Life’s Too Short for Bad Cuts of Meat

    I was standing in below freezing weather (below zero if you’re Canadian) in an eight foot hole, slightly larger than the basement of my almost-ready-to-be-built house yesterday afternoon.  Well, I guess it was more like early evening, this whole daylight savings a month early is screwing with my system.  Nearly as much as the plague that won’t go away that makes me sound like Satan.  

    Anyway.  I was standing in this hole, that will eventually be a basement, talking with two sub-contractors and Kevin.  Our subs were rapidly consuming a 12 pack of Kokanee (a local version of Milwaukee’s Best, but is slightly better, because there is a hidden Sasquatch on a mountain on the Kokanee can) and telling old stories about the area.  One of them, owns his own Outfitting business, and raises horses.  The other likes to eat horses. 

    No lies.  I promise.  I’m not even stretching the truth on this one.  It was brought up that the prices of mules were way down, so maybe he should try eating mule.  This was emphatically denied as even a possibility, as nothing could touch horsemeat, and cheap mule was probly ‘old and tough anyway’.  

    The good news, is I found out we can build a horse pasture, and hopefully get a couple of free horses.  The bad news, I was forced to drink a can of really cheap beer.  

The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far From the Tree

My mother, is nearing seventy, and is defiantly not a little old lady. I hope I look exactly like her at seventy, because really, she looks fifty. And acts like it. I was feeling like I should give her a call today, so phone her I did. Only to find out that she and my father had invited their priest over for dinner and my ever-precious mom tried to bribe him with pie. Now guaranteed, she is famous for her lemon meringue, but still she’s bribing a priest here. I asked if she tried for an indulgence, but the humor seemed to be lost on her.

In her defense, it wasn’t a specific bribe, just “will you do anything I ask you to for more pie” type of bribe. So, not only is my mother bribing old men to do her bidding, my parent’s priest is addicted to lemon meringue pie like heroin. I figure there are worse things in life. Like building your own house.My boyfriend, Kevin, (I’ll give you his name, because I’m sure he’ll pop up now and again as he is really the only person I see on a daily basis other than my sasquatch-esqe neighbor) and I are building a house, well, we’re not actually building it yet, but, we’re trying to research the idea and schedule it to be built. And it’s a damn nightmare. Expenses these days. I actually sat down and talked to a guy who is licensed by the state to pour and mold concrete (for foundations and such) who, admittedly said, “I have a great excavator, I go in and pour my concrete and watch it dry. I’ll give you his name if you want to hire him too”. So, in my terms of thinking, this guy just said he doesn’t do anything except watch concrete dry, and I could pay his excavator to do some outstanding work. Which in lieu of a cheaper concrete bill, I’d gladly do. Too bad the concrete bill was going to be $36,000. No wonder houses cost so much. I really think this guy was as lazy as some people I know (pointedly me), and I know if I didn’t really feel like doing something, I’d quote a million dollars for a job, and hey, if someone said yes, I’d get a million dollars. And I’d sure like to have a million dollars. To build my house.I haven’t really dealt with any of the other contractors though. There’s really a lot to consider when building a house. You need a well guy, a septic guy, a drywaller, an excavator etc. etc. and Kevin has been dealing with all of that. I help when I can, but when it comes down to it, I don’t know my arse from a hold in the ground when it comes to home construction. So, I try to comfort him after a day on the phone and say, do you want me to bake you a pie?

My Flannel’s Sexy

Looking back on today, well not today really, but the last year, I’ve finally decided to wonder what Montana men find attractive in women. Well, not Montana men, but Western Montana men. Before I get into what I’ve deduced and how, I’ll start at the beginning. The beginning being, how I decided to wonder in the first place. If anyone has ever built a house, or even thought about building a house, you will understand completely. By me saying, it’s stupidly expensive, I mean STUPID. The astronomical amounts roughly coincide with attempting to actually convey how much a million dollars is to a four year old. Meaning impossible. Impossible situations tend to bring about strange turns of events, such as me attempting to be ‘sexy’ looking to contractors so they get the feeling that being on the job equates to the between rounds bikini girl at a boxing match. Making me the bikini girl. Which really makes me laugh, because the last time I attempted to be sexy, it involved a lot of polyester and beer. And maybe a little whiskey. And by a little, I mean a lot.

Which brings me around to what men in the construction business/state licensing reps find sexy.

Day One: The assumption that flannel is sexy. And not just flannel my friends, I mean flannel burkah. I mean, if I had a son, he would have said “Is that the monster under my bed, or my mommy?” I actually tried to find my boobs that day, and I had about as much success as a fifteen year old blind virgin. Oddly enough, I got some good information. Even some good pricing schemes. Concrete guys think my flannel’s sexy.

Day Two: The Health Department. Low cut V-neck sweaters and ripped jeans with long johns underneath. The I know where my boobs are, and even though my ass has busted through my jeans, I refuse to by new ones look. Works for the health department men. I didn’t have the correct information, but somehow, they figured out how to give me what I needed.

Day Three: The Building Department. Look at me, it’s twenty degrees and I don’t mind because I’m Daisy Freakin Duke. Really, talk the talk, and walk the walk, and say “I’m your Huckleberry” (Because there isn’t a person alive that doesn’t like Tombstone) and they’re putty in your hands.

All of this is well and good, but in the end, the cards are played and it’s time to face the music. I’ve got fifteen people at a potential building site and I didn’t use a ‘sexy’ control group. Mythbuster’s would be so disappointed.

So, the end result really has to be, the conglomeration of all of the above. Boots, cut off shorts, flannel shirt and a large flannel hat that covers your whole face as well. I haven’t completed the operation yet. I’ll let everyone know how it goes.