Jessica Hildrum

More Goat roper memories

I lived on a ranch in Northern Cali, we had sheep (yes I did have my own; Rosebud was her name and she followed me everywhere).  We also had chickens, horses, every now and then a pig for slaughter (mmmmm bacon *drool*), dogs and cats too.

There were two dogs, a German Shepherd named Abraham probably the most majestic dog ever born, quiet, laid back, observant.  And Prunecake the insane sheepdog.

Yes, Prunecake was truly off his gourd, he barked at rocks never at people, he loved to play fetch but only with rocks not sticks.  And Prunecake was in love, deeply, madly and passionately in love.  With a ginger haired male cat, I think his name was Oscar.  Prunecake would lie and stare lovingly at Oscar, he could lay that way for hours, before slowly approaching the cat and going to town dryhumping him.  The cat funnily enough never moved, although he did clutch on to the dirt flattening himself, nails out with a slightly bored look on his face, all the while keeping his butt firmly planted on the ground.

Such were the afternoons on the ranch, nothing much to do but toss big ass rocks up into the air for Prunecake to catch and watch him humping Oscar.

OMG I am so my fathers daughter

I was driving in heavy traffic this morning and found myself muttering obscenities while pounding my steering wheel in annoyance of the other drivers and yes I mean ALL the other drivers!

I stopped mid-expletive remembering my father doing exactly the same, actually I am pretty sure that I learned most of my extensive foul vocabulary from his rants in the car.

I, of course loved to add gas to the fire by turning on all levers and buttons before he got into the car so that when he started the car he would totally freak out, which he did! Screaming “AAAAAHHH WTF” I laughed so hard I would be hiccuping, burping and crying every time.

Come to think of it I used to do that to my ex husband as well but he was never amused and usually just got annoyed, so even though I would be laughing my ass off he would just get really quiet and give me dirty looks.

I loved torturing my dad, another favorite was using Gumby to terrorize him, yes, Gumby (the green thing).  I would hide him in my dads bed and when nighttime came a roar would come from dads room “AAAAAAHHH GUMBY!!!” and Gumby would come flying out of his room and hit a neighboring wall.

Once I bought a seven foot blow up Gumby and put it in his car, in the morning, all we heard was “AAAAAAHHH GUMBY!!!” and out he flew.  His girlfriend helped as well by putting the sevenfoot blowup Gumby in his bed, I never saw Gumby again.  I have the feeling my dad may have gone postal and popped Gumby with scissors or something.

Honestly, I believe it is my duty to torture those I love; a Melvin (aka Wedgie I see that Wikipedia defines Melvin as undies being pulled up in front but we, in my family call a frontal Wedgie a Suzie, so read a Melvin = Wedgie in other words – your undies yanked sharply up your butt.).

Anyway, a Melvin is my way of showing you I care… My son calls it a “Melon” – He says “Moooom!!! Don’t give me a Melon”.  I of course say “It’s a Melvin, see let me show you the difference” proceeding to give him a Melvin.   Actually, I nearly wet myself when putting him to bed the other night, I shoved his teddy bear down the back of his Pj’s and he struggled to get the bear out, and I was laughing so hard I could barely catch my breath, crying, making him laugh, the more he laughed the weaker he got and couldn’t get that bear out of his pants, we were both laughing so hard tears flowing.  It was priceless.

So, if I ever torture you, give you a Melvin, snap your bra, stick my finger in your mouth when you yawn, know that you are truly and deeply loved.

A little OCD are we?

Every now and then my brain gets stuck in a loop, going round and round,  blow-by-blow through an interaction involving a person or experience.

I know this happens, I am ready for it, and even so, the only way to jerk myself out of this loop of destruction is to distract myself with something challenging, shiny, expensive, or buff …

I realize that in my haste for reaction and distraction I cram on to my shoulders too much stuff to do, burning the candle at both ends and exhausting myself entirely (albeit not enough to sleep).

The question remains, how do I stop myself from obsessing over things I can do nothing about, like whether the meeting went well or if my contribution is enough or why the guy doesn’t call me etc.  How on earth do I stop that record in my head without wearing myself out and into an early grave by cramming too much responsibility onto my shoulders.

This Easter I have been thinking about this, trying to figure out a way to change my behavior and have decided to take radical action (thanks to friends, family and physician for advice):

I have decided to renounce all material goods, shave my head and become a Buddhist nun.

….nah not bloody likely, what with my love for all things high-heeled and shiny not to mention physical contact, plus being a pin head a bald skull would look completely ridiculous!

This conclusion just proves that my other idea of living the rest of my life in the Outer Hebrides as a woolly goat would simply not work – unless of course I were a fashionable, high-heeled bejewelled goat with a handsome goat herder tending me… See now, that thought takes on a whole new level of interesting.

No, I have decided to scale down, removing all extraneous pressure so that my focus is entirely on my work, family, home and friends (maybe a little bit on guys too).

This is a huge decision and will take some doing, I am inherently ambitious, love to work and get easily bored.  But I realize that I am on a path to nothing less than annihilation and that if I do not take immediate and radical steps I simply won’t survive.

So for the moment I am stepping down from all non-work related projects in order to try and get my health back on track and reduce my slight OCD tendencies.

I hope that this decision will not hinder me in the future from getting the wonderful opportunities I have been so lucky to be presented with.  I love to be involved and want more than anything to make a positive contribution to my surroundings; I just need to slow down for a while.

Obviously, I am a natural snowboarding talent

I have taken up snowboarding this year and while I certainly am bone headedly persistent I am without a doubt no natural talent.  Don’t get me wrong, I am not completely inept, I can manage to zigzag my way down the slope but have some turning issues – to the left no prob – to the right (the famous toe turn) *KERBLAMMO* major faceplant!

I took a couple of lessons during my Easter vacation, the instructors were great!  They were patient, kept the laughter to themselves (although I did see a chuckle or two on my most entertaining yoga like faceplants).  And you know me, I aim to please so I provided them with faceplants aplenty!

The undeniably gorgeous Norwegian instructor gave me a private tour of the gondola engine house – thank you oh, skiing God (she says drooling in reminiscence)!  I am though, particularly grateful to the Swedish instructor who held me tightly around the waist on the lift keeping me from falling.  Who wouldn’t be happy to have a strong buff Swede holding one tightly around the waist with a T-bar between the legs. – Just sayin’

On Saturday I had my second lesson of the trip (above buff Swede with T-bar lift sequence), I met up with the rest of the group after my lesson about halfway down the slope, we (read they and I didn’t want to wimp out) decided to ski down.  My fantastic friend Line stayed back with me as I sluggishly made my way down, she was pretty patient though I think she wanted to bail a couple of times.  I was so exhausted by this point both hung-over and worn out from all the faceplants, that I just couldn’t keep up, not to mention that snowboarding in slush (I swear the same consistency of a Slush drink) is just not fun… It took me probably an extra hour to get down the slope, I took some ribbing from the others but I am extremely proud of myself.

WOW, I cannot believe that I have wasted so many years of Norgie winters, so many opportunities to provide entertainment for those around me and not to mention the joy of slowly learning a new skill!  Prepare one and all for more excitement on the slopes!

Age is just a number

I have had a great Easter vacation spending it with one of my best friends, her boyfriend and 9 of his friends. All in their late twenties. A really fun group, we partied, went skiing, and just hung out. I took a couple of snowboarding lessons, and had huge success in bringing on some nice hangovers. All in all a great, fun time!

The people were really interesting, diverse in interests, professions, in fact I did try to recruit the Java developer, may have to take advantage of the shoe guy LOL, I have in mind a couple of challenges for the journalist (hoping he may be game) and my son would I am sure totally worship the fireman and of course can think of a couple of jobs the carpenter could do.  They impressed me with their easy dialogue, their wonderful humor and not the least their ability to welcome me in.  And of course their shock over my age, telling me and anyone who would listen that NO WAY was I pushing forty, that I have no wrinkles so surely I must be their age! As you can well imagine, any statement like that that endears them to me for life!  That and their supportive nature, they gave me almost no ribbing about how long it took me to get down the slope (like 4times longer than them).  My only comment is that while I love a good slush drink, snowboarding in slush was not exactly my dream scenario!

I don’t think that I could have asked for a better break, I was exhausted and am seriously on verge of burnout,  I really needed to get away and do stuff I ordinarily wouldn’t do… Which I certainly did and proudly so… ’nuff said I do not remember partying like this since I was in my early twenties.  I HAD A BLAST!

I am truly grateful to have been included and have enjoyed myself more than I thought possible.

I hope to see this great bunch again and soon!!