Country songs titles

I like all kinds of music, but mostly I listen to country. I enjoy the ballads and the upbeat country that crosses the line into pop and rock. Sometimes, though, I have to admit, I cringe when I hear a song like Brad Paisley's, "I'd like to check you for ticks", or Kenny Chesney's, "She thinks my tractor's sexy". Some song titles are plain out and out hilarious. Here are a few of them from over the years.


1. Her Teeth Was Stained, But Her Heart Was Pure
2. How Can I Miss You, If You Won't Go Away?
3. Get Your Biscuits In The Oven, And Your Buns In Bed
4. I Keep Forgetten I Forgot About You
5. I Don't Know Whether To Kill Myself, Or Go Bowling
6. She Got The Ring and I Got The Finger
7. You're The Reason Our Kids Are So Ugly
8. I Just Bought a Car From a Guy That Stole My Girl, but The Car Don't Run; so I figure we Got An Even Deal
9. Get Your Tongue Outta My Mouth, Cause I'm Kissing You Good-bye
10. I Liked You Better, Before I Knew You So Well
11. I Still Miss You Baby, But My Aim's Gettin Better
12. I Wouldn't Take Her To a Dog Fight, Cause I'm Afraid She'd Win
13. I'll Marry You Tomorrow, But Let's Honeymoon Tonight
14. I'm So Miserable Without You, It's Like Having You Here
15. Please Bypass this Heart
16. If I Had Shot You When I Wanted To, I'd Be Out By Now
17. Mama Get a Hammer, There's a Fly On Papa's Head
18. My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink, And I Don't Love Jesus
19. My Wife Ran Off With My Best Friend, and I Sure Do Miss Him
20. It's hard to kiss the lips at night that chew your ass out all day long
21. Thank God and Greyhound She's Gone
22. I Never Went To Bed With An Ugly Woman But I Sure Woke Up With A Few
23. O, Drop Kick Me, Jesus, Through the Gate-Post of Life
24. I'm home getting hammered while she's out getting nailed
25. Jesus Loves You But I Don’t
26. I Got In At 2 With A 10 And Woke Up At 10 With A 2
27. I Hate Every Bone In Your Body Except Mine
28. You Stuck My Heart in an Old Tin Can and Shot it off a Log
29. I Knew I'd Hit Rock Bottom When I Woke Up On Top Of Yew
30. Billy Broke My Heart at Walgreens and I Cried All the Way to Sears
31. I May Be Used (But Baby I Ain't Used Up)
32. I Meant Every Word That He Said
33. I'd Rather Pass a Kidney Stone Than Another Night with You
34. I Wanna Whip Your Cow
35. I Wish I Were In Dixie Tonight, But She's Out Of Town
36. If Fingerprints Showed Up On Skin, Wonder Whose I'd Find On You
37. If Love Were Oil, I'd Be A Quart Low
38. If My Nose Were Full of Nickels, I'd Blow It All On You
39. If She Puts Lipstick On My Dipstick, I'll Fall In Love
40. It Takes Me All Night Long To Do What I Used To Do All Night Long
41. My Every Day Silver Is Plastic
42. My John Deere Was Breaking Your Field, While Your Dear John Was Breaking My Heart
43. Oh, I've Got Hair Oil On My Ears And My Glasses Are Slipping Down, But
Baby I Can See Through You
44. There Ain't No Waste In My Baby's Love Canal
45. You Done Tore Out My Heart And Stomped That Sucker Flat
46. You Were Only A Splinter As I Slid Down The Bannister Of Life
47. You're the Hangnail in My Life, and I Can't Bite You Off.
48. Take me to the Quarry and I'll Get a Little Bolder
49. And there was Grandma, Swingin' on the Outhouse door, with no shirt on
50. She's Looking Better After Every Beer.



Those were so much fun, I had a little fun of my own. Yep, these are my own creations.

1. I wish you'd kiss me like you kiss the dog.
2. I wish I could wash you away like the scum out of my tub.
3. Got my tit caught in a wringer, and that felt better than being with you.
4. No more brown streaked underwear; I'm glad your sorry ass is gone.
5. Let the door slam you in the ass when you leave - I know how you like it rough.
6. I want to check you for lice.
7. When I asked you to bite me, you shouldn't have taken out your dentures first.
8. Why can't you be as happy to see me as the dog, when I walk through that door?

This next one had a lot of good endings.....

starting with

"Little blue pill in my pocket...."

.......I won't let you down no more

.......but it ain't no use no more with you done gone

.......but it ain't no use here in this bar unless it comes with a bag

.......the night is long and so am I

Do you have a country song in you that's just bursting to get out? Or do you want to finish, "Little blue pill in my pocket...."?

Let me hear 'em.

Who you calling a snow bird?

We are staying at Val Vista Village, which is a 55 and older community. That means I'll be legal next year. (giggle). The rules are - as long as one of you is 55 or older, you are welcome in the park. So, I'm holding on to Jim's coat tails. I TOLD you I was a trophy wife!

Now don't go filling up your pretty little heads about (yawn) this being a retirement community and all, filled with doddering old people pushing around walkers, or riding around in scooters. It's true, we might have a couple of them around, but the majority of people here are very active. In fact, my one sister kidded me that they are probably in better shape than me!

I hate to call this a campground - it's more of a resort. There are a total of 1500 sites - most are for park models that stay here year round; then there are the RVers, and there are even small apartments you can rent.

There are five pools here, one indoor, four outdoor.







Four hot tubs, tennis courts, bocci ball, shuffle board,



pickle ball, stained glass shop, woodworking, just to name a few. There are card tournaments, dance lessons, and can we talk about the dances? Usually every weekend there is a dance. On Tuesdays they have a "Watering Hole" which consists of either a band or DJ. They provide the popcorn and you bring the booze. It's true that it starts early - 4-6 pm! AND it's true that many people might be ready for bed afterward. Not me and my group. We usually party afterward.

They also have Music in the Courtyard a few times a week for free. We just sit and listen to the music. We can order food from the outdoor cafe right on sight if we prefer.

We have met a lot of friendly people down here, and our group has gotten quite large. The majority of our friends are from Canada, with maybe 25% of the group from the US. Our ages range from 54-67. It's a lively group. Nobody acts their age. Course I don't see them all first thing in the morning! LOL!

I usually go to water aerobics in the morning. I remember my neighbor inviting me to join her. I thought, "Why would I want to go and do that?" The two very most things I hate: 1)bathing suits and 2) water. You may remember that I'm afraid of it.

Anyway when I told her my fears, she said, "Oh, c'mon Pat. There are 80-year-old women in the pool doing this. If they can do it, so can you."

Well, geez, when you put it THAT way. And so, that is how I got shamed into doing water aerobics.

The first day I went, and stumbled along, trying to follow the teacher. We exercised for about 30 minutes then stopped. I let out a big, "Whoo-hoo! I made it!" and the lady next to me said dryly, "Get real, Pat. That's only the first half. We're just taking a break."

Oh. I knew that.

When I told my sister about the water aerobics, she made some snarky remark about the movie Cocoon and how the old people were in the pool trying to get young again.

I know the first day I came home from class I need a nap!

This is a very active park, and you can do as much, or as little, as you want to do. They have golf leagues, softball leagues, and even bowling leagues. The oldest woman on the bowling league turned 95 this year and is still going strong!

One day Jim and I had just returned from buying me a new bike. I was standing outside next to the bike, when an older gentleman, who was our neighbor down the street, sauntered over.

"It must be your birthday," he said.

"No, why?" I asked.

"Well, I see you got a new bike."

"Yeah, well I needed it."

"It's a pretty fancy bike," he said.

"Nah."

He went on, "It's got a lot of bells and whistles on it!"

I said, "It was under $100, and we just bought it at Target!" He just made me laugh. Later, I called up my twin sister and said,

"You know, men used to lust after your TWIN, now they're just lusting after my SCHWIN."



It's unusual for us to be down here in Mesa this early in the season, and it's not very crowded yet in the park. Our friends are drifting down couple by couple. Most arrive by the first week of January.

I've felt a little discombobulated since we've been here, but now I'm feeling better. We went to the library today. YEAH! This is the only place where we are considered upstanding citizens and are awarded a library card. Since we don't have a home, we cannot get one anywhere else. I love the library, and it felt so good just to walk into one, read the titles of the new books, search the computer for books on shelf, run my hands over the books, read the first couple of pages, and grab a handful of books to check out. We have arrived.

Murder and Mayhem in Mesa?

We are all settled on our spot in Val Vista Village located in Mesa, Arizona. The good news is - the trailer was fixed within a couple of hours - bad new is - it wasn't covered under the 10 year warranty plan. I just wonder exactly what IS covered under that darn plan. Oh well, it was under a couple hundred bucks so for that I'm grateful.

I saw a man leaning against the building, smoking when we pulled up to pick up the trailer. I sat in the truck while Jim went in to pay the bill and take care of the paper work. Jim had backed our truck up so it would be easy to hook up to our trailer, so I couldn't see the man standing there anymore. Just then a nice car pulled up (I'm not good at identifying makes and models of cars), and sat there idling for awhile with the a/c on and the radio playing. Finally, the car turned off and a man came out, dressed in expensive slacks, dress shirt, and tie. I'd say he was in his mid-to late 50's. He walked towards the building and I didn't think anything more of it. That is, until I heard him say, "Oh, THERE you are! I was waiting for you out front here!" I turned and saw the guy who had been leaning on the building walk over to the dressed up guy.


Together they walked over to the car. Smoking guy was carrying a RIFLE and a BOX of HEFTY GARBAGE BAGS. The big black bags. He opened the back car door and laid the rifle on the back seat and threw the bags in, shut the door, then climbed into the front passenger seat. Dressy guy got behind the wheel and they took off. Now. What could that possibly have been about? My mind was reeling. What was smoking guy going to kill? Expensive guy's wife? And then they were going to cut her up in pieces and put her in a garbage bag and haul her away? Or have I just been reading too many of Otin's stories? Maybe expensive guy just had a problem with a pesky animal - like a rat, raccoon, or something. But then why wouldn't he just have called a service to do that. And by the looks of how expensive guy dressed compared to the other guy, let's just say that they probably didn't hang around in the same social circle. So that leaves me thinking that I probably should have taken down the guy's license plate number. I haven't read the paper today to see if there was any body found in a garbage bag. Hmmmmm......What do you think? Is my imagination just running wild or what?

Watery Wednesday

My contribution for Watery Wednesday
is this shot of some sailboats at the Great Salt Lake in Utah. If you look closely, you'll see the mountains in the background. They mingle in with the clouds!

It's all down hill from here

Pulling out of Show Low was no easy feat. It took two men and myself to guide Jim, and I'm not talking a fantasy here, folks. That's down right reality. Mix together a tight space, a few trees, and a 40-foot fifth wheel, and it just spelled trouble. After about 10 minutes of maneuvering, various hand signals from the man guiding Jim up front, one hand signal from me in back (giggle), a few broken tree limbs, and we were outta there. Whew!

Jim has a hand-held GPS system that looks like this:



He puts it on the dashboard for better reception. He attaches a cord from the GPS to the laptop computer, which sits on a post between our two seats. This way the map is displayed on a fairly big screen and can easily be viewed by either one of us.

We drove a few blocks away from the campground and the GPS kept telling us to turn right. We were in a residential area, so Jim kept going straight. The woman on the GPS repeated for us to turn right. She's a persistent little bitch that way. The GPS always tries to find the shortest route, without considering what we are hauling. She kept saying, "In 100 feet, TURN RIGHT." I swear, her voice was getting LOUDER, and if you listened carefully, you could hear her STAMP her foot. I was surprised that she didn't start crying when we continued ignoring her instructions. Finally, Jim listened to her and turned right on the next street.

I yelled, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING? You're turning into a County Park!"

Wait, was that actually a LAUGH I heard coming from the GPS? I could picture her smirking and thinking "I got him to listen to ME!"

We went tooling through the large park, with winding roads that led us around and about. I was a nervous wreck.

"We are going to get stuck in here, I just know it," I said, my voice shaking.

Jim was beginning to lose his patience with me. (That happens a lot.) "No we won't! I can see on the map that this has a road out that will lead us right to 260."

I shut up and bit my bottom lip. If people were alarmed to see this honking unit driving through their park, they didn't show it. All was well till we came to a fork in the road. Oh-oh. Right or Left. Which way NOW Miss GPS girl? She was ominously silent. Jim chose left. Yes! Route 260 was straight ahead. It turned out that if he had chosen right we would have driven into a small parking lot. So at least THAT turned out alright.

Right out of Show Low we drove through Sitgreaves National Forest that had been hit by a fire from lightening strikes and wildfires. It was so sad to see barren land and the charred tree limbs. It's funny how the path of the fire left some trees alone, while right next to them they were burned to a crisp.









We only had about 160 miles to drive to our destination; about 140 miles of which were all downhill. At a 6% grade. Pulling an 18,000 pound trailer. Yeah.



Jim had the truck in low gear most of the time, and it still seemed like a roller coaster ride. A few times I was tempted to throw my arms up in the air and scream, but I didn't want to scare the bejesus out of the driver.




I was VERY thankful we had new back brakes put on in Santa Fe, because my life would have been flashing before me, and it wouldn't have been as a passenger of Big Blue.



I knew we were getting close to our destination when I spotted my favorite cactus, the saguaro - pronounced "suh-war-row". This hill was just full of them.






We have arrived! This is the main drive into the resort. Love those palm trees!



Monday we take the trailer in for servicing. My fingers are crossed that they can repair it in one day. Otherwise, dun dun dun, we have to stay in a hotel. I'm not looking forward to that added expense.

When we arrived on Saturday, Jim noticed some fluid had splashed up all over the side of the truck. He discovered that it had come from the transmission. This is NOT a good sign. So far the transmission fluid is still full, so we're not sure what's going on. We have to get the truck in AGAIN. SHUDDER. I'm hoping our trailer repairs are covered under the special 10 year additional warranty that we took out. But you know how that goes.......

Show Low - So Slow

Remember the other day when I watched in fascination as Jim tossed his cereal across the room? Yeah. Well, yesterday morning I made myself a nice cup of tea, sat down at our BIG computer (as opposed to the lap top I usually use) and started to read my emails. I've had a cold and cough going on three weeks now. So I take a nice big gulp of my warm, sweet tea, and a cough explodes unexpectedly out of my mouth, spewing tea EVERYWHERE. And I mean EVERYWHERE. Down my robe, on the desk, on the monitor, keyboard, mouse, printer, carpet, and computer tower. I swear to you, I never thought my mouth could hold that much liquid. SHUT UP. Luckily it didn't soak the keyboard, just a few droplets here and there. When Jim came into the room and I told him what happened, do you think his first words were, "Oh, honey, are you okay?" Yeah. I know. I'm dreaming.

He said, "Oh no! You didn't get it on the keyboard, DID YOU??"

"Only a little bit. Don't worry, it didn't get in-between the keys."

I switched over to the laptop when I was done with my emails (I do my blogging on the smaller computer). Jim came into the kitchen and asked, "Do you have something I can wipe the mouse with? It's still sticky."

I replied, "Why, honey, that's so your hand won't slip off of the mouse!"




We had two full days in Show Low. We did some research to find out things to do in this town. Turns out there isn't a whole heck of a lot. Unless you like fishing. Or skiing in the wintertime. We went to the little Show Low Museum. Thankfully it was free to get in. There was several rooms full of memorabilia of the town. I got a kick out of what must of been the original jail.



There was only one cell. C'mon, even Mayberry RFD had three cells, didn't they? When we peeked into the cell, I was surprised to see they had two FEMALE prisoners (dummies) inside. What's up with that? Actually, the top bunk's prisoner looked like just a head and a bunched up blanket. Yikes! They decapitate their prisoners? Take a close look at what's taped to the mirror. It's a "GET OUT OF JAIL FREE CARD." I wonder if it worked?



Who needs money? Just bring in the "get out of jail free card" from the Monopoly game.




Better yet, why not pay the bond with Monopoly Money?



We found this sculpture down the street from the museum.



This is the plaque that went along with it. It tells the story of how the town of Show Low got its name. It has NOTHING to do with flashing. :)



So. Now you know.

That was our big excitement yesterday. Yeah. Try to contain yourselves. Today we thought we'd just jump in the truck and go for a scenic drive. That's one thing I have to say about the area. It is VERY scenic - and not what you expect to see in Arizona. Tall Ponderosa pines EVERYWHERE. I felt like we were driving in Colorado. You judge for yourself.







On our drive, we came across Fort Apache, which was an Army Post from 1870 to 1922. In 1923 the facilities were transferred to the Bureau of Indian Affairs to open the Theodore Roosevelt Indian Boarding School. The army post was established to assist the White Mountain Apache People to remain peacefully on their lands and to prevent conflict among them and the incoming settlers in the surrounding area. Many of the soldiers quarters still remain standing; some teachers live in a few of them.

This is the First Commanding Officer's quarters.



This is another Commanding Officer's quarters.





This house was run down, and I didn't take note of who's house it was. The special attraction of it is the window in the middle of the chimney. How odd is that?



There is a small museum on the premises which we toured. Afterward we hit the road and I saw a sign for the Fort Apache cemetery. I just love old cemeteries so we followed the sign. Jim turned up a steep dirt road. He parked the truck, we both looked at each other, and got out. The road looked too treacherous for Big Blue. That's all we would need to do is get stuck in the middle of nowhere. So, we changed our minds, got back in the truck, and headed home. We had a wonderful day.

This is a volcanic "cone" out in the middle of the land.



Tomorrow we head to our final destination - Mesa, Arizona - where we plan to stay for 5 months for the winter. The weather is expected to be 88 fun loving degrees! YAHOO!

We won't truly be settled for a few days, since we are taking our trailer in for servicing on Monday. Hopefully it can be fixed in one day. Otherwise we have to stay in a hotel for the evening. That means packing our bags AND paying a higher fee for lodging than we're used to.

Have a good weekend!

El Malpais - the badlands of the Southwest

We set the alarm for 6:30 am so we could head out early on Wednesday morning. It had rained off and on through out the night and it was still raining lightly when we woke up. I was sitting at the kitchen table eating my cereal when I watched Jim pour his cereal out of the plastic container and then lose control of it. It was like watching it in slow motion. You know when you want to yell "Noooooo!" I don't know how he did it, but it looked like he was fumbling a football. The cereal flew all over the counter, in the sink, and all over the floor. Jim attempted to sweep it all up, but I felt the remnants of it later and had to sweep again.

After breakfast, Jim opened up the door and stepped out, saying, "Oh, no! It's SNOWING!" That's right! Big, fat, wet flakes were coming down. Snow. In Santa Fe. Unbelievable. Do you know what's worse than packing down in the rain? Packing down in the SNOW.

Here's Jim taking down our satellite dish in the snow. What? You think we actually ROUGH it?



This is my cactus plant(s) covered in snow. This is just wrong.



I have faithfully carried this plant around with us for 4 years. Jim is about ready to toss it. I know he hopes I forget it somewhere in our travels. The pot and dirt weigh about 25 lbs altogether.

The snow came down pretty heavily and covered our truck fast. It was time to hit the road. Pronto.



We threw our garbage bags on the back of the truck and were going to stop in front of the garbage cans on the way out of the campground. This campground was one of the few that actually recycled. So I had two separate small bags - one with cans and one with plastic. Jim had taken out all the garbage. By the time he unhooked the electric, water, sewer hose, and all the rest of the stuff he does outside, he was cold and wet, even though he had on a rain coat. We hooked up the trailer, then Jim took off his wet coat before getting back in the truck. We drove down to the garbage cans and he jumped out to grab the garbage. He didn't put on his jacket, but just ran over there with his short sleeve shirt on. I saw him carry over two large garbage bags and I thought to myself, "Hmmm. I bet he stuck those two recycling bags INSIDE the garbage bags and said 'The HELL with it!'" He probably figured that I would NEVER notice. I watched him trounce back to the truck in the wet snow, ready to give him a piece of my mind, when he passed up the truck, and grabbed two small recycling bags and walked all the way over to the recycling place for the cans and plastic. Awww. Now THAT's why I love that man!

He jumped in the truck and I leaned over and gave him a kiss! I told him what I had suspected and he guffawed. I told him either way it was going to be blog fodder. Poor Jim. I write about everything. He has to watch it. Even when I go to bed at night I wear these: (The bottom pair)




So we were on the road by 8:10 am. That's pretty good. We had to travel about 310 miles. By the time we got to Albuquerque the snow had turned to rain. The skies were heavy with clouds.



This is our fifth time driving down to Arizona for the winter. We try to find different routes to add some variety to our drive. This time we followed along Route 40 outside of Albuquerque, but exited at 89, at Route 117 so we could drive through El Malpais National Monument. It was a very scenic drive.






The term "El Malpais" means "the Badlands" and is used locally and in other parts of the southwest to refer to lava flows. There are several volcanoes in the area that had erupted and their lava had all flowed in the same general direction. It is amazing to see how trees and plants have grown on the lava rocks.






This is La Ventana Natural Arch, the largest arch in New Mexico. This arch was eroded from sandstone dating back to the age of dinosaurs.



Jim and I hiked up a short path to get a closer look at the arch.



I took the photo, then we did our little Chevy Chase "action", laughed, and headed back down the path.



We have been doing this little routine for years. We've reenacted it in front of the Grand Canyon, and too many other places to mention here.

When we pulled up to this arch, Jim said, "Hey, did you see that? What kind of bird was that in the tree?"

I replied, "I didn't see it." So he backed up the trailer, and this is the "bird" that was in the tree.



In fact, there were two of these strange "birds". But instead of being male and female, they were left and right.

On the path to the arch I saw this. It is a cholla (pronounced choy-ya) cactus. It is nicknamed the "jumping cactus", because the small branches break off and "jump" onto a person or animal.



I was assured by a Ranger last spring that THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A JUMPING CACTUS. But I will tell you HERE AND NOW that that FUCKER (excuse my French but there is NO OTHER WORD that BETTER describes it) jumped out of NOWHERE and attached itself to the calf of my leg.

I had jumped out of the truck to take pictures (of course) and I was watching where I was walking. HONESTLY. I was afraid of snakes. We were still in Arizona last spring. Anyway, I turned around to go back to the truck when OUT OF NOWHERE I felt the pricks of about a bazillion needles, ok, I am exaggerating, about 30 needles, piercing my leg. I looked down in horror at this thing attached to me. I ran back to the truck and asked Jim to remove the damn thing from my leg.

He got out of the truck, came around and looked at me in fear. He pulled on that sucker, I let out a scream, and all those needles, which have hooks on the end of them, pulled my skin out about a half an inch. Are you getting the picture here? Talk about a torture tactic! Jim had to wiggle the cactus to get it to let go of my skin. I did a lot of crying. I think we left some of the tips of the hooks in my skin. It looked like I had a rash all over my leg from the red dots of pin pricks.

The ranger told us that we should carry a comb with us - that way you just run the comb over the spot and just FLIP the cactus off of you. But you must be careful because he has seen people flip the cactus off of them and INTO THE FACE OF THEIR FRIENDS. Can you imagine having one of those suckers stuck to your face? OMG!

But I digress.....

Here are some photos of the lovely scenery driving out of El Malpais. The first one is a volcano off in the distance. The rest are just long, long stretches of road and land.











This is just some of the beautiful scenery I saw on the way - like these train tracks cutting a path through the open field.



Or this heart that appeared naturally on the mountain.



Or the way the pattern of the fence looks against the yellow field.



And finally, these three mountain photos. The first one is so colorful; the other two are beautiful in their plainness.








Okay, I'm done. I hope I didn't bore you with all the photos. This is almost as bad as going to the neighbor's house and seeing their vacation slides. LOL!