Way of the Gun

I grew up around guns. My dad has always owned numerous guns, including hand guns, antique guns, and guns of questionable ownership. My brother and I were allowed to play with toys guns of all sorts, with one unbreakable rule: you never, ever, on penalty of an ass-whipping, pointed the gun at a living thing and pretended to shoot it.

Sometimes, my dad made his living thanks to guns. My dad operated a guide and outfitting business. Every fall, people from around the country paid my dad big amounts of money to camp in a tent and hunt deer and elk. He finally quit doing this because the combination of regulation on federal land and the dwindling access to private land made the business cost-prohibitive. He did not quit this business when any of the following occurred:

A hunter failed repeatedly to use the safety feature on his gun. While leaning back to ride under a low-hanging branch, the man's gun went off. It spooked his horse, who took off. The man, being about as good at horseback riding as he was at responsible gun use, slipped off the horse and got dragged for a ways down the trail. He stood up and threatened to sue my dad for negligence in keeping a dangerous animal. My dad pointed at where the shot had taken a chunk out of poor Bonnie's butt, and informed the man that there would be two horses asses in court if that was the case. The man shut up, and did not come hunting with that group again.

Another hunter drank too much one night in camp, and decided to play William Tell. He managed to fire off one shot at the coffee cup his friend was holding up at the other end of the cabin before he was ordered to pack his gear. My dad brought him out that night and dropped him off at the airport.

That was the most serious offense. There were also many other stories over the years, plus a semiannual event that didn't even involve guns. With every group, my dad would warn the clients about building too big of a fire at night, or getting their gear too close to the stoves. About every other year, one of them would either forget or not pay attention and manage to light up their ammo. This is sort of entertaining in a controlled environment, but as you can see, deer camp is sometimes hard to control.

The point is, I was raised to have a lot of respect for guns. I also learned the importance of avoiding people and situations who do not have that same respect. Mostly I learned that people with enough disposable income to pay to hunt with my dad also tended to be assholes.

Bittersweet

I haven't posted in so long because a: I have been busy and b: I have so many things going through my head at any given time that I have a hard time focusing on just one idea. Any attempt to post usually winds up being just another list of random thoughts. To wit:

• I have decided that something I hate even more than I hate reality TV - the morons who watch it, and perpetuate its very existence. On the other hand, the lack of intelligent programming means I finally got around to watching The Other F Word, which was funny and poignant and a little disturbing but mostly though-provoking.

• Paul Thorn at the Rev Room was amazing! He is like a younger Steve Goodman, only in the persona of a meth head preacher's son from Mississippi.
• The school shooting in Connecticut - almost a week later and I am still trying to wrap my head around the awfulness of it.
• Not ready for Christmas at all. I should be making chocolates instead of blogging, travel plans are undecided, and damn it all to hell, I am not going to get through it without a trip to Wally World. I am such a failure :-/
• Actually looked for signs of my old friend Bubba today. Maybe because I have too much alone time lately, maybe because I am feeling very disconnected from the people in my life, maybe just because.
• How I am one of the only people in my family to have gone to college. It didn't make me any smarter than most of them, but it did certainly give me a broader view of the world than some of my idiot cousins.
• I finally have a smart phone. I never thought I "needed" one but I like it, when I can get it away from my kids : )
• Feeling guilty I have not completed the anthology for writers' group. I am always very motivated when I leave the meeting, but then lose steam. I have decided I would get more from critique group if I could work it out.
• "Single life" is turning out to not be so different from married life. B and I seem to be doing alright this week. D has a shiner and L is about to lose a tooth. Other than looking like a total welfare family as we drive down the street, life is OK.
• Loving the Broncos this year. Still not Peyton Manning's biggest fan, but he has raised the bar for some players who were merely promising before.

OK, finally getting my head cleared. Time to make truffles. Last night's were white rum. Tonight it's bittersweet orange. They are not as pretty as Dianna's, but they are soooooo good.

Oh yeah, and for no reason whatsoever, except that he is hot:

Forward

What a very weird last couple of weeks it has been. Things were already kind of tense, between waiting on L's job situation, the election, my job hunt, B in general, and everything else.

Starting with the election, I am pretty pleased with the result, except that my district re-elected an idiot to the Senate. My co-worker and I have had lots of laughs at the expense of the people who feel their "side" "lost". If even a small portion of them would just shut their pie holes or move to Wyoming already, it wouldn't hurt my feelings a bit. I did get unfriended by one person. No great loss, I was about to cut him loose if he hadn't had the coconuts to do it himself. As for Rob, we'll see.

L started job training with Maverick on Sunday. I can tell already that there are going to be things I like about it, but that it is going to be very hard. He's gonna need to check in often to make sure I haven't killed B. Or maybe we'll get in a groove-last night we did alright. He's a good kid, but he got his momma's smart mouth and his dad's stubbornness, which means he is often in trouble, but never, ever "wrong".

Wednesday night I had weird dreams, which I haven't had in awhile. The cluttered version of the art building from college and the attic under construction are both recurring, but the dream of someone from college that turned a little kinky was definitely new! Not sure where that came from.

Lunch yesterday with Pam and Kim was good, and the craft thing tomorrow will be fun. I am trying very hard to reach out to people and to quit being so tight about admitting when I am not OK. After the thing in the morning, I am taking L to get her ears pierced for her birthday. D wants his to be a surprise. Then lunch with them at school on their birthday, and probably headed to OK for Thanksgiving. We don't always go, but coming so soon after G's passing, everyone has decided to make the effort this year. Hoping to go to CO again for Christmas, but won't know details until after next week.

I hate not being able to make a plan, but I am trying to adjust to the fact that this is how life is going to be for awhile. Forward :)