George And Steve Go Camping

It's that time of year. The birds are singing. The sky is a beautiful blue and the clouds look like big white puffs of cotton candy. The heat, well, there's no pretty way to describe that. It's hotter than hell here in Texas. It's mid June and it's already in the 100's. Thanks God, thanks a lot.

So anyway, due to the heat and because we were invited to spend some time with George's son, we went camping for the night. George's son, whom I call "Munchkin" and his girlfriend both said that the place we were going was really nice. They've apparently been there many times and never had a problem so we figured it'd be a lot of fun.

Let me tell you....if anyone ever tells you "oh i've been there before. It's really nice and we've never had any problems there" about a public campgrounds, just spare yourself and claim you need the entire weekend to wash your hair or build Oompaloompa traps.  If you simply must go, either pack industrial grade earplugs or just plan to sleep in the truck for a quick getaway. Not that Munchkin or his girlfriend lied, I'm sure they told the absolute truth. The difference was likely in the fact that they went when it was freezing out and no one else was there, or possibly in the definition of "problems".

Regardless, let me just explain to you what George and I got ourselves into.

3:00 Pull out onto the highway and notice a sheriff's deputy behind us.

3:03 Remember that the taillight removed from the jet ski trailer the previous night was never replaced and we're missing a light.

3:25 Begin breathing again when we turned to go to walmart to get said tail light and the deputy kept going straight


3:45 Finally get out of wal-mart,  put tail light on trailer, get on the highway for our adventure


4:30 Arrive at Browder's 3278 Marina and check in

4:50 Launch Jetski's and go make camp

5:10 Steve carefully goes down the steep hill and crosses sharp rocks to get to the water so she can get on the jet ski.

5:20 Steve climbs back up the hill to get a drink

5:22 Steve goes back down the hill repeating the same process. Steve does this approximately 4 times before she ever gets to get on the jet ski. Steve is a slightly less than happy camper, no pun intended.

8:30 Everyone has had turns playing around, it's time for dinner. After walking half a mile, the cafe at the marina is closed but we get sandwich fixings and the potential crisis is averted.

9:30 it's bed time, but our fellow campers apparently have other ideas. Their music gets louder and they get drunker

11:30 We call the sheriff's department to report minors drinking and noise

12:00 AM sick of waiting for the sheriff's Dept. Munchkin goes to look for the marina owner.

12;15 Marina owner tells the inconsiderate inbred asshats partiers to turn it down. They do. For about 10 minutes.

12:20 Marina owner cruises by, the partiers see him coming though and turn it down. As soon as he passes, it goes back up.

12:30 see above

12:45 Munchkin goes to get the Marina owner again. This time the music stays turned down but the bass is just pounding making the volume fairly irrelevant.

1:30 Polk County's version of Barney Fife arrives. He cannot see herds of people running and hiding behind tree's or up on a hill. Our camp was farther from the hiders than the cop was and people in our camp could hear them but he could not.  The music goes off, no more bass. Steve finally passes out thanks to the 2 wine coolers she had the foresight to drink. George does not.

2:30-5:00 AM screaming, singing, group sex or a possible sexual assault, drunks staggering through our camp, fights, more drunks staggering through the camp and then the fisherman arrive. George Finally managed to sleep for about 15 minutes.

Once we all got up and began fishing and such, we sort of got our second wind and we had some fun but it wasn't long before we were pretty much exhausted and needed to go home so we could rest after our getaway.


Needless to say, we won't be camping there again..........thank goodness we have beautiful pictures that make it look as if it were a wonderful carefree adventure.

"Steve"

I'm not Benjamin

I've decided that George has made it his goal in life to confuse the living hell out of me. He denies this of course. I know I'm right though.

When we first met, he nicknamed me "Mister". I've gone over the reason for that in this post. I told him I was not going to answer to "Mister" but evenually I did.

Then he started calling me "Julio". Steve No Habla Espanol George. That one didn't stick.

Then he started calling me "Maximiliano". Still no habla espanol, and I think he got tired of saying it anyway so it didn't stick either.

Next came Steve. There were actually probably a few others in between Maximiliano and Steve, but I can't remember all of them. Suffice it to say that Steve stuck. I kept saying I would never answer to it either but he wore me down. It was easier to answer to it than to pretend I can't hear him and truthfully sometimes I would answer before I realized I had even opened my mouth.  I resigned myself to the name.

Then he started calling me Jim. This is for no other reason than torture. See......Jim is someone George knows from the past that creeps me the hell out. Everytime we see him I do everything I can to avoid him hoping he won't see us. It's not just me either. George's ex said the same thing about Jim. He's just weird and he looks exactly like Dr. Zaius from Planet of the Apes.

Jim looks exactly like this only grayer

I'm convinced this is Jim as well. George says it's his brother.

No matter what, I flat refuse to answer to Jim and for the most part I hit George when he calls me that. No court in the land would convict me for abuse either so don't even think about using this statement against me George. They will convict YOU for torturing me. Believe THAT!

So anyway, here lately George has taken to calling me "Benjamin". Sometimes even "Benjamin Franklin".  Why? Who the hell knows? I still don't think George knows why he keeps renaming me except that it cracks him up to see the expression I make when he calls me something new. Make no mistake, he gets a big kick out of annoying me. Hence the reason he often really does get kicked. (again, no court would convict me. They would only wonder how I restrained myself from leaving bruises!)

I'm not answering to Benjamin! It's not sticking this time and here's why. See the name of the blog? George and Benjamin's excellent adventures does not have the same flow that George and steve's Excellent adventures does. Plus it takes a full 2 seconds longer to type benjamin. Sure I could shorten it to Benji, but that was a really ugly dog and a super stupid movie. So we aren't going there. So deal with it George, I'm not Benjamin. I'm Steve. Well, wait, I'm really not Steve either but, oh hell, you get the point.

On the upside, as much as he likes to rename me and confuse me, I loves my George immensely. I'm going to keep him and love him and drink warm cocoa with him lol. The way I see it, when he's old and senile, it won't matter that he won't remember my name, it'll be just like normal! Well....normal for us anyway.


Benjamin
Benji

"Steve"

Another day, Another Auction

George and I had a marginally successful day at the auction today. Successful in several ways:

A. It wasn't raining
B. It wasn't raining while I was wearing my brand new SUEDE boots
C. The wind wasn't blowing so hard that it was turning the umbrella inside out
D. We didn't spend too much
E. We got a Zero turn mower for a great price

We also had a marginally UN-successful day at the auction today.

A. It was so humid, it might as well have rained because we were still soaked
B  There was no wind at all
C. We only got one thing we had hoped to get
D. The tiller that George sold there last week for $35, was sold again today for $90

"Steve"

George And Steve-Demolition Experts

Yep, last weekend, we got into the demolition business. Want to guess how many times I demolished a building before I met George? Exactly none lol. That's what makes our relationship so interesting. I never know what we'll do next. There's always an adventure waiting.

We got pretty dirty and we worked really hard to get it all done but we worked great as a team and the job was completed.

This was the job after we'd already done about half of it.

ALMOST done! It was So hot!

George working hard!

Walls finally came down. Just have to load it all up now

Wanna guess which gloves are mine? Yep, the REALLY dirty ones! Not because I worked harder though, they were just already dirty lol.

Luckily for me, George didn't have the camera. As it turned out, I had as much dirt on my face as I did on my gloves. We stopped at Church's to get dinner and we're pretty sure they kept putting off taking our order because they thought I was some kind of street person. Jerks! It worked out alright though. We left and went to Subway where they were happy to serve us something that was better for us anyway. Take THAT Church's!

We are going back to the auction this weekend, pray for us lol. if I get shot again afterwards, I'm going to snatch someone baldheaded

"Steve"

"Pablo" The Defective Rooster

As with anything to do with George and Steve, there's always a twist on pretty much everything. Including poultry. This time it is of course George's fault. It can't be mine because I had nothing to do with it, even if I did encourage the idea.
See....it all started when George and I first met. He likes chickens. He decided to buy a HUGE incubator and hatch eggs. He ended up with around 200 baby chicks. It may have actually even been more than that. What I know for sure is that it was a whole lot of chickens. I admit I thought that raising chicks was a good idea. I admit to being partial to the red ones and the black ones. I admit that I intended to have a chicken coop built and take the black ones home with me....eventually. I even admit I never quite got around to building said chicken coop. Everything else is George's fault.

He eventually sold/gave away/almost begged people to take all the chicks except some black ones and some red ones. He kept a few of the prettier roosters to see which would be the best to keep. Unfortunately they ended up being "pretty boy roosters". You know the kind.....all fluff and no brains. Yep, they all irritated the crap out of George and ended up in new homes. I was fine with that because I don't like roosters anyway.

Well then things got a little embarrassing around the hen house. With no "man" around the girls got a little frisky with each other and well.....people could like drive by and see this. We couldn't have people thinking the "girlie's" had issues. This is a small town after all and people talk! So, George got them a boyfriend.

Now before I say anything else, In George's defense, he was told that this dumb ass rooster was 11 months old. We are pretty sure that if he's 11 months old it's a frickin miracle he's lived this long because Pablo isn't much good for anything but a pot of dumplins. He makes the other roosters look like Einsteins!

Anyway, why am I so sure Pablo is an idiot? Well, the other day we were standing in the yard and George was pressure washing something. Shortly before this he saw a chicken hawk and scared it off. Pablo never knew it was there! So while George was busy, I was watching the sky for predators who might try to have themselves some Mcnuggets. I didn't see any Chicken hawks but I did spy a couple of huge buzzards flying overhead. I knew the girlie's were safe so I wasn't worried but what I saw next  had me pretty hot under the collar. Mr. Thinkshesabadass himself had spotted the buzzards and he dove under a table for safety! He didn't warn the girls. He didn't sound an alarm to let them know of possible danger like he's SUPPOSED to! Oh no,  he didn't make a sound except that of a big ole wuss diving for cover. I thought at first that maybe it was a fluke. I wanted to give the big girlypants the benefit of the doubt but then he did it AGAIN! He didn't care if the hens were in danger so long as HE wasn't!

Prior to this incident George was ready to get rid of Pablo and I tried to talk him out of it. I thought for sure Pablo would get smarter and be a good guy. PUH-lease! George knows his chicken stuff and I shoulda listened. Thank goodness George isn't letting the girls sit on eggs. Can you imagine how dumb some of them might turn out with Pablo as the father??? I'm just sayin....


On top of all this, I'm pretty sure he killed Willamina by sexing her to death and no I'm not kidding. Stop laughing! She was already sick but seemed to be finally getting better and he mounted her at least 3 times in less than an hour that we know of. This was before he decided to dive under the table and show he's a bigger chicken than the hens. THEY weren't afraid of no buzzard! Anyway, gawd only knows what kind of orgy he had after they were all put up for the night! He had to salvage his masculinity somehow!

So now I'm on an Anti-Pablo campaign. I think he belongs in a stew pot for potentially leaving the girls in harms way, murdering Willamina and not spotting a chicken hawk that was in PLAIN SIGHT. George seems to be rethinking the situation to possibly give Pablo a chance to grow up. I don't know for sure who will win, but I know for sure I'll get revenge for Willamina one way or another, even if it means I have to find a way to "accidentally" throw a rock at his head.

Ok, ok, I won't really hurt him.............but I can't promise I won't walk by the pen every now and then and tell him he's got a teeny hoohaw and all the other roosters laugh at him.

"Steve"

George and Steve Plant A Garden

Well, it's that time of year. Actually it was that time of year about a month ago, but as you've probably figured out, George and I don't do much of anything like everyone else does. That'd be boring and lets face it.........we're anything but boring.

So anyway, I was going to just post pics of the garden but I decided thatsince I took way too many pictures that maybe i'd better find a better way to post them from start to finish. Hopefully this works.

Free photo slideshow created with Smilebox

So there you are, our very first garden together. I just know it's going to be as awesome as we are!

Disclaimer-George didn't really throw Rusty over needing more room, he just got tired of having to fix Rusty and getting gas on his hands lol.

"Steve"

George And Steve Get Rich!

Okay, well maybe not rich exactly just yet, but we're closer to it than we were last week. I call that progress. You call it whatever you want.

Those beautiful planters we made........uh huh, you know you want one.....or 12. Well we are selling them pretty fast now. Even got an order for 4 of them today. Yayyyyyy Us!

I also came up with some great designs today to make them even prettier so I can't wait to get started on that tomorrow. Soon, ya'll will all be able to say you knew us when! ;)

"Steve"

On the upside...

The pear tree's are in bloom. These tree's only make those hard pears that are basically good for batting practice and/or throwing at kids who shoot you but the blooms are beautiful.

I also managed to capture this little guy, though he sure doesn't look like he appreciated it much.

"Steve"

"Steve" Is Starting To Get A Complex

2 weeks ago, George and I went to an auction to buy and sell some stuff. It's a place we've been a few times and it's a place I wish we could replace. The owners are just so rude! They might be really nice people deep down.......REALLY deep down, but mostly they just seem like jerks. It never ceases to amaze me either that the Auctioneer, who is also the owner, will sit there and try to get bids forever on something he or one of his friends own but if it's someone else he doesn't know he barely takes a full minute to let people bid. There have been a couple times that I wanted to snatch him up by the few hairs he still has and teach him some manners but George probably wouldn't appreciate the attention much and lets face it, I wouldn't make a good prison bitch. Better to just let the old man get away with it for now.

Anyway, we got home after dealing with those people and as we were pulling into the driveway, I noticed 2 things. First, someone else was pulling into the driveway behind us. Second, There were some people just over to the side of George's property line going into the woods. I mentioned the second issue, but George was focused on the first and didn't really hear me. So we get out of the truck and the man who had pulled up behind us said that he'd heard George had a tiller for sale. They started talking about it and I stood there listening. What do I know about tillers?

Actually I was really standing there wishing the guy would leave because we had picked up a pizza on the way home and I was starving! While I was standing there dreaming about dipping my pizza in Buffalo Ranch sauce I heard something hit my jacket.  It was then that several things happened. First, before I realized I'd been shot, the guy who was talking about the tiller realized I'd been shot and he ducked behind George's truck. THEN he said " Did you just get shot?". I indicated i thought I had and then the guy instructed his son to get out of the way as well. While that happened George was also realizing that I'd been shot at and that someone was in the woods shooting next to the property line. At the same time he was already headed over there and telling me to call the police.

I went to the house real quick to get the phone and carried it out with me. George had already cornered 2 of the little twerps and they looked pretty scared. They should be too. George is no little guy! I don't know what he was saying to them, but by this point I was pretty hot myself. I'd been SHOT! Hello??? It doesn't matter that it was a BB gun. Did I mention that before? Yeah it was a BB gun, but those can be as deadly as anything else, especially in the hands of twerps. So I yelled at them and I'm fairly certain they didn't hear a lot of what I actually said, but they probably think they shot a crazy woman and if nothing else that will make them hunt elsewhere from now on. Whatever works right?

George did end up calling the police because after we let the twerps go, he saw that a window had been shot 3 times in the house. Needless to say this pretty much ruined the night. We didn't see them do it and we didn't know who they were so the cops couldn't do anything except take a report and promise to patrol more often.

Now, Fast forward another week. We went to the flea market to sell some stuff and just as we were about to start packing up to leave I start hearing this "pew, pew pewwwwwwww, pew pew pewwwwwwwwww" sound. I look up to see what it is and there's this little Hispanic kid. He's standing in the back of a trailer, this look in his eyes like " you going down gringo" and he's pointing his little space laser gun at ME, just blasting away.

I'm starting to think I should either buy a bullet proof vest or buy my own space laser gun and shoot back!

"Steve"

George and Steve Get Crafty

Not long ago I got an email from a fellow Freecycle member about a way to use old tires. I mentioned it to George because he had a whole bunch he was trying to do something with and I thought it was a great idea. Well, we decided not to make Tater Towers since neither of us really eat a lot of potatoes and it didn't seem like something we could market. George came up with something better though. Apparently when George was a little demon kid, his Mom had some planters that were made from tires. When he first told me about them I have to admit I had my doubts. I looked them up online to see if I could find pics and what I saw were almost as ugly as I had pictured in my mind.

I have faith in George though and I waited to see what they would end up looking like before making my mind up completely. The next day I got an email from George. He'd made one and painted it and everything. That really excited me. it was so much more beautiful than I had ever thought it could be. We've made several now and we've come up with some really interesting color combinations. Tires have never been prettier! Anything can be planted in them and they are virtually indestructible so they are well worth making or buying. trust me, after watching george wrestle with them, i suggest you just buy them if you can, it's far FAR easier and  much less chance of giving yourself a heart attack!

"Steve"

George And Steve Do Craigslist

Til I met George, I was not a Craigslist user. I had heard of it but never used it. Then George came along and taught me all I ever needed to know and then some. He's an expert Craigslist user. He knows all the rules and more importantly, he follows them. He's awesome like that!

I started using Craigslist because of him intermittently. Pretty much only if I just need to sell something. If I buy anything it's usually with George. This past week I sold 2 refrigerators and I swear it was an exercise in patience. Both of the fridges were in great condition, really nice and very clean. Well worth the money I was asking for them.

It seemed like getting responses to the ad was easy. getting anyone to actually show up....uhhhhh...not so much. Why is that? Do most people take the time to write an email, make a call, tell someone they are on their way to see the item knowing they will never show up? isn't that kind of....well.......stupid?

I don't know about anyone else, but I have other things to do. So if I am answering the phone or emails for people who are just rude and have no intention of showing up, i'm wasting time. It happens to George a lot too of course, which is part of the reason I was selling the refrigerators instead of him. I work from home, he does not. So it's easier for me to sit around and wait than it is for him. Which is fine with me, I just don't understand stupid people. Maybe they're just bored and have nothing better to do? maybe it's their version of window shopping? They know they can't buy it but it makes them feel good to pretend they can?

This week, I had 7 no shows, 2 people who had to call several times for directions even though they wrote them down the first time supposedly and more than I can count who couldn't speak English. Being that the ad was written in English, that kinda irked me a little. I think from now on, I'm going to include a link to Google maps and "No Habla Espanol" at the end of the ads lol. It won't stop the no shows, but it just might take a little of the frustration out the next time I decide to sell something.

"Steve"

George and Steve - Hell Hike

There's not much more fun to be had in the fall in Texas than traipsing through the woods. The water is too cold for swimming and neither of us are much good at sitting still to fish when it's cold. So we decided to go to the State Park.  We had gone there the weekend before and went on a short 3 mile hike and explored a small part of the woods. Since that went incredibly well and only got us a tiny bit lost we decided to do it again on a larger scale. We were practically experts after all. We survived the 3 miles.

We got to the park at around 10 am or so. We paid our entrance fee and got a map. I will never forget the woman in the park office who was showing us some of the trails on these awesome maps. She pointed at the newest trail exclaiming it was new and wonderful but extremely long. She had this light in her eye as she said it, like it was a dare or something. She mentioned there was a lake at the halfway point of this hike. We discussed making a day of it someday and attempting that hike. We had no intention of taking that trail on this day though. We just wanted to explore a bit. Our plan was to take the shorter one that ran sort of parallel to the extremely long one. If only it had worked out that way.

We set off on the trail. We came to this sign and I shudder every time I see it now. We didn't go the wrong way. We were still on the right path at this point. I just wish we had gone to the left rather than the right. We would have saved ourselves about 9 miles if we had.

So off we went. We walked uphill, down hill, through swamps and places that only an alligator or a cousin of the men in Deliverance could love til we came to a very large part of a river.

The map, which clearly left a bit to be desired at this point didn't seem to indicate we were off track so everything seemed okay though we were getting a little concerned.  When we found this big part of the river we decided, because we are experts after all that we were almost at the end of the trail and wisely finished off the only drinks we had with us. We stopped and took pictures and oo'ed and awe'd over the beauty of the woods. We had all the time in the world, we were almost done. We might have even made fun of the old lady at the park office over her warnings of how long the trail was. My theory on this is that she heard us somehow and wiggled her nose to stretch out the trail. WE couldn't possibly have been wrong. Experts!! Hello???

So,We started out again and walked quite away when we came to yet another body of water. I started wondering if maybe we weren't somehow on another trail or something but the crappy map didn't seem to indicate any problem at this point either. It showed our trail very close in areas to the long trail so we still thought we were okay til we walked about another mile and came upon what suspiciously looked like a lake. I'm not going to lie, I almost dialed 911 right then. Instead, I pretended to be brave and said  "Please tell me that's not a lake".  George said "I dunno, it sure looks like a lake". I calmly explained that this was the wrong answer. Despite my hopes and quickly whispered prayer, we got closer and sure enough, there was a sign that said "Lake Isabel". Would you care to guess the name of the lake that serves as the halfway point for the long trail? Ding Ding Ding, you guessed it. Lake Isabel it was.

On one hand we now knew for sure where we were. On the other hand, we were only halfway through the hike and had no supplies. I almost dialed 911 again. The ONLY thing that stopped me was the knowledge that they would send helicopters and tracking dogs and it would be BIG news that my children would NEVER let me live down. I had these visions of emerging from the woods with our rescuers to see my children not happy to see I was alive but rolling on the ground laughing. Needless to say, I stuck it out.

I must admit the lake was quite beautiful and I took some fantastic pictures there, but we would have been a lot happier not to have found it the way we did. Apparently the color markers on the trees kinda SUCK as far as trail markers go and if the park service can't bother to make them easier to see or place signs to tell you where a trail ends, you should just turn around and go the way you came. Trust me when I say you'll like hiking a great deal more if you do this. But if you hike and have such an adventure as we did I hope you see sights like this at least.

As it was, it took us roughly 7 hours to get back to the truck. On the last 4-5 miles of the hike we were exhausted, our feet hurt, we were dying of thirst and we were passed by people on bikes. Who the hell decided not to put water fountains or coke machines in the woods? That's what I want to know. Anyway, George was planning to throw sticks at the people on the bikes and steal their transportation. I talked him out of it. That's the story I'm telling anyway. George would say it was my idea but he's not the one telling the story now is he?

In the end we finally made it out of the woods and no bikers were harmed. I think we were too tired to even attempt to find a stick to throw. That was probably for the best really. We go back to the park often, but now we go with bikes and enough supplies for 10 hikers lol. We really ARE the experts now! In fact, not long after our Hell Hike, we came upon 2 hikers in the same predicament we were in that horrible day. I was kind of pissed off that they didn't seem anywhere near as tired as we were and the woman still managed to look almost glamorous despite the ordeal. It's okay though, later, we came up behind them like ninja's and almost gave the woman a heart attack. That'll teach her to still look decent while being lost in the woods. Poor lady.  BWAHAHAHA I felt really bad about it, for reals.

Stay tuned til next time when "Steve" rides a bike for the first time in over 20 years.

"Steve"

Who are George and Steve?

Well first off, let me be clear. George isn't really George, I'm not really Steve and only one of us is a man. This is not a blog about a gay couple. It's a blog about a goofy couple and all the fun we have together. So who are we really? Does it matter? It shouldn't but I'll give you some background anyway.

George is a totally awesome man who gives me so many reasons to smile he makes my face hurt most of the time. Nothing in life is all that serious for George. He can make a joke out of anything and everything. And trust me....he does. Don't get me wrong......he can be serious when he needs to be, but for the most part he's got a joke for every occasion. George isn't your average man. He's kind, considerate, generous to a fault and he'll deny almost if not all of that description if you ask him. He's also goofier than the day is long. This, he admits. Go figure.

"Steve", or me, well I'm bitchy, sarcastic and smartass,ummm, sweet, innocent and wonderful. Just ask me, I'll tell ya. My name isn't really Steve as I explained earlier. I was renamed Steve, not sure how or even why. I suspect George doesn't know either. It all started when he nicknamed me "Mister" because I'm feminine but not girly and in many respects I think like a man.....according to George anyway. I think that the fact that I am logical and practical most of the time means I think like a girl lol, but hey, it's his story and he can stick to it if he wants. Anyway, somehow, "Mister" became "Steve" and I just quit arguing.  George became "George" because I was trying to get him back for calling me Steve. Lets just say it didn't work. So that's how we became "George" and "Steve". I hope that clears up any confusion.

We met online about 2 and a half years ago now and I just knew he was going to change my life. He has! He's taught me to enjoy life more than I ever have before. I'm not really sure what he see's in me or what i contribute to his life, I've never asked and never thought it important to know really. I think we just "get" each other and it works for us.

 We're always doing something. It doesn't ALWAYS go exactly as we have planned, but we bitch and complain still have fun and laugh about it later. That's where the adventure comes in. You just never know how things will go. Enjoy our adventures dear readers, if the future is anything like the last 2.5 years have been, it's gonna be interesting!

"Steve"