But Enough About Me, What About You? What Do You Think About Me?

Things that have happened this week (or month).  I went to the gym, (applause), I went to Costco (boo) I went to Lowes (yawn) and I visited the Horse Show Mom (HSM) at her palatial estate in the whine country.  Actually I visited with her twice.  Why you ask?  Well I havent' the foggiest idea, but as usual when I don't have to slave for her I am amused by her.  Take, for instance, Sunday night.  Phone call transcript...verbatim


HSM:  What are you doing?
Me:  Wondering why I answered the phone.
HSM:  What ever, would you inconvenience yourself tremendously by driving an hour over to Sonoma to pick up my son and stay the night because I'm running late and he's at my parents and he needs to go home?
Me:  Are you kidding?
HSM:  Thanks Man.
Me:  Wait a cotton picking minute, I should consult with my beloved because he becomes bereft when I'm not there to watch TeeVee with him (translate:  he wants me to cook for him and fetch the Its Its from the freezer)
HSM:  He'll be fine.
Me:  (showing tremendous strength of will...) I'll call you back.
HSM:  Really?
Me:  Chill, I'll call you back (maybe)


2nd call:  Me to beloved
Me:  Hello, what are you doing?
Beloved:  Wondering why I answered the phone.
Me:  What ever.
Beloved:   What do you want?
Me:  Oh just to say I love you and is there anything I can do to make your life better?
Beloved:  Don't get me started.  What do you want?
Me:  Muffie called and asked me to drive to her parents to pick up the boy child and spend the night.
Beloved:  Do what you have to do.  (translation:  Do what you have to do and I plan to hold this over your head forever and I will plan something unpleasant for your little friend)
Me:  Thanks man.


3rd call: Me to HSM
HSM:  Are you on your way?
Me:  Hi Muffie, how are you?  How's the show going?  blah blah blah
HSM:  They aren't going on the schedule that best suits me.
Me:  Amazing.  Steve said he is going to plan something unpleasant for you , but it's ok if I come over.  I have to...
HSM:  When are you leaving?
Me:  ...take a shower first, thanks for asking.
HSM:  Thanks man.


So I traveled over to whine country to the fabulous estate of the fabulous horse show moms 'rents and was met by the brother of HSM who was carrying his fairly new offspring and we hugged and said how long it had been and all that and we hugged some more and he said, did you just drive over from the Whine Country Estate and I said no, I drove over from Vacaville, and he said what? and I said, it's so much easier and less time consuming to do what you're asked to do, and he said, yeah, I know.  Then Penny, the HSM's mummy, met me at the front door, also with the hugs and what not and she said, have you eaten, and I said no, but Muffie said I could stop and get the boy child some fries at the pub,  evidently I'll be fine with nothing.  And the Penny said, I'll set another place at the table and I said can I have some whine?  And she said of course...Doug!   So it went and we had a fabulous meal with lot's of really good food, whine, conversation and just a teensy weensy bit of Muffie bashing. 


So that was Sunday and it was a pretty good time.  HSM did arrive home later that evening and as I was cribbed up on the couch with the dogs and the tee vee it took me a little while to meet her outside when she pulled in with the horse trailer and four horses and she had had to take two of them down to the barn by herself before I made an appearance.  That's just ok.


Monday morning we took HSM's offspring to their chi chi private school in their little uniforms.  It's always such an exercise in anti-child battering to spend time in the car with the little darlings, but all too soon we were at the school and they scampered off with their little classmates and I waved bye bye and thought it probably wasn't too early to start drinking.  Starbucks sufficed and we drove around for awhile, then met up with HSM's brother at his hideaway in the middle of somewhere and I examined the pottery he makes and he said he was so grateful that I would be friends with his sister that he gave me a pot he'd made and I love it and it is on the dining room table as we speak.  Quite a bit of info. in that little sentence wasn't there?


Things to do:

1. Get around to buying airline tickets to New Mexico
2. Practice being a good mother/mother-in-law/grandmother/guest/visitor
3. Call Nora re: shower because you haven't done that and it's coming up in one week.
4. Remind spouse that you'll be gone most of next week and part of the week after that and then for two weeks after that
5. Buy Mac and Cheese for spouse
6. Weed out wardrobe and fill in missing basics such as Manolo Blahniks and the Louboutins and that smart little wear "everywhere dress", it's an investment.
7. Get a life.
8. Guilt trip children

Why are the dogs, the subject of the last post, bringing rocks in the house?  They also bring in figs and apples from the trees, but do little to clean up the rest of the fallen fruit from the back yard. The fallen are fermenting nicely thank you.  Anyway, I am somewhat suspicious of any darkish brown lumpy things on the carpet, which, conveniently, is white.  I usually creep up on suspect detritus with a load of trepidation, and I'm alway relieved when it is a rock, but of course it isn't always.  It's a good thing they're cute.  I own not one but two carpet cleaners because the carpet is white as are two of the dogs, but their left behinds usually aren't.  Why can't you claim your dogs as dependents?  They are certainly needy enough.  And people get mad if you mistreat them, just like human children.  I'll write a strong letter to my congressperson, whoever that is.  And if you have dogs who are civilized and don't do bad things in the house, kindly keep that to yourself and know that I really couldn't be happier for you.  sigh

Next week is non-stop adventure for yours truly.  I get to be the co-host of a bridal shower AND I get to horse sit AND I get to go to a wedding!  Yeah me.  That all of this means traveling (in order) to Carmel, to Vacaville, to Petaluma, to Carmel Valley and back to Petaluma is of no consequence.  I love parties and I love weddings and I love horses...My life=complete!
Cheers ya'll
Squidgy

Man's Best Friend

So I was upside down earlier with the handheld Shark portable vacuum sucking up discarded kibble and other doggie detritus and it came to me in a thunderous revelation that all this stuff I do for the dogs changes not the fact that if I were to die on the floor right now, the pooches would have my bones picked sparkly clean in nanoseconds.  Remember that.  Same with your human children, in a different way usually, but still effectively they will pick your carcass clean.  What a world we live in.  No wonder so many of you have kept your baby hotels at zero occupancy for so long.  Good on ya.

My life has flat lined.  Well, yeah really.  I've been reduced to watching "On Demand" television.  Why only just today I treated myself to a hereto for unknown Discovery channel...Investigations.  So then I sat slack jawed through two episodes of "Behind Mansion Doors"  which is essentially old murder cases that have taken place in Indiana or Ohio where a rich guy is found murdered by someone.  In the two episodes I was riveted to, both men were gunned down by  hired morons I mean killers.  The hired guns were both  financed by tadadada a brother.  That these episodes were taken from the late 80's and are reenacted by bit players who bore no resemblance to the real players is of no importance.  Though it is confusing when they show actual file photos of victim, perp and investigators and then show the reenactment using the shills.  Never really sure who anyone was.  But it gave my Gardens of Time Game to reload so I have a full six lives to waste away in the other activity of my life...Face Book.  Give me strength.

Oh something interesting happened on Friday.  I had some bone sawn off my first metatarsal of my left pedal something or other.  What this means in real life is I have five gnarly looking stitches on top of my foot which shall remain till next week sometime and I got to go on a narcotic sabbatical for two days.  That I'd also signed up for a house/horse sitting gig seemed irrelevant in my Norco stupor, but nevertheless I'd received valuable cash money for my services and so I did what any forward thinking wife would do...I got Steve to do it.  He pretended to be put out and all cranky, but he did get up way ahead of schedule in the mornings all weekend to hustle down the road to feed the beasts and did it again in the middle of prime nap times in the evenings to repeat the feeding thing.  Don't kid yourself, I was there with him moaning in pain, sitting in the passenger seat of the little truck while he tossed hay to all concerned, but he did it.  Good boy.

I had a conversation today with a friend who has accumulated dachshunds.  I have three Jack Russell Terriers so I can sympathise with her.  You should limit your collections people.  Be satisfied with one.  And make it special.  There are only a few things you should have multiples of; trust funds, vacation homes and millions of dollars.  No where in that list does it mention Jack Russells.  Polite people wouldn't even have one.  

My youngest daughter has a fine dog named Sugar and she is of somewhat dubious parentage, probably Lab, Pit Bull and maybe German Shorthair.  But they only have one dog because Sugar is enough.  Sugar gets (has to come to be punished) to come stay with the babies on occasion and by the end of her visit she is practically begging to be set free.  The babies on the other hand have their own takes on the visitor.  Carlos - He scrabbles around in a blind funk, growls menacingly at the wall and generally just does stupid stuff.  I caught Sugar trapping him in the kitchen and threatening him if he dared to move.  It was effective.  Bumble - I'm pretty sure Bumble just pretends Sugar is not there and spends a lot of time under the bed or under the deck planning world domination that does not include Sugar.  She also is a sneak and will gobble up all the left over food when no one is looking and  proudly waddles around with an extra ten pounds on her sturdy 12 inch tall body.  She looks a little like a tick.  Emma - of all the dogs who could come to visit, Sugar is the best and Emma is a complete best friend slut when it comes to Sugar.  She begins the visit with a thorough dental exam, ear washing and butt assessment.  Then she will try to play ball with Sugar, but Sugar's DNA allows for only one possessor of the ball and it is not a Jack Russell.  You figure the outcome of that.  By the way, Sugar weighs in at a hefty 70+ lbs and Emma at a delicate 12 lbs.  I will say that what she misses in bulk, Emma more than makes up for in tenacity and bravery stupidity.  Normally I would never call Emma stupid, but sometimes those awful Terrier genes just take over like roid rage and there you have it. 

Many of you have bucket lists.  I have a wish list.  My wish list.

•  I wish the Tom and Lorenzo guys would blog about the Khardashians.  I could write it for them, but I'm kind of busy with this rag.  If you don't know who Tom and Lorenzo are, then your reading syllabus is sadly out date.  Correct when possible  http://www.tomandlorenzo.com/
• I wish the Sees lady would deliver.
• I'd like a really nice horse and the money for it too. (muy importante that money for it part)
• I'd very much like to not have to go to the hairdresser, or alternatively, would know when to go before it's too late.
• I'd like it if my car never died, cause I like it.
• I'd like to have a "my last home place" and it doesn't involve any one's nasty old basement or retirement tenement.  It must have property, a pool and a barn with an arena.  And help.  In a good neighborhood of estates.  Properly taken care of estates.
• Good health, sharp wit and excellent adventures.

Enough for now!
Cheers,
Squidgy

World travelers and all like that

So we went to Washington state this past weekend.  For us it's like going on a world tour because, you know, we just don't get out that much.  With good reason I'm sure, but I digress.  We got to ride on an airplane up and back.  For some unknown reason we managed to get to the airports on time, found the correct airline, and with very little drama got on the correct flights and made our destinations without any kerfuffles.  The travel gods were kind. 

Last year we were invited to Washington for a different event and the travel gods must have been pissed off about something.  Let me tell you what happened shall I?  First of all, I don't know if you know this about me, but I am completely incompetent in the morning.  Give me a task of very simple details and I probably will not get all of it right.  So we had to be at the airport at something gross like 5:00a.m.  That's just unnecessary to my mind.  Now mind you, Steve is every bit as incompetent as I in the a.m., but since he takes no responsibility in travel details he maintains he's off the hook.  What this means in real life is that he can get mad and I have to defend myself.  Again I digress.  So the line at the Horizon check in was miles and miles and we didn't have much time anyway and there was a special line for special people who got to waltz in and deposit their bags and what not and stroll away with full knowledge that their plane will wait all day for them if need be.  We, however, are not um "elite" in any way, shape or form.   So we waited in line for six or seven hours till we finally presented ourselves and all our stuff and like that and a snotty little minimum wage man informed us that there was no reservation for us.  And, there were no seats on the plane and would we just get outta da way cause there were important, gasp, people behind us who were ticketed and what not.  So I thought it would be a really good idea to just sit there and argue with him.  And Steve just walked away, because it became apparent to him that we not only had stood in the wrong line of the wrong airline counter, but our real airline counter was clear across the terminal and it no longer said anything at all about Portland, but now said Bangladesh or something.  So I got my last word in and huffed it over to the right airline, Frontier, only to be told that it had boarded, our seats were no longer available and was there anything else they could do for us.   Well, after my head stopped spinning around and around and around, Steve dragged me away before the armed with guns guys could come have a go at me and we went upstairs and pouted and snarked at each other and waited for a couple seats to become available so we could travel.  Sadly, as I said before, the travel gods were not pleased with us for whatever mystical reason and so no seats became available and we had to call our hosts in WA to let them know we weren't coming and to have a nice weekend.  Oh, I may have forgotten, this was one of those design a show jump ring for an event weekends, so now we had to go home, Steve still had to design some courses in a bad mood, but now we got to Fax them to WA and hope it all made sense.  Who knows if they did.   And this children, is why I only fly on two airlines.  Because ICRS.    I'd love to know what string of words you all made out of that.

I have a new gig right here in my own neighborhood.  Literally less than five minutes away.  It may or may not prove to be interesting.  There are five grown up horses and a six month old foal.  One horse is a TB and was/is an event horse, but doesn't do anything but be the boss of everyone in his pasture.  The other four are Trakehners.  They don't do anything either, except one had a baby and she came to these people already prenada so there you go.  The foal is an evil, evil little so and so.  His mother has no self esteem and  this spawn of Satan bites her, kicks her, jumps on her and any number of other annoying things and she does nothing.  If you personified her she'd be "that" mother in Carl's Jr. who dotes on her exasperating demon child who screams bloody murder because he didn't get the right toy in his Happy Meal and somebody better do something about this RIGHT NOW!  And she just sits there, in her mu mu, and smiles benignly and utters "little tyke, knows what he wants"  and like that.  And the other diners are drawing a lottery to see who gets to kill them both, weapons of choice.  See what I mean?  Anyway I'm meant to go down the street twice a day to throw hay at them (three flakes each, twice a day) and give Momma-San some grain, that the dark lord foal will steal from her, because he's like that.  And this should be quite jolly.  We'll see won't we?  Because I don't know this lady from Adam and she's found my name from an ad on an equestrian site that I don't even remember submitting, I have produced a contract/release of liability treatise and a veterinary release form and a pet information sheet for each of the critters.  I found them online from a free legal website, so what could possibly go wrong?  Again, I'll let y'all know.  Because I'm greedy, I just hope the check clears, though I did request cash.  Why not be difficult too?

The spouse has declared some weird new austerity plan for me.  This, of course, only affects me, not him, and I am somewhat chuffed by it.  For instance.  My eldest daughter,Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo, sister to Chang from a previous episode, is having her baby in BFE New Mexico the first part of October.  I had planned to board an airplane at a reasonable hour and wing my way to the east for the blessed event.  Stephen has decreed that I am a rock and that I should drive and that he'll go with me...if he can...which is a lot like saying "hey, you're a rock, you'll be fine driving across three states by yourself.  Man up."  The last time I drove across New Mexico by myself the spare tire on the truck I was driving fell off, rolled under the three horse trailer I was pulling causing it to buck up in the air about 70 feet only to land on the tire again which then proceeded to bend the angle iron under the trailer and exit via the rear passenger wheel on the trailer making it explode and then went rolling merrily down the highway.  So I limped to a tire place somewhere and got a tire for the trailer, found my way to Tucumcari,  NM where some helpful guy checked out the trailer during a refueling mission and noticed all the damage underneath and recommended I not drive it till the angle iron was replaced because more bad stuff would happen to the trailer if I didn't fix it,  and yes, he did know someone who had a machine shop and it shouldn't take more'n a couple, three or four days to git er dun.  Sum bitch.  I sat in Tucumcari for three or four days and fretted and was nauseous the entire time.  And that is my driving through New Mexico alone story.  Now ask me again how excited I am to travel there alone....BTW Tucumcari, NM is not on Conde Nast's list of anything cute.  FYI.

The next fun thing that will happen is the joyous occasion of our wedding anniversary.  Now here's what some of my friends have done for their anniversaries this year, trip to Germany, trip to Carmel, actual rememberance of the date, new car, new house.  The spouse reads this, indeed, the spouse whines piteously if I don't write regularly.  Let us see if the spouse steps up to the plate and even notices the stony silences on the day because he CRS either.  I remember one year coming down the stairs at a house we shared with his mother (fodder for an episode unto itself) one day and she was all "Happy Anniversary!  Joy Joy Joy! etc.!"  and we just stared at her, figured she'd finally flipped her lid for good and walked on.  As stated previously ICRS, but it is not ok for the spouse.

And so dear reader I've reached the limit of my creative expertise for the time being.  Maybe something cool will happen by time I'm badgered in to writing again that will make this drivel worth reading.  Until then,
Cheers,
Squidgy

If a man has an opinion and a woman is not around to hear it, is he still wrong?

It was a long week.  Stevie took himself off to the hinter land to rub grimy elbow with the unwashed at the Solano County Fair and  left me to my own devices...which is never good, n.e.v.e.r.  Not that I had anything at all interesting to do.  Dear reader, I know you count on me to provide riveting vignettes of my life in the fast lane, but even a diva must take some time off.   So I spent a week doing very mundane things.

Take Monday for instance.  I met the youngest daughter for lunch with the little grand urchins.  Her treat. So we went to this Thai place that really should have had a big old sign out front that stated clearly that children were not welcome.  This became somewhat important when within five minutes, I mean we didn't even have water yet, Mr. Silas pushed the four foot tall wooden goddess of something off her plinth and sent her crashing to the floor.  Upon impact her various bits when rolling hither and thither about the place and I was like "dang Si, really?"  and the mother unit was all "@!#$%^&*()@#%$^&*Silas#$%#$%^#$% little#%^&$%^&$%^)"  Fairly impressive string of invective from the usually serene one.  I was all for bailing out at this point, but the restaurateurs figured that now we'd broken the focal point of their decorating scheme well then by God we were going to sit and pay money for food.  So we did that.  Hurriedly.

Later that day, I found myself at the gym staring in horror at the pool where a group of ancients, I mean peers, were flopping about in anticipation of the "new class"  water in motion.  So essentially what you are meant to do is perform an aquatic ballet in the water listening to dreadful music from the 80's.  I dutifully floundered with my fellow enthusiasts for the requisite hour all the while thinking what the hell am I doing?  With some relief the hour ended and that was Monday.  Gracious sakes alive.

Tuesday, the ennui continued, except I went back to the gym and spent 40 minutes climbing hills randomly on the treadmill whilst listening to some extraordinarily  boring novel on my Ipod.  The Ipod is a wonderful device whereby you can effectively tune out the entire world via your content and a pair of ear phones.  It goes everywhere with me.  I even have a dock in my car where it lives when not being banged about at the gym.

What happened Wednesday.  Oh right.  The offspring of the spouse was in her last few days of residence at Chez evil step mammie so the middle daughter, remember her...Chang?  decided we should have a farewell dinner for her.  So we did that.  They ate gross stuff like beet salad with goat cheese and goat cheese and prosciutto pizza, goat cheese this and goat cheese that and it is all revolting to me and I had a salad.  At least no one broke anything.  And when I got home I rounded that off with a pint of Hagen Daz, strawberry if you must know.

Thursday I had an appointment at the gym with my personal trainer.  Now this isn't nearly as groovy as having a personal trainer who exercises for you, not this one, you have to make a date and she stands around and counts while you lift weights for a million repetitions using various torture devices designed to make you feel inadequate as if sweating like a, oh gross I can't go on, like you need to feel any more inadequate whilst wearing the spandex of the day in front of a ripped 20 something year old who won a basketball scholarship to the Air Force Academy and has zero body fat.  Say what you will about being curvy, it's all body fat.  So because I hadn't been humiliated enough she decided I'd lost weight from my little accident and thought it would be demeaning to take all my measurements and check out the body fat percentages.  Good news, I've lost 20 something pounds.  Bad new, it's all muscle weight.  So basically I look the same but fat being lighter than muscle is the main ingredient. @#$%&* and )(*&^% and @#$%@#$%#$%.  So trainer girl smiled maliciously and told me I needed to perform a daily routine and designed a new schedule that is somewhat trying and the expectation is that I will grow muscle, lose fat, gain weight.  Not sure where the benefit is in all that.  How much muscle does it take to get a pint of ice cream out of the freezer anyway?

Not much happened Friday either.  Oh, wait, I went to see the last Harry Potter movie.  By myself.  Neat.  So I walked into the theater and it was completely empty, like I was the only person there.  And I thought to myself, "I should call Shirley!"  So I did.  You know how you really hate the person talking on the cell phone in restaurants and say movie theaters?  Yeah, that was me happily and obliviously nattering on about picture hanging and discussing bad horses and lunging and this and that all the while the theater was filling up.  I'd like to know what happened to me be alone in the theater.  Well whatever.  So I told Shirley I'd call her back in the manana and hung up just in time for the endless previews of movies yet to be released.  Like I'm going to remember to go see any of them.  Except there is a new Sherlock Holmes coming out in November I think.  The spouse and I will no doubt find our way to a theater nearby for a viewing.  Anyway, back to Harry Potter.  You should know that I've read all the books and because that's not enough, I've also listened to them on CD.  The guy who  reads them is fantastic and I could listen to his voice forever.   Back to the subject, I pretty much know every line and circumstance of every book.  I'd say this movie covered the basics, but left out about 75% of the back material.  Of course when the book is on CD it takes something like 21 hours to get through, perhaps a wee bit long for a sit down in a movie theater surrounded by strangers.  Good job that they broke it up eh?  I note with fascination that "they" are going to subject us to two parts of the final "Twilight" movie.  Good grief, really?

Ah Saturday, I took myself off to whine country to ride the magnificent Kilo at horse show moms estate and also to give her daughter offspring a little lesson on the flat, which means I taught her a riding lesson not jumping.  So all that was fine.  Then I scampered off to Petaluma in hopes of catching Shirley in a jump lesson with her trainer, but alas, was too late for that entertainment, but I did get a chance to catch up with Andrea and that is always fun.  We inspected her horse trailer as it had been subject to a hailstorm of biblical proportions last spring and the dents in the roof make it look like a million egg poachers,  Fairly impressive.  Evidently the truck was victim to the same type of damage.  This is what doing a good turn for someone will get you... 

Which brings us to yesterday.  I didn't do anything but lounge around, surf the Internet and finally and thankfully finished Steve Tyler's book.  I have nothing good to say about that treatise except it is understandable why so many rockers die at age 27. 

So the spouse comes home today/tonight sometime so I must go vacuum or something.  I must also prepare myself for house sitting in Petaluma beginning Thursday.  I have been ordered to hang pictures at the casa.  That should be fun.  With the way things rattle around in my head, imagine what I can do with nails and a blank wall.  Awesome

Cheers,
Squidgy

It's a brand new day.

Ah well, the best laid plans do go awry.  So the empress calls up like two days before she and the consort are to leave for Montana to let me know that her horses are lame and they're not going to Montana afterall.  Well shucky darn.  I had plans for that money, but happily, and unusually, I'd not pre-spent it this time.  So I was able to be cheery with Shirley and agree that horses are nothing but a head ache and they'll always break your heart.  In my next life I will be a country song writer and I will use all the material from this life.  Something to look forward to.

So the spouse at least was happy about this turn of events as it now meant someone would cook and clean for him. And Lindsey was happy because now someone would run errands for her. And Megan and Alison were both pleased because now I could get Grumpy to pull his various strings and get us us free passes to the CA State Fair and I would be pleased because the grand-urchins would be going too.  (?)  Just a regular little happy fest.

Naturally the fair is the only part of that happiness which bears a recounting of.  Let me start off by saying the love of my life did work his magic and not only did we get tickets for the six of us, ride tickets for four of us (babies and pregnant/intoxicated folks do not get to ride) but we also got free parking.  If you have ever been to Cal Expo you will recognize that the free parking is probably the best of the best of all the freebies we got.  Which is not to say that we did not spend valuable money once there.   Lunch for six you say?  Corn dogs?  How much could that be?  A little over $20?  Yes, but several "I'm thirsty and I want cotton candy, I want Kettle Korn and I will not leave here without a fried Snickers." later I was down $60 bucks and I hadn't been the only one to open my wallet to the greedy fair vendors.  Nevertheless we had a grand old time and two of the children are finally of an age to really want to ride the rides so we spent an unholy amount of time in little tyke world with the scary old men and like that.  Those little angels got every dimes worth of the ride passes. Megan, Silas and I got to join Jack and Mila on the kiddie Tilt-A-Whirl which spun and twirled just a shade too long for yours truly.  I spent the last hour and a half of the ride staring at a fixed spot on the wall so as not to share my corn dog with the world.  Well it seemed like an hour and a half anyway.  What happened to the days when I relished the most violent of turny, spinnie, stomach dropping rides with nary a twinge?  Gone, gone away.

Since the empress was denied her trip to Montana this year and by extension denied me the opportunity to blog about house sitting for her and the critters, she threw me a bone the other day and announced that she and her consort were taking themselves off to the north coast for some R&R (wink wink).  And she asked me to come house sit.  And I said, "Yes, of course excellency."  So here I am.  I have something to say about all the critters here.  But let's start with Killer.  If you will recall the last time I was here, we were somewhat nervous of each other, he, because I caused the helicopter to land in his yard and me because he caused me to need the helicopter.  But by the end of the stay we had come to terms and he agreed that perhaps I was the most pleasant creature ever to step foot on the place and he loved me.  This was proven to be true when this afternoon I arrived and religiously went about checking the well being of my charges and Killer came tearing up to the fence nickering and oh so happy to see me.  At least I think that's what he was doing, he could have mistaken me for someone who was going to feed him, but that came later.  He has taken to following me as I go about my duties and comes up to me for treats and scratches of which he gets both.  Such a little darling.  I shall change his "Squidgy" nickname to Doogie.  He reminds me now of a chocolate lab albeit one with iron shoes.  My other favorite is Colin and I have no idea why.  But he too nickered in hopes of a feeding when I appeared and was crestfallen when the best he got was a thorough scratching and lots of pats.  There are four more horses here, but none seemed that overjoyed to see me so, in the immortal words of Cee Lo Green...Forget you.

I have the dogs of the realm here as well.  They are somewhat less than thrilled that their people have gone off without them, and have treated me rather shabbily.  I have decided they will come around and to that note I whistled for Trevor to come when I went down to the barn to feed tonight so he could have a romp with the ball which I threw for him with the ball tossy thing I was ordered to use for him.  Evidently I am a poor ball thrower AND I don't really know where to throw the ball.  Now Trevor does know where the ball is supposed to be thrown and as I mentioned, I didn't  throw it "there" he became confused and felt sorry for me for being such an idiot.  I did not bother to remind him that I was not chasing a nasty ass ball that had landed in horse poop nor did I carry it around in my mouth when I did catch it. hmmph  At any rate we managed to lose two out of two balls and gave that up as a bad job  after some um "searching".  The other dog is Maxine.  She is the queen of everything and doesn't mind letting you know about that.  I have had a long and lovely relationship with Maxine since she was a wee pup and my own darling dog babies love their Auntie Maxine to bits, though I can't say the affection is returned.  But she is stone cold weird.  Always has been.  Always will be.  To be honest, I don't know a dog who isn't weird in some way, I mean really some of the things they do...and eat.  What ever.


So this isn't as bad as I'd thought it was.  I'm home from the vigil in Petaluma.  Injury free to boot.  The spouse has been a busy little bee.  He works for a County Fair Organization and as such is concerned with carnies and rides and music acts and the like.  At any rate since they stopped horse racing two years ago I have little interest in venturing to Vallejo to hang with the crim-pop.  Alas darling one will be ensconsed in some seedy motel across from 6-Flags for a week while the county fair grinds on, and on, and on.  What will I do?  First of all I will not cook.  Then I shall badger the children to entertain me as they are currently enjoying their summer holiday at Lake Tahoe...on the water...with a dock...without their mother unit.  They will pay for that I assure you.  Not that I'm not happy for them, but as I've always said..."No one will ever love you like your birth mother..."  Guilt free living?  Not a chance.  :-)

I had the opportunity to visit with the horse show mom at her whine country estate a week ago.  She's getting a roommate so I had to share the big bed with her.  Evidently I snore.  A lot.  So she got up in the middle of the night to go push her boy child out of his bed so as to get some peace and quiet.  I assure you I was not very aware of this move, but I was pleased to have the whole bed to my noisy self and did not concern myself with her annoyance at all.  And annoyed she was.  My my.  Anyway like I said I was not all that concerned because I was taking a valuable day out of my valuable life to travel down to watch her school the magnificant horse..Kilo around the cross country course in Woodside.  Day trips such as these are highlights in my life.  And she let me tack up, untack, hose down, wrap legs, clean tack and muck out the trailer.  What more could you ask for?  Wait...

I have allowed myself to be the co-host of a bridal shower in September.  What is wrong with me?  Anyway the bride to be is lovely.  If you'd like I'll provide you with a picture of her from her Young Riders experience in 2005.  She on the other hand will probably not be as enchanted with that posting.  At any rate we are having this shindig at a friends palatial estate on the ocean at the edge of the world in Carmel.  Worth the price of admission I do say.  My co-hostess has assured me the weather that time of year is spectacular on the ocean at the end of the world.  How nice.  I hope we can play games and eat cake.  The down side being that as a hostess I probably don't get to play the games and win the valuable prizes which seems a little unfair.  What ever. 

What we're watching.  As a new service I shall counsel you on the proper television viewing opportunities you should not be missing.  Project Runway begins tonight.  Tape it, then each week we'll discuss the pathetic, or truly awful, or inspiring designs put forth.  As an added bonus then we shall judge the judges which is the best part really.  I know you can't wait.  I have recently discovered Flipping Out.  If you like bitchy gay designer queens, and who doesn't, this is the show for you  full stop.  And on the topic of bitchy gay queens you should not be missing the A List.  You go girl.  I tried to like Dance Moms, but just couldn't do it.  The same with Little Miss Perfect and Bridezillas,  you know one viewing is pretty much all you need to ever watch, then you become annoyed.  There is nothing more pathetic than catching yourself screaming at the television.   Cooking shows you say?  Hell's Kitchen just for the astounding stupidity of cigarette and who knows what else, smoking wanna be chefs cowering under the tutelage of a half mad English git with a foul mouth.  Mondays - Fox.  NCIS is our favorite and has a special and  lofty non-critical status in our esteem.  New season begins, and I do know this, on September 20.  We also watch So You Think You Can Dance and American Idol, but never live, gotta be able to fast forward from earnest, boring, self involved, grandiloquence from the judges.  A minute of fame is way too long.

Gotta run chickens.   Peace Out.
Cheers,

Squidgy

What? Already?

Before I forget all the gory details, I must regale all ya'll with the events that took place at the Woodland vs Vacaville Little League All Stars game last night.  We were for Woodland.  And the grandson, Garrett, he of the 6th grade matriculation, was on the team.  Since I'd missed earlier all star games I was unprepared for the hostilities the "visitors" (Woodland) had for the "home" teams.  It seems there had been some incidents involving bad sportsmanship from the "home" team involving striking opponents with balls, heckling and all the other stuff that is considered non grata.  Plus it seemed the umpires, who were "for" Vacavile were a teensy bit pro home team, to the extent that district poohbahs were constantly being called in to arbitrate. 

At any rate there we were wrapped to the eyeballs in lots of warm stuff cause the wind was blowing and it was freezing, by Vacavile standards, and minding our own business when a kid from the "home" team slid in to home and in the process took out our catcher.  Literally bowled in to him, sent him flying in the air and ultimately to the dirt where he stayed all huddled up for a really long time.  Naturally this was followed by tons of boos and throw the bum out and lots of catcalls from the "visitor" side.  And the announcer was all ladies and gentlemen please behave and throwing vague threats of clearing the stands if we didn't behave and all that kind of drivel.  So then the very next instant, the mother of the sliding criminal came running over to "our" side screaming to everyone that the kid hadn't meant to do it and telling everyone to shut up and was just intensely annoying.  Of course then the hot heads from our side got in to it and the next thing you knew there was a full scale screaming riot going on complete with folks holding possible um probable batterers back and the whole thing culminated with a back parking lot brawl.  wow.  I couldn't believe it and Steve was asking if there was another game tomorrow night and this was worth missing "Dual Survival" for.  I was just stunned. 

So finally everything settled down and "we" were all disgruntled and what not and the next thing that happened was one of "ours" got a base hit and may have dropped his bat a little too enthusiastically before scuttling off to first base and the kid who was on second ran to third and the umpire screeched "No Way!"  and tried to throw the play out because of the tossed bat.  Naturally this caused yet another riot from the "visitors", and the district poobah then had to call Alaska or something to get a ruling from someone really important and that took f.o.r.e.v.e.r. and everyone was freezing and in a really bad mood.  So finally the ruling came back that the ump was out to lunch and biased so the kid got to get to first, but the guy on 2nd didn't get to get to third and the game went on.  And on.  And on.  Did I mention that the "visitors" lost  13-1?  Pretty much a slaughter, and sad and entertaining all at once.  I have to pick Garrett up to go to summer school in a little while and I expect the drive will be pretty quiet.

As promised I went to Carmel Valley for a little R&R.  And it was everything I could have hoped for.  Met up with good friends, drank some good whine, went in to Carmel and the very posh Pebble Beach, rode horses and went to a lot of parties.  This is what I was born to do in case anyone wanted to know.  

I'm now at home once again, and am preparing to make an appearance of some magnitude at a baby shower on Sunday for the pregnant daughter.  I also get to go be a scribe for a friend at a dressage show (read snooze fest) on Saturday, but she'll feed me and she put me up at her estate in Carmel Valley last week so it's the least I can do.  I then  leave for another foray to the land of Emperors and Empresses who will venture to Montana for the destination event of the horsie world.  I'll be there for 10 days so I'll be changing my zip code and rearranging the furniture and all that.    Quite a busy not so little bee aren't I.  The spouse is somewhat torn by all these goings on since on the one hand it means he'll be eating Teriyaki Rice Bowls for the next two weeks, but one the other I'll be bringing in the payola.  One must make sacrifices mustn't one? 

And, dear reader, so ends another chapter in the life, and while you are all grateful it isn't a treatise of huge magnitude, you are also grateful that I've reach the end of my creative whatever.  Besides I can't be late picking up our little All Star so I bid you a fond farewell, with the vague threat of future um offerings.

Cheers,
Squidgy

Musings

I was sitting around minding my own beeswax and out of no where I was accosted by several words which blithered around in my head.  They were harbinger, arbiter and musings.  As you can see I've already used one and it describes my state of (out) of mind.  Too the spouse has been yammering on about writing the blog.  Evidently it strikes a chord somewhere in his depths, which is something polite people would never probe too deeply.  Yes Malcolm, I'm talking to you.

I  returned to house sitting a couple weeks ago, and rather than go day by day on the adventure I will just cut to the chase and announce I escaped unscathed.  If there is any justice in the world, and sometimes there is, the  horse that kicked me remembered me and we were very cautious of one another for some time.  To say that I steered clear of his hind end is an understatement of epic proportions.  And for his part, he kept a beady eye on me at all times.  Then he came up lame.  Dead lame.  Crippled and hobbling.  So I called Shirley and said,  "Killer is lame."  she said,  "dammit".  I said ,"whatcha want me to do about it?"  she said,  "I'll call Dave the shoer."  I said, "ok." and waited around for a while and since I was getting paid good American fiduciary currency, I decided to earn my keep by doing as the Shirley (hereto for known as the Empress) bade me do.  Well if that didn't sound awkward nothing does.

Anyway, as I was saying the Empress had bade me lunge the horses at the rancho.  So there were three horses and as you know one was lame, lame, lame so doing some high falutin math, that left two to rig up in their respective devices of straps and bits and pads and boots and the myriad of other equipment one must strap, buckle and velcro to the horse and other parts thereof.  First was Bugatti, now known as Bugger Gotti.  Everything in the world scares this one. Flies, blue sky, wind, me, brushes, hair, life...you get the idea.  Sadly in concert with his anxieties came the unfortunate episodic poopings.  Like every five seconds, and don't bother trying to keep the clean up up.  So anyway I eventually got him out to the ring and chased him around two minutes at the trot and eight minutes at the canter...each direction.  You talk about paint drying.  And of course I stared at the watch like every 15 seconds not believing at any point that that little time had passed.  God I hate to lunge.  And Bugger Gotti would take advantage of every lapse of attention to stop and stare at me so I would then have to expend precious energy to "git him up agin" and continue the exercise.  Heavy sigh.  So anyway the allotment of time finally ended and I led Bugger back and hosed him down and threw a fly/kkk sheet on him (really Empress? white hooded cloak...on a horse?  What's a gal from the deep and dirty south supposed to think?) and put him away.  Checked my messages from Shirley and found this, "Called Dave, left a message for him to call you, gave him your phone number, here's his phone number, what the horse doing now?"  I returned the call and said, "nothing" and went out to capture victim #2 who just so happens to be the Empresses "special" horse.  His name is Monte.  Say no more.  And so I open the lair door to Monte's realm and immediately spied his shoe, on the floor and therefore, not, on his foot.  So two emotions here, one, I didn't have to lunge him and two, the empress was going to be annoyed.  To put it mildly.  What follows is a verbatim transcript of the conversation.

Me:  Your highness, the  great and wonderful Monte has ripped off his shoe and part of his foot.

Empress:   @#$%^&*

Me:  I haven't heard from Dave yet.

Empress:   #$%^&*   @#$%   @#$%    $%^ #$% #$%

Me:  Impressive

Empress:  I'll call Dave again $%$%$%^, would you go find the easy boot in the pasture, put it on and duct tape that sucka down tight?

Me:  You have five acres of pasture.

Empress @#%&*()_)!(*&^%$#$%&*()!_)(*&^#$%^!&*())(*&^%$#$%!!

Me:  Right then, I'll just go out and find that EZ boot, shall I?

So I did and I taped that sucker down tight, on the wrong foot.  My turn !@#$%^&*()__!!!!!  I tore all the !@#%^&*(tape off and took the boot off, studied both front feet, located the naked one and started all over again.  I blame a long and steady diet of codeine for my uh lapses.

Anyway, over the course the day and long in to the evening I conversed, texted and messaged the Empress on all things with the lame horse, Empress: "what's he doing?"  Me: "um, not eating,  pawing, being weird.  Looks like colic only he's not grabbing his sides and he has gut sounds." Empress: "He never eats, he's just like that I'll bet he has an abscess brewing in a foot, you have Dave take that shoe off and so on ."  Me, "M'kay, heard from him then?"  Empress:   "@#%^&"  Me:   "aha".  Empress:  "If you really think he's colicking then give him some Banamine (horse medicine)"  Me:  I don't think he's colicking he's just doing some of the things horses do when they colic.   I've checked him out, he's just being troublesome.  Empress:  "#$%^"  Me:  "You got that sistah."   Then some discussion about Monte.  Empress:  "go ahead and lunge him in the EZ boot, you know he's a smart one, he knows exactly how long the lunge whip is and won't go anywhere if he's out of range.  You have to throw stuff at him, it's best if you hit him with it."  Me:  "My but that sounds like a good time."  Empress:  "Tie a plastic bag to the end of the lunge whip and shake it, that ought to get him moving!"  Me:  "Awesome."  And finally late that evening we had the word that Dave the shoer would be out the next morning about 8:30.

A note about shoers.  They live in their own world and it is not in this or any close by galaxy.  Ere go the next morning about 7 as I was stumbling about still in the house and in my jammies and struggling to get some coffee and get myself in some semblance of order, whom should I see rolling down the driveway?  Yes the errant shoe man.  So I uttered a few oaths, not mentionable, and found my way out of the house, without coffee mind you, and met Dave at the barn.   I inquired as to which time zone he'd come from,  grabbed Monte and motioned to the foot that now had the boot on it and muttered something about shoes, duct tape, Empress, coffee and went in search of Killer so he too could be assessed by the shoer and me without coffee at 7 in the bloody morning.  I managed to collect the horse and present him and we looked at him and he stared at me, and then we moved him around on the lead line and I'll be struck dumb, but he looked about 90% sound.  Which is to say he weren't hardly limping at all.  So Dave scratched his head and  gave me the hairy eyeball and I called the Emperor and told him the good news and he said, "I'll be go to hell"  and I said,  "OK, but what shall we tell Shirley?"  and he said,  "well let's just find out, she's right here."  and I said, "OK, I'll put Dave on."  and I did.  So then we talked in circles for a long time and came up with nothing and Killer had a good laugh and I squinted at him and finally we decided to do nothing, but Empress was still on about abscesses and remove the shoe and the shoer was like yeah but he has not much foot to begin with and he has nothing to nail to.   Let's leave it for now, and I'm thinking well that's just fine and dandy you're on your way out of town for the next six days, the empress is 600 miles away and it is Killer afterall and shouldn't we do something even if it's wrong?  Well that was shot down so Killer went back to his pasture.  Dave put the shoe (on the right foot, go figure) back on Monte, explained his real estate scheme to me in lengthy detail and took himself off to go fly fishing in some remote area far, far away from any annoying clients and cell reception.  I gave it all up as a bad job and went back to the house for some coffee.  Damn horses.

So later I lunged everyone and that took like forever - really, then to reward myself for being such a good little employee I went shopping.  I got a super cute skirt and some adorable shoes.  Feeling a lot more centered after that, I returned to the rancho did all the chores and then collapsed in lounger and scoured the tee vee for worthy viewing options.  The royals had taped "The Game of Thrones."  I immediately decided that that was going to be no good.  I mean medieval fantasy?  Really?  Thanks guys, I was hooked from the start and thank God you had all ten episodes recorded.  It was something of a real challenge to work all my other obligations around that I gotta be honest.  Well anyway you will be relieved to know that I cleaned, fed, washed, wrapped, lunged, cleaned, fed, washed, lunged and carried on through out my stay and when the spouse called Monday morning and wondered if I'd be able to come by and have lunch on my way home I snapped that if I ever got through the show I'd be there.  Priorities you know.

In addition to being the help in Petaluma, I also got to be the help Sunday night for Muffie, the horse show mom.  Remember her?  Anyway she'd found someone else to take care of the whine country estate while she too went with the royals to the bucolic countryside of Oregon to a show.  Sadly, the substitute help couldn't do the horses and ponies who were left on Sunday night, enter yours truly.  So I drove the 30 minutes over to whine country and in spite of never actually getting a real answer to my question of what exactly do you need me to do I arrived in all my sweaty glory.  So I called Muffie on the phone and said,  "I'm here what do I need to do?"  and Muffie started to tell me for the umpteenth time what needed to be done, got all of like three words out before her channel changed and she said, "I gotta go, I'll call you right back."  Well I badgered her for quite awhile and finally ascertained that two of the three ponies who were out needed to come in to the barn for the night.  OK.  Then one of the five horses who were out needed to come in too.  OK. And the four pasture horses get this and the pony who was left out got that and the ponies who were in got something else and the horse who was in got something other than all of that.  No problem.  Except, and there always is one, there were only four horses out.  There was a pasture horse in the barn and he was not supposed to be there he was supposed to be out.  Not good, not good at all.  Further the horse was locked in a stall with no access to the run paddock attached to the stall and this could only mean there was something wrong with it, but there was no note no nothing about why the horse was in and I decided I didn't know what to do about that and I called Muffie. 

Back story.  Earlier in the day I called Muffie to find out what I was supposed to do, you've heard this?  Ok, well anyway while she wasn't telling me what to do she was telling me that her son, had gone missing on his bike and she needed to go find him.  And I'm all yeah, good idea, hey Muffie?  you will call and tell me when you find him?  yes?  please? ok.

She didn't call, so I had no problem interrupting her fashionable dinner out with fashionable friends while I was at her place sweating and finding  strange horses where they shouldn't be with no messages left as to why trespassing horse was where he was and why.  And further the other horse who was in, immediately remodeled his stall by removing a top board from his manger and tossed the offending board face up in his stall with all the lethal rusty nails laying face up for all to step on and what not.   So no, I was not in the mood to be all sweet and this  and that.  So Muffie got all huffy about the horse being in the stall, because you know he's supposed to be out (really?) and he needs to go out right now and then you have to move the other horse in to the stall that the trespasser was in and bed it and move all the hay and feed and what not and blah blah blah.  And I got all Meat Loaf on her and said, "Stop right there!  Before you go any further do you love me?"  No not really, but I did say, "um the horse is probably in for a reason, before we chuck it out shouldn't you call the owner and find out the details?"  and she said, "ok fine, I'll call you right back"  like I'd never heard that before.  But she did call back and said she couldn't get hold of the owner and to do all the stuff we talked about, then she found a text from the owner that said the horse was hurt and needed to stay in and Muffie got huffy again, and I talked her in to just leaving things alone and all would be ok in the morning and besides I was tired verging on grand mal cranky.  Frightened, she agreed, and I left her a tasteful bill and went on my merry way.

Finding that I am in serious need of some quality time by the sea, I shall soon take my leave of the 100+ temperatures of the valley and venture to a more genteel spot down Carmel and Carmel Valley way.  I shall endear myself to one and all and wear a jacket and long trousers and comport myself in the quality country life for a spell.    But first I gotta get there.  So adieu dear reader,

Cheers,

Squidgy