Test Drivin’

I like big vehicles.  I love to drive them.  I once held a CDL liscense and drove semis as a very odd part of my job as ’sales assistant’.  I’m a pretty awesome driver, I have to say,  and if presented today with the gift of an Escalade or even an F150, I’d be all over that shit faster than you can say ‘zoom-zoom’.   (Which, on another note, is one of the best marketing campaigns ever! Can you imagine how much the ‘zoom-zoom’ creator has made for that idea?  I’m thinking meeting with boss,  guy has totally forgotten that he has to present his new campaign idea by 8am Monday morning… arrives at the office strung out after along weekend, gets to said meeting. The boss says “what you got for me, junior?” and the guy panics a little bit, twitches in his chair and says the first thing that comes to mind. “Zoom-Zoom.” . “Brilliant!”, says the boss.  “Really?” says junior. Seriously,  zoom-zoom.)

And back to this big car discussion.  Huge, expensive, gas-guzzling SUVs are everywhere these days.  There is actually a mom with onechild who drops her daughter off each day at our pre-school in a Hummer.  Extreme? I thought so at first. Lately, I’ve begun to suspect that she just wants to be the biggest and baddest mom on the road.  Who can blame her?  If I could afford the car and the gas, maybe I’d be matchy-matchy with Hummer Mommy- who knows?  

I risk life and limb daily in the pre-school parking lot.  I drive a ‘crossover vehicle’,  not quite a sedan and not quite a wagon and not quite an SUV.  I’m the smallest fish in the parking lot sea.  I know, I know, size doesn’t matter, but actually it does in this situation. Think ‘rock-paper-scissors’.

If you can safely drive your Tahoe, Hummer, Escalade or Suburban, by all means- Rock It!   My issue is that the vast majority of women (gasp- yes, I’m bitching about women drivers)cannot drive their vehicles without putting others at risk.  I get it,  it’s a big machine, you’ve got kids, coffee, your ipod, DVD player and your crackberry to deal with.  That’s a tall order.  As it would be futile to expect the driver to rid themselves of these ‘necessary’ distractions,  all I ask is that you prove your worth before you drive your tank. 

I have an answer.   We all took a road test at some point…. usually around the tender age of 16, back when nothing was more crucial than the number of car lengths between you and the other guy,  turn signal use was a sacred ritual and EVERYONE ELSE had the right away!  Is it too much to ask that in order to have a valid licence,  a person should have to pass a driving test in the size/type of vehicle they actually plan to drive?   I think it’s a great idea.  The sale of any vehicle larger than a 4 door sedan should automatically prompt a legal obligation to take that new monster down to the DMV and show your stuff.   Parallel parking a Suburban is exponentially more difficult than executing the same maneuver in a 2-door Dodge Neon.  

Just to be fair,  the Hummer Mommy is a decent driver it seems; at least she hasn’t come close to killing me or my child yet. In contrast,  I see a Mommy execute a 13 freaking point turn every morning in her Tahoe.   It’s disturbing.  My only request-  learn to drive that shit!

Contact me regarding my brilliance?

Seriously, maybe I’m missing something here… but I assumed there was a way to click and email me through my blog. It’s conceiveable that you’re reading this and want to say something without leaving it as a public comment. I just added a ‘page’ with contact info.  Send me an email. janedavisblogs@gmail.com
Don’t worry, my name isn’t really jane davis. A girl’s gotta have an alias if she’s gonna pour her heart out on the internet, right?

The Murkey Waters of the Doctor-on-Call

It’s been awhile since I’ve blogged, but the combination of feeling like a jerk and the extra time I have on my hands being up with my sick baby is forcing the issue.  I have an incredible amount of respect for the physicians in our life and the last thing I want to do is to bother them or be inappropriate.  I will admit, that I’m more likely to page a doctor when it is about my daughter because, well… it’s about my daughter.  As a mom, I don’t always know what to do when it comes to her illnesses.  A lot of times these things are still firsts for me.  Having a sick baby is always a little scary.

Everyone knows that you can have a doctor paged if the office is closed; the question is how do you know when it is appropriate?  I mean, a true EMERGENCY to me means ‘go to the emergency room’.  Usually, the message states to press ‘0’ if the call is ‘urgent’.  Is it just me or is there a lot of wiggle room in the word ‘urgent’?  The ‘doctor on call’ thing is always murky water at best but last night I felt like what started out as a swamp turned into a sparkling pool, making me look like a total ass and disturbing an innocent (and obviously sleeping) MD.   Camille has been feeling icky for ten days but just seemed to be a combination of allergies and maybe a run of the mill cold until about 48 hours ago.  Friday evening, she developed a fever and her cough worsened.  Friday night, she was unable to sleep because her cough and stuffy nose were so bad.  The good-old Triaminic wasn’t helping so I went out in the middle of the night for some Delsym (plug/ding! This is some good OTC cough stuff for kids and adults- check dosing and my blog disclaimer relieving me of any responsibility).  The Deslym was completely ineffective.  Poor thing kept getting up and saying things like “Mommy, I’m having a little bit of trouble here.  I have some real problems.” 

Thankfully, my pediatrician’s office has Saturday urgent care hours so we were ready and waiting when they opened their doors at 8:30am yesterday morning.  We saw an amazing doctor- which is par for the course at our practice- and Camille was diagnosed with an ear infection and given antibiotics.  We also got a sample of something that I call “Mazel Tov” (I don’t remember the name but I was happy to get it) that was a combo cough med/ decongestant/antihistamine.  I’m not sure if it was OTC or an RX sample, but I was very hopeful that we would get some relief from the cough.  Oh, and we got an Ariel sticker, which is a huge deal.  We spent the day snuggling and reading and listening to music and watching some movies, just being ‘sick’.  Classically, Camille didn’t so much as doze off even though she barely slept the night before.  We got her to bed just before 9pm and the coughing became awful.  We had the humidifier going and kept propping her up on her pillows but her cough got so bad that she was gagging and was totally worn out.  At 10pm, I asked Dave if he thought we should call the doctor.  He said no.  Around 11pm, she was hacking up a lung, gagging like crazy, unable to rest and Dave was handing me the phone.  Her fever wasn’t bad, and she wasn’t wheezing, she just had a bad cough, but it seemed reasonable to call the doctor.  I figured that I had done everything I was supposed to- taken her in that morning, given the right meds, humidifier, even the saline spray and that there was a possibility that something stronger could be prescribed for her cough so that she could get some rest.  This is my first Mommy experience with a really bad cough, so I have no idea what can be prescribed for a 3 year old.  I called the service and they said they would page a doctor.

90 minutes later, it’s late and Camille is finally so exhausted that she’s kind of sleeping and we haven’t heard back (very unusual- we’ve had to page with high fever before and always had quick response).  I called again and was told that the doctors are calling back as fast as they can.  I said that my call wasn’t as urgent as others may be and could wait till morning but was told that they could not take it out of the queue.  If you have kids (and if you don’t, you’re probably not interested enough to still be reading this) then you probably know the drill- you page the doctor and a nurse calls and asks you a bunch of scripted questions and then the doctor calls you.  I forgot about that part.  At 1:30am a nurse calls me and asks me questions that although I understand are important, seem ridiculous (God help the child whose mother answers “yes” to these two hours after paging a doctor!!).  “Is she blue?”,  “Is she limp and unresponsive?”, “Has she stopped breathing?”.  Like I said,  I get it, I do, but I also know when to take my baby to the Emergency Room or to call an ambulance (blue/ not breathing).  So she spends all of this time asking me these and I’m saying “really, it’s just a bad cough. I called hours ago and just wanted to know if she could have something stronger.”.  Next thing I know the nurse is off the line and the phone is ringing again.  It’s nearly 2am and some pediatrician that thankfully I have never met has been woken up from what sounds like a very sound sleep to call me about my child’s cough which has been a bit better for several hours at this point.  This is the point where I feel like a total ass.  I clearly do NOT have an emergency at this point.  I have a child who has a diagnosed ear infection and is being treated for it.  The doctor was very gracious.  He did not think there was any need for her to be on any stronger medication.  He suggested that we keep doing what we’ve been doing.  Even writing about this I feel horrible again for waking this guy up!  I mean really,  what may have been reasonable at 10-11pm “my child’s cough is so bad that she’s gagging- is there anything more I can do for her?” was ridiculous to ALL OF US at 2am.  So, I suppose the lesson I have learned here is that paging doctors is like swimming in murky water…  it’s hard to know when and if it’s a good idea.  Or perhaps the lesson is just that as a parent, you do what you think is best at the time and sometimes you’ll come out smelling like roses and other times…    well we just keep on keeping on and remember to be thankful that some blessed souls went to medical school and have agreed to have a job that includes being awakened by overdramatic mommies in the middle of the night.

 

Strawberry-Kiwi- who’s responsible for this mess?

Okay,  peanut and chocolate- check.  Marshmallows, graham crackers and Hersey bars- check.  Strawberries and chocolate- check.  Cheesecake and Cherries- fine.  Melted cheese and bread- fantastic. But who the hell decided that strawberries and kiwi were better together than alone?  I, personally don’t see any merit in this combination.  I like strawberries, and have no problem with kiwi, although to me they seem like they are just a slimy green fuzz-fruit that only wishes it could be a strawberry instead.  By the way, is kiwi both singular and plural,  or is it ‘kiwis’?  The point is, I am really wishing that just once, I could buy a beverage or something that is simply strawberry flavored.  Leave the kiwi out of the equation for once.  No one seems to though.  It seems that someone out there decided that these two were destined to be together. Forever.   I don’t get it. Strawberry-Kiwi, Strawberry-Kiwi, Strawberry-freaking-Kiwi.  Seriously folks.  Seriously.

Clean FEEL, not Clean CLEAN

 

As a mom,  I understand my responsibilities to protect my daughter from all forms of harm, including but not limited to protecting her precious virginal skin from harmful UV rays and other environmental hazards.  One of the most difficult tasks for me, is to protect her from itchies, aka, mosquito bites.  It seems that I am not the only one who thinks my baby is extra sweet.  These pests are drawn to her like, well, you know.  There is hardly anything more heart-wrenching that waking in the middle of the night to find that your daughter is helplessly clawing at her legs in her sleep,  in a futile attempt to stop the maddening itch from mosquito bites.  After-bite solutions sting and thus have become like dreaded monsters in our house.  Cortisone cream helps,  but takes a lot of careful maneuvering and spy tactics to get it applied.  Basically, prevention is key.  Especially since these little shits not only pack a serious bite,  but can also be filled like a birthday pinata with diseases ranging from malaria (okay not so likely) to West Nile Virus (a real danger).

I despise bug repellent.  Hate it.  I hate the sticky feel,  the smell, the act of applying it, the fact that it’s loaded with chemicals strong enough to repel even the most willful biting fly or mosquito.  I’ve tried the natural repellents and they just seem to lure the bugs even more.  So every summer, I have to squirt chemicals on my child in order to protect her as a good mother should.  Seems a bit ironic, doesn’t it?

This year, I bought a new product. It is called OFF clean feel.  I have to admit, it has no odor and leaves no sticky, weird residue.  The jury is still out on whether or not the actual mosquito repelling properties are what they claim, but I want to say it’s been effective so far.  So last night,  I was looking at the bottle and thought to myself how naive I would be to feel better about applying this rather than the old school type.  I mean, the name says it right there, CLEAN FEEL.  Not Clean,  Clean FEEL.  So it’s just as much a chemical wonderland as the other stuff,  except for magically the company has designed a way (probably using more chemicals) to get rid of the horrible smell and feel of the original.  It dos not claim to be a natural repellent,  same active ingredients, except now I don’t have this horrendous smell to remind me to wash this stuff off of us as soon as possible.  Now we smell and feel clean.

I find this a bit disturbing but have not yet decided on an alternative that still allows us to play outside.  Perhaps my neighbors could treat their koi pond for mosquitoes or something,  or cut down some of the wild jungle brush around the side of the house…  but that’s another blog. 

 

* photos used, of course, without permission.

The Smelly Truth About Splenda

                                                                                

So I’ve beena fan of Splenda since conception.  As in, “since the conception of Splenda” , not of myself of course.   I was really a die-hard fan,  trying to spread the word to everyone I knew.  I swear, the stuff tasted just like sugar to me,  and I really like sugar.  The only difference I always noticed was with coffee.  I like it black with lots of sugar, and although Splenda tastes the same, coffee with Splenda is lacking in texture.  I think Sugar makes it a bit syrupy and yummy.  Until recently though, coffee was the only thing I preferred sugar in over Splenda.  Then things changed.

I had gastric bypass surgery a few months ago and the first thing I noticed was that things tasted different.  Things that used to taste good to me, suddenly tasted odd or even bad.  One of those immediate taste changes I noticed was with Splenda.  It suddenly tastes less like sugar and more like chemicals.  I still used it,  but have not been as satisfied with it.  Today I made a pitcher of tea and was out of Spenda,  so instead of adding the Splenda while the tea was still warm, I put it in the fridge until I could go buy some more sweetener.  Later, when I went to sweeten the tea, it made sense to me to add some warm water to the Splenda to dissolve it and then add that mixture to the pitcher of tea.  When I added the water, I was accosted by a horrendous smell,  very similar to that of paramsean! That stinky feet sort of smell.  It was absolutely discusting.  I was freaked.  I put it in the tea, hoping that it would taste like dirty feet and I would be able to chaulk it up to a bad batch of Splenda or something.  Nope,  it tastes just like it always does.

Now I don’t know what kind of chemical reaction happened to produce that smell,  but I’m thinking I don’t want it happening in my 98.6 degree body.  I’m totally freaked out.  I can’t have sugar since my surgery and I have tried Stevia and find it replulsive, so other than going back to pink or blue carcinogen-in-a-packet sweeteners, I’m up a creek…  without my Splenda.

What I didn’t know, killed them.

   

 

I’m a sucker for earthworms.  Nightcrawlers.  Bait worms.  Whatever you call them,  they tug at my heart when I see their slick little bodies trying to navigate our rough, cruel asphalt.  I honestly don’t know why I love worms, but obviously from my reaction when I encounter one,  I am a true softy. 

 

Last night it rained, and while walking my dog this morning I noticed that there were no worms to be found.  They may have been hiding from me.  See, more than 10 years ago, there was a time when I was a real-life worm assassin.  The thing is, I didn’t know better.  My college had the biggest, fattest worms I have ever seen.  Every time it rained, the walkways were covered with them.  You can well imagine that many got trampled and I hated that and spent a great deal of time trying to avoid causing a single worm such a tragic demise.  One day, in particular, I was late for class and there were worms everywhere.  It was raining so hard that the ground was a giant puddle.  I started picking up worms and tossing them back in the grass.  I became quite obsessive about it.  Felt like I was doing something good for worm-kind.  I actually missed my class that day because I was determined to move as many worms as possible.

Later, much later, I found out the sad truth.  I wa sinquiring as to why earthwoms come out when it rains,  ratherthan stay put and enjoy the wetness.  It turns out that they come out to keep from drowning.  When the ground it saturated,  they can’t breathe.  Who knew?

A Cosmo Girl, I’m Not.

I was prepared for a long day as I entered the hospital gift shop looking for something to read.  I was also distracted by the fact that my dad was in surgery and therefore,  just wanted anything to take my mind off things.  Somehow,  I emerged with the latest issue of Cosmopolitan Magazine.  Not usually my style at all.  I probably haven’t read Cosmo since High School nearly 15 years ago.  I remember all of the hoopla some years back that resulted in the stores having to put Cosmo behind secretive cover at the store,  so I guess I figured at the very least, I would get some racy sex advice or something.

Now, at 32, I’m pretty sure that I’m above the target demographic for this rag,  but even when I put myself back in my 20-something shoes,  I was floored by how ridiculous this entire publication was.  However, a friend once told me that you learn something new every day, so I think I’ll bite.  Here’s what I learned from Cosmo.  (I’ll sum it up so that you don’t have to read it yourself)…

I learned that it’s perfectly normal for my boobs, affectionately referred to as ‘the girls’ by the way, to be lumpy, squishy, or saggy and that these phenomena might happen alternately,  all at once or not at all and that it is also perfectly aceptable for my areolas to be any size from quarter-sized to the size of a saucer and that they might red, pink, brown, purple, black or anything in-between.  (Phew!)  Next, I learned that guys like it when you do swirly things with your tongue as the ‘big finish’.  You think?  Hmm..  oh one of my favorites was a little blurb explaining what a guy’s sheets say about him.  According to this,  my guy must fit into one of these three categories.  A.) plain, and inexpensive sheets.  This indicates that my guy is boring and cheap and that he’s not likely to surprise me in or out of the bedroom.  B.) if his sheets are satiny and sexy, he’s a player. or c.) if his bedroom linens are coordinated, his mom probably bought them for him and he’ll expect me to take care of him the same way.  Hmm…  Maybe I’m nuts,  but I couldn’t think of any guys I had known when I was dating who had satin sheets,  remember some pretty good lovin on some fairly plain bedding and figured that it was pretty normal for a mom to buy linens as a gift for her son.  I can’t decide which one is preferable.  In another feature,  I read that guys like to be touched in public and that guys hate it when their girls touch them in public.  I assume they are indicating the obvious,  that different guys like different levels of PDA,  but couldn’t figure out why they published an article that contradicted itself.

I’m excited to find a $225 cheaper option for the $2500 tunic top that’s so hot for this season.  Now I can afford the $1,995 green espadrilles.

You know what, this blog is as lame as that magazine was.  I can’t go on.

ConFUZEd… How do they make it taste so bad?

Maybe you’ve seen them…  bright, summery-labeled bottles of what promises to be vitamin-rich, fruity refreshment by the name Fuze.  These drinks seem to be showcased in every store I go to lately.  Several months ago,  I tried a tropical flavor of the low-cal Slenderize Fuze drinks,  lured by the picture of a yummy coconut on the label.  I have a weakness for all things pina-colada or coconut.  I threw the drink out after about 3 disappointing sips.  Since then, I have seen very attractive FUZE drink displays all over town and have even heard friends say that they are snapping the bottles up because they ‘look so good’.  So the other day, I shelled out a little over $2 for yet another 18oz bottle of Fuze Slenderize,  this time in Straw-berry Melon.  It’s been waiting for me in my fridge,  looking all cool and delicious.  Finally, tonight I decided it was time for my melony treat.

The first thing I noticed, something which I found very off-putting, was the ridiculous warning on the top of the bottle.  Along with the standard, Do Not Drink If Safety Button Does Not Pop, was the following cautionary line:  Inspect Bottle For Signs Of Breakage Before Drinking.   What?  Are they serious?  By the time I’m holding a glass bottle full of cold liquid,  I think I’m going to notice if the thing is freaking broken.  If the blood oozing out a cut on my fingers from the jagged broken glass doesn’t clue me in,  surely either the beverage itself running down my hand or the total lack of liquid in the bottle, as a result of the break in the glass will.  I mean, really!

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, the drink was once again so terrible that it went down the sink rather than down my throat.  Even a lover of diet drinks such as myself could not force it down.  This drink tastes like dishwater with a slight fruit-like (it’s a stretch) flavor, with a metallic aftertaste that lingers.  A broken and thus, empty bottle would have been an improvement,  or even a cut on the hand would have been more enjoyable than consuming even a teeny bit of this foul stuff.

Pretty bottle.  Pretty dumb warning label. Pretty disgusting stuff.

to meAt a cow

Wow, so that title sounds like I’m about to give instructions on how to butcher a cow, huh?  Have no fear, I’d be the last one to know how to do that.  I eat meat, but I don’t like myself any more because of it.  No…  in this case, the word meAt is simply a play on words.  Cute, huh?

Last week my mother, 2 1/2 year old daughter and I spent 6 days in rural Kentucky.  We were visiting my grandmother.  She lives in one of those adorable towns with no traffic lights, one church, one bank, one mechanic, one not-so-shiny-and-new grocery store, and an intresting mix of farms, small rinky-dink homes, trailers with cars on blocks out in front of them and beautiful old estates.  Everyone knows everyone, and my grandmother, at 92, is both the go-to historian and a kind of local celebrity.

Oops.  I’m telling you the way it used to be in Union, Kentucky.  Times- they are a’changin.  Big business has swept in and changed the landscape quite a bit, obliterating most of the quaint little farms along the way.  A traffic light was even added three years ago, at an intersection which has done just fine without one for more than 200 years.  Comically,  there is a large government-issue sign posted at this intersection now.  It reads, “Traffic Signal Light Under Review for Removal”.  Turns out, the light probably wasn’t necessary.

So we had a great time as we always do.  We took my daughter to Big Bone Lick.  No lie.  It’s a state park where mammoth bones were once found.  Now it is home to about 80 bison.  A Bison Sanctuary.  This day, the bison were hiding, but most days you can walk manure-lined dirt roads to a shady grove where the bison all hang out and make manure all day.  See, ‘Big Bone’ reflects the archeology findings- big bones.  The ‘lick’ part refers to the natural saltiness of the area, and the fact that these animals came to lick it.  In the mid 1800’s, Big Bone Lick was a mecca for the wealthy, who traveled here in stagecoaches to stay in fancy lodges and ‘take the waters’ of the springs.  After about 1870, people must have realized that this place was pretty smelly and muddy, because they stopped visiting and the lodges began to close, one by one.  As far as the bison,  I don’t know how they came to live there.

My daughter was hankering to meet her some buffalo, and they were nowhere to be found.  Never one to disappoint my child, I decided that if we couldn’t meet a buffalo that day, we would at least meet some sort of large animal.  Should be easy enough to do, right?  So after an hour of playing at the Big Bone Playground (now doesn’t that sound like a lovely place for your kids to spend an afternoon?), we went off in search of a farm animal. 

Now I have no problem asking for things when it seems reasonable, and asking farmers if my daughter could meet their animals seemed perfectly reasonable to me.  Our first stop was a beautiful horse farm with rolling green hills scattered with frolicking horses.  I drove up the long driveway, behind the huge farmhouse to the huge stables.  I was greeted by a very persistent little Jack Russell Terrier who was determined to let me know that I was infringing upon his territory.  “Bark.  Bark.  Bark.  Bark.  Bark. “, he said.   After a failed attemp to befriend the chubby little terrier, I made my way into the stable.  There were horses everywhere.  I was expecting to find a charming, overly-friendly horse farmer.  Instead, I soon met up with a very flustered, petite little woman with what I believe was a Swedish accent.  She saw me and stopped to see what it was that I wanted.  As I explained my mission to her, she kept looking over her shoulder and averting her eyes.  I couldn’t help but imagine that I had walked into a freaky novel and she and her buddies were cloning horses or engaging in some other sketchy horse activity just behind the stables.  She explained to me that this was ”zee worst timing eever” and that they were “receiving stallions only at theese time and for todays.”  In a heavy accent, she told me that this was breeding season and that all of the horses were “velly teensioned.”  Okay, so the horses are really focused on getting some action, and apparently this makes it a bad time for a two-year old to meet one.  Moving on.

I soon found a dairy farm and pulled in the drive.  Nobody was home.  My grandmother then explained to me that “they sold all of the cows when the old man took the cancer“.  Okay.  Moving on.

I found a sign for a cattle farm and again pulled into the driveway.  This one looked like a winner.  There were about 30 young cows in a pen by the road and they moo’ed in response to our arrival.  No one answered at the door to the house, and I soon learned that shouting “Hello, is anyone home?” is enough to cause a minor stampede.  I got my daughter out and held her so that she could moo at the cows from about 20 feet away.  They weren’t coming any closer, and I knew that she’d want to stand there all day so I decided to put her back in the car and leave these people a note.  I quickly scrawled a note and left it in their mailbox. I explained that my little girl wanted to meet a cow, that we would be in town until Wednesday and left my grandmother’s phone number in case they would allow us to return when someone was at home.

Well, call they did.  The call came while I was out running an errand,  but from the way my mother tells it,  the conversation went a little something like this.

cow man “I got yer note in my mailbox about the little girl wantin to meet a cow. Now I’ve afraid we don’t got the right kind of cow.  Them cows your granddaughter saw in the corral were some heifers we’s raisin’.  We don’t got no milk cows.”

my grandmother,” well, that’s shame.  My granddaughter really wanted to meet a cow.  Too bad you only have the young heifers.”

cow man, “Well,  they’s welcome to come round and look at the heifers anytime if they have an inklin to,  but I don’t rightly know of no one who’s got any milk cows.”

my grandmother, “well,  that’s alright. Thanks anyway.  It was nice of you to telephone us.”

cow man, “My pleasure, ma’am.”

Okay, notice that both people seem to think that ‘young heifers’ don’t qualify as ‘cows’ in the mind of a two-year old.  Maybe I’m wrong,  but I’m pretty sure that to my daughter, a cow is a cow is a cow.  They all moo and they all (in her opinion) make milk.  Also, I find it odd that my grandmother never got a name from this person, and the person (although welcoming us to stop by anytime) never offered it up.

So I get back from my errand and hear about this and am quite baffled and a bit annoyed.  Of course, it’s hard to be annoyed at my 92 year old grandmother for too long.  So, the next morning I got my daughter dressed and off we went to meet a cow!

We got to the farm and this time, we didn’t see any cows in the corral out front.  We parked and knocked on the door to the farmhouse and there was no answer.  As this is rural Kentucky, I quickly consult my internal “Kentucky ettiquette information cache’ and decide that these folks would not think it at all strange for us to help ourselves to a tour of the farm, and hopefully meet a cow in the process.

Well, we did meet a cow.  Several of them in fact.  And the strangest thing?  My daughter never noticed that neither the ‘young heiifers’ nor the older beef cattle we met grazing in the pasture were the ‘wrong’ kind of cows.  She loved them!  To her, they were black and white and gigantic and mooed and swished their tails and flicked flies off their ears and chewed happily on clover and ‘made honey’ (her version of what was happening when the cows went tee-tee).  She was thrilled.  So, we fed the cows some clover,  watched them take turns ‘making honey’ and mooed at them and she was delighted.  We took some pictures.  We made some memories.  We met a cow, and it was absolutely wonderful.