Back again….feeling loved because lots of you read my last blog… …thank you everyone – it means a lot and I appreciate the likes and comments as well.
What a busy few weeks it’s been. One of my second cousins came over from the UK to spend a week with me and the G’man. Although Em and I had only met just once (she’s 19 and lives in the UK, and I’ve lived here 30+ years) I immediately loved her when she handed me three packets of Cadbury’s chocolate buttons, a Starbucks New York mug (I collect them) and the best medicine for indigestion in the world…aniseed flavour Gaviscon, (used after consuming three bags of chocolate buttons).
But by far the best part of seeing someone from home is getting to hear a real British accent, untainted by Oklahoma and the Gumpster……bliss!
Em lives near Southampton, and her dad Steve is my first cousin. Gump was so excited to have someone from the old country come and visit us. He wanted to show a Brit all the wonderful things you could see and do in Okie town…….He was googling for rodeos, and all things cowboy to show my cousin Em.
No luck there – all the rodeos seemed to be done for the summer. Not to be daunted, Gumpo picked the second most Okie thing to do, introduced her to some good old-fashioned Oklahoma sport…..a day on Grand lake, complete with tubing, Sea-Doo riding, all courtesy of the amazing hospitality by Gump’s boss – who provided the accommodation, toys, dinner and bed.
With a few bruises as trophies, we loaded up from Grand Lake and headed on a drive to Missouri for an evening on a farm, where Em rode in a four wheeler for the first time and then did something very un-British….she shot a gun! After hugs and thank yous to our Baggett friends in West Plains, MO for their hospitality…we got back on the road, tickled Illinois, and then whammo, we were in Tennessee!
Em was on cloud nine – well actually she was on the back seat of a pick-up truck, heading for the place she wanted to go more than any other place in America……a city that all British people are naturally drawn to….(well okay, that part’s not true, Brit’s aren’t, Em is)………NASHVILLE, AMERICA!
Blimey. Talk about feeling out of my depth. I’ve never been a big C&W fan. Don’t get me wrong, I love Patsy Cline and Merle Haggard, but I’ve never had a C&W radio station playing in my car…not ever – although I did win second place once, singing Stand By Your Man at a karaoke contest….of course that night I had indulged in a few vodkas and really hammed it up with an American accent. But now here we were, Me, Em and Gump, in boot-scootin’ country, and suddenly Gump had gone to heaven. Gone was the normal Gumpster as we walked around the town, taking in all the historical sights of Country music’s Mecca – all of a sudden, my spousal unit had become George Strait.
The normal goofball Geo-scientist person was now an aficionado, a true expert in the history of Country music and every person that had ever yodeled. I found myself interested and somewhat amused, I decided to just let it go.
We went on a backstage tour of the Opry and had a good look around the place, no concert though, unfortunately no one was playing the two days we were in town. Not to be thwarted, we got an Uber to the famous Bluebird Cafe and saw what it looked like when it was closed. Finally we ended up back in the heart of the city on a hop on/hop off bus to the C&W Music Hall of Fame – and ended the afternoon at a British Pub (of course). Gump got a burger, Em the pasta…naturally I ordered fish and chips and could hardly wait. I should have got the burger, we weren’t charged for mine because the fish was off, one bite of it and it smelled (and tasted) like a pair of socks worn by a sweaty football player with hairy feet…….That was a bummer, but everything changed for the better later that day. We found the best place to go in Nashville, all because of someone’s hair.
One of the clerks at our hotel had an amazing Afro, which I couldn’t help but remark upon. I actually told her that had I been black, I would have that hairstyle because I think it looks great. We then got into a discussion about Oklahoma, and wouldn’t you know it, turns out she was from here, and a Holland Hall alum.
She explained that her husband was a musician, hence their move to Nashville, and he played at one of the local bar/restaurants. I told her we were having a time of it going to most of the places that featured live music, because Em, at 19, was under age for most of the night entertainment in town.
Miss Holland Hall was good enough to research a few options for us, and lo and behold found a small concert going on at the place her husband played (although he wouldn’t be there this night). This was HUGE, because we were worried about getting to hear some local music before we left the next day, and so far we hadn’t had much luck. This entertainment was going to be a concert type performance, and so off we went to buy our tickets.
We arrived at the venue, the third floor of an old Acme Farm Supply place, right by the Cumberland river. You could almost hear Patty Loveless singing through the trees…..The place was a really neat old building, loads of character and history. We trudged our way up three flights of stairs and into a room full of tables and chairs with a bar, and about fifty people there already.
The stage was empty, except for four bar stools. All we knew about the concert was that it was entitled ‘Unplugged’. After a while, four guys came onto the stage, each sat on a stool with their guitars.
The first one spoke and introduced himself as Justin Weaver – we’d never heard of him. He then said he was going to sing one of his #1 hits recorded by Jason Aldean….huh? I’m no C&W fan, but I know who Aldean is….who were these guys?
Next up was Michael Tyler, a handsome young man who apparently writes for Aldean and Diercks Bentley, and is an up and coming singer – he had an amazing voice.
Erik Dylan was next, and was my favourite, a real story teller, and another writer. Lastly Jaron Boyer sang some of his compositions. Then the first guy chatted a bit more, and explained that they all wrote for Peer Music, a Nashville based company owned by a guy named Michael Knox, a real heavy-hitter in Nashville who works with Aldean, Bentley, Kelly Clarkson and many others. Wow, and he was sitting at the table right next to us……what a crazy, wonderful evening. These four guys chatted like we were in their living rooms, and the audience got to talk to them as well. Although Country music is not my favourite, they were damn good. The talent each possessed was astounding. I was blown away by the writing (I write lyrics myself) Gump (as George Strait) was in dreamland. But the best part was that it turned into an amazing experience for Em, a up and coming singer-songwriter with a love of country music. We enjoyed two hours of solid entertainment from four well-respected singer-songwriters, and it was purely by chance, all because I told that lovely lady at the hotel that she had a killer Afro. We’d stumbled upon a real gem…..What a great evening!
….And then we drove ten hours back to Tulsa.
Em flew back to the UK and my life with Gump quickly resumed its normal rhythm. Work, work and more work. He was really feeling his age as his 63rd birthday loomed around the corner, and I was feeling mine because he’s working so much he has no time to do anything else……the house and yard upkeep are all down to moi. I hate housework, but love to mow, and it’s pretty easy on a zero-turn riding mower. To push mow our yard takes close to five hours….to ride mow, about one and a bit.
Easy right? Actually nope, not with over one hundred trees to circle (can you say dizzy) and the twenty-five hundred pounds of dust it throws up along the way. Good grief, you would think this part of town is closer to Saudi Arabia than Arkansas. The soil here is so sandy that it remains airborne most of the time. Whenever I mow, I literally have to turn the blower onto my skin before I walk back into the house after mowing… I go from being a white headed old chick to a brunette.
The hazards of mowing are many. Most times I mow, my hair gets stuck in the lower tree limbs and branches without my knowledge, and usually I come pretty close to being scalped before realizing and putting on the brakes…ouch!
This last time mowing was no different. After a few tugs and many naughty words I can’t type here, I was grumbling away and then looked down at my dirty hands and cursed myself for not removing my bloody wedding rings, I could have sworn I had…and they looked absolutely filthy too…. then my ring moved….I screamed like a girl because it was a great big cicada, sitting comfortably on my empty ring finger enjoying the ride and feeling the dust running through its hair.
I shook my hand frantically, my steering erratic while my hair got caught in the branches and I made some interesting patterns on the grass. I was also getting pelted with thousands of nuts that have fallen to the ground from our oak trees. Apparently, our local squirrel population is rather particular about their diet, preferring the sunflower seeds we put out for the birds and not the food that Nature gives freely. They leave the sodding nuts on the ground where I can mow over them, and it’s like riding through a minefield. I get popped and pinged all over my body as the mower blades launch them like rotund rockets. Between ingesting dust, getting stuck in the trees by my hair (think Halloween), having nut bullets firing at me from all sides and being covered in strange insects, mowing is a rotten job!
For Gump’s 63rd birthday we invited some of his friends over for dinner. This required mowing (see above) cleaning, cooking and being a good hostess. It also necessitated my not getting too pissed off because Gump was working the entire time leading up to the party (the preceding six months), therefore he wasn’t around to help and everything got left down to me. No biggie…just 25 people over for dinner, and all the shopping, food prep etc etc….(not that I’m one to complain).
But it worked out, we had a lovely time and he enjoyed his birthday. The only downer was that Gump had to finally accept that Harvey the turtle had gone AWOL. It had been a few days since he’d shown up at his usual place usual time for his usual snack, and Gump was pretty devastated. Where could he be? Was it one bad lettuce leaf too many for breakfast that had run him off? Not enough tomatoes and grapes? Who knew, and frankly who cared? If my grub wasn’t good enough for relocated Harvey then sod him. It’s hard enough keeping the fridge full of bloody carrots for the horses I feed every day, I would shed not one tear for the shell-man.
But nonetheless I did keep an eye out for him though, I couldn’t help it…ok I missed seeing the little guy, and when I got the yard ready for the party, I’d been on the lookout – Harvey was not in the hood.
Three days after the party and when my feet finally stopped throbbing, the big storms blew in….close to five inches of rain – strong winds, thunder and lightning, potential take cover weather and power outages. And where was my hero Gump? Why he was at work of course, leaving this poor sweet British woman alone to face the horrors of wild Oklahoma weather. So, just to make him feel guilty I took videos of the thrashing winds, the trees bent over double looking like they had bad tummy aches, the wash of water that always runs right past our front door, so fast you could white water raft on it – full of foam flecked waves like a river, one with a turtle in it….wait what…a turtle? And there he was readers! Our handsome hero Harvey was swimming through the torrent of rain to reach the flower beds and the safe arms of the hydrangeas……what a guy! What a turtle, such a ninja that he made it over there in one piece. Gump was elated that his buddy was still around, but Harv hasn’t returned to his feeding spot – Gump thinks he is moving on to a new territory. I reckon he’s found himself a girlfriend….one that gives good lettuce.
Speaking of veggies – although tomatoes are technically a fruit – most of you who read this are aware of Gump’s love affair with growing tomatoes, and my abhorrence to the blasted things. Though I do not eat them, curiously I seem to end up looking after them, though this year it’s been really different.
It’s because of the ….drumroll…..Spidermites. Gump can hardly say the word without evil and malice in his eyes. Although his beloved garden is covered with netting (which is a bitch to put up, and yes…I get to help with that too) to protect his darlings from birds, squirrels, raccoons, possums, tomato thieves, and tomato burglars, it was not enough to keep out the mites. Gump had one crop of toms, and then absolutely bugger all. It’s sad really, his garden looks like a neglected cemetery, just spindly yellow stalks with leaves and no red bits. It’s not been a bumper Gump year for turtles and tomatoes.
In more interesting news (this part’s about me) I am still painstakingly editing my novel which I will beg all of you to buy one day if I’m ever published. In an effort to learn more about the world of writing/publishing etc. I am going to attend my very first writer’s conference in the next few weeks, and I’m busting a gut to go! There should be agents attending, and I plan to hold one hostage in an elevator/closet/fridge-freezer and bend their ear about my book. So I imagine the next time you read this blog I will be regaling you with my experiences at the venue…..ooh it’s like going on holiday – I’ll get to stay at a nice hotel and everything….no Gump, no tomatoes and no mowing!
Have a good week everyone and talk to you soon!
Jude