You know you're a redneck when...

Thank you to Teresa for this amazing blog post, in honor of my deep f*cking red weekend (more on that later).


http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/2009/01/you-say-redneck-like-its-bad-thing.html

AM at the trailer park (they're calling it a campground) and I smell bacon cooking. Wonder if you can make it on the grill. Apparently we forgot to erect a flagpole on our trailer and fly a TX banner.

This is a test... Blog, can you hear me from my bberry?

Yummmm

Yesterday a few co-workers and I went to KFC for lunch to experience the launch of the Double Down. As visible in the picture, it's a cheese & bacon sandwich with fried fillets in the place of bread... basically, my ideal snack.

However, there is a big difference between how KFC photographs this item and how it actually shows up in your paper bag. The cheese was only barely melted in the very middle between the hottest parts of the fillets (forget the edges) and was tasteless to the point of being unidentifiable, the bacon was sparse (although I didn't actually want it), and the special sauce (a zesty mayonnaise) was even harder to find. All this aside, after getting a side of the special sauce it was delicious, obvi. It was also ENORMOUS. I do not think I will be switching from my usual 3 Crispy Strip Meal order.

More amazing than the sandwich, however, was what I learned during lunch. First and most shocking - the KFC in Rogers, AR has an unlimited buffet. EEEEWWWWW. I love KFC and even I think that DISGUSTING. And it was full of Amish men - so, so random.

Secondly, I was the only person in a group of 8 relatively normal people that was not a HFFU. A HFFU, as explained by my co-worker who came from Yum! brands, is a Heavy Fast Food User - someone who eats fast food at least 2 times a week. As I said, I'm a fan of KFC, but I go maybe once every 2-3 months - I'm not crazy.

Thirdly, McDonald's is the only fast food place whose sales are split 30/30/30 breakfast/lunch/dinner. Which means people eat that crap for dinner. This info may turn me off fast food forever. Aided by the stomach ache I still have 36 hours later.

Hmmm...

With old age, heels and hot yoga comes tired achy feet, so today I went on-line to look for some sort of home spa machinery. (Just typing that made me feel 40 years older.)

Anyway, this is what I found under "massage," on a TOTALLY WHOLESOME store website, that I will not mention by name because I may or may not be connected to it in some way:

I cannot be the only one who thinks this is NOT a g-rated device.

Acting the goat

I'll spare everyone the long and uninteresting story (for once), but I have only just gotten my Benton County Fair pictures from this summer loaded onto my computer. Fairs down here are more than just sausage & onion hoagies and cheap silver jewelry - they have farm contests where they give prizes for... well, a bunch of things that I'm not sure how they judge.

There was the bovine area - these things were enormous. Much, much bigger than my neighbors' cows. Like over 15 hands tall... or something.

Of course no Northwest Arkansas event is complete without the hogs. They were surprisingly cute, and very friendly. And surprised to see me out in sneakers - rightly so.


I did kind of feel under-dressed when I saw the goats in their fancy but weird stretchy coats... they looked like sleazy wrestlers... complete with holes in their unitards, skinny legs and patchy body hair.


The most fabulous attraction, and the reason we went to this fair, was the goat costume contest. And I don't just mean the wrestler costumes - those are apparently functional and not at all tongue-in-cheek. There was a goat costume contest where not only the goats but their owners/chaperones/friends/half-siblings were also in matching costumes. As expected, it was mostly children... but there were some really old children who didn't seem in the least embarrassed at what they were doing. Probably all that meth numbing their senses. These were some of the most amazing specimens, but there were actually a lot of good contestants.

Sheriff (they look like cowboys down here) and bandit.

Dorothy and the Tin Man.
Skunk - it's a toss up as to whether skunks or possums are the state animal. I'm keeping a roadkill tally - possums are winning at the moment, but it's neck-and-neck.

to open the heart, only a little at a time

I've obviously never done justice to this in my blog, since I wouldn't, but Nicole sent these poems over today and they were perfect:

A Man Alone
by Stephen Orlen

I hated breaking up and I hated
Being left, finding myself in an apartment
With an extra set of silverware and a ghost,
Impatient to be gone. Then to summon up
Who I was before the bed was full with woman.
To shift the street-mind from getting to
To slowing down and window shop. In the bar down the street,
To let my eyes simplify again, and make no judgments,
And breathe in the smoke that drifts
Through one body then another,
And find myself close enough
To whisper into a woman's just-washed hair
And inhale that ten thousand year old scent.
To memorize a phone number.
To learn to say goodnight at her door.
To keep my hands in my pockets, like a boy.
To open the heart, only a little at a time.

If There Is Something To Desire
by Vera Pavlova

If there is something to desire,
there will be something to regret.
If there is something to regret,
there will be something to recall.
If there is something to recall,
there was nothing to regret.
If there is nothing to regret,
there was nothing to desire.