This weekend I bought used cowboy boots at an antique store….and a machete from Lowes.  Yellow 'pleather' gloves with rubber fingers completed my stylish rural weekend 'outfit'.   Suitable for chopping down Scottish Thistle, or a night on the town.  I did both.   I did leave the machete at home for the latter, but only because I did not think to add a decorative machete belt to my Lowes basket and it is just too showy weilding a shiny new machete while drinking a premium beer like Corona ™. 

"There is no such thing," Cienna tells me, "as a 'machete belt'.."

She is bitter to have been less trend-setting in flipflops with pruning shears.  No one would try to take pruning shears into a bar.  What would be the point?  A machete IS a point.  Pruning shears are just a seasonal accessory.  I think the rule of thumb is not before labor day or after Memorial day. The boots didn't really fit me.  BUT they were smooth leather with no place for fox tails to attach.  I had to swagger to keep them on my feet.  If you are going to buy a machete, I definitely recommend the used cowboy boots, with your pants tucked in.  Anyway, enough free fashion advice. 

We played beer pong at the WB.  Cienna lost her first round and was out. She had to drink most of a pitcher of Loser Beer.  I, somehow, won my round, which meant that I didn't have to drink PBR until round 2, which I lost in record time.  Jodi was with us, also, but sporting a new cold and not feeling especially well.  Not as badly as the barely legal contender who kept having to stop mid-game to puke, once on the floor, but mostly outside, under the stars.  Near the air conditioner.   He lost, but he gave it his all.  Really.

We left the WB after my humiliating loss and drove to Homedale to visit one of their fine drinking establishments.   Cienna and I were less impressed than Jodi by the bar we visited.  Maybe it was the WB PBR darkening our opinions. But to me, the Wild Rose was more of your regular sleazy bar.  It didn't have the cozy local charm of the WB.  The Wild Rose serves hard alcohol also and most of the clientelle were sloppy drunk.  While I was trendily tipsy.  Sure, most of the WB patrons were also drunk, but it was  a PBR drunk.  And they got there doing an ACTIVITY.  Maybe I like the WB because I like Kristi and Jason and John.  I've never really been much of a bar person, not since I was underage in Coeurd'Alene.   I want to see the WB succeed. It's a bike ride away from GL.  I don't need a bar; I do like a place where one can go have a beer and chat it up comfortably.

The Homedale bar did have Karoke and it did seem potentially hilarious, so …there is that. 
I don't think I'd need to sheath my machete in Homedale. I think it would be okay to just sort of hold it while I sang, say, 'Helter Skelter' or 'Stand By Your Man'….drinking a jigger.

"Cheerleading still most dangerous sport, despite reforms…" – Yahoo News Headline

Really? I can hardly wait for the Worlds Deadliest Cheer reality show to come after Ice Road Truckers and Deadliest Catch ….following these brave limber women in short skirts and enough verve to ovulate an entire population center as they cheat the reaper again and again to music mostly from the 80s.  The death toll from pom pom malfunctions alone must be staggering, not to mention tainted manicures and rival cheerleaders spiking the team vat of Summer's Eve douche with tabasco and eels.  I might be making some of this up because I'm like that.  I can't cartwheel. Never could. 

Worked Jen in the desert on Wednesday with Dianne (and Lora and her dogs from Oregon).  Jen is getting in better shape so her outruns are faster.   She eyed up on me at the Couch Trial, making it really apparent that I haven't really practiced much other than outruns and relatively straight driving with her.  Because one of us is lazy and the other is lazy… So, we're working on not just driving, but 'steering'….moving around an area and changing direction, inside flanks….crossdriving.  The word that best describes us is 'serpentine'… There are no straight lines.  But we're getting there.  My whistles are an affront to man and beast, but Jen seems to interpret them.  
I think that we'd both prefer 80's music, but that's dangerous; could be a gateway to cheerleading.

"Now is the perfect time to start bee-keeping…"  –Craig's List Ad, Farm and Garden

With my 2nd conference call moments away from beginning, having just emerged from a long and ludicrous meeting on…meetings…I couldn't agree more.  What I need, right here at my desk, is five or six hives brimming with angry stinging insects and nothing to pollinate for miles.  It's the perfect metaphor for my life, and yet these winged hateful creatures would actually have the incentive to pull off what I can only dream about: Stinging my co-workers. Making them run swatting and welty from my cubicle, never to return…with their spreadsheets and their long tedious questions about data and can I make a map using their non-geographic data? YES, it would be called a SPREADSHEET.  Bzzzz bzzzzz.

With my increasing endurance, coupled with a solid and enthusiastic 'lie down!", plus Jen's ability to hold a position and stare, if she could only whistle, we would KICK SOME SERIOUS ASS on the trial field.  I'll have to check the rules and ask Patrick about working with her on the welsh tones, though truthfully, I'd prefer something more bouncy and latin.  Still, I'm all for tradition. 
I wonder if they make the Astro Blaster in bacon flavor.  That would help.  

This weekend we 'ran' in the 'couch trial'…which didn't involve furniture but probably should have.  Another 'sport' at which Jen and I excel.  Despite the obvious mixup in nomenclature, it was a fun event and Jen and I enjoyed sucking in a new location on fresh horrible sheep.  

Patrick turned 50 and Ruben threw a great party with the best food and drink ever.  Among the many fun and fabulous people present was Derek Fisher, my arch nemesis and yet new BFF.  I study him as one would an insect that might evolve into something suitable for pinning to velvet and framing.  Or, yet again, might just emerge as a threat to one's sweaters.   Either way, he flutters toward the bright light that is my political future.

This last weekend I was lucky enough to be invited to sherpa for Patrick and Dianne at the Wessel's Dirt Blowing Trial in Dayton Washington. 
Jen came along as well for backup sheep-staring support.  Mind control.  I think
it worked because Patrick and Dianne did VERY WELL.  I think those who
know Patrick will be impressed with the size of his latest belt buckle
next time they see him swaggering across the trial field in tight
wranglers and snakeskin c-boy boots.  The Buckle: An eclipse of shiny.
Bigger than a baby's head and twice as incapable of
supporting it's own weight.

Highlights:

Thursday night at Mary Hamilton's was delicious and entertaining.   I almost want to add another "Walla" to "Walla Walla".

On Friday,
Dianne won Pro Novice and
Nursery with a dog named 'Annie'.  Annie is a young dog owned by Leslie
Capik (sp?).  She is a dog of functional beauty and an unfortunate
Edward Scissorpaw 's hair cut.   

For awhile on both Friday and Saturday I hung out in setout with Susan and the twins (Hint: Not a euphanism for Susan's breasts…but a different set of big lovable boobs!) and Allen…and others.  Setout is almost always The Place to Be.  ESPECIALLY with Susan around.

Patrick ran Riggs (really really nice
in Open on Saturday, especially) and his nursery dog Andi, and Bette. Saturday night I threw down a couple smoke shack jiggers with Dianne,
Lavonne, Steve and Mike – Smoke Shack Hosts.  NOT JUST Smokers of meat. Tip of
the visor to Steve.  Who needs a clean spatula when you have back door
chingaso juice.  That can be misinterpreted in a million ways.  All
only slightly better than the truth.

Sunday I sat in the combine (best judging tent EVER!) for awhile and scribed for Joe Haynes. Joe is a great guy who explains everything patiently. Even why what were were sitting in will never bail hay.

It was a really fun weekend and a great trial.

Jen and I were so proud of the Original P and Jigger D that we drooled on my leg all the way home
in the back seat.

That is the quick and dirty I'm Tired Update post….

Updates:

On Sheep:
"I'm a driver, I'm a winner, things are gonna change I can feel it." – Beck, Loser

I've been paying Jen in chicken to help me with timing and subtlety and learning not to flail.  It's coming along; I'm whistling more, shouting out crazy tourette's-like wrong commands less; if everything were a Come By we'd be there.  Jen translates the muted special ed. songbird noises that I make…anything not a Come by… as an Away.  I get fewer sideways glances from her.  She seems to have a certain grudging affection for this Not Patrick.  She wags when she looks at me.  It might be pity, but I like to think its more.

We have Sheep at The Leaf now and will spend more quality time there after this next weekend. 

I'm bolding all the possible title's of Jen and my Lifetime channel movie, coming soon.  The most probable though, if Jen has her choice, and she totally will cut me out of this deal if she can….will be one of the following:
'A Bad Hump' – My Summer Living with Simpletons
Stupidity Tastes Like Chicken
Not Patrick Herds a Duck 

Regardless it will be all Jen; with soft focus camera shots and plenty of closeups on those lucious curly pantaloons as she sashays out of frame, with one sideways glance back….to the Not Patrick, probably played by some B-list starlett from the 70s …like Bea Arthur or more probably that british guy 'Bean' in drag…

I had a really busy weekend, full of productivity.  Because *I* am that kind of person.  Add a drop of COMMUNITY SPIRIT and stir.  That's me…

On Saturday, I helped Jodi sort sheep, load sheep and move sheep to the Greenest Leaf this side of the Phyllis Canal.  Later, I helped Jodi move sheep to some undisclosed location in Nampa.  Or Caldwell. Who knows?  Sheep don't need zip codes. UNLIKE SOME PEOPLE….PARMA.

Other than sheep, Jodi and I contributed to the economy of Wilder.  I celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Pabst Blue River, Wilder tributary,  by rafting it…sort of.  We played various sports.  We rode bikes. We helped legitimize the late night shift of the alarmingly feral Parma Police Dept.   

Sunday was spent mowing down weeds and bad images of the night before. 

This week's TO DO LIST:  I'm going to form an action committee Parma Police Off Wilder Streets NOW!
Because next time I'm cruising around early in the morning on my bike
IN WILDER, minding my own beeswax, I don't want to have to ask the
Parma Police for his zip code and a map.