Not much new

I'm in a writing slump. It's FRICKING cold right now (0 degrees with -12 windchill), I'm in my flannel pajamas over my long underwear, winding down after the turkey-leftover-potpie-stick-to-your-ribs dinner.

I don't know what it is about this winter, maybe I'm getting old, but I feel colder than I have in years!

No news on the deer front, except for the fact that I've got multiple people who are lobbying ME to get Tom to try muzzleloading.

Isn't muzzleloading old guns with powder and special civil war costumes? Camo is about all I can take.

Hope you are warmer than I am so far this winter!

Move over deer, it's cookie season

The good news is that we made it through Thanksgiving, the bad news is that deer hunting season is NOT over yet, at least for the bowhunters out there. To be honest, I am more than ready to end the "did you see any deer when you drove in" madness around this place.

Making it through Thanksgiving means the cookie brigade begins, at least for me. And I'm putting my foot down, there will be no venison cookies this year.

I'm contemplating what new cookie will be added to the repertoire. Each year I try to add something new. I'm considering a ginger cookie, because I love the ginger cookies so. I've been researching how to make chewy gingery ones and am considering a little sandwich cookie with cream cheese/orange filling. Mmmm, ginger.

One year I added the Lime Rickey. It's the lime coconut ball thing that I love so. Mmmm, Lime Coconut Balls....

And of course, there will be the traditional butterscotch bitches, cornflake christmas wreaths and the Cobb County butterscotch puppy chow.

post your orders here.

remember when buck

meant a ride on the back of your banana seat bike? Now it means my beloved got his 2nd deer. His male deer.

Oh how life has changed.

too much information

Over the years, my relationship with the too-familiar pharmacist Steve has become comfortable.

Take tonight for instance. While Steve was spending time on the bench talking with someone he shouted out "I'll be with you in a minute Heidi!"

I smiled and turned around and studied the sale items, wanting to give the bench lady some privacy. I held up a bottle of Airborne, wondering if it actually works and if it actually was invented by a teacher.

A lady pharmacist came to help me while Steve was busy.

As she was ringing up my prescriptions she looked at my finger and said, "Is that your wedding ring?"

Magically, Steve was done with his customer and suddenly in our conversation too.

"Yes" I said. Hoping there would be no more questions.

"I like it!" she said.

"Me too!" said Steve, "Is it platinum or white gold?"

I sighed. I wished I could lie. I answered, "Neither."

They both stared at me.

"I lost my real wedding ring" I said. They kept staring at me. "And my engagement ring actually."

"What happened?" Steve asked.

"Well, I don't remember what happened exactly with the engagement ring. A supper club parking lot with my mother I think... but the wedding ring I lost while I was picking up trash by the Mississippi River on Earth Day."

They just kept staring.

"So this one my mother bought for me on the street in Las Vegas. It's weird because people comment on it all the time."

Steve wondered if I had insured my wedding ring. I hadn't. Then he made a funny pharmacist joke. "Some kid will find it someday with a metal detector and wonder whose ring it was!"

Good one Steve!

the too-familiar pharmacist

Sometimes I LOVE living in a small town. Like the milk I get delivered in glass bottles at work from Tom from the dairy in Babbitt. I like that. The milk is soooo good!!! Tom the milkman is also an artist and a emergency responder.

And when the neighbor leaves a bag of apples from his tree. Also cool, I made crockpot applesauce!

Another cool one: when the ER doctor listened to me on the Morning Show and knew that I was in because of a giant rash on half my face (otherwise known as the first symptom of The Lyme's).

A not so cool one?

The too-familiar pharmacist. I'll call him Steve. Steve the pharmacist.

It started when I moved to this town and I'd go to my unnamed discount store for my prescriptions. He was fine. Talkative. Tried to get me loosened up. But I didn't like how he would point to the little bench to have a "private consultation" about whether or not I had ever used the particular "unmentionable" before. And possible side effects, etc. All things I could read on the bottle or remember from the last time I was in.

He did this many times. But he was also friendly, in a long haired guy with one long fingernail kind of way. I didn't dislike him exactly, but I really yearned for anonymity or a faceless pneumatic tube at the pharmacy I think.

It went on....he started realizing he had heard me on the radio. Kept mentioning my unmentionables, etc. Friends recommended I find a new pharmacy but as a native Minnesotan, I didn't want to make the guy feel bad or anything.

One day I must have just had it. I felt bold. Ready to deal with Steve, the too-familiar pharmacist. It happened to be Valentine's Day. He did his normal small talk chit-chat mention the unmentionables to me schtick. Then he asked in a sarcastic tone if I had plans for that night.

"I do!"

"Really?" he said, looking at me over his glasses, pierced eyebrow raised. "What???"

"My fiance and I are going to a play."

"Reallllly...." He looked over his glasses at me again, like I was lying. "What play?"

Not too quietly I said "The Vagina Monologues".

"THE WHAT?"

"The Vagina Monologues." I said, even louder, a little smugly in fact. Apparently Steve the pharmacist wasn't a theater type.

"What's that about?" his voice was getting softer now, as mine increased. He looked behind me at the small line that was forming.

"Vaginas."

It felt good, to finally embarass Steve back.

"A play about vaginas?"

"Yup." I said taking my credit card back.

"Where is the play?"

"The Reif Center! "Thanks! Happy Valentine's Day Steve!"