Bruiser is such a man! He loves to ride in the back of the truck. He also loves to follow Mike to check on the cows.

The Drive Home.

Delia and Josh leave the bar after a couple of hours visiting with friends and drinking. They stop in a convenience store a few blocks away to pee and grab a few drinks. Josh picks up his weekly eighteen pack of beer. “Do you want a Red Bull?” Josh asked.

“Ummm. I’m not sure,” Delia hesitates. She contemplates a four-pack of wines. She grabs the handle of the cold case then lets it go. Josh walks to the counter to pay. He looks back at Delia with a frown.

She hesitates twice before giving in to the temptation knowing that driving and drinking is illegal. She should have listened to the good voice.

The items are paid for and sacked. Delia grabs the small sack of wines. She smiles on the way to the car.

“So when do you think Sam moved out of their house?” Delia asks. She checks her mirrors and the road before taking a swig from her little bottle of red wine.

“Before the holidays I think he said.”

“Do you think they’ll get back together?” Delia takes another swig.

“Doesn’t sound like it. I think he’s having more fun now.”

Suddenly, there are bright lights flashing behind them. She gives Josh the little bottle. “Here. Put this under your seat,” she said as she slows down to find a spot to pull over.

“Oh shit! I knew you shouldn’t have opened that.” Josh panics.

“Now you say something. I didn’t hear that earlier.”

“I thought I’d let you take your chances.”

“Well, if I go, you go.”

Delia pulls the car over and reaches for her wallet. The policeman shines his flashlight into the car and motions for her to lower the window. Delia lowers her window.

“Ma’am, can I see your license, please?” the policeman asked.

“Yes sir. Was I speeding?”

“Ma’am, what are you drinking?”

Delia looks down at the cup holders in the car. She picks up a plastic bottle of green tea. She holds it up to the policeman. He shakes his head.

“I saw you drinking from a small red bottle. Ma’am, have you been drinking?”

“I had a glass of wine with dinner.”

“Do you have a small red bottle, Ma’am?”

Delia looks around in the floor. She reaches under her seat. She pulls up a small grape juice bottle. “Could this be what you saw?”

The policeman shines the flashlight on the empty bottle. “I had a little left over from this morning. I wanted to kill it off before I put it on the floor mats,” Delia said.

The policeman hesitates. He looks from Delia to Josh and around the car. He shines the light in the back seat. “Well, okay. You kids be careful.”

“Yes sir. We will. We’re going straight home.”

Delia smiles and waits for the policeman to get back in his car. She pulls away and drives the speed limit.

“Whew. That was close.” She holds her hand out for the small bottle.

“How long has that grape juice bottle been in here?”

“Pretty smart, huh?”

Josh reluctantly hands her the small wine bottle. After checking her mirrors again, Delia takes a long swig of the red wine. “Ahhhh.”

Life's One-Two Punch...

While sitting at a pub in Dallas the other night, my husband and I were approached with this statement from a guy planning darts:

Guy - I hope when I 'm in my forties I'm as fun as you guys.

This guy looked well into his thirties so I was quite taken aback that he didn't think I look in my thirties!!

Guess life gives us a one-two punch to wake us up every now and again.

While driving home a few nights ago, I approached something white in the road. Aww, it's a little white dog...no, it's a cat? I slowed down as I went past. It was a white take-out box for fried chicken.

How rude!! And lazy. Throwing anything out of your vehicle window (except food that an animal could eat) is just plain disrespectful.

This road is a country gravel-topped road. The average safe speed to drive it is between 30 and 40 mph. Not that pick ups don't go faster. So the next morning when this moron drove past that white box in the road, did he smile and think, "Yeah, that's my marking!!" And I use "he" generically because woman litter also!!

Did he remember he threw that out? Or did it, and I've seen this hundreds of times, fly out of the bed of his pick up?

Wish I could put that nasty box on his pillow!

Gauges

Life must have gauges. How else are we to know where we are? Here's an example...

My car has an option on its display to tell me its average miles per gallon. For the last month or so I have instead displayed the temperature outside. We are having an unusally warm Texas winter.

Yesterday I put the display back on the average MPG and it went from 25 or 26 MPG down to 23.5!! Have I really been driving that bad for the MPG to go down that much? Guess those highway trips at 75 isn't the best for saving gas. Duh??

And so it is the same with my life. I have to keep many gauges of what I need to do and where I need to go. Exercise. Writing. Eating right. Etc. Etc.

Now the MPG is back up to 24.0 after just a drive down the highway at a decent speed. Now how about those pounds???

This is a conversation I overhead while in the ladies room at a restaurant in Dallas:

Girl 1: (in the bathroom stall) What kind of music is that?

(Dave Matthews is playing over the speaker)

Girl 2: Dunno.

Girl 1: Are you dancing to it?

Girl 2. Yeah.

Last night we had a few drinks at a local restaurant where we frequent quite often. Most Tuesdays we eat dinner there and visit with the other locals in the bar. There are always a few good stories. Last night was not an exception!

Last night's topic was cats vs. dogs. We had a couple of cat people and we had a couple of dog people. Needless to say also, women vs. men. I have to admit I swing to the cat side but I also love dogs. I think I was a cat in another life so maybe I also had a dog friend.

The discussion was like a pendulum. The dog guys would talk about what their dogs can do. Then the cat girls would talk about what their cats won't do. Of course each one was determined to win the "mine is better than yours" argument.

I don't remember if anyone won. I think we drifted onto other subjects or someone else came in with a new story. Like about when they were in Boys Town, Mexico back in the 70s and how they got into trouble with the locals. We all laughed. Guess that wins over the pet tricks.

New Year Theme ~ 2006 is now crowned the Year of Thinking Out of the Box!

Instead of Resolutions, I am setting a theme for my year. During each day, I will consciously think about what I am doing. I will think out of the box so that I can release my creative muse. This muse is affectionately named Daimen. Not the bastard kid from the Omen but my Greek muse of Creativity!!

There are so many areas that I can expand this type of action to my day. I need to think this way in order to fulfill my other goals.

I am excited about this new theme of the new year. Last year was the Year of Productivity. That wasn't very creative. I need creativity in my day to day thinking. The year was going okay until my disc problems in August. Then the year fell apart. Oh well. Time to start another year.