I try to keep to one topic per post, but we’ve been crazy busy lately. I even forgot to send out my Friday morning email to readers, for the first time in five years! Okay, it’s automated, which means five years ain’t much to brag about—but also, how could I have not sent it out? I must’ve had it paused. In any case, that’s back to its regular schedule for all you weekly email subscribers. (Some of you have been clicking on that sucker every week, all these years, and I love knowing you’re here with me. Thank you.)
Not My First Rodeo
At the end of our first winter in Brownsville, we went to the “biggest little rodeo in Texas,” in Los Fresnos. This year I picked the night when a Tejano singer was to perform after, so the folks in the stands around us seemed to be mostly Mexican-American.
Take a look at all those cowboy hats. Not pictured, polished work boots, Ariat-branded work coats, and all the fancy-dressed ladies in fringe jackets. Little girls wearing pink cowboy hats on their papi’s laps. The many abeuelos being helped up the grandstand stairs. These seemed to be real cowboys who work the many large ranches in the RGV, out for a once-a-year Friday night honoring what they do for a living.
Here’s my favorite tiny cowboy, two years older than last time I saw him (what, he’s seven now?). This year he freaking lead the group of pick-up men herding the stray stock back to the gate.
Seemed like there were fewer participants this year, and the rodeo clown was less enthusiastic with his disparaging jokes. Last time he targeted gays with his fake effeminate accent and insults; this year he went at Blacks and trans folks. Those jokes were quiet and subtle but hard to ignore. The patriotic, religious preamble by the announcer was all about freedom, too. “Oh, they’ve taken prayer from schools now, but they haven’t taken prayer from here!” (As if making the entire audience pray at a rodeo is an essential freedom compared to what’s being taken from us right now.) I think he said the word “freedom” at least once in every single sentence for 15 minutes.
I expected that, though. On the plus side, I loved the people-watching, and Tracy’s elote (grilled corn) with brisket was delicious. We left right after the last bull rider because, being winter Texans, we were cold and tired at 9:30, but what great timing: just as we found the truck at the edge of the massive fairgrounds lot, a fireworks display began shooting off just a few yards away from us. I started taking photos.
After a few seconds I just dropped my hand and stared straight up, slack-jawed. It’s not like I’ve never seen fireworks, but I’ve never seen them from 1) launching right beside me to 2) shooting up with trails to 3) bursting straight above me. Each launch had several stages with different trajectories and colors at each one. Their proximity made every other fireworks show I’d seen in person pale in comparison. I’m not a fan of blowing things up for entertainment, scaring dogs and children, yadda yadda, but if you happen to find yourself at a fireworks show, get right near the launch spot. Seriously.
Head Crystals
Another reason we left early was I’ve had a lot of vertigo lately. It’s so bad that we turned around the one day we’d planned on going to the beach because I was about to barf out the truck window. My friend Lucy (who always is right) had told me about how crystals in your inner ear (that use gravity to tell you up from down) get dislodged, and you can do this simple set of maneuvers to get them back in place. I mentioned this to my knee physical therapist, and after our final session, he slipped me into a consult room and had me do a bunch of maneuvers so he could diagnose me. (LOL, he is a very good guy, despite how that sounds.)
According to the alarmingly rapid rate that my eyeballs vibrated (I’m not making this up), I had an extreme case of this condition. I actually grossed him out. He recovered himself, then he performed the fixing maneuver on me, but it didn’t really take. The next night, I did it myself on the sofa in the trailer, and I think finally I’m better. You move your head in a series of three movements—that depend on which ear is affected and where the crystals are in the canals (which is determined according to what direction you eyeballs move during diagnosis, and I am not making a single thing up here). In any case, my ear canal crystals seem to be back where they should be, or at least nearby. I am gonna repeat this maneuver until I am better! Damn, what weirdness the body is.
Getting Ready for Nomad Trickery
I need to stop this dizziness because we’re about to embark on some tricky moves. Remember last year when we had to take the trailer to Ohio in the snow and get half our stuff out and into a storage unit so the floor could be replaced, all while I was in a full leg-immobilizer brace? Well, here we go again.
We’re leaving here for Houston where we’re camping for one night, then dropping the trailer off at a brake place (with much concern for the welfare of our fragile home; Tracy already painted tiny green arrows on the trailer undercoat). Then we’re moving into a hotel room—with Banjo—and with a bunch of low-residue diet supplies because … I will be spending one morning doing a routine colonoscopy. As soon as I’m done, we’re checking out of the hotel, picking up the trailer (and hitching it up at the trailer place with me capable, I’m hoping), then taking off for a travel day. Somewhere in there we’re seeing a dentist we’ve never seen before because we won’t make our regular stop for dentistry this year.
I don’t even know what part of all this I should highlight as being the trickiest. We got through last year, though, even when the storage space turned out to be up a flight of steps while I was on crutches, so I imagine we’ll get through this, as well. First we have to finish getting rid of everything we accumulated in two months, packing up what’s left, winterizing the plumbing (because of course the night the trailer will be at the shop the temps will be below freezing), packing for the hotel when we’ve stayed out of the trailer maybe three times in five years, as well as packing for this special diet I’ll be on for three days. This is why we’ve been so busy that I am cramming all this into one hasty post. Sorry!
I’ve never been to a real rodeo and while I’m sure parts of it are fun, I think I’d have a hard time swallowing the general political climate.
Hope all goes smoothly with your repairs and medical appointments.
The cuteness was strong, though. Tiny children strapped to the backs of sheep and sent out to see how long they last. Seriously.
Wow.
😳
I’ve never been to a rodeo before. It looks interesting and fun.
It’s a celebration of people’s work, in a way, mixed with a music festival, a sporting event, and a state fair. I recommend going to one! Just break out your cowboy boots and cowboy hat, first.
I’ve been to a couple of rodeos, and you’re right, they’re fun. The county fair gives off the same sort of vibe. Isn’t the Epley Maneuver amazing?
Hey now, our rodeo is the “biggest little rodeo in Texas.” There’s no measly county fair vibe here. 😂
And you have experience with the epley maneuver so much that you remember the name! Do you have to do it often?
Actually, no…but I was a writer for a medical consulting firm whose clients were mostly ENT clinics and audiologists. I’ve probably written about that damn maneuver at least 50 times!
Oh, you’re the best kind of expert, then. What tips can you offer?
I don’t know that I have any specific tips; just follow the exercises as regularly as possible – they really do work wonders!
I’m on it!
Doesn’t sound to me as though the rodeo was very enjoyable…the ASPCA is not in favour of them either https://www.aspca.org/about-us/aspca-policy-and-position-statements/rodeo
Oh, definitely there’s animal cruelty, but only a small part of what’s in store for stock animals destined to be slaughtered. I guess the horses that are prompted to buck harder don’t have that fate; I’m not sure about the bulls. It’s all part of the culture of animals as food.
Isn’t quality of life and avoiding fear important for animals? We are all of us going to die one day but we would hope to minimise pain and fear in the run up to death
That being said, I know some farms are cruelty-free as much as they can be. There’s a lot to say about rodeos, but animals weren’t my focus.
I sympathize with the head crystal thing. When I had “not vertigo” but a “vestibular imbalance,” I had to do various exercises with head flings for a couple of weeks to knock the crystals back into the ear canal. It was a strange strange time. We referred to my condition as “weird head” because the dizziness, nausea, etc, came on and off throughout the day and really shut me down. But, 6 years later, it’s never happened again. Best of luck with that.
“Weird Head” is definitely what I have! That’s a fitting term, and I’m stealing it. Mine seems to have gone away after two days of doing the maneuver, but now I know if it comes back, I’ll do some head flinging and make it go away again.