Back to the Daily Rut

Well, Christmas has come and gone. I have very mixed feelings about the holidays. I love seeing my son and getting to spend time catching up with his life (and I'm sure he tolerates catching up with mine as well). However, I don't have a big family to gather together. My parents have both passed away, I have only one son, and I'm single. Ergo...no big family! I don't know why I find that an important part of the holidays, but I seem to feel something's missing. It's hard to put together a big family dinner...when there's only two of us. (Of course, we ate like more...) At any rate, I enjoyed the visit with J, but I'm still glad to be past that part of the holidays. As far as New Year's and New Year's Eve....ha...amateur night...I haven't went out and celebrated for several years. Usually I'm sound asleep by midnight...BUT I don't have no stinkin' hangover the next day either.

I've felt somewhat low the past few days. Don't know whether it's the season or just me. Today I decided to be (what I consider to be) really wasteful. I went for a ride...in my car. (I did go for a bicycle ride yesterday!!! Only a little over 10 miles however.) But today I ran a few errands, including a stop at Walmart..where I bought a bag of M&M's...traveling candy!!! So I went for a ride. Didn't do much of anything exciting. I did discover there are two..count 'em TWO...police stations in Inman, Ks. What is Inman? Just checked...about 1200 people. Do you think they really need 2 police stations? I didn't go so far as to check if they were both "open for business"...but I had a private little smile about it. I went to Buhler High School (many, many years ago)...and the Inman boys were usually considered pretty racy for us slow-witted, innocent little Buhler girls. So...maybe that's true, ya think???

I stopped in Inman to buy a Diet Coke (Diet to counter-act those M&M's!)...and drove around. I stopped at Steve Becker's Bunkhouse in Medora, just because I'd never been there before and he had a sign out front that said Cowboy Stuff...and surely that's something I ought to go take a look at! I went to school with Steve...he's several years younger than I am...and I enjoyed chatting with him today. He either is, or plays the part of very well, a real cowboy. I asked him how he got started with all this and he said that he guessed he'd just never got enough of playing cowboys when he was a kid! Good answer! I find Steve a very interesting character. If a person didn't know his past career (he's pretty much retired now), you'd never guess where his life has taken him. He's a District Court Judge. As he sits and chats, it's hard to see "JUDGE" under that battered old cowboy hat. I think I like him!

On to a totally different topic: this because my son can absolutely crack me up. Several years ago (back in what I hate to admit were "my drinkin' days") my sister and I used to go down to Noel, Missouri to a little bar and have quite a lot of fun. Lots of beer, lots of dancing, lots of good ole boys. My mom was still living then and usually when I came back I'd relate SOME of the stories to her. In my sister Jude's younger days, she was often...and I mean OFTEN....compared to Elizabeth Taylor. She really did look a lot like Elizabeth Taylor. Well, one night in Noel there was a big ole boy - Big Lou - that was really taken with Jude. And during the evening he commented numerous times on how much Jude looked like Elizabeth Taylor. Numerous times. Well, upon my return to Hutch, I went to visit my mom and I told her about Big Lou and his infatuation with Jude. I had to repeat things several times as Mom had a bit of a hearing loss...but most of the time she picked up on everything ok. But several times I mentioned that Big Lou thought Jude looked like Elizabeth Taylor. Mom kept nodding and smiling and truly seemed to be enjoying the story. As I wound down, thinking how she had really seemed to enjoy hearing about that, my mom looked at me and said, "So...why did he think she looked like a little potato?" Ok...so I told my son that story this past week...his immediate response: "Did you tell her it was because of her eyes?" I have a really weird, humorous family, you see.

Having said that...and knowing that probably most of my readers are related...I think it's time for me to quit and go do something more constructive!!! It's been fun...later ...