, we quickly hooked up with Kinky, in the big, fancy dining room. All kinds of people were running around setting tables, doing a sound check, etc. and Laura Bush was standing about twenty feet away from us and she was  talking to someone.

Well about that time, Kinky took off to go greet some of the musicians and entertainers that would be performing and he left us standing there and told us he would be right back. So I decided it would be a good time for me to go over to Laura and deliver my gift to her. 

So I took off and walked right up to the First Lady and handed her my embroidered sign as I introduced myself, gave her a hug, and I thanking her for doing this awesome fundraiser for our rescue ranch. 

And she was as nice and gracious to me as she could be, even though unbeknownst to me, my actions were being carefully watched by all of these Secret Service men, dressed in their dark blue suits. And right after I did this Kinky showed up and he started talking to his friend Laura Bush about Tony and me and our rescue ranch. Bottom   Line: After the enjoyable event I found out that no one is to ever touch a First Lady and that was why I had semi-panicked the Secret Service guarding her. 

So please let this be a lesson to y'all if you are ever in the same room with a First Lady, so it will save you the embarrassment it caused me. And that's about it for tonight, because now I need to go find Big Al(ice)'s thunder jacket.

But wait, I forgot to tell you this. Following the Laura Bush luncheon, she graciously, posed to have her picture taken with everyone who attended the event. 

And the next day, following the fun, fundraising luncheon, Ronnie (my sweet, big brother) called me to talk about how much he enjoyed going to the luncheon. And before we adios-ed each other Ronnie told me that he also got his picture taken with Mrs. Bush, too. "Nance, she was so nice and the picture the cameraman took of us was me with my arm wrapped around Laura Bush's shoulder!...."

Y'all have a great evening and keep on laughing!