Tight as ticks

Hello gentle readers, I have a tale or two to tell of my recent adventures to the hills of Arkansas. Yes, spending time with the red-neck kin there always proves entertaining; full of meat, water, and pyrotechnics. I am including some pictures here for your to get a sense of what the place looks like; gorgeous really. And at the end I have a story to tell you all of a small girl and her lucky fur. Read to the end and you shall be rewarded with a chuckle or two.

For the American 4th of July, i.e Independence Day holiday, I flew all of 1.5 hours to my east to join my clan in Arkansas. It was a super quick trip: 35 minute flight from Austin to Dallas, and one hour from there to Little Rock, for three short days. My proud papa gathered me at the airport whisking me away to his house just north of Little Rock in a rural community called Caddo. There we passed a nice afternoon pondering how it is that only 1/2 of his mother-in-law's double wide trailer was delivered. Where, indeed, was its mate? All in good time, I am sure.

We headed that evening an hour 1/2 north to our family farm in central Arkansas in a town aptly called, Clinton. Arkansas, like much of the Mississippi delta region, continues to find itself battling rising waters in rivers, creeks, septic tanks and the water keeps coming. This makes for a green wonderland, but also one too wet for its own good. Farmers are really struggling and there wasn't a vine ripe tomato to be found!

Here is a photo of the waterfall directly behind my grandmother's house. It was just outside my bedroom window and I felt a bit as though I was at a spa as I was lulled in and out of sleep by its melodic mantra of wetness.

Here is an action shot of my Macgyver like father cutting the brush so his expansive daughter and her girth can get a good view of the water. Thanks dad.....

Water was definitely the theme of this most recent trip to the Ozarks. I grew up swimming in this wondrous lake: Greer's Ferry. Its one of the largest man-made lake in the US and this summer its even bigger. The water was up so high (how high was it, you ask??) that when I started each swimming session last weekend I started next to a picnic table surrounded by pine trees, swam over a massive parking lot, and then finally out to the buoy. I learned to water-ski, scuba dive, and fish on this lake and it holds a special place in my heart. Part of me feels like I am home when I am there. Does a body good to have a few such places in the world to return to.

My dad is a real life cowboy, for those of you who haven't had the good fortune to meet him yet. He hosts a massive rodeo, in collaboration with the neighboring ranch, each Labor Day: The National Chuckwagon Races. You can visit his website here to see some action shots: http://www.southforktrailrides.com.

Here is one of his trusty companions seen eying me for more tortilla chips. I was sharing my chips with her, and she was really enjoying them. Its pretty funny to listen to a horse eat tortilla chips.

One of the tasty treats that I look forward to the most when I am in Arkansas with my Dad is eating local meat. And when I mean local, I mean its from our land. My Dad's baby brother, Dan, still has a hearty cattle herd wandering the place and these burgers seen here are a product of his efforts. Well, of the cow's efforts, really. Can't say the hot dogs were local. I mean, is there even such a thing given the true nature of a hot dog? Anyway, the baby seemed to enjoy its first sampling of a Bonds-grown burger, and its mother certainly did, as well.

When I am in Clinton I stay at my grandma Betty's house. My grandfather, Herman, passed away about 10 years ago. There are many photos of the two of them and their years together gracing the walls of the house where my father grew up. This is one of my faves. I like to think of them as cartoons sometime defying gravity, escaping falling Acme anvils, scaling mountains in a single bound, and looking at each other with little hearts coming out of their eyes. We miss you grandpa.

Here is a pretty picture of my pop, my step-ma, my grandma, and me. My family was so nice to me when I was with them: telling me how healthy I look, cooking my fave foods, and humoring me by letting me watch the swimming Olympic trials. GO DARA TORRES!!!!! She is my new hero and I have a photo of her I am going to take to my birth with me. If she can break TWO American records at age 41, making her 5th Olympic team, I can birth this baby.


Ok, you've done well. You made it to the end of the blah blah blah blog. Now for the tale of the little girl and her lucky fur.

I went to Greer's Ferry Lake each day at least once to ease the burden of the extra 20 pounds I am carrying these days. Its phenomenal how much better my whole being feels after spending some time surrounded by water, weightless. On most of these visits I was the only person at the beach due to some powerfully majestic thunderstorms passing through. Ah, sweet solitude.

Something you may not know about me is that I ADORE swimming in big open bodies of water during thunderstorms. Really, I do. I know, not the safest smartest idea I've ever had considering I am now responsible for another body currently in residence in its own large, naturally occurring body of water, but I couldn't resist. Floating on my back, the water meeting the sky and the clouds, hearing only my own heartbeat, breath, and thunder; I am fully at peace. Anyway, on one of these serene visits to the lake, my solitude was broken by the arrival of a small girl.

She was about seven or eight years old, I am guessing. Her parents were pretty busy chasing her younger brother in his under-roos up and down the shore, so she was free to play in the water as she desired. And apparently all of her own accord, she brought along something very special.

She and I started chatting innocently enough when I was taking a break from swimming out the buoy and back to the shore. We were chatting about how her father had "lost" the boat, so she was bound to the swimming area this summer. I asked where he had put the boat, if he'd lost it. She didn't seem impressed with my wit, and remarked that he'd had to sell it. All the while she was playing with what looked to my untrained eye as a piece of plain black fabric.

Once I had won her confidence with my empathy regarding her restricted summer plans sans watercraft, she beckoned me closer, whispering, "Do you want to meet my friend?"

I replied with abundant curiosity as one can never have too many friends, "Sure, where is she?"

The little girl looked at me as though I was pretty dim witted, "Um, right here." She gestured to her shoulder where she has laid out the piece of thick blackness and was petting it. "This is my pet; my lucky fur".

Now, reader, I am sure that you are all having the same reaction as I did at this point. One mixed with hilarity, curiosity, and sheer wonder. Please feel free to laugh out loud as I could not do at this point as I didn't want to hurt the feelings of this sweet young thing who was clearly enamored with her new and lucky pet fur.

While all the while lovingly, adoringly stroking her pet, she told me tales of their adventures together and of her undying love for this special friend of hers. During the entire soliloquy I am holding my mouth tight, and my inner voice is cackling, open-mouth laughing, at the scene unfolding before me that can only, dear readers, take place in Arkansas and seemed so natural when shared through a thick southern drawl.

So, when I couldn't hold it together any longer, I excused myself from the scene and returned to my laps. When I was about 40 yards away from the girl and her pet, I (as was anyone within earshot) was stunned by a soul piercing scream coming....."MY LUCKY FUR!!!!!!!"

I quickly reversed my direction and swam as fast as this I could, dragging this big ole pregnant lady (and if I do say so myself, I can still set a good pace even with this weight around my gut) body with me. When I reached the little girl, she was inconsolable, and her father (beer and cigarette in hand) was saying the well intended but inappropriate things, "Hush up, I will buy you a new one from the feed store" and "It ain't that lucky if you done lost it!".

It seems, fair reader, that she had dropped her lucky fur in the lake, and it had sunk to the bottom. Never to be seen again.

At this point I couldn't hold it in at all and was openly, blatantly laughing. Thanking the angels around me for this bit of social satire helping to ease my own discomfort with my own family that I was feeling. What a great trip this could be, if I could just laugh through it rather than being so disturbed by it all! A profound realization for me, really, it was.

So, our young heroine is standing on the beach, encased by storm clouds both above and within. I timidly approached, giggle and all. I offered her the consolation that perhaps it was time for her lucky fur to bring some luck to someone else, attempting to appeal to her benevolent side.

"NO!!!!! THAT WAS MY LUCKY FUR AND I WANT IT BACK!"At this point, I have to admit, my sentiment changed, as did my perspective. I realized that this was not just a young child having a meltdown in our midst, this was my future. As I teeter on the edge of motherhood, I find that I have these kind of daily musings now: damn, that could be my child...fill in the blank: screaming inconsolably over something as seemingly insignificant as a piece of black fur, punching that kid over there, demanding a new Elmo toy at the top if her lungs. Whatever. Wow, this is my future.

That said, let us return to the tale of the lucky fur. The young girl, swaddled in her brightly colored beach towel, cried, gazed longingly at the lake, and mourned the loss of her friend. I really felt for her. But no one else seemed to. Her father had returned to his beer and his buddies, and her little brother was still chasing the waves in his panties up and down the beach. She continued to cry, and even about thirty minutes later when I was leaving the lake, she was still whimpering.

The next day when I went back to the beach to swim, I saw the little girl. She was laughing, riding her bike with her mother. She seemed fully recovered from the trauma of the previous day, and to have come to terms with her loss.

This is the image I want to take away with me. As ridiculous and light as the idea of a girl and her lucky fur are to me, and as thankful as I am that this comical gem landed in my lap at the time it did, I want to remember that she got over it. She moved on. We all do.

This child growing in my belly will have its heart broken. It will loose things, friends, pets, dreams, and hopes. But if I do my job well, it will move on to love again, and to make room in its heart for others. For perhaps, a lucky fur of its own.

We should all be so lucky!

And your reward for reading all the way to the end: a picture of me and my growing motherhood.

Happy trails, everyone!