The Turquoise Butterfly

 
Note from P-Dub: I’m currently flying back home to the ranch where my neurotic freakiness belongs, after having taped a segment on The View yesterday. The show will air today, Friday, and once I get home and launder all my Spanx, I’ll write a more detailed account about the intricacies of sitting smack dab in the middle of four strong, lovely, and confident women who rendered me:

Mute
Mute
Shaky
Mute
Sweaty
Mute
and
Clueless as to what my name was or what I was doing there

So if you do happen to tune in today and watch, please keep in mind that whatever chaos ensues, I blame that couch. That couch has magical powers. It makes 5’9″ redheaded 41-year-old women forget their name and anything they’ve ever accomplished in their lives.

But other than that, it really was an awesome experience! Except when I mispronounced “cheeseburger”. More later.

In the meantime, I’m posting an pictorial essay from my archives that I, inexplicably, dreamed about last night. Isn’t that strange? That I dreamed about an archived blog post? I took it as a sign—there must be an important message contained within the words that humankind must read. I don’t want to get in the way of destiny!

Love you guys. Here it is!

You Know What I Hate?

Okay, just a minute. Hate’s a strong word. I try to discourage my kids from saying “hate,” whether it’s toward another human being or toward a gross food, like broccoli. I need to practice what I preach. I try to teach them to use “alternative” language, euphemistic language; to say things like “I really DON’T CARE FOR broccoli” instead of “I HATE broccoli, Mommy! Now go fix me a hot fudge sundae!” I find, as a parent, that it’s best to teach my children to gloss over reality as much as possible, to just sort of deny and avoid all that’s unpleasant in the world. It’s the legacy I want to leave.

So anyway, you know what I “don’t care for much”?

 

When you’re taking photos of your family horseback, and at first, everything’s bucolic and idyllic and beautiful…

 

The horses are graceful…

 

And they seem to be dancing on the prairie…

 

…In concert with each other.

 

And you think, “There’s nothing more majestic…more magnificent…more beautiful…”

 

“Than watching my family ride their horses across the prairie.”

And then one of the horses does this:

And ruins the beautiful family photo.

Because when they do this…

 
You know they’re getting ready to do this:

You don’t have to thank me for the butterfly. I can sense your gratitude from here.

 

What I’m trying to say is, I have oodles and oodles of otherwise really nice photos of my children, my husband, and our cowboys riding horses across the fruited plain—photos that will forever remain in my external hard drive, untouched and unshared, because the horses’ tails are raised in this horrid, menacing position.

 

Call me untalented, but I’ve found no way to Photoshop out “what happens” when an equine creature raises its tail. I’ve found my only choice, for lack of a better technique, is just to slap a butterfly over it and avoid the whole thing altogether.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just slap a butterfly over everything that’s unpleasant in life? Then we could just flit and float and never have to face reality. Dang, I have a whole CD-ROM filled with nothing but pictures of beautiful butterflies. I could go a long, long way with this.

 

And believe me…you are THANKING me for this butterfly right about now.

 

And whoa, Nellie. You are LOVING me for these two butterflies right about now. It wasn’t pretty.

 

L.B., why do you do this to me? We need to talk.

Oh, for the love of Pete.

What is THIS?…

Management! I can no longer work under these conditions.

 

I just love butterflies. Don’t you?