City Girl With A Country Soul

Growing up in the heart of South Philly, there was a LOT of opportunity to get into “street” trouble ..

My father was having none of that so from a very young age, my brother and I spent weekends and summers at his family’s 80 acre horse farm upstate. They were family in that “Italian” way .. not blood related but closer then close is close.

I LOVED the farm .. no matter how old you were, there was always something that had to be done and you did it from sun up to sun down.. and when dinner was finished *and if you were still awake* there were bonfires or night rides or fire works… you were outside more then you were in .. in fact, I remember not being ALLOWED IN the house until dinner time! .. some thing a lot of kids today know nothing about .. well, at least my step kids know nothing about that.. or hard work.. or making your own fun.. or a variety of other things that I don’t want to bring myself down thinking of..

I lived and breathed horses.

There’s nothing I loved more as a kid and well into adult hood.. then slapping on my Ariats.. turning the horses out.. mucking stalls.. loading bales of hay on the ‘gator’.. feeding.. grooming.. taking riders out on the trails..

You name it, I loved to do it ..

There were some real characters up there, let me tell you.. and my family led the pack.

ALL of them needed some type of Prozac.. and probably still do!

I’ve lost contact with them after I got divorced. For some reason, they sided with my ex.. probably because he was a mental head just like they are.. and I wasn’t welcome there anymore. It broke my heart and still does. My mother never understood why I would be upset .. she hated it up there. Loathed it. But funny that my mom brought it up a little bit ago when we were looking for a place upstate to move …

Yea.. it would have been nice but what are you going to do, right?

Anyway..

I started thinking about all those days at the ranch after having a convo with my Texas Rose Gfriend .. and how I always knew that my ass was meant to be in the country and not the city.

City life never appealed to me .. yea, I had my days at the clubs and running the streets when I was a teenager but it felt more like an anomaly more then a way of life. I’d much rather be in jeans, flannel and boots then panty hose and skirts.

Oh.. but the heels were ALWAYS near and dear to my heart!

Wasn’t giving up the heels! LoL!

Thankfully,

Chief feels the same way about living in the country .. he HATES the city. He’s a suburban boy by birth but his dad had had a piece of property further upstate that he had built a house on and that’s where he took Chief and his brother’s .. and where they learned to hunt.. fish.. a survive in the wilderness.

Unfortunately, his mother wanted half the property when she divorced his father so he had to sell it.

What’s with taking something you hate from somebody that loves it in a divorce? I’ll never understand that!

Again, anyway ..

When trying to explain ranch life to people, I always told them that is was as easy as it was hard .. no doubt it’s hard, physical work.. but it was easy because you didn’t have to think so much …

You knew what had to be done and you did it .. complete opposite from working in an office with figures and contracts and abstracts.

Get up.. Work.. Go to sleep

Doesn’t get much easier then that!

So my heart is kind of missing that life .. missing the horses, especially.. missing getting chased by the peacocks.. watching births.. chasing down the horses when they broke free from the pens.. being covered with dirt and hay and manure ..

It was my  life for a long, long time and there’s nothing wrong with missing..

Maybe one day I’ll have it back..

And when I do, I’m going to have a big ass cook out and y’all are invited!!

@#$%^&*

Is there post traumatic stress syndrome for snow fall?

There really should be…

Think about it ..

People here that snow’s coming so they rush to the market to get the “essentials” :: bread, eggs, milk, coffee, sweet tarts :: all at the same time .. sliding through stop signs and traffic lights.. cursing other drivers over parking spaces.. etc.

I love the people that will buy SHOPPING CARTS full of bread, milk and eggs because of a storm. Like, really people?? Even when we got 70″ last year, the roads were clear enough the following day to travel on .. it’s not like we’re in the middle of the boonies with no access to paved roads.

I hate snow for a variety of reasons but mostly different from normal people:

I hate the kids tracking snow through the house ..

I hate when they throw their wet coats over the dining room chairs instead of hanging them on the front porch

I hate when they whine that their boots are wet when they’re told AS SOON AS THEY COME IN to take them off and but them upside down on the heater to dry out

I hate when they bang the snow off their shoes and the dogs start barking like we’re being invaded by strangers .. three kids.. six feet..  get the idea?

I hate when the snow plow builds the Waaaaallllll Oooooooofffff Snnoooowww all around my property and you have to climb a mountain to get to the car… because this size 16 ass sinks to the bottom of it.

But don’t worry .. I’ll be bitching about how damn hot it is in a few months! It all evens out!

Here’s the obligatory pictures. Only one is mine.. the rest I swiped off of my friend’s pages on Facebook because I really didn’t feel like taking pictures of the same old scenes and I wasn’t about to get all suited up in snow gear to go outside!! LoL!

Wall Of Snow .. appears smaller then it really is

 

Mind you, the door where I took this picture from is a lot higher then the street so what looks like a mole hill is actually a mountain.

I live on a corner property and since the plows always plow to the right of the driver, this mountain goes all the way around the side of my house.

Expect it to still be there in April.

 

 

 

 

D's car ..

 

This is my friend D’s car.

She lives in the inner city.

It doesn’t really look so bad but considering that D is an uber-fashionista who doesn’t know what it’s like to where shoes with a heel less then 3″ .. regardless of weather .. I can imagine that she had a minor freak out when she saw her car.

I also don’t think she knows that therma guard gloves and hat’s meant to keep a body warm exist.

 

 

J's hood

 

 

J also lives in the inner city.

When you live in the city, you don’t get plowed like we get plowed.. especially on side streets and you get a fine if you shovel your side walk snow into the street.

That actually makes sense but makes people crazy.

What also makes them crazy .. and lethal, in some cases, is when someone digs their car out of a parking space and tries to “save” it with beach chairs or buckets or whatever. Snow makes people crazy, let me tell you!

 

L's development

 

L lives in a “community” in New Jersey.

The kind of place that tells you what color to paint your house and how tall your grass is allowed to grow.

I’m figuring next year they’ll amend their community regs to include just how much snow one is allowed to accumulate before they issue a fine.

Hey.. times are tough all over, right?

L actually has it good because the back of his property slopes down .. fun for sledding without the embarrassment of having neighbors laughing at your simple 45 years old ass when you fall off and get snow burn on your face.

 

 

 

So to all you lovely readers experiencing weather ABOVE 31 degrees, I have a few words for you… but I’m not allowed to say them because I was raised right!!

LoL ..

Pelting Santa With Snowballs And Other Reasons Why I Really Don’t Want The Phillies In The World Series Again

.. okay, so the whole pelting Santa with a snowball happened like.. I don’t know.. 30 or 40 years ago … and it happened during an Eagles’ game.. AND in the old Veteran’s Stadium.

Veteran’s Stadium being that big cement stadium that actually covered a hell hole and sucked all reasoning out of your brain when entered. That and the cheap beer.

Philly fans have this in-your-face reputation that supposedly makes fans rooting for opposing teams very, very afraid to wear their team colors.

As a Philadelphia :: I know, I feel bad for me too! :: I’ve had to listen to this time and time again over the course of my 40-some odd years. And as much as I tried to be all “… that was then this is now”-ish, you know there’s a reason why you get a reputation, yknow?

I’ve been to Phillies games, Eagles’ games, Flyers’ games and maybe a Sixer game here or there :: not big on the B-ball :: and every one I went to there was always “something” going on in the stands.

Things that you just want to say, “.. grow the FUCK UP” to the instigator and things like “.. okay, you stay RIGHT THERE while I call the police”.

Not all fans are like that…

Let me repeat so I don’t get hate mail or threatened with bodily harm

NOT ALL FANS ARE LIKE THAT..

But the one’s that are are really turning the one’s that aren’t away from enjoying a live game.

For instance.. there was a Phillies game I went to last season :: against the Dodgers, go figure :: It was one of those Dollar Dog Sunday afternoon games. Loaded with college kids.

A man in the section next to me was there with his two young sons.. about maybe 9 and 6.. each wearing a Dodger’s cap. The bunch of drunk ass college kids in the rows behind them started ribbing and harassing the kids because of their caps.

Remember.. they are 9 and 6 ( or something like that)

The father tries to reason with them and all that did was make the college kids harass them more. So the father moved down to empty seats in the front row.

A security guard :: rent a cop :: approached the father and he explained why he had moved. Security then went up to the and approached the college kids who began throwing beer and hot dogs at the security guard.

Cops were called.. college kids were being dragged down the section steps and the father just got disgusted with the whole thing and left.

Can you blame him?

After the Phillies won the series last year.. all hell broke lose in the city. Cars were being turned over.. people harassed at red lights.. city trash cans set on fire..

We won’t even go into the poor guy who got beaten to death in the parking lot because he accidentally bumped into someone in a crowded stadium bar, spilling their beer.

Beaten to death.. over spilled beer.. in the Phillies’ parking lot.

Just so happens that these guys were being refused beer in the stands so they went into the bar to be served.

Nice.

Don’t get me wrong.. Philly is a great place if you like history and cheesesteaks but I can’t stand the way these dumbasses don’t know how to behave themselves.. enjoy a win.. and celebrate without causing a national headline.

The Phillies have a great team.. work hard.. and really should be able to win a championship and not have it marred by assholes.

But I don’t think that’s going to happen.

And that’s really a shame.