Fun to Be Alive

You guys have no idea how fun it is to be me. I hope you're having as much fun/craziness in your skin as I am in mine.
Here's the deal: Thanks god, white lighte, angels, devils, dreams or karma or whomever kept me alive though these three recent and live-threatening surgeries in the last six months. I'm not 100% but I am 100% back to my cynical self and I'm a raging New Yorker transplanted to bucolic Joshua, Texas, in the middle of Johnson County, where the local jailers think it's okay if you put a middle aged woman in a restraining chair naked during her period. Get the picture? I live about 6000 years ago in a cave man place. Still, it's gorgeous, with horses and cows everywhere, me with goats and a rooster and dogs and cats and Marco's rat and hundreds of birds we have to feed by the pound daily. Not counting my kids, the two boys' girlfriends and the pesky reccoon who thinks every garbage bag we put out is meant as a feast for him.
I recount those pleasures because they each come with a price: the goat with the testes thinks I'm competition and is always out-manning me to be king of the yard. The new pup has learned that if we don't find his poop he won't get his nose rubbed in it, so he's taken to hiding it behind the couches and the television and under my desk. And so forth.
This morning was a wonder: sun broke clear and crisp. Madeleina, who slept on cushions on the floor next to my couch, and I woke early. She started the day by getting me to admit that the hadn't "lolligagged" with her work last night. She'd actually done a nice art project that was due days ago, but that was at the expense of last night's homework. So the Lolligag admission led into a request for a note explaining why none of the math was done. I suggested she get the math done. She countered that she'd forgotten that the choir was singing today and that she needed her choir shirt, which happened to be at her mom Chepa's my extremely pregnant wife/ex-wife. Additionally, she had no slippers and today turned out to be slipper day at school, so would I mind driving to WalMart, just 10 miles away, to buy her some. This before coffee.
Then Sarah and Italo woke and she needed lunch-fixing. Fortunately I had a great stewish thing left over from last night. She also needed the goats fed and had no time. I realized why she had no time when I went outside to see that Charlie, the new pup, had torn apart a 50 pound bag of corn intended to feed the rooster and that it was spread out all over the front porch. To get to the goat food Sarah would have had to acknowledge the 2 million corn kernels on floor display so it was apparently easier to rush out the door claiming no time to feed the goats.
As I was picking up the corn, Madeleina rushed out of the house, screaming that we were going to be late. I started toward the car just as Madeleina stepped into one of Charlie's soft poops, leading to ear-splitting screaming and the need to wash sneakers lest she be kicked out of class for smelling too earthy. As I washed she stepped into the bathroom and when she came out she smelled like a whore on New Year's Eve. "Decided to put some of your Old Spice cologne on in case there's any dog poop smell left, dad" she smiled.
"That's a lot of 'some', baby."
"That's okay, everybody thinks I'm a little crazy anyway. And look who I get it from?"
So we raced back out to the truck, raced to Mom's house, got the shirt she needed and she borrowed a pair of slippers, raced off to school, got her there just 10 minutes after the late bell, still smelling like she'd fallen into a vat of cologne.
I got home with the phone ringing. "Dad, don't be mad, okay?"
"Don't know if I can promise that, girl. Are they sending you home to wash off my after shave?
"Sure dad. Everybody says I smell great. But the problem is...the project is at home. Please get it here now."
I still hadn't had coffee and was about to grumble but life fantastically intervened when Marco called me on the phonefrom his bedroom just as I hung up with Madeleina and suggested that if I was any sort of decent dad at all I could prove it by making him three eggs over easy with fresh rice and several strips of hot bacon.
"Well, Marco. I can either take Madeleina's project to her school or make you breakfast..."
"That's bribery, dad!"
"Yes it is. Which shall I do?"
Thirty seconds later he was out the door with the project in hand. As he left he called over his shoulder, "Dad, just tell the truth. How long have you been gay?"
Ahhhh....it's already a beautiful day, eh?