The One Where Cousin Fred Moves In and Raw-Bone Gets Run Out of North Dakota!

My, oh my.  Last week was some kind of action-packed week here at the compound.  So much going on. Too many moving parts I guess you could say. As I sat here this morning contemplating whether I should bore you dedicated readers with details, I figured…eh, why not?

Let’s see. Oh, well we have a new resident here at the compound in case you’ve not noticed.  Cousin Fred is now here on pretty much at least a half-time basis working with me on various schemes that will doubtless make us rich and/or me divorced. So, the wife and I decided (of course, she doesn’t actually know that she made the decision yet) to let Cousin Fred move into the trailer that Hellkat One left behind when she departed here for parts unknown. 

I figure since her mother, Her Royal Highness Mary of Fallin, visited the Cosmic City last week and no inquiries were made about said mini-palace on wheels, we’re in the clear.

I actually got to meet HRH while she was in town. I half expected her to punch me or something, but she was really very gracious…or maybe it just seemed that way with her face frozen in a gracious expression. Too much plastic surgery and Botox, me thinks. HRH probably wants to put the trailer episode behind her and get on with Hellkat One’s newest adventure (that didn’t take long, now did it?).

So, I’m “stuck” with a rather posh travel trailer here on the compound.  Of course, I’ve no keys for the door or the locking receiver collar on the hitch…oh, and I gots no title either.  Eh well, details, details. We aren’t planning to move the trailer anywhere so I figure it’s unlikely that the state will work too hard to collect on the tags, at least until after HRH is forcibly overthrown and exiled.  

Cousin Fred was through the door of the trailer in about 15 seconds and spent the better part of the day unceremoniously removing Hellkat One’s décor…mostly little pink pony wall decals and art that includes furry unicorns with dark, thick eyebrows.  Guess that isn’t Cousin Fred’s style. He did, however, keep the mirrored ceiling and walls in the sleeping area.  He told me with a wink, “That mirrored array may come in handy.” <shiver>

Cousin Fred has started referring to the trailer as his western Oklahoma shack. I’m not certain, but I think the trailer is much nicer than his place in western Arkansas so he seems happy.  Plus, it’s a safe distance from the house so hopefully that’ll keep the wife from wondering why Cousin Fred always seems to be hanging around.

I think the wife was a bit suspicious though when she finally figured out it was Cousin Fred who kept banging on the front door Saturday night, each time in a different costume/make-up and calling out “trick or treat.”

We had our final open mic night of the season here at the compound Friday night. It was the best turnout so far. The crowd stretched beyond the basking comfort of the yard light and into darkness on the north lawn. We decided to make Friday the last show after Cousin Fred commented that all the women were wearing sweatshirts and jackets. Decided then it’s getting too chilly in the evenings, well that and the guitars kept going out of tune…not that anyone in that drunken mass of humanity would have noticed.

Figure we’ll start up the open mic Friday nights again in the spring. The wife wants to charge people to come to the thing.  I’m really trying to avoid that. I’m more about sharing an open mic with anyone who has a song to sing or a joke to tell.

Cousin Fred, of course, wants to try to do a live nationwide television broadcast called “Live from the Compound.”  He figures it would be something akin to the old “Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert” or “Midnight Special” from the ‘70’s. I told him to slow down the wheels. Baby steps, here.

Actually, I’m glad to have the break from the Friday night events. It’ll give me a better chance to hone my old Ramada Inn lounge act that I used to tour with, “The Odd Musical Styling of Raw-Bone.”  If you missed any of those gigs, I was Raw-Bone, on stage with a guitar and amp, doing my best Hendrix covers with antics that included humping the amplifier for feedback, picking the strings with my teeth, playing the guitar behind my head, and of course, the ever-popular setting the guitar on fire (of course, I only had one guitar at the time, so I would set it afire and then immediately grab an extinguisher to put out the flames).

The latter got me shut down at the Devils Lake Ramada Inn in North Dakota. Seems the fire marshal there didn’t have a sense of humor about someone setting fire to anything. This from an “official” who lives in a town called Devils Lake?

I tried to make it all better by singing the “North Dakota” song in my best Ramada Inn lounge lizard voice and dedicated it to the fire marshal,

“North Dakota, North Dakota,
See the cattle and the sheep,
And the folks that can’t be beat,
Say hello ta’ North Dakota,
And you just can’t say goodbye!”

The fire marshal was not impressed.