The Gift

I had a bad day.  I will spare the world the sequence of dramatic events that led to my bad day because they were not even realistic events, rather symbolic ones that only a woman would use to poetically sum up her life.  I can, a day later, easily look back on my alleged "bad day" and make sense of it with a touch of humor and a positive spin, and move on. 

I also had a bad night though.  That is something different altogether... 

I never liked the word "Nightmare" so I always told my kids that a long time ago, the Indians regarded dreams as something sent to them by the gods, and that in each dream there was a GIFT.  The whole family would climb into bed in the morning and share their gifts.  Some dreams were not so pleasant and they were called "Loud Dreams."  These dreams were sometimes considered to hold the most important gifts or lessons to be learned.

So.... last night, in my dream, I'm at school.  Never a good start.  I'm in another country or dimention or simply far from home, and am never seated in the right classroom.  Nobody will talk to me and I am regarded with disdain by all, except for this really ugly dog with large teeth and matted brown and white fur.  Dog follows me around everywhere, talks incessantly, and needs me to find him a home.  I skip school to fly down to my parents house to see if they will take Dog, but upon arrival, I saw they had written the words "No Dogs" in their yard with stones.  I don't have the heart to tell my ugly friend, who luckily can't read, that we have reached a dead end, so I turn around my flying carpet type thing, and Dog and I head to a keg party.  I hadn't had Shiner for a long time.  It was really tasty.  I sat in a lawnchair for a spell, closed my eyes and enjoyed the slight breeze. Then this yukky guy from my past started stalking me and he wouldn't leave me alone, and then I realized I had not even been at the right school and I would have to do the whole year over again, and then I couldn't find Dog, and then I woke up.

Like I said, bad night.  "Loud Dreams" filled with fears of isolation, inadequacy and incompetence take a while to shake off.  But if you look hard enough you can find the Gift sent from the gods.  Mine was simple as I realized my dream was the first time I'd had a beer in ages.

I got in my car, and did something EVERY woman needs to do from time to time.  I bought a six pack of Shiner, grabbed a lawn chair from the garage, and decided to stop overthinking and analyzing shit...

.... and lived happily ever after for a little while.

The end.

The Campout

DAY 1:
Local small town Texas grocery store...  The Sound That Pissed Me Off On My Campout #1 - "No!  I want Hunts ketchup!  Heinz is owned by a LIBERAL!" 

It's not that I consider myself a "liberal", I just absolutely HATE people who hate other people that differ from them.  And hypocrites.  Hate them too.  I'm not a party to any party really, especially the one that serves tea.  Can anyone tell me who picked such a gay name for a bunch of people with guns?   

DAY 2:
My only wish is that I had a gun right now.

Sound That Pissed Me Off On My Campout #2 -   "TWEET!" 

Not the kind where you type 14O characters to talk about your new selfie.  The kind discussed in the brochure I never read, in the section which boasted that my campsite was the home to over a gajillion species of birds and owls (WHO ALL WAKE UP AT 6:00 IN THE MORNIING!!!!!)  Princess Nature Lover now wishes she had packed an Uzi instead of a Keurig.  Perhaps it is true that guns don't kill people. People kill people... but I'm pretty sure a gun could shut the fuck out of all the birds right now.  Including the male and female owl, each on opposite sides of my tent, chanting the same obnoxious mating calls back and forth and back and forth.  Dear Mr. Owl,  using the same line over and over is obviously not getting you anywhere!  Take the bottle of vodka out of my blue bag and just get the bitch drunk.  Works for me every time.   

DAY 2.5:

As the brilliant sinking sun slowly sets on the horizon of a sky marbled with about nine shades of magenta, I realized that the Sound That Pissed Me Off On My Campout #3 came from me, with all of the bitching that I did about the birds waking me up (they still have not shut up btw), my WiFi not working, and the bugs that seem to love my legs more than any man ever has.  I am sitting now in my shorts and Bucees t-shirt, with no make up, stuffed with eggs liketheynevertasteathome cooked in the grease from bacon, energized from hiking, glowing from the sun and fresh air, mournful about having to leave Jessica, my rabbit friend, and am concerned that I will not feel this peaceful again.  Ever.

DAY 3: 

Forget everything I said.  All of it.  Damn birds woke me up again.  All of them.  When I think of how my other senses encounter a bird, I find that they are all pleasant encounters.  Birds are soft to touch, pretty to look at, and when fried and placed in a bucket, delicious to taste.  But when all of your senses, other than your sense of hearing, are locked up in a tent, I promise you this:  BIRDS ARE EVIL!!!!

I am ready to go home.  I am ready to go home.  I am ready to go home.  Packed, unfed, unshowered and ready to go home, when along came The final Soud That Pissed Me Off On My Campout..... Me, banging my head against the steering wheel, as I remembered I had promised to bring the kids back with me next weekend.