Wine, Brothers and Cowboy Boots

Biceps has had his hands full with either firemen training classes, interviews with fire chiefs, or playing and practicing the drums for a new church. The man is an animal that just won’t quit.

Needless, to say-I’ve had a bit of free time.

Baby brother invited me out for a night on the town and there was no way I was turning this opportunity down.

I actually applied makeup, shaved my legs and did my hair. It was a big night.

He took me to Girouard Winery in downtown Tulsa, of all places. Daniel likes a sweeter wine, I like dry-but of course we shared our samplers with the other.

During the course of our sharing adult beverages, I realized I was an adult. I didn’t have to wear yoga pants 24/7. Jeans are good, too.

As with any wine tour-the history, the grapes, the aromas were aptly described while some of us sober ones paid attention.

And, as with any winery in Oklahoma, most of those participating in the tour had a particular style of footwear.

The night was perfect, the conversation couldn’t have been better and the wine was delicious. The next time brother and I go out, I might even order the cheese plate and really live it up.

I’m just that crazy.

Small Town Parade

I grew up in a small town in Kansas. A traffic jam might occur after our hometown football team–the Kansas State Wildcats–would win against Nebraska-causing the agricultural students to pull out their tractors and zoom 5 m.p.h. down our main drag.

 

Graphic courtesy of: albumelossless.wordpress.com
The only signs I witnessed of the “big-town” mentality was a coffee shop (that flopped) and the outrage over Metallica coming to play at our stadium-only to be greeted by a bunch of picketing conservatives.

 

Now that I live in the booming metropolis of Tulsa (which is really still considered a mid-sized town), I miss my hometown roots. I miss knowing the old men hanging out at the donut shop, the guy bagging our groceries and the names of everyone in my church.
I miss the small town parades full of “Sunflower Queens”, insurance company-sponsored floats, tractors, horse poop and candy.
So, I was elated when Biceps’ fire department participated in their district’s hometown parade just outside of Tulsa.

 

I grabbed my cute mother-in-law, made some coffee and headed out in hopes of witnessing combines (pronounced kom-bines) going down the road, noisy high school bands and scary clowns.

 

It became immediately clear that I would not be disappointed.

 

Of course, the Shriner’s were there. It’s not a real small town parade without them.

 

I don’t understand what exactly the “Shriner’s” are or even what they do-but I like seeing their very weird cars and eating the candy they throw at me.

 

The horses are typically put at the end of a parade-due to what comes out of their back end. However, these furry dudes were smack dab in the center of the parade.

 

Right before the fire department made their grand entrance. The boys had to dodge heaps of you-know-what.

 

This guy here is a good friend and belongs to the same fire department as Biceps.
He’s one of the sweetest men you’ll ever meet and lucky for him-he’s married to one of the sweetest ladies I’ve ever met in a long time. And yes, this is his really cute Dalmatian.
Too perfect.
The fire department was one of the highlights of the parade-at least for me and my mother-in-law.

 

We were so proud of this guy that’s throwing candy. At me and his mother.
He is so naughty. But you already knew that.

 

Boy, does he think he’s funny.
With my need for the small town parade satisfied, mother-in-law and I loaded up our candy booty and headed off to pick up the naughty boy, while dodging the horse poop left on the street.
Ah, I love the small town parade. It will tide me over until I can go “home” sometime soon.

Touring Changes!

In case you haven’t heard…you haven’t heard from me. In awhile. Like 8 months.
I was an idiot and I’ll tell you why. I went El Cheapo and built my site in Iweb in the spring of 2010. Ah…those were the good months.

Around January 2011, all heck broke loose. My website-my carefully planned website-became unusable, unretrievable and unpostable. I am not sure if all of those are legitimate adjectives, but I plead the stressed-out case before you.

I continued on with life, saving up my money to hire a professional to build the template. And while I waited, life did not stop. Tours were to be tended to, family was to be visited-the life as I knew it, kept moving forward.

There are road side attractions that must be discussed. Like this giant blue whale on Route 66.

There were near-misses here in Tulsa as tornadoes touched down in Joplin, nearly destroying the city.

There were camels to be seen, new foods to eat, cities to explore…

…and of course my weird husband doing weird things in his hotel room. Like standing in front of a cow picture, bedecked in a zebra print bathrobe, holding a bottle of wine, posing and taking a picture of himself with his phone. Yep. Weird.

I’ll share with you my new adventures, like: places to eat, weird things that have been witnessed, beauty captured by my camera and stories that need to be told.
The world is a large place and I plan to tour it all. Welcome back.

Naughty Biceps

He may look innocent enough. But underneath that sweet exterior is a man fraught with all sorts of naughtiness. At a recent festival, Bicep’s naughtiness got the best of him.

And, Biceps got into trouble. Real trouble.

The show was at midday with all sorts of promise. The best thing about a midday show is the ability to photograph the band well lit.

Another bonus to a midday show is the ability to go to bed at a decent hour and not have slumber party stomach the entire next day.

But, I digress. I wanted to tell you about Biceps’ naughtiness. See the back of this lady’s head who is sitting side stage, far right in the picture?

All heck is about to break loose.

Biceps precariously climbed up onto these speakers for a dramatic emphasis during the set.
There’s a man in the back of the shot with wispy hair, and he is rather concerned and alerts side-stage lady .

Oblivious, Biceps rocks on.
Until the side stage lady weaves her way past the drummer-during the song-points her finger at Biceps and tells him to get down. Tisk, tisk!

Naughty Biceps…I don’t think he was very happy about being chastised by a mother figure during his cool guy rock and roll show.
But, we laugh about it now. Or at least I do.