Jenny the Cow

First off, Hannah hates me because I didn't blog yesterday AND I cut in front of her in the snacks line last night. Sorry, girl, I just needed some chocolate. Will you forgive me? Can I be un-voted off of the island and back into Amber's car?

Anyway.
I've been cranky, irritable, and frustrated this week. I'm sore from ice skating on Saturday; it baffles me the number of people that have never skated on a natural body of water. Irony is that the first time all winter when my hands have actually been warm was while I was ice skating. I'm sick of being freezing cold; maintenance can't fix my air conditioner but the room temperature has peaked at 63, so they gave me a space heater. Oh, and if you are one of those brave souls who gave up chocolate for Lent and suddenly have this overwhelming desire to remove this temptation from your life, I am willing to take one for the team and will not object your sending it to me. :-)

For these reasons, I feel the need to write a blog that will make me smile. We all have those stories that have influenced our life. Perhaps we aren't even characters in the story but it still merits regular retellings. This is one of those for me because it was a classic bedtime story while my sisters and I were growing up. Of course, some creative liberties have been taken through the years but the basis of the story is true. Without further ado, and I'm pretty good at ado-ing, this is "Jenny the Cow" as told to me by my father.

<>< Katie

I was in class just like any other day. The teacher was talking about something, but I don’t remember what since I wasn’t listening anyway. All of the sudden there was a strong rap on the door. The teacher answered to a police officer who asked if I was in that class. Now, I’m not a perfect little angel; I get into my share of trouble but nothing bad enough for the cops to be involved. Plus, I had no idea what I’d done. Silently I followed the officer towards the front door of the school.

Am I being arrested? What the heck? I wondered to myself.

As we crossed over the threshold and into the parking lot, I realized the cause of the commotion. Standing in the middle of the school yard stood my cow, Jenny. Yes, I think Jenny wanted to try out for the soccer team. How did she get here? What was she doing here? Why was she here? I don’t know the answer to any of those questions, but I didn't have time to figure them out either.

Standing a few feet from my beloved Jenny was a police office poised to shoot. I panicked. How do you prevent an officer from shooting your cow without getting shot yourself? I had no idea.

"Don't shoot!" I heard a distant wailing. I looked up towards my house and saw my mother running down the hill flailing her arms. "Momma's here, Jenny, come to Momma."

I was mortified. Surely the entire school was watching from the window. I think a stray cow in the middle of the soccer field warrants a break from useless math. In case having my cow visit school wasn't bad enough, my over-weight screaming mother was not helping the situation. The officer's arms were still extended, finger on the trigger.

"Don't shoot! I'll get her to move! Don't shoot! Jenny, come to Momma, Jenny. Momma's here. Come to Momma, Jenny," my mother's cries continued. I don't understand why she can't sound a bit more grown up, even if she is just talking to the cow. For a brief moment, I almost wished I was back in class, bored to death.

Mom drew nearer to us, the police officer failed to lower his gun, and Jenny refused to move. He wouldn't really shoot Jenny, would he? He can't shoot her, can he?

I didn't know. All I really knew was that my mother was running out of ideas and the cop was growing impatient. In the distance, I could see a yellow truck approaching our brouhaha. Instantly, I recognized it as my dad's. How many people do you know with a big yellow trucks? On second thought, how many people do you know with cows at school? Pa pulled over to the side of the road and barely shifted the truck into park before he hopped out of the cab. The focus shifted from Jenny to Dad.

"Jenny, there's Dada, go to Dada," Mom whined.

Much to our surprise, Jenny did run to Pa. The officer lowered his gun, my mom stopped screaming, and I breathed a sigh of relief. On to our next problem: how are we going to get Jenny home? Luckily, Pa already had that all figured out. He opened the tailgate and Jenny hopped into the truck bed. He drove Mom and Jenny home. Sadly, I was sent back to class.

Part I: Story Telling

This is Part I of a two-part blog series. Part II will be posted tomorrow.

"How many of you like to tell stories?" A professor asked one morning. Every hand in the room shot up. Of course, this is a creative writing class.

"How many of you like to hear stories?" Again, every hand went up.

"How many of you like to hear your parents or grandparents tell stories?" A bit hesitantly, the hands raised themselves into the air.

"Only the first time," Chelsea whispered to me. A little bit of laughter erupted from our side of the classroom. She'd voiced my exact thoughts. Only once do I really need to hear about how you walked to school everyday through the snow. Yes, I realize it was up-hill both ways.

However, there are some stories I don't mind hearing over and over again. Toddler Dad being brought home by the school girls because he had lost his clothes somewhere in the neighborhood (I like to think this was a recurring story and therefore truly happened as often as Dad tells it). Or how Mom's boyfriend took a flip off of the roof into a snowbank and a passer-by thought it was Grandpa.

I am blessed to have four grandparents and two parents, all healthy. Unfortunately, they're 900 miles away not telling me stories as we sit around and chat. Sometimes I miss that. Somedays I miss dinner being interrupted by a "Hey, did I ever tell you about the time our family cow followed me to school?" Yes, you have, only every day since I was old enough to remember but please tell it again!

As a writer, you never know when these stories are going to come in handy. Maybe they're the substance you need for a good poem, a great situation to plug into your novel, an amusing blog post, or even something to write about when you're suffering from writer's block. Recording and rewriting these stories in your Writer's Notebook is an excellent exercise.

What's a Writer's Notebook? That's tomorrow. See you then!

Go write about your family's classics,
<>< Katie

Cowstipation

Laugh if you want. Mock my upbringing. Tell me I'm easily amused. Be jealous. I don't really care. I promise, I'm not making this up and have taken no creative liberties. This made my day. The only thing that would have been better is if it'd taken away this headache.

After a wonderful lunch with some friends, I went to the post office and picked up a package. All of the sudden I heard this "MOOOOO."

Years ago in the grocery store, the milk aisle used to "moo" when you opened the door, but I don't remember requesting this feature be added to my mailbox.

I kind of turned around confused. If there had been a cow at the post office, I would not have been completely surprised. One of my family's favorite bedtime stories was the time Jenny the Cow visited Dad at school. However, there was no cow at the post office. I figured someone had to be playing a joke because that was a really good moo but no one was laughing.

Just smile and keep moooving before Melia thinks you're hallucinating and starts going nurse-crazy on you, I told myself, gently shaking my package to see if that was the source of the moo. Nope.

I tried not to think about it was we walked back to my apartment. When I put down the package, I heard it again.

MOOOOOO!

Ripping open the package, I began searching for the source of this delightful noise. Every time I put my hand in the box, it sounded again, but my hand always came out with chocolate. I'm not complaining but chocolate is kind of a disappointment when you're looking for a cow.

Finally, there he was: my beautiful, red and white Holstein mooing Valentines cow. Awesome! Actually, what makes it better is that it is a POOPING, MOOING cow! Estatic, I ran out to show Becca, who was not nearly as excited about this moo cow as I am. Becca doesn't really enjoy poop quite as much as I do, apparently. A pooping, mooing cow? How much better does this piece of plastic get?!

A lot, actually because my cow... well... has a problem. Ladies and gentlemen, I am now the proud owner of a red and pink, CONSTIPATED, mooing cow! Name suggestions welcome!

<>< Katie

PS: It's been a long day... After an hour and a half meeting with Dr. T, he looked at me and said, "Hang in there, Katie, and go take a nap." Normally he doesn't have to tell me that until Midterms and we're hardly three weeks into the semester. Oh snap!