new vocabulary words

For the second consecutive weekend, I went out into the world and did something other than work. Since I am the privileged one who makes the schedules for the shop, I gave myself Columbus Day off so Jonathan and I could go deer hunting.

This is not something new to me. We dated almost four years before we got married and I did my time on a handful of hunting excursions. We have pictures of me holding a dead duck like a baby as well as some really flattering ones of me covered in camoflage. I was a "good girlfriend" and accompanied him on these trips without complaint (okay, with little complaint). After the wedding, however, he was on his own. I can see how he would want to take me with him a few times, just so I would understand this part of him and his family, but not with much frequency. Hunters have to be able to sit virtually motionless for hours, be completely silent, give off no scent, and be willing to get up at 5am to go sit in a tree. I do not posess any of these abilities. My presence is in no way helpful. But I've never been out in this part of Texas so I went. I am such a good wife. He better not forget this anytime soon.

Nasty Stickies- These little buggers are the most evil things I've encountered in recent memory. They hide in the sand in Central Texas and stick to anything. Fingers, clothing, socks, hair, you name it. We have a much tamer version of nasty stickies back home in Kentucky I call "cookaburras". Cookaburras have nothing on these things. Just be careful where you pee. Don't say you haven't been warned.

After driving the truck through all sorts of scratchy brush (oh, our poor baby truck!) we managed to get to the hunting lease in time to go on a short hunt before dark. This entailed walking several football field lengths through grass, cactus, and-you guessed it-millions of nasty stickies. We were armed with a bow and arrows and a little tupperware container full of cotton balls soaked with DOE-IN-RUT. For those of you unfamiliar with this way of life, DOE-IN-RUT is a subsance that, to a buck, smells like a lovely doe looking for a one night stand. So we sit up in a tree waiting for some lonely deer to trot along is search of a good time. It is here when I realized that every rustle and scratching noise I hear is just a tease coming from some goofy squirrel, not the next set of antlers going up in my house. I was grateful when night began to fall and we made our way back to camp.

Camp-Our Dodge Ram with an old futon mattress tossed in the truck bed. Also includes a piece-of-crap lantern we just bought (and then broke) and two folding chairs.

We were just sitting down to dine on some sandwiches and beef jerky when my cell phone rang. Two things surprised me here. The first was the fact that I had any cell phone reception at all. I guess the "can you hear me now?" guy made it out here after all. The second was the fact that it was my boss calling me, informing me that he was going to resign the next day. It turns out that he came across some job with an oil driller that requires him to periodically glance at a computer screen in between surfing the internet and watching DVDs. And he's getting insane money to do it. Chump. I really am happy for the guy, but I can't say that I'm too surprised. He's been dropping little hints that something was up in recent weeks. It is still strange that it is actually happening. I guess that the powers that be noticed that I had successfully gone about ten minutes without thinking about work so they dropped this bomb on me. Great. Now I'm going to be all distracted and I won't kill a deer.

Joke-The fact that a) I don't have a hunting license and wasn't going to be killing a deer even if I wanted to, b) I can't even pull back Jonathan's bow because I'm a wimp makes the previous statement a joke. See also irony and not that funny.

We managed to get some sleep that night without getting eaten by some large woodland creature or being awakened by a new colony of nasty stickies on our pillows. I tried to aviod going on the morning hunt since we were going to be up there three or so hours, but no dice. I plodded along like a good wife and tried not to sniff my nose too much or make any sudden movements while up in the tree stand. I'll shorten all this by simply saying that we didn't see anything until we were climbing down and suddenly this huge deer bounds out of a bush right next to us. Oh, Jonathan was mad.

Futility-The act of returning to a deer stand and trying to lure back a deer you just spooked. Once they start running in a particular direction, they usually don't second-guess their instincts and start running back just because they like the smell of those cotton balls.

We planned on going on the morning hunt, do some minor repairs on a nearby feeder, and start heading back home. Yeah, that was the plan. Again, for the benefit of my non-redneck readers (that would be Holly) a deer feeder is a big, 50 gallon can full of corn that has a timer on it that you can program to shoot the corn out several times a day. We completed the necessary repairs, got the busted mechanism to run again, but no corn was coming out. Jonathan takes a stick and starts jamming it up in the hole underneath the can, trying to unblock the opening. He pulled it out and with it came this long string of what appeared to be snot. Oh, that was just so wrong. We ended up having to tip the entire thing over and spill 50+ pounds of yellow corn everywhere. It is at this moment when we discover what was plugging the hole. I jokingly guessed that it was a dead racoon or squirrel but Jonathan said that was actually possible. I braced myself for the inevitable horror as I peeked into the now-dented can.

Corncrete- My term for the hardened, rotten, and molded slab of corn that was clogging the opening in the feeder. The most revolting moment came when we chiseled it out and saw tons of happy maggots frolicking on the other side.

Yeah, it really was as gross as it sounded. We got the feeder back up, scooped most of the non-skanky corn back in and headed for home. And no, I won't be eating much corn for awhile.

Despite the stickies, the hours of tree sitting, the no potty, and the funky corn, it was a good trip. We both won: he got to take his little wifey to see nature and I bought myself a few years of excuses for not going hunting. Now I'm back to reality and dealing with this new mess at work. My soon-to-be-ex-boss Robert is gone for good after Monday, so I'm trying to get the shop straightened out before he makes his grand exit. I'm discovering that even though it was just a matter of time before he quit, I'm taking his departure pretty hard. I really want to be the one to replace him and I'm doing everything in my power to convince the big bosses that I am the best person for the job. It's a nice distraction from the fact that I'm going to be seeing very little of someone who has quickly become one of my closest friends. Kind of a strange way of describing one's boss, but it's the truth. It has been great getting to go to work every day and hang out with fun people like him. The pranks that he has managed to pull off are the stuff of legends. Big shoes to fill.

I think I'll close with that since this particular entry took two sittings and three hours to complete and I still haven't posted my pictures yet. I'll be sure to keep you all updated on the situation at work. I'm sure you are all glued to your computer screens in anticipation of my next blog entry. I'll try to be almost as entertaining and addicting as "Dancing with the Stars".

Dancing with the Stars-One of those revolting, quasi-reality shows that is insanely popular. Jerry Springer doing ballroom dancing? Are you kidding? Still not as bad as Ice Skating with the Stars or Little People, Big World. See also joke and WTF.