When I put Archie's sheet on the other night, I left a note asking for the BO to take it off yesterday morning. When I went to the barn last night, he was wearing it again.  Why wasn't I concerned?  I knew BO had taken it off and put it back on because the buckles were all jacked up.  Yay for marginal incompetence!

Last night, after walking dogs and doing miscellaneous other things, I laid on the couch for a half hour.  I knew I needed to run but I also knew that it wasn't going to take me very long to pump out three miles.

The track was absolutely deserted.  It made me wonder how many of my running not-friends are going to be there on Saturday.

The city has started setting barrier pieces next to the appropriate intersections.  Yesterday, a coworker gave me a summation of a news brief about marathon clothing.  I appreciated his thinking of me.  Today, on the way in to the office, I saw the Rock'N'Roll semi.  Tomorrow, I'll take the ferry across the river and go to the expo to pick up my "swag bag" and other information.  If I have time to blog on Friday, I'll include more details on what that entails.  For my normal 5s and 10s, it's just a bunch of flyers about other runs.  And safety pins.

After the run, it was a quick trip to Wal-Mart for things I thought I so desperately needed.  Like kitten food. Sleep aid.  Canned cat food for the feral that I saw at the track who screamed his head off at me.  Fake butter.  Side note:  we are not a butter household - be it real or fake; we're a cooking spray family.  But I can't put cooking spray on the eighteen sweet potatoes that I'm eating this week.  And, oh my god, fake butter is delicious.

Tonight:  ride.  Eat candy and watch a Halloween-ish movie.  Eat another stinkin' sweet potato and veggie burger (as another side note:  I'm not drinking alcohol or eating my normal french fries this week, while also trying to increase the absurd amount of water that I drink.  I'm down four pounds.).

If you have a spare and bored fifteen minutes, check out PicMonkey.  They've got some Halloween-themed guided edits going on.  I made D into a Day of the Dead fellow.

After an absurdly long time trying to get out of the parking deck, I made it home later than normal last night.  I'm not sure what the hold up was and I'm one of those sticklers that pisses off everyone else - I won't let people going the wrong way cut me off.  I will ram your vehicle with my POS fifteen year old Subaru.  Roar.

Anyways, got home at about the same time as husband but ended up with dog duty anyways.  They're mine, I accept it.  He's a horrible dog step-father.  :)  By the time that was done, the weather was checked, the outfit changed, I was about fifteen minutes later than normal to the barn and deathly afraid that BO had already fed.  Fortunately, she hadn't but she was in the process.

Okay, already, I'm feeling like crap for not wanting to really ride and for, somehow, riding this guy so much and yet not enough.  Then she feeds her horse and asks a hundred times if Archie's going to be okay with that.  I don't think she's caught on:  he does not have the option to be anything but okay with it.  Horses aren't allowed to be little shits when they don't get their way.  They just aren't.  We'd all die.

And then she tells Archie that I'm a "mean mom" for riding him instead of just giving him his dinner.

Mother.  Fucker.

Deep breath in, slow breath out.

The actual ride was okay.  He was spooky again when the sun started to set.  To focus that brain, I got him collected and did a sit-trot through a sorta tight figure-eight on an incline.  Lots of bend.  It was hard for me, too.  And in the midst of that, the old guy who lives near the meadow hit something as he was coming down the dirt road next to the pasture that I ride in.  So Archie had a little meltdown and I screamed "thanks!" at the guy.  I felt bad about it afterwards, but at least I didn't flick him off.  Damn the cold weather and frisky ponies.

Speaking of which, I sewed up Archie's sheet the other night and put that beast on last night.  I can't say that he was impressed, but when it was 40º-something this morning, I'm sure he appreciated it.  I had to scramble to sew the rip in the blanket last night.  I'm still planning on ironing on a water-proof patch because he ripped that one all the way through.  There was also a safety pin stuck in it.  I don't remember doing that.  It doesn't mean that I didn't, because my memory sucks, but I'd like to think that I wouldn't use a safety pin on something that's going to be directly next to my horse's body for an unsupervised twelve hours or so.

Zombie Horse.

Other stuff:

I'm entering an art show through my job for some of my photos.  I can only pick two and I think I have better odds if they're something people generally like (unlike, say, my horse or my dogs).  I narrowed it down to four photos and I think I've picked the winners.  Now I have to decide how I'm going to present them.  I've been looking at this website that has pretty cheap canvas prints and also is running 20% off until tomorrow, with flat-rate shipping ($13).

First choice.

Second choice.

Kittens continue to be monsters.  Last night they were unleashed upon the downstairs, while I sat with the dogs - on leashes.  Achilles actually climbed Savannah.

Lizzie Borden on left, Ares on right.

Scar and Achilles.

Savannah and Aphrodite.

Achilles looking at home.

Tonight, I run.  I've got to figure out clothing for the half.  I was just planning on wearing a tank top, because it hadn't been that cold, but now it's bitterly chill in the morning.  Boo.

Archie is amazing.

Breakfast this morning.

I get jealous sometimes, reading other people's blogs and seeing their photos.  We aren't working in a super-nice ring with great fences.  We aren't jumping huge jumps.  I haven't shown him since... 2008?  Our only show and it was schooling cross rails.  I ride and I ride and I ride.  Five days a week.  There are some days that I just don't want to, that I'm tired and busy and would rather just braid his mane, but I do it anyways.  Pushing his body, pushing my body, trying to work on my form the best I can without someone to help me.  I used to video tape myself, riding in circles.  The only problem with that is that I had to stay somewhat in frame and everything came out grainy, anyways.  Old camera.

I get excited when he picks up the correct lead but don't want to hurt him, so I don't ask him to hold it very long.  I keep thinking that if I could lose twenty pounds (as much muscle as I am, I'm not sure that it's even a realistic goal), he would feel better.  His back would feel better.  I've always heard that a fat rider who can balance is better than a skinny person who can't, but, ultimately - if I'm running, would I rather run with an empty bookbag or one with shit in it?  Empty.  Make it easier.

So, a recent my-OTTB-is-amazing story:  Archie was stung by a bee.  It took me, stupidly, a minute to realize what was going on.  We were trotting.  Archie starts to do the "Bugle Boy Shuffle" (RIP), which is a canter on the front end and trot in the back.  Which turned into a couple of crow hops and a slam on the brakes.  Then his face was almost in the saddle, trying to reach something on his shoulder.  When I looked down, I saw black and yellow doing the death dance, starting to twitch under the saddle pad.  I immediately brushed it off of him - too little, too late.  We stood there for a moment before he started walking again.  I didn't pressure, didn't ask.  We'd been working on figure eights, but I sacrificed the rest of the ride to the trails.

Which is the second part of this.  I'll have to show an enhanced picture, but his pasture is pretty well surrounded by trees, while the meadow we ride in backs up to marshland.  If you aren't familiar with this topography, trees block wind.  Marsh does not.  It was howling back there, his mane standing up and his nostrils flared.  I thought multiple times that his butt was going to drop, his head raise, and he would bolt.  Fortunately, he held strong.  I even took him on a trail I'd never seen before and he was brave.

Other Life Stuff.

We ended up not going out with my friend on Saturday.  She wasn't going to be downtown until 10:30 or 11 that night and, well, we're an old married couple.  Fuck that late-night stuff.  I like sleep.  More so when I have to be up early the next day.  So, it was just a quiet dinner with a dessert of pumpkin cheesecake.

The half-marathon is this weekend.  I'm mixed parts of excited and anxious and so incredibly over it.  I'm taking a half day off of work on Friday, which is probably overkill, but I think I'll probably be useless then anyways.  I keep thinking of all the things I think I'll need:  like an arm band for my iPhone or sweatbands for my stinky elbows or what I'm going to eat for breakfast, if I eat breakfast.  We've got to be downtown and parked by 6:30 that morning.  What the hell?  I'm normally waking up at 6:30.  I know my nerves are going to be shot but I've never tried to run on Xanax and don't know how it'll affect me.  I guess I could try for my last pre-race run tomorrow night.  And for my run tomorrow, do I do a blazing three miles or an easy three miles?  Do I go to soccer practice on Thursday or do I just hang out at home instead and eat carbs?  Or walk the dogs for a few miles?

And then, rinse, repeat and shorten the distance but add some incline.  The Double Pump the first weekend in December, marking my one year of competitive running by going for a 15k over the bridge.. three times.

After that, though?  Fives and tens.  I'm staying away from distance because I think between running and soccer, my feet are getting jacked up.  I mean, seriously: my toes hurt!  That's not normal!  Soccer only has three games left.  I'll miss the ladies on the team, but I'm also stupidly excited to have my Sunday afternoons free.  The best light is actually about the time that we're playing, so I can do more photography.

D's lap has good luck.

Kittens.

It's like story time or something.  Savannah loves the kittens.

I *think* this is Ares.

I almost didn't ride this morning. It's overcast, branches are falling, and there's a storm feel to the atmosphere.

When I went to feed, Archie was on high alert. I groomed him, and set the saddle and pad on his back, then grained Skinny Man. I gave Archie a little bit of grain and started on some barn chores. BO, I should make you a list. Water troughs cleaned, sticks picked up, hay twine recovered and thrown away. By all that time, Archie was just waiting, whipping his head around to various wind-in-tree noises.

I only rode for about half an hour, working on our downward transitions and keeping his attention. I don't k ow how to describe this or what it was, but before we really got started, I felt like his right hip was.. Kinked. Cocked. Lifted up. Curving his spine. I thought maybe it was just the way I was sitting, but as soon as we started moving it resolved.

I almost gave up when a branch, normally two feet above my head, smacked me in the face and spooked him. Yay, horses.

We did pop over the cross rail a couple times. He was hilarious. Jump it huge, trot over it, jump it huge.

So, as of last night, I started working on my plans for the weekend.  As in, I opened the ottoman and dug around until I found a needle and my thick black thread and my Shrinky Dink paper.  Doesn't everyone keep that stuff in their ottomans?

Husband and I are supposed to go out tomorrow night to celebrate Halloween with one of my besties.  She's big into the costumes and creativity and it gets a little daunting to be around her when she's like that.  If she weren't, though, I would never have gotten a photo of my husband getting a lap dance from a lumberjack (Halloween, 2010).

Unfortunately, we have no idea what to be.  I doubt he'd be receptive to dressing up as a horse so I can just put on my riding clothes.  Our first married Halloween, I was a dirty cop and he was a prisoner.  Last Halloween, we didn't dress up.  I'm sort of leaning towards Poison Ivy and the Joker, because I think it would be relatively easy.

Not much else going on.  Feeding the horses tonight - around which time I'll hopefully ride.  There's another hurricane running up the coast, so who knows.  Also have big plans to cook some stuff for dinner, versus just putting packaged shit in the oven.  I'm thinking onion petals and lentil-potato soup.  There's something about fall that makes me want to barricade in my apartment and do domestic things.  Oh, kittens are going to be introduced to the rest of the herd (partially so we can vacuum the guest room and partially because they need to be socialized to improve their adoption possibilities).

Operation Please Stop Destroying My Crap is going fairly well.  Girls are still running in the morning, but D has been home a little more the past few days.  It helps.

Why is it only Thursday?

Savannah's procedure went okay.  The actual sample looked good to my untrained eye, but who knows.  Another hundred dollars later..  And it wasn't as horrible as I thought, but I think that it really helped that I and my other dog were in the room with her.  I actually restrained her (not at all normal for an owner to do that during a procedure like this, but, hell, I'm not the normal owner) and Scar sat at her face, whining.

Note to self:  post old tech photos.

Afterwards, she seemed okay and just eager to go home and lick her wound, so I went out to ride.

I hate the shortened days.  We got in about three laps either direction, doing our 10 walk strides/20 trot strides, before he started spooking at shadows.  I know his eyesight is worse than mine, and mine sorta sucks, but I still made him do some lateral movements to get his brain back in the game before we called it a night.  And then he didn't want to do his sit ups at all.  He'd felt fine under saddle, so I'm not sure exactly what his problem was.

BO is going out of town this weekend, so a friend of hers and I will be feeding.  Maybe my baby blog did make it's way back to her - or she's afraid of losing her only boarder - but she's actually offered to comp me for the time that I'm feeding.  I was sort of shocked.

Other news, other news.

Soccer and run tonight.  Ride tomorrow.  Find a costume for Saturday night.  Soccer Sunday.   Books, blanket repairs that I've been postponing, some fun time with some Shrinky Dink.  More work on my side project - just a lot of uploading, now that husband has laid the foundation.  Kittens and puppies and cats and pony.  Sleep.  Movies.  Bike rides.  Feeding.  Drinks and planning next week's outfits.  I'm trying to decide if I should buy some brown sandals to replace the two pairs that were eaten, or if I should accept the fact that it's technically fall and chicks are wearing boots to my bare toes.  Woo.

I've got a tattoo session scheduled in a few weeks.  It's stuff I wanted to get on my birthday but that I couldn't get an appointment for.  Itty bitty wrist stuff.

Gratuitous Kitten Pictures.

Achilles on the scratch board. Freaky how he knew exactly what to do.

Aphrodite playing with a ball.

Aphrodite playing with me.

As I was running last night, I started to get worried that I wasn't running enough.  Not quite panicked, but the sort of worried that sits on your chest.  (I've since reviewed the miles I've logged over the past few months and while I'm not running as often, I'm running longer.  Only one run this month has been less than five miles.  So, I'm in fine shape for the half.  In ten days.)

As I've gotten older, I've learned that my brain functions a little bit differently than some others.  My husband doesn't ever lie awake at night, festering over the things that happened that day or that may happen the next.  And, most nights, I don't either.  But occasionally I do.  And sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and sit there for hours thinking.

When I started having anxiety attacks more frequently, I started thinking about how anxiety affects my life (which, actually, is pretty damn counterproductive for someone suffering from anxiety).  I'm not locked in doors, afraid to go out, but it's like I can't shut off my brain.

I started reading a book earlier this week.  It was a surprise - a random find.  I think I picked it up because it had a black lab on the cover.  But it's about dogs and loss and friends and mental issues and is just an amazing book.  It talks about the bond between dogs and humans and it sort of made me realize that if I'm anxious now, how much worse I'd be without my girls.  And I think Archie offers the same benefits.  He gives me a chance to focus on something while also being outside of my brain and connected with another being.  The book is called Lost & Found by Jacqueline Sheehan.  A quote:

He knew she was dead, the one he had joined with, slept near, awaited, greeted, licked, cajoled into play, soothed through bad times, lowered her heart rate, her breath, sighed deeply to her to signal that it was time to go to sleep.  And she in turn had loved him, remembered him, delighted him with food, thrilled him with car trips where he hung his great black head out of the car window, and together they had been majestic.

 In other news, the kittens monsters are great.  They've mastered climbing, yay!  Like the bed skirt, comforter, and curtains.  D said that he saw one on the fourth shelf of the bookcase yesterday.  He also said that Aphrodite might be added to our pride because she fell asleep on his chest yesterday.  He's being a really awesome foster dad and I haven't had to do a damn thing.  :)

Ares and Aphrodite playing in D's shoes.. that Savannah will probably later eat.

Tonight, I'm taking Savannah for her horrible procedure and then either spending comfort time with her or going to go ride Archie.  It all depends on how long her procedure takes and how she is afterwards.

On a happier note, I was shopping (surprise) at Old Navy a couple weekends ago and found an amazing top.  I'm not uber fashionable, but I thought just about everyone who reads my blog would be keen on this.  Unfortunately, the Old Navy website has limited sizes and only one color - red.  I hate the color red.  But here's the link. Also, Mod Cloth?  Has a ton of horse-themed stuff.

HORSESHOES!

No explanation.  Sorry.

My husband and I have fun conversations.

This is Achilles, because he might be our weakness.

This is Ares, because he picks a lot of fights.

Aphrodite, because she's the lover.

Apollo, because he's the lightest (and smallest).

Let me go in a chronological order, else I'll get confused.

Yesterday morning, I started the day with a little and incredibly short bareback trail ride.  Archie took his job very seriously and marched me to the end of the meadow, started to freak out, and brought me safely back.  I don't think I ever stopped rubbing his withers and ever held the reins correctly.  It was a wonderful feeling - the warmth of his coat on that brisk morning.

Left him with his beet pulp and headed to Wal-Mart to get another cat carrier.  Then it was home to clean up and wrangle cats.  Both of our cats were overdue for vaccines and the local pet store was running a clinic.  I feel like I need to give a disclaimer before I admit to going to a clinic for vax.  So, here it is:  your pet deserves a physical exam by a licensed veterinarian at least once a year; vaccine clinics do not count as an "exam," as your pet is only being stabbed and not examined. Why do I feel like I can justify not taking the kitties to an actual vet and just a vet in a box?  It's the five years of vet med experience and the hypersensitivity to all of my animals' physical well-being.  But I am not a vet.

Okay, so we spent an hour and a half there, girls covered by a towel and they were excellent.

Until we got home and one had a vomiting spell, recovered, and the other has been lethargic today.  Consensus?  Our kids are indoors and we'll probably never vaccinate them again (which is so illegal).

We didn't find out about the reactions until later, because it was back to the Humane Society for a photo session and ... dun dun dun.. foster paperwork.  I took the dogs to a different area to photograph them - there were only about five - because they were doing another feral cat trap-neuter-release day and the other runs had play groups in them.  I did rediscover another run in the front that I might make better use of.  It's got a lot of lantanas and flowers.

So, we're fostering a litter of four kittens, aged at about six weeks.  They're took young for adoption, but we discovered them last week.  We were at PetSmart looking for a specific type of stay-the-fuck-off-the-furniture blanket and just wandered by the adoptable pets.  D's been talking about a Siamese for ever.  And, in a little crate next to a cardboard box was a litter of two Siamese and two black kittens (with amazing eyes).  The story is that someone dropped the box of kittens off early, early in the morning, before PetSmart opened, with a sign saying "free kittens."

The rescue working took them but didn't have any available fosters.  So off to the Humane Society they went (where we met up with them, actually - as I think I was taking pictures).  Since I know all the people there now, I told them that I was interested in one of the kittens.  We've been checking the website and stopping by for the last week.  On Friday, the receptionist sent me an email telling me that the kittens were still too young to be adopted, but they really needed to be fostered out.  We talked about it for a night and I emailed the recep back on Saturday.  On Sunday, we picked them up.

Monster.

They've been locked in a crate for about a week now, so when we released them in the guest room, they went ballistic.  It's a joy to watch.

The dogs are very interested, the cats are hateful and I think it's going to be a pretty stressful couple of weeks.  They'll go back on 11/8 to be neutered and spayed and our foster session will be over.  Also, by that point, we should better be able to determine if now is an okay time to make an addition to our furry family.

I call them our little monsters, because they're currently named after Lord of the Rings characters (which suck.. Samwise?  Merry?  Pippin?  Something else I can't remember?).

OPSDMC?  Fail.  Antique chair in the bottom left, knocked over.

Meeting a neighbor's cat.

This morning, I took another pee sample of Savannah's to the clinic to be tested.  If it comes back okay, then she's fine.  I think she might be going on another round of antibiotics, though.  Which also means a cysto and culture.  Poor baby girl.

This is just us out, but damn, it's a nice picture.

Husband and I were going on our weekly shopping adventures this morning when we realized that the local elementary school was having a thrift sale. Never one to miss thrift shopping (it might be one of my many addictions), we pulled in. The very first booth had treasure.

The lady was selling jewelry and I found a bracelet that I liked. But I also saw a really, really cool statue holding some bracelets. With only a twenty (D's), I asked if the statue were for sale. To my surprise, it was. $20. I put the bracelet up and told the lady that I was going to make sure there wasn't anything else that spoke to me more.

Quickly returned, grabbed the statue and the bracelet. Got both for $20.

The story was that he is El Santo, hand carved in Guererre, Mexico and the lady brought him over herself. Score.

In regards to the ride, I decided to try out the Wintec that I'd ridden in for about five years before I bought the Stubben I currently ride in. I've always thought the Stubben was miserable on my butt, but oh my god. That Wintec stabbed my tailbone and cause my hip angle to close, pushing me on to Archie's neck. It was so incredibly uncomfortable. I didn't realize how much the Stubben did for my security and position.

In the Wintec, I asked for the canter. He hadn't given me any issues to this point, so I was shocked when he exploded and started bucking. I pushed him forward and when he stopped bucking, he gave me this ugly, super high canter. I started to get pissed off, but remembered the chiro saying that most bad horses were actually just in pain.

I took him back to the barn and switched to the Stubben. I took Hume back out to the ring, trotted and had a super smooth transition to canter. Stopped, praised and called it a day.

Last night felt like a Disney movie.

We're the underdogs, getting together to practice at the Lake, at dusk.  Laughter and broken Spanish fill the air.  Cheering and gentle razzing and the occasional lecturing tone.  Running and panting and explanations.

I didn't think that I would like scrimmages, but last night was pretty fun.  We kicked the ball around a few times, talked about some decoy movements (I channeled my inner Shaun T and did some Heismens over the ball), and finally set up to play against each other.

I sound really sheltered and naive and, well, racist, but I haven't been around a lot of Hispanics before.  The occasional classmate or something (that one Colombian that I dated for a night..)(oh, and the other non-Colombian that I dated for a different night..).  And I know that a handful of women can't determine a culture (just makes me wonder how a handful of women picked to represent the middle-class working 'Merican white woman would appear).  But.. those ladies were awesome.  Language barrier be damned.  Three Hispanic ladies, friends with one of our team mates.  Our team mate speaks Spanish and one of the three ladies spoke English.  I was on a team with the English-speaking lady and a Spanish speaking lady.  It was freaking amazing.  They were funny, they were skilled, they didn't judge me for my lack of soccer skills.  (I did make a goal and it was hard.)

I don't think I master writing well enough to describe how cool it felt to broaden my horizons doing a sport I love in an atmosphere (except for the bugs) that was amazing and picturesque.

I had a good time.

Tonight, there's a plan to ride the Kid and eat frozen pizza.  We're going to be sitting down at some point and going over our finances and all that boring, stressful stuff.  We're itching to buy a house, the market is pretty good down here, so we need to get on it.  Eventually, we'll be sitting in on an eight-hour house-buying class, through my job.  ...That will also give us a forgivable loan for part of the down.  Ugh.  Grown up stuff sucks.

(unofficial) Rock'n'Roll Shirt

OPSDMC continues.

ISN'T THIS GREAT?!

Lunch yesterday: lentils with onions and Tropical Sazon, coupled with veggie sausage.

I've talked about my little girls a few times before.  Like the Gum Drama or my last anxiety attack.  I love my dogs.  Promise.  Really.  I do.

Even when they eat both pairs of my tan sandals.  Or my husband's brown dress shoe things.  Or my bit belt from Equine Couture.  Or the pillows that I designed and sewed.

To be honest, it's not my grandma dog - Scarlette.  It's Savannah.  That little fraction of her that is labrador has taken hold of her brain and flipped the KILLLLL switch.  It's a pain in the ass.  And now that it seems (*knock on wood*) that her chronic UTIs are under control, and she's feeling better, it's worse.

Thus began Operation Please Stop Destroying My Crap.

(I think it was the eyeglasses that she munched on that pushed me over the edge.)

I know enough about dogs to understand my options.  I could crate her, I could remove every valuable thing in the apartment, I could otherwise engage those chew tendencies.  Since the horrible, horrible weekend (prior to blogging) that everything that could go wrong, and did, and Scarlette broke her canines trying to chew her way out of her kennel during a thunderstorm, I don't crate my dogs.  It's a personal choice and not one I made lightly.

So, Operation PSDMC has three parts:
And, thus far, it hasn't been bad.  It's been two days and I'm hesitant to say that it's successful, but it certainly hasn't hurt.  I feel a little weird breaking in to a ball park (it's behind the poopie place, about a quarter mile away) at seven in the morning when it's still sorta dark, but hell.  They have fun.  There's a sign that says "no dogs", so I'm seriously ignoring that.  I meant to take a picture of the little blue man with half of a milk bone in him - you have to see it to appreciate it.

The idea is pretty simple:  if she's tired, she's going to sleep more.  If nothing is appealing to her olfactory glands, she's less likely to eat it.  And if I can get her focused on getting the super-awesome Publix brand bones out of the Kong Extreme and the man toy, she might be less inclined to find something else to destroy.

As far as the ride went last night, I took a different approach.  More.. methodical.  Ten walking steps (technically, 20, but I was only counting one shoulder) followed by twenty trot steps (again, 40).  Rinse and repeat for three laps.  Reverse, repeat.  BO came out, of course, while I was riding. She was goofy blitzed on red wine and started telling me god-awful stories.  She did tell me that I could ride the skinny man if I wanted.  I said I would break his spine.  Then we had an awkward conversation about my weight.

Yay!

I just found out that the fellow who leads and developed the system that my husband and I did, and with which said husband lost nearly a hundred pounds, got married!  To another fellow!

Let me wax poetic about why this thrills me, even though it doesn't have a damn thing to do with me:

• Changes the stereotypes by which we judge (and we all judge) homosexual men.  Shaun T, of the Insanity fame, is one hell of a hot and buff man.  Whoo.  I hate to say it like this, but that "limp wrist" thing absolutely does not apply to this man.  So while it isn't going to be one giant step forward for mankind, it's still something.
• He was somewhat covert about it, while also being ballsy.  First, it's none of our damn business who he loves/marries/sleeps with/trains.  It's not.  We don't have the right to know that information about anyone.  So, he deigned to tell the masses and he was classy and sneaky:  he retweeted and mentioned his best friend and his new hubby.  
• He was able to get married to another man.  I never made the decision to like boys and neither did he; we're both wired the way we're wired.  And I will fight for his equal rights.

The Kid came up to the gate and called for me.

The chiropractor came out on Sunday, again.  She's pretty thrilled with his progress and was actually pretty pleasant to be around this time.

His pain is consistently moving, though she thinks he'll forever be tender in his sacro-lumbar thoracis something or other.  His back.  His back is ouchie.  His withers were more ouchie than normal.  She thought it was great news that he was being a shit about the left lead, as it proves that he's dynamic and his body is changing.  So, another four weeks.  Oh, and his sit ups have improved - he's lifting more of his back/belly than he was previously.

She gave me a lot of compliments for the amount that I ride him, the fact that I'm actually trying to work him based on what she says (the downward transitions, the varying mounting side, the sit ups), and just my knowledge base.  She said that a lot of her clients lie to her and inflate what they're actually doing, but Archie's body is showing our hard work.

She said that he would either be excellent from all the adjusting, all the new and different adjusting, or he would be an absolute terror.  He was somewhere in between.

I curry his back and then brush his back, then set the Contender on his back.  The first time, the very first time, after about ten minutes his head dropped and he started chewing.  Haven't had as strong of a reaction since.  But I put it on and then I finish the rest of him - currying his neck and legs and belly, brushing all over and removing his fly boots and mask, scratching his face, cleaning his hooves and applying the apple cider vinegar.  And then I finish with the tack.  I go in a clockwise motion when I clean his hooves, right front, right hind, left hind and then left front.  I'm not sure when I started doing that, but it's distinctively me and he's used to it.  Last night, he snatched his left hind out of my grasp and kicked - which has never happened before!  Sure, that's the leg he nutted the farrier with.  But I'm special, dammit!

When I mounted, he didn't want to move forward.  He wanted absolutely nothing to do with the pasture that we ride in.  I pulled a stick off of a tree and gave him one smart little thwack with it and he moved on.  I didn't notice anything super amazing about his walk, except that he was looking at everything.  In the moment that I started to ask him to move forward and to pick up the trot, he wanted to spook at a squirrel.  I popped the little stick so hard on my thigh that it snapped and he immediately shot forward, forgetting el squirrelo.

In the trot, I felt his shoulders shifting more forward.  He felt like he was moving better tracking left but was tight and uncomfortable tracking right.  (I think part of my validity with the chiro is that I've always said his right shoulder feels tight.  After so many visits and having to adjust the damn thing so many times, I think she believes me now.)

CBL was coming to feed as I was finishing up our last few laps tracking right.  I was very old school with my  hands - low and wide and asking for the bend and for him to relax his neck.  Still felt amazing.

She started talking, again, about her damn skinny horse.  She said that she's started feeding him one and a half scoops twice a day and beet pulp three times a day.  She said that he finishes everything she gives him.  I asked why she didn't give him some grain with that third beet pulp feeding.  "You think that'll be okay?"  Well, I absolutely hate that she's giving him sweet feed, Karo syrup and beet pulp.  I think it's sugar overkill. If he were my horse, it would be senior, beet pulp, alfalfa cubes and rice bran oil (or some other fatty oil).  And an oral supplement.  And I'd stop riding him.  She talked about how much energy he has (she fell off last week) and all I could think was that he was cracked out on sugar.  Even geriatrics can have sugar buzzes.

Also, in some Tobacco Road world, her ex-husband accidentally ran over her son's fourteen year old springer.  It was bound to happen.  Both of her dogs wander the street between her properties.  But I couldn't get over her nonchalance about it: the e-vet said that splinting and confinement would repair the fracture.  It's not open, it's not a surgical fix; it's the front leg, below the elbow.  I've seen dogs recover from this fracture a dozen times.  You splint, you give pain medication and you confine.  The splint gets changed every two weeks.  Six weeks later, give or take, your dog is recovered.

I think they euthanized.

The email I'd received said 2811, which, frighteningly, corresponded with a mail box in a row of three in front of a series of houses.  So, not a business or a fancy studio, as I had hoped.  The butterflies dwelling in my stomach, that I had though of too late to drown in pharmaceuticals, roared at the thought of going into a stranger's home.  I drove by the offensive little white mailbox and turned around up the road, and drove by again.  Verification and dying hope.  I pulled my little Subie in to a driveway a little ways away from the screaming 2811.  What the hell was I thinking?

After pulling up my Gmail account and finding the previously proffered cell phone number, I sent a terse text: Where exactly am I going?  The reply confirmed it:  oh, the first green house and park next to the (dilapidated and fugly) Honda.  I pulled out of my little overhung sanctuary and drove back to the damned mailboxes, pulling in just behind the Honda.  I won't die!  He's a professional!  Someone would know where to find my body, surely.  Oh, sweet Jesus, what the hell was I thinking?!  I can't do this!

I steeled myself, pulled the emergency brake on my sweet Subie, and wrapped the strap of my Kavu around my neck.  I'm here.  I can do this. Stepping out of the car, I walked towards the green house - a typical SCAD style property, complete with mild overgrowth and a hammock - when a voice, emitted from said hammock, said hi.  He introduced himself, this master photographer dressed more like my tattooer in his scruffy facial growth, pin-striped pants and sideways cap.  I started to judge, to question further my decision, then remember being down on my knees in the grass, trying to capture the best smile that Tito, the min pin, could give me.  I have lost my mind.

He explained his story to me as he walked me into the green house.  Why he, who was out there, achieving fame and financial gain, was doing this private pro bono project.  A grandmother, a struggle, and a loss to breast cancer.  I know the story was supposed to put me at ease, but I was more inclined to focus on the one thing in the entire environment that I truly understood:  two little toy dogs, jumping on my legs and licking my fingertips.

Our back and forth emails had told me a little bit of what he hoped to achieve.  I knew clothes were coming off and that I'd be wearing a mask.  My legs started to shake.  It sounded like the worst start to a snub film, because I was dumb enough to volunteer.  After greeting and abandoning the precious little puppies, Master Photographer showed me an image that had already made its way through processing.

It was stunning.

A woman, clearly a woman from her displayed assets, peered at us under the mummy trappings, provocatively angling her body both towards and away from us.  Her sole visible blue eye popped under the dulled and dirty white wrappings, all set against a pink background.  The image was simple and beautiful and this man had captured it in his little green house.  I win.

He led me to what once had been the dining room for the house, little white paws scampering after me, and showed me a laundry basket of ghoulish and furry masks.  He showed me the ones that he had already used - this campaign of ten strange and equally insane women - and the ones that had yet to be used.  A cheetah print, a soulless face, generic horrors.  And, finally, the face that spoke to me, with an ode to Donnie Darko.

I was to be a rabbit.

And then he asked what color my undies were.

Having been with my husband for several years, having been happily devoted for even longer, my heart stuttered.  Horrified.  Little did I know that this photo shoot would have lingering feelings of guilt.

We talked about the logistics.  Where would my hands go?  How would I protect what little bit of decency that kept this from being smut?  My legs were still shaking.  My butterflies were dying the deaths of insects poisoned - hyperactivity due to toxicity until their hearts exploded.  As reassured as his obvious talent made me, I was still being asked to do something I had never done before.

If my nerves showed, he never mentioned it.  He lapsed into a professional mode.  I spoke of trying my hand with photography, of the animals and the volunteering and the one horrible portrait class.  He had me stand in front of his flashes - gladly, I was able to recognize the umbrella lighting, the key flash - as he tested my white balance and set things up.  To have that skill!

He hurriedly looked at his histogram, his screen giving him details I haven't figured out yet, and he ran off to another part of the house, muttering to me to take my clothes off.  But.. but.. 

Seconds or minutes or years later found me behind and beside the flash stands again, all protection from the outside world seemingly lost.  I was bare but for my little color-balanced undies.  We had to maneuver to get the mask on, to get it to stay, to pin in to my hair and then to get my hair fluffed back up.  He asked me what I did for a living and I told him about my job, which immediately garnered the question of whether my distinguishable tattoos would need to be edited out.  I said no.  I highly doubt I'll make in to one of the magazines for which he does his art, so how else would any of my coworkers find out?  What friends?

The shoot itself lasted a small eternity.  At no point did he make me feel like I was less than his best friend and he seemed genuinely grateful for the anxiety-ridden torment I was putting myself through.  I learned a lot, actually.  If I ever delve into the world of people, I now have a better understanding of how to angle the female body to get it the most flattering.  And how to speak, calmly explaining what to do.

For the last few scenes, he wanted me to glisten.  I'm not sure if it was something he used with the others, but he did have a spray bottle of water handy.  And, man, if I wasn't uncomfortable before.  His quick analyzation of what position we would be contorting me into and how best to spray to highlight - the speed and the tilt of my head and holding, holding, holding of a pose.

When it was over, he ran off again.  Muttering, again, to put my clothes back on.  I ripped the mask off so quickly that the clips holding it in my hair went flying.  I was still drenched and he had offered nothing by which to dry myself.  My mind immediately began to torment me with questions about how I appeared on his screen.  I've done enough self-portraiture to know that only one out of every ten will meet my standards.  In the fifteen minutes that I stood unclothed in his dining room, just me and my mask, surely he got something exceptional.

I dressed - butterflies now zombies crawling up my sides - and wondered.  When he came back into the dining room, I was presented with an online model agreement.  Oh, Beks, when you do something, you don't half-ass it.  First modeling session is a peekaboo?!  And he explained the rest of the details - the things I ought to have asked prior to agreeing to anything.  The prints would be advertised online.  The proceeds would be given to the Komen Foundation and to private individuals.  And then it was time to leave.

I was sent a text this afternoon by the trainer/manager of the barn I boarded and worked at in Augusta.

The 28 year old champion of the barn - the lesson giver, jump teacher, hunt master - was euthanized this morning.  During some part of the night, he broke his leg.

I didn't have a super special attachment to this old fellow.  He never taught me to ride and we never had any special bonding moments.  I'd only ever ridden him once, for a fraction of  a lesson.  He was so good at his job, so understanding of how to pack a kid around a course (even though I was a grown up by that time), that I was able to tie off the reins and take him over a line of jumps, practicing on my form.

We took him to a few IHSA competitions and he quickly got a reputation for the flat courses.  He would change gait and direction before the rider had a chance to ask, just by hearing the announcer.

Bugle Boy was a once in a lifetime horse.

RIP.

After hearing about this, the husband and I had a talk.  What if something happened to Archie?  What if I went out to the barn and his leg was dangling?  He was colicing?  We didn't get in to specifics - if it's X, then we do Y - but I made sure that he understood what would be expected of him.  Where I kept the injectable Banamine, the Bute, and that, if anything ever warranted it, getting that medication to me was of the utmost importance because I wouldn't be leaving my horse's side until the vet came.

On this day, 29 years ago, my poor, dear mother was pushing an IV stand around a military hospital in Germany.  She definitely had a rough night.

So, my birthday, thus far:

Slept late.

Ate another pumpkin bagel.

Walked the dogs.

Renewed my car tag.

Rode the pony - COULD NOT STOP GRINNING.  Fantastic trot work, great little jump session, canter in the meadow and a nice, monster-sized, back-swishing walk.

Met husband for lunch.  The food took so long that he had to leave before it arrived.

Home to relax.

Husband surprised me with tickets to see Muse in February.

Photoshoot with a professional, JAB, for breast cancer awareness.  Yes - this means what you think it means.

Now, home to relax until the hubs gets off work.  Then it's Jazz'd and drinks at Jen's.

Photos, in no particular order: