Confession: rodeo was a blast. Admittedly, praying to God beforehand was strange, and the announcer’s insistence on supporting the troops grew old. (Are 2007’s last-place finishers in Baghdad right now?) But by and large I found myself riveted.

Best of all were the Indian relay races:

…in which half-naked Native Americans ride bareback, change horses three times and race in a full gallop to the finish line. Yes: the cowboys wrestle farm animals, while the Indians perform stunning feats of athleticism. Hmm. Methinks if it weren’t for those smallpox blankets, the west couldn’t possibly have been ”won.”

The roping events were entertaining, too, if not entirely PETA-friendly. I doubt that group even bothers with membership drives between the east and west coasts. Telling a rancher his family business isn’t “nice” means you’re willing to spray paint future animal-rights messages from your wheelchair–after the nice rancher snaps your nice little neck.

The barrel races were great fun: mainly because the chicks kept knocking the barrels over and I amused myself by pretending they would cry about it later on in the stables, then comfort each other at a big pajama party, complete with curlers and pillow fights. Even now, I’m convinced that’s exactly what went down after the klieg lights cut out.

All things considered, the rodeo was fantastic until the bull riders came out. And kept falling off the damn bulls.

Now, you won’t catch me going near a bull for any percentage of eight seconds. But, see, I’m not a bull-rider. As the capper of the evening, their performances left me deflated. Only two managed to stay on for the full eight seconds.

Perhaps the rest of them should join the war effort.  Or crash the pajama party. Or pray to God for better luck next time.

Or wrap themselves up in blankets they get as gifts from the Indians.

Me, I’ll be up in the stands again next year. Wishing I was a chiropractor.

First off, a shameless plug for the Big Horn Mountain Festival, which I attended with the man this past weekend in Buffalo, WY. It’s always more fun to tear down than build up (as any construction worker can attest) but I have nothing bad to say about this outdoor festival. And I wouldn’t consider myself an afficionado, either. I always thought bluegrass was a kissing cousin to country music (or, as they say in Appalachia: Mommy and Daddy).

Which brings me to my quandry du jour: what the heck is the difference between bluegrass and country music, anyway? Judging by the audiences at the two events I attended this weekend, it’s the difference between mushrooms and Coors.

Country music blared from the speakers at the rodeo, both before and after the group prayer. Later on, the announcer strongly suggested we stand in our seats “if we support the troops.” While I was thinking on that one (eeney, meanie, miney, mo….) the man dragged me up by the elbow. Apparently, he was in no mood to see his fiance lynched by a blindly patriotic crowd. Good call. If I remain alive through rodeo weekend, I can cancel at least one redneck vote, come November.

The audience at the bluegrass festival was pretty much at the opposite end of the spectrum. People were drinking, sure, but the little kids were barefoot and their moms wore braids and straw hats and didn’t shave their legs. They were as close to hippies as you see in rural Wyoming. Of course there were Obama stickers on the cars in the parking lot.

So who decided that country music went to McCain, and bluegrass to Obama? Why are Republicans rodeo folk, while bluegrass music goes to the peace-and-loving Democrats? All I know is that people danced and sang along to “Trailer Park Fire” at the music festival, while the other end of the spectrum ostensibly went home to set theirs ablaze after the rodeo.

I enjoyed stopping by both camps this weekend, and I was even more pleased to fall asleep without either Coors or mushrooms (or corn dogs, natch) in my system. In a house. With a foundation. And just enough of a sunburn to remind me that, on occasion, there are genuine good times to be had outside of its walls.

The phone number is the same in both ads! 

I guess that reward must’ve really been something special, since the guy obviously wanted to keep it himself….

According to the local bulletin board, one of my neighbors is selling natural phenomena. Footlong rainbows, delivered!

I suppose he could be talking about trout, but I prefer my original explanation. I wonder if the length of the rainbow you order will be a complete arc, or if you can purchase a portion of one, or just the colors that appeal to you….

I was tempted to go even further with my critique, and dub “Tru Colors” the worst hair salon in the universe, but then I realized that there might possibly be a more despicable experience to be had on Mars. I mean, in addition to cringe-worthy “customer service,” on the Red Planet, you wouldn’t have access to sufficient oxygen, either. It’s pretty dusty there, too, which is never good for my tresses. And by the time you got back from your million mile plus journey, you’d need to schedule another trim, pronto. So I’m sticking to “worst in Wyo.” 

The horror, the horror: I went to a new ”stylist” because my everyday diva was booked up and I had a conflict with the appointment I’d made in advance. Never again. Next time I will take the scissors straight to my own jugular rather than let a strange chick at my head.

In addition to a long list of minor offenses, starting off with dirty floor and moving along to crappy shampoo job, here’s the worst: this dumb broad answered her cell phone TWICE while I was in her chair, then she attempted to CUT MY HAIR WITH THE PHONE UNDER HER CHIN.

I know Sheridan doesn’t have a branch of Devachan, but neither is it located on the dark side of the moon. Silly me, expecting common courtesy from a stranger.

I’ll be the one in pigtails and baseball caps ’til my diva’s schedule clears in August….

Anyone who’s been to my house can vet for my love of shoes. More specifically, boots. And even more specifically, platform boots. I’m talking sky high. The kind that are virtually impossible to walk in. With square toes and chunky heels and real leather, of course. In platform boots, petite sized jeans actually fit me. 

So you can imagine my initial excitement when I came across a hand-lettered sign on a storefront this morning: GIANT SHOE SALE DOWNSTAIRS.

On second thought, I found it strange. The store sold office supplies. And it only has one level. I’ve never so much as laid eyes on a staircase in that particular establishment (and there are, by my count, exactly 4 elevators in Sheridan County). Where, then, would one have to go to find these so-called sale shoes?

Down into the basement, of course, where the creepy shoe killer would be waiting.

Granted, my imagination tends to run to the extreme. Every time I see a flatbed truck on the highway loaded up with long pipes I’m convinced that I’m going to get impaled. Right through the windshield. Straight through my heart. I absolutely refuse to drive behind a loaded flatbed truck. 

I can’t sleep with a closet door open in my bedroom. I won’t go anywhere near a parking garage at night. And pretty much every time I exit a store, I check beneath my car for a man attempting to slash my achilles tendon.  (Especially when I’m leaving the Y. One never knows about the effects of steroids on third-generation ranch hands.) With such a susceptible mind as mine, it’s a good thing I don’t watch as many political documentaries as I do horror flicks, or I might have to go out and, uh, protest something.

Speaking of movies, this weekend I watched two biopics in which the female secondary characters were so naive about what their boyfriends were up to that I found myself thinking they were “asking for it.” These are the sterotypical chicks who run upstairs instead of the hell out the front door while the killer is after them with a meat cleaver. Just asking to be cheated on, or chopped into bits!

 Sometimes, though, I genuinely believe that naivete would be preferable to paranoia. It’s never so much fun to meet a new person and watch his eyes flick, just a second, on his infant daughter and be convinced that he’s molesting her. Of course, it’s better than asking him to babysit.

It’s easy, too, to wish for a sunny worldview when I’m alive, achilles intact, and safe from closet monsters… Easier yet to attempt a few steps in platform boots without a gigantic pipe sticking out of my chest.

I thought the scent emanated from some kind of high desert flower, since the first time I smelled it, I was in Taos, NM. Last week, however, the buttery spring goodness wafted to me from the site of a future daycare center in Sheridan, WY.

I want to say it’s sweetgrass, or sweet clover, but every time I try to identify the source, all I see is “plants.” I am far from a botanist, folks.

A year from now, that site will probably smell like used diapers. For now, though, whatever-it-is brings to mind sunshine and mountain biking and my first novel, which stinks, too, but in its own special way. 

I feel lucky to be able to smell nature at all. The mid-June aromas of NYC (aka rotting trash) can’t hold a nostril to country living. Which is, of course, why successful city dwellers have country estates. Never having achieved that level of success, I smelled a lot of rotting trash throughout seven summers in Brooklyn.

It’s nice to be able to appreciate weeds, if that’s what they are, while I’m stuck behind a desk. Today I came into the office despite my best intentions and my nose was given a gift. The rest of my senses may be dulled while I answer phones for eight hours, but my sense of smell is giving me high-fives.

You never know where the gifts will come from.

I could certainly choose to see everything in my life that way…

…or I could figure out what that smell is coming from, so I can dig the damn plant up and bring it home to enjoy all day long. And let the office phone ring and ring and ring….

Little Sheridan, WY struck a major blow at the capital of France this week, when the city council approved two sidewalk tables for the Rib & Chop House. Despite the objection raised by one longstanding member of the council, that allowing two tables might very well open the “pandora’s box” of outdoor dining, the mayor stood his ground. Any Sheridan residents who want to join in the patriotic effort to enjoy their meals out-of-doors can (not really) expect a significant tax break on jumbo sized servings of freedom fries.

After all, we may want to eat where the Parisians do, but we certainly don’t want to make do with those lousy stick-figure portions.

I dream of a world in which more local restaurants open their doors…and drag their tables through them…and weight them down… and maybe even fork out for seat cushions. In fact, the scope of my dream is so broad that it includes Sheridan serving food I want to eat, because it tastes yummy, not just because I’m starving and live 25 miles from my own kitchen.

It will be a long time before anyone sells fresh croissants in the wild west, let alone learns how to pronounce them. But it’s nice to know that France got taken down a notch this week. Wyoming, too, can linger over sparkling water and regional entrees (translation: dead cows smothered in bbq sauce).

Take that, Sarkozy!

According to Chapter Nineteen of my small Wyoming town’s Municipal Code, “It is unlawful for any person to annoy, harrass, frighten, chase, tease, annoy, torment, goad or throw missiles at, or otherwise irritate in any manner whatsoever any city park animals.”

Ahm… ‘throw missles at’?

I suppose bows-and-arrows and slingshots and poison darts and rocket launchers are all prohibited, then. Durn it. I was seriously looking forward to taking potshots at overzealous squirrels. “Try and eat that nut, punk!”

Even more bizarre is the second “annoy.” Because one warning wasn’t enough?

This being the wild west, we have a handful of elk and buffalo in our city park. Fenced-in, of course, since any big game left free to roam might chomp a missle right out of any juvenile delinquent’s shaking mitts. Leaving a kid with bloody stumps and the elk with a bellyache. Which would be annoying.

How sad that we have to write laws to say “caged animals are defenseless.” I know there’s not a ton of excitement in this part of the country, but when goading the buffalo is the highlight of your night, I feel compelled to recommend Netflix. Or good old-fashioned hallucinogens.

Play fair, folks: don’t bother anything trapped behind a fence. Eat your mushrooms in the park if you want, but leave the furry creatures be.  

You know it’s rural America when the local bulletin board advertises a free goat: