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Goats in the News

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Yes, the political candidates must be jealous. Goats can make headlines just by being goats in places where you don’t expect to see goats. Who needs a Super PAC when you can get your picture in The Huffington Post, The Daily Mail, New York Magazine and all over Twitter simply because no one has ever seen you stand while eating pizza in a Manhattan restaurant?

This is great publicity for any aspiring president who wants to capture the Pizzeria Vote, the Two-Legs-Good, Four-Legs-Bad Vote, the Urban Farmer Vote and, of course, the Goat Vote. It probably doesn’t do much to advance your chances with the Health Inspector Caucus, however.

Then there’s the woman who wants to keep goats in her yard, and as a result had to have a tense meeting with her neighbors. I guess the areas was so exclusive, there was simply no ruminant. What would they do if she had a sex offender living out back?

And it’s just not that often that you get to see the phrase “rogue pygmy goat” in a headline. Never, really. Godzilla, move over. It seems the “tiny” animal used its horns to break a window at a laundromat in Ravenna, Michigan. And then it eluded the authorities, according to the business owners:

The Steins said the goat is so fast that Muskegon County Sheriff deputies at the scene couldn’t catch him either. A deputy spotted the little rogue, but it outran him, according to a sheriff’s report.
“Cheryl tried to catch the goat, but the goat was too fast to catch. While speaking with Cheryl we located the goat. We tried to catch the goat, however, it ran into the fields behind the business.”
Ted Stein said the little goat has been taunting them ever since Tuesday’s incident.

I’m sure little goats can be rather quick. But I’m also certain that some big sheriff’s deputies can be quite slow. And as goats go, it’s the saucy ones that will taunt you. At any rate, this monster is still on the loose.

Name a place where you would draw unwelcome attention to yourself, just by being you.

118 thoughts on “Goats in the News”

  1. he gop convention is the first place that comes to mind. the school boardis not too keen on my questions and the conferences with the teachers is where my kids would like to have me stop showing up.

    this joke was with the pygmy goat post. i cant pass up a great goat joke.

    A man in a movie theater notices what looks like a goat sitting next to him.
    “Are you a goat?” asked the man, surprised.
    “Yes.”
    “What are you doing at the movies?”
    The goat replied, “Well, I liked the book.”

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  2. Besides or including gatherings of the family I grew up in?

    Actually, goats and politicians are a lot alike in this respect. Show up in the wrong crowd, you are bound to attack hostile attention, which is why I am sure some of them do not show up in certain places, even though they presume to someday govern the exact group of people they want to avoid.

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    1. “Besides or including gatherings of the family I grew up in?” this sentence cracks me up! and the full moon this morning—it is going to be a good day.

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  3. Oh, Dale – “I guess the areas was so exclusive, there was simply no ruminant.” brilliant and painful.
    good joke, tim – thanks
    Off, but kind of on topic – no goat news here yet – just getting ready for the onslaught in less than 16 days. but Crema and Rosa (part of Alba’s triplets from 2010) each had their own set of triplets this last week at their home farm.
    i have a friend who has goats where you wouldn’t expect them and her neighbors LOVE them.
    good day – off to see Crema’s and Rosa’s kids.

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  4. OT We will have an informal meeting at my home of Downton Abbey Withdrawal sufferers, although I imagine we’ll get around to chatting about other topics (is it humane to feed the poor or does that just encourage them?). Time: 7 PM until whenever, Saturday night. Place: 2168 Juliet, which is easy to find with or without a GPS and is located in the Mac-Groveland area of Saint Paul where a Democrat can safely walk the streets at night. So far, numbers (of party participants) look comfortably low, but the standard of quality is high. To discuss: mnstorytelr (at) comcast.net. Please leave your goats at home.

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  5. Good morning to all. Well, I guess I am kind of an odd duck and might draw attention to myself when I shouldn’t. The thing about being an odd duck is that you often don’t Know that you are doing something that makes you stand out in an undesirable way. I don’t worry too much about sticking out in the wrong way. As my Dad told me, people could think whatever they want, it didn’t bother him if they had negative thoughts about him.

    Recently I was told that all the complaining I was doing wasn’t helpful. I didn’t care for that comment, althought it was somewhat true. I guess I’m a little like tim who said there are some situations where people don’t like to hear his compliants. Perhaps I am sort of an odd goat as well as being an odd duck.

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  6. Hmm, I am a person who does not fit well in almost any group, so the question seems to ask where have I been most flagrantly misfit in some group? I suppose I was the poorest at fitting in when I was an outdoor writer and editor of a sporting journal. Did you think “outdoor writers” would be passionate defenders of the environment that produces the critters they pursue and write about? Sigh. A few were, and they were some of the finest people I’ve met, but your average outdoor writer was more concerned about gun rights than the health of the universe. He might have joined the professional organization so he would qualify for the free fishing lures and polarized sunglasses those guys got. I was always embarrassed to see how cheaply a company producing outdoor gear could buy a writer. Send him four or five Bagley Fat B fishing lures and he might be a pathetically committed backer of Bagley fishing lures for life, someone who endorses those lures several times a year because he’s so thrilled at getting $16 worth of free lures.

    I didn’t fit. I can say with confidence that I was the most loony liberal outdoor writer and editor in the organization. I even believed women were people, as much so as men, and that they belonged in outdoor sports. I thought it was more important to preserve some wilderness areas than to rip roads through forests and permit smoke-belching motors on boats in the BWCA. I didn’t automatically hate wolves because they ate “our” deer. I even thought some Indian groups had a legitimate beef about the way they were conned with white man’s treaties.

    For several decades I played a strange game, pretending to be just another outdoor writer while secretly advancing my liberal agenda. If you own several guns and kill a deer now and then, it is amazing how people like that will overlook your core politics. Now and then I blew my cover by saying something so liberal that I would have to travel incognito for a couple of years until the outrage boiled over, but in that way I was able to strike some sneak blows for some holy causes. Then one day I resigned from the organization in a letter that said my soul was no longer on sale for five Bagley Fat Bs; anyone who wanted to bribe me would have to come up with goods worth more than that! A dozen Fat Bs at least.

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      1. It WAS radical in the 1970s, Edith! I worked so hard to find ways of presenting women credibly as outdoor sportsfolks in my magazine. I once spent half a day trying to get a woman to write outdoor articles for us because she had been described to me as a fishing expert. When I mentioned that later to an old timer in the outdoor writer’s group, he laughed until he cried. “She was the camp whore at every one of our meetings,” he said. That lady wrote a fishing brochure that advised other women they didn’t have to sacrifice their femininity to go fishing; they could decorate their waders with flower decals.

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      2. When my grandma was raising my mom and my aunt, she’d regularly go out hunting pheasants after supper with her little .410 shotgun. My grandpa was an angler, but my grandma was a hunter.

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    2. You make us proud, Steve! Apropos of very little, the paralegal school I went to had a “student lounge” (really, a corporate-looking break room) completely decorated in cabin style with a certain brand of fishing lure on prominent display, including a giant one hanging from the ceiling. Turned out one of the attorneys who taught there had worked for the fishing lure company (IP cases, I think, but I don’t remember for sure), and every example he used in class seemed to be related in some way to his halcyon days in the sporting-equipment world.

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    4. I give you a lot of credit for being able to remain in that atmosphere for any length of time, free lures or no free lures. I would have lasted 10 minutes, tops, before I reached maximum aggravation capacity and got out of there. Of course, I probably never would have gotten in to begin with, what with my whole “being female” handicap and all, but you know what I mean.

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  7. Let’s hear it for the goats!! Just read this about goats working their magic on the other side of the world. Tried to attach the cute picture but it would not paste. “A project in Zimbabwe will provide 77 orphan families (approximately 385 children) with goats, training, support, and oversight to build their capacity to meet their own physical needs which include:
    Better nutritional levels
    The ability to pay for school fees
    The ability to care for their health and medical needs
    Healthier vegetable plots from manure”

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    1. Sounds similar to the Heifer program, Nan… I’m a fan of giving Heifer gifts. My daughters still wonder about the status of their chicken and duck flocks that they “received” more than 10 years ago. And somewhere out there is a hive of bees (complete with trained bee keepers) with my husband’s name on it… makes him smile to think about. I love hearing stories of programs like these!

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      1. mn firefly, wonderful family contributions. I need these stories as counterpoints to the political scene. trying to connect to topic—I don’t fit in to or anywhere near politics, except for voting.

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  9. Because of my job, I would draw very unwelcome attention to myself in any bar or lounge in my town. I would probably know many people in the bar who absolutely wouldn’t want to see me and who would probably leave if I or my husband walked in. It is also somewhat uncomfortable at times if I go into a liquor store and see someone who I know is not supposed to be drinking. I can’t say anything, of course, but they know that I know that they are breaking the stipulations of their parole or violating treatment rules.

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    1. Classic small town social embarrassment, Renee! I remember meeting my professors in the liquor store when I was an undergraduate. They didn’t want their drinking habit discussed, and I was under-aged, so it wasn’t a warm and easy thing to bump into them.

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    2. Those who choose to pretend its all oK as long as you don’t get caught are in for a rude awakening on a regular basis. You don’t need to feel uncomfortable , they do.

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  10. I don’t fit in at any large gathering of people where you are supposed to mingle and chat about stuff I don’t care about with people I either don’t know or don’t particularly like. And if you’re supposed to be dressed up? Forget it. Not only do I look awkward and uncomfortable, but I feel awkward and uncomfortable.

    There are many other places I don’t fit in, but a few times I have managed to be in the ladies’ room, just, you know, using the facilities and washing my hands, when several tall, stunningly attractive women are primping at the mirrors. I am short and nobody would describe me as stunningly attractive (even in my youth). It is very awkward to try to wedge my way to the sink to wash my hands amidst such glorious beings.

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    1. I got measured the other day at the doctors office and I told the burst I didn’t want to know what I had shrunken to. Get automatic response was well at least your not 5’1
      She didn’t seem short to me 5’1 never does but it sure drives those people crazy. I love looking at beautiful women but I have always felt a little sorry for them going through life with a stupid presupposed advantage bases on cheek bones and genetics, shallow ones take it for granted thoughtful ones realize thR travesty and deal from a place of resignation.
      Don’t let those big beauties get to you Edith they know it’s an odd measuring stick

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      2. Watching TV last night I suddenly thought I was seeing tim on the screen. It was actually Fish Jones, the famous early Twin Cities civic leader whose best buddy was a lion. He was a double for our tim.

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  11. Well, it depends on what is meant by ‘unwelcome.’ If I’m in a mood to be obnoxious, the -unwelcome- attention is usually saddled to people that are with me. In that case, it would be anywhere.

    Obnoxious or not, I’m a generator of unwelcome attention almost anywhere I go at my day job. It’s usually not personal, but no one really wants to have to talk to me or see me walk into their area.

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  12. WordPress is making me very unwelcome today. Could not get on her for two hours and now it’s dragging and my dashboard loads but does not take me anywhere.

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    1. I usually just sit in coach. You don’t need a dashboard to just read and comment. Or are you trying to post to your own blog?

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  13. OMG, I was sure that Dale had been photoshopping again, but it’s a real photo!

    Mostly I would be unwelcome anywhere within former neighbor’s eyesight. It made for some discomfort any time I drove out of the driveway or weeded in that flower bed, although I knew she couldn’t always be standing at her kitchen window… It was such a relief when they moved.

    I’m sure there are others, will think some more.

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    1. I knew if I read enough of these posts that one of them would cue a response. Add my name to the “unwelcome list” of neighborhood. That is if you can call a mansion on either side of my little cottage a “neighborhood”. They’ve at least waved at me when we’re out in our yards since my near-death illness two years ago, but that will likely cease once I install my Obama for 2012 yard signs!

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  14. I definitely gained some unwelcome attention at the strange little SDA church where my dad’s funeral was held. The congregants had obviously liked Dad a lot (the minister, on the other hand, excused himself from performing the funeral when it became clear he wasn’t getting any money from the will). For Dad’s sake, I’m sure, they tried to be nice to me and my weird friends, but from the squirrelly looks I kept wondering what he’d said about me! Well, if they’d expected the witch to catch fire upon entering the church, they were terribly disappointed 😀 . I’ve been followed around stores in Edina, and garnered quite a few stares the one time I ventured into a Victoria’s Secret…oh, and of course there was the time I went for pizza with the Klingons. Occasionally, as in the last case, I’m in the mood to “freak the mundanes,” but generally places I’d get stared at are boring and I avoid them in favor of my own Bohemian demimonde (sounds more glamorous when you say it like that, doesn’t it?).

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    1. We have quite a few Seventh Day Adventists in this area, and a surprising number of them are cattle ranchers, which I find odd given that the church advocates vegetarianism.

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  15. Driving my rusty station wagon into neighborhoods where wealth congregates. Some of the people I work for are pretty Wells Fargo Private, and I imagine the neighbors peeking through the shutters so they can describe me to the police if it turns out the place I’m working has been robbed.

    Before I had my current rusty station wagon, I had a different even-more-rusty station wagon with a malfunctioning door on the drivers’ side. For the last year or so of the car’s life, I had to climbing in and out of the passenger side. I got rather used to it, but it caught me by surprise when I was a guest at a wedding reception at some upscale restaurant, and they had valet parking.

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    2. Oh, yes! I forgot about the time I parked in the St. Louis Park Byerly’s lot, and a woman walked past my car and sniffed haughtily. As the bumper sticker says, “Sorry my car is a piece of crap, my parents [or husband] didn’t buy it for me.” Poor old Kuro-auto-sama is 16 years old, rust-spotted, with two broken bumpers and a cracked windshield, but she’s the best car EVER!

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      1. I know what you mean, cg. We’ve never had a new car, but some stand out in memory 🙂 When I was rear-ended a few years ago, I lost my Paul Wellstone bumper sticker, a sad day. The car soldiered on for a while, anonymously, till I traded it in for a little red one. Both were Japanese cars with Japanese names (like yours). Current car is Aka-tombo. Sounds like your venerable old car has earned her name the hard way, bruised but still rolling. Is she Japanese or do you just happen to speak the language?

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      2. Slightly OT, but speaking of things “bruised but still rolling” and things Japanese, here’s
        a song/poem for Jacque and PJ:

        Japanese Bowl
        By Peter Meyer

        I’m like one of those Japanese bowls
        That were made long ago
        I have some cracks in me
        They have been filled with gold

        That’s what they used back then
        When they had a bowl to mend
        They did not hide the cracks
        They made them shine instead

        So now every old scar shows
        From every time I broke
        And anyone’s eyes can see
        I’m not what I used to be

        But in a collector’s mind
        All of these jagged lines
        Make me more beautiful
        And worth a much higher price

        I’m like one of those Japanese bowls
        I was made long ago
        I have some cracks you can see
        See how they shine of gold

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      4. I believe it was Steve who did a guest post way back when on wabi sabi, but I can’t find it. If you’re there, Steve, what was the title? or any other identifying feature?

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        1. The first 2 or 3 weeks are the hardest, PJ, but you don’t have to be cheery or stoic, you just have to endure, and it will get better eventually. You are very brave, believe it! And you have lots of strange and funny friends to amuse and distract you for hours on end now that you’re a captive audience 🙂 I hope you don’t take this as totally insensitive, but I’ve been wondering if you and Jacque will be more ambidextrous by the time you’re healed? It’s late, try to sleep well. . .

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  16. Ooh-OT but exciting! Tomorrow we are going to butcher a pig. We get half the pig, but all the leaf lard! Think of the pie crusts!

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      1. I will have to wait a week for lard to render, since we won’t be butchering now until next weekend. I told my very elderly parents about the pig, and they are so tickled. They haven’t butchered a hog since they were teenagers in the depression.

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  17. Yes, I stick out like a sore thumb in my own family. I’m the only liberal in a solid bunch of card-carrying Republicans. Things have been a little tense lately too because it’s getting harder for me to hold my tongue as I age.

    The other place where I draw unwelcome attention is at work. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s me and the ten men out here. They’re exactly the types Steve described in his post. Of course they would be – they pursued careers in natural resources, biology and zoology. They spend their weekends going hunting or fishing. I’ve overheard them complain about women trying to compete with them for jobs. They open about women not belonging in Fisheries. They really have a hard time understanding a folk musician who helps put on music festivals in her spare time. They’ve even asked me, “What IS folk music?” It’s all rock and roll to them. I’m an anomaly.

    That’s the other thing about biologists. They are trained from the beginning to classify everything. Everything has its own little niche and behave in just the correct way. If a creature steps out of that niche, it’s an anomaly. They’re never sure how to deal with me because I’m supposed to be one thing but I often behave in ways that they don’t expect. Like thinking. I’m in the habit of thinking and they just don’t understand that at all.

    I loved “there simply was no ruminant,” Dale. Wonderful!

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    1. As a fellow liberal, I feel your pain, Krista. With the exception of JFK, my father has had nothing good to say about a Democrat as far back as I can remember. Makes for some really delightful conversation in election years like this one, because, unlike you, I don’t even attempt to hold my tongue. :p

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      1. My father was your father’s psychic twin, wtf. We just finally avoided all political discourse.

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    2. As difficult as it can be at times, Krista, maybe you can celebrate the fact that you have a purpose for being there…That being to keep their comfort zones from becoming black holes and swallowing themselves up completely. Think how much worse they’d be without you there to give them a different perspective and point of view. 🙂

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  18. Sorry, I’m new here, and therefore not yet at the proper clearance/authority level to address the topic of goats. Other than the peripheral matter of goat cheese, of which I am inordinately fond, I should probably refrain from commenting on that subject just now.

    As for the whole being out of place by being yourself thing, a couple of examples come to mind immediately. I was the first in my Catholic (and I’m talking hard-core, New York Italian Catholic) family to reject the idea of getting confirmed. I argued that this was a sacrament that ought to be taken seriously, since it represents the moment when a Catholic makes the decision, as an “adult”, to commit to the Church. Now, to a lot of my friends, it was a chance to pick a confirmation name, have a party thrown in your honor, and make some sweeeet cash from relatives and family friends. I just didn’t see the sense in committing myself to any one faith when I had never even learned about any others outside of Catholicism. When I explained this to my folks, there was a little calm before the storm, where all I saw was a look of complete disconnect on their faces, like they were struggling to figure out how they’d missed the whole episode where aliens abducted their first-born and left a heathen replicant in her place. Then the calm ended and the storm came, and I was persona non grata in my family for a good year or so after that episode. I was also sent off to Catholic high school, after having been in public school my whole life, and thereupon began Part 2 of my “being out of place among the Catholics” thing.

    In more recent days, I am feeling that weird feeling of not fitting in when I go to concerts. I love music and still try to see bands live when I can. But if I make the mistake of looking around at the rest of the audience, I have to experience that moment of clarity that comes with the realization that I could be their mom. Normally it doesn’t fluster me much if I’m at a seated event, but if I’m on the floor and end up down in front by the stage, I do get a look or two. I suppose peri-menopausal women aren’t supposed to get in the pit at a Flaming Lips show, but, you know, whatevs.

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    1. Yeah, I can relate to the live music thing – Blitzen Trapper at the Turf Club a couple of years ago…

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    3. Maybe they’re looking at you and saying “Dude… look at her! She’s awesome!”… That’s what I tell myself anyway! 😉

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    4. Besides, Chris… I think any fan of the Flaming Lips (of which I am one) views fellow fans in high regard. Mosh on!

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      1. Yeah, last time I saw the FLips, I got a few looks and then the confetti started raining and the animals started dancing and all was well. Even got a frat boy-lookin’ sorta dude to get some pics on my phone for me. I was too short. Still am, actually! 🙂

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      2. Too bad you couldn’t get that frat boy to hoist you up on his shoulders so you’d catch a better view, Chris… Can you imagine the looks then? heehee

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      1. Steve – nice post you had there! Never knew what I missed by not going to all those classes. Apparently, not much! 🙂 Jeez, I need to start getting more into the archives here…maybe I can get some free time over the weekend. Seems to be a lot of great posts on this blog, but it’s gonna take me a while to catch up!

        And a little PS to my tale: 5 years after I said ixnay on the onfirmationcay, my mom started doubting the Church. She wasn’t cool on the whole anti-gay marriage thing, since she knew a gay couple and liked them a lot. Eventually, a while later, she left and started attending an Episcopalian church instead. It was hard to be at odds with her about religion for so long. Now she kinda gets it. 🙂

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        1. DubTF, welcome! I’m pretty new here, too. It is a pretty amazing bunch of baboons. While you are catching up on older posts, be sure to check out the glossary. It explains some things and gives a good overall flavor for the place.

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    7. Barbara – From what I recall, I was 14. There are different age norms for confirmation depending on the diocese, and I’ve heard of some that ask the kids to do this at an even younger age, which always seems ridiculous to me. But the norm is probably around 13, like a bar/bat mitzvah. Only, without the chopped liver spread at the party afterwards.

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  19. OT: Any Babooners fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of the spectacular northern lights last night? They put on quite a show.

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      1. I’m in southern MN, BiR… I went out about 12:30am and enjoyed a great display for an entire hour (till the wind & cold got the better of me). They looked much like the video I posted (below) from near St Cloud. Rumor has it they may be out again tonight!

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  20. I was a member for several years of an all women’s rotary group. I was pretty sure that at some point they would notice I was not “one of them” – did not buy my clothes at Talbot’s or boutique stores, did not play golf, did not live in a “nice” part of town…you get the idea. I felt a bit like an impostor, though these women would have been too polite to make me feel unwelcome, impostor or not. Still, I kept waiting to be “found out” (especially the year I was treasurer for the group – was sure they would figure out then I was not really a “responsible adult,” I just did a good fake…)

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      3. I missed that, too. People are usually incredulous that I don’t especially want to visit Florida and you’re not doing much to talk me out of my biased overgeneralized stereotype of your great state. 🙂 I think it has to do with a visceral distaste for BIG bugs and poisonous snakes and sweaty crowds and a redhead’s natural aversion to too much sun. Give me a reason to come 🙂

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    2. I feel as though I were in Florida today. I am in North Dakota, WTF, and today it was 68 degrees, which is pretty unheard of up here in March.

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    3. Hey Robin! I do love living in Florida, even with the hurricanes, etc. I probably couldn’t convince you to vacation here if you aren’t much for the sun, since being outside near the ocean on a bright, shiny day is one of the absolute greatest things ever about being here. But the Keys are an awesome place to hang if you want to have some chill-time, some shopping, some excellent food, some cool local history (Pirates! Hemingway! Jimmy Buffet!) and lots of diverse, very interesting people. Also, rum. Book now, operators are standing by! 🙂

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      1. Ahhhhh, . . . the Keys! I thought they had seceded from Florida 🙂 I think I might have to rethink this whole bias of mine. Seafood AND pirates are an irresistible combo.

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  22. Yup, I’m in South Florida, and nope, I hadn’t mentioned it before. Born in NY but my folks moved down here when I was almost 3. Guess they didn’t want to wait until retirement…

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  23. Looooong story about being unwelcome. I’m not good at condensing but I’ll try.
    I told son #1 (M) about plans to take son #2 (T) for a vacation but wasn’t sure where to go. M said, why don’t you come to cottage-in-Canada. CiC has been in wasband’s family since 1910. I hadn’t been there since we became wases in 1985. M and his wife (C) were going to be up there on their own and T hadn’t been for a few years due to health issues. I thought this sounded great and immediately made plane reservations. About a week before the trip, M decided that it would only be fair to let his dad know that I would be coming.

    His dad and Impossible-Controlling-Girlfriend took a few days and then informed M that they had a new rule: no exes at the cottage. Since ICG’s ex had no relationship to the CiC, this new rule could only apply to me. They were not going to BE at the CiC they just didn’t want my cooties there. In fact, I was not to set foot on the property or even in the town!

    When M pointed out that I had already bought tickets, wasband responded that we were making HIM be the bad guy. But, he had a solution. T and I could rendez-vous with M and C an hour and a half away from the CiC. We would transfer luggage and T would accompany them to CiC. I would stay at a motel an hour and a half away (a safe distance to guarantee that I wouldn’t set foot). After the visit the process would be reversed and T and I would head home. Jaws dropped at the idea.

    M and I are such rule followers that we did follow the letter of the law. I did not set foot on the property but I DID get a motel IN the town, not 90 miles away. We made a silk purse out of a cow’s ear and had a good time.

    That’s where I would not and will not ever be welcome. Wasband and ICG are incredible and I’m very sad for my sons that they have to deal with them and can’t have a normal relationship with their dad.

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    1. Admirable condensation, Lisa – with the initials, I feel like I know your whole family now. 🙂
      Hats off to you for managing to have a good time! I’m afraid I would have been so angry…

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    3. I would not have been able to resist standing on the property edge and sliding one toe over the line. Very glad you had a good time. like he could get the sheriff to escort you out of the town

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      1. I had planned to put a hand on the property but never got around to it. After we had had a meal in the town, my DIL needed to grab a sweater. She was driving and she drove right in the driveway and up to the house. So I was hovering over the property (and I got to see it)
        It was all totally absurd. Just about ANYONE else would have said, the heck with it, they’ll never know, just ignore their “rules”. And me with the major conscience and no rebellious streak.
        One nice side benefit, the motel had llamas so I got to enjoy them. And the kids took me to a very nice resort for a surprise pre-major-birthday dinner.

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      2. I’m with you, Nan. I don’t think I could have resisted taking off my shoe and stick the toe over the line!

        But I do admire you, Lisa, for showing such great strength and composure under such ridiciulous circumstances!

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    4. First, this was a great comment and I have such empathy for you and the situation in which you found yourself. Sounds like you did an excellent job of handling it, and I doubt I’d have been so diplomatic! Second, “Wasband” is an awesome, awesome word. 🙂

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  24. wtf as for no knowing goats …. you went to catholic high school? nuns? same thing as goats. italian catholic family? same thing but a little less hair. other than the hair and the habit i think they are almost exactly the same.

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    1. the goats resemble that remark, tim. especially the nun part. the goats believe in Goat, but i suppose it is a bit like other religions because mine think their Goat is Alpine – no other breed is the chosen – and certainly not Nubian or La Mancha.

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    2. Hmm, I always kinda thought of the nuns more as sheep. And as for my family having “a little less hair” than goats, you would think so…but not so much. My Uncle Lou? If he didn’t walk upright he’d be in a petting zoo by now.

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  25. Evening.
    I drove to Chicago today to pick up my son and some friends. (spring break) So I was out of place in my pink John Deere hat — except nobody cared.

    Hoping to see the the northern lights tonight. I looked last night but the moon was too bright I thought.

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    1. Let your eyes adjust, Ben… I had to sit out there for 10-15 minutes last night before they became apparent to me. I hear they won’t be as strong tonight but, hopefully, you’ll catch a glimpse.

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  26. The down side of growing up in post war Japan for a shy kid with red hair was lots of unwanted attention and scrutiny. Nothing, and I mean nothing, went unnoticed and unremarked. Not that I did much worth noticing, but it’s the knowing that you’re always visible that can be unbearable. Kids would always be crowding around, touching me, my hair. Would have given my right arm for long shiny black hair 🙂 It wouldn’t bother me now, but most children want to fit in, don’t they?

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    1. Robin, where in JApan did you grow up? I was born in post-war Japan but leaving at 9 months of age I have no idea how folks responded to my blonde baby curls.

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      1. We lived in Kyoto from 1949-1969. You would have been fussed over and adored 🙂 You would have been kawaii (adorable) and kashikoi (clever/smart) as all babies are everywhere 🙂

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  27. Greetings! Wow — lots of interesting posts and new folks coming out to visit. I usually make a point of trying to fit in wherever I am. But if I’m feeling feisty, I would stick out like a sore thumb in a group of conservative Republican, Tea Bagger Party types because they drive me crazy with their small thinking and self-righteous judgements.

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