This Is Joy

My fingers are sticky with soap and my beer is quickly growing warm.

I lay my head back and shrug my shoulders to ease the knot…it’s been a long time since I’ve sat at the braiding bench for hours in a row.

Earlier today, my main man picked his head up, ears forward and nickered at me when I walked up to pet him.

I drove down the freeway with the windows open, heat on my feet and a smile on my face.

There’s a new blue poly on my saddle that will get used soon, and a friend not far from here who laughs at the same things I do.

I itch my nose and turn back to the kangaroo hobbles that are slowly forming beneath my fingertips...this is joy.

xo xo Liz 

Shades of Grey

I am drinking beer while writing an article for March’s issue of the Nevada Rancher.

I have a side of rawhide soaking in the bathtub, which means that when Adrian goes for her nightly soak in the tub, I’m probably going to get my ears boxed.

My poor little Roo dog has a bad back and is currently sitting in my lap feeling poorly, and I can’t fix it.

I found my favorite braiding fid that I thought was lost forever in the move and I have some callouses finally starting to form where the rawhide strings rub up against my fingers.

The ground is parched and thirsty and every horse, cow and tree I pass looks miserable and ready to dry up. We need rain.

Life is never black and white, wonderful or terrible. It tends to be a shade of grey…and that’s all right.

Happy Hump Day, peeps! 

xo xo Liz

Antiquing And A Nasty Gentleman

I was in an Antique shop the other day with Adrian, which as far as Antique shops go was a really lovely hodgepodge of just the right amount of actual antiques, vintage clothes, old woodworking tools and really ugly dishes in the shape of ducks to send these two cowboy-girls into spasms of happiness.

I collapsed into a big overstuffed sofa that was sitting there because my feet hurt like a really bad word and Adrian has the capacity to shop me into the ground until I become a small, whiny child and cry for some nourishment and a stout cup of tea. Brat.

Anyway, I was sitting there letting the blood return to my feet and daydreaming about lunch when an older gentleman came up to me and started talking. I kind of thought that he actually owned the booth whose couch I was sitting in because he wanted to know about the jacket I was holding and the treasures of A’s that I was guarding beside me. Turns out he didn’t and was just another footsore shopper and I honestly think this man thought he was being really funny, but for almost 15 minutes he stood there and was, well truthfully...he was kind of nasty. (In a mean sort of way, not inappropriate nasty.) He started off by insulting his wife, then me and then quickly moved on to calling an 8 months pregnant lady in the shop the bearer of a monkey. Charming fellow, right? And I had to laugh because if I had meet him just a short week ago when I was really struggling with feeling hurt and angry at pretty much the whole world, it’s entirely possible I would have flown at him like a spider monkey, screaming intelligible insults, and not felt sorry in the least. But thankfully, in part because of talking with some of you and some wise, wise friends I have, I was able to laugh him off.

I can look alarmingly like a 12 year old and sometimes it shocks me the manner in which adults talk to people they think are children. I was always surrounded by adults as a kid who took the time to look me in the eye and talked to me like an equal, thereby helping me to grow up a little. It wasn’t until the end of our “conversation” that the man (he was wearing a belt buckle with the name Bruce on it, but he very well could have bought it at another antique shop and his name could be Fred. But for the sake of staying organized and trying NOT to keep rambling as I’m wont to do, let’s just call him Bruce for crying out loud. Ok? Ok, glad we had this talk…), that Bruce asked how old I actually was. He acted a little bit nicer, but not much. The funny part was Adrian, who was really steamed by some of his slights and she would dart in and out of the picture when she got too angry. Most of the time she would stand a little bit behind him and make funny faces, which was difficult for me because those sorts of things have a tendency to make us erupt into what we refer to as “church giggles”. Church giggles are definitely frowned upon and have a tendency to last up to 10 minutes and generally pop up at inopportune moments.

I don’t really know what the point of this blog post is…it doesn’t have a moral or some cheery advice on how to handle people who act nasty to you in antique shops. But before you embark on your weekend adventure, I hope you get a giggle out of our nonsensical actions and my rambling, pointless recountings.

Ta!

xo xo Liz 

PS. To all you ladies (and gents) hunting this weekend out there, I hope you get a big one!  :)