All Romance All the Time, or “I’ve got sequins in my muck boots”

My boots at around 3pm yesterday

For the past few years I’ve spend the majority of my days up to my ankles (sometimes knees, depending on rainfall) in “glamour” aka “manure/mud/muck/slime,” etc. And I’m cool with it – it’s just another one of the perks that comes with having over a hundred animals. However, you do start to forget that there’s a whole other world out there, one filled with clean people who take a shower in the morning, “do” their hair and makeup and would never consider leaving the house without a spritz of their favorite perfume.

When you have a farm full of rescue animals, you don’t even think about perfume or any other luxuries except along the lines of, “A hundred bucks for this tiny vial of perfume! I could buy seven bags of feed for that much money!” or, “Six bucks for mascara? That’s six days worth of hyleronic acid for Captain’s achy fetlock! I can’t justify that!” and “Thirty bucks for a new pair of jeans? But I could feed my cats for a week with thirty bucks!” (Have I mentioned I’m a cat-lady-in-training?)

I’ve talked myself out of buying such trivial items as a new paint brush ($3) or nail file (pennies) using this logic. So, you can imagine my reaction last week when my husband texted me this message:

 “We’re invited to the Starlight Ball honoring Julie Andrews, with the Live Miracles, Martha and the Vendellas and Junior Walker. Only $450 each. LU!”

First, I laughed. He couldn’t be serious; it had to be a joke. I read it again and didn’t see even a hint of sarcasm. I sat down at my desk in the tack room and reread it. Nope! No sarcasm that I could see. I propped my glamour-covered boots up on my desk and responded.

“Did you fall and hit your head? Are you bleeding from the ears? ARE YOU CRAZY!?”

$900 to go to a ball. No, more than that. I’d need a dress ($500) shoes ($150 – I have huge feet, so I never find them on sale) hair highlighted ($150 – I have a lot of hair) mani-pedi (a steal at $30!) and if I can’t locate my Spanx undergarments, another $60 to replace that (never go to a ball without your Spanx – saves having to suck in your tummy all evening long!) Then, since the event is out on Long Island, we’d have to spend the night. That meant not only paying for a room, but hiring someone to take care of the farm for two days. When all is said and done, we’re talking a $2,000 evening out.

What does $2,000 mean to me? Two weeks worth of hay. One month of grain. One month of horse shoeing. Four months of vet bills.  Six dumpsters worth of manure removal. Processing this year’s fleeces from all the sheep and alpacas. And then there are the “luxury” items, like . . . $2,000 will buy enough lumber for a run-in shed, enough fencing materials for two paddocks, and half the footing for a new outdoor arena. Two grand will also rescue one and a half horses from slaughter (that doesn’t sound quite kosher, but that’s just the way the numbers fall . . .) and buy four new saddles for the therapeutic riding program.

I ran the numbers in my head, and it all made sense to skip the ball, but . . . I kept envisioning Julie Andrews, one of my childhood idols, and could clearly see the Mary Poppins doll I got for Christmas when I was three. “Practically perfect in every way . . .” How I love Julie Andrews . . . And I thought about how I haven’t worn shoes that weren’t work boots in a long, long time. I closed my eyes and imagined wearing an evening dress, heels, mascara, Spanx . . . dancing the night away . . . and was rudely awakened from my fantasy by the sound of Captain slamming his foot against his stall door. Apparently, I was running late tacking him for our morning ride.

I stood up and went out to the barn aisle.

“Did you fall and hit your head?” Captain snorted at me from his stall. “Are you bleeding from the ears? ARE YOU CRAZY? A ball . . .  next you’ll be wishing for a fairy godmother!”               

“Oh, leave me alone,” I said and slipped his halter over his ears. “I can dream.”

“Snort!”

“Yeah,” I said, “I can dream that I can get through an entire ride on you without having to sit to a 40 foot spook . . . for a change. How about I have that fantasy, huh?”

“Snort!”

“Yeah, I thought so!” I mumbled and started picking the “glamour” out of Captain’s feet.

My phone buzzed and I looked at the text from my husband.

“Can you call Richie? [Our hay guy] I see he called me. I’m really busy here. And Cajun drank a whole bucket of water last night, I gave him more electrolytes this morning. You were right, Ragano didn’t really have to pee in the middle of the night, he just wanted to eat more cat food. LU.”

Yes, it’s All Glamour All the Time here at Locket’s Meadow. And Romance. We’re real high on the romance scale, as well.

Instead of the Starlight Ball I think we’ll go into New Haven and hit a noodle shop for dinner ($16, equivalent of a fifty pound bag of carrots for the pigs.) Afterwards, we’ll walk around downtown holding hands for a while, look at clothes in the shop windows that we can’t justify buying, then go home and snuggle on the sofa with all four dogs and a half-dozen of our 11 cats. It will be a perfectly lovely evening . . . maybe we’ll even watch Mary Poppins . . .