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.