The cows were ignoring us. All we got to see were their butt-ends. Not the part of the cow I was interested in. It was quite frustrating, until a lovely Jersey caught a glimpse of me as she licked her own back. She ambled over and nuzzled my purple floral t-shirt. She thought I as a bunch of flowers! God, it was great. She let us pet her and scratch behind her ears. What a people-cow she was. I swear, it was meditative just watching that cow. And I got cow drool on me and I smelled like her.

Heaven, I tell ya. Just heaven.

The fair was nice. Perfect weather. Nice animals (though not nearly enough for my taste). Too much food, though I only ate a corndog and some peanut butter fudge. Plus we walked for five hours, including the one-mile plus from the car to the entrance gate. I was sore, tired and cranky by the time we got home.

When we got home, there was an answering machine message from my mother (what a pip she is). She needed breakfast cereal. Urgently. I don't know what time she called, but she did lie and say she had tried to reach me the day before, but "couldn't". Don't know how she failed, because I was home all day long and the phone didn't ring... At any rate, I wasn't going to go out to buy her emergency cornflakes at nearly 9 p.m. on a Sunday night. The next message was from my sick with the stomach flu brother. He was pissed because our mother had called him with her frantic request too. He was doubly mad, because just two days ago, he had asked her if she needed anything from the store when he was bringing her back from the doctor's office. She said she was set. And that was two days after I had gone to the store and purchased her groceries (from her list) that didn't include any mention of cereal... So my brother's message was loud and cranky. A third message followed from my brother again. He said he had conned his daughter into driving to the store and then to our mother's house (two cities away, mind you) with her box of cocoa puffs or whatever it was that she needed.

I never called our mother back last night. I was too cranky. I was cranky because she does this all the time. She would have me drive to the store for her three or four times a week. For things like "emergency pudding" or "life-depends-upon-it orange juice". I normally buy twice the stuff she asks for, and things she doesn't put on her list to avoid a lot of that. And I know her world is very narrow. To the point that her smallest need becomes an obsession. But she drives me freakin' nuts sometimes. It's as if her children weren't put on this earth for any other reason than to step 'n fetchit for her. I was especially cranky last evening because part of her message to me was about needing to be able to reach me whenever she needed me and that we had to work out something so she could always find me. Okay. If she had broken hip, that would have been important. A box of fucking cereal? Not so much.

Concentrate on the cow..... The cow....... You are feeling relaxed and content - like the cow.........

September 20, 2004