I was raised in Ohio, but to say I am a country girl would be, uh, not correct.  Still, in middle school we did devote a week of Phys Ed to Square Dancing.  I haven’t done so since.

Until last night!

(Begin playing banjo music in the background)

The Poolesville United Methodist Church was putting on a square dance as a fund-raiser.  It sounded like an unusual evening to me, and I was ripe for an unusual evening.  I begged My Captain to take me.   I don’t know if he has known me long enough now to be able to discern the I’m-Not-Going-To-Quit-Asking tone in my voice, or if I’ve simply broken him, but he agreed.

Now, why didn’t it occur to me to think “or he just loves me that much and wants to make me happy.” as an option?   Some things are better unanswered.

So I put on a ruffled skirt.

Let me just say at this point that fat women should avoid ruffles whenever possible.  Thank you.

As I was saying, I put on a ruffled skirt, My Captain put on one of his way, way cool Western Weave shirts from The Territory Ahead, and away we went.

(But first we stopped at McDonald’s because they were having a 2 for 1 sale on Big Macs, and even though I am already fat, the Scottish in me just can’t pass up a bargain.   So sue me.  Mine was yummy, and his was free.  Ha.)

I knew we were in for a treat when the normally staid brick entrance to the church was decorated with plastic wagon wheels and colorful bandanas:

and inside were hay bales, cowboy hats,

and some kind of party-like barbed wire.  Who knew barbed-wire could be so playful???

I certainly didn’t.  But I have to admit, it DID add to the festive country/western spirit of the gig.

There was a ton of food on tables to be sampled…everything from cracker munchies to herbed cheese and walnut stuffed endives.  Quite the mish mash of Americana!  I LOVED it!

And there were a bunch of cakes that got given away during cake-walks.  We didn’t participate, because I’m strong-willed like that.  (Or because we came in late. I forget which.)

There was an honest to goodness licensed square dance caller at the mic.  I didn’t even know they could get licensed, but he did, and they a-hired him!  I fell in love with him almost immediately because he made everyone feel comfortable with this unfamiliar thing we were doing.  And he was as kind and genuine as you could imagine.  His name is Charlie Packard:

And he was full of old school charm, I promise you.  If My Captain had not been so dashing….I don’t know… I am such a sucker for old-fashioned.  Charlie was certainly that.   Look at what he played all the dance music on:

An Honest To Goodness 45 turntable!  It was SO COOL!  Whenever I heard the needle do that scratchy thing when he started a song, I was launched way back to my childhood.

Now as for the dancing….

It turns out that not only do I have two left feet, I also have two left arms.  Whenever our square of 8 people got all discombobulated, it was usually me in the middle going, “Uhhhhh….”

My Captain would chuckle, and nudge me the right direction…a couple of times he yanked me the right direction…and once he pushed me (lovingly) at the guy ‘on my corner’.  If you’ve ever met me, you know I’m not a petite little thing.  My Captain had to work.  But God Bless Him, he Do-Si-Doed me and Promenaded me like a real western gentleman.  I felt VERY feminine, even in my clumsy attempts at dancing.

He didn’t have to come.  He really didn’t.  But the fact that he did, and without mocking me or snickering at my mistakes, or rolling his eyes made me love him even more.

If that is possible.

We’ve received some fantastic entries for the moose naming contest!  If you haven’t sent in your idea for a name, do so before midnight tonight.  The winner will receive a home-made batch of my famous Turbo-Rum Balls.  (Must be 21 to enter!)

The winner will be announced tomorrow night.

Not sure what the heck I’m talking about?  Go to Moose Naming Contest and find out!

Good luck!

Love,

Mama B.

While doing laundry today, I came across a button down shirt I had worn a couple of days ago.  It made me close my eyes for a brief moment and sigh.

Clothes do that to you when you’re pre-menopausal.

You see, I was sighing because the last time I wore it, I was out to lunch with my family feeling fine and dandy, having a grand ol’ time, when I dropped food.

Of course, I dropped food onto my shirt in the boobie-region.  As you know from stories past, I have a habit of doing that.

Rubbing it with my napkin only made it worse (it was an oil-based salad dressing), and by that time any possibility of my actions going un-noticed was shot to hell.

Do you have any idea how uncomfortable it is to be the fat chick at the table and to be found trying to remove food from your clothing?  It drives home the fact that you eat with such wild abandon, the food flies like shrapnel.

So I’m rubbing pointlessly at the spot when I realize that the shirt is so tight it’s gaping between the button holes.

Not in the boobie-region, where I would feel pride about it.

But in the tire region, where I do NOT feel pride about it.

I have noticed, sadly, that those two regions are not as far apart as they used to be.

Anyways, I stopped rubbing the spot on my shirt.  Now I didn’t want to get rid of it…I wanted it to remain as a distraction from the fat-gap.

See, I’m always thinkin’.  Stick with me, I’ve got a million genius tips like this to share.

I’ll go ahead and tell you:

Slices of Bob Evans Natural Breakfast Sausage which I had slowly simmered in last night’s Whiskey Cream Sauce (I had to add a lot of cream to dilute the salt!) over Toasted Oatmeal Bread.

It was divine.

We washed it down with water mixed with caffeine shots, because I didn’t feel like making coffee.

If that wasn’t a Breakfast Of Champions, I don’t know what is.

I need to load up on energy boosters because Varmint’s first softball game of the season is today, and I am going to need to be in rare form.  I should probably ask Coach Wendy exactly how far I can go before I get thrown out of the game.

Wish us luck!

Love,

Mama

We went to Alexanders for Lunch last Wednesday.  I’ve never been there for lunch before.  Maybe because my lunch often consists of either:

• A wholly dis-satisfying Slimfast Shake
• A home-made Panini with more calories than my body needs in a week
• or, if I’m cranky, both.

But my brother, Graham, My Captain, and I decided it would be nice to take my mom out for lunch to celebrate her birthday some more.

I hadn’t been there in a few weeks; I was looking forward to it!

As soon as we sat down, we were served Chef Smallwood’s newest southern-type creation:  A watermelon Lemonade.

Um……YUM!    It was like sipping on the month of July itself.  I swear I could hear waves lapping when I drank it.

My mom got this wonderful barbecued shrimp salad. It was a lot of shrimp!  And, beautiful, too.

It’s hard to tell in this picture, but the shrimp are wrapped in bacon.

God Bless Chef Smallwood is all I have to say about THAT.

My Captain and My Brother, Graham, got the BLT sandwiches with fries.

Chef Smallwood smokes all of his own meats there on the premises.  If you haven’t had freshly smoked bacon, you are in for a serious treat.  Leave your veins and arteries at home, though.   They don’t want to watch.

Let me get you up close and personal with that baby.  Ohhhh Mama.  Look at that.  Is there anything more satisfying than a BLT?  (The answer is, “Yes.  A BLT with cheese on it.”  But please don’t get me started on that particular subject.)

And you know what your corpulent, but loveable Mama Boe ordered?

A salad.  A plain, ol’ salad.

Oh sure, it had enough bacon, egg, sautéed onion and cheddar croutons on it to kill a horse, but it was a salad just the same.  And that is very sad.  Very, very sad.  Mama Boe does not like to eat salads.  Mama Boe would much rather have ordered the Flying Dog Beer Battered Shrimp.

But order the salad she did.  Not because she wanted to.  No sirreee.  She ordered it because she has been told by her doctor to lose weight and SOOON.

How terribly pedantic of him.

Is it me, or has Mama Boe started speaking in the third person now?  How marvelous!  Weird, but marvelous.

So I saved my calories that I might have a bite of some of the newer desert creations:  Homemade Nutella Ice Cream:

Of which I took one bite because I have unbelievably strong will (and because Graham took it away from me.  I pouted.).

and then I had a bite of cake that had all kinds of marvelous liquors in the icing.

I can’t remember if it was only Kaluha or Baileys or what, all I remember is that I wanted more than one bite and that my family is mean.  Ok, ok, maybe they are trying to save my life by not letting me eat whatever I want, but it is still very mean-spirited of them to take cake from me.  My life is so hard.

Ok, I’m over it.

The very talented woman who is in charge of all the baking, whose name escapes me at the moment, but who I am going to dedicate an entire post to soon….very, very soon…also made a home-made whoopie pie cake.  It is Out. Of. This. World.  I will write about it, I promise.

Ordering lunch was tough on us.  There were so many wonderful choices.  Choosing gave My Captain a headache:

I kid.  I was the one who gave him the headache.  Something about my incessant flow of inane drivel.  But I’m not sure.  I wasn’t listening.