Way Too Early, Good Morning Anyway

Good Morning everybody! It's way too early to be up and writing but I'm up and doing it anyway. Madeleina and I took off Friday at 6:30 AM for Nederland, Colorado to officiate at the wedding of two former jungle clients who are now friends. I was genuinely honored that they asked me. Madeleina wanted to go but had no idea how long an 800 mile drive in one day would actually be. So a couple of hours into it she started getting bored. I have not driven that distance in a day in some years, and man, you should have felt my gas foot and leg freeze up on me after three or four hours. Just sort of went numb, so we'd pull over every now and then and I'd have to wake the darned thing up.
But once we started to climb into the high prairie, the places where Quanah Parker rode his horses and she began to see outcroppings and an occasional butte her interest began to peak. Whenever she saw something she'd never seen before she'd scream, turn and begin punching me in the arm. "Oh dad look at that! (whack) Look at those rocks! (whack!) I can't believe I'm actually seeing them! (whack! whack!). And there is a lot she hadn't seen. By the time we hit northern Colorado and she began to get up close and personal with genuine mountains my left arm was black and blue and nearly numb. Still, you don't want to quell someone's excitement and I love seeing her so insane with excitement, so what's a little joyful pain?
The ceremony, written by my friends, was lovely. Madeleina got to hold and then pass the beautiful rings my friend had made and was just perfect.
And then we had to drive home. Now that was long. I mean it was the same as getting there but a lot of the home drive was at night and we were on a two-lane road most of the time, a two lane road filled with trucks that kept barreling down on my Ranger and Madeleina had us call it quits and take a motel when we hit Texas.
And when we did finally make it home around noon on Sunday, Marco heard us pull up and came out of the house. "Come with me, dad. I want to show you something."
"I gotta pee, Marco. I'm dying..."
"That can wait. Come with me."
He headed us out toward the chicken coop--on the way he explained that he'd clened the house and mowed most of the lawn and that was very nice. And he also said it wasn't his fault.
"What's not your fault?"
"You'll see."
We arrived at the chicken coop. Nothing.
"Marco, I really got to pee. Madeleina, turn around." She did, I did my business near the composting grass cuttings behind the coop, then I turned around again. There, in the little chicken house was what was not Marco's fault: a lovely little piglet. Pink as can be, maybe 30 pounds of future chops and bacon.
"I found it."
"You found it?"
"I was driving back from Brooke's and she was in the road. There were no houses nearby and nobody seemed to be looking for her so I thought I should stop and get her before she got run over."
Madeleina was already in the coop, trying to feed her some leaves. "She's beautiful, Marco."
"She's lovely. Sure she's a she?"
"I checked, dad..."
"Because sows are one thing; hogs another."
"Oh, yeah, like you know about pigs."
"Well, I don't know much, but I been on a farm or two and if you think butting heads with our unfixed goat was bad, wait till you see what it's like when a 400 pound hog decides to get territorial..."
"It's a girl, dad. Trust me."
"How'd you catch her?"
"That was hard. I chased her for about 20 minutes, and every time I'd grab her she'd just pull out of my arms. She's pretty strong and a lot faster than I thought."
"Not bad, kiddo. Catching a scared pig on a country road is pretty tough, I'll bet."
"The only thing is now you have to go buy her food and stuff. Unless you just want to barbeque her."
"Na. Let's keep her around a while. We haven't had a pig before. Might as well learn what that's like."
"Hooray!" screamed Madeleina, coming out of the coop to whack my arms half-a-dozen times. "We got a piglet! We got a piglet! Yes! Yes! Yes! And you are never (whack!) never (whack!) never (whack!) going to barbeque her! (whack! whack!). Do you hear me? (WHACK!)
"Nice one, Marco."
"Glad you like her, dad."