In which Katie goes home again...and finds home has gone somewhere else

I had a long weekend, both good and bad. Mostly good. I suppose the bad was really more sad/bittersweet than anything else. Assuming it started on Friday.

I spent the day Thursday herding cattle and burying Daddy's ashes. Neither had much to recommend it. I'd never herded beef cattle before, and I have to say, dairy cows are much easier to deal with and smarter. Though I suppose an argument could be made in favor of the beef cattle as well, since one could conclude that most of the time when beef cattle are being herded somewhere, it's toward certain death and someone's dinner plate, so it actually behooves them not to go along and cooperate. Dairy cows want to be milked, because it relieves them of the pain of a swollen udder, so since generally the only time anyone tries to herd them, it means either food or milking (and usually both), they want to go where you tell them. They will, in fact, line up at the gate and wait for you to open it for them. There's not a lot of work involved in herding dairy cattle most of the time. Beef cattle, otoh, do not care where you want them to go. They get their feed out in the pasture, so they don't find anything of interest up in the holding pen and are, in fact, deeply suspicious of the fact you want them to go there. Especially if they're new to your property and are still trying to suss out how they fit into the whole thing and where the best place might be from which to launch an escape. Cattle are very big on escaping. That's why the expression "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence" came into being. Because to a cow, truer words were never spoken.

We were severely understaffed, being only me, my stepbrother, a guy who didn't speak English, and a man I knew when I was a kid who is not fully mobile, having lost most of one of his legs several years ago on an oil rig. There was lots of rounding up and re-rounding up and moving quickly and cows charging past and going through the fence and stuff like that. It was also unseasonably warm (like in the 90's). I got sunburned and covered in dirt and grime, to the point of being gritty. I do not like being gritty. I like being hot, sunburned and gritty even less. And there are still 5 cows and 3 calves wandering around in the pasture, since they just refused to cooperate. I'm worried about one of the calves, an adorable little red calf with a red and white speckled face who was only a few days old and whose mother my stepbrother could not identify. So I don't know if she went with him. This is bad for 2 reasons: calves that young need their mothers and the ultra-rich milk they provide which is necessary to a tiny newborn, and mothers need their calves because if they aren't nursed regularly, they develop infections and poisoning and can die. Not to mention the pain they're in from swollen udders. So I desperately hope the mother went to auction along with her baby. Otherwise bad things will happen to both, and I can't stand that. It hurts my heart. I may not be overwhelmingly fond of cows, but they're animals and beings and need to be protected. I don't even want to think about that adorable little baby (whom I had to give water to because it was hot and he was panting badly) growing up to be slaughtered for someone's hamburger. In fact, I think I just this very second gave up beef. For that very reason.

After hours of that and sending the cows off to auction in the afternoon, my stepbrother and I put my dad's ashes in a heavy decorative box, sealed it shut, and took it out into another of the fields to bury under a huge oak tree up on a ridge. The ground was really hard, thanks to the area suffering a very long drought, and we had a hell of a time digging a hole deep enough. I wanted to go 3', but we ran out of light and had to settle for 2, and that required a pick axe and post hole digger, as well as our two shovels. It was hard work, and I was really sore by the time we were done. It's on the highest point on the property, so hopefully if the river floods, it's safe, and Daddy used to like to go there and think and watch the sun set. After we filled it back in, we went and got a bunch of rocks and covered it with a mound of rocks. I'm going to get a stone for it later, when I actually have money. Assuming I ever do, since unemployment in California has topped 10%, and not only do I not have a job, I can't reach unemployment for my extended benefits, either. *sigh*

After that, my stepbrother made me a baloney and cheese sandwich, since I hadn't eaten all day and it was by now past 7, and then we rode around the back pasture and down to the river, where I went down the bank to the place we used to swim when I was a kid and got a handful of sand to take home with me. It's difficult to be in a place at once familiar and so completely strange. The lay of the land was the same, the barn and houses were in the same place, but it's been 30 years, and everything is in such a state of abandonment and disrepair as to be shocking. Everyone who ever leased the place seems to have stolen anything of value and left their junk behind, and neglected care of the buildings and fences. Then too, your memory has gaps, so you remember this or that, but not the next thing, so the place you see in your mind's eye does not at all translate to the place stretched out before you. I don't recommend the experience, frankly. It was a relief to leave it behind. One day, we'll restore it, but for now, it was very sad. You really can't go home again. Or maybe it's just that I've had too many. I don't know.

Friday night, I drove out to my best friend since 10th grade's house, and we hung out and talked the whole weekend and watched cheesy b-movies like The Beastmaster. It was really good to do, but also really sad to leave. We went out to her dad's on Sunday for a few hours. I used to call her parents Mom & Dad, and when Dad answered the door, man, I hugged him really hard and started to cry. He's really reserved, so I think he was a little flummoxed, but he coped. He's not one for crying, but when someone asked if I was all right, he said I just needed to be a kid for a moment, then he patted me and said okay, and I let go. I cried again when it was time to go. Poor Gayle - I wouldn't let her hug me when I saw her on Tuesday night, because I didn't want to cry in front of strangers, and Tuesday was a hard day, and then when I left, I told her no hugs because I didn't want to cry, and then I turned around and hugged Dad and cried anyway. I'm sure she's confused. I'm nothing if not a huge contradiction, sometimes.

Sunday night, I had dinner with my brothers and my sister-in-law and that brother's two kids, and we talked about some of the probate stuff. Then I came home. And now I have to hire the attorney and talk to my friend Dagmar about an assets search on my dad. Ah, probate. Thou art a joy. Or something.

On one hand, I just want to go back to Cali. On the other, I know it's not going to be any easier there. I really wish it could be easier. And I want my life to be different. I'm tired of being unhappy and overweight and unsuccessful and lonely. I want to be the person I thought I'd be when I grew up and live the life I thought I'd have. This isn't it, and life is just too long and miserable to live it otherwise.

I have to go get lunch now.

Later.