Royal Happy Ending or Royal Pain in the End?

Will you be watching the Royal Wedding as Kate Middleton marries Prince William?

Here in Big Thicket, we’re still enamored with Prince Albert.  In case you are too young or too innocent, Prince Albert was ground up into tobacco and doled out in a red can with a hinge lid.

This is the same Prince Albert that children were referring to when they phoned their local drug store and asked, “Do you have Prince Albert in a can?”  Because the woman who answered the phone was not born yesterday but did her store-clerk duty and answered, “Yes, we do.”  She knew full well the punch line,” Well Don’t you think you better let him out?!” was coming amid giggles of laughter and a kerplunk as the phone slammed in her ear.

The Prince Albert that I am referring to here is pipe tobacco and is mild enough to be used for cigarettes.

When I was growing up my juvenile delinquent cousin rolled his own.  E.J. loitered at my grandfather’s house when he wasn’t loitering around the domino tables at the courthouse or pulling up his baggy blue jeans that he wore down around his hips.

He had those thin cigarette papers that he would gingerly take from the pack, crease in a little trough between his fingers that he filled with Prince Albert tobacco so that before you could say, “Dude, that looks like a doobie,” he was puffing away.

With the price of cigarettes these days, E.J. could probably take all the money he has spent on cigarettes and pay for Kate Middleton’s shoes.  I was going to say E.J. could have paid for the wedding, but even E.J. never smoked that much.

I confess I have to watch the wedding.  I am somewhat of an expert at weddings, since I have gone to the altar more times than one should.   I want to see if I can gage how long it will last from the ceremony.  Sorta like reading tea leaves.  If I could have just figured out from the beginning how long before the end, I could have had an entirely different life.

I wish Kate and William all the best, as if that will help them survive what can only be a nightmare way to live with all the scrutiny and publicity.

Now we can see why Prince Albert wanted to stay in the can.

You Can't Keep A Good Girl Down

From the "Can't Keep A Good Girl Down" Department. Here is a girl at the top of my list.

In August of 2008 Nicole Marquez was an aspiring young dancer who fell six floors from her apartment building in New York City. She lay for 8 hours before being found. Nicole broke her neck, back, pelvis and ribs. She also punctured a lung.

In the hospital Nicole endured multiple surgeries, a bout of pneumonia, and a series of mini-strokes. Nicole was also on a ventilator for over two weeks. She is back in her home in Jackson, Mississippi learning to walk again.

Nicole is the young lady in the video




“Weight of the World” is by Grady Champion, a great singer, managed by a good friend of mine. A mutual friend of Grady and Nicole's, who is doing a documentary on Nicole, made the video.

Bless your heart Nicole!!!

Lindsay on Jay Leno

Ok, Lindsay.

Is it true the old sentiment, Anytime a addict's lips are moving it means she is lying?

Come on Lindsay, walk the talk. I'm rooting for you.

I Fought The Law And The Lawyers Won

I don’t know the Low Down on Lindsay Lohan but that’s not going to stop me from commenting about it.

 I feel your pain Lindsay, but only just a little. Let’s see, you are:

Young,
Beautiful,
Photogenic,
Look great in skin-tight white dresses,
Controlled substance expert,
Jewelry connoisseur,
Possibly talented, and
Able to afford high-priced lawyers (Always a plus!)

Being in trouble with the law is like having all your very bad days at once.  Lindsay gets to have hers in public with cameras following her every move and most likely with a hangover and a no-pot chaser.

I got in trouble with the law without all of the above advantages, although I probably had the hangover in common.

Without writing a dissertation on the justice system, suffice it to say: you don’t want to get on the bad side of John Law.  Just ask Lindsay.

And me.

Lindsay may actually be innocent of something for a change so the irony of her actually going to jail for something she didn’t do would be a pisser.

Like it was for me.

Getting busted is bad enough but then they make you put on the orange jump suit.

 (And would somebody tell me please why jump suits?  I mean if you have to use the bathroom, you have to pull your top off in front of anybody who wants to get an eyeful.  And then you have to be careful where the top half of your jump suit goes and not let it fall around your knees or get twisted and floating.  Ewwwwww and awkward.)

I don’t know, maybe in Hollywood they get designer jumpsuits and actors who play great lawyers on TV.

Remember that old song, “I fought the law and the law won.”  I’m sure that song was written by someone from Texas. In the Texas judicial system, you will be judged by a jury of your peers who will decide who has the best lawyer.  Not necessarily on your innocence. 

Sadly, I speak from experience. 

Lindsay may have won for today and be out of jail, but the law has been practicing for centuries and it doesn’t screw around when it is out to screw you.

Best of luck, Lindsay.  And say, can you tell me where did you get that white dress?

Yall Behave!

Hoppy Easter Every Bunny!

Hi Ya'll,

You may not know it, but I was the inspiration for Lady GaGa's Egg-stravaganza at the Grammy's.  As usual, she took things to the egg-stream.  (I know that egg puns are so juvenile, but they crack me up.) (Let's all groan in unison.)

Here at Rancho Wrecko I am going to be spending some quality time with the Easter Bunny.  While the Bunny is out laying the eggs, I'll be laid up in bed.

I have dyed some eggs so I'll have egg salad sandwiches and deviled eggs.  Won't be the first time I've had egg on my face.

Just remember some bunny loves you!  And sometimes they love you and then hop off into the night. 

Gettin' Down and Dirty on Earth Day

photo: pantspierrre

Now be honest, does that mud make my butt look big?

Stay Cool

Hi Yall,

For my readers north of the Red River, spring may just now be showing up and the flowers are blooming and the birds are chirping and it is glorious.  I personally know someone in Iowa who had snow in the not too distant past. He has my sympathy that this was a hard winter.

In Big Thicket Texas on the 21st of April, the temperature is 86 degrees and due to the humidity which was 87 percent this morning, it now feels like 93 degrees.

Photo: heybulldog909

Right now I have the windows open and the same wind
that is helping me stay cool is fanning out-of-control fires in other parts of the state. At present fires have burned over 1 million acres in Texas.  Mother Nature must be having a serious hot flash.  

Remember that Charlie Daniels song, The Devil Went Down to Georgia?  Well, he’s showed up out in West Texas and brought his hell fire with him.  I wish Charlie would come down here and fiddle his pointy tail back to Georgia.
  
It cost fifty-nine dollars to fill up my car.  How in the world am I going to afford the electricity to air condition Rancho Wrecko?  I’m probably not, so I am giving you fair warning right now.   The woman at the other end of this computer is hot, and sweaty, and cranky and needs a refreshing adult beverage.

 Stay Cool,

Clouds in My Coffee

 photo: curious_butterfly

I may have solved a modern mystery.  I have often been amazed when I see stories on the news about the incredible amount of drugs in the form of white powder that is smuggled into the country by South American and Mexican Cartels.

I am pretty sure I know where a large quantity of this contraband is going: Into my coffee cup.  I am relatively certain that the innocent looking plastic container sitting by my coffee pot with the pop-top lid is full of milk-flavored cocaine or something equally addicting. 

I used to use a teaspoon to measure in a little taste, but my habit has morphed into a full-blown maniacal usage.  Like any junkie with a habit that has gotten out of hand, I have to have my fix or I get cranky. 

I want enough so that when I pour corn syrup solids, partially hydrogenated soybean oil and sodium caseinate milk derivative into my empty cup there is a wisp of powder that blooms at the top like a detonated mushroom cloud.

photo:angelny

I know this is not good for me.  Have you ever seen what this stuff is like when you leave it sitting unprotected on the counter for a while?  It hardens into dipotassium phosphate concrete which could be used to build bridges and skyscrapers.  What must this stuff be doing to the Starbucks Café inside my stomach?

When you're as broke and as old as I am, your hang-ups are all you got left.  If I am addicted, I guess the up side is that I can buy 11 ounces of this white powder for a dollar.
 
Ya'll be good or at least be good at it!

photo: caramia_bucket

photo: mattsen32

photo: madjerry007

The Confession

When you live in a small town, every body knows your business and your name, kinda like that song says from Cheers.  They know who your folks are, what you do for a living and where you rank in the social status, in other words; how much money it looks like you have.  If your shoe size was interesting, they’d know it too and pass the info around so that anyone with a foot fetish could become your sole mate.

When the news came to me that I had an inheritance of a house with running water and a sofa that wasn’t about to be repossessed, I decided to pack up my car with what was left of my dignity and come back to Big Thicket.  I left a slew of problems where I came from and these problems were what I have been determined to keep my mouth shut about.

But since I am now spilling my guts on the World Wide Web, I have to figure out a way to be myself and not tip my hand at what’s up my sleeve.  So please understand when I tell you that I am not real.

 I’m just a Fig Newton of my own imagination.

Big Thicket isn’t real, but the town I live in is.  These people I am going to tell you about are real; it’s just that their names have been changed to protect the boring, the innocent and me. What you are about to read on this blog is what I lived through.  You’ve heard about the witness protection program?

I could have used the protection but I didn’t qualify.  Hell, I couldn’t qualify for the Jehovah’s Witness program though a few of them tried really hard to get me in.

Now that I have confessed my sins, I am going to go out in the back yard armed with a tall glass of red wine and say a few "Hell Yeahs" till I feel forgiven!

Rancho Wrecko

Meet Rancho Wrecko. This is not a photo of my house, but almost.  I can’t show you my real house because it’s still not wise to reveal my actual location.  (Only Google knows exactly where I live.)

I have been in this house for a little while now.  I have most of my boxes unpacked.  I didn’t have too much because when I married Ida Man the 4th(the last man I will ever marry, and you can quote me on that!), he had much nicer things than me, so my crappy stuff ultimately had to go.

You know how that is.  I would bring in a perfectly good knick-knack and place it on the book shelf next to one of his collector items (collected on his travels, not from the discount beanie baby table at the antique mall, either, but from a market in Zimbabwe or Zim-some-where).  Anyway he would get that pained look on his face.  Oh you know the look, the one that looks like he has need of some Prilosec or Excedrine.

My stuff really wasn’t good enough to cozy up to his.  I though he was going to faint when I brought out my shabby-chic crusty-rustys.  You would have thought I was introducing the Klingons to the Romulans instead of faded rose toile to modern sterile. 

I tried ya’ll.  I fought for the loves of my life; my wire baskets, my mismatched china, the old silver plate, but he brought in the big guns.

Now I can’t name names here, but I was waylaid, over ruled and de-cluttered down to my distressed linens by an interior designer with pointy shoes and a fake accent.

Her work has been shown in magazines.  What work?  Did she sew the cushions?  Did she lay the expensive carpet?  No, she waltzed around spending my ex-husbands money buying art work that made no sense, making me feel stupid for owning my grandmothers footstool.

Here at Rancho Wrecko, I am the interior designer, the dust bunny catcher and the decision maker.  Oh, god, didn’t George Bush say something to that effect?  When I start quoting W, it’s time for me to go lower my blood pressure. 

I usually do that with an adult beverage.  Ya'll have a happy Saturday!

Broke Down in Big Thicket

Well, here it is: My next blog post.  Hooray.

The jury (I guess that would be you, my readers) is still out on whether this blog will make it.  My friend said I could do this but she is also the same one who said I should be Big Thicket’s Martha Stewart…and we all know how that turned out.  Here’s a shout out to Martha, “Hey Martha, I forgive ya!”

I declare I almost ran away with myself again

Run away is what I am real good at.  I’ve been either running toward something or running away from something all my life.  Finally, I’ve decided that I am tired of all that huffing and puffing and I am going to sit still for a while.  And to tell you the truth, I don't have a lot of choice at the moment.

It just so happens I run out of steam and money in Big Thicket, Texas; Population 22,492.  There’s nothing wrong with Big Thicket, if you like peace and quiet.  Except for the crickets, the hoot owls and the neighbor’s dog down the road, the only sounds I hear some days are my own thoughts whirling around in my head.  (Not good.)

One of my husbands was from here.  He is no longer with us and due to some snafu on the paperwork I inherited this house from him long after he stopped speaking to me.  Well, he no longer speaks to anybody since they planted him at the Holy Rest Cemetery at the quiet end of a red dirt road.

I went to his grave site and thanked him for remembering me in his will, but I know in my heart he was turning over and over like a chicken on a rotisserie spit when he realized it was me wading through the pine straw to come see him.

I never knew about this place while my ex was alive.  My ex was the silent type. You almost have to be if you stay around me.  The house belonged to his aunt.  When she died, he was his only heir and since I was still listed as his sole surviving relative, it came like a miracle from above to me.  Don’t ask me if it is all legal.  I am not looking a gift house in the plumbing.

Let me tell you, I am grateful.  I have a roof over my head, but just barely.  Home ownership ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.   I got back taxes to pay, a sewer system that needed replacing in the ‘70’s and a kitchen oven that I use for storage.

I put some of these Azaleas in my hair until a spider climbed down my forehead.

Don't you love snap dragons?  Makes me think of that line, "But there be dragons in them hills..."

By the time you see these photos, these beauties will be gone.  I think Spring should stay longer.  Somebody make a note.

I kinda sound depressed and I don't mean to be.  My friend told me we are supposed to remain positive when we write on our blogs.   So I 'm going to make myself a little sign to share with you and we'll both feel better.