So, let me start with awesome things and then move on to less awesome things.

Flowers!

Anniversary was great!  Husband sent me flowers to work.  I've never gotten flowers at work before, so I've been exceptionally giddy about them and have dragged anyone who steps foot into the "management suite" to come see them.  There are still closed blossoms on them, which I hope open before the roses wilt.  Is that normal?  Some open, some closed?

Fave beer right now.

We were soaking wet.

We met for dinner at a pizza chain that we really like, Mellow Mushroom.  It doesn't have the ambiance of the local place (Vinnie  Van Go-Go's), but the pizza is just so much better.  Of course, we ordered too much and gorged ourselves and I still have pizza for lunch today.  I felt nauseous after eating, which I still think went back to my workout on Monday when I over did it.

Pumpkin Spice Cookies!

But it was great to be able to spend time with him.  We went home and I baked cookies.  Super, super easy fall cookies: a can of pumpkin and a box of spicy cake mix, at 350° for 12 minutes.  I got cream cheese frosting to top them, but they're so good by themselves that the two I've eaten since we ate those haven't needed it.

I also gave him his anniversary gifts:  a renewed subscription to Excellence Magazine, a Porsche magazine (I gave him three subscriptions last anniversary, which was paper: Playboy, Maxim, and Excellence); a skinny tie; Halloween socks; and a bow tie from High Cotton.

This tie!

Here's the box I made!  It wasn't perfect, of course.

And then I went to the barn to visit the Archer.

Who was locked in his stall.

That doesn't have a water bucket.

And is, to be honest, pretty filthy.

I left a note for the BO.  Yeah.  I wasn't happy.  And then I left his stall door open and propped up the wheel barrow.

She called me about half an hour later to explain.  I let it go to voicemail.  The scenario is this:  she rode her underweight geriatric for over an hour.  He was still so hot by the time she needed to leave to make a call that she decided he needed to be able to walk around.  But it was raining and she wanted to hay the horses. You know, even the one that's so hot.  So she put Archie in his stall and gave him his hay, with that disgusting floor being the dinner plate.  She said that it was, at max, an hour and a half.

There are two things that I can't decide which I hate more:  that my horse was forced to eat his hay without access to water and from a dirty stall floor or that she rode her damn skinny horse.  I hate that she rode him at all, but to ride him for over an hour?  To the point of getting "hot"?

I'm supposed to go out to that other barn, the one with very little shade, some time next week.  My friend promises that it's excellent and that she's building run-ins.  And BB is supposed to be getting the contact information for another private barn.

I've been sitting on this for a while.  I don't expect my blog to blow up and get back to the BO.  I haven't shared it with anyone local.  You, my dear little baby blog, are my dirty secret.  But here's the thing:  this horse is disgustingly underweight.  The vet has been out but BO declined everything except vaccines.  Doesn't the vet have an obligation to report things?  BO feeds him, but I don't think she feeds him enough.  And I think he needs his teeth floated so he can actually eat.  It's too little, too late.  So I've been milling things back and forth in my head.  I've mentioned before, but BO is something.  Something local.  Something up there.  And people, the people I would contact, are in her pocket.  So what do I do to help this horse?

Inexcusable.