Tug Of War! or I Love Whiskey!

Yesterday was too much fun. Ruth Buzzi and her husband Kent called us around noon and invited us to meet them for lunch, at the Apple Store, in Medina aka the Apple  Cider Mill and they also invited Chet, too, but he couldn't go, because he was busy.

When the four of us walked inside, the Apple Store, Tony and I introduced our good friends to Barbara and then to Dawn. And we had a super fun time eating lunch with them. And if Ruthie wasn't cracking us up with hilarious stories and jokes—Kent was.

All kinds of people were excited about Ruth Buzzi being there and several fans of all ages, asked her to please let them get their picture taken with her. And after Ruthie had posed with all of them, we asked Dawn to please take a picture of us with Kent and Ruthie, because Ruthie and Kent had already posed with her earlier.

Before we left Medina to come back to the ranch, I asked Ruthie and Kent if they would mind stopping, at The Old Timer, because I wanted to introduce them to our good friend Debbie, the store owner and her super friendly employees. Here's a picture I took of Ruthie posing with Debbie and her adorable Great Pyrenees pup.

Then Ruthie met everyone of the employees and she posed for pictures and then she visited with all them. And to say the least, "Everyone, inside the Old Timer, was totally thrilled about getting a chance to meet the sweet, famous stage, television and silver screen Ruth Buzzi."

Before all of us left the Old Timer, Tony and I invited our friends to come over to the rescue ranch so we could visit some more with them and Chet O'Keefe.

Chet greeted us at the front door and after howdies and hugs, Kent said, "Chet Ruthie and I love your music and we wish that you would play a song or two for us." And seconds later, Chet was sitting on a stool, playing my guitar and singing one of his great songs for all of us.

After Chet sang three songs there was a knock on the front door and there stood sweet Marcie, Kinky's younger sister, with our good friend Nelda. "Hi y'all!" I said. "Come on in. Y'all know everyone. Chet's playing music for us..." 

And a few minutes later, after Chet had sung another song, Kent said, "I wish I had a piano to play, so  we could play some music together."

"We do. My keyboard is being stored inside the Mother Ship. That's my RV that I am fixing' up. Let me go get it for you." Then I took off to go fetch it.

A few minutes later, Chet and Kent were jamming and they sounded fantastic. They took turns playing Chet's songs and favorite, old classic songs that Ruthie loves. It was totally awesome.

When Kent and Chet started singing some old Willie Nelson tunes and Blue Grass songs, I went back to my office and grabbed my old guitar that Ronnie made for me. Then I sat in with them and played along with them. 

When it was time for Ruthie & Kent and Marcie and Nelda to get back over to Kinky's, Chet and Tony left too, so they could try to fix Marcie's car.

And twenty minutes later, I phoned Kinky to ask him to please go tell Tony that he needed to get over here fast. Then I went back outside.

Two minutes later, they drove up in Kermit. "Thanks for getting over here fast. This woman has this dog and...."

After we told her that we would take her dog Whiskey and the nice woman had quit crying. We talked about what pen to put Whiskey in, because Whiskey, who looks exactly like our Belle, but she is a little darker tan, has issues about being left alone without another dog being with her. "You can put her in with Willie," Chet suggested. "Whiskey and Willie already seem to like each other."

Last night Chet, Tony and I went over to the Lodge, so we could have another fun visit with Ruthie & Kent, Marcie and Kinky.

This morning when Chet came inside The Cabin, he laughed and said, "Whiskey is a really great dog and she loves to play with Willie. They woke me up this morning, because they had found one of my socks and they were playing tug of war with it. Seriously, they had my sock stretched twice its size. It was a lot of fun to watch. I love Whiskey and so does Willie..."

Today has been great even though it is sadly, once again, M.I.R. Time (Mercury In Retrograde). I've had a very busy day and tomorrow I will post a picture of our, new, two-year-old, rescued Whiskey.

P.S. Mari, I love the funny comment that you made on my last post about Chet and I doing dumb things on our trip to Terlingua. In fact, I am still laughing about it. And tomorrow, I will also write about Chet and me breaking the law as we were driving out to Terlingua.

Y'all have a great evening!

Cabin #45! or Burrito! or Hi!

Today has been great and so was my trip. While I was in Terlingua I wrote, wrote, wrote and I am very thrilled about how much I accomplished. Seriously, I think my book is ten times funnier that it was before Chet and I took off for Terlingua.

For the past several months I have been wanting to take a few days off and go somewhere, so I could focus entirely on my book. So, early last week when Chet told us that he had four-back-to-back gigs to play, in Terlingua, Tony suggested that I ask Chet if I could carpool with him, so I could work on my novella.

After we got out there Chet and I basically went our own separate ways. While he was busy playing his gigs or out visiting with his friends, I stayed put, inside my cabin, either writing or dictating to my computer.

Saturday night was the only time that I wasn't writing, because I went with Chet, to the famous Starlight Theatre Bar and Grill, in the ghost town, because Jim Keaveny had asked Chet to play with him and his awesome band.

It was an awesome night of incredibly great music. In fact, it was an evening that I will never forget, because they had the place rocking' with Country, Americana, Blues, Blue Grass, etc. music.

A couple of funny things did happen on our Terlingua trip though. Late Sunday afternoon I took a short break from my writing and I went down to the Bad Rabbit Cafe to grab a fast bite to eat, because I could not wait to get back to my writing.

After I ate, I was walking back to my cabin and I was so focused on what I was going to write next, I did the dumbest thing. When I got to my cabin I walked up the steps and tried to put my key in to unlock the door, but the key wouldn't open the door. So I tried a couple of more times and then gave up.

When I started to walk back down the steps, to go to the Office, I saw there were three more cabins down the hill and it didn't make any sense to me, because my cabin #45 was at the end of the row of cabins, that all looked exactly alike.

Then it hit me like a brick! I realized that I was at the wrong cabin. Mine was three buildings down. I felt so stupid and vowed not to tell anyone, especially Tony or Chet, because I knew that they would tease me. I was thankful that no one had seen me do such a stupid thing, because they would have thought that I was trying to break into a cabin. And I was also glad that no one had been occupying the cabin that I was trying to get into.

On our way back yesterday we made a quick pit stop, in Sonora, to fill up the car and grab something  that we could eat on the road. When I was paying for my food I thought I heard Chet say, "I'm going to get a burrito," as he left the store.

So I asked the clerk, "Did that man just say, "I'm going to get a burrito?" Then the woman gave me the funniest look, like I was crazy or something. So I went back to our white car and got inside.

A few minutes later, Chet walked out of the store and he was busy reading his text messages.  He went to this white parked car, next to us that looked exactly like ours and he opened the door to get in. And you should have seen the startled look on his face, when he saw the man sitting behind the steering wheel. Then he looked through the car's windows and saw me laughing.

"When Chet got inside our car he was still laughing. "I can't believe that I just did that," he said, while I was still laughing. The man looked up at me and he was smiling at me and all he said was, "Hi." "I was thinking you don't look like Nancy. Where is she and where is my stuff?"

When I quit laughing, I said, "I'm so glad that you did it..." Then I confessed to him about going to the wrong cabin and because I am hard of hearing and asking the cashier if you had said, "I'm going to get a burrito. And her probably thinking that I was crazy."

We laughed at ourselves the rest of the way home. We got back around 6:00 and within ten minutes we had confessed to Tony about the dumb things we had done and he is still teasing us about it.

I am so glad to be back home with Tony, Roy, Belle, Beau, Little Debbie and Big Al(ice) and tonight, after we go over to visit with Kinky, Ruth Buzzi and her husband Kent, Sean Rima and Marcie, I plan to do some more writing. And that's about it for tonight.

Y'all have a great evening!

I Am Writing Up A Storm And I Miss Tony & Our Dogs!

My Only Problem!

The last few days have been quiet out here and I was able to get caught up with all of the rescue ranch's paperwork, etc. and I also got to do a lot of work on my third novella, too. So Tuesday morning, because of all of my work related accomplishments, I rented a car.

This morning, as soon as I called Harley to do his popular morning radio show I checked NetFlix to see when Longmire's 4th Season 1st episode would air today and boy was I in for a great surprise. They had all ten of the episodes for the 4th Season available to watch!

So as any loyal Longmire fan would do—I immediately sat down, with Little Debbie, on my lap and watched the first episode and it was incredibly great. In fact, it blew me away with all of the unexpected surprises.

So now my only problem is to decide if I want to binge-watch the entire 4th Season and then have to wait a year for Season 5 to air or spread it out and watch just one episode a week. It has bugged me all day long, after watching the first episode and I still haven't made a decision. And that is just another reason why my life ain't easy.

Early this evening, Tony drove me to Kerrville so I could pick up my rental car, because tomorrow morning I am going on a road trip, to a secret destination, that only Tony, Chet, Kris & Jim know about, so I can hopefully finish writing my third Cowgirl Sisterhood novella. And I seriously think that I can do it, because I plan to lock myself, inside my cabin, with just my computer, the Keurig coffee machine, iPod with its Bose iDock and my guitar and spend all of my waking hours writing without any interruptions.

I am really looking forward to my self-imposed writing-weekend and I plan on returning to Tony and the rescue ranch Monday afternoon. I wish that I could take Belle, Roy and Little Debbie with me to keep me company and make me smile, but seriously I don't need any distractions.

If the Internet is available I may take a break and try to blog some, but seriously my main purpose for taking a few days off is for me to finish writing my book. So please wish me luck with that.

Y'all have a great weekend!

I Am Running Late! Am Writing Now And Should Post Within The Hour!

Happy Labor Day!

The past few days have been great. Sunday afternoon, while the nice kids, over at the Arms of Hope, at the Medina Children's Home, were walking our dogs for us, the nicest family came out to check out our dogs.

They originally came out to check out Holly aka Hollywood, our sweet, five-year-old Pit, because they love that breed.

But they were also interested in Ginger, our great four-year-old Boxer and Lucille, our sweet two-year-old Boxer mix, because the family also loves Boxers.

The sweet family after meeting all of our dogs ended up loving Holly, Ginger and Lucille. They told us that they wanted to take a few days to figure out which one of these fabulous dogs they should adopt. And before they left to go back home, they told us that they would call us back, in a few days, to let us know who would be the lucky gal. 

Tony and I think that we already know who they are going to adopt, but we're keeping it a secret, just in case we're wrong. Anyway, we are still pretty excited about one of our super dogs going to a super home.

Today is Labor Day and I hope that everyone has enjoyed a great Labor Day Weekend, because Tony and I certainly have. It is approximately 3:10 here and I am fixin' to go take a short, sleepless nap with Roy, Belle, Beau, Big Al (Alice) and Little Debbie. Then I plan to re-watch a couple more of the Longmire episodes to refresh my memory, because Longmire's new Season 4, 1st episode airs this Thursday, September 10th! And Tony and I can't wait to watch it. Then my plans for the rest of my Labor Day holiday is to do some more writing/rewriting on my third novella.

Y'all have a great Labor Day/evening!

One Of Them! or The Turkey Man!

The last few days and today has been great sort of, so I will save the bad news for last. This past Tuesday, in the middle of the day, I decided to take a break from my paperwork and watch something on television.

I was channel-surfing, looking for something interesting to watch when I came across one of those home shopping channels and the info channel guide read something like this, "Emergency Home Preparedness Kits for natural disasters."

Then I remembered in the past years, I've heard about those crazy shopping channels where people get hooked on watching them and then they end up buying all kinds of things and maxing out their credit cards. And it made me laugh out loud, because I would never do such a thing.

But I was curious, so I pressed the remote button and started watching these young, pretty, high-pitch sales, women do their thing. And in seconds I was completely hooked. I was oblivious to the world!

As the women bragged on the products and reported how many were left to sell, I kept my eyes peeled on the totals sold counter, in the bottom, left side of the screen. "Listen up," one of the smiling, sales women said, "We've just sold over 107,000 of this product and we predict that in the next five minutes we will be completely sold out of...."

So I immediately grabbed my credit card and called the 1-800 number and ordered two, one for Tony and one for me, because the price was greatly reduced and the shipping was free and we needed them—NOW—in case of an emergency!

I felt good and was thrilled about my purchases until I quickly realized that I had just become "one of them" impulse-buyer people that are addicted to watching the shopping channels.

Today has been great almost. (Remember, that I am still saving the bad news for the last.) This morning Tony and I rescued a handsome, three-year-old Lab Mix, named Jake. He arrived around 10:00 and the sweet woman who brought him to us was crying hysterically and sick about having to leave Jake with us. There is a little more to this story, but this is all that I care to share with you.

Anyway, about an hour and a half after she had gone, I told Tony that I needed his help, because I wanted to take Jake, who was still pretty upset about being left here, for a walk down to the creek. Tony agreed to help me, so I opened up our new package of H-E-B Honey-Roasted Shaved Turkey slices, that we were going to eat for our lunch, and pulled out the turkey and put it inside a Baggie. "Tony, will you please use my camera and take some pictures of Jake and me walking, because right now he is too nervous for us to take a good picture of him for our website. I just want people to see what a beautiful dog he is. We can take better pictures of Jake, in a few days, after he trusts us and has settled in." Then we went outside to go get Jake.

When we drove up to Jake's temporary pen, in Kermit, Jake was scared and doing a little growling, but the hair on his back was not standing up, which was a good sign. I grabbed the leash and walked up to the pen and started talking to Jake, in hopes to calm him, as I fed him a slice of turkey.

Then I went inside his pen. "Come on ,Jake. Let's go for a fun walk, good buddy. It will be so much fun and..." Then I slipped a leash over Jake's head. "Good boy. Let's go for a walk down to the creek." Jake calmly walked out of his pen with me and then he and I took off.

Then Tony took off, in Kermit, to chase out Roy and Gabby, the donkeys, that had wandered into the rescue ranch.

Once outside of the rescue ranch, Jake began to relax, but I kept on talking to him and telling him what a great dog he was. On our way down to the creek Jake kept stopping to check out new smells and mark them.

When we got to Big Foot Wallace Creek, I walked him right up to the water, in hopes that he would walk into the water and not be scared of it like some dogs are.

Jake stared at the creek, took a couple of drinks and then he slowly walked into the water. The water which was only about five or six inches deep when Jake started walking around in the water, for about three or four minutes, then he decided to get out of the creek. 

I praised Jake for being so brave about water and then I went over and sat down on a big rock. Then I unzipped the Baggie and fed him a slice of turkey and I was thrilled that he gently took it from my fingers. Then I asked him to sit.

Jake obediently sat down for me and I praised him for that. Then I tossed him a slice of turkey and he caught it in the air and I praised him for that, too. Then I talked to him some more, as I fed him most of Tony's and my lunch. 

Then we headed back to the rescue ranch and along the way Jake seemed to be having fun sniffing around the trees, marking rocks, etc.

When we walked inside the rescue ranch, Jake did get startled, because he saw the donkeys grazing near by, that were inside the corral, near the front of the ranch. "It's okay, Jake. They aren't going to hurt you...."

When he and I arrived at his temporary pen, I handed Tony what was left of the turkey and asked him to please give it to Jake, so Jake would know that he could trust Tony and that he was a good guy or better said, "The Turkey Man"cometh!

After Tony hand fed Jake and then tossed the last piece of turkey, into the air, for Jake to catch, I returned Jake to his pen and petted him all over, while telling him what a great dog he was and not to be scared of anything. And I am pretty sure that Jake understood, because he was wagging his tail.

Okay, now it is finally the time for the bad news. This morning my nose was stopped up, then later on, I started having a runny nose and by late this afternoon I was coughing lightly and sneezing some. Anyway, it looks like I might be coming down with a summer cold and I am not happy about that, because I don't like being sick. I am hoping that it is just an allergy and that it will go away sooner than later, but who "Nose" (knows).

Y'all have a great evening!