Wedgie, Holly, Heather, Nikki, and I went to a rodeo up in Woodland Park yesterday. Evidently, Holly, Wedge, and Max won tickets to it at Cowboys the night before. It was a celebrity rodeo benefitting abused kids, which meant that the competitors were locals, who knew what they were doing, and celebrities, who we’d never heard of. They’d get out in the ring and totally screwed up whatever the event was taking place.

One lady, the people sitting near us called “Lori,” competed in some event where a man would run up, grab a young roped steer, and wrestle it to the ground while his female partner would grab a ribbon tied to its tail. Dennis looked in the programs Holly managed to steal and discovered that “Lori” has been in several movies I’ve never heard of (including _Pumping Iron II_) as well as Divorce Court. Dennis and I looked at each other and said, “Divorce Court? But… I thought that was real?” Lori returned to the stands we were sitting in and was congratulated by all for winning the event. “I better get a buckle,” she said, “Last time they gave me a plaque.” Out of the crowds of people in cowboy hats, Levis, and boots stepped a woman in stretch pants, heels, and a leopard spotted scarf. “Lori,” she smiled, “can we interview you?” A kid with a camera labeled with some local TV station came up, and they performed it right there.

None of us really knew what was going on, so a lady behind us clued us in about the events. “Team Penning is harder than it looks,” she said during the last event, “Three strangers who’ve never worked before have to go into a herd of calves and separate four of them wearing the same number (the announcer calls out), get them down the ring and into that little pen. If more than five calves that aren’t that number pass that imaginary line in the middle between those two guys with flags, the team is disqualified.” So we shouted encouragement to the participants and clapped when one team led by a lady in a matching red outfit finally got two calves in before time was called.

It was a fun time, even though we had to listen to country music all the way there, all the way back, and it was playing over the loud speaker in the stadium.

That night while we were picking out a movie at Blockbuster in Monument, Dennis whispered, “Hey, Jonah, wasn’t that lady in red over there in the rodeo?” Sure enough.

Maybe she was renting a Western.