Much Needed Girls Night Out!

Great end to a crazy week….girls night out for Trace Adkins! It truly was a crazy week that went something like this…. Last Friday we headed down to the lake for the weekend while I did the Blue Crab Festival. The BCF had great crowds, but not a whole lot of shoppers, so sales were pretty poor, but at least we had awesome weather and a fun little parade to entertain us, which actually was the highlight of the show. The parade went right down the street the booths were on, barely wide enough for the fire engines, so Patty and I literally had front row seats. About halfway through, here comes this goose. Funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time. He was just walking along in the parade, checking everyone out like he did this every day, leading his two friends: two easily-1,500-pound bulls. I am not making this up. Oh how I wished I had my camera! It was a classic.

We got home from the lake Monday evening, and this is where the week started going haywire. We came home to learn that our house had been struck by lightning Friday night, which took out most of our electronics: TVs, DVD players, stereo system, computer modem (luckily my computer itself was spared). Then Thursday when we were getting ready to go to the girls VPK graduation (more on that later!), I went down stairs to my workshop to fix a bracelet for Sarah and immediately smelled something….smelled electrical. Great. We had to get to the church so we just had to wait to deal with it when we got home.

Must preface this with a funny story. DH learned to trust my smeller even before we got married. We were driving up to the Brunswick/St. Simons area for the day, and I kept telling him I thought I smelled something electrical burning. He kept saying I was imagining things. I kept telling him I smelled something. So, about 45 minutes later, we pulled up in front of the old Brunswick courthouse. I again told him I smelled something. And then it began…we were driving my old Nissan 300ZX. She talked with this lovely soothing voice, reminding you things like “your lights are on”, etc, when necessary. So shortly after we pulled up, I really, really smelled the electrical smell and then she just starting talking... “Your lights are on….your lights are on….your lights are on….left door is open…..your lights are on….left door is open….tailgate is open….your lights are on….” And on and on she went. Meanwhile, I said, “I told you I smelled something!” while DH walked around the car, yelling at her, “The *%#0 lights are not on! Shut up you %*&%#!” I, of course, found the whole thing hysterically funny; he obviously did not. Soft soothing, “Your lights are on…” paired with DH’s rants telling her to shut up. So, long story short, DH now never questions my smeller.

So back to the story. Home from VPK graduation, DH went downstairs to let Izzy out, and even he smelled the electrical burning smell. So he proceeded to remove every receptacle box around my workshop and asked me to get my nose up there and smell it so we could pinpoint exactly where the smell was coming from. Mind you, this did not involve me just stepping up on a step stool. Oh no….DH said that did not get my smeller close enough to the boxes. This involved me using the step stool to step up on top of my stool I sit on at my work bench so that I had to crane my neck and back sideways just to stick my nose an inch from the receptacle. You getting this? Did I tell you I'm 5'10" tall? After about the eighth box, I finally hit the jackpot and DH unhooked the wires leading to that box. After another hour of me going back downstairs and smelling again (getting close to hyperventilating by this point :-), we finally felt comfortable enough to go to bed. It was nearly midnight. Not sure if the electrical short was due to the lightning strike or not, but my workshop is still in disarray with open electrical boxes everywhere.

But we aren’t done yet….yesterday as I was cleaning house, I kept hearing Izzy barking. Not really like her to bark for no reason, so I called her upstairs and asked her what she was barking at. You know, like she was actually going to answer me. I just got the “I’m busy, what do you want, Mother?” look, before she ran back down stairs and continued barking. I went back to cleaning, but she just kept barking so I went downstairs to investigate and asked her to show me what she was barking at. Which of course she did! We walked around the corner, and there cornered and coiled under a lovely hot pink Adirondack chair (you didn’t know they came in hot pink, did you!) sat a very unhappy snake. Let me just say that I am not a snake person; I really don't like snakes. And not being a snake person I cannot identify a poisonous snake from a harmless snake. All I knew was that was a really ticked off snake. And it was not a little snake. I put Izzy in her crate, got a broom, carefully moved the chair, and tried to sweep the snake away. This only ticked it off more as it kept attacking my broom. I kept swiping at it with the broom until it took cover under my giant pot of impatiens. No fair….I couldn’t swipe at it there, but it could still stare at me with an evil little look on its slimy little face. So I did what any sane woman would do. I called my DH. I was quite certain he could help me from all the way across town, ya know. He got his resident snake expert on the line who had me describe the snake. In the meantime, the little booger had slithered out from under the pot and was trying to climb up into my hammock, so I flipped the hammock, really pissing it off. The snake expert decided from my descriptions that it was not a poisonous snake, but I still wanted it outta there so I kept sweeping at it and finally got it to head off on its merry little way off into the woods beside the house. Victory was mine!

Oh, but wait! I forgot about the possums! Tuesday when DH and the girls got home from school, one little baby possum had taken up residence in our recycle bin under the front porch (which is on the second floor). Okay, cute little thing in its own ugly little way. We left him alone. Next morning when the girls and I headed out to school, he had apparently recruited a friend as there were two little baby possums in our recycle bin. Hmm…..Mama Possum must be moving them there. Next morning, still two little baby possums. Livvie said, “Oh Mama! They’re sooooo cute! But they're soooo stinky!” And stink they did. When I got to work, I conferred with my resident animal expert, my assistant Angie, who said to leave them alone and the mama would come back for them. Well by Friday morning, Mama Possum had not come back and the little rodents were looking a little hungry and really stinking up the place. DH decided the best course of action was to dump them out into the flower bed and see if they could fend for themselves. One rambled off; the other looked a little shell-shocked. Late in the day, the other still looked shell-shocked. I think you get the picture here.

So after a parade with a goose leading two bulls, a lightning strike, an electrical short, snake warfare and possum wrangling, a girls’ night out with Trace Adkins was just what the good doctor ordered. Awesome venue, (St. Augustine Amphitheatre), awesome seats, super awesome show. That’s Deb, me, KT and Lynn in the first picture (we got there early!); two great promo shots of Trace; and our view of the stage in the last. I’m ready for a really boring week this week. Hope you have a great one!

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