IND Bloggers - a Night at the Opera

I went back to work today, sniffy but better. It was a typical Friday in ANY workplace, the occasional angry villager with a pitchfork, several experiments that didn't work as planned and old coffee that smelled like electrical wires burning. But I can still look around my space and smile.

click to enlarge.

For I was looking forward to the weekend. You've met IND blogger Dave L.
(Scout26) on here and if you read his blog, you know this week has been pure hell on the cancer front. But at least there is a bright spot, for a short time back Dave mentioned Symphony tickets. And someone to go with (but "it's not a date" he said!) Hmmm. I bet he knows some IND bloggers of the female persuasion who would be proud to be his "non date" to the Indiana symphony orchestra Saturday night. OK, it's not the opera, but it's close.

So off we go! The other gals in our group had plans but Midwest Chick and I are going to make it; one for each arm, a blond, and a redhead. She's coming down for the weekend, the men we keep company with, just chuckling in the wake of our female preparations for the event.

But what to wear! I haven't bought a dress in 4 years. My " fashion designer" is more Sgt. Friday than Donna Karan, and my off duty wear is pretty much Irish sweaters, T shirts, the occasional black button down shirt and jeans.

I DO have some new T shirts. Maybe one of these will work. It's almost dark and the overhead light just burnt out so the light is bad, but here they are.

Or what about. . .

Perhaps not.

Or maybe. . .

NO??

OK, so I braved a mall and bought a dress tonight after work, a black dress of soft, silky material. I need to. Dave's one of the IND bloggers, they're like family. Though both his kidneys recently went tango uniform from everything, he's got a heart as big as this state. So I got a real girly dress.

It's cut low, with a defined waist and a slit up the side to show just a bit of leg. Being the classical curvy build, not a bag of antlers, this looked really awesome on. With the right accessories, including sheer, silky hosiery (NOT pantyhose) and a handcrafted necklace, I'm set. On one arm, for our friend, a lady in red, on the other a lady in black.

Midwest Chick will be gorgeous as always. Me, I'm going for "non pitchforkable." :-)

MOO

I had a training conference to attend some time ago. The technology of both good and bad guys constantly changes.

Just a week in an all enclosed training facility. Meals were on site, quite tasty and generous in portion (ohhhhh, is that real butter with those rolls?) Plus there was popcorn, pop, cookies and ice cream for afternoon snacks in the commissary

Days were spent in tiny enclosed spaces in an overcrowded classroom. The snacks helped. We didn't have wheels, so evenings were studies between four close walls and maybe one last snack.

At the end of the week, they asked us for a course evaluation.

I'd gained 3 pounds. I hadn't stretched a hamstring in five days.

My course evaluation:

I feel like veal :-)

Barkley: On Love

Since Mom is sick I get to do the quote of the week!

Love is an exploding cigar we willingly smoke.
- Lynda Barry

Until We Return To Our Regular Programming

Head Cold 3. Brigid 0.

Tales From the Road - Strength and Beauty

As my regular readers and friends know, I travel a lot in my work. Sometimes I stay in places where I can go out and explore, and sometimes I'm in cities and countries where I can go out and about, but only unarmed. For such places, I stay in after dark, not spending my money at local businesses, hesitant to venture out as a female alone, after sunset in an unfamiliar area, armed only with a pack of breath mints.

Such evening aren't always so bad. I'll perhaps have a simple dinner of cheese, crackers, an apple and a glass of wine. Then later, with tea and crime scene yellow jammies, I'll write a couple of posts to save up for days when I'm too busy for thoughts outside the tape.

There was an evening like that not long ago, when settling in and unpacking I found a surprise. Although some of the crackers I packed in my computer bag were crumbs, in the bottom, unharmed, was a small bowl made from the shell of a moon snail. It's delicate, yet it survived the flight. I'd forgotten it was in there, placed when I recently moved and found it after the boxes were already packed.

On my desk are the shells of moon snails, this one of which was cut in half to form a dish. The Greek philosopher Aristotle, while still a young man, first scientifically chronicled this strange little mollusk when he came upon it little during a 2-year sojourn on the island of Lesbos. In classifying this tiny creature, he wrote in De Partibus Animilium, "In all of nature there is something of the marvelous, even the tiny, legless sea urchin."


I agree with Aristotle in this, for in examining the shell, the empty remnant of this ungainly and indelicate creature. There is surprising power and beauty in such small things. I see a delicate brush of blue sky, grayish tones that bleed into fragile whites. If I was in the mood to paint, especially if I was painting water, I'd capture it with items flung down by its force. Alone on a wind swept landscape, I'd reference my subjects with pieces of wood, position them in delicate frames of dying leaves. Here, held captive as well by of those who have left, in my minds eye I paint evidence of those departures . . . prints in the sand, ghost feet of little creatures, searching, the rushing feet of playful lovers, the footprints dissipating with the surge of water. There, seen at the waters edge, the soft clawed paths of a predator looking for prey, following the single footprints of a lone woman who followed the wandering path a moon snail might have left behind.


Strength is not always in a form that is familiar. Beauty is composed of more than you think. Both are built of more than meets the eye. It has as much to do with strength inward as strength outward. Though what we see before us holds allure, still in the evidence of what has been lost, is even greater beauty, greater courage. In even the smallest of things. In even those small remembrances of that which has gone, is the delicate moon snail's whorls of light and gray, the colors of the heavens. Tints of purity and substance. A strength that survived security screening, being stuffed into a too small space aloft and 4 hours of technical meetings. Small, strong colors to be captured while I continue on my own meandering journey.

There is beauty without strength, but there is seldom strength without its own beauty, a resolution of being that pervades the air with the scent and echo of the force of a life. As the invisible cloak of my duty slips from my form and I sit down in the chair by the window I see it. Not simply a city where I can not walk in safety under the moon, but my reflection in the glass, water streaming down, a city's tears for the defenseless.

Strength is not always where you expect it. Sometimes even in a city you can see it, in the eyes of a woman looking out at the night sky, unarmed but not willing to give up the fight. Look past the delicacy and the fragile form, there you will see it, the purity of will, the strength that will surprise you.

Big Damn Heroes

I have a friend who has never seen Firefly. He's pretty much the coolest guy on the planet, and one I'd share a steak with, but not seen Firefly??? I had to rectify that with a loan of my DVD's.


One more Browncoat. My work here is done.

Danger - Even in the Country.

I've written about the cool Ipod Nano I got from my friends Mr. B. and Midwest Chick for my birthday, preprogrammed by my friends with music I love. You know, people that know me better than most people (ahem).

So there I am, on a deserted country road, waiting for a slow moving piece of farm machinery to cross the intersecting road. On the truck stereo, courtesy of the birthday Ipod Nano, is LaBelle coming up after 30 minutes of Metallica (what can I say, I have eclectic taste and they have programmed it so well). The windows of the Silverado are down to a beautiful fall afternoon, no one around, I crank UP the volume.

Gitchi Gitchi Ya Ya Ta Ta
Gitchi Gitchi Ya Ya Here
Mocha choca lata Ya Ya
Creole Lady Marmalade

Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?
Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?

And yes, I'm singing along, loudly, using a LaraBar as a microphone, shaking my red hair around, when I glance out of the corner of my eye, and there next to me along the shoulder, waiting to turn, is this 80 year old farmer in an old truck. . . .giving me a BIG wink and a thumbs up before turning.

Oh, God, I hope he doesn't recognize me at the American Legion pancake breakfast next month.

Speak Softly . .

I'm back from my little jaunt (sorry, no pictures as the camera had a dead battery and I'd tell you who I was with but then I'd have to kill you). Suffice to say a good time was had by all, with home crafted beer, Italian food, and a dessert involving homemade caramel cream sauce.

I was able to take a firearm with me for the solitary drive. I have a concealed carry permit for Ohio since it's recognized in many states, which has come in handy, since Indiana's is not. The last time I drove through the state to visit friends who live there, you couldn't carry at a highway rest stop, so I don't stop there. Face it, that "call police, emergency" blue light thing in the rest stops that flashes if I get to it before someone robs or rape mes, is as scary to most criminals as K-Marts blue light special.

Face it, in the wee hours, on a deserted highway 20 miles or more from the nearest cop, the criminal will be having a cigarette 10 miles away by the time armed help arrives. So instead of highway rest stops, I get coffee and a bathroom break at restaurants that aren't "gun free" for law abiding citizens. It's a comforting feeling, especially as a female traveling alone, getting back in my truck with my McCoffee and my Mc1911.

As I waved goodbye and headed out of the drive for the open highway back to Indiana, I was thinking about something else Mr. Roosevelt said, about "speaking softly and carrying a big stick".

I do carry a stick, a tool like many others I own. However this one is forged from the steel of eternal vigilance. - Brigid

I'll show you mine. . . The Knife Meme

Friend and deer hunting partner Og, stared it and Midwest Chick, and GBBL came in with a continuation of "Excuse me while I whip this out".

Here's mine.

These wouldn't fit in my pocket. From the library - Bladerunner.

I'll be back tomorrow night. My knife and I have nefarious plans involving good company, apple cobbler and a museum of pointy things with armaments.
- Brigid

Steel Plate Magnolias

I spent the first 20 or so years of my life in the West among cowboys and lumberjacks (and yes, I DO know all the words to the lumberjack song). But after that I ended up living in the South. That was something I hadn't planned on, for quite young, I married a Canadian pilot, expecting to continue the Western life, playing with airplanes and making a home in the mountains. But fate intervened, with those dreams going down in flames and I somehow ended up remarried and living in the South, on 40 acres with cows, a horse I named Elmer, and a couple of black labs.

The blending of the background of my acquired language patterns was a bit rough ("would y'all like seconds, aye") but I soon found my niche, mostly through my cooking. For just as Southern women know their elegant gentlemen:

Men in uniform
Men in tuxedos
Rhett Butler

They also know the three deadly sins.

Having an unkempt home
Having bad manners
Cooking bad food

But even after 10 years there, I never quite became a Southern gal. I never could get the exact GPS coordinates of "yonder" and didn't get a handle on exactly how much catfish, peas and beans made up a "mess of". They even tried dragging me off to a "beauty salon" ("I thought you said Saloon!!") and forcing me into big hair to have a portrait taken.


Still, although I picked up a slight accent over time, I was a "Northerner", favoring a six shooter and going west to play weekend warrior for my employer. I didn't do my nails, and after "BigHairGate" I got my hair done where I was based. Plus, I never could sit all the way through that classic Southern Chick Flick "Steel Magnolias". There's just not any good action in it. Maybe if I rewrote the script.

Shelby: Truvy, you know what you need in here? You need a radio, takes the pressure off of everyone feeling they have to talk so much.

Truvy: I had one once, but we took it out back to blow it up with some with C4. (KABOOM!!!) OK, time's up, time to take those perm rods out.

That's why I don't get to write scripts.

But the cooking skills and recipes I gained down south are some I treasure. Many of the dishes I'd never had growing up. Grits, Frito chili pie, biscuits and gravy, sweet potato pie and the growing lust for a small piece of fried dough known as the Beignet - which, in Home on the Range speak, is "happiness squared." I had it for the first time on a trip to Louisiana, and I never looked at a plain old donut in the same way again.


The word beignet (pronounced beyn-YAY) comes from the early Celtic word bigne meaning "to raise." In French it means "fried dough". They are a distinct New Orleans speciality, a fried, sweet dough, often cooked in cottonseed oil and usually dusted with powdered sugar.

They're sort of the early ancestor of the raised donut and when you hear people in New Orleans say "Goin' fo' coffee an'doughnuts", what they really mean is that they're going out for coffee and a little plate of beignets.


The coffee traditionally paired with them is café au lait. In New Orleans, that is strong dark roast coffee and chicory, served with equal part hot milk. Chicory was originally added to the coffee to stretch short supplies, but it was found to create a richer, smooth brew that is good on its own and works wonderfully with the milk.

There's only a couple of bakeries around Indiana that have them, but as they are best freshly made, hot with a soft, tender middle, why not make your own (recipe in the comments for now).

click to enlarge

They're a perfect pairing with that morning cup of coffee before a Steel Plate Shoot to give you a little energy. Because this "almost Southern gal" does know the fourth deadly sin.

A really bad grouping.

Home Again

A few folks have asked if I'd found a place to build. Not yet, given the state of the economy and current land prices around here (the only thing in real estate that hasn't fallen). I'm waiting a year, perhaps two before building. I'm renting for now, a tidy little place with a little yard for Barkley, a garage and fairly close to the freeway where I can get to the airport when the bat phone rings, thankful to have sold my too big, much too old, place before the market totally tanked. The rental is small, about 1200 square feet, but I wanted to see how I like that, as the home I intend on building will not be more than that (the shop however should be about 2000 square feet if I have my say).

The house I grew up in wasn't a huge place, only one bathroom that had a tub, requiring a schedule worthy of a battle commander with half a dozen people sometimes in the house during the holidays. There was just one other smaller bath with a sink and a toilet off the garage for us to come in and clean up after we tinkered with tools and cars.


I had my own room, being the only girl in the family, with a window that looked out onto an apple tree that since has been cut down. I climbed out of that window more than once, dropping into the darkness on the ground in silence. Not to sneak out and party (OK, one party and I was so guilty I came right back), smoke dope or anything the other kids were doing, but to simply get out of the house, out into the outdoors, sitting on the grass out back, watching the stars on those nights when I was restless. I'd think of things that I'd dream of, if only I could sleep. A small tidy home and shop of my own someday, a strong man who would love me, a big dog and all the bacon I could eat.

But as life renews itself, so do dreams. Not wishing to give up the things that I enjoy doing, while slaving to pay for a 4 bedroom McMansion I didn't need, my dreams as well have changed. I can entertain in a small kitchen as easily as one that is, by itself, the size of a small house. The people that I truly love will fit under one small roof, with a sleeping bag or two on the floor during hunting season. I want a house that looks less like a magazine and more like a life, the sort of place my Dad would smoke a pipe in, with high wooden beams, old tools and a blazing fire, a house for a writer, a retreat for the dreamer.

When I showed a colleague the plans and picture for the place I wanted, I was met with "you're going to LIVE there? It's so small! If I had your income, I'd be buying one of those big houses on the lake. Where are you going to shop? What are your neighbors going to think".


You know, I really don't CARE what the neighbor's think. I quit changing who I was to conform to society a long time ago, a foreigner to the immutable laws that TV and greed seem to have placed upon people.

But I'm not the only one who's downsized, be it by plan or by fate. I've friends who have done the same, as well as coworkers. People who, after dreams shattered, learn to live simply and cleanly. Found their life after years of living in huge cavernous dwellings where they rattled around with a stranger, heaving and grunting with the work of keeping that life up, uttering the sounds of someone engaged in a battle without arms.


After the shock wears off, they find they are immensely happier, less space, less "things", more time to do and be the person they always were.

People say that with change we grow. I'm not so sure I see it quite that way, but rather that we become what we always were, but had changed, molded or kept hidden to satisfy others. Changing our true nature to fit some preconceived notion of how the happy, successful person would live, or with whom. With each change in my life, with each friendship I've made, people more like myself, and less like who I was expected to spend time with, I've become more true to myself. It's as if with each change, with loss, with happiness, with challenge, with new friends and new discoveries, the layers peel way, like an onion exposing nerve endings to the chill air, awakening something that lay dormant for too long.


Now today, as a front brings the promise of rain, and the air is still warm with life and need, I look around. I look down at small things, green plants enduring in cold, hard ground to find light and air, like stars amidst a night sky. I look up straight into the sun, and for that brief moment when I must turn away, I see a pure clear circle, illuminating everything. I see my shadow, with a shape that is me, yet does not define me, simply a form, in this place in time, following what was truly within me, wherever I went.

Life in essence, remains the same, even as it changes, these existing things have always been true. It's a small flower, small spots of fresh life, unheard poetry on the hidden side of a planet spinning in space. It's darkness, light, and a great thirst to quench before winter's darkness is one of permanence.

I don't need a huge house to be happy. I don't need a dozen rooms of "things", bought not because they brought the owner pleasure, but simply to fill up empty spaces in a life. A life is more than that. It is not a house, it is not what we have in our homes, in our closets, in our garage. It is what is in our heart, it is what we are, those things that most do not see, things certainly, that many will never appreciate.


Another night, another time of quiet in the approaching dark, watching the sky for either space debris or answers. I sit on the ground that's already cooling, listening for the bark of trees or the baleful sound of the wind that speaks to me. I think of things I'd dream of, if only I could sleep. I listen, as a churchgoer does, to chants in ancient languages that no one understands, but listens to anyway, the words, a peace that flows like water.

What would we be, were we shed of all those material things, of our possessions, our titles, of our names? The things in the forest have no name, they have no earthly riches, yet they still exist; they still are profound in their creation. The creatures of the forest have no titles, and survive based on skill and cunning, not their credit limit or the car they drive. The plants grow and thread and seek light, just as man, when shedding that which is unnecessary, sees the light that is often truth.

Why not get back to a life that is simpler? A life that is more one with the wilderness. There are no words for the gloss of light on the trees, of the unity of earth and roots and tiny creatures that live and die as food for the soil. There are no names for the dark spaces between rocks in a stream, the nest of a feathered creature. Yet they are, and always will be. Strong. Beautiful. Surviving.

Cloudy With a Chance of Space Debris

LOS ANGELES: A bus-size, 6.5-tonne, 20-year-old NASA climate satellite is falling out of orbit and likely to hit Earth some time today. However, it is impossible to say where.

The chances are slim that anyone will see any of the 26 assorted pieces of the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite that are expected to survive re-entry into the atmosphere. The chances that someone, somewhere on the planet, will be hit by one of those chunks are 1 in 3200."


I'm home again and I think it's safe for all of us to get out for a walk (no Barkley, you can't wear a tinfoil hat). Cheers!

Carrying a Firearm- What It's Really About.

You look, and you steady yourself, prepared, yet not, anticipating the recoil of something you've never felt in your life; wanting it, expecting it, yet still sort of afraid of it. With the intake of breath and the gentle movement of your muscles finite contraction, the trigger draws towards you.

It's your first time shooting a large caliber handgun. The gun is not that large, you could conceal it with the right clothing, yet the bullet seems immense in your hand after the .22. Firing it for the first time is not what you expected, it's more and it's less, and you exert every square inch of pressure on to the floor that your feet can manage, locking hands and arms tight. You could hear it fire though even good ear protection; the explosion of sound, and the smell, the room buzzing as the bullet cleaves the darkness of the low lit range.

It's a sound you were oblivious to for years, and from now on, when you hear one from a distance, or a range stall one or two down from where you stand, you will look with a smile, to see what it was they are holding.


In just small moments of your life, things change, in a flash of light dancing with movement. A change of a way of thinking, a change of need, in a perfume of lead and powder that kisses your hair, creating in your mind the unbroken diminishing cessation of fear.

For in that one shot, with the confidence it brought, I knew. With this weapon, and practice, I can walk freely, a woman unbound by convention or unseated fear. I can hold my head up high, aware of my surroundings, walking with that purpose that shows I am not afraid of you any longer. Too many victims, too many women afraid, nothing left but soft murmuring bones and deep sighs like wind. Brave women, yet in the end, unarmed, their fight so insubstantial against mass and anger that we can not distinguish it from the bone colored earth that is all that remains or their final moments.

One minute a young girl was jogging, music in her ears, clothing scant in the hot weather and concealing little, not form, not fear, not fearlessness. She is the age of the innocent, with that bubbling naive impatience of youth, the blending of childlike trust that seems to protect without reason, but rather, robustly inhibits the skills she needs to survive. It won't happen to me, this is a good neighborhood. I'm in good physical shape. I've heard them all from victims. Those still alive to talk.

It was a beautiful night, the sense of peace and quiet, the night breeze building steadily, bringing with it the damp familiar breath of water. She was running, there alone along the river, which she now saw, for the last time, as she rounded a small curve, the path reaching off into the twilight that was advancing fast. She'd meant to get home before now but she had stopped to readjust her headset, slipping from the sweat on her brow, stopped to just enjoy being young and carefree.

From the trees a shadow, watching, stalking, creeping forward, driving shadows behind as he advances. In a moment, the attack unheard by anyone by the cold blooded, she was taken, pulled into the darkness by the dark thief, who wants that childlike innocence flowing like water through his hands, until it too disappears into the dark soil.

She doesn't come home that night. We read it in the paper, we hope and we cry along with the family. Strangers, yet, parents ourselves, we are connected by a web that binds us all together. It happens much too often. Monthly, sometimes weekly, a young woman taken, child, mother, daughter wife. Those that seek closure to such crimes do what they can, walking into the family home with no answers, only determination, looking up the stairwell that goes to a room now empty, the echoes of a child's feet laying on the steps like the dust of a generation that will never be.

We hold our own children close and we pray that those that prey on the gentle meet their own demise in a smear of hard red, for it is not a forgiving God we want for such monsters, but the Jehovah of might and justice.

I won't be one of those women. Nor will my daughter. Not if I can help it.

Years later, the sound of the same type of shot echoes in the air, darkness blends behind it as if its passing were only a thought. But the muscle memory holds, and I gently squeeze again, an expenditure of breath and muscle that in this moment sounds only like innocence protected. The discharge of the weapon is more than power and noise. It's an inarguable truth, like something I view under a microscope now, seen clearly, supporting the truths that I learned the hard way.

Yes, I do this for protection, but I also do it for other reasons. It's about skill, it's about challenging myself, it's about self awareness, purpose and the sheer affirmation of putting an exploding dot exactly where I want it to go, which is dead center in the forehead of a paper bad guy, holding a female hostage.


Carrying a weapon. It's not about dying. It's about living.

From two stalls down a small head looks around, a girl in her teens, shooting .22 with her LEO Dad, whom I know. She hears and sees my firearm, looks at me, and then at her Dad with a shy smile. Do you think I'm ready to try that? she asks.

I motion for them to come on over after ensuring the chamber is clear and the muzzle pointed away. Young lady, you are more ready than you know.

Kitchen Defense - Tactical Potluck Recipe

The holidays will be here in just a couple of months.

BE PREPARED!

You never know when you'll be asked to bring a tasty dish to a gathering. With a few simple ingredients, which many of us have on hand anyway, this is a recipe that will have them reloading at any potluck or family get together.

It's not at all photogenic, but outside of peeling the potatoes, it's quite easy to make and is always one of the first dishes emptied. This dish has survived the scrutiny of Lutheran Basement Church Women (what, no peas?) on my Mom's side and the Irish side of the family (potatoes!)


Brigid's Best Potatoes

3 and 1/2 pounds russet potatoes, peeled or not, cut into 1/8 inch thick slices
1 and 1/2 teaspoons dried dill
small sprig fresh basil, chopped roughly in small pieces
Mix together: 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon black pepper, 1/4 teaspoon white pepper, and a pinch of Penzey's garlic powder (or your favorite brand)
3 cups grated Gruyere cheese (about 10 ounces whole cheese)
1 and 1/3 cups whipping cream
1 and 1/3 cups chicken stock (I use homemade which I make and freeze but you can use chicken broth)
1/4 cup Dijon and white wine mustard (the Grey Poupon brand is quite good for the price)

Heat oven to 400 F. Butter a 2-3 quart shallow baking dish. Overlap 1/3 of the potatoes in dish, sprinkle lightly with 1/3 of the salt/pepper/garlic mixture, sprinkle with 1/2 tsp dill and 1 cup cheese.

Repeat layering twice, using the rest of the potatoes, divided, 1/2 t. dill and 1 cup of cheese for each layer, sprinkling with the remaining salt/pepper/garlic mixture.

Lightly whisk the cream, chicken stock and mustard in bowl. Stir in chopped basil and pour over the potatoes.

Bake until the top is crusty and starting to brown and the potatoes are tender when pierced with a fork.

400 degrees for 1 hour, or 325 for 2 hours.

Home on the Range Women

When I wrote the post about the Home on the Range Man, I got more comments on it than about anything I'd written at that point. But several have asked about being a Home on the Range Woman. I had written a short piece about that a while back but thought about it again when I was in a grocery and spotted one of those woman's magazines, You know the ones I'm talking about, where on the cover is some anorexic airhead showing enough skin to make a hooker blush, too much makeup and touting all kinds of articles on how to trap a man by being something other than your true self, and once you have done so, how to CHANGE him so he's some wimpy, henpecked version of the original.

I can "put on my face" in the time it takes to apply tinted sunscreen, cherry flavored lip gloss and a little mascara, and I will likely never go out in public wearing some outfit that costs $500. But it's more than that that makes me a a Home on the Range Woman, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

So with that, how to you know if are a HOTR woman?

1. Any salesman that ventures to your place while the garage is open can't help but notice the man sized target with 50 holes in the chest, head and groin area. For some reason, you don't get many sales calls any more.


2. The day after Christmas you go to the gun range just to see everyone's new toys.

3. You don't think camping involves a hairdryer or a portable TV.

4. You know the value of a dollar because you work hard to earn your own dollars.


5. You don't force your beliefs on others. If you don't want a gun, you don't buy one; you don't demand laws so that NO law abiding citizen can have one.

6. You'd rather watch Mythbusters or Top Gear than Dancing with the Stars.

7. Your dog has more emergency rations than 90% of the U.S. population.


8. Your property is more secure than Area 51.

9. You can fix a toilet, change the oil in your vehicle and put dinner on the table for a crowd without asking for help. If you find a spider the size of a Buick in the bathroom you will, however, immediately holler for backup.

10. You know that if you believe the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, you need a geography lesson, but a good pecan pie never hurts.


11. The checker at the local home improvement store knows you by name.

12. The local deli saves up their 5 gallon buckets for you.

13. "Girls Day Out" involves lead residue.



14. You've used a Gerber tool to cut a steak at a fine dining establishment.

15. If the power fails in the local movie theater you can show yourself out with your mini mag.

16. The books on your coffee table include two reloading manuals and a a zombie survival guide.


17. Your knife collection has its own footlocker.

18. You've laughed til it hurt through a Steven Seagal movie and found out afterward that it wasn't a comedy.

19, You avoid opening day of the stores after a holiday, but will journey for hundreds of miles to be at the start of an adventure.

21. Not only can you recognize the sound of a generator from a half mile away, but you also know the brand, horsepower and the kilowatts per hour that it is putting out.

22. You consider reloading equipment as "decorative furnishings".

23. If you need something, be it food, a car or health care, you go shopping for it, or choose a job that provides a means for it. You don't demand that the government pay for it with your neighbors hard earned money.

24. You refuse to place the word "person" after mail, fire, congress, etc., and instead still use "man". You look at some female Congress members and you could definitely think of another word for them, but it's NOT congressperson. That just sounds silly.

25. When you come up against something tough you don't think "who can do this instead of me", you think "how can I handle this".

26. You've shot and field dressed your own dinner more than once.


27. You don't know anyone that voted for Clinton.

28. If you see something that is a threat to you, you think about how to defeat it. You don't plan on how to surrender gracefully while still looking good.

29. People don't come to your house for "tofu croquettes".


30. As a woman, you realize that for some silly reason you are still considered a "minority". As such, you see yourself as someone capable through your own efforts, NOT as a victim in need of government protection, special laws, and favored hiring practices. You can't legislate respect, you must earn it.


31. You can stand on your own, but if you are blessed, there is a day you can look up into the eyes of one like yourself. Eyes the color of a winter morning, holding all the power and magic of the sky. In those eyes you will see the strong spirit of someone who still believes. Someone who still holds on to the hopes and the faith of past generations, when hard work meant something and craftsmanship was its own value, someone who believes that character counts and actions speak louder than promises. Someone that still dreams.