Bucket List

We had to put our dog, Carlos, down this past weekend.  Granted he was old and sick, but the void he left is taking some real adjusting.  We got Carlos from a breeder in Sebastopol in January, 1999.  As are all Jack Russells, he was an adorable puppy, and like all Jack Russells had an understanding of how his world should be organized.  He was named for Carlos the Jackal.  My fondest memory of him as a puppy is being tucked in the crook of Steve's arm, under loads of jacket and sweaters, driving a massive tractor around in the freezing cold.  He was meant to be my dog,  but from the start he chose Steve and there was never a closer bond of boy and dog.  He was a fearsome ground squirrel killer and managed to dispatch as many as ten a day on a good day.  He like to shared his um meals with Steve when he could.  He also deposited a squirrel in daughter Alison's car which then was parked for two weeks in the sun.  It was a rather pungent surprise for her when she came home.  Little tyke.  He was very territorial and all who were not approved were the enemy.  Most folks were not approved.  Katie, I hope you are paying attention.  He was partial to the back turned then assault.  But a few were treated to full on aggression.  If you showed fear he was on the offensive in a trice.  If you saw straight through him, all but a few did, he was the sweetest little serial killer you've ever known.  He had a mentor in Barnaby the fox hound.  Barnaby was also fearless and a great protector of hearth and home and any other place he happened to be.  He was also the great varmint hunter, in particular the hunter of the wily coyote!  He would hunt with little Carlos and when he came upon a pack of the coyote trespassers he would come at a full gallop to them and literally bowl the pack over.  Then Carlos would bark and snap till the interlopers were sent on their way.  You could see him literally dusting his paws off when the enemy was sent packing.  In the past three years he's been pretty ill and eventually lost his eyesight completely due to complications of diabetes.  But he stoically managed until suddenly the other night it all became too much for him and he let us know the time had come.  Rest in Peace Carlos.  10/25/1998 - 4/14/2012.  You were a fine little dog.

It has been a pretty rough few days in my life with Carlos and Amy Tryon both passing suddenly.  I have been left with a pretty big empty spot in my heart/soul whatever that threatens to become tears in unsuspected moments.  But naturally it seems prudent to make a bucket list cause stuff happens and you/I should have filled as many moments as you/I have left with stuff to do.

• Go to the Kentucky Derby.  And if possible the Preakness and Belmont as well.
• Visit Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maine and Rhode Island.
• Go to Badminton and Burghley and Gatcombe again.
• Go to Rolex again
• Visit the south of France
• Touch a snake, (for Gods sake why?)
• Have another horse to compete
• Go to Bermuda, Aruba and Puerto Rico.  And if possible to do that from a good sized sail boat with a load of friends.
• Insist that my funeral arrangements be a nice long boat trip out on the ocean and a burial at sea.  That is a real and honest wish.  You may have KD Lang along to sing "Hallelujah".  I'm sure she's not busy.  I would also like it very much if everyone who goes out for the final voyage misbehaves and shows unimaginable immaturity.  Thanks in advance
• Wear a size 6 again.
• Most of all I want to keep all my family near.  And all my friends, both of you, in my life.  And btw I have some openings for new friends as well.  

That should be a good start.  Carpe Diem


Cheers,
Squidgy

A virtual mish mash

So this is the creepiest tattoo I've ever, I mean EVER seen.  Not that I make it a habit to study tattoos, but, well, anyway I couldn't keep it to myself.  Good thing I have y'all to share with.

Specifically this issue is for #3 son-in-law who whined that-
1.) the blog is too long...um not possible slacker
and
2.) There aren't any pictures.  Um this is a picture
And thanks for the asparagus Farmer Boy, it was derishes with Parmesan and oil roasted in the oven.  yum
Sorry there aren't any pictures of that, food pix bug me as I have stated on Face Book.  Not that anyone paid any attention.

Hi There!  How was your Easter? The bald guy at the grocery store had his head painted like an Easter egg.  It seems he's had it done for the past eight years running.  What happened at your market?

We have a week more of rain to look forward to starting tomorrow, joy.  We're heading off to  Fresno (again) on Thursday night and so far the forecast is for rain on Friday and sunny rain on Saturday.  I say sunny rain because that's what it looks like on the weather app on my phone.  Who is the person who designs the whatever they're called pictures for apps anyway?  I have a hard time believing, "Hey!  That's a GREAT picture!  Let's use it for sunny rain.  You go nerd!"

I read other peoples blogs over the weekend.  You know who you are, that interview with Ollie Townends brain monkey slayed me.  You may find it on Eventing Nation. 

That picture creeps me out.  Strangely, the eyebrows look those of one of my cousins and he's not even a serial killer that we know of.

look up

Happy Birthday Sue!  I left you a message on FB.  So, Sue, your horse is a rock star!  yeah you!  and Linda?  what can I say?  I am honored your horse friended me on FB!  You non horsie types?  yes, we really talk like this.  sorry.  If it makes you feel any better my #$%^&* dawgs have Face Book  or rather dog book pages.  Yeah, well?  Here's a picture of the dawgs.  They look guilty because they are guilty.  This picture is titled "Dawgs and a dead flower"  Pretty snazzy eh?   It could also be entitled "You've stolen my soul"  except their souls are black and mostly rotted, really not worth stealing.  :-)


I figured out Pinterest yesterday.  And because it's annoying I've started following other peoples Pinterest pages.  Basically what Pinterest is is a virtual pin board (bored)  where you "pin" stuff you find whilst screwing around on the Internet or whilst stalking other peoples Pinterest boards.  Once you have happened upon an image of something you like or are intrigued by,  then you can "pin" or "repin" the images on your own board (bored).  If you're as clever as I, you can have many boards.  Mine are labeled Horse Stuff, House Stuff, Family Stuff, Weird Stuff, Clothes Stuff, Hair Stuff and it's mostly all either lovely or strange...or both.  Mostly both.  Lots of really cool people are following me.  Are you?  What does that mean?

Chicken and Dumplings for dinner.  Really?  Delicious.  Comforting.  Homie. lol  Dying to say that all day.

"Words With Friends" has taken over my life.  I have about eight or nine games going  right now.  I'm not clever.  I just throw letters at the board with the fervent hope that they will make a word that is acceptable and also hope to hit bonus squares.  It is the secret to my success.  I get beat all the time.  BTW Satan and bitched were not accepted.  WTF but neither was wrad which would have scored a lot of points but there you go.


So, in an effort to be frugal and other stupid stuff, I went to a stylist for a haircut based solely on the recommendation of some woman who was in front of me in line at the market.  Her hair looked awesome.  So I said, "Um excuse me, your hair looks terrific.  Do you mind telling me who cuts it?"  and she smiled a little condescendingly and said, "I geet eet cut by Errrrrasmosssss."  and I said, "what?"  and she rolled her eyes and said "Errrrrasmosss,  I ave been having eet cut by heem forrrr pipteen yearrrrs.  I don' eben tell heeem what to do any more."  and another smile.  Somewhat intimidated by now, I may too have rolled my eyes and said, "is he/she/it local?"  and she said "hee iz the best stylist in the world"  or something like that.  So I wound up the conversation by axing if she had his number and she did and she gave it to me and I called and made an appointment.  Let me just cut (ha ha gittit?) to the chase.  I went, we discussed Mexico, the fact that the lady in the store was from Puerto Rico, and that he'd never even sat on a horse.  What ever.  So the whole time he wasss cutting away and I was, as usual,  scrupulously not paying attention to the snipping of hairs and finally I was cut, blown dry and out the door and my hair looked if not great, then certainly good enough.  That is till I tried my own personal magic wherein I washed and styled it myself and discovered to my horror that what I really had was a combination mullet and Moe from the 3-stooges style.  I am not happy.  Now what this really means is that I have to call Tiffany, who has "done" my hair for over five years and whom I should never, ever, ever forsake.  And I shall have to grovel until she agrees to fix this mess and take poetic license of her own bend to repair the damage.  She will spend a good deal of time not telling me what an unfaithful b**** I am but making that point unnervingly plain.  Let this be a lesson to all y'all.  Don't piss your hair stylist off.  Don't tread in unfamiliar waters.  Be true.  I'm the one in the hat till she agrees to see me and she may make me wait a while just to make her point crystal clear.  I'm sad.

Another chapter down the tubes.  Do as I say not as I do.  That will always be the best course.
Cheers,

Squidgy

Waiting for Nothing

I'm in a funk.  My cute little car decided to do a bunk and in order to reestablish itself to its usual good natured reliability, it required new tires plus an additional $3000.00 worth of work.  If I house sit for the rest of my life I might be able to repay the loan established to get those repairs done.  On the upside, the car handles so much better now that the shuddering and shaking is gone.  Sort of like going through a 12 step program or methadone therapy or something.  sigh

I swear its true.  The youngest daughter requested my valuable child rearing skills again last Saturday so she and her beloved could go fraternize with friends and drink too much and whatnot.  This time no one melted down until well in to the third hour of my vigilance.  And then only for a little while, though I must say being told to "Leave me alone" from a four year old kinda sucks.  Sadly, the mother did not think it a good idea to prepare a nourishing and healthy meal before she hightailed is outta there. No, she left that little detail to yours truly.  I must be still a little on the defensive from when I used to feed my own brood when they were young and having them tell me that everything was disgusting and so and so won't eat anything green and another so and so won't eat brown stuff the other so and so would only eat processed food.  I used to have frequent nervous break downs and go to my room for a self imposed "time outs".  Anyway, so I was faced with the daunting task of feeding the grand offspring.  The mother suggested hot dawgs.  All I can say is at least they weren't some tofu inspired soy substitute uselessness.  If you are of the leaning to enjoy such stuff, well bully, but hot dawgs are meant to be suspect in their content and that's that.  So anyway I also decided the little darlings should have something green so I nuked broccoli (little trees btw), stuffed sticks through the dawgs for Mila and Silas, squished ketchup on their plates and did not stuff sticks into Jacks, but prepared for him a multi-grain sprouted something or other bun with only mustard, bon apetit" or what ever.  And they ate!  Even the green stuff.  good deal.

I also got to supervise the darlings yesterday!  Do I look like a nanny?  Or even a good person?  Someone should contact the authorities.  In any case I treated the darlings to frozen yogurt with three toppings and then took them off to a park so they could run off the sugar ingested from gummie bears, marshmallows and mini M&M's.  Swell.  So they ran around and gamboled and I studiously ignored any grievous misbehaviour and tried not to think of all the germs that had to be breeding rampantly on the swings and stuff and just closed my eyes to the backed up water fountain that ALL the children were using.  Parks are gross.  The mother arrived, the girl child had a freak out and I left.

I had the opportunity to go to WalMart after my park stint.  You should be particular which WalMart you frequent.  No really.  You should.  Barring that perhaps just not going to WalMart is OK too.  None the less, off to WalMart I went with the sole purpose of buying syringes for the @#%^& dawg who requires twice daily insulin injections.  And some fascinating people watching.   Have you received copies of the WalMart shoppers email?  Tasteful shots of some folks who have no access to a mirror.  It makes its way around annually.  But back to my personal experience, yesterdays winner was the plus sized woman in a HUGE leopard print Sari or something all in black and yellow and gold with a matching (not) head scarf in an understated fluorescent pink shade.  Eyes watering, I made my way to the nearest exit.  You can't leave WalMart in a hurry because then the store police assume you have "borrowed" stuff.  The exit walk has to be fairly precise.  I was safe because I only had one item and I had a receipt for it.  Thank God.  You know I've seen three shoplifting take downs at my neighborhood market in the last year.  I've lived in some pretty shady areas in my life and Vacaville is certainly not the worst of the worst, but three take downs at a relatively upscale market?  Either they have no sense of humor with theft or Safeway just builds  thievery into its working budget.  What say you?  Maybe I just need a life.

None of my valuable work opportunities panned out last weekend.  I had (count them) three gigs to choose from and not even one came to fruition.  See paragraph one.

I've resumed my gym attendance.  In fact I was supposed to go to a yogalates class this morning, but I forgot.  They have new recumbent bikes.  So usually I sit on one of them and pedal furiously for a time and listen to a book and play Mah Jong or Words w/Frenemies.  That way time goes faster and I can ignore the weird little ancient man in the black Adidas who always shuffles in after me and always sits on a bike next to me and pretends to read the paper.  creepy.  The other day I decided to incorporate some weights and other machine torture to my routine and the creepy guy followed me in there as well. ew.  Someone take pity on my and treat me to a nice full body liposuction so I can be safe.  Really.

OK, so I've read the Hunger Games and the sequels.  Go ahead and read them.  But basically the message is Government is bad and corrupt.  Revolution happens.  There are losers, they are punished.  And there are winners.  They might be bad.  Brand new shiny Government is  formed.  Government is bad and corrupt.  Good is bad.  Bad is good.  Rinse, repeat.  You're welcome.

What else am I reading?  Rick Riordan and the Tres Navarre series.  Irreverent private investigator in San Antonio.  Yup Pulitzer material, and entertaining.  Evidently he also writes some fantasy, sci fi stuff, but I don't hang with that genre usually,  so I have no review to share.   I just finished the Dismas Hardy series, by John Lescroat (lawyer in San Francisco, irreverent and a winner.)  If you really want weird, and who doesn't? I recommend the Donovan Creed series and please, start with the first one and read in order or you'll miss a big, important part.  They are written by John Locke.  He also writes a series with Emmett Love.  Also entertaining.  If you like weird and just outlandish.  Katie, you would be a fan because everyone is just a hot mess and I know you like that.  Think Gramma Mazur as the normal one.  You get my drift.

Tomorrow is current #1 son-in-laws birthday.  He's #1 cause he'll be forty.  Lordy lordy.  I should mail him a card with a pithy, witty message.  Perhaps I'll just send him the other #1 son-in-laws card from January that I never sent.  The sentiment is the same for all of them.  Except #3 son-in-law.  The #3 son-in-law is OK with me having my drivers license taken away down the road and being required to ride the seniors community bus to get around.  It will be a very long time till he digs his way out of that nonsense.  Planning my revenge as we speak.

I have to confess that the trip that was planned for a great family outing to Disneyland, the Grand Canyon and Carlsbad/Loving, New Mexico fizzled and died.  I'm not really that chuffed about it, but the newest grandson has not had the benefit of my "special" attention.  And his hair is a mess.

But really, ain't he just the cutest lil thang? 

I'll leave you with that.  Au Revoir mon amis.

Cheers,

Squidgy

While I was on hold this happened...

My mantra for the day is be strong and think positively.  As I was pushing the yard waste bin through the over-growness that is our back yard this afternoon, the aforementioned bin tipped and sent me flying in to the swamp that is the decorative frog spawning pond mentioned some time ago whilst the grandchildren were visiting and shaking us down for money.  I was strong enough to save the iPhone from a drowning and I'm positive I won't be doing any more gardening during the last few pathetic years I have left.  So there you have it.  Happy days.  I might mention that the pond is full of nasty little frog stuff and a great deal of lawn debris courtesy of an abhorrence to gardening on my part and complete and total indifference on the part of the spouse.  I am also positive that I will have a word with the spouse. 

What else  has happened?  The youngest daughter asked me to baby sit her three offspring.   Being a wise mother she did not tell the little darlings who was coming up to visit and in no way warned them that she and her beloved were scampering off for a night of debauchery on St. Paddy's day.  Once the parents made good their escape, little Mila, who only the other day thought I was the very best g'mother in the world (and she would have been correct) while I was squiring her around the zoo, now determined I was the epitome of all that is evil and wrapped herself up in the canopy over her little bed and refused to acknowledge my existence, nay screamed bloody murder at the sight of my visage.  I wisely took refuge in the living room, winced at the sound of the door slamming behind me and the boys and I entertained ourselves with a couple movies, Rio and How to Train Your Dragon if you must know.  I made one more attempt at winning her over that resulted in her squiggling out of my loving embrace and propelling her little unpleasant self back to the sanctity of her dungeon  room, slamming the door once again.  I can take a hint.  I am not a good sitter, but the children amuse me nonetheless.  The girl child finally exhausted herself and fell to sleep.  Of course the two boys were still up and watching the TV when the parental units made their return.  But we all sat around and watched some more TV and finally we all went to bed.  The next morning was a little rough because the boy children had not had their usual allotment of hours in the sack  there were many highs and lows of moods.  The girl child had had way more than usual number of hours of sleep and was gratingly in good humor, though a little hungry.  I made my escape a little after noon when the prospect of ice skating with the little family seemed a disconcerting certainty

I may have neglected to mention that it snowed in Cool too on Saturday.  The children and their mother made a snow man.  Because it snows once in a blue moon in Cool, the children have all the requisite snow garments.  Snow garments have not changed much since I was a child with the possible exception that we no longer have to grow the plant and weave the material to make snow garments.  What I mean is, it took a lifetime to put all the stuff on, find the gloves, put the boots on the correct feet and what not.  Then the little darlings went scampering out to the white coldness and fussed around for awhile only to come back in just nanoseconds later so all the stuff could come off, get hung to dry,a few minutes would pass and the whole process began over again just minutes later.  This just made me tired. 

I am not too old to remember the "getting dressed to go out and play in the snow procedure" happening to my brother and I when we lived in Nebraska (yes Nebraska, I'll tell you all about it later)  and mummy would dress us all up in our wintry outfits and we'd go out for about 3.5 minutes and want to come back in.  My mother was wise to us though and I believe we had to stay out for a certain length of time, probably 20-30 minutes though in Nebraska it probably felt like days and it was dang cold.  Except for the time when I drove my brothers sled in to the concrete ditch and the bottom of the hill and crashed mightily and fractured some ribs and had a concussion.  My aim for the plywood bridge was off slightly.  I was allowed back in the house right away.  And this was before any nosy gomment agency butted in  with child protective services!  The parents became somewhat concerned when all I wanted to do was sleep.  So off to the emergency room it was.  As you can tell, there has been no lasting damage.  lol

I was engaged to watch a horse settle in who had just been imported from Ireland a week ago.  And I spent a good long weekend doing that very thing.  I watched it roll, scamper, buck and frolic.  When I wasn't watching, it jumped out of its paddock and made good its escape.  Awesome.  Happily it wasn't that interested in being free for very long and was soon captured.  I don't know why it didn't continue to jump out, but I am relieved to state that the owners came home way before that could happen again on my watch.  It is a simply charming horse with buckets of personality and I took loads of videos of it that didn't actually get recorded, but I sent them on to the new owners anyway.  No Oscars coming my way for shots of the dirt and the inside of my pocket.  The owners are far too well bred (lol) to comment on my failure to get movies to them.  But they have the same phone and probably know what a challenge all this modern technology is to us.  I'll have another opportunity to watch it beginning next week.  Perhaps I'll obtain a naughty horse cam to help with the watching duties.  jk

I've been told that these attempts at literature have a tendency to be too lengthy.  So to y'all I'll say adieu for now.  Maybe something interesting will happen or I'll remember some snippet that might amuse you, I am not optimistic.

Cheers,

Squidgy

ps:  so slowly I turned...not really.  But the phone slowly made a death spiral and I was forced to replace it.  Note to self.  Buy the bloody insurance.  Dammitall.  I then made my way to daughter Lindseys and assuaged my grief in a nice bottle of Pinot.  Lemonade dears lemonade...

tv post

The spouse watches reality TV shows that originate almost exclusively from Georgia.  This is very disturbing.  Take Auction Kings, please.  It centers around a family of auctioneers in, where else? Georgia.  That would be enough for most people, but I digress.  In the last episode he watched, a shrunken head was on the block.  I mean really.   Really?  Really.  Not good.

Last night he/we watched Toddlers and Tiaras.  Now this is show about mothers who wasted their youth and must now live vicariously through their offspring.  They subject the spawns of their loins to baby beauty pageants.  So very wrong on every level.  So these mothers (and fathers and grandmothers) spend thousands of dollars on little hooker dresses and doll their kids up in false eyelashes, pounds of makeup, spray tans and false finger nails.  If the child has the gall to say lose a tooth, or not have a perfect array of ivory, then false teeth are inserted, they call the false teeth a flipper.  I call it revolting.  The hair styling is probably the most disturbing.  If you would take a look at your pictorial of Marie Antoinette before the beheading, you will get a pretty good idea what the hair looks like.  Simply a.m.a.z.i.n.g.  Not enough to just to have toddlers parade around in their little hooker dresses, some pageants have...bathing suit competitions carefully disguised as "costume of choice".  Ok,  I just got a little sick in my mouth.  But by far the most disturbing of all is what these "mothers" will feed their offspring to get, hmmm oh right their energy up.  One child proudly announced she'd just downed five Pixie Sticks in about two minutes.  A Pixie Stick is essentially fruit flavored sugar in a straw.  Another parent was a little sneakier when she forced her two year old to drink cokes for the buzz.  Where's a cop?  Now I realize that I am being judgemental and narrow focused, but really?  Baby Beauty Pageants?  Excuse me while I go shower.

More?  Of course.  There are the reality cooking shows, not from Georgia necessarily but I know one took place in Texas, close enough.  Anyway, bad manners, foul tempers, lots of tattoos (de rigour iffn you cook evidently) horrible hair and above all terrible shoes.  There are shows where you have to make something edible using all the ingredients in a mystery basket.  Why only just the other night there was the leftover basket.  Pot roast was one of the leftovers.  Dangerously close to being dry and over cooked on a good day, this chunk o meat had long passed its die by date and was a drab brownish gray and begged to be fed to the dog you don't like.  One of the wannabes made Tempura out of slabs of this.  Great idea to fry already overcooked meat. Not.   The judges were not pleased, but it was a good enough, or not as terrible as someone else's, offering to move on to the next level.  Tragic.

Dance Moms is on tap for the recording queue too.  Fat, big mouth dance instructor who badgers tiny ballerinas and puts them in suggestive and inappropriate costumes all the while haranguing the mothers who pay valuable money for the privilege.  Riveting.

One of the spouses most favorites is Dual Survival.  So you take one ex Army ranger type and pair him with a "live off the land pseudo hippy type freak", and drop them both in some inhospitable locale, give them a toothpick or something as their only tool and expect them to survive together in the wilderness.  Hint:  they always get out of it, but sometimes they have to eat worms or something.

Not enough for you?  How about Sons of guns?  Swamp Loggers?  Ice Road Truckers?  Women Behind Bars?  Right now I want all of you to feel sorry for me and buy me that IPad I so dearly must have.  Only one of you responded to my last entreaty and Malcolm?  that your wife would not like it is scarcely an excuse.  Step up man.

I'm going to go make some chocolate chip cookies now and drown my sorrows in butter and sugar.  Tonight we have the Top Chef reunion and I must be ready

One more thing

Dateline One Week Ago:

I was driving to Sonoma yesterday to be the trabajando du jour for HSM when I spotted a telephone pole just lying on the side of the road at a "it just fell there angle".   And I just thought to myself that nothing good could have come from the circumstance of a telephone pole just laying there because it probably had to have fallen off something and since it was still there, either whoever was driving the something didn't notice the pole had come loose and dropped to the ground on a busy road, or didn't care.  In any case eventually someone had to come along behind this situation and therein lies the problem.  So there it was  when I drove in in the morning and still there when I drove by on my way home.   There's a story in there somewhere.  Just like the car with the gigantic, pumpkin sized hole in the windshield.  It had all the requisite spidering that comes with splintered auto glassn and was parked or stopped suddenly on the side of the road on the way to the Two Rock Event Center in  Petaluma.  One time I drove by and there were many cops examining the car, like WTF, and I had to put  my phone down until I passed., but the car stayed there, as a matter of fact it was still there when I made my escape from Petaluma on Monday last.

I lived through the house sitting of two weeks unscathed.  I was neither bitten nor kicked.  Nothing died or ran away which is considered something of a victory to me.  That's not technically true.  A mouse met its end in a trap which completely grossed me out.  I had a day or two of angst debating whether or not to ignore it and its deadness or man up and remove it from the trap and dispose of it.  In the end, I picked it up trap and all with the manure fork and threw it in the dumpster avec trap.  Another day whilst dutifully examining drinking water levels in the containers, I noticed the shadowy outline of something dead on the bottom of one.  That grossed me out too.  I had to dump the water barrel and fork the dead thing  up and toss it in the field.  I couldn't make it to the dumpster because I was gagging.  Oh, it was a rat.  I amaze myself.  And you should be amazed as well.

Dateline A Week Later:

I have survived a weekend of grooming at an event.  It has been a very long time since anyone trusted me with their horses while they are there to see me do my uh magic.  I even braided!  And remembered why, back in the day, I considered it a very good investment to have someone braid for you.  Nonetheless, the mane stayed tied up in knots in spite of the slippery thread used to bind the hairs together.  Good equipment is vital to a professional outcome.   The horses did look pretty good as they went off to do their various jobs of the moment.  There was that rather unnecessary episode of one of the horses taking exception to yours truly and punishing me by tearing the lunge line out of my delicate paws and ripping around with the line flying behind her... twice.  My beloveds comment was less than sympathetic.  He marveled that I wasn't fined or scolded by the judiciary committee of the horse show and subsequently had some sort of sanction foisted on me.  I believe we call this wishful thinking.

I saw my little friends Sue and Linda.  They may be the two people who read this blog and as such have a rather high ranking in my appreciation book.  At any rate we do seem to have a lot in common such as impatience, intolerance and a jaded view of life in general.  I admire that in a person.  Sue is flogging jewelled spur straps, vintage stock pins and new this year, lapel pins in a little cottage industry venture.  Because I am a really fantastic friend and find stuff out, I discovered one of my other friends was in need of a stock pin and brokered a deal to exchange goods for valuable money and therefore have ingratiated myself in to the lofty aura of the babes from So. Cal.  Even to me that made no sense.  But you may take my word for it that she has really groovy stuff and had I a magnificent steed to ride I would be giving her all my money so I could have all her shiny stuff.  I like shiny as you well know.

My little friend Horse Show Mom was my companion at the show.  We got to share a room in the hotel together along with three children, one of whom is the offspring of HSM.  I will tell you right now that I do not find it adorable that she whined piteously about the delicate and infrequent snores I make in my sleep, while she babbles on incessantly in her sleep.  How cute was it that both Mom and daughter won their respective divisions?  The daughter had a mention of her win in the Jr. Training division in a popular Eventing website marveling at her age and all that.  The mother was not mentioned which is somewhat ironic, but you might of had to have been there.  FYI  Novice Horse is not Advanced.  Inside joke, but some of you might get it.

Not that you'll be surprised, but I did make a rather spectacular gaffe in the middle of a lot of people I didn't know.  So I saw this enormous horse trailer with human living quarters as well as horse quarters and lots of awnings and solar panels and pop out rooms and what not parked near where I knew one of my friends was parked.  Thinking she must have just purchased this rolling brothel looking contraptions, I came around the corner and queried, querulously, who owned the rolling house of ill repute.  Well,  it became almost instantly apparent that it did not belong to my friend at all.  No, it belonged to someone I did  not know, nay, never had laid eyes on in my life.  And she immediately demanded to know if I had just called her a prostitute.  I recovered rather more quickly that you'd imagine and replied that if she owned the rolling brothel then that would make her a madam.  She was mollified by that assessment, agreed the trailer could be used for that profession on the side and offered me a drink, which I took, out of politeness only of course, and we got along just fine from there.  Always remember to make lemonade out of your lemons.  And leave after your one polite drink...

I enjoyed a day at the zoo with the grandchillens yesterday.  We also had a picnic and played on the slide and spiderweb, (don't ask - I never saw the point of it, but the little tykes evidently knew what to do so all needs were served.)  We pulled a wagon with our stuff in it, but not with the children in it as was my intention, but they walk now so there you go.  Little Silas wore bright orange Crocs which I know used to belonged to his brother.  That was a long time ago.  They were not cute then, nor are they cute now, but it would seem they have the shelf life of a Twinkie and they do not look any different today than they did years ago.  While a good investment dollar wise, really, they are super awful to look at and the stupid little charms you can spend valuable money on just make them look like really ugly decorated pixie shoes.  Well that was emotional wasn't it?  Back to our adventure at the zoo.  My favorite creature of the day had to be the baby orangutan who was scampering about with a sheet over its body.  It looked like a little ghost and here it was not even close to Halloween.  Seemingly it was important that it be covered as we returned for another viewing after a bit and it had a large piece of heavy paper over its head.  I have a picture, but the IPhone won't share.

I have quite a few house sitting gigs set up which means that I won't have any horse show news for y'all.  What it does mean is I will be earning valuable money which makes the spouse happy and cranky at the same time.  He's very complicated and complex.  And not very tidy.  He has a new cat at work, well not new or probably even young, but new to him.  He likes having his own pet and the cat amuses him.  It (the cat) prefers to sleep on the desk between my beloved and his computer keyboard and tolerates the typing on the keyboard bit of computing but takes some exception to the use of the mouse.  I think the reason for that is obvious, but the spouse doesn't get it.  Do you?  My beloved is somewhat useless in the administration of medication for the creature and it has worms.  I bought a de-wormer for it because worms are disgusting and provided the spouse with the cat piller device, but because he's a man he can't seem to work out how to use it.  We had the same problem with the Starbucks Via coffee this morning.  It's instant dear.  Pour hot water over it.  Voila!  Running out of coffee for the machine is a really bad thing.  And having to demonstrate the making of instant coffee is embarrassing.  Pilling the cat really only has two options of places to insert the cat piller.  The mouth is the right one.  FML  The cat is Siamese and talks a lot.  Naturally the only civilized name for a Siamese cat is Meow C Dung but sadly it has another name, it is pathetic and I won't bother you with it.  Suffice it to say some of the guys at the Fairgrounds named it and it is not descriptive or good.

I take myself off to the land of the privileged tomorrow to put a beady eye on a new horse who arrived from the Land of the Shamrocks the other day.  Seemingly the proud new owners have pressing obligations elsewhere and need someone to blame watch over the new addition that it doesn't take the opportunity to jump out of its enclosures.  It's a jumping horse folks, what do you think it will do if it finds it needs to go somewhere else?  At any rate I seem to have fooled them in to thinking I am knowledgeable or at least alive and can handle the many opportunities for inopportune events.  Naturally I will keep you apprised of the happenings.  Hopefully the most exciting thing to happen will be dinner with friends.  Or drinks.

Remember to "spring forward" on Sunday.  I can't figure if you get more or less sleep, my mind doesn't work.  (that way)  But I assure you it will still be light when you finish your chores at night and that is a good thing.

Cheers,
Squidgy

 

Greetings from Petaluma

It's a misty, rainy day here on the west coast.  I was reminded of England and the fabulous weather one is accustomed to in that clime, but no one is driving furiously on the wrong side of the road and there are few stone walls.  So I'm not there, I'm here and as I said it is raining.  I am gainfully employed for the next ten days or so while the lord and lady of the manor are in Hawaii where they are not cleaning stalls or mucking about in the mud.  Bully for them.  I, however, have cashed the check and have some vague sense of responsibility to perform the duties set forth at the behest of her highness.  Besides which I am deathly afraid to piss her off.

For instance.  A horse arrived here at the Two Rock Event Center for the Equestrian Arts and Sciences and I, foolishly it seems, put a blanket on it at night that looked like it had perhaps come with said horse.  Even more foolishly I mentioned to the lady of the manor when she called for the 400th time that day, that the horse had indeed arrived, settled in nicely and oh by the way it came with a really nice blanket.  Herself was on that in a flash with all the what does it look like (the blanket, not the horse) where was it and on and on and on like that.  Might I mention that it was about 9:30 at night by now?  Anyway, so she finally comes to the conclusion that the blanket in question did not belong to the new horse, but was Killers spare/extra/special/private blanket and therefore sacrosanct, whatever that means.  (see It felt like a bomb went off but there was no noise for the Killer reference. I would have used footnotes but well never mind) In any case it was beginning to sound like I was going to be ordered down to the barn to change that blanket right now in my jammies, but I desisted.  Eventually I got her off the phone, but she then pestered and peppered me with text messages till I  promised that taking that blanket of the new horse would be my only priority the next day, probably before first light.  Happily I was able to call her the next morning  @ 7:00 my time to inform her that the blanket was off the horse, the horse had been scrupulously examined for any sign of skin disease, was found to be clean and oopsie forgot there is a two hour time difference and how did Maui look at 5:00 in the a.m. anyway?  Small victories.

Their highnesses have left behind two dogs and a cat, in addition to the eight horses, and all but one of these house animals must be medicated.  The dog I don't mind as Maxine is mostly bluster and no substance since that unfortunate incident a million years ago when she tried to bite me in the face.  No, it's the cat.  Now I know many of you are cat people and, in fact, I too, like cats.  But pilling a cat is an entirely different story.  And I don't care how easy you think it must be, cats hate to have anything shoved in their mouths.  Not that I blame them, but still...  Since the cat hates the pilling and by extension me, it cowers under the big bed in the master bedroom.  And being a cat it knows to the precise millimeter how far under the bed it must go to avoid being dragged out by yours truly for its twice daily medicine.  So this means I have to go out to get the dust mop and badger the cat till it makes an error in calculation thereby allowing me an instant of opportunity to grab its tail or leg or what ever and drag it out.  Then it just yells at me.  It could be a Siamese cat for all the caterwaltering (lol, I just spell checked that and it suggested grandchildren) it puts forth.  I am happy to report that as of yet it has not scratched or bitten me.  I fear things will go south with an unfortunate rapidity should either of those misfortunes befall me.

The house animal who does not require medication is a Border Collie.  He is intense.  He also insists on constant interaction in the form of a toy, in his case a nasty round Frisbee thing, a ball, a bully stick or anything else that can be thrown.  I am a pathetic thrower and he feels sorry for me.  I don't care and just a few minutes ago I threw the nasty round Frisbee thing in to the shower tub with the glass doors and closed said doors.  He is staring at the shower.  This may go on for the next ten days.  I'm OK with it.

Last Saturday the spouse and I got up at some unholy hour to meet up with the middle daughter and her family so we could drive to some high school to watch the youngest son wrestle in a tournament.  I am troubled by the wrestling outfits.  I am also troubled by the little elf shoes wrestlers wear.  All in all it was a troubling day.  I asked a friend of mine if her kids had wrestled in school as they had done every other known sport.  But she said no, they just liked to wear the outfits.  This too added to the troublesomeness.  At any rate the son wrestled in like four bouts or whatever they call them and then we left and high tailed it back to the sanctity of our little abode and huddled on the couch. 

I have a new phone.  A white iPhone 4s to be precise.  (Designed in California.  Assembled in China)  I feel so modern.  That I can only utilize and/or understand about 1% of  the features is negligible.  Well, to my mind anyway.  I'm pretty sure the spouse will and does have and entirely different take on the matter especially in light of the fact that while I did have upgrade eligibility and a new phone discount I no doubt could have filled my car up six time with gas for what the phone cost.  But I'm pleased and what more could you ask for?  Funny you should mention that ask for thing,  I now want an iPad.  The new one of course.  Surely I will have no need for anything more in my life once that need is satisfied?  Maybe one of y'all will take pity on the spouse and take the burden of that purchase on your own generous self?   Thanks mucho.  Much obliged.  Anyway back to not utilizing my new iPhone to the extent of its capabilities, I just transferred all my contacts (444 btw) via the transfer contacts app (don't ask) and now I have many many duplicates of what I had to begin with.  I understand from looking at the Verizon website, that I may reserve a spot in an iPhone 4 class to be held at my local Verizon store.  This intimidates the hell out of me.  Perhaps I can get the spouse to go for me or barring that with me.  How 'bout it huni buni? xxx.

I fear that it is time to go pester the horses for the afternoon session of cleaning up after them and feeding them dinner.  They are not grateful.  They will, in fact, be rather obstreperous about the timing, quality and quantity of the dinner.  I will be cold and wet, so I won't care.  That's why I get paid the big bucks!

Cheers,
Squidgy