1. If you're not at the 2011 Sheepdog finals this weekend what are you planning to do?

I have no plans.  I'm like that. I like life to just happen to me, like my dogs.

2. One item you NEVER walk onto the trial field (any trial field, or training class will suffice) without?

Pants. AND: My dog, because, like pants, even if prone to creeping up or being too tight, they tend to cover my ass.  

3. Katy wants to know if you have a pre-run ritual that you observe? 

Thats me!! AND I answered that, sort of, in the previous post.  I think it's interesting how many of us have the Nervous Pee ritual.  I've toyed with the idea of Ritual Sacrifice, but that seems messy and I'm usually too busy peeing nervously to carry it out. Still…it worked for the Mayans. And GW.

4. How old were you when you had your first real kiss?

I suppose I was 15.  Technically.  It was an appallingly uncomfortable, awkward event of my own construction. Well, mine and John Travolta's.

HORRIBLY shy, yet consumed with jealousy that my best friend had seen Saturday Night Fever and I had not….I accepted a date with a guy I clumsily met at the lake.  He was 21. I told him that I was 19.  My father was out of town; my mother freaked out.  I didn't give her much time to respond; I told her as I was preparing to dash out the door. 

"I'm going on a date," I said standing at our front door, watching a pickup truck pull in.

"Really?" my mother smiled, picturing me and some boy riding bikes to the Lil Bear frosty stand in Hayden, "Who is this boy?"

"I don't know.  Some guy with a truck who is old enough to get me into an R-rated movie…."

She was still sputtering as I dashed out the door, into his truck.

"DRIVE!" I said.  He was confused but obedient.  I think his name was Terry. But I might just think this because that is a confused yet obedient name for a man.

He drove us to the Wilma Theater where we watched John Travolta's polyester crotch insinuate my tactical error for the next 2 hours.

Watching a fairly graphic movie with a strange man who kept trying to hold my hand or touch me affectionately…or sit next to me (I put our popcorn on the seat between us) I found that all I REALLY wanted, increasingly, was to BE OUT OF THERE and NOT ON A DATE.   All that onscreen DANCING!! I sweated and hid my eyes and sweated some more through the entire bad movie. 

It was excruciating.

After the movie Terry took me to a pizza place for food and beer.  This is because when asked if I wanted to go have pizza and beer, I said,

"I guess…."

instead of

"OHMYSWEETFUCKINGUNDERAGEANDOVERMYHEADJESUS NO!!!"

As he ordered, I lowered my age in hopes that this would hasten The End. That he'd take me home, to my frankly pissed off mother.  She'd be waiting by the door.  I could hardly wait to cry and tell her about the condom scene.

"I'm only 18," I said to Terry.

"So…you can't have beer..that's okay. I'll drink it."

Next he suggested that we go to the lake.

"Uh…okay," I responded, meaning, 'Sob.'

On the way I "confessed" to being only 17. 

He sounded a little alarmed but decided to kiss me anyway.  A few times. He was pretty good in retrospect. He tasted like pizza and beer, two of my eventual favorites. HOWEVER: At the time I just wanted the night to be over and I had no interest in ever seeing him again.  I blamed him for the Bee Gees and subsequently the mid-70s.

"I'm fifteen and my mother is REALLY MAD about this…" I said between being kissed and noting how his bad home perm absorbed the moonlight.  Did he have a functionally retarded sister practicing for beauty school? Or faulty electricity and metal combs?

"Fifteen," I repeated, "Really, Really mad."

This seemed to decide things.

He took me home and got my phone number as my mother glared at us through the large picture window.

My mother did not stay mad for long as I gave her the details of the night. 

Terry called a few times during the rest of the summer and I wouldn't ever take the call, forcing my mother to deal with it.

"Tell him ….that I'm really 12!"

"Tell him that I have hoof and mouth disease!"

"Tell him that your son is unavailable…"

In the end she felt sorry for Terry. 

5. Bonnie wants to know what you do for yard mud control during the winter?
Nothing.  Mud cannot be controlled; only contained.  Wait…no…that's love.  They are similar in my life, especially this time of year.