Prayer For A Traveler

"Oh Lord... thank you for getting me home...."

Within minutes of my plane touching down I verily threw myself down on this Good Land and kissed it. I escaped, once more, from civilization. No traveler was happier to get home to this funny little farm than yours truly. It was ridiculous. Those people are mad.

And not just crazy, I am here to tell you they are mad. All of them. Mad and angry and scold-y. You'd think they'd be happy. That part of the world has largely escaped the economic hardship that the rest of us labor under. Out there money falls like leaves from trees and washes up on the beaches like seaweed.  Those folks have everything they could possibly want.  But they are, by and large, very unhappy. Or at least that's what you'd think based on their behavior.

My country bumpkin-ness was apparent by the foolish way I tried to smile and be friendly. Apparently I walked too slow and I didn't get out of my parking spot fast enough for that expensively shod, luxury SUV driving nitwit. She slammed her "truck" in reverse and hit ramming speed before I could even pull out. For heavens sakes, you'd think if she wanted that spot so bad she would have put down her phone and let me out. I can't make any excuses for the dimwit who parked, I am not exaggerating, an inch off my bumper so they wouldn't have to walk that extra 15 feet from that other parking spot just across the street. I wished for my big truck so I coulda just rolled right over that little "car," such as it was. 

Pretty quickly the shine wore off of that big city penny.  I drove around giving out imaginary tickets for Driving While Self Absorbed, eating an inhuman amount of (very expensive) french pastries, and randomly yelling "I drive a big work truck and butcher pigs in my yard" just to shock 'em, y'all. Then I told them to triple bag my groceries in plastic just to watch their eyes roll back in their heads. I didnt recycle. On purpose.

You don't wanna know what happened when I got into a lively little debate about varmint killin' - I guess some of them folks are too tenderhearted to hear about how I lined the fence posts with pelts as a warning. Before they could burst into tears I told them that living in the peaceable kingdom was "all fairy dust and rainbow farts" until you go out and find some vixen running off with your favorite duck. There were some tears. Not mine.

I dared them to say one thing to me about how farming was bad for their environment  - just so's I could tell them that the carbon footprint of our pork equaled to the amount of gas used by our old tractor to drag them pig carcasses up the hill. I had hoped to make them spit up their out of season, grown-in-Chile nectarine on their expensive Italian leather shoes - you know, just for the irony of the whole thing.

The lowest moment.... realizing the "Johnny Cab" I was riding in was..... a Prius.

Of course, there were some bright spots. My BFF was completely generous with her time and drove me around to the best coffee houses. I got to see some friends I hadn't seen in a while, and of course my hosts reminded me, in a hundred tiny ways, how much I loved them.

I came home to a tail waggin' good time to find The Bubby is now almost as tall as Kai. The cats even sauced out to say they hadn't noticed I was gone...that much.  And there is nothing new to report with Nibbles.

We'll be back in the fracas now that the dust has settled off my traveling shoes. But for now I'm just gonna sit here, enjoy the fire, and say to myself, "There's no place like home... there's no place like home..."

Happy Wednesday everyone! Don't think for a second you're missing anything in civilization.  If you haven't done it lately, run right out and kiss the ground that sustains you.  Praise God for our life, for this Good Land, and all of the living things has make up our little world.  Amen and amen.