News Travels Fast Around Here!

We recently acquired a new neighbor.  Well, sort of a neighbor.  She moved into our landlord's other rent house down the road.  Her name is Joetta, she's in her 50's, and she's very energetic, outgoing, busy and feisty.  In fact, she still barrel races in rodeos.  She keeps her barrel horse in the field in front of our house, so we see her zipping down the driveway often, and we agreed to let her bring her horse into our yard to use our water to hose the mare off after a hard ride.

Last weekend was the Smithville Rodeo and we had made plans to attend on Saturday night.  It was WAY too hot to go both nights.  So Saturday morning Ben decided to trim all the trees in the front yard with his chainsaw.  I do not understand why he decided this was necessary.  We've lived here for nearly four years and he's never expressed any interest in tree-trimming before.  I think he just wanted to use his chainsaw.  On a ladder.  Let's just stop and think about how dangerous that is.  Do you know what would happen if he fell off a ladder with a running chainsaw?  I couldn't handle the possible scenarios in my mind, so I stayed in the house, refused to watch him out the window, and tried to drown out the ominous sound of the chainsaw with music.  I do not want to be a widow with two small children. 

Around noon Patience was having some kind of wierd meltdown so I decided to try to put her down for an early nap.  I was lying down with her and she had just gone to sleep when my phone rang.  I looked and saw that it was Ben.  Wierd.  He was outside.  Why didn't he just come in and get me? 

I sneaked out of Patience's room and stepped out onto the front porch to a strange and confusing sight.  Tree limbs everywhere, Ben walking across the yard leading Joetta's mare, and Joetta sitting under a tree, dirt all over her shirt, looking dazed and confused.

I rushed (well, waddled) over to Joetta as fast as I could.  Ben followed with the mare.

"What happened?"  I asked.

Ben shook his head.  "I don't know.  I came down off the ladder and saw her horse running accross the yard.  I didn't even see Joetta till a second ago."

I bent down to try to get Joetta up.  Her arm was hanging loose and her shoulder looked kind of funny. 

"Joetta, do you know what happened?" 

She looked at me and shook her head, mumbling something about not knowing how she got knocked down.

"Joetta, I think your horse spooked and knocked you down."  I tried to explain as I got her up and walked her into the house while Ben took the horse back to the barn. She looked at me in confusion as I helped her up the porch steps and said, "What happened?  I don't even know what happened."  I told her I thought her horse ran her over. 

We got inside and I settled her on the couch then went for the phone to call  Debbie at the fire department so they could send someone to look at that shoulder.  Joetta was clearly a little confused and in some pain.  She asked me again what happened, and I explained again that I thought she had an accident with her mare.

Within a few minutes Steve and  Donald were at the house with an ambulance, Debbie close behind.  There were quite a few people packed into our living room at that point.  They were trying to get Joetta's arm in a sling and find out if she wanted to go to the hospital by ambulance or have someone drive her.  I was trying to get Rebecca, Joetta's daughter-in-law on the phone (of course we go to church with Joetta's son and daughter-in-law) and couldn't get through on her cell phone.  I had to call about seven people to track her down, but I finally found her and she said she was on her way.

About that time Patience woke up from all the commotion and was very confused about what was going on in our house.  I sat her in a chair and told her to be still and stay out of the way.  She kept pointing at Joetta saying, "Shirt, dirty."  She was deeply concerned about the dirt on Joetta's shirt.

A few minutes later my friend Zondra burst through the front door.  "What happened?  Is Sarah having the baby?  Are Ben and Patience okay?"

The joys of living on the highway.  We have no secrets. 

Zondra had been on her way home from Mena, passed our house, saw the ambulance, and was obviously concerned for our well-being.  We have wonderful friends and neighbors, and I really mean that.

Zondra joined the fray as we all tried to take care of Joetta while we waited for Rebecca to arrive.  Joetta was getting more and more disoriented, and every few minutes she would say, "What happened?  I don't even know what happened.  Can somebody tell me what happened?"  We told her repeatedly what we thought had happened, but she couldn't seem to remember anything.

Rebecca arrived, they got Joetta loaded into the car, they headed to the emergency room in Mena and people slowly emptied from my house.  It had been an interesting couple of hours.  Ben and I sat on the couch discussing the morning's events while Patience kept repeating, "Dirty.  Shirt.  Shirt.  Dirty."  She is such a clean freak.  Ben headed back out to the yard to play with his chainsaw.....I'm sorry, I meant trim trees, and I went back to doing whatever it was I do around here.  Walk around being pregnant.  Drop things accidentally and stare at them, trying to decide if its worth it to try and bend over and pick it up.  Usually I just kick it out of the way.

Later that afternoon Ben headed to the rodeo grounds to help the other volunteer fire department guys park cars.  Patience and I dolled up in our cowgirl boots a couple of hours later and followed.  On my way I called our pastor's wife to put Joetta on the prayer list at church.

"Oh, yes, I heard about that," Patrice said.  "But I thought it happened at the rodeo last night."

I laughed and straightened out the details, wondering how in the world Patrice already knew about it.  They live way up on the mountain.  Guess someone called them.

I pulled up to the fire truck parked outside the rodeo grounds parking lot and rolled down my window.

"Hey, Dwayne.  Ben told me he saved me a spot by the gate.  Can I go on up there?"

"Yep! Yep!"  Dwayne nodded his head vigorously.  "You go right on up there!  You don't need to be walkin' that far and haulin' that little'un in your condition!"

There are perks to living in a very small community and being married to one of the volunteer fire fighters. 

I pulled right up to the gate and parked in my special parking place reserved for very large pregnant women.  Remember, I am now roughly the size of a planet and any day I expect to see my own moon orbiting around me.  Oh wait, I already have one.  Her name is Patience.  And she orbits around me continuously, though somewhat sporadically.

I got out of the car and was greeted by my handsome husband, looking official in his red shirt with his radio clipped to his belt.  We chatted for a minute, then Patience and I went to find seats while he finished up his duties.

A few minutes into the rodeo he came and sat next to me.  He glanced sideways at me and grinned.

"Hot, isn't it?"

I snorted.  "You think you're hot.  Try being me."  I wiped sweat from my forehead and wondered why I had bothered to wear make-up.  It was already long gone.

He glanced at my planet-sized belly and grinned again.

"What?"  I scowled at him.

He chuckled.  "Well, right after you came in here Donald came and told me that some random person went up to him and asked if the pregnant woman talking to the fire fighter needed an ambulance or something because she was going to have her baby."

I sighed.  Of course.  Kind of them to be concerned.

Ben rubbed my back.  "Why don't you go to the concession stand and get some burgers and drinks?  I'll watch Patience."

I nodded and heaved my pregnant self off the bench.  While I was standing in line at the concession stand I had a nice conversation with a stranger.  I'm due June 26th.  No, it isn't twins.  Yes, we did an ultrasound. Yes, I've been very hot.  Have a nice evening.  Blah, blah blah.

I stepped up to the window and the lady working it (I can't remember her name - she's on the fire department) looked at me in amazement.

"You mean you ain't had that kid yet?  I thought you done had it.  I seen balloons on your mailbox last week!"

Balloons on my mailbox?  What?  Oh, yes, that was my birthday party.  I straightenend out the confusion and ordered our hamburgers.  She looked at my belly and wagged her head back and forth.

"You better hurry up and have that kid.  You look like you're about to pop!"

Sure.  I'll get right on that.  Just a moment while I go give birth because everyone seems to think thats what I should be doing. 

As I was walking back to our seat with a couple of burgers and drinks sort of balanced on my belly (it is sort of handy), I overheard someone we go to church with giving a wrong account of what had happened to Joetta that afternoon.  I stopped and butted my way into the conversation to straighted things out.  She listened intently, nodding her head as I told the story.

"I'm so glad you stopped!  Now I have the real story!"  She hustled away, probably to spread the new version of the story.

The rest of the evening was fairly uneventful.  No one else thought I was about to go into labor, and no one was injured, as far as I know.  Patience had a grand time:

We can't get over how cute she is in boots:

She had fun climbing the fence:

And she got to go into the arena with Daddy for some kid thing they did:

If you're wondering why there are no pictures of me its because I was perspiring heavily and I felt gross.  Okay, forget about perspiring.  I was sweating.  I used to perspire because that's what ladies do, but now I may as well call it what it is.  I flat-out sweat like a man.  There.  I said it.



Then we went to church the next morning, where I heard from numerous people that they had been praying for me all afternoon the previous day because they drove by our house and saw the ambulance and thought I was having the baby.  Or they thought I dislocated my shoulder because they heard something about an accident at our house involving a dislocated shoulder and they thought it was me.

Joetta, by the way, ended up with a broken and dislocated shoulder and a concussion.  She had surgery today and she's doing very well.  I actually went and picked up her mail and took it to her this afternoon.  Yes, in Smithville, America, if you go into the post office and ask for someone else's mail they will actually give it to you.  Probably because they know you, they know the person you are taking the mail to just had surgery because of an accident that happened in your yard, etc., etc.

What I learned from the incident:

1) News travels fast.  Doesn't matter if its correct or not.  It travels.

2) We have no secrets living on the highway.  But I actually already knew that.

3) Causing your neighbor to be run over by a horse in your yard is actually a very good way to make friends.

4) I am so large that total strangers are concerned for my well-being.  I actually already knew that, too.

And that's all, folks.

Of Mice And Men...And Guns?

The war on mice continues to wage at the Netherton residence.

A couple of weeks ago Ben and I were laid up on the couch watching a movie on the laptop.  We don't have a TV.  We're weird like that.  But the laptop works great for movies.  The only problem is that it isn't very loud, so when we watch movies in the living room we have to turn off the window unit so we can hear, and sometimes it gets a little warm for those of us who are pregnant.  Yes, we have window units.  No central heat and air in this joint.  Honestly I don't mind the big ugly units hanging from our windows.  I like the noise.  I like the cold air.  Its the ugliness I resent.  And the fact that I have to pin up my curtains so they don't hang over them.  It looks stupid.  I resent stupidity even more than I resent ugliness.  But you know, in the grand scheme of things I know it really doesn't matter.  In light of eternity, does it make one bit of difference that I have ugly window units and pinned-up curtains at my house?  No.  It does not matter.

Moving on.  Ben and I had our feet propped up on the coffee table, watching a movie and snuggling because we're in love like that, and Patience was already in bed so we had this blissful alone time.  So we were watching and snuggling, and I suddenly saw a mouse running along the baseboard in the living room and disappear behind the big white overstuffed chair in the corner.  The chair is where we used to sit together to watch movies before my belly got so big that we can't fit anymore. Then the mouse came out from behind the chair and ran along the other wall and disappeared behind the bookshelf.

I was very angry and couldn't even concentrate on the movie anymore.  The nerve of these stupid little rodents.  They're ruining my life.  I hate them with a passion.  We finished the movie, set mouse traps all over the living room, and I went to bed still fuming.  I fumed even more the next morning when we got up to find that we had not caught the mouse, even though we set four traps in the living room.

That reminds me of another mouse incident.  This happened awhile back.  Remember, we've been battling these beasts for years.  We had set a couple of traps in the kitchen before we went to bed because the mice had been leaving their evidence all over my kitchen.  Gross.  Me.  Out.  I'm mad right now just thinking about it.  Anyway, we went to bed and I was sleeping peacefully sometime during the middle of the night when Ben suddenly sat up in bed. 

I sat up too.  "What is it?"

"Shh."  He was listening.  "I think I heard something.  Stay here."

He reached for the shotgun he keeps by the bed and bolted from the room.

I laid back down and thought about how I wished I was pretty when I slept like people in movies.  Their hair always looks good and they never drool.  My hair is scary and big and I might drool a little sometimes.  Not fair.  Why was I thinking about that?  I got bored with my ridiculous thought process and went to find Ben.  Clearly I wasn't really concerned about whatever he thought he heard.

I wandered into the kitchen with my big, dishevelled hair.  Not sexy dishevelled, mind you.  Scary dishevelled.  I leaned in the doorway and watched my husband sneak around the dining room table in his underwear, pointing his shotgun hither and yon.  It was a very entertaining sight.  He reached the laundry room and slowly pushed the sliding door open with the barrel of the shotgun.

"Babe, what are you doing?"

He jumped when I spoke and whipped his head around.

"What are you doing in here?"  He barked.  "I told you to stay in bed!"

He was very tense.  I guess he really thought someone was in our house.  But my goodness, sometimes he acts like he has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  Only he didn't go to Vietnam,  Because he wasn't born yet.  Oh, and he's never been in the military.  He just acts like it sometimes.  Lets not think about what he would be like if he had been in the military and really did have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  Oh, Lord.

I yawned.  "I know.  I just wondered where you were."

In all fairness, if there really was an intruder in our home and Ben was trying to neutralize the situation, I doubt if I would be an asset.  By the way, I didn't come up with the phrase "neutralize the situation" by
myself.  I've heard Ben say it.  I thought it sounded cool in this context.  But no, I would not be an asset.  I would probably collapse in hysterics under my big hair and be no help at all.  Well, that or I would attack the intruder with my iron skillet.  Either way would make things hard on Ben, who would be calmly neutralizing the situation with his gun.  No wonder he wanted me to stay in bed.

Ben was still poking around in the laundry room. 

"Babe,"  I yawned again and rubbed my eyes.  "I bet that's the noise you heard."  I pointed to a mostly dead mouse still flopping around in the trap on the kitchen floor.

Ben hurried into the kitchen. 

"Oh."  He lowered his weapon.  "I didn't even see that."

"Probably because you don't have your glasses on," I pointed out.  "If it was a real intruder how would see to shoot them without your glasses?"

"Instinct, Babe."  He handed me the shotgun and knelt to pick up the mouse.  In his underwear.

Instinct.  Of course. 

I carried the shotgun back to the bedroom, he followed and we went back to bed.  Situation neutralized.

So last week we were again watching a movie in the living room on the laptop.  The window unit was turned off and I was feeling a little sweaty, partly because Patience was still up and wallering all over me, but I was still enjoying eating a popsicle and watching Tom Hanks in Appollo 13. 

I was enjoying it, that is, until I saw a mouse scurry along the baseboard and disappear behind the white chair.  Ben saw it too and paused the movie.  We watched the mouse come out from behind the white chair and just hang out kind of behind the rocking chair, but within plain view.  He was just THERE, sniffing his disgusting little whiskered nose all over my floor.

"Great!"  I said.  "Now they want to come out and watch movies with us!  That's wonderful, just wonderful!"  I was so angry.  I think my blood pressure was up a little.

When I spoke the mouse jumped and dove behind the bookshelf.  Ben sat and pondered for a moment, then glanced at me sideways.  There was a strange gleam in his green eyes. 

"Babe, what if I load the .22 with ratshot and we scare it out and shoot it?"

Now we're shooting guns in the house.  Interesting.

I shrugged.  "Sure, if you want to try."  I guess I thought he wouldn't really get a shot at the mouse.  I should have known better.

He got up.  "Stay here and watch the bookshelf.  Tell me if it comes out."

He went down the hall and heard him rummaging around in the safe and the gun cabinet.  Patience tried to get down off the couch and I distracted her by giving her Ben's empty popsicle wrapper.  She started wrapping it around her feet.  What, is she Chinese and wants to start binding her feel?  With plastic popsicle wrappers?  She's a weird kid.  But hey, she was having fun, the mouse was apparently still behind the bookshelf, and Ben was ready with his .22.

"Okay, Babe.  Come slowly pull the drawers out.  I think he's back there."

Our bookshelf has two little drawers on the very bottom.  I keep my table linens in them.  Don't ask why I keep my table linens in the living room.  It just works. 

I pulled a drawer out and immediately saw that those blankety blank little idiots had chewed through one of my table cloths.  My blood pressure went up a little more.

Everything happened really fast after that. 

I pulled the other drawer out, Ben yelled at me to get back, I jumped back, there was a gunshot, and a mouse lay twitching and quivering on the floor. 

Patience stood up on the couch and screamed with delight.  "Daddy!  Shoot!  Floor!"  She pointed and laughed hysterically and jumped on the couch clutching her plastic popsicle wrappers.  I vaguely remember thinking that she isn't supposed to jump on the furniture.  I'm sorry to say I took no disciplinary action that night.  I was still looking at my chewed up table cloth and the dead mouse on the floor.

And the nice little damaged place on our pretty antique wood floors.

Ben knelt down and felt the floor.  "I guess that ratshot chewed the floor up pretty good.  I didn't think it was supposed to do that."

I shook myself out of my stupor, picked up my ruined table cloth and shoved the drawers back in the bookshelf.  "Oh, well, don't worry about it.  Its under the bookshelf.  No one will ever know."

Except that now I've posted it on the Internet for all the world to see.

Ben disposed of the dead mouse and put away his gun while I gave Patience another popsicle wrapper to wrap her feet in.  Then we settled back down to watch Tom Hanks get his crew back to planet Earth. 

Somehow I had trouble focusing.