Bars, Beers and Bullriding

Once back inside, we are seated at a table in the eclectic little dining room that is inviting and interesting and beautiful beyond description. The lighting is glowing and the colors are warm and muted, and the crowd is enthralled by a very talented singer/songwriter with enormous guitar-playing talent and a very engaging stage personality. We order a feast.

The crowd is as eclectic as the decor, saving a table full of women, obviously out celebrating a birthday, each of which has attempted, some more admirably than others, to model her appearance after a Kardashian or Taylor Swift. It is hilarious.

I stick to my one glass pact while there are a few more rounds ordered and enjoyed. Kate is feeling warm. Maybe too warm. She is threatening to remove her shirt. And here I was worrying about the can-can.

We are serenaded for Kate's belated birthday, treated to fondue (or as Jackie put it "Fon-f-ing-due!") and laugh our heads off planning to open a similar establishment at home. We even have a name for the place that is a perfect smart-assed peice of marketing genius. Details TBA.

And then, as tradition dictates, we are off to the cowboy bar we also frequent. A bar where some of the gals have gotten their jeans branded by a cowboy named Griz, where the bar owner adores us and gives us our drinks for a dollar, and where the entire outdoor area is lit and warmed by pit fires to warm the hands and other extremities of those there to watch the Bull Riding competition.

No. No typo. I meant to write "Bull Riding competition." Clowns and all. Winner gets a dinner plate sized belt buckle for his efforts. (I would want a whole lot more than that for being flung for 8 seconds by an epileptic 4 ton beast with a bad attitude and a killer instinct, thank you.) The crowd is almost as interesting as the competition. Women and men all tattooed and dressed in what can only be described as costumes. Clothes that say "I came for the bull riding event." Western shirts, and colorful boots and blingy jeans and bejeweled belts and bedazzled cowboy hats. Women with hair that has been blown out and back-combed and teased and whipped into peroxide perfection (only to be jammed under a cowboy hat at a specifically dictated angle chosen for the most flattering cow gal effect.)

Meanwhile, Jackie is teetering around the loose dirt in her leopard kitten heels and Joy is hoping her hairspray does not get ignited by flying ash from the pit fires. We are ooing and ahhing over babies brought to the event by their misguided bull-riding fan parents. We are eavesdropping on innane conversation. We are marveling at the assortment of spectators. It is a scream.

We order beers. They are 24 ounces and in enormous glass mugs. I describe them as Viking beers. Jackie can barley lift hers. She says she needs a sherpa.

I take the opportunity to drop Alejandro a line. "Jackie needs a sherpa to hold her Viking beer."

He texts back immediately that Bonzo is game.

Let the remote flirting begin.