The shiny new trailer waited expectantly in the driveway, ready for
its first goat-hauling excursion. Katherine was busy stocking and organizing
its “new smelling” tack room. Ten days
and counting. I was prepping myself
emotionally to reenter the Goat Show Circuit.
It had been 9 months since I had attended a goat show, and a lot had
happened (i.e. breaking up with Bubba and starting a new relationship with
David). Katherine had attended a few
shows with Bubba after the breakup, but this was her first chance to prove herself
as an independent goat shower. We were ready. And then the universe threw me a curve ball.
In Friday’s mail I found a letter hand-addressed
to me with no return address and a non-local postmark. In these days of online communications it is
exceptionally rare to get any snail mail that isn’t junk mail—especially a hand-written
letter. So of course I opened it on the
spot, as I was walking to the house, herding children in front of me like a
mother hen. I stopped in my tracks, eyes
bugging out and blood pressure skyrocketing.
It was from an anonymous
“friend” who thought I should know about the romance that had been going on
behind my back. Turns out Bubba had been
having a tryst with our daycare lady (“Sarah”) for some time. Holy moly.
I thought we had broken up because he loved goats more than me—not
another person! I’m not sure which is
worse--the goats are pretty cute. My
mind raced back through my memories of Sarah, Bubba, us, everything. Suddenly a lot of things made a whole lot of
sense.
I met Sarah three years
prior through 4-H. Turns out she and
Bubba had grown up in the same town and knew a lot of people in common. They remembered each other from showing goats
together as kids, and now she wanted to get back into the “sport” for her kids
(of course). Conveniently, Bubba was the
4-H project leader for pygmy goats. Bubba
sold her some “starter” goats; apparently it really got started.
I was 8 months pregnant
with Cash at the time (baby #6) and had adopted a hands-off approach to goatherding. Perhaps I had taken a hands-off approach to
our romance, too. I wouldn’t be the
first pregnant woman to fall into that trap.
Meanwhile, I tried to
befriend Sarah because it seemed we had some shared life experiences. She had kids (3)—I had kids (5, then 6, then 7). She was going through a vicious divorce—I was
just coming out of a vicious divorce. Sarah was aloof and wary, but I wrote it
off to a bad life situation. Now I saw a
reason for her remoteness…
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| Hand Super Model |
I knew that Sarah and Bubba attended all the
same goat shows. Hell, Katherine
frequently went to Sarah’s house to kid out Sarah’s goats at all hours of the day
and night because Katherine is better at birthing goats than Bubba. (Smaller hands.) In fact, the night of “The Ultimatum” (It’s
me or the goats) Sarah was the one to call Bubba with a goat-birthing emergency
(9-1-1). He literally left the
conversation about salvaging our comatose relationship to go help her. How dumb was I?
Soon after Cash was
born, I got pregnant with Tallulah. Bubba
eventually took Cash and Tallulah to the goat shows without me to “give me a break”--
I stayed home to home to manage the other kids.
At home, Bubba easily convinced me that Sarah’s newly established home-daycare
would be a great place to park the babies a few hours a week. Sign me up! I’m a huge fan of childcare. I went to a few goat shows and was a little unsettled
to see the degree to which Sarah (not Bubba) was tending my children; but I
wrote that off, too-- she was their daycare provider after all. But when I was present, she kept a distance of
at least 100’ between us. Still aloof… In hindsight, there was a palpable tension in
the air.
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| Lightning (duh) |
I knew that Bubba and Sarah frequently texted
back and forth—because Katherine told me so.
Who better than a teenage girl to spy on text messaging? That tidbit sent up a red flag, so I
confronted Bubba. “Don’t be ridiculous,”
he cooed. After having been married to
the world’s worst philanderer for 18+ years, I desperately wanted to believe that
“lightning would not strike twice,” so I trusted Bubba. What’s that old saying: “believe half of what
you see and none of what you hear,” right?
When my relationship
with Bubba finally petered out, I said to a mutual friend, “Mark my words—Bubba
will date Sarah. She’s the perfect woman
for him: she’s young and (maybe) naïve enough to have more kids (he wants more kids and
I’m a bit burned out on that front), she owns goats, she drives a Suburban (his
fav), and, to top it off, she is a daycare provider! What more could he
want??”
So when the letter
arrived on my doorstep announcing the relationship I wasn’t at all surprised
that they were dating. What did surprise
me, however, was that Bubba didn’t have the courage to tell me. Twenty-first century “co-parenting” protocols
require each party to tell the other before introducing children to a new
significant other. I knew those rules
inside and out from having just signed the documents with The Ex-husband. I am a compulsive rule follower: I told Bubba in
writing about David before I introduced David to Cash and Tallulah (and I
followed the other rules of not cheating, too – just sayin’).
All of this information
flashed through my mind in the 60 seconds that I took me to process the
anonymous letter and start dialing Bubba on my cell phone. He made it to my house in record time.
Bubba’s basic premise
was that he was averse to telling me because he was afraid of how I would react. I
promptly, and loudly, regurgitated a lecture I frequently give to my five older
children: you have to take responsibility for your actions, OWN them, even if
the consequences are uncomfortable. My
motto with the kids is “NO SURPRISES.”
If you have a bad report card, for example, Mom and Dad will be way less
angry if you tell them about it before
they hear it from the teacher. Not
immediately addressing the issue only makes it more difficult in the end,
because, my friend, the truth always comes out.
If you get ahead of the problem, the outcome is more manageable. I guarantee it.
What man, or woman for
that matter, has not learned this lesson by age 40? Apparently Bubba missed the memo; his modus operendi for this dilemma (as well
as most other sticky spots) was to stick his head in the sand and hope it would
go away. In our confrontation, he denied
that their relationship began before he moved out, but I had my doubts based on
my own experiences with the two of them.
No matter. The real issue was not
being upfront with me after the fact.
Bubba stood in front of
me, “deer in the headlights.” I don’t consider
myself a scary person, but maybe I am. Maybe
having 7 kids has honed my mom-lecturing skills to a wickedly sharp point?
The first goat show of
the season was 10 days away and we would all be there. Bubba and his mom, Marge, would manage the
babies while I assisted Katherine. Sarah
would be there with her three kids.
David was coming—his first goat show ever. Katherine’s dad, The Ex, was tentatively
planning on attending, too. Uh oh. This had the makings of a very…tense…weekend.
The days flew by. I pulled the trailer up to the barn to help
Katherine load the goats.
I practiced some deep breathing, meditation,
and activating my chakras (can’t hurt), and I climbed up in the driver’s seat
of the ‘Burb. Time to go to this fine
party. “Take the bull by the horns.”
I practice what I
preach, and I wanted to set an example for Katherine of how to walk into
an…awkward…situation with grace and aplomb.
“The better you look, the more confident you feel,” I counseled.
So, while Katherine
groomed the goats the prior week, I groomed myself: hair appointment, eyebrow
touch up, manicure (at a goat show, why?), facial, make-up consultation, etc. I packed a hair dryer, flat iron, hair
products, AND make-up. An act so unlike
me that both Katherine and David looked at me askance. I’m really not that kind of girly-girl—at
all. But I could be, damn it.
As you will recall from
my previous blog about “Trailering Goats,” I was already panicky about this
goat show for a much more practical reason: how in God’s name was I going to
back the trailer down a narrow, car lined alley to unload the goats? And then park the trailer in the nearby
commercial parking lot? Here is what the
alley looks like with no cars in it, so imagine it with every space filled with
a long-body truck and packs of 4-H’ers with their parents and their rabbits/chickens/goats
milling around. There is no easy way to
do this.
Once We made it through
that unloading ordeal, We would have to maneuver the trailer into a car-sized parking
space in a nearby parking lot – again, imagine the lot filled to overflowing
with cars. “Compact” is not an option
for a 3-horse stock trailer:
Katherine and I had been
practicing for this moment that day we bought the trailer and she drove it
around the vacant parking lot. As you
will recall, our plan was for her to take the wheel and maneuver the blasted
trailer. Hence, the “We.”
Driving north, we passed
Bubba and Sarah driving Bubba’s trailer south—going away from the show. “Where are they going?” we pondered. No matter.
We arrived at the fairgrounds right on schedule (I do love a
schedule). Fortunately, the show organizer
had assigned Katherine pens as far away from Bubba and Sarah as possible. After all, the Goat Show Circuit is a
tight-knit group and there are no secrets (except, maybe from me it turns
out).
We pulled our rig head-in
down the alley, unloaded the goats and mountains of gear, and braced ourselves
to extract the trailer. Katherine, age
15–no learner’s permit or anything—hopped into the driver’s seat, looked over
her shoulder and inched the trailer down road in reverse. And I do mean inched. She drove at the “speed of dark.” Our goat show posse, whom we hadn’t seen in
months, watched on in silence—probably holding their breath like I was. I stood behind the trailer smiling, waving,
and shouting out minor corrections (“a little more left, a little more right,
looking good!”). It’s all about the
positive attitude. You can do it,
Katherine! Yay!
One down, one to go: the
parking lot. By some miracle, we
accomplished that feat, too. Luckily,
the trailer could stay parked the rest of the weekend. Phew.
Next, the decorating. Go big or go home. We donned our personalized logo-wear baseball
caps and tied up our brand-spanking-new 4’ x 5” vinyl banner across our pens
(marketing!); interlaced pink, green and silver garland, as well as fake
flowers, through the fencing to “prettify” it; organized the myriad of buckets,
boxes, electric cords, tool boxes, hay bags. Katherine and I were not going to fade away in
the back corner, no sirree. We were
going to make A Statement.
Meanwhile, at the other
end of the goat show, Sarah and Bubba had mingled their goats in a row of
adjacent pens. Sarah had reappeared with
her kids and was organizing their gear (no decorating though). She was the virtual “one-armed paper hanger”
over there; Bubba was nowhere in sight. While
Katherine put the finishing touches on our fanciful pens, I socialized with the
other goat people. “We are doing GREAT!”
I exclaimed to all who asked.
The goats were all
tucked in for the night, and Katherine and I headed out to dinner with a group
of goat friends.
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| Peek a Boo |
The next morning I woke
up extra early to do my hair, makeup,
and outfit. In hindsight, I admit I was
acting kooky. But this primping gave me
the confidence to go back out there with a smile on my face; sometimes that’s
all that matters.
David drove up
separately that Saturday morning, and the two of us watched the goat show from
the (cold metal) bleachers. Katherine
did a bang up job. She won her
showmanship class with grace and finesse, including the impromptu part where
she had to get on the microphone and judge her peers. Not an “um,” not a giggle, not a stutter
crossed her lips. Katherine stood in the
middle of the ring and scanned the audience, looking random people in the eye,
as she explained to the crowd that Goat #1 was placed over Goat #2 for its
better topline and shoulder connection.
I squeezed David’s knee—so proud of my girl!
Meanwhile, in the other corner of the goat
show, Sarah was corralling all of Bubba’s goats as well as her own. Bubba did not appear the entire weekend. Poor Sarah had to wrangle Bubba’s feral goats,
while coercing her children into showing her other goats. By the end of it, Sarah’s kids had snuck off
to the fair, leaving her to manage the goats by herself.
At the end of the show,
Katherine and I loaded our docile herd back into the trailer, leisurely walking
them four at a time down the city street to our parked trailer. I helped Katherine un-decorate the pens and
load the gear, and then we hit the road. We passed Bubba driving up the highway in the
opposite direction, towards the fairgrounds.
He was headed back to help Sarah load the animals after her crazy
weekend of showing goats alone. I
suspect she was one of the very last exhibitors to leave the show. Was it my imagination, or had Bubba intentionally
waited for everyone to leave?
I felt bad for
Sarah. Apparently, she was less
important to Bubba than the goats, too.
She was a generous, tolerant girlfriend to do all of Bubba’s work for
him. Meanwhile, the Goat Show Community
watched on to see how the drama of Ex-Girlfriend and New-Girlfriend might
unfold. I am proud to say that there was
zero drama.
In the end, I was so
proud of both Katherine and me.
Katherine had truly managed her own goat show. She was organized, timely, professional,
friendly. She proved to me once and for
all that the Goat Project really is hers, not mine. I am but the driver, bystander and financier.
As for me, I had survived the public
outing of the relationship’s demise and I had done it with confidence and
verve. I was deeply touched by the warm welcome
that Katherine and I received from the goat show community and I felt welcomed
back into the fold as my own entity. We
were perfectly capable of showing goats on our own, thank you. It would all be fine.
As for parenting, I hope
that Katherine learned firsthand that hiding from a difficult situation does
not make the problem go away. It’s scary
to face the problem head on, but the fear subsides and you come out the other
end a stronger person. Remember: No
Surprises and Own It.
Sweet installment. own it
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