More Adventures in Paradise...

It's official. I have now graduated from princess to she-woman, wrangler of burros. There I was, standing at the fence as Loretta and Ellie went in to feed some hay to Dream, the horse and Jenny, the burro. Ellie was trying to wield the wheel barrow without letting Jenny out, so I helped her in and jumped back into the gap that stood between that burro and the wonderful and tempting great beyond. (Now to get the full mental picture here, you must know that I was dressed for an outing - taking Belinda to the airport - and was wearing a flowy long skirt and sparkly flip flops.) As I stood in said gap and reached for the gate, Jenny just kept on comin' out. Loretta and Ellie were yelling at Jenny and when Reni saw the commotion, she took off running towards me. I thought blocking the gate would be enough, but that burro was not in the least bit intimidated by me. So I grabbed her around the neck and dug my feet into the ground. She stopped and there we were - she was leaning hard to get out and I was leaning hard in the opposite direction. As the thought flashed through my mind that I must be crazy to think that I could out-shove a donkey, Jenny's hind-quarters rotated around. I still had both arms around her neck but felt at even more of a disadvantage because now I had to pull. I remember looking up and making eye contact with Loretta and thinking "what on earth am I supposed to do here - pull this crazy animal by brute force into her pen?" I must have gotten my answer from her face somehow because I pulled and heaved and that burrow went in the gate! Loretta gave a mighty shout and said "you finally cow-girled up!" And then everyone howled with laughter. I slapped the dust off my hands on my pretty green skirt, and as I looked down at my sparkly flip flops... a bee stung me on the butt! I'm telling you - these bees have it in for me. It's one thing if I had sat on it - even I couldn't blame the bee then - or leaned against it, or had been flapping around the yard like a chicken. But I wasn't. I was calmly standing still, minding my own business. What is that about? Reni and Lauren each tried to shake my skirt just in case it stung from within my clothes and not from without (is this sounding familiar yet?) while I hopped around saying "owww, owww, owww..." After being doctored up (I'll spare you the embarassing details) we took off for the airport. I think I may have gone down a bit from the lofty height I had gained on the toughness scale when, for the rest of the evening, I whined and whimpered every time I sat down or slid off the truck seat. And just for good measure, I throw out "my butt hurts" to the room at large... just to make sure that no one forgets... What can I say? I'm a work in progress.