Friday, December 16, 2011

Westward Ho the Wagons


Mustang Sally is off on a Wild West Adventure the last place anyone that knows her would expect to find her ... in the middle of Cowboy country. TEXAS! ... yeah me - I KNOW right? Who'da thunk it? Certainly not  me until 2 days ago.

Without  going through the whole list of convoluted relationships (one day I'll have to do that for y'all, you may find it entertaining) Let's just say Mommo and I are now at her other daughter's house south of Dallas due to a family emergency.  We'll call this Sis White Rabbit for the purposes of this blog.

White Rabbit's FIL had a stroke and has just recently came home from the hospital.  She had hired help but the help bailed on her before she even got started.  Her and her husband have been giving him 24/7 care for about a week all by themselves.  Because the FIL has been in the hospital, then nursing home for a few months and they've been going back and forth between work/home/hospital/nursing home the whole time, things have been pretty neglected on the homefront -there are only so many hours in a day.  White Rabbit is not working now, to be home with FIL but hasn't been able to leave the house for more than a week because someone must be there all the time. 

One of the coolest things about White Rabbit is that she's so laid back.  She's a fighter when she needs to be, not a push over at all - she'll tell you what's on her mind, but she doesn't sweat the small stuff.  A sort of mirror reverse of Sis, back in Carolina, who lives and breathes the details until she can't see the forest for the trees and plays passive/aggressive until she explodes. But now the stress in her voice is apparent. She needed help, so when she called Sunday Mommo and I packed up the truck, and Monday morning we headed out.  We arrived this afternoon (it's Tuesday - I won't be able to post this until at least tomorrow)

Texas is already turning out to be different than I expected, from the terrain to the temperature.  I expected flat, sandy, dusty, desert.  It's not, nor did any part of it seem to be along our route.  There's gentle rolling hills and you can see for MILES.  It's a very wide open space.  I'll have to post pictures, of course, and you can all enjoy the experience with me.  It's so very different from anyplace I've been before.  I feel very exposed.  I'm used to trees- not that they don't have them here but they're few comparatively speaking.  They have about 25 acres here ... and you can stand in the yard and see it ALL! Very trippy to a girl from the woods.  And I'm still cold  >smiles wryly<  yes, I know how much colder it is where some of you are.  I KNOW I'm a wimp about cold, that's why I keep moving further south.

With no job and no prospects back in Carolina, I'd fallen into a rut.  Sis thought it would be a good experience for me to come out here for while.  She's says I need to get out there in the world and off the chair in front of my computer.  She's probably right.  I always like to explore new places.  And I do love living in the country and it definitely isn't "city" out here.  I may feel like a foreigner, maybe even an alien, but I can already see there are things I'll probably like here.  And it surely will  be a learning experience. 

And though I haven't felt very chatty the last few months, I hope you'll forgive that and join me as I learn about yellow roses, blue eyes, oil wells, and rednecks, um ... I mean cowboys... out here in in Lone Star State. Can you imagine? Me.  In Texas.  If I were someone else, somebody that knew how my mind works, I'd find that highly amusing.