I think I've described an anxiety attack before.  If so, I apologize.  But, yeah, we'll get there.  (tl;dr?  car accident)

After giving Archie his beet pulp, checking to make sure the farrier didn't magically reattach the shoe, spraying him with our magical fly spray, and taking goofie selfies while giving him kisses, I left the barn to head to the gym.  D and I had worked out on Monday, since I couldn't ride, so I was already sore but had a ton of different muscle groups upon which I could inflict damage.

Goofie kisses.

Let's add a little imagery to this story.

Me, driving in my POS 1997 Subaru Legacy Outback... that I love a ridiculous amount for a car that wants to die.  I've stripped off the shirt I wore to work and am just cruising along in an almost inappropriate gray tank top and black skirt.  I normally wear the tank under clothes or to run, because it looks okay with a boob-minimizing sports bra.

I'm not a super amazing driver, but I'm a hell of a lot more aware since my car was totaled on April 25, 2006 (read: how I met my horse).  I stop at a red light behind a line of traffic.  I check my rearview mirror because I like to know how close cars are to my butt.  I see the dude pull up behind me in a little white car.  And then I see him start to panic and jerk his steering wheel to the right, all the way to the curb.  And then I see him get slammed into by a gray minivan, which causes him to slam into me.  Because I saw it coming, I braced.

I hear the guy in the middle start yelling something to the effect of, "Get off your damn cell phone," while he's walking to my car.

I don't know exactly how to describe the onset of an anxiety attack.  It's like a bomb with a timer, only you have no idea how long the timer is set for.  Sometimes I have several seconds of painful clarity and sometimes I have one.  I had about two seconds before my body took over my brain and I tried to tell the guy that I was going to have an anxiety attack, that it was okay, but he was on the phone with 911 and didn't hear me.

I was able to call D and give him a rough idea of what was going on, bless his fucking heart for understanding my gibberish: ...pant.... car accident ...pant.... Montgomery ...pant.... not bad ...pant.... not bad ...pant....  He told me he was coming and we hung up, then I had to explain to the smooshed dude what was going on with me, you know, in the same fashion.  Hyperventilating blows.  (ha ha)

Pretty quickly, three squad cars and an ambulance showed up.  The EMTs verified that I was relatively okay and made me take my Xanax, so then it was a matter of waiting for my body to stop lock down.  Everyone kept telling me to sit down but I didn't want to sit down because I'd had that skirt for a really long time and I really like it.  So I was pacing, panting, with individual appendage twitching and my left hand tapping.  At some point, though, the attack ebbed and I had the presence of mind to put some damn clothes on.

They had us move our cars into a parking lot and I got to see the extent of the damage to the middle car.  His entire back bumper came off and his front was still on, but marred on the corner where he hit me.

Somewhere around this time, D showed up and nagged me about not having my insurance paperwork right there and then I bitched back at him.  I get that it's important, but I also couldn't feel my legs and sorta didn't give a shit.  Yay, Xanax!  The kid driving the minivan, who had been on his cell phone and subsequently caused the accident, came up to me.  His words, verbatim, "Ma'am, I just want to tell you how sorry I am.  I go to church.  I'm not a bad person."  Instead of going apeshit, because, dude, brakes? or because entry into a building does not make a person good (I really had to stifle the angry atheist in me), I told him that I appreciated his apology.

Ten minutes later he asks if I have a grocery bag or anything in my car.  I say that I don't, and D and I give each other weird looks and wonder what a random time to clean his car.  D and I take a moment to assess the damage to my car, which isn't that bad.  Granted, the Subie was actually in mint exterior condition, minus a few tiny rust spots.  And now she's not.  The right side of the bumper detached from the clips holding it and there's a big fugly spot.

I think I can scrub the white paint from the other car off and make this dinger less noticeable.

So then the cop comes over to give me back my stuff and to give me the contact information for the apologetic church-goer.  At which point I learn that this stupid punk has no insurance.  And knew that he had screwed me and the smooshed guy when he made his apology, but didn't have the guts to fess up at that time.  I had angry thoughts.

I saw the cop tell the smooshed guy and I saw him go ballistic.  I talked to him a little before we left and, fortunately, he's got collision insurance on his car, but he's still out the deductible.

And then we went to the gym and I worked out and realized that the back of my head hurt and my abs felt like they'd been ripped to shreds.

I needed some spotting for the 75#.  Le sigh.

After all this, I really wish I had gotten the smooshed guy's information.  I'd like to send him a thank-you card.  If he hadn't cut his wheels into the curb, I would have sustained much more damage.  I don't have collision insurance and I'm not quite ready to buy another car yet.  So, yeah, gonna do some stalking.  (When I was in my car accident almost exactly seven years ago, I had the presence of mind to turn my car sharply to the left.  So, instead of t-boning and possibly killing the lady who pulled out in front of me, we collided front bumpers.  Hard.  She never showed any appreciation for my quick-thinking and never asked if I was okay.  I mean, giant skid marks across three lanes of traffic.  But she did ask if she could take her fried chicken on the ambulance.  I don't want to be that lady.)

A) I have a lot of crap in my car.  B) You can see how far to the right the smooshed dude pulled his car.

What a random day.

The plan had been:  work, give Archie beet pulp, meet husband at gym and go home.

Instead, this happened:

Not pictured:  my skirt, where the lentils from this soup landed.

So I left work early, showered, changed, napped, and went and rode the Kid.  Where this happened:

Blue Horns.

Donkey Ears looks special.

So, I've never put a bonnet on before and I had to lean up his neck to reattach that string thing, like, three times.  Tips accepted.

And then the mane was finished!

I have to start with this:  I'm a runner.  (I'm also an American and I'm getting pretty tired of this shit.)  But, if you've never run a race, there is this absolute feeling of euphoria when you approach the finish line.  I sprint.  I shouldn't be able to sprint, if I paced myself faster during the race, but I still sprint.  And then I crumble at the end and take huge gasping breaths and people cheer and I eat an orange half or a bagel and I drink my water/chocolate milk/beer, and I loll about in a wasted sort of happiness.

That's how races are supposed to end.  And if someone had blown something up when I finished the half marathon in November, if I didn't get my bittersweet exhausted post-race bliss, I would probably never run again.

I almost married a sociopath once.  Little snippets of conversations came back to me when I was thinking about what sort of fucking whack job would go after people running.  Running.  Nearly a defenseless state because, once you've run twenty-six point two miles, you've got nothing left.  I wanted to saw my legs off after my little thirteen-miler.

We fall.  We get back up.  We're riders, we do that.  It's ingrained in our psyche.  Runners:  you fall, you trip, you break stride, you correct.  You keep going.  You finish.  And no one should ever take that finish from you.

---

On to horsie stuff...

Side note:  he undertracks on the right and overtracks on the left.

I only had minimal time yesterday to ride because the husband was expecting me at the apartment to officially close it.  I couldn't bear the thought of trotting in my normal little circles, so I took him out of the pasture and we warmed up on the dirt road, walking, back and forth, before I asked him to pick up a trot.  We trotted near the pasture for a little while and then I trotted him down to the meadow.  He lost his shit a little bit back there.

And I wish I'd taken a photo of this, but the owners of the property back there set up a little tiny jump.  I think it's a jump.  It's a skinny with three little rails.  And.. yeah.  We knocked that shit over.  I have all the best intentions of going back this weekend and repairing it.  We jumped it twice (already knocked over after I walked him over it) and he wasn't amazing either time.  The first, he stopped afterwards and started bucking.  The second, it was like his hind end almost couldn't come up over the jump and then it immediately slammed back down.  No bueno.

I'm not going by the barn today.  Instead, I'm going to try to go by the feed store again.  And then I'm going to hustle home and try to get as many boxes moved in as possible.

Weather sucks.  Like bugs suck.  Roar.

Archie

Other Life Stuff

Yesterday, my husband sent me a text in the afternoon verifying that I was going straight to the barn after work.  I restrained my urge to reply in all caps (it would have been something like:  WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!  YOU SAID I HAD TO MEET THE COMCAST GUY!!!) and instead reminded him that he told me that I needed to meet the Comcast guy.  He said that he was getting home earlier than planned and would be able to go directly to the house to meet the guy.  I was all sorts of grumpy.

Then I planned to drive us both out there, drop him off at the apartment, and go ride.  Because hooking up cable shouldn't take that long, right?

Wrong.

Comcast guy left our house at 9 pm.  He had to re-wire half the crap and someone else will be coming by today to dig a trench for the new wire.  I ended up abandoning my husband to continue discussing the crappiness of split wires in the front yard (side note:  as much as I appreciate his father, does my husband have to call him with every.single.issue?  like you can't decide for yourself if you want the cable to come through a closet or somewhere else?).  I drove to the barn (half an hour), loved on the Archman (ten minutes), drove back to the house (another half hour) and by then the Comcast guy was leaving and we were starved.  Woo for a Chinese restaurant two blocks away that stays open until 10.

While I was at the barn, I tried to make friends with a raccoon.  And then I adjusted Archie's fly boots, picked his hooves and pulled the braids out of his mane.  Oh, and left a check for the BO.

This looks really gross.  Is this what the inside of dreadlocks looks like?  Dirty?

Expectations for this ride?  I just want to get on my pony and trot some circles.  And maybe, just maybe, jump him over a cross rail a time or two.  And then I want horse hugs and that little whoosh of horse breath and whiskers on my neck/arm/face/back/general vicinity.  And then I want to go to sleep.  (Farrier comes tomorrow - guess who's getting aluminums again!)

Random, because I thought it was hilarious.

So.. I got to walk on the roof of the "new house" yesterday.  D keeps reminding me that we haven't officially purchased it yet, but I keep saying that it's our goddamn house.  Just nicer than that, though.

Of course, my eyes are closed.

I don't want to do a "reveal" until we close (three weeks), but I do want to share some fun photos from yesterday.  Husband wasn't able to attend the inspection due to work, so it went like this:

Home Inspector: Blah blah blah.. traps.. wires.. blah blah blah
Me: <Takes photo of blah, traps and wires> Alrighty.  (because I was nervous and overwhelmed, I sounded like a school teacher) <types furiously some of the regurgitated jargon in text to husband> 
HI: Blah blah blah.. <insert ding from husband replying and asking questions about an issue exposed ten texts ago> blah blah blah.. You know how to ground a house, right?
Me: <looking up from texting/photographing, mildly disoriented expression> Ground a house to what?  It's on a concrete slab on the ground. <HI begins explaining the 18th thing that the house needs in order to not electrocute us while showering or opening doors, this time involving eight foot poles shoved into the ground, meanwhile my iPhone whistles insistently> 

It was fun!  Ultimately, though, there's nothing substantially wrong with the house that warrants us not proceeding.  And it's a damn pretty house.

Found in the attic.

Master bath.  I claim this sink.

Roof/back yard/bits of the canal.

I should have just videotaped the whole thing.  By the end of the three hours, I had 4% battery life left.  And a lot less of my mental acuity.  Then I had to haul ass back to the other side of town to give the Kid his beet pulp, fix his fucking sheet/blanket situation (okay, 30° with 15-20 mph winds and you incorrectly throw a sheet on my horse?!) by taking off the sheet and putting his blanket and then the sheet on.

Parallel! WTF?!

Then it was a mad dash in the cold wind to walk the dogs and get the mail.  As I walking back, I saw the husband pull in.  But, while I fed dogs, separated cats, fed cats, started the oven and rounded up trash, he sat in his fucking car talking on the phone.  Roar.  I gave him shit for being a weirdo and not bringing his phone conversation inside and multitasking with some of the chores.

I'd also gotten a text from BO saying that she was snowed in on her business trip and asking me to feed again this morning.  Okay, two-and-a-half years of boarding, approximately 30 checks with my name plastered on the top, and you still get it wrong?  Fuck you.  It's like the damn Humane Society.

7 AM and the Kid is waayyyy off in the distance.

Oh!  I also got the Brooks that I won at the Rock'N'Roll Half-Marathon Expo.

Aren't they pretty?  $140 shoes for free!

On the agenda for the rest of the week:  photos tonight, more blog tweeking (did you see my new Instagram feed thingy on the right sidebar?!  If you want one, I'll link to the host site.), gym tonight (workout #2 from the Spring Bootie Buster Challenge) (workout #1 kicked my butt), re-inflating my front tires (slow leak), signing up for the Happy 5k (I keep forgetting), ride three times before Monday, figure out where I'm going to eat while in Charleston, soccer game on Sunday and hopefully, a decent dinner with the Hubs on Saturday.  Whoo.

"Two things are infinite:  the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."
- Albert Einstein

So.. bonus points to those of y'all that can spot a steel shoe.  Alas, it seems that I am not one of those people.  Let's go through a timeline:

2006:  Bought Archie and he starts aluminum in the front and steel in the back.
2010:  Moved the Archer to Sav'h.
2011:  Farrier and I try wedges on the front.  They fail.  Also, it's determined that he doesn't absolutely need back shoes, so they're pulled.  I also start a new job and am no longer able to make the farrier visits.  I realize after one visit that the shoe is the same shoe that he already had on.  Upon this realization, I ask him to stop resetting and my fee changes.  I mean, resetting aluminums is completely counterproductive, right?
2013:  I make my first farrier visit in over a year and realize that ponykins is wearing steel.

The science?  Steel is magnetic.  Aluminum is not.  I took a magnet out to the barn prior to calling the farrier.  We had a long (and emotional, on my end) conversation about this GIANT FUCKING MISCOMMUNICATION.  He keeps repeating that aluminums would do no favors.  I think about the extra money I've spent on not having the goddamn steel reset ($135) and the complete lack of faith I now have in my farrier.

He kept saying, "I'm sorry you're so upset."   I tried to articulate that I have spent so much time and money towards the comfort and well-being of my horse, only to realize that one of the pillars to this care was changed without my consent or even knowledge.

So.  Yeah.  Calling the vet tomorrow to get his opinion.

Butterfly magnet.

OMFG.  What a day already.  I'm mildly pissed because it's been trying, but not super-pissed, because there are some really good things on the horizon.  What good things? • This is a short week. • And a pay-day week. • Next week, we'll be going to Universal Studios and to see Muse. • When we come back, we've got the housing inspection. • BO is giving me an opportunity to work off some of my board while she goes on vacation. • The following week, I'll be going on a biz trip to a city I've never been to (Charleston). • Ceteris paribus, we'll be moving in to the new place at the end of next month. ♥

But the shit things:

My dogs (Savannah?) ate my favorite bag.

Left in process.

Left getting shoe.

Right getting shoe.

Finished.

Annnnd then, when he was doing Skinny Guy's shoes, I started thinking that those shoes looked awfully similar.  Which they shouldn't.  At all.  ..Considering that I pay $20 extra to get aluminum fronts for his arthritis and ringbone.

Archie's old shoe.

Old shoe.  See how shiny?

New shoe.  Super thick, but DARK.

Right front.

Are regular shoes this thick?

Skinny Guy - same dark shoe!

Sorry for the poop - I didn't have a hoof pick on me and I wasn't going to stick my finger in there.

He also informed me that he was going to cash-only.  BO hadn't mentioned that.  Fortunately, I scarily had a shit-ton of cash on me for the housing inspection and just gave him some of that.  I think I'm going to deposit the rest because I absolutely hate being responsible for money like that.

I called BO this morning to remind her about the cash-only thing ("Ohhh.. I think I recall him mentioning that.) and to ask her to double-check Archie's feeters before I go ape-shit on the farrier.  Roar.

I'm not a big racehorse fan.  I don't sit glued to the TV, watching all the major and not-so-major races.  I don't follow who won what and when.  Mostly, this stems from not prioritizing something that I, at the base of things, disagree with.  I think any of us raising our own babies would give them the proper time to grow before tossing riders on their backs and pushing them distances.

/rant.

So, I know the "big" names in Archie's pedigree, but that's about it.  And I generally was just aware of them being good racehorses - nothing about what they tossed to their progeny or how well they bred or if they were assholes.

I've since learned that his sire, Ocean Crest, was imported to Turkey in 1999.  He'd been at stud for a year in Kentucky prior to Archer being ..made.  And he was the sire of the "Highest Earning Offspring" in Turkey from 2009 to 2010.  And he made over $270k.

There isn't much information on his mare, Tell It Over.  She grossed $17k and raced 32 times.  (Seems like a lot of running to me.)

But, going back, there are a few more names that I vaguely recognize:  Storm Bird, Northern Dancer, Nearco & Neartic, Phalaris, Native Dancer, Polynesian, Nashua and Nasrullah and Nearco (again), Princequillo (twice), Seattle Slew, Bold Reasoning, Boldnesian.  Even so:  I don't know these horses.  I can look at stats, but I don't know the history.

That's one of the things that I want to work on:  getting to know the horses whose blood runs through mine.  L. Williams credited one of those guys (Nearco?) to his propensity for being an asshole (she also figured out his tattoo!).  But who made him intelligent?  Who made him affectionate?  Who gave him those ADORABLE ermine marks on his hind socks?

(Most of this curiosity stems from a post I just read by Encore's mom.)

At yesterday's ride, after falling asleep on the couch surrounded by kittens for an hour and a half, I actually had the presence of mind to bring my little Polaroid that I use for videoing.  It's not super-duper quality, but it's sufficient.  Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to review it or edit it and the video, as stands, is about twenty minutes long.  And it isn't very wide-angle, so I'm in and out of the frame.  I did try to do transitions on screen and set it up to show the little crossrail we jumped.  Here's to hoping.

(Ps.  We lost our soccer game against my old, hateful team on Sunday.  And I got nailed in the boob.  Looking back, I should have head-butted the ball, but I'm not comfortable doing that yet.  Must work on heading balls.)

I often think about going back to college long enough to get the class or two necessary for me to have my minor in French.  Unfortunately, it's been.. oh, five years since I graduated or studied the language, so I'm pretty sure I'd flunk out.

I was thinking about names because the volunteer coordinator at the Humane Society insists on butchering my name.  This is a life-long plight, but I can't remember a time that my little name has been in print so often and so.. fucked up.  Y'all call me Beka, which I like, but I use Rebekah with the rest of the world.  And this is what I get:

Also?  I think the hubs was demoted.

Don't get me wrong:  I sincerely appreciate being recognized.  And I work hard for them, for the adoptable kids.  Just last night, I photographed ten cats after putting in the hours at my regular job.  Then, after working out, grocery shopping, checking on the Kid and prepping today's crock pot dinner, I spent more time selecting and processing (like, resizing and editing out eye boogers) the photos before I emailed them to the HS.  And I'll do it again on Sunday, but with probably two and half times as many pets.  So, please, get my name right.

This probably wouldn't suck so badly, but my little laptop is ancient. (D bought it in 2009 for $250 from a doctor who dropped it.)

And dinner for tonight!  Lentil and quinoa chili.

/rant.

If it wasn't obvious in yesterday's PAD (what?  you're not skipping over those?!), the Archer threw a shoe in the hella storm that struck the Southeast Wednesday night.  I have to wonder if BO locked them out of their stalls for the night.  Only reasonable, right?

BO left me a message yesterday morning about it and telling me that she had already contacted the farrier about it, but that I should probably follow up.  Of course this happens right before the chiro visit.  I want to not care what the chiro thinks, but I'm poorly susceptible to the opinion of an equine professional.  So, though I hate to do it, I'm going to call the farrier and see if I can light a fire under his butt.  I feel very... weird about my farrier ever since my horse kicked him in the nads.

Archie has been on SmartHoof since June, 2012.  I'm hoping that soon all that biotin-fed foot growth will start kicking in and he'll stop tossing these soda cans on his feet.  His last thrown shoe was in August and it took about two weeks to get the damn thing back on because of a death in the farrier's family.  Here's hoping no one else has died.

So, I fed the ponies this morning.  Pictorial proof:

Fat guy in a little coat.

Left front, yay!  FTS, let's go barefoot.

Skinny Guy walks around the barn before every meal.

Yesterday morning started sort of disgusting and cloudy and ended up completely disgusting and wet.

So, no ride.  I was sort of surprised when even my husband was disappointed that I couldn't saddle up.  Granted, I could have done other things at the barn.  Groomed.  Massaged.  Loved on.  Those sort of things that good horsie moms tend to do on rainy days.  Instead, I used the extra time to clean out my human closet.  I have way too many clothes.  Like, things I'll never wear again because they aren't flattering or are constricting or aren't the absolute right color or are the exact same color as everything else.  But that I still can't part with because something about the item is amazing.  I will cut the cord.  I will be a grown up and make space for all my new crap.  Maybe.

In this regard, the husband is kicking my butt.  Given that most of his clothes no longer fit him, he's having an easier time of parting with the things he doesn't need.  I wish I had both the weight loss and the control.

Ugh.  I just got a call from my BO that the farrier is coming tomorrow.  What happened to giving me more than a day's notice?  Now I have to grumpily shuffle funds (which I would have had to do, anyways).  Also, since I'm bitching about things:  last month or a couple months ago, BO knocked off about $20 for my feeding three or four times.  This last month, I fed three times for her and one time so she wouldn't have to see my vet.  Did I get a discount?

Grumble, grumble.


What else?  Oh..

• I can't be the only person with a mobile tack trunk.  I mean, it's my trunk and it's covered in horse crap.  That counts.  And now it's clean!  (Er ..less dirty?)

• I've also officially decided that I'm going to sell my Wintec.  It's been hanging out in my car for almost a year now.  I don't need it.  I definitely don't need three saddles when I only ride in one.  I bought it, a pad, a cheap girth and my Circuit bridle for $400ish about a million years ago (6? 7?).  I think $200 sounds reasonable.  I mean, nothing to lose at this point.  I got my money out of it.

• Because I love Pinterest and am a sucker to its ways, I put coconut oil in my hair again last night.  And then sat around for a couple of hours, occasionally wrapping my grocery-bag-covered-head in a hot towel.  And then washed it.  It felt normal, so I put my normal products in it.  This morning?  It looked like I hadn't bathed in about a decade.  I feel sexy.  And oily.  Who needs lotion?
• Oh, and the husband and I are officially signed up for a "First Time Home Buyer's Workshop."  That damn thing is eight hours long.  :(
• And then I ate this:

Relax.  It's spinach.  Yum.