It's TOURON TIME!

For those of you who do not live in a resort area (which is anyone with an ounce of common sense) you may not be familiar with the term...touron. A touron is a moron who happens to be vacation. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE tourists....we need tourists to keep our economy going, they are fun and yes, they are the source of my paycheck. NOBODY needs a touron. Tourons are the ones who suddenly decide that they absolutely positively MUST stop at THIS Eagles  which happens to be on the other side of the street and across four lanes of traffic. For those of you who are not familiar with Eagles, they are a beachwear store and can be found approximately every 50 feet in Myrtle Beach. A touron will ask you, "What time is the 11 o'clock dive show?" Tourons want to know what time the beach closes. OH...love this one, "How far above sea level are we?" Uhhhh.....we were standing in the ocean when she asked me that question. A very pleasant couple sat their beach chairs not too far from mine one Sunday afternoon and when they discovered I was a local the husband asked me how long we had been in a drought. I told him it had been several months since we had any measurable rain but we were supposed to have rain for the next two days. His reply was that was good news because they weren't leaving until the weekend and maybe the water level would be back up before they went home. I didn't have the heart to tell him it was low tide.

Livestock

When I am at the ranch in Montana I expect to deal with livestock....horses, cattle, an occasional jackrabbit and oh yes, there was also Cuddles the pygmy goat that Polly had for about 45 minutes. Apparently Cuddles did a little tap dance on the the hood of Tony's new truck and I was told that Cuddles went to live with a nice family down the road. Quite frankly I have my doubts. I don't want to point any fingers but if Polly offers you a taco just back away and say no thank you. Their house is surrounded on three sides by hay fields which is great until the hay is cut and all the little mousies have to find a new home. This summer all three fields were cut on the same day and my hand to God it looked like something out of a Stephen King movie. Remember Ben..."the rat" movie? I think Michael Jackson sang the theme song. Well, that is exactly what it was like when the hay fields were cut. OMG...mice were EVERYWHERE! I think all the mice lined up at the edge of the yard and their leader (come on, you know there was a leader and I bet his name was Ben) said, "OH..look, there is a pretty log house right over there, let's move in!" And they did. I'm not sure how Tory became the designated mousetrap setter upper AND emptier but she was a trooper. The first night it sounded like a war zone....whap! whap! whap! Of course you always have a "flopper" or two who refuse to die quietly and fling themselves around the room until their last gasp. I am not proud to say this but I put a pillow over my head and was quietly chanting, "Oh PLEASE just die already." On the second night of "the invasion" I sent 8 yr old Matthew upstairs to get his bath. Katy and Sarah were upstairs and said, "Grandma, Matthew wants to take a shower downstairs." Well, OK...whatever. So Matthew comes downstairs and says, "Grandma Katy and Sarah won't let me take a bath." Huh? Sooo....I go upstairs and Sarah is in the bathroom while Katy is guarding the door. "What's up girls? Matthew really wants to take a bath up here." Katy grudgingly opens the door and I see Sarah with a shoebox and a pan lid trying to catch a mouse that has somehow fallen into the jacuzzi tub. Kate looks at me and says, "Oh grandma, if it makes you feel better we will call it a chinchilla." Matthew took a shower downstairs.

Dance Moms

DANCE MOMS.....after seeing this TV show I felt the need to put the title in caps, italics, underline AND bold . If you haven't come across this show on Lifetime then you really really need to check out the guide and crank up the ole DVR. Let me put it this way, if Hitler decided to open a dance school he would hire Miss Abby to be the instructor. I thought children's dance classes were to develop poise and confidence. Nope, according to Miss Abby IT'S ALL ABOUT WINNING and the scary thing is there are parents paying $20,000 plus per year, per child for lessons, costumes, competition fees and an unlimited amount of verbal abuse from Miss Abby. One of Miss Abby's milder comments to a student was, "Your legs are as straight as Elton John." Oh all right, I thought that was pretty funny. The girls spend hours and hours in the studio, often not getting home until 10pm or later. I have no idea when they have dinner, do homework or have any family time. The "dance moms" appear to be fine with this grueling schedule and they spend hours in the observation area gluing rhinestones on costumes and trash talking each others children as in, "Ha ha ha...look, she fell down!" I swear that mom went to my high school. One good thing came out of watching this show...I have a new mantra! As mom Cathy told 6 year old Vivi, "If you forget what you are doing...just shake your butt!" Well there ya go, feel free to use my new mantra as I can't imagine any situation in life that can't be improved with a butt shake. Lawzamercy.

Wowsers...

It seems like I'm always on my way to or returning from Great Falls, MT or Charlotte, NC but that is because my grandchildren live there and I have to make regular visits to both places to straighten out their parents. Sure would love to see their parents faces when they read that first sentence. Bahahaha!

Polly and Tony had to be out of town for business and wanted to know if I could come up and stay with the kids while they were gone. Are you kidding? Heck yes! This is the sales pitch I received, "Mom the next two weeks are really light so you and the kids plan on going to the movies, shopping, out to dinner....just do fun things." Cool, I can do fun things. I know Polly, I also know the schedule Polly keeps and why in the world I fell for that sales pitch I will never know. SO...I arrive in Great Falls and as Polly is hustling me to the car in the airport parking lot she is shouting instructions to me over her shoulder about basketball open gym, basketball camp, company coming for dinner, a load or two (HA!) of laundry and picking Sarah up at horse camp. Oh OK, guess the light schedule starts tomorrow. Foolish foolish Grandma. At the end of two weeks the floor of the laundry room was visible, we had been to the grocery store 6 times, took the dog to the groomer, cleaned out the freezer, completed five days of basketball camp, church on Sunday morning AND Wednesday night, worked the rodeo concession stand for 6 events, took Matthew to the Doctor (I said I was sorry and his foot should be fine in another week), put medicine in Luke's (the dog) eye twice a day, tried (unsuccessfully) to save the sod, folded a mountain of clothes and yes, we also remembered to pick Sarah up at horse camp. We did manage to sneak in two movies and one dinner at Macaroni Grill plus a ton of fun and lots of good memories. Oh yes, remind me to tell you about the chinchilla in the bathtub.