Countess and Rodeo King

Nicole and I had a fun weekend in Arizona. My plane didn't arrive until after 10 p.m. Friday night and we slept in on Saturday. Around noon we went to a book and sundries store called Hastings because I had neglected to bring a Russian dictionary. I got the dictionary I wanted and Nicole got a Dr. Pepper.

Nicole has a friend named Faye who lets her ride her pet horse named Countess. Faye had invited us over for dinner and I knew that I couldn't show up without a cowboy hat.

I still haven't determined what sort of cowboy hat is my style. I have not learned the language of cowboy hats. I don't even know my hat size.

Nevertheless, I figured that I ought to have a cowboy hat even if it wasn't perfectly suited to my age, geographic region and trade. Nicole and I went to a local satellite of the western wear store where I bought my cowboy vest in Tombstone.

We moseyed into the store and the saleswoman looked at us with irritation. At the cowboy hat section we began looking over the hats. We clearly weren't going to leave, so the saleswoman came over to challenge us. "Can I help you?" she said, as if we were a couple of delinquents. I told her that we were in the market for a cowboy hat and this clearly disappointed her.

"Now look," she scolded us, condescending to explain the manner in which a hat should fit on the head (maybe she didn't really preface all her statements with "Now look", but it felt like she did). I was very polite to her, but she was having none of it. Eventually she sort of threw up her hands and went to help another customer.

I finally decided upon a chocolate-colored "Rodeo King" brand cowboy hat that fit reasonably well. The hats were all marked with different sizes but the saleswoman never deigned to measure my head. She scowled annoyance as I paid for my hat, practically threw it at me (without the cardboard hatbox that Nicole had led me to believe I would get) and unless I'm mistaken she muttered "Now you get out and go away!" (but I can't swear to this last part).

What I can swear to are the rows and rows of framed and signed photographs on the wall behind the register. There were between thirty and forty framed pictures of lovely young rodeo women in cowboy hats on display. And no cowboy men. It's not my fault that I'm not a cowgirl; she ought not to treat me like a pariah. Nicole agreed that the woman had treated me like a pariah.

We went over to Faye's house where dinner was waiting for us. I had requested fettucine alfredo, but Faye had made burgers. After dinner Nicole and I wandered out back yonder to look for Countess the horse. In the corral next to Countess there was another horse called Short Scrub but that horse was more ornery than friendly. We got to pet Countess for a spell and then Faye brought out the horse equipment.

I would have taken a picture of Nicole riding on Countess, but Faye requires folk to wear safety headgear when riding. Nicole was reluctant to be photographed in the "day room helmet" and I didn't fight her on it. I was expecting Countess to smell strongly of horse, but she didn't have any strong aroma. Faye said that one of Countess' grandparents had won the Triple Crown years ago, but Countess has never been anything but a pet horse.

We spent a good stretch of time hanging around with Countess, but it was mainly taken up with walking around with her, petting her head and scratching her ears. We're looking forward to going back to see her again.

I wore my Rodeo King and my cowboy vest to church the next day. I wanted to get a picture of Nicole wearing the cowboy hat, but it seemed she always had a hair clip projecting off of the back of her head and Rodeo King wouldn't fit on her. I handed it to her and said, "Here, wave this around in the air, like, 'Yee-haw!'"

We had a very relaxed weekend. I woke up for an hour Monday morning, studied Russian for an hour, then fell asleep again for an hour. Nicole crept into the livingroom to tell me she was going to take a shower, thus waking me from a curious dream that I will discuss in my next post.