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Bandera County Courier is published weekly by Gail S. Joiner, 1210 Hackberry St., Bandera, TX 78003. Subscription price $26 per year in Bandera County, TX; $36 per year for other Texas counties; $40 per year out of Texas. POSTMASTER: send address changes to Bandera County Courier, P.O. Box 1704, Bandera, TX 78003. Periodicals Postage pending in Bandera, Texas.

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News from the headwaters in Medina

    Medina About Town
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Medina Mikie's columns in the on-line edition of the Courier:

Medina articles are on this link	Medina Mikie columns from 2007
Critters Rule	Published April 3, 2008
Wearing of the Green Skies	Published March 27, 2008
No Longer in Charge	Published March 20, 2008
Elderly women gardening	Published March 13, 2008
Living with a familiar stranger	Published March 6, 2008
Birds, hogs and bucks	Published Feb. 28, 2008
Color my world	Published Feb. 21, 2008
Not your regular Bubba	Published Feb. 14, 2008
Spring Break for Old People	Published Feb. 7, 2008
I’ve been malled!	Published Jan. 31, 2008
Lost in translation	Published Jan. 24, 2008
Big bouquet of roses	Published Jan. 17, 2008
Hats off to big hair	Published Jan. 10, 2008
I can see clearly now	Published Jan. 3, 2008

News from the headwaters in Medina Critters Rule by Mikie Baker Published April 3, 2008    Before God created Adam and Eve, He created critters. Birds, bees, bugs and things that slither. Because He gave the human race more advanced brains, I think He expected us to be intelligent enough to live with the critters in harmony. But I fear that they’re really outsmarting us.      When I was a child, about the only critters that fascinated me were doodle bugs. I thought it was neat when they rolled up in little balls. I loved doodle bugs so much that, at a very young age, I decided to gather a whole passel of them and save them by putting them on the top of the cottage cheese container in the fridge. Needless to say, Dearly Demented Mom was not pleased when she opened to fridge to find doodle bugs crawling everywhere.      The Teenage Eating Machine, being male, has always had a thing for lizards and turtles. He loves to catch a poor unsuspecting lizard, watch his tail fall off and then wear the lizard as an earring hanging from his left ear lobe. Makes me scream every time.      He still has a love of turtles, though I don’t know why. When TEM was about three and a half, we lived in the Big City where critters were rare. As I was taking him to school one morning, we saw a large turtle in the middle of the road. I made a quick U-turn and scooped the big old tortoise up, we dashed home for a shoebox and then I zipped him off to day care with his new found treasure. I was certain I was the coolest mom in North America.      That afternoon when I went to pick TEM up, he met me with no turtle box, only a large bandage on his index finger. Then his teacher marched up and demanded to know why I would send a baby to school with a snapping turtle. I said, “I thought only husbands snapped.”      Years later, we had yet another turtle incident. When we moved here, the Teenage Eating Machine was delighted with the fact that there were critters far and wide. One glorious day, he found a rather big turtle and dragged it into the house. My only question was, “Does it snap?” – to which he replied, “Doesn’t matter. My fingers are a lot bigger now.”      After I was assured of his safety, I said he could keep the turtle for one night only, but the next morning he needed to release it back into the wild. He agreed. Of course, being the king of Stupid Boy Thinking, the next morning he took the turtle out of the box so it could wander around a bit. When TEM got busy and lost site of the turtle, we searched the house high and low but to no avail. It’s been two years and we’ve still never found that turtle. I image one of these days a whole family of turtles will come marching out of one of my dirty closets.      But the best critter story I’ve heard of late comes from Really Nice Guy. He’s a transplanted Midwestern family man that my gang likes just because he’s a “really nice guy.” Anyway, he grew up as a kid whose fascination of critters was so great, his college major was biology. And you know what that means. You gotta cut up critters.      Seems one of his class assignments was to find a critter that he could preserve through the use of cotton balls and a sharp scalpel. RNG’s professor reminded the students to find a small critter rather than something large – for example, a cow.      Really Nice Guy thought the world might be better off with a few less bats, plus they were fairly small so they wouldn’t require so many cotton balls. Problem was, he couldn’t think of a way to give them a humane ending, so to speak. Really Nice Guy decided to put the dozen bats he’d collected in a plastic bag and stick it in the refrigerator. RNG figured they’d smother to death by the next morning.      But critters are smarter than us. Of course, being male, Really Nice Guy forgot about the bats in the fridge. Men don’t go to their refrigerators as often as we women to. When his betrothed came over the next evening, being a typical woman trying to please her man, she offered to make dinner. Imagine her surprise when she opened the refrigerator door and found a dozen bats hanging from the shelves. Seems they’d eaten their way out of the bag and just short of set up shop. Needless to say, there was no dinner that night. Come to think of it, I’ve heard of bats in your belfry, but never in your fridge.      So here’s your hope for the week. I hope you have a really good bug man. Hopefully, he can keep your house critter-free. If he can’t, I’m hoping you won’t call me. I gave up all hope of critter life after the doodle bugs outsmarted me.

News from the headwaters in Medina Wearing of the Green Skies by Mikie Baker Published March 27, 2008    Sometimes you can pack just too much excitement into a day. Take this St. Patrick’s Day for example. Not only was it corned beef and cabbage time, but Spring Break kicked in plus we had out of town guests with their dog in tow. And then, of course, we had the tornado.     It all started out fine. The Teenage Eating Machine was in monster brat Spring Break mode with Best Medina Buddy attached to his hip. Then there were the house guests; Chicken Sister George (she collects chickens) and her granddaughter My Little Eva (I’ve called her that since she was born) and their seven pound lap dog named Lily, whose breed was snicker doodle poodle (or something like that). Heck, the house would have been full with just the two teenage boys.     You know how it is when you have house guests coming. You clean up your entire abode perfectly so it looks like an issue of Better Homes and Gardens. I even spent a whole day cleaning out the garage. What I should have done was clean out the closets.     Once the car was unloaded and my clean house was trashed, the kids headed out to the fort and trampoline to “hang.” We sane adults decided to “sit” on the front porch with our beverages of choice and enjoy the lovely evening. Of course, Dearly Demented Mom was firmly planted in the living room enthralled with another lively re-run of Murder She Wrote. The corned beef and cabbage was simmering on the stove.     Suddenly the wind picked up. Lighting flashed and thunder roared. The skies turned a not-so-St. Patrick’s Day shade of green. Then I noticed the cable had gone off in the living room and I knew we were about to get a big storm. I headed around the porch to tell the kids to hit the house pronto because it looked like all hell was about to break loose. Best Medina Buddy piped up and agreed.     “It sure is. Haven’t you heard the tornado sirens?” Just about that time, I heard them wailing.     As we kicked into alarm mode, we resembled a bunch of leprechauns dancing a jig. As the television was no longer working, I grabbed the weather radio, miraculously found three new AA batteries and slammed ‘em in only to hear that a tornado was bearing down on us.     We gathered in the middle of the living room to come up with an emergency plan. The plan was for the three kids to head to the bathroom with lots of pillows. You know it had to be a real emergency. How else would two adult women let two fourteen year old boys alone with a fourteen year old girl in a room with lots of pillows? We might have sent them to the hall closet but, like I said, I spent my time cleaning out the garage, not the closets.     They sprang into action. On our end, I decided the best thing to do was just wheel Dearly Demented Mom face first into my closet which, trust me, looked like a twister had already landed in there. Chicken Sister George hopped in over DDM to entertain her while I ran back and forth frantically listening to the warnings, checking on the kids and making sure all animals – including the latest addition to the ranch – were accounted for. Suddenly, thoughts turned to scalding water so I turned off all the pots simmering on the stove.     About this time DDM decided to tell Chicken Sister George about the seven foot tall man who was here the last time we had a tornado. (Note: this never happened.) CSG yelled, “DDM’s going nuts in here. Bring corned beef for her and wine for me.” When I delivered said items they both thanked me and then remarked on how I really did need to clean out my closet. Suddenly the TV came back on and the panic driven weather witch announced that the tornado had just missed us, but was headed north so those people needed to head to their dirty closets.     We all either crawled or wheel-chaired our way out of said hiding spots and gathered back in the living room. Weakly, I smiled and asked if everyone would like some nice corned beef and cabbage. Other than DDM, who seemed rather oblivious to the whole thing, I heard a resounding “No!” Seems when your adrenalin gets going, you’re no longer hungry.     We only had one minor injury during the evening. When I was frantically wheeling DDM into the messy closet, at the exact same moment, the Teenage Eating Machine was calling our dog that was hiding under the dining room table. (Smart dog.) Anyway, DDM and the dog crashed and DDM ended up with a bump the size of a golf ball on her leg. I slapped ice on it and put a full plate of food in front of her and she was a happy camper.     The Teenage Eating Machine pronounced the whole event as “Intense” and Chicken Sister George wanted to know if we had lots of tornados here. I assured her that this was very rare. To which she replied, “So what happened to your closet?” I now understand what spring cleaning really means. It means to straighten up those closets because you never know when your house guests just might need to stay there.     So here’s your hope for the week. I hope you survived St. Patrick’s Day with no injuries. Hopefully, whatever you went through was a great bonding experience for your family. And here’s hoping when I finally do clean out my closet, I’ll find a big pot of gold.

News from the headwaters in Medina No Longer in Charge by Mikie Baker Published March 20, 2008    My runnin’ buddy, Hill Country Martha, earned her name because she’s as close as I’ll ever get to the real thing – Martha Stewart. HCM can do everything the real Martha does only she doesn’t have a staff of sixty. Of course, as far as I know, she’s never been to jail.     Need a water heater delivered and installed? That’s easy for HCM. Need a truckload of rocks to build a bed? No problem. Need training on painting techniques? Simple. But I fear Hill Country Martha may have met her Waterloo. Kitchen remodeling. Maybe not so easy.     Recently, it was time for HCM’s kitchen to get a major overhaul. As in rip everything out and start again. I know, ladies – the thought of it makes me shudder too. Just an empty room. Not a microwave, dishwasher or fridge in sight. The pantry’s boxed up in the dining room. The dishes are in the den. And the coffee pot is set up in the bathroom.     Now, I know what you’re thinking. I’ve seen that guy on TV that can redo a house in a weekend. No big deal. Well that guy, just like the real Martha, has a staff of seventy-five pros from a large do-it-yourself conglomerate. They swoop in with every tool known to man, the knowledge of how to use them and work straight through for seventy two hours. Fortunately, Hill Country Martha has a great group of construction pros who not only know what they’re doing – they moonlight as a talent-filled country western band. Think they whistle while they work?     Of course HCM must still do lots of the remodeling herself or, frankly, she just wouldn’t be Hill Country Martha. Painting, laying tile and constant cleaning are jobs she has taken on with a gusto unequaled by (wo)man. Luckily, at the moment, she has no baseboards to keep clean. But all in all, no matter her efforts, her house is still a major wreck.     Including her husband Hill Country Geezer, everyone is working as a team furiously to create a beautiful new kitchen that can not only cook by itself but clean up by itself too. To this end, things had been going fairly smoothly until the other day.     ME: “Hello?”     HCM: “Did you hear the sirens?”     ME: “Yeah, I was going to call you and see if they’d come up your road.”     HCM: “They not only came up my road, they came up my driveway. Seems we’re on fire. I’ll call you back.”     Lord be praised it wasn’t the house, but the grass that was burning. It’s amazing what a couple of half warm coals from the fireplace can do. Of course, I had to run up and survey the damage. As I stood in the middle of an empty kitchen, looking through a massive storage area that used to be a dining room out the window at a completely charred hill, all I could think was, “Wow. Hill Country Martha is no longer in charge.”     Even a national delivery service is conspiring against her. Seems there’s an AWOL FedEx driver out there who has absconded with HCM’s “farm sink.” I don’t exactly know what a “farm sink” is, though it sounds like something Martha Stewart would have in her million dollar TV kitchen. Or possibly it might be the kind of sink a FedEx guy would appreciate since HCM’s is missing in action. Maybe he’s run off with an illicit woman promising her the stars, the moon and everything else including the kitchen sink.     Our bi-weekly dump runs always include a truckload of drywall or chunks of cabinetry now. I dutifully don gloves and help pitch the stuff into the waiting dumpster. I look at it this way. The more I give the dump, the more treasures I’ll get in return. Plus, I’ve made Hill Country Martha promise that I get the first “guest” dinner out of that new kitchen, as I’ve earned every bite. I also expect a serenade from the Construction Crew Band.     What I’m really waiting for is her nervous breakdown. I expect at some point – probably around week four of construction – she’ll crack. Yep, I think even Hill Country Martha has a breaking point. I’ve never seen it, but I feel it looming. When it happens, I’ll simply show up with a homemade meal and a bottle of whiskey and remind HCM it could be worse – she could be in jail. The other morning as I wandered out into my kitchen, I looked around and said, “Wow! This place is a real wreck.” Suddenly, a large smile came over my face and I thought, “No, actually this kitchen is fine. Hill Country Martha’s kitchen – now that’s a wreck.”     So here’s your hope for the week. If you want to remodel your kitchen, I hope you won’t show this column to your husband. If your kitchen is just fine, here’s hoping you’ll make HCM a homemade dinner and drop it by. (Just don’t FedEx it.) Hopefully, she’ll thank you even though she’s just realized that (gasp!) she’s no longer in charge.

News from the headwaters in Medina Elderly women gardening by Mikie Baker Published March 13, 2008    When you have a green thumb, you assume every one else does too. Not so with Very Best Friend. She has potted plants and a yard full of xeriscaping, but all of it has been so ignored it looks like the Teenage Eating Machine’s hair first thing in the morning. Once VBF selects a victim at the nursery, she either slams it in a pot or the ground and proclaims, “Okay, sucker, now you’re on your own!” Watering, fertilizing, trimming and repotting are not on her radar screen.     Just as Hill Country Martha is always reminding me to wash my windows and clean my baseboards, I am always scolding Very Best Friend about trimming back the jungle around her lovely home. I also hate to see potted plant abuse. I’ve threatened to report her to 60 Minutes, but to no avail. Finally, last week, the call I had been waiting for came.     ME: “Hello?”     VBF: “Okay. I can’t stand it anymore. Can you come down here and help me get my arms around this yard?”     ME: “Absolutely. Go out and get some larger pots, several bags of good dirt and a pair of sharp clippers. I’ll bring the pick axe, machete and dynamite.”     There was much discussion about VBF’s overgrown front bed. When I say overgrown, what I mean is, it’s a mass of native plants that haven’t been cut back in seven years. In fact, her lantana is about the size of a Volkswagen bus.     As we decided on a plan of attack, she mentioned that she had a ten-foot palm tree that just sort of grew up wild in her yard and she didn’t want it anymore. Being the gardener I am, I said I would gladly remove said tree and replant it at my house where it would not only be wanted, but actually be watered. Of course, I’ll have to break it in gently since the palm thinks it’s been living in the desert for the last seven years.     Anyway, we weren’t sure how deep the roots were on the palm tree, so we talked options for its removal, including attaching a chain to the back bumper of her car and pulling it out. At this point her husband, Extreme Exercising Engineer, (who was going to be conveniently out of town during our gardening weekend) chimed in and said, “Oh great. I can hear the news report now – two elderly women rushed to local hospital after being attacked by a ten foot palm and a Toyota bumper.”     Extreme Exercising Engineer, dressed in his motorcycle get up and, all ready for a road trip with the boys, also told us elderly gals to simply bundle up our clippings, tie them with string and place them neatly on the curb and he would dispose of them. Yeah, right. Typical engineer. When’s the last time you cut a VW Bus into small pieces and tied it up with string? I really took offense to the elderly woman part and trimmed all his favorite plants back to the ground. “Whoops! Sorry – my chainsaw slipped. You know how difficult arthritic hands can be.”     We started at high noon on the largest overgrown bed. It was probably ten by ten feet square and was about seven feet high. I felt like I was cutting my way through the Amazon jungle. I took most of it out as Very Best Friend clipped slowly and neatly. After a while she got the swing of it and cut off everything but her left foot.     After a full three hours of trimming, we decided it was time to take on the palm tree. Armed with a pick axe and a shovel, these two elderly women were just about to give up and attach the chain to the bumper, when a male neighbor wandered over and asked if we needed help. Seems he’d been watching our Laurel and Hardy act for quite awhile. When he finally stopped laughing, he came to our aid. Like Paul Bunyon, with a couple mighty swings, the tree came right out.     Once the front bed had been tamed, I started on her 30-odd potted plants. I whacked things in two making more plants, repotted everything, fertilized and had a chat with each plant about its physically abusive past. I felt like a counselor at a woman’s shelter. After swearing Very Best Friend to watering at least twice a week, I announced to all the plants that they were, in fact, allowed to grow and flourish again.     We wrapped it up way after dark, grabbed a couple of glasses of wine, two well-needed showers and collapsed in a heap on her black leather couch. Rather than our normal “let’s paint our nails and discuss our lives to death” agenda, we sat and stared at the TV, not really paying attention to it anyway. Suddenly I was feeling a bit elderly after all.     The next morning we got up and dug in again until the pile of clippings by the curb was so large it swallowed a Mini Cooper that drove by. Guess it was time for me to leave – I’d done all the damage I could do. Before I left though, I took the time to take a small stack of twigs, wrap them with a vine and place them at the front door for Extreme Exercising Engineer. I figured he could take it from there.     So here’s your hope for the week. I hope you treat all your living things with respect. I’m hoping that after all that hard work, VBF will learn to love her plants. And hopefully when you’re in your early 50s, no one will refer to you as elderly. If they do, just pull out your clippers and show ‘em how young you really are.

News from the headwaters in Medina Living with a familiar stranger by Mikie Baker Published March 6, 2008    Before Dearly Demented Mom became demented, the Teenage Eating Machine and I used to take trips to Big D to see her. A little over two years ago, we stormed in like a couple of paratroopers for the obligatory retirement home Thanksgiving dinner. You know the one. All the food is lovingly prepared without the use of any seasoning whatsoever. Cardboard turkey with all the tasteless trimmings.     This particular event, which normally was eventless, was not. Seems Mom was forgetting to take her pills and was frankly, well, a bit off her nut. Oh heck, make that a lot. As in she was nuts. I assessed the situation and, after quite a struggle of wills with her, slapped her in the car and dragged her kicking and screaming to the Hill Country. The whole way down she kept commenting on the places and things she saw looking out her window. Problem was none of the sites she saw were actually there.     I immediately transported her to the local VA hospital where they found her blood pressure to be a mere 220 over 112. Think I’d being seeing things, too. After a very thorough examination, they let me know that the reason Mom was forgetting to take her medication was that she had dementia. I came to understand this condition would cause considerable effort on my part and little or none on hers. Overnight, she became Dearly Demented Mom.     After a few bumps along the road, we got all her medication right and she was back to normal. Of course DDM has never been exactly normal. All that ended the other day. As I am want to do, I wandered into the living room to check on her while she was watching reruns of Monk, or “Mr. Mork” as she likes to call him.     ME: “How are you doing, Mom?”     DDM: “I hate you! I want to go to bed right now. How can you be so mean to me?” Ten minutes before she had been just fine. So, quick as a wink, I wheeled her into her room. As I was pumping her up with the old Hoyer lift she suddenly started laughing hysterically and then crying hysterically. Minus the tears of course. I felt like I had just been transported into the Hill Country Twilight Zone version of the Exorcist.     DDM: “Do you like banana milkshakes?”     ME: “No, Mom and neither do you.”     DDM: “I hate you. You’re stupid. Everyone loves banana milkshakes. I drink them all the time. Have you ever been to Switzerland?”     Laugh, laugh, laugh, cry, cry, cry.     ME: “Yes, Mom I have.”     DDM: “Well, did they teach you how to yodel?”     ME: “Can’t say that they did.”     DDM: “Well, I’m going to teach you right now. Whoopee! Whoopee! Whoopee! Yo-de-la-ah-ooo!” Oh great. She’s possessed and has turned into a Von Trapp family singer.     As I was covering her up in bed for her nap, she looked up at me and declared, “You’re just a snaggled tooth old bag of moth balls.” I almost washed her mouth out with soap.     Quick as I could, I closed her door and sat on the couch to ponder, “What the heck just happened to Mom?” As the time drew near to get her up, I kept staring at that closed door. Again, the Exorcist entered my mind.     I was dumb enough to stand in line to see that movie. I got so scared that around 30 minutes into it, I just stopped watching. Problem was, that made it even scarier. The words and noises that came out of that little girl’s mouth made it unbearable. Anyway, about 45 minutes into the movie, I just got up and dashed right out of the theater. Had to sleep with the light on for three days.     The most unsettling part of the flick, in my opinion, was when they took the camera slowly up the staircase and turned it towards that closed door. You never knew what would be there the next time the door opened. All I could be thankful for was that DDM had lost her mobility so she could no longer levitate or turn her head in a complete circle, though it does bring new meaning to the phrase, “A mother has eyes in the back of her head.”     Luckily, DDM seemed okay when I got her up. I asked what she wanted for dinner and she demanded “a can of creamed corn.” A bit odd, I admit, but she did say please.     Dearly Demented Mom now believes that she’s going crazy again, like she did when I came and got her. The nurses and I can find no reason for this, so we’ll just have to wait and see what happens. Personally, I’m thinking she’s the first person I’ve ever known to actually have flashbacks.     So here’s your hope for the week. I hope you have someone to love, no matter how weird they get. Here’s hoping those large pharmaceutical companies can come up with a pill that will make me have as much fun as DDM’s having. Don’t you hope that one day you too can pay back your children? Finally, I’m hopeful that Dearly Demented Mom will still be here tormenting me for many more moons to come.

News from the headwaters in Medina Birds, hogs and bucks by Mikie Baker Published Feb. 28, 2008    From all accounts, most of the Hill Country is made up of tourists who never left. For some reason, we found our way to this land and decided it was much better than the cement jungle we lived in. So, it goes to figure, that tourism is big business here. People are just normally attracted to attractive.     When I lived in the Big City, I’m sure we had lots of tourists too. Probably mostly conventioneers, but still, bet we had plenty of them. With millions of people crammed into the area though, tourists never seemed to stand out. Not so in the hills.     Down here, we get three major kinds of tourists: Birds, Hogs and Bucks. Let’s examine these three distinct groups, shall we?     First you’ve got the Birds. Technically they are Snowbirds, but you know me, I’m always making up names. These people, usually in the twilight of their lives, come armed with some sort of livable transportation, a portable satellite dish and a steak for Steak Out. You can spot ‘em in a crowd. They’re wearing Bermuda shorts and hot pink straw cowboy hats in the dead of winter. And they talk funny.     By no means am I making fun of these people. I like them. They’re friendly and help our economy. Why just the other night, the Bandera Band of Misfits stumbled on a nice couple of Birds. She was wearing Capri pants and his white socks looked really great with his sandals. They were from Michigan. As they sat there enjoying the warm February evening, he remarked on the 148 inches of average yearly snowfall they get way up north. No wonder they’re here. Being a gardener, I was curious about their summers, though. I asked Mr. Bird about the dog days of Michigan to which he replied, “Summer? Starts August 3 and ends August 31. You’ve got to be a real fast gardener…”     Our second seasonal group is the Hogs. And let me tell you, at a $25,000 minimum starting price for a motorcycle, these aren’t your daddy’s Hell’s Angels. These men and women have big money. I mean, I can’t afford a pair of black leather pants, can you? Unfortunately, Dearly Demented Mom taught me “When you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all,” so I think I’ll dig back into my biker experience to explain how I feel about Hogs.     When I was 16, there was a darling boy in school who had a motorcycle. And he wanted to take little old me out on a date. DDM said that was fine, except absolutely no riding on a motorcycle. At the time, her dad was 86 and riding one around Florida, but she did not want her baby on the back of a big old hog.     So, of course, I did what any enterprising 16 year old girl would do. I had him pick me up in his mother’s car and then we drove back to his house and hopped on the motorcycle. We headed down a major thoroughfare towards the movie theater when we got stopped at a light. While we were waiting for the light to change, I glanced over at the turn lane next to me. And what should I behold, but my parents in their car. I can still remember DDM’s finger shaking at me and mouthing the words, “You’re in BIG trouble!” All that was left to do was to just go home and wait for the wrath of Dearly Demented Mom.     Needless to say, I’ve never ridden a motorcycle again. Heck, I couldn’t even sit down for a week.     Last, and certainly not least, are the Bucks. These men descend on the hills like clockwork at the beginning of November.     Bags of corn appear, you can’t find anything in the store because it’s all camouflaged and your travels include driving 45 mph behind some all-terrain vehicle in tow. These Bucks spend big bucks to get big bucks, if you will. I figure deer meat actually costs about $1,000 per pound by the time they’re done. Hamburger’s only about a buck ninety nine, right?     But I do love to attend all the Hunter’s BBQs in the area. In fact, I usually help sell tickets or something. A couple of years ago, as I was hawking five dollar chances to win lots of guy stuff, one particularly outgoing Buck approached me. “Hi sweet thing. I’m from Houston. How’s about later you let me buy you a beer?” To which I replied, “Are you married?” He got a big old grin on his face and said, “No. I’m separated.” “Really,” said I. “Just how long have you been separated?” He winked and announced, “About four hours.”     Needless to say there was no hot date that night.     So, I’ll be the first to say, “Welcome!” to you tourists, whatever form you come in. Treat our area with the respect it deserves and we’ll all coexist in harmony. We’re glad you’re here. Now go ahead and spend all your money.     How about some hope for the week? Here’s hoping the Birds buy some decent western wear while they’re here. I’m hopeful that someday the Hogs will all install mufflers on their bikes. And I’m of the hope there’s one unmarried Buck left out there that might just want to take me out on a date. Probably never find him though, because he’ll be wearing camouflage.

News from the headwaters in Medina Color my world by Mikie Baker Published Feb. 21, 2008    When I was knee high to a grasshopper, I used to carefully open my deluxe 64-color box of Crayola crayons, grab a sheet of white paper and go to town, coloring my world.     On occasion, my dad – Joe the Pro – would wander onto the scene and ask for his own sheet of paper. He’d sit with me and, in a couple of minutes, announce that he had also made a drawing that was so good it should be displayed at Le Louvre immediately. I’d look up from my masterpiece only to discover him holding up a blank piece of white paper. “Daddy,” I’d demand, “what is that?” He’d get a big old grin on his face and announce, “Can’t you tell? It’s a polar bear in a snow storm.”     Well, right about now, I feel like I’m a polar bear in a snow storm because I am sick and tired of looking at the white walls in my house. I’ve been hiding in here since cedar fever season descended with force on the hills. I’m not going outside to subject my nose to a 17 billion cedar count, so I’m stuck in here with all these white, white walls.     What’s a woman to do?     Grab her coloring box and get after it, I’d say. Yep. It’s time to paint.     Now, Very Best Friend and Hill Country Martha would both chime in, “Yeah, right. You’ve been threatening to paint your walls for a year now. But you still haven’t.”     Well, see that’s the problem. There are just too damn many colors out there to choose from. I have personally collected over 3,000 color swatches from every paint store in South Texas. I’m sure the Glidden paint swatch rep is working with the police to send out a “cease and desist” order to my house. Seems I just can’t decide between Yellow Frost or Chai Latte for the living room. Of course, Daffodil Bliss is good, too.     I’ve taken it as far as buying some small sample of various paints, so technically, my walls aren’t white anymore. They’re sort of patch work now with painted squares here and there in a variety of hues. Where are my Crayola colors when I really need them?     My second excuse not to paint has been that my living room has 20-foot ceilings and I have a seven-foot rickety ladder. And, frankly, I’m scared of heights. I counseled with Hill Country Martha on the situation.     ME: “Do you have a really big ladder I can use to paint my walls?”     HCM: “No, what you need is scaffolding.”     ME: “Scaffolding? Where the heck do I get that?”     HCM: “I’ve got some. I’ll bring it over.”     Why am I not surprised that Hill Country Martha has scaffolding?     Very Best Friend swears that I’m simply scared of painting. “It’s easy! I’ve painted all the rooms in my house. Doesn’t take anytime at all. Just think of it as using your crayons on a wall. Your problem is, you’re afraid to paint.”     No, my problem is I’m afraid of heights.     So, the other day I decided that enough was enough. I hopped in the car, went to the Dollar Store and bought myself the $1.99 paint by the numbers kit. It includes rollers, brushes, stirrers, scrapers, a drop cloth and one of those things you pour the paint into. Plus I bought some of that blue tape so I can tape things off including my two friends’ mouths.     Then I really got wild and bought some paint. Yep, actually committed to a color for my bathroom. It’s beige. Figure I’ll start out on the conservative side in a room with eight-foot walls and work my way up.     I’m all set – except for one small problem. I now have a bad case of cedar fever just like everyone else I know. I haven’t had the energy to lift a drop cloth for the last week. My massive amount of prescription drugs have started to kick in, though, so I guess I really am out of excuses.     I can’t avoid it much longer because I’m getting “the look” from Hill Country Martha. “The look” means she’ll arrive here one morning, paint brush in hand and demand that we start painting my bathroom this instant. Looks like this weekend, I better put it in high gear. You think I can teach Dearly Demented Mom how to work a roller while she’s firmly planted in her wheelchair?     So here’s your hope for the week. Hope that I paint. Hopefully I can break through my satin or eggshell phobia and slap up a little color in my life. I’m hoping that once I start I just won’t be able to stop myself because, frankly, it’s time for the polar bear in the snow storm to move on.

News from the headwaters in Medina Not your regular Bubba by Mikie Baker Published Feb. 14, 2008    When you move from the Big City to the country, your reasons may include escaping horrific traffic, suffocating pollution and continuous noise. Country life is perfect on all those fronts. Where they turn up the heat is by sticking you under a microscope as soon as you arrive. See, less traffic means less people. Less people means less privacy. As in “everybody in town knows your business about 20 minutes before you do” privacy.     With this small town “closeness,” you learn pretty quickly who’s a character and who’s not. Seems around here, there are a lot more characters than normal folk. I could probably pick one a week to write about and not be done until 2012. Oh, what the heck – think I’ll just dive right in.     There’s a man in town who I consider to be the Ultimate Colorful Character. He’s a Big City transplant, but relocated here more than 10 years ago. That’s about the time it takes for one to get accepted in a small town.     UCC was plucking treasures from our local dump long before Hill Country Martha and I arrived. We consider him somewhat of a Dump God because his front yard and surrounding property is a plethora of great dump finds. Why, he’s even got half an airplane sitting right next to his house.     Add to that the goats. Ultimate Colorful Character has a whole bunch of goats. Their feeder is the backend of a pickup truck. No front end, mind you, just a back loaded with hay. He also has a rather tall non-working windmill in his side yard that has had a 25- foot ladder leaned up against it for as long as I’ve been here. And that’s over three years. I figure one day he may actually climb that stairway to heaven and fix the thing. Then again, maybe not.     But what makes him the Ultimate Colorful Character is that he used to own a turkey who went everywhere with him on his travels. We’re not talking wild country turkey here; we’re talking a bird that’s trying hard to avoid the boys at Butterball.     Now for all of you out there that have seen a live turkey up close, you know this critter is quite large, has a sharp beak and some mighty dangerous claws. Personally, I’ve not known one turkey that I considered a friend.     Not so with UCC. Someone gave him this fowl as a present and it seems he’d raised it from an egg, if you will. Of course, every pet has to have a name. So what is the perfect name for a turkey? You guessed it – “Bubba.”     One day Ultimate Colorful Character opened his truck door and Bubba sorta just flew onto the seat and moved right on over to the passenger’s side. UCC jumped in the truck and off they went on a series of adventures together. Kinda reminds you of Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh, doesn’t it?     Anyway, after a long day of hard work, sometimes a man likes to go for a cool one. UCC sure did anyway. And so did Bubba. They’d head off to the local watering hole, grab a couple of bar stools and have a few. Now, I’ve seen a few strange types in our local watering holes (including a variety of trick dogs and even a baby buffalo), but the only time I’ve heard of a bird on a barstool was in some old joke that’s too dirty to repeat. Frankly, I’m sorry I missed Bubba on a barstool.     Everything with Ultimate Colorful Character and Bubba went great. They never squawked at each other and seemed to get along without ruffling any feathers. Of course, all that ended when a woman entered the picture. Seems UCC asked a nice lady out on a real date (God, please don’t strike me dead for mentioning the “D” word.). Said female was all dolled up and ready at the appointed hour. What she didn’t know was that Bubba was coming along.     As is always the case, two’s company and three’s a crowd. Bubba did not take kindly to sitting in the middle. He decided to prove his “birdliness” by grabbing the first peck, so he went for her ear. It was the shortest date on record around here.     Bubba used to watch over the goats too. He protected them against wild critters and it worked well for about eight years. Unfortunately, one day Ultimate Colorful Character came out to find nothing left of Bubba but a few feathers. I’m of the belief that Butterball came by, grabbed him and took him to a barn stuffed with female turkeys because Bubba was always looking for the right bird to date. Sorry for the stuffing reference, Bubba.     I asked UCC why he didn’t just get another turkey because I’d missed the whole thing and thought it might be more fun to have a real turkey at the bar rather than the local male ones I’d been talking to lately. UCC said politely, “No. There will never be another bird like Bubba. Of course, I do have a donkey I’m working with now.”     So here’s your hope for the week. I hope you know some colorful characters. And here’s hoping Bubba has finally fowled out with the right chick. As for the donkey? I don’t hold much hope for him because he’ll probably just end up being a jackass.

News from the headwaters in Medina Spring Break for Old People by Mikie Baker Published Feb. 7, 2008    Man, what a weekend I had. It was just as action packed as the Hill Country holiday season, only I didn’t have to bake anything. Southwest Airlines, that big bus in the sky, whisked me off to Big D for a reunion.     Not any ordinary reunion, mind you, but a very unusual one. When was the last time you attended an office reunion? One where you were actually excited to see people you used to work with? Everyone has family reunions. You’re related to those people and you’ll never escape them. We’re all subjected to high school reunions. “All these years later, can you imagine that Mary Sue and Bobby Joe are still married after that back seat incident during their junior year? How many children do they have now, anyway?”     No, this was a reunion for the people that worked at TGI Friday’s anytime from 1970 to 1986. For the 99 percent of you who don’t live or breathe the restaurant biz, Friday’s created the casual theme industry. This company invented potato skins, developed more that 300 varieties of frozen or blended alcoholic concoctions, brought nachos to Boston and broke all sales records in the industry. We were the leaders of the pack. The competition was just trying to keep up.     When you’re young and innovative, plus you work hard and play even harder, somehow you form a deep connection. I think that’s where the reunion part came in. When our fearless leader Dan Scoggin and vice presidential partner in crime Frank Steed decided we should “get the band back together,” over 200 people were game. Frankly, we all wanted to see how everybody would look 25 years later after all that heavy partying. We’ve held up pretty good, I might add. Of course, they have made big strides in plastic surgery and hair plugs.     Anyway, this column’s about me, so I better get back to the story. When I landed in Big D, my very close friend Becky – or as I call her, The Wise Injun – picked me up at the airport and whisked me around the city. We hit all the old watering holes, burger joints, facialists and hair salons in town. A girl has to look good for the big event, you know. And what could make you look better than a facial, a fancy hairdo, a belly full of greasy burgers and a couple of beers to wash it all down?     When the Big Event began, I was there all aglow in my little back dress purchased by Very Best Friend. As I sauntered in (you have to walk really slow in four-inch heels when you’re over a certain age), the first man that laid eyes on me was an old buddy from way back. He grinned from ear to ear and said, “Do you look hot, or what?” That’s all I needed to hear to know I didn’t have to spend the whole evening sucking in my stomach. This was as good as it gets.     We had a wonderful time. Stories were told and denied. Hugs abounded. Laughter was everywhere. The old cliques formed and we were all subjected to a great slide show which brought back a myriad of memories that reminded us of just how old we really are.     The party frenzy reached its peak when Carol Hufford jumped up on a table and proceeded to belt out “New York, New York,” accompanied by Frank Sinatra. Hufford has been doing this little number for years and our group of women, the Spadettes (trust me – that group’s a book) did our usual. We formed a Rockette line and began high kicks. Make that low kicks. After all, the song lasts for over three minutes.     At one point during our dance-a-thon, Wonderful Wacky Wincie, who was next to me in the Rockette line, leaned over and said, “Don’t fall, sister, you could break a hip.” Ah, back to an aging reality.     The Wise Injun and I stayed out until the wee hours of the morning and made it back just in time to drive through Jack in the Box before they closed for a bag full of tacos and a couple of diet Cokes. Pretty much the perfect ending to a perfect evening, all in all.     They say that Bandera is just a continuous Spring Break for old people. And I think they’re right. I managed to keep up with the people that created a restaurant environment that was just one big party all the time. Frankly, I attribute my success to the Spring Break muscles I’ve built here with my gang – the Bandera Band of Misfits.     So here’s your hope for the week. I hope your reunions, in whatever form or fashion they take, always bring a smile to your face and a tear to your eye. I’m hopeful I‘ll still be participating in the Friday’s reunions even if I have to hold on to my walker to do the low kicks. And I’m hoping, if I do finally break a hip, it’s from break dancing with the old gang so they can see I still bleed red and white.

News from the headwaters in Medina I’ve been malled! by Mikie Baker Published Jan. 31, 2008    I’m getting out of my caregiver cage for a well-deserved two days off. I’m heading to Big D for TGI Friday’s corporate office reunion. It’s been 20 years since I’ve seen most of the people who’ll be there, so for the last month I’ve tried every trick in the book to look 30 years younger. Frankly, it hasn’t worked, so I’ve decided to go with option number two: have a cuter dress than anyone else at the party.     Very Best Friend helped me immensely with my mission by buying me the ideal Little Black Dress and loaning me some great-looking black patent leather high heels. All that was left for this stunning outfit was some kind of undergarment that would rearrange my ten extra pounds into something that resembled a 24 year-old’s svelte body.     When you set out on that sort of critical shopping mission, the only thing to do is head to the mall, dash in to a major retailer and demand an Experienced Foundations Saleswoman. Ours was really experienced, as in, maybe she should have retired about seven years ago. Anyway, she professionally measured me and tried to keep pace as we started scooping up all available undergarments that “suck you in,” if you will. Problem was, I was having a hard time finding my size. I asked EFS about this, to which she lamented, “Honey, you’re just a weird size. You need to either lose weight or gain some.” At least she didn’t say I looked old.     After purchasing the perfect lacy tummy tucker, we were off to makeup. High dollar makeup. I wanted a new compact, which is about the only item of makeup you can buy in a fancy department store that’s worth the money. And that’s questionable. So, I set out on a quest to find some manufacturer that had a really good gift with purchase. For you uninformed men out there, this would be like if you bought a new tractor and they threw in the bush hog for free.     Anyway, with it being so close to Valentine’s Day, nobody was giving anything away for free. See, these retailers know that a bunch of men are going to dash in on Feb. 13 and spend way too much on a pre-wrapped something that smells really bad and will be returned on Feb. 15. They don’t want you to come away with something for free in the process.     I found what I thought was a really good gift with purchase – a large tote stuffed with itty bitty samples of some really expensive makeup stuff. I asked Overly Made-up Salesgirl about the offer.     ME: “Is this a gift with purchase?”     OMS: “No, that’s a purchase with purchase.”     ME: “That’s right, I’m going to make a purchase and I’m going to get that.”     OMS: “No, you’re going to make a purchase and then you can purchase that.”     ME: “But I thought it was free.”     OMS: “Ma’am, there’s nothing free around here until way after Valentines Day. Take it or leave it.”     I took it.     Then it was on to the shoe department. When God created woman, he inserted a female gene that requires her to have at least fifty pairs of shoes to live. VBF got a double dose of that gene. While she was off on a major shoe shopping spree, I surveyed my surroundings and realized there wasn’t one pair of shoes I was interested in. None of them would protect my toes from scorpions or could keep me upright while walking on caliche. And there wasn’t a cowboy boot in sight. My, how far I’ve come from the Big City.     When Very Best Friend was ready to check out, Super Shoe Salesman met her at the counter. I wandered up, and while waiting for the transaction to be completed, glanced down and realized I was missing one of my two shopping bags. In a panic I looked up and blurted out, “Where’s my underwear?” To which the startled SSS replied, “I can’t tell you how long it’s been since a woman asked me that…”     At this point, the only thing left to do was just head into the mall for Haagen Daz ice cream. Make mine a double, as I’m pretty sure I’m no longer allowed in any mall in the state of Texas for sometime to come.     So here’s your hope for the week. I hope I never have to go to another mall as long as I live. If I do, I’m afraid there’ll simply be no more hope for me because, frankly, when it comes to mall shopping, I’m just hopeless.

News from the headwaters in Medina Lost in translation by Mikie Baker Published Jan. 24, 2008    Most of my travels have involved road trips through these United States. Like most Texans, I've crossed the border into ol' Mexico a few times. But cross the big ocean? I've only done that once to visit Germany, Switzerland and Austria. When I was there, I had no idea what anyone was saying to me, so I spent most of my time in bars. Somehow, beer is the universal language.     Anyway, most vacations consist of sightseeing and restaurant eating. Not your ordinary everyday life stuff, like cooking.     Never even occurred to me what it would be like to cook a meal in a foreign country. Well, guess what? It's hard. Just ask Foreign Language Daughter.     Now, for those of you that have a memory like mine and don't remember FLD, she's Hill Country Martha's only offspring.     She left the safety of home last year to attend school in Spain. This university specializes in — shockingly enough — Spanish. I don't know about you, but around here the only language we know besides English is back talk. It was invented by American teenage boys.     So, Foreign Language Daughter now speaks fluent Spanish and German. Remember, HCM is a hardy woman of German decent. So you'd think a young lady who is fluent in several languages would be really smart (and she is), except when it comes to cooking in a foreign country.     It took about a year for her to get into this trouble. She was just being a typical college student — hanging in bars and eating fast food — until she met a cute young man.     They started dating, and not only is it going well, he has been blessed with HCM's seal of approval.     That's something of a miracle in itself. But back to my story. Somewhere in our female genes, there is one that says, "If you want to keep your man happy, cook for him." As our mothers taught us, the way to a man's heart is through his stomach.     So Foreign Language Daughter thought she'd make Handsome Spanish Boyfriend some chocolate chip cookies. What red-blooded Spaniard wouldn't like some nice warm, homemade chocolate chip cookies?     Probably all of them, because making chocolate chip cookies somehow doesn't' translate into Spanish.     The entire Spanish population combined doesn't have one pound of brown sugar. And nobody knows exactly what baking soda is. But the biggest problem of all is that there are no chocolate chips. So what does a young woman do when she's trying to bake something special and doesn't know how? She calls her mother.     HCM: "Hello?"     FLD: "Mom, do you know the Spanish translation for brown sugar?"     HCM: "Excuse me; didn't I just spend a small fortune for you to learn Spanish?"     FLD: "Well, it must not translate, because the people in the grocery store have no idea what I'm talking about."     HCM: "Just take regular sugar and mix it with molasses and you'll have brown sugar." (I'm sorry, but how the heck does HCM know that anyway?)     FLD: "And I can't find any baking soda or chocolate chips."     HCM: "I can't help you on the baking soda, but all you've got to do for chocolate chips is buy some chocolate bars and break them up. I know they've got chocolate over there, because there are women in that country."     To make matters worse, if you'll remember, those pesky little Europeans are all on the metric system. You know — the measuring system that we all learned in school for when the big "conversion" came. The one that never happened.     It seems that across the big blue sea, they measure everything by weight, not volume, I think. HCM explained it to me and I still don't get it. They don't have measuring cups and spoons, they have beakers. I'm pretty sure this has something to do with their scientists taking over the world because the only beakers I've ever seen had gaseous fumes coming out of them.     Of course, these two resourceful women figured out how FLD could, in fact, whip up a batch of chocolate chip cookies. From what I understand, they turned out a bit flat, due to the lack of baking soda, but Handsome Spanish Boyfriend could have cared less. He had chocolate chip cookies for the first time in his life. I figure he'll propose by next week.     Next month, Foreign Language Daughter is coming home for a visit. I think she should cram her suitcase full of chocolate chips, brown sugar and baking soda for her return to Spain. I bet she could become an overnight Spanish Mrs. Field's sensation.     So here's your hope for the week. I hope you appreciate baking soda.     Hopefully, you'll run into the kitchen and whip up a batch of warm, chocolate chip cookies for your entire family. And next time FLD wants to impress the boyfriend, I'm hoping she takes on something easy like Spanish rice.

News from the headwaters in Medina Big bouquet of roses by Mikie Baker Published Jan. 17, 2008    With Valentines Day just around the corner, I feel it necessary to make this column a public service announcement to my male readers. Listen up, “pardners.” Whether she’s your girlfriend, wife, significant other or just a woman you’ve only had two dates with, she wants flowers for Valentines Day. It’s engrained in her genetic makeup.     Now, she may not readily admit that in her heart of hearts she longs for some long stemmed red roses. This is probably because she gave up on you years ago and realized that, when it came to anything fresh-cut, you were simply un-trainable. Deep in her soul, though, she still needs her flower fix.     And just let me add here, your female craves flowers not only on Valentines Day, but unexpectedly on other days of the year. Flowers make us gals feel all mushy inside. A secret you may not know is that if you occasionally give us a big bouquet of anything, you can pretty well get away with whatever you want. Okay, maybe only to a point, but you’ll be way ahead of all your male counterparts when it comes to freedom from the house.     As with most women, I can recount every time I’ve gotten flowers, what type they were and the occasion. My memory’s not that great when I head towards the pantry, but my floral remembrances are flawless.     I guess my love of the bouquet started in eighth grade. I began dating a darling little boy named Barney. Aside from the fact that he was cute, he was the catch of the county because his parents were florists. The day he gave me a tour of the shop with all the large floral arrangements scattered about, I decided that I must marry him on the spot. Dearly Demented Mom thought I might be a bit young.     Anyway, here’s the really evil part. I used to pick fights with Barney because, when we made up, he’s send me flowers. I’d say, on average, I was picking a fight about every two weeks. I’m pretty sure that’s why, after about six months, Barney dumped me. His parents probably said I was cutting into the store’s profits.     And then there was that glorious day when I turned sweet sixteen. Not only did my friends throw me the perfect surprise party, my parents presented me with sixteen long stemmed red roses. It made me cry. In these bleak, flowerless days, I still hold strong to that memory.     My husband, God rest his soul, was flower inept. As you women know, that means you’re put in the position of begging for a Valentine’s bouquet on a yearly basis. When a man finally gets it, and starts coming through regularly, then you judge him on the size of his bouquet.     I remember the day that a quite beautiful arrangement of orchids and floral fauna showed up for me at the office. It was just a normal day – no anniversary, birthday or major romantic holiday. Where did this bouquet come from? Did I have a secret admirer? Did my husband send them simply because? My mind raced as all my employees gathered around to see my shaking hands open the card. It read: “Thank you for your business. NCC.”     As it turns out, my husband, who owned NCC, had just picked up a floral account and the florist had convinced him that he needed to send a nice thank you bouquet to all his clients once they placed their order. So he had the bright idea to send me a “tester” arrangement, if you will, to see if I thought they were good flowers. If he’d had half a brain, he’d have written a romantic note to send with the arrangement. Of course he didn’t, so he got to sleep on the couch for three days. Never make your wife look like a fool in front of her employees.     My crisis at the moment is that I must find a man to date immediately, as I’m running out of days before V-Day. I’m not sure I can face another flowerless one, though that’s part of what makes me a strong Texas woman.     Now listen up, fellas. Don’t try and come up with some excuse about how expensive flowers are. You can run right into the local grocery store and buy a bunch. Don’t even worry about a vase. Trust me – we women come armed with at least a half a dozen vases, fresh cut flower food and plenty of water.     So here’s your hope for the week. Ladies, I hope you get flowers. Lots of them. Gentlemen, I’m hoping you now understand how important flowers are to all females. And I’m hopeful that if you have a flower-inept man in your life, you’ll stick this column right under his nose. Go ahead and spray it with a little rose water. Maybe that way you’ll knock some “scents” into his head.

News from the headwaters in Medina Hats off to big hair by Mikie Baker Published Jan. 10, 2008    Recently, when Lady Bird Johnson left for the wildflower field in the sky, the images of her that flashed across the TV screen reminded me of a glorious Texas tradition — Big Hair. Growing up in Texas, I have no idea why our collective hair ended being up bigger than in other states, but I think it must have something to do with our high humidity and overuse of hairspray. Be that as it may, I fear Big Hair may be a dying art in the Lone Star state.     Ladies, we must continue this Texas tradition. At least I know I'm doing my part. In the past two years, I have grown my hair out from a very short, sassy Big City cut to long locks that flow over my shoulders into a giant mass of Big Hair. I was assured that long hair would help me find a man faster, so I was game. Unfortunately, growing your hair out is not for the faint of heart and leaves you undateable for at least a good year.     Hairdressers scatter when a woman who is growing hers out enters the salon. A perfectly adept hair stylist turns into a trembling Poor Stylist Victim at the hands of an enraged female whose bangs are in her face. Take me, for example. This is how I treat the defenseless creature that cares for my locks.     ME: "Give me your sharpest pair of scissors, a large electric razor and a gun. I'm going to whack off my hair, shave my head and shoot you for talking me into growing my hair out."     PSV: "Calm down. It looks good. We'll just trim off the dead ends. It'll be long in no time. How about a nice glass of wine?"     ME: "Easy for you to say. Your hair is short. You live in a salon with every known hair care product under the sun, so you can make your hair look perfect on a daily basis. I'm out there on the frontline of the half-crazed Big Hair battlefield. And I'm simply undateable."     PSV: "Trust me. You'll love it in just another month. I'll be right back. I'm going to get you a glass of wine."     ME: "Fine, but I make you this solemn vow. If it ever does get long enough not to drive me crazy, I'm going to have you cut it off so I can use my long locks to strangle you for ever talking me into this anyway."     PSV: "Think I'll grab a glass of wine too." Of course, Poor Stylist Victim was right. Slowly, but surely, I am starting to like my long hair. It's only driving me crazy about once a day now.     Unfortunately, the men haven't started lining up on my porch yet. At this point, you're probably wondering what long hair has to do with Big Hair. Well, in my case, a lot.     My hair is so thick, there's enough of it to cover three women's heads with a couple of bald men thrown in to boot. Dearly Demented Mom often reminds me of the day I was born. "I was pretty sure you weren't mine when I saw all your hair. You had so much, the nurse pulled it up on top of your head and tied a bow on it. You looked like Pebbles from the Flintstones the day you were born." Gee, thanks Mom.     And then there was the occasional trip to the hairdresser. DDM would drag me in for a much-needed trim. The drill was always the same.     The woman in charge of my hair would look at it and then yell at the top of her lungs, "Marge! Get over here and see how much hair this little girl has. I've never seen anything like it. And it's so curly! How the heck am I going to cut all this?" Oh great. Another bad hair cut.     There can be advantages to Big Hair though. I think my really thick hair saved my life once. I actually fell down three flights of stairs at KLIF one day. Personally, I blame it on the clog craze of the 70s. Be that as it may, when they hauled me off to the doctor, after an extensive examination, he announced that the only reason I didn't have a major concussion was that my extremely thick ponytail had cushioned all those blows to my head.     And my hair's not only thick, it's curly. As in Witches of Eastwick curly after the devil had his way with those women, if you know what I mean. Almost Rosanne Rosanna Danna hair, just not quite as frizzy.     The point is, as hard as it may be, I'm doing my part to keep Big Hair alive in Texas. The rest of you Texas women, look deep into your souls and your mirrors. Are you keeping Lady Bird's tradition of Big Hair? If not, you'd better start. Texas is known for many things, but Big Hair may be the most important.     After all, it requires a whole lot of hard work, plus it's still legal in this state to use it as a weapon.     So, here's your hope for the week. I'm hoping you ladies out there keep Big Hair alive in Texas. Hopefully, those of you with short little bobs will at least buy a rat tail comb and a jumbo can of hairspray. As for the rest of us who have Big Hair, here's to the hope that we make it look even bigger tomorrow and wear it proudly. Let's all remember the Alamo and the tradition of beautiful Big Hair Texas women.

News from the headwaters in Medina I can see clearly now by Mikie Baker Published Jan. 3, 2008    The holiday season's rough on a house. You've got days of endless cooking, constant guests and decorations strewn everywhere.     When all the merriment is done and the final snowman is put back in the box, there you are. Stuck with a pretty bare, fairly dirty house.     If I was wealthy, I'd call in the old Steam-O-Matic boys and get them to start with the ceilings and work their way down. But I'm not, so I'm left to clean it all up. And frankly, my cleaning skills stink. You see, I was raised by a liberated woman. By that I mean Dearly Demented Mom worked full time.     Dad sold hats and traveled a lot. And when you're a latch key kid, with nobody around, the last thing on your mind is keeping the house clean. It was the last thing on my mother's mind too. As she put it, "Honey, always work. If you stay at home, you don't have any excuse for having dirty windows."     DDM's version of cleaning was to call our housekeeper and tell her to hurry over because the place was a wreck. I grew up in a land where your house was always clean and you didn't have to do anything. In fact, when I went off to college, my roommate had to show me how to do laundry when I realized I was totally out of clean underwear and didn't know what to do other than to skip class.     Dearly Demented Mom wasn't that great with washing, either. We had a laundry room that was usually stacked with dirty clothes. Occasionally, a clean shirt would show up in my room that I hadn't seen in about three years.     When mom did do the laundry, she wasn't exactly June Cleaver. One day she made the mistake of starting the washing machine while the cat was in there. And when your washing machine starts making a loud "thump, thump, thump," you'd better check it out. Luckily, she didn't drown the cat, but the hot water and soap hurt his eyes for a few days. After that, dad took over the washing duties. Now, our housekeeper was about four feet tall on a good day. My dad, being 6-foot, 4-inches, used to follow behind her as she wiped down doors and surfaces to catch the top half of everything she cleaned. They made a pretty funny team.     Considering the fact that I've lived alone exactly six weeks of my life, I've never really had to be totally in charge of cleaning. I always had a roommate or man around to help. I think I married my husband because he liked to vacuum so much. "That's right baby, just knock yourself out. Look, over here — you missed a spot."     And I'm definitely a fan of my girlfriend's Aunt Juju's trick. She'd invite the girls over in the afternoon for a few cocktails. While they were enjoying themselves, she'd fill the sink with hot water and Pine Sol and leave it there for a couple of hours before her husband came home. He was convinced they lived in the cleanest house on the block because it smelled that way.     So, long ago, I opted for the housekeeper way out of cleaning. After all, I was a high powered gal with her own company. I made enough money to justify the expense, and I'd pick a maid over a manicure any day.     Now, mind you — I have an organized house. It's kept picked up. It's the actual cleaning part that I can't do. Give me a mop, bucket and Mr. Clean, and I'll give you a floor that looks like the Teenage Eating Machine's football team has just held practice there. No matter how I try, it still looks dirty. At least I've never injured an animal while washing the sheets.     When I moved down here from the Big City, I was desperate to find a housekeeper. It took me about a year to finally find an angel from heaven that could mop my floors. When she first came to the house, she surveyed the damage. She agreed to take me on and said she'd be back in a week. I prayed long and hard that she would.     When she arrived that following glorious Friday, she spent six hours just cleaning my bedroom and bathroom. She even vacuumed the walls. I lived in that sparkling room for two weeks, afraid to go into the rest of my dirty house. Next, she spent seven hours working over the living room and kitchen. The last project was the Teenage Eating Machine's room. I really thought she'd never come back after finding the dead snake in there, but she did. Boy, I love her so.     Since I now have a woman in my life who knows how to clean, for the most part, the house stays in good shape. Problem is, those windows are getting mighty dirty.     And we all know that no housekeeper does windows. So I guess it falls on me to keep the windows clean, even though I have three jobs. My motivation? I'd like to be able to see those pretty hills just outside my windows again.     And I'm starting to get the "threat down" stare from Hill Country Martha. Remember she's German and they'd rather wash windows than win the lottery.     So here's your hope for the week. I hope your house is clean and if it's not, I'm hoping you like it that way. Hopefully, the next couple of weeks will be either too cold or too windy for me to have to wash the windows. And I'm hopeful that when I finally run out of excuses, I'll have a glorious streakless day.     Better yet, maybe I need to take on a fourth part time job and just leave 'em dirty.     I can see clearly now.