life on the ranch

i've learned several things from my weekend stay at RNR Ranch in buffalo, texas, which is a double wide trailer seven miles down a dirt road.


1. Big donkeys can easily mistake your fingers for carrots.
2. Baby donkeys can easily die from pnemonia.
3. It takes a backhoe to dig a hole big enough for a baby donkey.
4. Armadillos can survive being hit with an SUV
5. Two pounds of good jerkey costs $60
6. "General store" actually means steakhouse.
7. Steakhouses don't have menus, only sizes in which you can order your beef.
8. When walking around, wave a stick around to get the huge spiderwebs away.
9. Don't stand on an ant hill.
10. Don't stand on a cactus.
11. Ah sore esell wood lofe a stik ite nah! translates to "I'll have the steak, medium rare."
12. Donkeys eat dinner mints
13. Boy donkeys are jacks, and girl donkeys are jennys.
14. Shooting a magnum revolver will make your ears ring for two days.


that's it for now, i guess. buenas noches.

home on the range

so, i am officially a texan now. fancy that. sure, i used to live in galveston and houston, but i wasn't really old enough to remember much. now, i'm a baltimorian at heart. hearing the hairspray soundtrack everywhere just rubs it in my face, "miss baltimore crabs," "good morning baltimore" etc, etc. luckily, i've had a taste or too of old bay since i've been here. it keeps me going.

texas, overall, is just hot and flat. no trees, no rivers, no hills. just dust and chaparell and rednecks legally toting guns. but the food is good. the food is really, really really good. the mexican in me is having a fiesta now that i can enjoy a wonderful chimichaunga or real pico de gallo. and no, bel air, la tolteca HARDLY counts as real mexican food. those people are from colombia or something. this is real live mexican food that you have to order in real live spanish. which i'm remembering very quickly.

in a huge turn of irony, though, i am suddenly reminded how entertaining my life would be to read. or watch for that matter. (sidenote: if and when my life is finally put on the big screen, milla jovovich needs to play me, and ratatat and grizzly bear need to do the soundtrack.) in a desolate state, in an unheard of city, (frisco. whatthefuck.) carli fleming just moved basically down the street from me. i have no words.

so in a nutshell, its hot, its flat, its boring, and its filled with huge bugs and irony. and occassional armadillos.

tomorrow night we're leaving to go visit my grandparents on their farm in centerville. which is even flatter and boringer. oh, it's a goat farm, by the way. 21 acres of brush and goats. and one donkey named sassy.

time to grab a beer and shoot a gun.

adios.