Le chateau du bovine

(ok for those fluent i didnt bother to look up gender. april fools ok?)

Yesterday was one of the best days Ive had in a long long time. Spending time with gill and my babies, glorious sleep, work free day, (for the most part) and an evening out with the fabus. An evening with the fabus? delightful to be sure, but not so much out of the norm...oh but friends. This was no ordinary evening. This was a night out in crawford county. Never heard of it? let the story begin.

The plan was for a nice dinner at a new restaurant before attending a benefit for senor fabu's cousin in crawford county. At the aforementioned cowshed. Senor's cousin is suffering from a rare disease that requires her to need a heart and lung transplant. She is only 22 and a truly delightful person (who looks surprisingly like gret). But she is also a good starting point to describe senor's background a bit. Senor Fabu is a great guy. Funny, personable, good natured, and intelligent. He hails from Crawford County. Crawford county is? well...right next door to america so to speak. Senor's family is not too....rural. His parents are your basic middle class folks. His mom is slightly insane (best described by Madame Fabu last night as "all right all right we got the point, put away your axis two already") but mostly they are pleasant folks. His brother is in his twenties, cute funny pleasant kid. A little rough around the edges but likable. Then there is lola. Lola? Is Senor's sister and pretty much pure crawford county. She is 35 years old, married to a man who she hasnt lived with in at least two years, and has a 14 year old daughter who is a teen pregnancy statistic waiting to happen. Lola lives in a trailer (not that there is anything wrong with that) but occasionally moves back with her parents when she gets behind with heating or electricity. (she is fond of the drink) She is completely crazy and terrorizes the entire family with her manipulations. Oh and she has a tendency to date boys in their early twenties. Madame Fabu despises Lola. Ergo we despise her too. After that huge background, i will offer some highlights from the evening.

-Dinner was surprisingly mediocre. Our server was high which would not have been a problem had she been relatively attentive in her state.

-Ordered a delicious bottle of wine. Decided it would have been really funny to order a 100 dollar bottle and when they poured the taste, to spit it across the table and scream that it was swill. Next time....next time.

-Got briefed at dinner about Lola's new boyfriend, who we dubbed "peter pan". A recently unemployed bartender (fired for getting in a fight, which we are sure was a plus for lola) who is not too far past puberty. Fabus were deciding whether to warn him to cut and run now or enjoy the hilarity as it all plays out once again.

- Lovely one hour drive to crawford county. Found out the benefit was being held at "the cowshed" making me regret greatly that i had not brought my camera.

- Got to the benefit only to find that the name of "the cowshed" had been changed to the "stable pit and pub". Happily, it is still home of the two-fisted cocktail.

- Found seats by the beer table (yay!) after greeting the fabu-in-laws. Prepared for a fine night of people watching.

-Tried yuengling for the first time. WOW. (this is a local beer and it ROCKS)

- Entered the drawing for the tv and ipod.

- Gradually realized that the group of middle aged women with the guy in the leather jacket reading "pow-mia" actually turned out to be seven bikers and their women. (does seven indicate a gang? i feared as much)

- Realized a bit more quickly that my proximity to the gang was not really computing with our friends. As evidenced by Madame Fabu (who despite her belief that she was whispering) making funny but disparaging comments about how they should not win prizes they couldnt carry home on their bikes and my favorite "OH MY GOD SHE IS FOLDING UP THE RATTAN TIES. WHO KEEPS THE RATTAN? DID YOU SEE THAT?". Yeah buddy...that really warmed up the table.

- We won the IPOD. It was so exciting. Well technically Gill did because I dont actually know what an Ipod is or does and he actually wanted one.

- The band ROCKED. Porcelein bus driver. How can you not like a band that jumps and has horns?

-The room was ripe with candidates for "there's your boyfriend/girlfriend" (our favorite couple game!) (And gill one with the mullet lady and the midget lady).

- Senor Fabu was extremely focused on winning a generator. You know you are in god's country when the big auction prize is a generator. "Because you know in the suburbs we could lose power for an hour or even more. we need it" (madame fabu was a bit more cynical about the generator)

-Surprisingly they did not draw for the generator until late in the evening. We were hoping the winner had left allowing senor another chance.

-Madame Fabu (who has lived among the crawford country folks and considers herself the jane goodall of crawford county) explained this as "People in these parts dont leave early when a generator is at stake. You never know when the next armageddon is coming".

-Sure enough as soon as the generator was drawn, the room cleared.

ok more on the ride home and our new money making idea later. I slept all day but am still exhausted. Happy April friends!