Rolling Stones Magazine and an article

I read an article in the Rolling Stone Magazine today.  It was an old issue laying around the break area.  The article was about young people joining ISIS or becoming Jihad.  I am not sure, if these two terms are the same or different.  To me they mean terrorist.  However, after reading the article, I was like WTF?  

Basically the article follows a few young people and the process of becoming Jihad or joining ISIS.  I hope I spelled that right.  The article was really disturbing.  I suppose I can understand why young men might want to join.  To have a cause to live and die for.  Something like that in a really creepy and wrong sort of way.  I guess.  

What really kinda freaked me out were the young girls.  These were westernized young women who were going to give away every thing they have as women in our culture to become voluntary  slaves in another one.  I don't think they understand the gravity of what they are doing.  

Let me talk about becoming a voluntary slave.  OK, to me becoming a voluntary  slave is giving up your way of dressing, behaving, speaking, the right to choose who you love and marry.  I have read in other sources that women in that culture may not be allowed to read, watch TV or even leave their home without a male escort unless their Husband or male relative permits them to.  I say this is slavery.  I don't know, what do you think about that?  

So, these westernized girls go and becomes all ISIS and gets the black dress and matching scarf.  They marry, whomever they are told and then what?  They are the fourth of four wives to some 50 year old guy and is the lowest of the household.  I can't imagine any western girl ever thinking that was fun.  Not ever.  Just saying.  

So, what do you think the draw is? I just don't see it?  Young men strapping bombs to themselves for a religion completely foreign to anything they have ever heard of.  Young women giving up complete freedom to become slaves?  I don't get it.  Please someone explain this to me?

Could it really be our Atheist, leftist Government that allows our media to rule our country?  Could it be that?  Maybe?  I am so not informed nor smart enough to even begin to understand nor begin to answer the question.  What do you think?

What happens in the Quality INN does not stay in the Quality INN

So, my BFF and I were on our last lag home from Texas.  We had stayed at the Quality Inn in Las Cruses, New Mexico.  

I want to say I always like to stay in Las Cruses, New Mexico because it is the perfect half way point from Texas to LA.  My mom got me started staying there in 2000 and I have been doing it ever since.  She always liked the Quality Inn and I usually stay there.  

I want to say this last time I was disappointed in the quality of the Quality Inn.  Kinda shabby, if I don't say so.   Maybe I have raised my standards in the last decade or so.  I don't know.  What can you ask for $70.00 dollars and free so called breakfast?  I think my husband has spoiled me.   

Anyway, here we were in the Quality Inn.  We were in the land of enchantment and all.  All magical and desert like.  I do like New Mexico.  The land itself speaks to me.  I am not sure why.  I feel that there is something magical about it.  Secret and untold by the regular folk like you and me.  

I just know by the time we get there my BFF is starving and I know I need to feed her.  I had been on the road since 400 AM.  I had to leave Leander, Texas at that time to pick her up in Dallas/Fort Worth to beat the traffic.  My aunt and uncle live about three hours from Forth Worth.  After visiting with my sister in Forth Worth, I went to Leander to visit with them.  So by the time I got to Las Cruses, I had been on the road driving straight for 14 hours.  I was a bowl of jelly.  Not really hungry and in a very bad mood, my husband would not let my BFF drive my car, so it was me or nothing.  

We checked in at the INN and I had about ten phone calls to make.  You know, all the people who want to make sure you are safe and not dead.  My BFF was really hungry and very antsy.  I was ignoring her.  I needed to touch base with the family and set them to rest that I was alive and well.  I almost told her to walk to the McDonald's across the street.  I didn't say that but I wanted to.  Like I said, not my normal.  I was in a really bad mood.  14 hours of driving will do that to a person. 

After all that driving,  I just needed 30 minutes to rest and relax, she could wait or she could go in search of food on her own.  Sometimes you just need to take care of yourself first.  In 30 minutes I was relatively calm and we headed out.  We tried a KFC but they were out of chicken.  What is it with chicken places and being out of chicken?  We ended up at Arby's.  

In less than an hour, I had eaten and my BFF was fed.  I could have not eaten but I figured what the hell.  I knew I would need to start my diet again, once I got back.  I still need to loose 45 pounds to be at a relatively healthy weight.  So, we both ate some very high caloric bad for us food and headed back to the INN.  

I was ready for bed and all tucked in by 7:00PM.  I have to put my good ear down and put pillows all around my head, when I bunk with my BFF.  She is a media junkie.  She has the TV on, her tablet on, phone on, her magazines all over and bedside table on.  For most people this would be a problem, for me not so much.  I have been a nurse for so long and had taken call for so many years in my youth that, when I lay down that is it.  I am done. 

However, this time, not so much.  I was actually bothered by my BFF and her bedtime rituals.   I guess there is a first time for everything.  Apparently, in the night I woke up and told my friend that someone was breathing next to me.  I decided that this was the last time I was ever going share a room with anyone other than my husband.  Unless I absolutely had to.  

Early that morning, before my alarm was to go off, I heard this humming or thrumming.  I opened my eyes and I saw these indentations in the bedding.  Like two foot or hand prints.  I was generally annoyed and waived it all away.   Whatever happened I was up before my alarm by five minutes.  If there are ghosts or spirits, I do not care.  Not my business, concern or argument.  It is what it is.  

My BFF and I got ready and headed out to the so called free breakfast.  We sat down to the stale spread of the century.  Like whatever.  There were a few hard boiled eggs and water, so I was good.  

We were just about done with the worst breakfast ever, when in comes three guys.  These guys were dressed for the zombie Apocalypse.  No joke.  Camouflage everything.  Tattoos everywhere.  Knives in every reachable place.  I almost chocked on my eggs.  They even were wearing sunglasses.... inside.  

First thought, why were the zombie killers here in a Quality Inn eating stale muffins?  Shouldn't they be out in the wild eating a deer or a rabbit?  Second thought?  Are there zombies outside and will they save us?  Third thought, do the zombies want the stale muffins?  

I hit my friend and tilt my chin at the zombie killer guys.  She almost spits out her stale breakfast.  I say in a whisper, we need to get a picture of these guys.  This is just to funny.  She nods her head in agreement.  Like all BFF's we can talk without speaking.  I motion for her to stand by the fireplace.  She does and I take a picture.  We do this around the room.  We are so trying not to giggle like little girls.  

The only person who gets what we are doing is the only women who is around our age.  She is laughing so hard, I wonder, if I need to Heimlich her.  Everyone else is oblivious.  Then all the sudden, one of the zombie guys comes over.  He has a few remaining teeth in his mouth.  He is pawing me and asks, if I want him to take a picture of the both of us.  I kinda shake my head and want to run from the one tooth wonder guy.  Yet, I so want to meet these guys.  Who ever gets to meet zombie killers in real life?

Then all of them surround us.  We end up taking pictures with all of them.  It was kinda fun.  I don't know, if they knew how ridiculous we thought they looked or they thought these middle aged ladies thought they were hot.  We so did not think they were hot.  Hopefully, the later, I like to think I made someones day by making them think I thought they were all sexy and hot.  Oh, one of the guys nick names was Rambo.  Yes, his name was Rambo.  He was the shortest one and had the most tattoos.  I towered over him like the Swedish women I am.  It was a good picture.  

There was a truck on the road with those metal balls on the hitch that was in front of us for a while.  You know...balls of steel?  I wonder, if that was them?  I didn't look close enough to find out but I think it might have been.  Who else but zombie killers would drive a truck like that.  Just saying.  

We looked up some things to do, when we get home.  Like Prepper conventions.  We got to talking about why zombie killers would be in a Quality Inn, in Las Cruses, New Mexico?  My BFF said, a Prepper convention.  I had no idea this even existed.  Look it up.  It does.  We decided to go.  Unfortunately, not so many in California but there are some in Arizona we can go to.  I will be getting my own room.  

I hope you have enjoyed the Texas chronicles.  I have more stories of when I got back home, just haven't written them down yet.  I have been thinking of not blogging anymore.  It seems that I get about 40-60 people who read my blog, when I post.  That is a lot of people in my book but I wonder, if it is worth it.  

I ask you, do you want me to continue?  You all got me into this.  I enjoy the process and it is fun but I always feel like I am supposed to be doing better and better.  Not sure, never did this before.  What do you think?  

The Texas Freak Show

Another Texas story and this one is a doozy.  

OK, so I am at my aunts house.  It is morning and I wearing yoga pants, one of my former big girl shirts that is now a pajama top, I have no bra on.  I used to wear an under wire bra to bed every night. I did this to prevent sagging breasts.  I stopped doing that about three years ago.  I figured that gravity was just going to win and I was tired of fighting it.  Basically, my girls are hanging pretty low.  Not as low as some but lower than I would like.  I really don't care because I am with my family and they love me just the way I am.  floppy, saggy boobies and all.  

Anyway, I am sitting on my aunts love seat and chatting it up with her and my uncle.  The  door bell rings and in comes her tenant.  My uncle high tails it out of there like his pants are on fire.  I think what the heck?   Her tenant is a former crack whore turned waitress.  Apparently, she is completely sober now and living a good Christian life.  She shares the trailer that my aunt rents out on her property with my cousin.  

Into my aunts home struts this 60 year old woman.  She is wearing a floral print Hawaiian mini dress that would be best seen on a 12 year old.  She has on more makeup than any woman her age should.  Her hair is and I am not exaggerating, looks just like the character from the movie "Theres Something about Mary".  Yes, her bangs were sticking straight up.  Straight up in the air like she had put something really sticky in them and forgot to tease them out.  Her hair color is Beyonce gold with red highlights. I hope you are getting a good visualization going here.  

Her boyfriend is trailing after her.  He is significantly younger than her and looks to me like someone who drives an ice-cream truck. On first impressions,  I would not leave a small child with him.  He gave me the  Heebie jeebies   Than again, that is my first impression.  

I immediately move the couch pillow to cover my no bra self.  I smile and attempt to be mannerly, and not laugh out loud at the lady with the "Theres Something About Mary" hair and her creepy boyfriend.  I am in a quandary.  It is polite to stand and shake a persons hand when they enter the room.  However, I have no bra on and am now holding a pillow in front of my breasts to cover any offending projectiles.  I think that it would be poor manners to stand with a pillow in one hand to cover my breasts or better manners to remain seated as I am.  I choose to remain seated.  I shake my aunts tenants hand and nod to the creepy guy.  I feign interest in them and think of ways to escape.  

The couple sits down and she begins to tell my aunt about how she is wearing a certain brand of makeup and how she had her hair just done.  I did not have the heart to tell her that the brand she is wearing is for younger women and that very famous brand was designed for drag queens.  No, I say nothing.  I love that brand of makeup.  I do.  I just know that I am to old for it now and wearing it would extenuate every line on my aging face.  Just like I notice it does for her.  With her hair, makeup and clothing choice she looks ridiculous.  

She is very loud and  speaks with the accent from New Jersey or the East coast.  Her accent is jarring.  Then she begins to cross and uncross her legs.  I need to remind you that she is wearing a teeny tiny mini dress.  She is about 50 LBS overweight and most of it is in her legs.  She does not cross her legs with any sort of finesse.  What she does is to spread her legs wide and then sort of kick them over each other.  What is most interesting is the fact that she is not wearing underwear.  I really had no choice but to notice because her lady parts were facing my seating area.  I was completely traumatized.

I am a nurse.  I had spent years being a labor and delivery nurse.  Now, I am an operating room nurse.  I have seen more lady parts than I ever care to see or wish to see.  Her lady parts were horrifying and to my dismay smelly.  What makes it worse?  After my brain surgery, my sense of smell is not that good.  I could smell her thing from across the room.  I almost barfed.  Do you know how hard it is to get an OR nurse to barf?  Almost impossible.  The situation was like a bad accident.  You don't want to look but you have to look.  

So, there I sat watching this train wreck of a women talk to my aunt about what I don't know.  After the makeup conversation, I tuned out.  I finally found a way to escape.  I excused myself for a shower and basically ran out of the room.  

I did text my sister/cousin and tell her that her mom's tenant had "There is something about Mary" hair.  She wanted me to take a picture.  I told her no way.  There was no way I was getting sucked back into that horror show.  

Yes, people like this women exist in our world.  Why?  I have no idea.  I ask you to do me a favor.  If I ever look like this or do anything like that, please stop me immediately.  I will thank you.  

What do we do with the Drug abusers in our world?

I have been thinking about addiction.  I suppose my cousin has me obsessing over it.  Him and his addition has me all thinkee over it.  

I am going to be honest he is not the first in my family to be addicted to something.  I am sure that all families deal with addiction and its nasty outcomes in some form or another.  My family is just like any other.  

Most of the older men in my family are addicted to alcohol on some level.  The men of my generation are addicted to drugs or alcohol or both.  Then there are the ones who are beyond that and or have overcome.  I am not sure what it is but it is like the plague in this time and place and my people.  

I have watched good people with amazing potential go from hero to zero in what seems like a moment.  Like yesterday, I was playing hide and seek with my cousin in our days of youth and happiness to find that time has swept away such frolic to reveal a man of addiction.  A man who hated who he was to such a degree he lost himself in drugs such as speed and marijuana or whatever that passed his way to such a degree he became lost on his path to adulthood and was unable to ever find his way there.  

I wonder what made him loose himself to such a place?  Could it have been his relationship with his father?  Maybe?  He seems to harbor such resentment to this relationship.  Yet, from my thinking, what is it that he is so hateful about?  His father fully admits he was not the best and is very sorry.  We all know that he was beaten, yelled at and emotionally abused.  Yet, there have been so much worse done to many others.  Not that diminishes his or any others abuse.  I feel I was blessed to some extent.  I also feel my cousin was let off with a get out of jail card as well.  

His father harbors him now.  Gives him a home, when no other would.  Yet, my cousin hates him and will not forgive him.  I forgive my molester and have moved on.  Why not move on and be the better person?

Yes, being hurt as a young person sucks.  Being abused smacks your ass and sucks monkey feet on a level on only the abused can understand.  I know all to well, yet I managed to get past it all.  Oh, yes, I struggle every day.  There just comes a time when you poop or get off the pot.  

I believe the first step to true healing is to forgive the abuser and then to forgive yourself for hating the abuser to begin with.  Most importantly you must forgive yourself for whatever childish reasons you blame yourself for letting it happen.  Perhaps that part is paramount.  It was for me anyway.  Once I realize the deed had been done, I knew I needed to face it, let it go, forgive all involved and move forward.  

My cousin cannot change his past no matter how much he might want to change it.  He cannot go back and make his father not beat him nor can he make himself not loose himself in drugs.  What he can do is finally grow up and stop doing what he has always done.  Run from the here and now and all the pain that real life and being all grownup can cause.  

I have done a few drugs in my day.  I will not lie.  I have been high beyond high and drunk, staggering drunk. I have danced with the G-dead under the moon and not regretted one hippie dance move.  However, there comes a time when all dancers must change their dance moves to something else that will define them later on and make them into the people they become.  The people that will swaddle their children with bedtime lullabies. The people that will save lives or teach the young to be better than themselves.  

To forever dance the dance of drugs and drunken nights of parties and whores is a fruitless and futile endeavor I am glad I did not end up grooving to.  My cousin has stayed on this party way to long.  His brain is whipped up and forever messed up.  I wonder, if there is a way he can come back?  A way to be who his true self is meant to be?

Is there a way back from this addiction?  Is my cousin redeemable?  Is it possible that his brain can be unscrambled and his life placed on a path that would resemble anything that is real life?  

Can my cousin or the millions like him save themselves?  Or are they just the trash that we should simply throw away?  I would like to believe that everyone can finally make amends and become what God has planned for them.  I truly believe this.  I do.  

However, sometimes people would rather be unhappy and delve in misery than be happy.  So, I watch and wait.  My prayers go into the Lords heaven and the angels sing to him of my cousins long and horrible path.  I know that all it would take is my cousins freewill and his obedience to the "Big Ten" and he would be free.  Yet, it takes faith for that.  Ah, faith that is a completely different blog.

My husband would say that this is an excuse to stay in this state of drug or alcohol abuse and blame others for their misbehavior.  He would say that once your 18 years old that your on your own and that is it.  To learn to be the better person and move on.  My husband would know.  He was abused beyond abuse and abandoned by his own mother into foster care time and time again simply because he was inconvenient.  He says that he walked away and learned to walk away from the crazies once and for all.  To be with healthy people is the key to a happy life.  I know that his mother will not be happy with this paragraph.  I apologize in advance.  I am simply repeating his words or paraphrasing in the slightest.  

So, what do you think?  Do you think junkies such as my cousin deserve a place or a final chance to become the people they were meant to be or do we cut them loose and turn our backs once and for all?  I have no answer.  I only know that there are millions of millions of men and women like my cousin who suffer every day, lives ruined because of circumstances and drugs or alcohol.  I ask again...what do you think?

If you could turn back time?

While I was in Texas, I asked my family one simple question.  I asked each family member, if they could go back in time to their younger selves without any repercussions or time paradoxes or anything like that, what would they change?  

At first the question brought on this look of utter bafflement.  As if I was a crazy person.  That would be impossible, I can't go back in time and change anything.  What is now, is what is.  You can't change the past.  My response was but what, if you could?  

I asked them to imagine they could have anything they wanted...to be their younger selves again...To know what they know now....To know this future and everything that has happened....What would they change?  Who would they become now.

My Aunt said that she had always wanted to go to college in Hawaii.  She told me that she would have gone to college instead of marriage and family right away and majored in Psychology and became a Psychologist.  Her focus would have been troubled children.  

I thought that was amazing.  She had helped me through a few troubled times in my life, knocked me around and set me straight at exactly the right time.  The most perfect re-do ever for someone who spent her life doing what she hated to make ends meet and feeling that she was less of a mother because she had to work instead of staying home with her children.  

We talked late into the night that night about what she could do to make her dream come true.  She thought maybe she could volunteer at a home for troubled teens.  What a wonderful idea my aunt has, I can see her now, her special way with young people.  If she only knew, how really amazing she is with the young.  What a good mentor she would be.  

My Uncle was a little tougher to get to visualize a life other than what he had right now.  Finally, he went there.  He said that he would love a life were he could work with electronics and his wood work.  He said that he would have also waited to start a family and marriage.  Waited until he grew up some and established himself.  

I looked into his light blue Danish eyes and found such wisdom there.  I have always thought so highly of my uncle.  He is a very talented woodworker and makes the most beautiful furniture I have ever seen.  He might be one of the gruffest men around, yet there is something so gentle about him.  If you could see the love in his eyes when he looks at my aunt or his grandchildren, you would know that this is a good man.  

My cousin has lived his life as a drug addict.  I am not sure why he chose to do this to himself.  I am not sure why anyone chooses this life.  Yet, my drug of choice is chocolate.  However, I have never been in jail for my addiction, just fat.  He has ruined his brain and his life for drugs.  

At first, my aunt wanted to answer for him.  I think that she is so used to trying to save him or protect him that she felt he could not answer this question.  I asked her to let him answer.  I told my cousin that I knew he was a good man with a good heart just very troubled and kinda stupid with his life choices.  He finally answered me.  

He told me that he would have never started drugs in the first place or ever drank, smoked...not once.  He said that he would have been an artist or the person that makes the masks in Hollywood.  I am not sure what that person is called.  Maybe a makeup artist?  

My heart was filled with hope and sad for him all at the same time.  I wished that there was a place he could go for one or two years that he could rehabilitate himself once and for all and get the help he really needed.  That there would be no way he could leave, no drugs, no smoking, no alcohol and lots and lots of therapy.  Other than jail or a place that costs hundreds of thousands dollars that no one would ever spend for an aging junkie.  I don't think he will ever get that chance.  That is our world today.  We spend millions on the bullet trains going to no place, yet we won't spend a dime on our own.  

My cousin and I spent time talking about our youth and how we were inseparable.  There are no memories without him and my other two cousins that are worth having.  If I could have one wish, it would be that he would be able to be free of his addiction and live in peace.  Yet, there are no wishes granted in this life, not here anyway.  

I felt that I got to know my people a little bit better this trip.  I know, I get a bit introspective and some people do not like to get carried into that journey with me or ever at all.  They like the flat surface of the here and now.  The constant barrage of the TV glaring,  Celebrity news and reality shows and the smart phone in their face.  Those things are interesting but so not what life is all about.  

I love to delve into what makes people really tick.  What is it that makes you who you are?  Why are you like this?  Why am I like me?  What makes us be friends and why are we family?  What do you think?  Tell me your dreams.  Let me tell you mine.  This to me is interesting and intriguing.  

Why do you think?  Should I finally let go and just be like everyone else with my favorite reality shows and a love affair with my phone?  Or, should I continue of my journey of getting to know everyone for who they really are?  

White Shaken Dog Syndrome and Stupid Vets

My BFF and I had stopped in Las Cruses for the night.  That is the half way point, if you are driving to Texas and you are not driving all the way through.  Anyway, that is how I do it.  That is how I have done it for years.  I don't know how anyone else does it but that is my way and I really don't care, if you have some secret driving tips for me.  This is how I like to do it.  So, let us leave it at that.  

Anyway, I call my husband to tell him we are safe and all is well.  He asks me, if I forgot to put Pookie, our little white dog, back inside after we left.  He told me that he found her outside, when he got home.  That she was all sketchy and hiding on the side of the house.  He then told me that she was vomiting, loosing her balance, shaking and urinating uncontrollably.  

I was like what?  How could this have happened?  I told him that I knew she was behind the door after I closed it because I heard her barking.  Our back gate is made of steel tubing and latched shut.  We also have these really big rocks that we put in front of it and in back of the gate.  My husband has also put a screen in a spot where one of the tubes had broken off.  When Pookie was a baby she had slipped out.  She was so tiny then.  

I know, we need a new gate.  To be honest the gate thing just slipped our minds.  I also, haven't picked a new one out and the one we have seemed just fine.  It was way down on the list of things to replace or fix.  What?  We are normal we procrastinate.  Who doesn't?

My husband took her to the Vet.  We always say that he is maintenance only.  Meaning that he doesn't do things like Vet trips and the such.  However, I was in Texas and Pookie needed him.  So my husband took one for the team.  

The Vet couldn't decide what was wrong with our baby.  OK, lets back track our Vet was in Korea.  We had a stand in Vet.  I had met this Vet before, when our first Vet had died.  She had took over his practice.  This Vet was the worst Vet I had ever seen.  She was so money driven and I think the meanest person with animals I have ever seen.  I was really upset when I found out that it was her...this devil Vet taking care of my Pookie.  

I did not tell Art that this Vet was this wretched Vet from hell.  She could not tell  my husband what was wrong with her but she wanted to keep her all day and then have my husband take her to the Vet ER and then pick her up in the morning and bring her back to the office for more IVs, Valium and dilantin.  

My husband was not amused.  He was scared to death to transport a teeny tiny dog with an IV to the doggy ER and then pick her up in the morning.  He was upset that this Vet could not diagnose nor treat our Pookie appropriately.   He was angry very angry and he let this Vet know it.  However, he did take her back the next day.  He took her home that night not knowing what else to do.  I suppose he did just fine by Pookie in his own way.  

The staff at the Vet's flushed her out and she had a small improvement.  The Vet sent her home with muscle relaxers.  My husband called me and had no idea how to give Pookie medication.  A brief over the phone inservice and he was all over it.  Pookie was happier with him than all alone in a cage all by herself.  

I called the Vet the next day and talked to her.  She was just as horrible as I remembered.  I told her I googled my pets symptoms and in less than thirty seconds came up with White dog shaken syndrome.  I told her that she needed steroids to shrink the swelling in her brain that is causing the darting of her eyes and the constant shaking of her body.  She, of course dismissed me.  She then gave me a referral for a doggy neurologist.  Sigh.  

So, here we sit.  Watching our dog shake, rattle and roll.  We finally started to give her some steroids and are seeing another Vet.  We might never go back to the other one.  

Time will tell, if our Pookie will recover or not.  Some times she just stands there and shivers.  Other times she seems almost normal.  We love our Pookie and life without her would be unthinkable.  

I do apologize for going on and on about our little dog and her sickness.   Sometimes it is helpful to let it all out.  We are hopeful that she will recover and live out her life as best and healthy as we can get her.  

MInion Tattoos and Sisters

Sorry I have been missing for a week or so.  My best intention was to blog while I was on vacation.  Didn't happen.  I was visiting my family in Texas.  I wanted to blog.  I really did.  I was just to tired.  Family tends to do that to a person.  Well, me anyway.  If your different, then please tell me your secret.  

I started my journey on Thursday morning.  My BFF and I hopped in the car and headed towards Texas.  Two days later we were there.  Tired and worn out.  I dropped her off at her destination and then I headed down the street to mine.  

Our plan was to each visit our prospective family members and then hook up at the end of the week.  The goal was to rest and hang with our families.   Goal was basically achieved.  

I managed to find my way to my cousins house and found my cousin and her family just finishing dinner.  My Auntie was there as well.  I need to explain the family dynamics.  My Aunt was raised by my mom and my cousin was raised by my mom and my aunt.  So, I think of them as my sisters.  I know, it is kinda confusing.  

My cousins kids call me aunt and it gets a little messy when explanations are necessary.  I stopped trying to explain the family to people and just go with it.  

Anyway, after a day or two my sister/cousin and I decided we needed to get sister tattoos.  We thought that it was a fantastic idea.  I have no idea what possessed us to do this but we were determined.  

My cousin/sister found this sister saying and we decided that we wanted to split up the saying and put it on the top of our feet and have it inside a half of heart on each foot.  

So, we headed to the Stockyard in Dallas/Fort Worth and go to this tattoo place that is supposed to be the best place "ever" for tattoos.  We get there and it is not open.  We were the saddest sisters ever.  What were we to do?

Did you know that at the stockyard you can drink an adult beverages on the street?  It is true.  I had no idea.  I was a bad girl.  My sister and I partook in the largest beers I have ever seen and drank them on the street.  In about five minutes I was beyond drunk and walking on a public street.  I know, I was bad.  You can admonish me, if you want but what is done is done.  

I found myself on a bench in front of a tattoo parlor with my sister looking at our phones for the saying that neither of us thought to bring.  Then we saw it.  The two stick figures with tin cans on a string.  It was like we were building forts and talking to each other all over again.  

I was like...YES!! This is it.  Lets do this.  My sister was not really into it but she liked the concept.  Then all the sudden she had this amazing idea.  Her idea was to throw her phone in my face with a minion on it.  Yes, a minion, she wanted us to put minions on our bodies to represent each of us as sisters and instead of holding a tin can each of us would be holding bullhorn.  We tend to be very loud.  I look at her she looks at me.  Hell Yes!!  We were convinced these were going to be the most perfect tattoos "ever".  How awesome would that be.  Two minions that would look like us yelling at each other with bullhorns.  Nothing better.  

Then, I found the minion that was purple.  You know the one that is all crazy looking with big hair.  Yes, I told my sister this is you.  You are always cranky and kinda insane with a touch of scary.  I nodded my head and looked at her.  I was giving her my mischief smile and lowering and raising my eyebrows at her.  My sister was not amused.  She was laughing and hitting my arm and was so not happy with me at the same time. What are sisters for but to tease each other and point out the perfect picture depicting the minion the captures your true essence.   

My Sister then found my minion.  This minion had church lady hair, pearls, rubber gloves and a daisy dress.  I almost fell over laughing.  This was the perfect minion.  I had to admit, if you put a label maker in her hand, some lipstick and boobies it would be me.  When it's you it's you.  Sigh.  

My sister wanted a different minion.  Even though the purple one was perfect.  A snarly, mean and cranky minion, I still say her perfect match.  She found one that had a strapless bra, polka dot skirt and a high scraggly ponytail. OK, I agreed, not really her but close enough and funny.  Funny is very important to both of us. 

By the time we decided what minions would do it for us we had traversed the stockyard with our legal beers.  I had noticed that the beers were as big as our heads.  I don't know, if I mentioned this or not to my sister.  We went into a shop called Pinky's.  I had to look at a shop called Pinky's in a place that lets you walk around with adult beverages and where cows can roam the streets.  It seemed like a must do.  By this time we were beyond tipsy and any minion we showed each other was making us hysterical with laughter.  Oh, Pinky's is a great store.  It is a boutique for women with cute stuff.  Check it out next time your in Dallas/Forth Worth but make sure you experience it with an adult beverage.  

Once we were out on the street and the tattoo parlor was still not open, we were beyond helpless with giggles and showing each other our phones with different minions was not helping.  I realized I had to go potty.  Now, I don't know about any of you but my bladder is a mess at my current age.  When I have to tinkle, I have to tinkle.  I found myself with a beer in my hand on a street where cows walk and needing to pee, like right now.  I cross my legs like a four year old and do the potty dance/walk thing to the open bar across the street.  The whole time I am laughing and trying not to wet myself.  

I managed not to make a puddle but there was a little whoops involved.  I am sure Heavenly Father punished me for partaking in a very large beer but at that point I really didn't care.  We were in a bar and by the time I got out of the ladies potty, my cousin had ordered another.  Well, OK then, Cheers!!!

We staggered over to the tattoo parlor and it was open. YAY!!! Finally!!!  Both of us were so very happy.  We show that tattoo dude our idea.  He is really excited to do it.  He says that he thinks the tin cans is funnier and we agree.  He draws it all out and then he gives us the price.  $250.00 each.  Holy Crap!!.  I give my sister my Ricky Ricardo eyes of surprise.   I shake my head and say no way.  I tell her we need to be responsible adults.  My husband would kill me.  I was thinking $100.00 tops.  Maybe $150.00 no higher, I ask the guy do you take credit cards?  He says nope.  I look at my cousin with that look like no friggin way.  

The tattoo dude says he can do it for $200.00 each.  I knew I had that much cash and agree but my cousin needed to get permission to spend that much from her husband.  She sends a text and gets a definitive NO WAY!!  That was that.  We were sober and sad in about five minutes.  No sisters tattoos for us.  

In the end I am glad we didn't do it...yet.  We get back to her house and decide to "save our egg money".  I tend to visit them every year so I can make sure I put a little stash cash away for our sister tattoos and then our husbands can come and watch us be in pain while the tattoo guy puts the needle to us.  I am pretty sure our husbands would enjoy that.  

I have some more Texas stories to tell and I will get around to it.  

Nice to be back.