Meeting Kinky

Meeting Kinky & Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch

I just wanted to write down a few memories from my wonderful weekend and tell a little about it. We headed to San Antonio on a mission last Thursday. We needed to pick up our neighbors from the airport on Saturday and we decided that we would also head to the Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch to donate a few doggie things and see if they needed our help for the day. Cousin Nancy and Tony welcomed us with open arms and made us feel very welcome. They needed dog's nails clipped so Pete and I headed out, first with Tony and then with one of the "ranch hands" John to finish up. By the time we completed our “nail day” for the pups we had clipped about 30 dogs or 120 paws! We then decided we were having too much fun and there were a few dogs I wanted to check out again so we started walking a few. I got Sonny Boy first because he melted my heart when we first went into his cage to clip his nails. John told me he would be very scared of us and that he didn't trust new people. Within a minute of softly talking to him and petting him he licked me. Then I couldn't get him to stop! What a great guy. He was quiet and soft spoken but has a lot of love to give somebody. I just wish it could have been us and we had the room. Then Pete wanted to walk Albert Einstein and Macy. So we headed back down to the creek with the two of them for a little romp. It was quickly apparent that Albert wanted to hang with me and Macy wanted to play with Pete so we switched. Albert spent the rest of the walk with his head glued to my thigh as we walked I scratched his ear. He reminded me so much of my old dog Zach except he was quite a bit bigger. The only time he got upset was when his roommate Macy got too far away. You could really tell that he liked hanging out with her also!
Then it was off the meet Kinky and head home. Kinky was very gracious and kept thanking us for coming out to the ranch to help. He posed for a picture, signed another picture for us and we gave him copies of the pictures that were taken of him and my dog, Sophia at a fund raiser last year. He thought the pictures were great and said he might use them in his next book. Wouldn't that be great to see my little girl in a Kinky Friedman book! (It will probably never happen, but I don't care!)
What a great day and we still had dinner with friends at a great place in New Braunfels, Huisache Grill. Pete knows the owners so we headed to their house for drinks then met up with friends for a fabulous dinner. If your ever in New Braunfels I recommend checking it out. Of course my trip to New Braunfels wouldn't be complete without also going to Gruene Hall. A fun band played, we danced and then it was time to go home. I sound like a tour guide now but I really had a wonderful time.

Happy birthday to me

It's raining, it's pouring,

I turned 40 years old yesterday.

I'm a bit, well, unsettled by my turning 40. I'm not as freaked out as I thought I would be but I”m not sure it has hit me yet. I haven't sat down to write much lately probably for a couple of reasons. I got a computer upgrade and that left me without my computer for a couple of weeks and December was a killer in the busy department. I'm officially unemployed but between working at the vet clinic and working in Houston at my sister's catering company, throwing in Christmas and new year's I'm wiped OUT! I also really didn't want to sit down and ponder all the things that were and about to happen to me. I don't want to think about my lack of accomplishments that I was supposed to do by the time I was 40. Having a baby, a career that I can be proud of making loads of money, and feel like a true grown-up. It's not that I am unhappy. I'm not. Some days I think I am one of the luckiest and most content people I know. Then I think I don't really want to try any harder to have some type of high stress, big money, work all the time careers. And I wonder if maybe I am way too selfish to have a baby and that maybe this is the best thing for me. Sitting down to try and “hash” this out has held no appeal for me so I haven't written. Tonight I felt compelled to start and see where it might take me.
Why does life seem to have been so much easier when we were younger? Or is that just our mind wishing so?
My sweetie tries so hard to make me happy and sometimes I am such a bitch about it. I always seem to want more. Someday he's going to stop trying and tell me to fuck off. What a nasty day that will be.

40. The scariest thing about it is soon I will be 41. Then 44. Then 49. I wonder how fast time is going to pass now?