A few weeks ago, actually Friday, the day before my birthday, I spent the day with Cindy, my sweet sister, in Fredericksburg. And I had a total blast.
Even though we practiced safe social distancing, we ate our lunch (I had the What-A-Burger Hatch Green Chili Cheese Burger which was totally delicious.) at a picnic table in the park.
During our fun visit Cindy gave me a birthday present book, A Reckoning In The Back Country by Terry Shames.
While Cindy was telling me about this famous author and her books with Texas themes, a nice man pulled up to the curb and parked his old truck near us. Then he and his elderly dog got out of the pickup and they went for a walk around the park.
By the time the man and his faithful companion had returned to their truck, I was telling Cindy about The Cowboy Way, which is one of my favorite movies and I strongly suggested that she watch it, because Woody Harrelson and Keifer Sutherland starred in this drama/comedy
And that is when this man got out of his truck and using a long extension cord, plugged his coffee pot into a nearby electric box on the curb, and sat it on the picnic table next to ours.
Bottom Line: About forty minutes later, when it was time for us to go, Cindy said, "I wish there was some place that we could go to drink a cup of coffee." And with that said we looked over at the Mr. Coffee pot, then we locked eyes and we tried not to laugh as we smelled the coffee brewing. And fortunately for us the man brewing the coffee was sitting inside his pickup with his dog and they did not hear us.
When I got back home I immediately went on Amazon and bought Cindy a copy of The Cowboy Way, because I could not wait for her to see this movie. Then I called her to tell her the movie would be arriving the following day. And Cindy seemed excited about getting it.
Saturday, late in the afternoon, I received a notice from Amazon that the movie had been delivered to Cindy's address, so I called her, but got her machine.
About an hour later, Cindy called me. "....Nance, did you order me a glue gun? The movie didn't come, but Amazon did deliver a glue gun? I know I didn't order a glue gun..."
"No, I didn't order you a glue gun," I replied. I was feeling disappointed that the movie had not arrive and that this was turning into a sticky situation to say the least. "Let me contact Amazon to see what is going on. I will call you back soon."
Fifteen minutes later Amazon solved the problem and realized their mistake. And the nice customer service woman promised me that Cindy's movie would be delivered on Sunday.
"That's great," I said. "But my sister wants to know what to do with the glue gun, because she doesn't want it and I already have two of them. How can she send it back to you?"
The woman replied, "Tell her not to return it to us. We don't want it either. She can keep it, give it away, donate it or throw it away." Bottom Line: Cindy got the movie on Sunday and she loved watching it, too. And I think I am getting a glue gun for Christmas.
Yesterday Kinky & I ate lunch together at the Medina Apple Store. Tony didn't go with us, because five days ago he stumbled and fell and broke a rib.
Anyway, during my fun lunch Kinky we reminisced about the good ole days that we've shared over the past 30 years. We laughed about the time the famous author, Christopher Hitchens and his camera crew, came to visit Kinky at Echo Hill Ranch.
It was an unexpected visit, a last minute deal and Kinky had to call in the troops—Sandy & Jon Wolfmueller and Tony and me—to help save the day for him.
Sandy & Jon raced around Kerrville picking up the booze & beer and they delivered the liquor to Kinky, before Kinky's guests had arrived. While Tony helped vacuum and clean up the trailer while I nervously, cooked up a huge casserole dinner, because Kinky had asked me to cook dinner for everyone.
It was dark outside and Sandy & Jon were inside The Cabin visiting with us when Kinky and his guests arrived for dinner. Christopher Hitchens was very charming and nice and to say the least he and his entourage were feeling no pain, because of the Wolfmueller's beer (booze) run. We had us a party going on.
"Kinky," I said. "When I pulled that giant casserole dish out of the oven and sat it down on the kitchen counter the casserole dish broke in half! Sandy saw it happen, so she rushed over to help me, so we could try to shove the two halves back together, before all of the hot casserole spilled out onto the counter top!"
"So what did y'all do?" Kinky asked me, before taking another bite of catfish.
"Instead of serving it buffet-style as I had planned, Sandy and I plated the dinners and served it. And no one ever knew about the casserole dish breaking."
When Kinky and I started talking about our good friend, Billy Joe Shaver, and his passing he told me this story about him and Billy Joe. These are not his exact words, but they are close enough.
"For some kind of an event, Billy Joe and I were in New York City together. We were at a bar drinking when @#$%, the famous author who wrote the famous book *&^% which turned out to be a New York Times Best Seller for several years and an academy award winning-movie, came up and introduced himself to us. "
"But before I tell you anything else, this guy had written this book several years before we met him and after becoming famous with that one book he pursued art, photography, writing more books, etc. and everything that he did were complete failures."
"So he peaked when he wrote this book?" I asked. "And everything went downhill from there?"
"Yes," Kinky replied. "Anyway after a few drinks with him @#$% invited us to come up to his hotel room, because he had something that he wanted to show us."
"What was it?" I asked.
"@#$% had done this 200 page, coffee table book of his photos. The pictures were nothing great and he had titled each picture. For instance there would be a picture of a railroad track and it would be titled: Railroad Track After Storm, etc. They were all very boring pictures with boring titles."
"Anyway, @#$% sat down on his bed and made us look at all 200 photos that he had taken and titled."
"How sad," I remarked. "Good grief how long did that take?"
"Nance, it was more than sad and took too long, because he insisted on turning the pages for us. And before he would turn to the next page, he would say, "Tell me when you are ready for me to turn the page." "And he said that same thing over two hundred times. It was absolutely ridicules like he expected us to stand there to gaze and ponder each stupid photo." And then Kinky and I burst out laughing.
Then I said, "I wonder if Bob Seger ever saw @#$%'s coffee table book?"
"I don't know," Kinky said. "But I do know Billy Joe and I could not wait to get out of there..."
I wish that I could tell you this famous author's name, but I can't because it could hurt his feelings even though he died several years ago.
Y'all have a great evening and keep on laughing!
