I Certainly Hope Even Steven Is Prepared To Reward My Generosity

The #1 son called this afternoon. I had my hands in the sink washing dishes. Have you heard? The Mansion has no dishwasher, save the hands of Mrs. Hillbilly Mom. Not even a Flintstones octopus dishwasher with an elephant trunk faucet. I was also making my lunch of pulled chicken and taquitos and salsa with shredded cheddar.

Farmer H had just come inside, though who knows why, other than to annoy me, since he had been sitting in the rocking chair on the front porch eating a microwaved sausage, egg, and cheese croissant for his own lunch when I left for town to get my soda and mail the phone bill. He said, "It's #1," and answered the phone. "Oh. I thought you'd want to talk to your mom. Oh. Pain and numbness in my arm. But if I moved it, it went away. The vertebrae. They pinch the nerve. It's better after the plate in my neck. You probably just pulled something. Don't you want to talk to your mom? Here she comes! Here she is."

"Hello? Weren't you going to talk to me? I can't believe you! I just wanted to say, 'I'm elbow deep in dishwater, and I have chicken in the microwave, and taquitos in the oven, and I'm grating cheese for salsa.'"

"I KNOW! That's why I wasn't going to talk to you."

"Well, you should. I'm at a stopping point."

We chatted for about five minutes concerning his upcoming interviews with Boeing and Ford. Then he said he had nothing else to say, and I needed to take my taquitos out of the oven.

Around 6:30, while Farmer H was at work where he got called in at 4:30 because two people didn't do a simple job and he had to remedy a situation, I was making him coney dogs when the phone rang again.

"Hi. It's me again. I'm sure you are either in the middle of making supper or eating supper..."

"Yes! Of course I am. Are you all right?"

"Oh, I'm fine. But I was just thinking, how would next weekend be for a trip to the casino? I know you'd been wanting to go, and that's a good time for me."

Let the record show that I had asked if he would like to go and bring one of his friends who lives in his house and turned 21 over the summer. Last time we went, on #1's birthday when HE turned 21, he was by far the youngest person on the property.

"Let me check my calendar. Um...yeah...I think I can make it. Will you be coming by here? Are you spending the night? How much do I have to clean?"

"We'll come by there. Probably won't spend the night."

"So it's just the kitchen and the living room and one bathroom?"

"Yeah."

"That only gives me a week!!!"

"A week of time that you are not doing anything else!"

"Hey! There's a 44 oz Diet Coke that had to be consumed every day!"

"Yeah, yeah."

"I like to go early. What time will we leave? Is your dad invited?"

"I don't care if Dad goes. It doesn't affect my money. But if we go in the morning, we can't drink. I guess that's okay. Drinks are expensive there."

"If we go in the afternoon and you drink, who's going to drive me home?"

"Oh, yeah."

"If your Dad goes, he can drive. But since I'll have to give him money, I can't give you as much as last time."

"Oh, I know. That was for my birthday. Anything you want to give is fine."

"I'll work it out. Let's plan on Saturday. I'll let you know what time, after Dad finds out if he has to work Saturday."

Looks like Mrs. HM will be cashing in some scratch-off winnings this week in preparation for a gambling stake. Make that three gambling stakes. Don't you worry about Mrs. HM. She has her own casino money stashed away.

I hope River City is ready for some high rollers!

Farmer H Is Magically Ambitious

Thanks to blog buddy Sioux for leaving me a thought-provoking comment yesterday. Inspiration is rarer than perspiration around my dark basement lair these days.

As you may recall, I did Farmer H's trash dumpster duties for two days. Sioux congratulated me:

"Lucky for you, you have plenty of time on your hands to do everything Farmer H thinks you should be doing..."

Oh, yes. I can't believe my luckiness.

I'm surprised that Even Steven hasn't put the kibosh on my luckiness. Until he notices, the possibilities are endless. I might look out and see that my front yard is a meadow of four-leaf clovers with a few blades of grass sprinkled in. A horse may wander up on the front porch and leave me its shoes. The chicken cook at the gas station chicken store may hold on to my breast, and in an ensuing tug-of-war, I could get the big end of the wishbone. A bunny might order furry little prostheses and give me his feet. The Irish could call any minute to say they're giving me their collective luck. Shooting stars will probably keep me awake tonight, lighting up the sky.

Alrightythen...perhaps not endless. But at least six deep!

Seriously. Mrs. Hillbilly Mom IS lucky. Do you know what happened last night while she was pecking away at an online crossword puzzle on her New Delly?

Farmer H scrubbed the shower!!!

Hillmomba People Problems

I caved in and brought the trash dumpster back from the end of the driveway today. Seeing as how if I left it for Farmer H, it might stay up there 12 days like when The Pony first left for college. Oh, and I also took it UP THERE to the end of the driveway yesterday, seeing as how if I expect to have my trash hauled away for the money I pay the Waste Management people, it can't be sitting here under the carport because Farmer H "forgets" to take it.

That dumpster is on its last wheels. It still rolls okay. But the lid is flapping by a thread. It's cracked in the middle, between the handles. It's like a 1964 Plymouth Valiant with a hole in the front floorboard covered by a piece of cardboard, and a hole burned in the middle of the back seat covered by a throw pillow. Except my high school buddy Mooner didn't drive a green trash dumpster.

Farmer H says he's going to ask his trash contact at work what we can do to get a better dumpster. We've had this trash service for 18 years. As Farmer H remembers it, we used to have a really good dumpster, but then they replaced it with this piece of crap. I remember it being replaced. But I'm sure there's been a little bit of wear and tear on this one over 18 years. The trash guys are not gentle with it.

I guess it's the least Farmer H can do...try to get me a new dumpster. Seeing as how he seemed believably sorry that he forgot to take the trash up yesterday. Except now he seems to think I am going to do that every week.

Inviting a vampire into the Mansion would have made more sense than caving in to dumpster duty. There'll be no end to it now.

Farmer H Rocks

Farmer H left for work this morning at 6:00, just like normal. He got home at 5:30, a bit later than normal, but he called ahead, so avoided the doghouse. The minute he got home, he went out to work on the road. His buddy, Buddy, had brought him another load of rock, and dumped it down the hill. Not on our property. On the main road. The one that runs out to the county blacktop road.

Let the record show that we are the second house on this road. A good portion of it does not have people living on the property that fronts it. But once you get past the Mansion, there are many homes. Many for Hillmomba, that is. Probably 15 to 20 past us. Let the record further show that these families use this road the same as the Hillbilly family.

Farmer H is a bit irked that he spent hundreds of dollars of his rock money on rock. I pointed out that nobody told him to do that. And that he didn't ask anyone for donations. So his plan to put a letter in the mailboxes asking people to buy a load of rock is not a good idea. It will cause ill will. Besides, that's a federal offense, putting stuff in mailboxes that hasn't been mailed!

I know I've mentioned this before, but I had to regurgitate it tonight because it's stuck in my craw. Mrs. Hillbilly Mom rarely takes Farmer H's side on an issue. But tonight, she must.

After Farmer H got home from his 11.5 hour workday, before he had any supper, he fired up his tractor and headed back down to the hill to spread gravel. Okay. So there was a brief hiccup in that plan as he ran out of gas in the (blue MoDOT auction, not green John Deere) tractor before he even got out of the BARn field. But he walked down to the BARn and got some gas, and drove it up to the tractor in his Gator. Then went to work on that gravel.

When he came back after the sun set, Farmer H said that one of the couples up the road had stopped while he was spreading gravel.

"Oh. It looks like we'll need to drive the Hummer if we want to get up the road now."

Let the record show that this couple has has never offered a penny, never smoothed an inch of gravel. They have both a van and a Humvee. It's not like they would have to buy a new car to navigate the road. And at the time, they were IN their Humvee. Farmer H said he was just trying to fix the road, since it has been washed out at the sides for over a year now. I told him he should have said, "Just like you have to drive the Hummer when it rains, because if you meet a car you have to pull over into the ditch."

On the porch, I tried to cajole him into believing they were just joshing, making conversation because they saw him out there on his tractor.

Inside the Mansion, and inside my head, all I could think was, "Some people go out of their way to be real a$$holes."

The Green-Eyed Monster Is Alive In Hillmomba

Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is getting fed up with her fleabags! They are SO jealous of each other, it hardly pays (okay, there's no money in it, let's make that clear) to give them each a treat.

Sweet Gummi Mary! It's like my sister the ex-mayor's wife competing with me for the biggest slice of cake. Not that we had much cake around our house. But when we DID, such an uproar arose that one of us was given the knife (to slice the cake with, people, not for a weapon) and the other was given first pick. I'm pretty sure our mom was hep to King Solomon's ways, but cutting a cake in half would have made too much sense.

Today when I got back from town, Juno got to the side porch first to greet me. She's been staying in her house lately, not even coming out when I drive up, and when she does, she turns up her nose at the cat kibble! I think she has an attitude. That is not very sweet, sweet of her! I hugged her first (fair is fair) while Jack squirmed his way under her, looking downcast. Then it was his turn, and Juno tried to block his hug.

I reached up into the roaster pan of cat kibble for a big handful, and put a lot in front of Juno, and a little in front of Jack. She needs more calories, you know. She's a bigger dog. I give hers first, because she can intimidate him away from hers, and if I give Jack the food first, she takes his.

I'll be ding dang donged if Juno didn't sniff her large pile of cat kibble and go directly to Jack's smaller pile and start eating. Oh, don't you feel sorry for Jack! He was already on his way to Juno's pile before she could root her way into his.

I give up! Serves them right! Juno can get a smaller treat for being jealous of Jack's portion, and Jack can bloat himself for going after Juno's food.

Here they are on the front porch this evening:

Yeah. They're still running around like ferrets on crack when I try to get a picture. That spot on the porch is not a pee stain, but a greasy mark left from last week when the evening treat was a freezer-burned pork steak for each mutt, and Jack pulled his off of his paper plate. So did Juno, but she took hers to the yard while looking over her shoulder suspiciously. Tonight they had a couple of Super Bowl mozzarella sticks microwaved to unfrozenness. As you can see, Juno is inspecting Jack's area, just in case he got more while she was eating hers.

We'd best not talk about the fact that each of them had an egg in their mouth out in the yard when I walked out the door with their treat.

Mrs. Hillbilly Mom Is...Chicken

Mrs. Hillbilly Mom's addictions are escalating! Just when she thought she'd cast that gas station chicken monkey off her back, she had to go and buy some last week. And Sunday she was back for more! Not the economical 8-piece box to portion out over a few days and share with Farmer H, but a meal only for herself. A breast and a thigh! Yum, yum, gotta get you some! Also, a small cole slaw. Gotta have the slaw! It's in my DNA. Of course I only took about a third of that small slaw for my serving. You know, because that will certainly cut calories compared to eating a fried chicken breast and thigh!

Anyhoo...I stopped by the gas station chicken store on Sunday, because Farmer H had plans for the afternoon. And the morning. Too bad, so sad, no chicken for you! Though I doubt he mourned the missed opportunity of feasting on miniature legs and wings.

The chicken gal was frazzled. In fact, she asked me for a massage. I thought that was a bit untoward and off-putting, but I wanted my chicken, by cracky, so I told her I was not board-certified as a masseuse. She took it well. She said they had way too many orders to get ready for pickup by 11:30, and they'd been frying without letup. The owner was working in the kitchen with her. The man owner. Not the woman. Not-heaven NO! But I'll bet the man owner has dropped many a breast in his day. That's insider lingo. That's what they call it when they put a batch of chicken in the fryer. Dropping the chicken.

The first order they needed consisted of FIVE 20-piece boxes! That's 12.5 chickens!

I felt so bad for her that I did not ask for a bag. She put my breast and thigh and the little tub of slaw in an 8-piece box. Usually, they will put the two pieces of chicken in their own little foil pouch, and then put them and the slaw in a white paper sack. Even with a regular 8-piece order, they put the box in a sack with the slaw beside it. I didn't want to give her any extra work, so I juggled my box and 44 oz Diet Coke while I tried to use my key clicker to undo T-Hoe's locks. They're just awkward, that big soda and a rectangular chicken box. I used to only have that predicament when they were training new employees.

I've thought about taking a Devil's Playground plastic bag in there in my pocket, to pull out after paying and put my stuff in. Loop it over the arm, and my hand is free to grip my 44 oz Diet Coke. Even with a white paper sack, I can flatten the top and hold it between my fingers while using thumb and forefinger to hold the soda.

Yes, I've thought about taking in my own plastic bag. I stop short of that solution, because I don't want them to think I'm a...weirdo.

A Night Not On HM's Schedule

The best-laid plans of Farmer H and Mrs. HM always go awry. Our night not-on the town was almost the night that never was.

Yes, Mrs. HM had her timing to a T. She had set the DVR to record the pregame show at 6:00, and also the game at 6:30. If something (like Farmer H) threw a monkey wrench in her plan, not to worry. The game could be watched from the DVR, commercials fast-forwarded, and real time caught up to forthwith.

At 5:50 Mrs. Hillbilly Mom was picking peppers off the pizza. How many peppers did Mrs. HM pick? Too dang many! But since they all went on her side of the pizza, there was a built-in reward. The pepperoni-picking was simple. Stick the edge of a knife under them and pop them off, then drop them on Farmer H's side.

By 6:00, the DiGiorno was in the oven. Where it would remain on its hole-y pizza pan for 22 to 25 minutes. It was a rising crust. And we like our bottom crust crunchy. As the pizza went in the oven, the queso and salsa were combined. In a real glass bowl, people! Not in a foam bowl. Farmer H was instructed to put it in the microwave for 20 seconds, check, stir, maybe an additional 10 seconds. He wanted that treat for halftime, you know.

Yes, all systems were go. Farmer H had come in at 6:10, and decided he had time for a shower. He had worked half a day, then fiddled around in his BARn with new flea market toys he had bought himself. I sat down in the La-Z-Boy to watch some of the pregame show while waiting on the pizza. I'd had one ear on it while in the kitchen. Had glanced in to see the TV. There was a huge dark cloud handing over Gaylord Family Stadium. That's what they called it most, although it's also Owen Field. Or Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Anyhoo...I saw the gray behemoth hovering, and lightning flashing. The reporter said that film was taken at 5:15. As I went about stirring queso and salsa, I figured everything would be fine. Because I heard the reporter say that at the moment, he was under bright sunshine, no clouds. And it was after 6:00.

You know how a dark cloud is used to portend trouble? This was Even Steven and The Universe foreshadowing what was to become of Mrs. Hillbilly Mom's night not-on the town.

As I sat in the La-Z-Boy, I saw a scroll across the bottom of the screen. I picked up one of my two pairs of glasses from the side table, and saw that

THE GAME HAD BEEN POSTPONED UNTIL 8:14 !!!!!

Let the record show that our DiGiorno was a cooked goose. Already in the oven, almost done. And Farmer H didn't even know yet! At 6:20, I was checking on the pizza when he wandered out of the shower. Thank the Gummi Mary he had put on shorts and a shirt! I told him of the new kickoff time. I set the done-to-perfection DiGiorno on the stove to cool. Farmer H said it was no big deal. We'd eat our pizza, then he could have his chips for kickoff.

We went out on the porch for a few minutes with Puppy Jack and Sweet, Sweet Juno. They had a leftover 6" Coldcut Combo for their evening treat, thanks to Farmer H's dietary restraint last week. When we came back in, the game time had been moved up to 8:01. You can't tell me that being on national TV didn't affect the timing of the presumed safe period after lightning.

So...we watched our game 90 minutes late. We probably should stop watching altogether, because the Sooners bit the big one again, and lost 45-24 to the Ohio State Buckeyes. Farmer H went to bed at halftime and a score of 35-17. We didn't even get to see the Sooner Schooner, because the ground was too wet, and the mini horses and their little Conestoga would tear up the field. Not that they would have made that many trips onto the field...

Still, we had a fairly decent Saturday evening. Next week no Sooners, since they're off. But the week after, it's on to Texas to play the TCU Horned Frogs. I'll probably be hoppin' mad by the time that one is over.