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In my desk
September 26, 2007In my left-hand bottom desk drawer right now:
100 packets of extra fine sugar
A Red Cross gimme T-shirt for donating blood
4 cans of soup
2 bags of popcorn
2 bottles of salad dressing
A jar of honey
3 bathing suits
Posted by Lara Richards at 08:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Hats off to cowboys
September 25, 2007I was remiss in my blog called "A Fine Ass-ignment" because I forgot to thank the four men who came to my rescue, in true cowboy fashion, for a photo that I needed to go with a story called "Cowboy Charisma."
Even though my photographer wouldn't let me use his name on the photographs that ran in the paper (see previous blog), the four fellas were happy to give me theirs.
And yet I never printed them.
So here they are. From left to right, Scotty Vickers of Seymour, Dee Robertson of Seymour, Brian Schroeder of Windthorst and Todd Anderson of Petrolia.
And from me, and all the cowboy-lovin' ladies out there, thank you very much.
Posted by Lara Richards at 08:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
I-scream for expensive snacks
September 24, 2007What does a $36.35 scoop of ice cream taste like?
It tastes like frozen whipped money.
Of course, when I bought the scoop of cappuccino chunk at Braum's in Vernon two weekends ago, it was just $1.35, which I put on my debit card because I never carry cash.
And now I've got even less cash, thanks to my sketchy math skills.
It all began Thursday, Sept. 13.
I had bought my standard grande vanilla latte earlier in the day at Starbucks for $3.84.
Make that $38.84 now.
And then there were the two diet Mountain Dews and a bag of pretzels at Allsup's for what is now $39.28.
Then there was the ice cream in Vernon before I made it home to Paducah.
It's my own fault, and I'm quick to admit it.
I'm usually good about balancing my checking account, but I forgot about an $18.22 automatic debit that hits in mid-month, the same time I'd splurged on my now unbelievably expensive snacks.
And so bam, bam, bam, I have three overdrafts charges, which each cost me $35.
That's an extra $105 dollars for a scoop of ice cream, a grande vanilla latte, two diet Mountain Dews and a bag of pretzels.
I went in to the bank last week to plead with an employee there. I've been a bank member for eternity, and these were such small amounts.
How could I pay $36.35 for a scoop of ice cream? I asked her.
The bank lady refunded the ice cream bounce fee, but left the other two, maybe to teach me a hard lesson.
She told me I should start carrying cash or get a credit card instead.
I told her I'd just stop eating.
Posted by Lara Richards at 08:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Potluck dinner
September 21, 2007No one can organize a potluck dinner like a church.
The Throckmorton First Baptist Church found a unique way to organize the food preparation for its 125 anniversary celebration this weekend.
Their food assignment sheet reads:
For the Saturday evening meal. (Barbecue is provided by the church.)
Last name begins with A-M: Please supply cole slaw, potato salad or other salad
Last name begins with N-Z: Please supply a dessert.
For the Sunday noon meal. (Ham is provided by the church.)
Last name begins with A-G: Please supply a dessert.
Last name begins with H-Z: Please bring a vegetable dish.
Posted by Lara Richards at 08:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Reason I'm going to get fired, No. 574
September 20, 2007Several months ago, someone hung up inspirational slogans and sayings in our building.
They're everywhere.
I can't go get a Coke or go to the bathroom without running into one of them.
This will come as a complete shock to anyone who knows me, but I hate being force-fed inspirations.
"Chicken Soup for the Soul" and stuff like that make me want to vomit.
And so I was none too pleased to be confronted by pseudo inspiration at work.
"Always smile. It IS heard on the phone."
"To my customer, I may not have the answer, but I'll find it. I may not have the time, but I'll make it."
"If we don't take care of our customers, someone else will."
Well, no s$@*! I didn't need a poster to tell me this.
Which leads me to my small -- yet very inspired -- act of protest.
One of the signs reads like this:
Do what you do so well
that they will want to see it again
and bring their friends.
--- Walt Disney
I couldn't resist.
I took out a piece of paper, scissors and a marker, and made a new name.
I carefully taped over Walt Disney with . . . Hugh Hefner.
Now read the quote again.
Posted by Lara Richards at 08:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Job perks
September 19, 2007My old city editor, Steve Clements, had very strict rules about what we could and couldn't accept from people we interviewed.
If you could eat it or wear it, you could take it.
One of my desk drawers is filled with gimme T-shirts. And I've eaten my fair share of barbecue, fried chicken and pineapple upside-down cake.
The rules were put in place so that a reporter's integrity and objectivity can never be questioned.
And mainly, so that no one can ever imply we were paid by a source or accepted favors to do a story about someone.
But all that went out the door two weeks ago when I got the best freakin' gift any person I've ever interviewed has ever given me.
I had been talking with Johnny Guffey down in Scotland for several months about doing a story on his original and handmade fence. It features cowboy hats welded to the top of the fence posts and was a project he devoted three years to completing.
I arrived down in Scotland in September, did the interview and then Mr. Guffey said he had something for me.
He went to his workshop and came back with the coolest paperweight a country girl could ever have.
He said he had made it specifically for me, that it was one of a kind, and that I couldn't refuse it.
I know it's technically against the rules.
But maybe, in this case, they were more like suggestions.
Posted by Lara Richards at 08:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Mutiny at the farm
September 17, 2007The critters are out to get me.
My Pop had to leave the new dog, Red, tied up for about eight hours Thursday until I could get out to the farm later that night.
When I drove up the driveway, I saw seven sets of eyes staring at me.
Angry, angry eyes.
"How could you tie up our friend?" they seethed at me.
Apparently, none of the animals were happy about Red being chained up.
Especially Red.
Constrained to the garage, he had knocked over everything in site, including the dog and calf feed tubs.
He was so angry that he chased away the cats, preventing them from getting to their food as well.
All of the animals had been starving for about eight hours.
And they all blamed me.
I untied Red Thursday night and thought that everything would be OK, but in the morning, I found out just how mad they all were, especially Cherry the calf.
My Pop had cleaned out the garage about two months ago since Cherry had unofficially started living more outside than indoors.
We both had had a long talk with Cherry regarding where it was OK to poop and where it was unacceptable.
Front yard, poop away. But the garage was now off limits.
Surprising, Cherry hasn't dumped once in the garage since my pop swept the floor.
I know some people might be skeptical that we poddy-trained a calf, but we did.
Until Thursday night.
I went out Friday morning and found two big, huge steaming piles.
One of the piles sat directly on top of Red's chain.
I think Cherry made her point.
Posted by Lara Richards at 08:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Catching mice
Our indoor cat, Blue, caught a mouse the other day.
A stuffed animal mouse, to be precise.
A stuffed animal mouse that's wearing a pink velvet jumpsuit.
Why do we have a stuffed animal mouse wearing a pink velvet jumpsuit out at the farm? I truly couldn't tell you.
But my sweet baby Blue caught it and enjoys dragging it around the house by its hind leg.
I guess I should be happy that at least it was a mouse.
Maybe one of these days he'll turn into a real-live mouse-catching country cat.
Or maybe he'll find an old Cabbage Patch kid.
Posted by Lara Richards at 08:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Critters, Part 3
September 14, 2007Blue is the new indoor cat that's some Siamese blend and has the cutest blue eyes, hence the name.
But there's nothing cute about him. He's pure terror.
He's torn down curtains, pictures and quilts off the walls and regularly breaks into trash can like he's a raccoon.
The outdoor cats can hardly stand him either, and they regularly chase him up on the roof of the house, meaning Pop and I have to climb up and get him down.
Of course, the outdoor cats are all family, so maybe that has something to do with it.
There's the Mom and Pop, who are brother/sister, as noted in a previous blog (see Cat Math). Their names are Blackie and Pinkie, but I shortened their name to Blax and Pinks when Posh and Becks moved to the U.S.
Their babies are Lullz (a Yellow cat), OC (stands for Other Cat, cuz I was uninspired,) and Lady Bird, who I had named Lady because she was tiny and polite, but then Lady Bird Johnson died, and I thought the name just fit. My dad's not too hot about having a Democrat Cat out on the farm, though.
(It wasn't until I started writing this blog that I realized that most of the animals are named colors. It wasn't on purpose but just casually evolved, I guess. We've got Cherry, Red, Blue, Lullz (short for Yellow), and Pinks, so far.)
I tried to get pictures of all the outdoor cats, but they are pretty wild. I succeeded only with Lady Bird and Blax, who I might just rename Bonanza cuz the name seems to fit the cat and the farm, as evidence by this pix.
Posted by Lara Richards at 08:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Critters, Part II
September 13, 2007My calf thinks she's a dog.
We found Cherry half-starved underneath a tree about five months ago, clinging to life. I was worried she wouldn't make it, but she's thriving and looks fantastic.
We've been bottle-feeding her, and then she has her feed and a yard full of grass to much on.
But that's not our secret ingredient to her recovery.
She loves dog food. Loves it.
Her tub of feed is right next to the dogs' tub, so I guess she thought she was supposed to eat it, too.
But that's not all.
She plays chase with the two dogs. And I swear if I threw a stick at her, she'd play catch.
When she was smaller, she'd climb underneath the trampoline when the cats were playing on it and kick up her head, sending them flying in the air. Now they cuddle up to her.
When she's hungry for her bottle, she bangs the front porch swing into the house.
I expect her to start barking any day now.
Paw said once she was grown we'd let her back out with the rest of the cows, but I don't see how she'd survive out on the range.
She's too used to ready-to-eat grass in the front yard and her tub of grub in the garage and all the other perks of a dog's life.
Posted by Lara Richards at 08:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Critters, Part I
September 12, 2007I spend almost every weekend out at our farm in Paducah taking care of the animals.
I say this, and most people think it's an easy, typical affair. A few buckets of dog food and cat food and I'm done.
I only wish it were that simple.
The farm has become a menagerie.
We've got two dogs now, old and new, who don't get along. There's the outdoor cat family, mom, dad and three kittens, and the indoor cat, who also don't get along.
Then there's Cherry, my 6-month-old calf who we've almost weened.
There's the family of rabbits, three or four of them, and Roadie the roadrunner.
And that's not counting all the spiders, bugs and other critters that live there.
It's quite exhausting, really, but I guess they do keep me company each weekend.
Let me introduce the cast of characters:
OLD DOG:
BD, which stands for Bad Dog or Big Dog.
We've had him about five years, give or take. I think one of my sisters bought him at a flea market, but I'm not sure.
He's some sort of lab mix, and he's the most gentle, patient dog.
He's also kind of King of the Hill at the farm. And even though there are cats, cows, rabbits, roadrunners and everything else within paw's reach, he doesn't chase them.
He's above that, he seems to say. He's too cool to chase and instead likes to sit on the porch, surveying his kingdom.
And everything was great until the new pup came along.
NEW DOG:
Tentatively named Red.
My mom brought him home from a friend that was trying to get rid of him.
I have no idea why anyone would want to get rid of this dog.
I have 1,000.
He's just a huge, silly, goofy 4-month-old pup, and it's grating on my last nerve.
And BD's. BD has little tolerance for Red's antics.
Red chases everything, chews everything and jumps up on everything.
We have to chain him up when we drive away from the house because he'll chase the pick-up all the way down the one-mile road to the highway.
Of course, after we unchain him, he's even crazier than before because he's been cooped up so long.
He certainly doesn't understand the hierarchy at the farm, where dogs don't chase cats or birds.
"But I'm a DOG," he looks at BD, as BD just sits on the porch.
The farm was a calm, collected place before Red showed up.
I took several pictures of him to post on this blog, hoping that I'd capture his zest/zeal. I wanted one of Red looking kind of crazy and demented.
I think this pic does the trick.
He's been out at the farm for two weeks, still on a trial basis, Pop says.
Red has upset the casual, come-and-go attitude that the rest of the animals had before. Now, cats are chased up trees and bunnies scurry.
I'll keep you posted.
Posted by Lara Richards at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
A fine ass-ignment
September 11, 2007It's not often I get paid to go trolling for fellas.
But that was the case three weeks ago when I hit the Texas Ranch Roundup to work on a story that was unofficially dubbed inside the office as "Hot Cowboys."
I had conned my bosses into letting me do a story about why women find cowboys so irresistible.
Slow news day, eh?
While I embraced the subject matter (figuratively, not literally), my photographer didn't quite have the same enthusiasm.
For some reason, he wasn't keen on scoping out cowboy butts and taking pictures of sexy boys in Wranglers.
He hated the assignment so much, in fact, that I can't even tell you his name and he didn't want to put his name on the bottom of the pictures.
But we made a heck of a team.
The key picture I was hunting for that morning as we scoped out the MPEC was the stereotypical photo of cowboys leaning on a fence, their Wrangler tags a shining.
As we walked around the MPEC Exhibit Hall, I figured it would be easy to find two or three or four men who fit the bill.
The photographer, who shall remain nameless, per our agreement, got into the hunt, even though he won't admit it.
"What about that one?" he'd point in the distance until I could get a good look.
"What about those two?" he said as we sized up the playing field.
We looked for several hours and were running out of time.
Finally, I found four men, all Wrangler clad.
I explained to them what I was looking for.
They were skeptical. And I won't say they were a last resort, but even they were quick to admit they weren't as young or as hot as all of us would have liked.
"Honey, I don't think my ass qualifies," one joked.
I told them I didn't care. I just needed four backsides.
After a quick session of "I'll do it if he does it," the four fellas, me and no-name photog headed out to the pens and got the shot, which was on Sunday's front page.
The lengths I go to in the name of journalism.
Posted by Lara Richards at 02:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
