Robin Oblivious: I'm so Sexy I could die laughing.

Hi fine people! Do not expect a "christmasy post" or anything particularly clever...we now have another "Robin Oblivious" story from the past. Not quite on par with the waterbed fiasco...but nonetheless.

I've missed you guys and as soon as I kick this out I hope I have the time and the wakefulness to go and visit all and sundry! We've been busy recycling silage and/or freezing! I won't go into the weather, I'm sure you're facing the same in various degree's of "cold"...I am so not a winter person!

So: Here I am to embarrass myself for your enjoyment, again....

Picture it, Round Rock, TX, circa 1998. I am an employee at "the club" (mentioned in previous posts, the real name is withheld to protect the innocent!). My girlfriend, D, the amazing Amazon of a beauty who taught me how to bar tend and tried her best to teach me how to dress...was going through a divorce from her husband of 11 years. That's not and easy thing to do, and the soon to be ex was having a bit of an issue over losing his "barbie doll" wife. (He loved to dress her up and parade her around; it's when she developed a mind of her own that he began to freak out. anyhoo...)

So, I was the "daytime" bartender and we had another "floater" bartender and some "weekend" bartenders and we made a plan that D would never close the bar by herself. The bar closed at midnight but by the time you restocked, cleaned up, emptied the trashes....it would be close to 2:00 a.m. and darn dark in that parking lot. As a group, we all watched Lifetime: Television for Women. Whether we admitted it or not.

So: D doesn't close alone. D is 6'0 of prime time Fantasy material, and a helluva a nice girl who really didn't know it (her husband dressed her, she tried to dress me...getting the picture?). She was, sexy as hell in a Xena: Princess of Power kind of thing. A lot of her clothes couldn't be dry cleaned...they needed to be armor-alled.

Anyway, my turn to help D close. I'm sitting at home in relax mode, which isn't pretty, and not one iota "sexy" and at 11:00 I throw on my "baja", a baseball cap and head to the club. D gives me a drink when I come in and I sit down and peruse the bar. She's got two "gentlemen" who obviously are into there cups and developing "issues" with one another...she gives me the "look".

"You take one and I'll take the other..." is what the look said. Crap. So I take one aside, and try to appear patient as I listen to his rambling monologue and the injustice done to him by this other guy he met 3 hours ago. I'd only had half of my drink...but I was wishing for another already. I managed to gently get his keys and told him the cab would be free and eased him back to the bar.

Apparently, these two had met up at another bar earlier and had walked into ours about an hour before. D had given them one beer, seen the direction the train was heading and cut them off at the pass...and no they weren't happy, but still somewhat docile...and I had the only set of keys between them.

So, I went back to the office and called the Taxi service we always use in a case like this, "Ace Taxi". And D proceeded to go do the preliminary clean up, ya know, wash glasses, brush the pool tables, lock the vending machines, put away pool cues....normal stuff.

I had Moe and Larry separated but was keeping an eye on them as we waited for the taxi and I got involved with a group of two couples who were arguing over tornado's. I'm from the Panhandle, I know tornado's, right! We were having a lively, spirited discussion (Robin in comedy form, on stage, baseball cap and baja...) when a shadow fell across the room when the entryway light was obscured from the massive, black force that had entered.

I turned, and there he stood. He looked like a cross between a Mexican bandolito and a Sumo Wrestler who'd been overdosed with growth hormones in infancy. He was huge. He was scary. I was the closest bar employee and after swallowing, twice, I asked, "Can I help you, uh, sir?" The whistling theme from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, was damn near audible from the speakers in my head, I swear it.

He turned his beady, too black eyes on me and in a heavily accented voice said, "Hey Stexy." Relief poured over me like waves, he wasn't carrying a weapon other than his ham sized fists as far as I could see, and he had he called me sexy...I preened and felt pretty darn good that he thought I was sexy when I was au naturale! All I had to do was tell him we'd already had last call and he would turn and go, looking back in longing, I was sure.

But no, then he said, "I'm here to peek up som'mony." Ahhhh, I get it now! No weapons', looking for 'stexy"....obviously he was with one of the vending machine companies and the "stexy" girl he was looking for was D so he could get his vendmachine money. I felt a little ridiculous at that point!

I mean, c'mon, baseball cap, baja, minimal makeup...and this guy walks and say's "hey stexy" and I make it all about me? I had to laugh, so I yelled, "Hey Sexy! D, there's a guy up here that needs to pick up sum'money!"

Before D makes it to us one of the guys I was visiting jumps up and says "You're not sexy, I'M sexy" and flexes his muscles and laughs. I say, "OH NO! You heard the guy, "I'M sexy" and pull my ballcap lower and flutter my lashes. We all laugh.
D walks around the corner and I'm noticing that sumo wrestler guy is looking at me like I've lost my mind. D says "Can I help you?" The sumo guy can't look away from me as he very succinctly says in his thick accent:

"Jes, I am with Ace Taxi...I am here to peek up some'body."

What an ego I have huh? When, dolled up in a baja, baseball cap and all of that I can interpret "Ace Taxie" for "Hey Sexy"? I collapsed in laughter as soon as I caught on....sumo guy left mumbling about "crazy white girls".

For my birthday party that year there was a rather large embarrassing banner that reader, "ACE TAXI! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"

Oh, we laughed about that for a long time...still do. "Ace Taxi" became an inside joke amongst us all for sexy people...or wannabe's like me!

Oh No...this is my life?!

I had some interesting questions from Chucky and Junosmom that made me giggle, so I thought maybe I should explain "my life"! After all, we're not all hicks here on the worldwideweb!

Today, someone at the feedlot (a large area with many pens with cattle in various phases of 'fattening' out...kind of a legal version of Aushwitz...sorry, but there you have it...I can't believe I'm not a vegetarian yet....) Anyhoo, he asked me how my "life" (that would be my day to day activities) was going...and I said, "Oh just peachy! I get to drive around our beautiful countryside and deposit large amounts of poopie for my friends and neighbors!" Yeah, this is my winter life!



Chucky asked what the manure was doing when it was NOT being hauled...fair question! So, here you have it...the whole process.



First off all, our primary business is Silage Chopping and Hauling. Silage is anything from corn, to sorghum, to triticale or even hay. It's not, as I first thought, an actual crop (I thought there was a plant called 'ensilage' or 'silage'!) It's actually a process. Our chopper takes 8 rows of corn at a time and chops into pieces less than a quarter inch long, the whole plant, not just the ears, and it does it at about 4.5 miles an hour. That may not seem fast, but in the field? Yeah, that's fast. You've seen pictures of my truck and trailer (or if you haven't it's a semi with a 34' foot trailer)...so to give you perspective, it fills my trailer, as I'm driving along beside it, in less than 7 minutes.








Not my truck, but you get the idea~!



We then haul it to the feedyard where it's dumped into "pits" and big tractor's drive over it and over it to "pack" it. It is then used in a feed "mixture" with other stuff. I don't know exactly what that is, but that's their business, not mine.




Now, after the cows have eaten this delicious concotion...they then proceed to eliminate it, leaving large "pies". The feedlot personnel then drive around the pen with a scraper until they have it all neat and tidy into a large hill whereupon the cattle like to play.


Then the EPA gets their panties in a wad and wants the manure hauled off. So in the past, the feedlot had to pay for that service. Now? Compost, the green thing of "the future", has taken off and become popular (and cheaper) so the feedlot is then able, to sell their shit. (No shit, their shit is now worth something!)


This is where our winter work comes in. Stay with me here. We chop the corn from a farmer, we haul it in, the cow eats and eliminates, we come back, pick it up again and haul it to the same farmers field (well, it could be a neighbor...) and dump it for fertilizer to grow more corn or whatever. So we can do it again.
(I have to admit this is a picture after one of our employee's put his trailer up directly into a power line! See how it broke and is curled up on the pile of shit? See how close he was to the darn pole, which should have been a CLUE! It blew out four tires, the rest eventually burnt up. He got OUT of the truck! We are so lucky we didn't send him back to S. Africa in an ashtray, the electric guys said if the current would have been flowing "the other way", he'd so be dead....I thank God every day that turned out to be a monetary problem rather than a human one!) But there you have it, somewhere in that pile of poo is corn we chopped. I'm sure of it.

So for all of you people who would like to make fun of me for being a "shit hauler"....know this. I am not a shit hauler...I am a silage recycler! Haul it in as feed and haul it out as fertilizer!

I am SUCH a public servant (omg...is this my life?!)

I am SO not burying my head in the sand.

OK, I don't don't know about you folks, but I am sick of the politics, the "bail outs" and the happy crap going on in Washington. I am very hopeful that Obama can turn it around but I also realize that the presidency is one of the least powerful positions in the country.

Don't go ape-shit on me until you just think about it for a second. "Special Interest" groups with their lobbyist and supporters and yada yada, get a lot done in D.C. Yeah, the president is influential, but you couldn't beat me with an ugly stick to take that job for a million dollars...a day. Four years in this system is not a whole lot of time to bring about "change". Yes, he has a Democratic government so therw won't be a lot of "infighting"...but I'll repeat myself, MONEY talks.

My SE has been watching C-SPAN religiously on the "big 3" bail out plan. I've avoided it and instead came back to my office and watched my TIVO'd soap opera. It's just rife with innuendo, violence and sub plots...but the actors are better! I asked him to fill me in and he said that they mostly wanted a "loan" not a bailout.

So I talked to my BFF who's husband was also watching this stuff...and so she caught a southern lady senator, (she didn't remember the name) who hammered them when they bragged that this time they came before the power's that be...they opted for a hybrid car and NOT the learjet, when they begged for money. Oh! The sacrifice that must have been! Anyway, K. said this lady senator sat them back saying she didn't care what vehicle they came in...that kind of grandstanding made no points with her. Amen sista!

I made the remark that technology for hybrid cars has been around for years and the big oil companies have managed to bury them (see the special interest thing going on here?) and supposedly, actually bury them. Fact or fiction folks, make no mistake, money controls the country...big oil is not going to support manufacturers researching technology to make it obsolete, n'cest pas?

So now they want money, a lot of it, so they can use it for research and development of "green" cars, like that's a new idea? Yea! I'm on it! But I honestly can't even give you an informed opinion on this subject as I've been watching Sonny and Jason battle it out on General Hospital instead of the powers that be trying to decide what to do with my tax dollars.

I will just say that 2% percent of America controls 96% of the income...do the math and tell me that our government is in control. Knowing me, I'd believe you.

So I told my BFF that I was just sick and tired of being sick and tired over politics, and she agreed, but she did point out that I can be a zealot for a cause and then go stick my head in the sand. I told her that I knew I had that tendency and all it got me was a nice clear patch of skin after the scab wore off. And that's when I knew....

I'm so not sticking my head in the sand...I'm exfoliating.

I'm not lost, I'm exploring...

I'm Back...(and forth!)

Hi all! I hope that every one's Thanksgiving was joyous and that you came nowhere eating as much as I did! I know my internet presence has been slim but I hope to be forgiven!

Our Thanksgiving was nice, but nuts...we drove to Kansas and picked up "C" but you have to know my SE to know how the rest went! We had to meet a guy on the NE border to get a hydraulic tank, we had to pick up parts, beef, tires and cram TWO Thanksgiving's into 4 days. He half jokingly said we needed to get home to "rest" up! I didn't laugh...that boy works 24-7, I swear, my next SE is going to be much less productive!

We got home and immediately launched into winter mode...our last S. African employee went home November 20th and so I was re-promoted to truck driver and lemme tell ya! I miss Lulu! I knew how to take corners in her and with "Reba" I sometimes forget she's longer, look in my mirror and freak out! Haven't' wrecked her yet though! I have to laugh, degree in psyche and these days I just drive around the stark beauty of the Texas Panhandle and leave big piles of poop for my friends and neighbors. Trying to convince myself it's a public service, and a green one...but still....!

I got an excellent critique on chapter one of my story from JN! She so obliterated my passive voice and she made it look so easy! She really fine-combed it and gave me invaluable feedback...she's awesome and I so appreciate her. (she's published and as soon as I get the go-ahead I'll give you more than initials!) She also told me my story was "good stuff"! Heck yeah, digging that feedback!

But okay, something else is on my mind and I better get to it before I my train of thought derails! For one, I am whiny as all get out. I have broken a small bone in my foot, and another in my hand. The bone I broke in my foot (I tripped over a sign that said "Caution", only me...) I had surgery on...yeah, it kinda hurt. When I burned myself on the exhaust thingy on the truck though? OMG pain, annoying, crazy pain.

Nothing compared to my rib though! I have an extremely high tolerance for pain but I busted a rib last week..it was tender for two days and now, it just hurts like crazy. I got the hiccups and I'll admit it, I cried. When I feel a sneeze coming? I do everything to avoid it. I smoke, so I sometimes cough...but now it's a a polite, southern lady cough, instead of the robust trucker's cough I sometimes throw out...it just hurts too badly to go there! I "passed gas" and teared up! This is ridiculous! SE asked if I was going to go have it x-rayed and I said, "what's the point? nothing they can do for a rib...just prescribe drugs..." And at this point I'm thinking drugs aren't such a bad idea! I don't do drugs well (an extra-strength tylenol puts me on a different plane!) but I dunno! Surely it will get better...although I called the Wal Mart Santa Clause a creepy bastard yesterday....I think it's making me a bit snarky! Well! He hit on me in the sporting goods section on the way to his "post"....that IS creepy! I so diss'ed Santa. If he checks his list twice I'm sure I am so off of it!

Enough whining? Okay, point of post. Judgement. I've been all freaky about the judgement of my story from the group (God forbid I ever publish, sedate me now!) I'm on a committee here that maybe I shouldn't have signed on for and I'm not doing all the wonderful things I thought I should because owning your own business has a tendency to make you "work" (esp. end of the year!) Anyway, a bunch of stuff!

Now, I read my morning "lesson" about prayer and my "goal for the day" was not to judge God's world or the people in it. I thought, 'no problemo! I'm one of the least judgemental people in God's world...piece of cake!' And I did excellent, by the way.

That night I had a dream about a Zen Koan that's been bothering me for years (I keep looking for answers to them, even though there isn't any!). I'm paraphrasing here, but the koan was about two monks traveling to a different abbey. These monks were of a very strict order and weren't even supposed to make eye contact with a woman. It was monsoon season and flooding was happening on their journey. They came to a flooded road and a woman was standing there, trying to figure out how to get across. One monk picked her up and carried her across the flooded road. The other monk was incensed! He could NOT believe the older monk had betrayed his vows so easily and seemed not to care! The younger monk fretted and fumed for the rest of the journey. When they arrived at their destination he could no longer remain silent and said, "I canNOT believe you touched that woman and carried her!" The older monk just looked at him benignly and answered, "I put her down....are you still carrying her?"

Woke up with one of those darn epiphany things. I do well at not judgeing others, but I suck on not judging myself. I've been carrying guilt for a long, long time...over stupid stuff. And I still do it! When things don't go well I blame myself first and other's later; and I realize now that the whole blame game is stupid to begin with...but stupider still to take it all on myself. I judged myself and found errors and my penance was guilt, guilt, guilt...what an absolutely useless emotion. Hard to harness, much let go of. But maybe if I treated myself as kindly as I treat the rest of humanity, it'd be good! Now, don't get all 'shaking your head that I'm right'...you know you do the same!

I was always kind of on a 'high horse' about my lack of judgement on other's. What a hypocrite. I'm a member of the human race and judged myself far too harshly. So, I will be kinder and gentler with myself from here on out; and possible, less apologetic! I could even get bitchy about it. Hmmm less critical and apologetic and more bitchy? I'm liking this! (Santa's probably not though!)

Happy Holidays!