A Velvet Cage II

Self-Preservation

2009-07-18T10:36:00.000-07:00

As much as I support the open philosophy of the blogosphere, it's become necessary for me to close my blog to the world at large and allow invited readers only. If you would like to join me on the other side, please send an email to velvetcage@gmail.com.

Half Life

2009-07-05T18:54:00.000-07:00

Recently I completed my 45th trip around the Sun. I have tried to postpone this inevitable event but, no matter how far I push out my lifespan, I must now regretfully acknowledge that I am...alas...middle-aged. On the outside, if you don't look too closely and I've followed my usual daily regimen of wrinkle cream, moisturizer with sunscreen, foundation, concealer and finishing powder, I could pass for 35 easy. On the inside, I feel very old.

I've made it through many crises in my life, and once again I find myself in the midst of one.

For my birthday I bought myself flowers for my desk and made myself an appointment with my therapist. As in psychologist. I need help. I feel like I am living half a life. I am a half-wife, half-daughter, half-sister and half-friend. I am a horse owner who can't ride. I feel like a burn victim; everything hurts me, emotionally. I can't enjoy anything because everything is connected to some horrible past event, some failure, some regret. I am tired of living this way and I know the only way to stop is to seek professional help. Again. Which also feels like a failure.

The only place I feel like I am at full speed is at work, but that is because I am running as fast as I can just to keep my head above water. I have only been there a month and I fear I am not much help to my co-workers as they are still training me to do my own job. In addition I have the added stress of managing a severely under-performing employee who has been skating for the past two years but because nobody has bothered to document his lack of skills or initiative, I now have to start from scratch to document why I want to replace him. This is the hardest job I've ever had but at least it is all new so I'm not wincing as those burned areas are touched.

Scratching the Surface

2009-06-18T20:41:00.000-07:00

My sincere thanks to everyone who took the time to give me advice. I completely agree that riding is not the only pleasure I can get from my horse, I know this all too well considering I haven't been able to ride in over three months now. I found that not being able to groom her and simply be close to her was more difficult than not being able to ride.

For my readers who haven't been around since the beginning, some background would help to clarify things. Missy is boarded at a wonderful barn about 40 minutes south of my home, so I don't take care of her like I would if she was here. The staff at the barn feed her, clean her stall, put her in turnout and back into her stall, blanket her, and when she is ill or injured, administer care and medicine. When I can't make it down there to work with her, my trainer will get her out and put her on the longe line and occasionally rides her. She was born at this facility and has two full sisters and a niece there; in fact she probably hasn't been off the property more than a dozen times in her 10 year life.

I took my first lesson the first week of June 2006, and took ownership of Missy in January 2007. You can read the post where I explain the story of how I came to own a horse six months after I started riding here. I had been on a horse maybe a half dozen times in my life before starting lessons three years ago, so I know at this point I've barely scratched the surface.

So you see, unlike many of you, I don't have decades of experience and dozens of horses in my past. A few lesson horses and Missy is all I know and I barely know enough to be able to canter on her. I rely completely on the expertise of my trainer and my vet to tell me when it's OK to ride her, so it's very easy to have my expectations dashed and therefore, to be disappointed.

Most of the horses at the barn are retired, and the few lesson horses are always being ridden by paying customers, so there is rarely another horse that I can ride when Miss is out of commission.

I longed her briefly today at the walk and trot and she is still slightly off behind on both sides, so it will probably be another week before I can think about getting back on her. Leaving work early to get to physical therapy at least gives me the chance to get down to see her twice a week during the week, and of course I'm there on the weekends. It's a long journey, I know, but I started so late I get impatient.

I apologize for the quality of these pictures, I took them with my phone. I mentioned before that my new office is right next to an 800-acre pasture boarding facility. It's a joy to drive past hundreds of free-range horses grazing in beautiful meadows every morning and evening, geldings on one side of the street and mares on the other. Almost makes me want to go to work. Almost.

And I Begin Again

2009-06-07T19:49:00.000-07:00

Last Monday I started a new job at a large software company in a management role. To say it was an exhausting and overwhelming five days doesn't even begin to cover it. The week was capped off by a frantic weekend email thread to hash out a crisis I will have to deal with first thing tomorrow morning.

I did set up a schedule for myself and was able to stick with it all week:
Decide on outfit, iron, etc. the night before
Get up when alarm goes off -- no snooze
Shower
Arm exercises
Hair & makeup
Out the door within 1 hour (ish)
Stop to get coffee
Arrive at work before my manager

I've had these four pictures enlarged and framed for my desk. I'm sitting in a temporary space until next Wednesday when I move into my permanent space. I am looking forward to decorating my new home.

I also started with a new physical therapist this week. She works very differently than the first one, but I think she's doing exactly what I need right now. My main problem at this point is my subscapularis muscle, which originates from the underside of the shoulder blade and inserts at the front of the upper arm (humerus - the bone I broke). It is a very powerful muscle that rotates the arm inwards and is part of the rotator cuff group of muscles. My subscapularis muscle has checked out completely, so when I try to rotate my arm outward or inward, my entire shoulder blade moves. We also started working on strength this week. I bought a 3 pound barbell at the sporting goods store -- I can only do 10 or 12 reps of the exercises right now but it's a start.

Just when we thought Missy's leg and hoof problems were close to being over, she came up lame on her other hind (right). It's probably an abcess, which isn't really surprising considering the systemic infection that's been racing through her body for the past two months. So she is on stall rest for another week, maybe two, depends on what actually happens.

Sometimes I wonder if this was such a good idea after all. I love her to death, but her family has a terrible track record when it comes to lameness issues. In the two and a half years that I've been at this facility, both of her full sisters have been off for significant periods of time due to health issues. Her oldest sister Somerset is the property owner's mare, has the best care possible, yet can only be ridden every three or four months. Her middle sister Sera has both attitude and health issues, which is why they bred her two years ago. Since she had her filly she's only been ridden a half dozen times.

I look at this picture of me riding Miss and I can hardly believe that that is really me. Another weekend has gone by without me getting on any horse, let alone my own. Thinking about giving Miss back to the barn hurts my heart so much I just can't even imagine it. But I also don't want to continue on this path of disappointment, worry and downtime. I know this comes with horse ownership, it's just very hard. How do you other horse owners deal with this?

Round in Circles

2009-05-29T18:03:00.000-07:00

My poor Missy's left hind leg is not a pretty sight. Still. On April 11th I posted that she came up lame while I was longeing her and she hasn't been right since. She did have an abcess that broke through, and she was lame from that for a while, then her heel became inflamed, possibly from being wrapped. It's hard to see in the second picture but finally most of the scabs have come off but the skin is still pink and raw. She isn't lame any more but is obviously suffering from whatever infection moved up into her leg. Last week the awful monstrosity you see here showed up on the back of her leg. At some point the flap of skin covering most of this sore will come off and it will be raw and open. It does dry up and she can work a little bit, but then as soon as you clean it and it gets wet it looks like this. The swelling goes down when she works but then it looks the same the next day, and the next. The vet put together a poultice containing steroids, penicillin and something else but it doesn't seem to be doing anything.

My trainer Willow was going to try to get in touch with the vet today to ask him if there is something we should or shouldn't be doing. We've left it unwrapped because that just seemed to bother her even more.

I am calling on the horse experts out there for some advice. I know nothing about horse ailments and I am at the mercy of my trainer, the property owner and the vet due to my own ignorance. Should I be working her or not? Should her leg be wrapped or not? Should we continue to put on the poultice or let it work its way out on its own? Is it normal for an abcess to turn into two other problems?

I feel like I am failing her. She seems to be losing weight even though she is getting extra feed. I wanted to put some tack on her this weekend and just have her walk around with it on but I don't want to aggravate her body or her mind. I've been spending a lot of time with her this week and I feel better about myself and our relationship. Just putting on my wonderfully worn-in paddock boots, grooming her, putting on her halter and boots and longeing her for a few minutes has meant a lot to me. I don't know when I will put on the helmet and the half-chaps and actually get in the saddle...it might be this weekend but it won't be on Missy. And that breaks my heart more than a little.

Wordless Wednesday

2009-05-27T15:44:00.000-07:00

Invisible Ocean

2009-05-23T19:19:00.000-07:00

My favorite way to get to the farm is down a shady winding road that starts at my house at some 2,500 feet above sea level, snaking it's way down the backbone of the mountain ridge separating the ocean from the valley, heavily wooded on both sides. About two thirds of the way down the hill the university-owned land begins, alternating between forest and lovely open meadows with bike trails. I adore meadows, they are one of my favorite landscapes. After a series of hairpin turns further down the road, all of a sudden the road straightens out, the trees disappear and the vista you see pictured here appears. On a clear day you can almost see forever (or Japan), with the sky and the water clearly demarcated different shades of blue behind the emerald green fields speckled with purple lupus and orange California poppies. On a foggy or hazy day, the ocean completely disappears and it takes a real leap of faith to still believe that its really there.

On Thursday I accepted the offer put forward by the large software company that has been vetting me for the past month. In four separate visits to two different campuses I was interviewed 10 times by 7 different people, 3 times by my manager. This position has been open since last November when they let go the prior resident of my new desk, but having a consultant in the role has meant they could take their sweet time and interview many different candidates. In fact, they had hired another candidate recently who ended up getting very ill and would not be able to start for six months or longer, so they mutually agreed that she would decline. This re-opened the position and gave me the opportunity to let them know they should take another look at me. I worked very hard to get this job, it's the only job that I am aware of at my experience and salary level in my field of experience in the entire state, never mind my general geographical area. I should feel lucky indeed not only to land a job, especially one that maintains my prior salary plus gives me equity in the company (stock), and all the standard benefits you would expect. Add to that the cache of working for an-almost-household-name which is well-respected by employees and their peers and is not doing layoffs, and...well, what else could I really ask for. Did I mention an 800-acre pasture boarding horse facility is at the end of the block? I will post pictures of that in a separate post.

I should feel lucky, and I do. I am sure that if I did not get this job I would be completely apoplectic within a month. However, I am having a lot of difficulty getting excited about the opportunity. Ambivalent doesn't even cover it. The truth is I am overwhelmed. Not by the job itself, I've had this job a dozen times with a different wrapper, but by the sheer physical task of waking up early, choosing an outfit, doing hair and makeup, driving an hour on crowded freeways to get there then being in corporate world for 8+ hours. Every.single.day. I realize that this is normal, what almost every working person in the world does, and in fact I did it myself for over 20 years. But, I haven't done it for more than 5 years and in that time I enjoyed increasing autonomy and flexibility, working from home about half the time. I feel like I am giving up a lot and I'm resentful that it wasn't on my timetable.

Also, I have never owned a horse and worked full-time before. I went to see my orthopedist last Friday and he sentenced me to six more weeks of physical therapy. He said by the end of that time I will have lost the ability to gain any more range of motion, whatever I've got by the time the scar tissue sets is all I'm going to get. I know six weeks is a long time, but I believe I need to prepare myself for the possibility that I will not get back to 100% use of my left arm. I will ride again, I have no doubt about that, but I need to be realistic.

I had hoped to negotiate being able to leave early a couple of days a week so I could get to the farm in time to ride, but now that I will have to arrive late twice a week because of physical therapy, that's not going to be possible. This is a critical time in our relationship, with both of us getting over injury and downtime, and I don't think I need to tell anyone that a thoroughbred mare in her prime is not a weekender kind of horse.

Right now the ocean has disappeared. I have to believe it's still there behind all the cloud cover and I will need some help to make that leap of faith. I do believe that it's time for some (more) professional help, in fact. I looked up my old therapist the other day and bookmarked his contact information.

Beach Flora & Fauna

2009-05-10T21:48:00.000-07:00

The interview process continues at my only job lead...I don't want to jinx anything so I will leave it at that and update when it's over, one way or another.

Physical therapy continues to be painful but extremely beneficial, and I am committed to increasing my range of motion every day. This means pushing myself past the pain to move my arm just a little bit further each time. At times I am still discouraged and frustrated and depressed, but now I can at least see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Mother's Day is always a very tough day for me. I'm not a mother -- and wanted to be one -- and I am estranged from my own mother. I sent her a card but I did not want to speak to her, she just called me last month and I really have nothing to say to her. A woman who has acted as my surrogate Mom for many years is also missing from my life right now, but I am hopeful that this situation can change.

In the meantime, enjoy the beauty of our dogs' favorite walk along the beach; this is about 15 minutes from home.

Therapy

2009-05-02T22:39:00.000-07:00

My last set of x-rays looked good so my orthopedist turned me over to a sadist...um, I mean, a physical therapist. I've had two sessions with her and I've been doing the exercises she gave me to do every couple of hours, as I'm able. I am getting a lot more mobility, but I am paying a price for that. I am back to being in pretty much constant pain and watching the clock for the next time I can take pain medicine. I know this will all be over in a few weeks but right now, it's tough.

Unfortunately my Miss isn't faring much better. The medicine they put on her fetlock under the wrap caused a skin irritation and now her heel is all scabby and dry and cracked and smells nasty. The vet said just to use a different topical ointment (I don't know what any of these ointments are called), but we are getting concerned that it is taking so long to heal. I think she just doesn't want to work unless I am able to work with her.

I had a job interview this week. On the surface it seems like the ideal job for me, lateral salary plus a yearly bonus plus stock (it's a public company), a manager role and a company that doesn't look like it's going to shut its doors next quarter. Yet, somehow I am not excited. I didn't get a lot of feedback from the interviewer, who would be my manager, but I think that had more to do with the fact that she didn't know how to interview than her opinion of my experience. I was rather surprised when she said she would set up a second interview for next week at the end of our discussion, so I'm focusing on that and trying to let my read on her not being impressed go. I'm feeling a lot of pressure to get a good paying job and quickly, as we cannot survive on two unemployment checks, and I think that's playing a large part in my ambivalence, I feel like this is my responsibility.

Thankfully there is more than one kind of therapy. May I introduce to you, the marvelous Marvin, born FINALLY after an entire year in the oven last Wednesday morning. These picures were taken when he was less than 2 days old, so I think it's a good thing he didn't wait one more day, he's so tall!

Barn Signs

2009-04-19T12:11:00.000-07:00

I have little news but a lot of words swirling around inside my head, but getting them out one letter at a time using my right index finger is just too daunting.

So I will just share a couple of barn signs and hope they bring a smile to your day.

Two Down

2009-04-11T19:39:00.000-07:00

This handsome little guy lives on the farm next door to where Missy lives. I'm sure he has a name already but I call him Black Bart -- he looks like he's got a bit of scoundrel in him.

Today we went down to the farm with the plan to at least put Miss in the round pen and let her get some exercise. When we arrived my trainer was just about to lunge her so D groomed her and put on her front and bell boots. Willow noticed her left hind leg looked a bit swollen, and as soon as she started to trot a limp became very pronounced. She was done for the day and for the next several days at least. We ran cold water over it for a while, and when I checked there was a strong pulse at the fetlock so she's probably getting an abcess.

She was having so much trouble getting up the hill back to her stall that I started to cry...I just can't stand to see her in pain. *sigh* I suppose if there was ever a good time for her to be lame it's now, when I can't ride, but she's already been off for almost 3 weeks due to my injury and her teeth, and needed to get back to being ridden.

Once again, I am powerless to change these circumstances, and that's not helping my already fragile psyche. Things have got to get better from here.

Setback

2009-04-08T19:43:00.000-07:00

Just to keep things interesting I'll continue to post pictures during my recovery. This gorgeous creature is Maximo (Max), a thoroughbred showhorse of some undisclosed discipline who recently retired at my barn. He's enormous, probably 17.4 hh, but a real sweetheart who always comes over to greet anyone who ventures near his stall. I regret I'll probably never see anyone ride him, he looks like he'd be a great mover.

Last week I was finally feeling pretty good physically, as long as I kept the sling tight the pain was under control. I even drove myself to a much-needed hair appointment then had lunch with a girlfriend on Wednesday. Friday at my 3 week follow-up appointment with my orthopedist they took new x-rays and he said he could see some bone healing and the humeral head was still aligned correctly with the connecting bone, so he told me to loosen the sling, stop wearing the waist belt and spend 15 minutes a few times a day out of the sling. During that time I'm supposed to start trying to straighten the arm and eventually drop it down and swing it freely. He took the sling off briefly during the exam and had me straighten my arm as far as I could, then pushed on it further until I asked him to stop because it was too painful. He assured me the pain was from all the muscles that hadn't been used in a month and that I couldn't do any damage to the bone.

Later that night I took the sling off and started working on my arm, determined to begin the physical therapy process in earnest. Things were going well until I tried to move my freely swinging arm and was overwhelmed by pain. It was then I realized I'd had my arm out of the sling for almost an hour! I didn't think much of it and went to bed later using my custom setup of various pillows to create the right angle.

I was awoken at about 4:30 am by a pain in my ribcage so intense I didn't know if I needed to throw up or pass out, all I could do was writhe in agony, crying hurt too much as every time I breathed in I was stabbed under my left breast.

Loosening the sling, overdoing it with the movement and having my heavy arm crushed against my ribs for three weeks had apparently caused some imflammation, or perhaps I had pulled a muscle, I don't know. I have so much respect for anyone who has been through a rib injury, I don't think actually breaking my shoulder hurt that much.

My husband and Darv0cet somehow pulled me down off the ceiling but I have been suffering for the past 4 days. It was so discouraging to go from feeling almost normal with a sling to not being able to move without pain again. I still can't breathe in sharply or deeply and I am terrified of sneezing, but I would guess I'm about 75% back to normal as far as the ribs go. However, now that I am moving the arm a bit (in careful, slow, no-more-than-15-minute-timed-intervals), other muscles are starting to complain, mostly along my shoulder blade, and there are hard little knots between my neck and collarbone. I am trying to tell myself that means I am healing but part of me is saying, "Screw that, I just want to not be in pain anymore." Having to go back on the Darv0cet after nearly weaning myself off of it feels like a failure.

As an aside, my mother suffered one ailment/condition/affliction after another (real and imagined) throughout my entire childhood, this is a huge part of why I am so hard on myself when I am ill or injured, I see it as false, a way to get attention and to play the martyr. One thing I never understood was her practice of using similes and metaphors to describe her pain --for example, a headache would feel like someone shoving an ice pick into her forehead -- as if anyone, let alone a child, could possibly have any reference point to what she was saying.

Meanwhile, Friday is my last day of official employment. My benefits run through the end of April, my disability claim has been approved through May 10 and I will be getting some severance, but I am still very worried. Money is so tight at companies, competition is so fierce and the fact that I've spent the last 3 years as a consultant has already cost me an interview. I'm trying really hard to keep the negative voices under control but sometimes they get the best of me and I become overwhelmed with self-pity, worry and anger. Normal, right?

It's My Party

2009-03-31T19:29:00.000-07:00

Here's another of those wonderful old posters, I can almost imagine that's me in the jaunty hat and gloves.

My current/former employer continues to play games, apparently thinking that the contradictory statements they keep throwing out about me to various people inside and outside the company (and I use the term "contradictory statements" well-advisedly) won't get back to me. Just because I don't have access to my company email anymore doesn't mean I'm totally out of the loop.

I feel like I've gotten through the worst of this, I can stand to have the sling taken off, my shirt changed and the sling put back on without feeling like I am going to pass out. However, I am extremely emotional and end up in tears at least once a day. There seems to be two sides to everything these days. I can now sleep for 6 hours without waking up, but when I do, I wake up in considerable pain. For the next few days I'm going to set an alarm for 3 hours from lights out to try to avoid this...pain is no way to start the day.

I am not a patient person, which makes me a terrible patient. I wonder how those two very different meanings can fit inside the same word.

Here's a partial list of things I cannot do -- right now:

lie down
cut meat
open a pill bottle
groom, tack or ride my horse
blow dry my hair
walk for any distance
fold laundry

And, because I'm really trying here, a partial list of things I can do -- right now:

drive my car (with extra care and caution)
wash my face and brush my teeth
work the computer mouse and type with one finger
put in my contacts (this takes patience but is possible)
make coffee and tea
grow beautiful long fingernails
sing along with my favorite tunes, off-key and unapolegetic

Miss gets her teeth floated on Thursday, she's overdue for her yearly appointment. It's been apparent for a while that her mouth has been bothering her, even in a hackamore she's been fighting me and throwing her head around for a month or so. No doubt this contributed to her pissy mood 2 weeks ago when she walked away from the mounting block. (Very painful) lesson learned: sometimes saving money by postponing necessary vet work turns out to be a very bad idea.

Rainbow Warrior

2009-03-24T19:03:00.000-07:00

The bruising continues to move and change, but not diminish. Now there is a lot more color on the outside of my arm, starting just below the actual break point. When this happened, even after I found out I had broken a bone, I really had no idea how badly I was injured. I'm sure that most of the pain is being caused by damage to every muscle, tendon, joint and ligament in the area. I'm still not convinced that the two pops I heard weren't my shoulder dislocating and relocating (is that the right terminology?).

I'd love to be able to enjoy some of those quieter pursuits that Val mentioned, but even reading is difficult as I can't use my left arm to hold a book, or to do anything else for that matter. Walking or even riding in a car for anything other than short distances is too jarring, and using the computer is an excruciatingly slow process. I hope you all appreciate my efforts, blogging about this helps me to not feel so isolated.

All I know is that pain is a harsh mistress and I'm not handling this very well.

This helps...but I won't be able to find it much longer.

Purple Haze

2009-03-22T14:56:00.000-07:00

I've spent the last week in a haze of pain and pain meds, living in 3-hour increments on a 24-hour schedule. My left arm is in a sling and strapped tightly to my body, I feel like a half a swaddled infant. Doing even the most insignificant, mundane things takes time, perserverance and assistance. I am grateful that I broke my left shoulder -- had it been my right I would be a complete invalid. I can work a mouse and type with my right index finger, so working on the computer is possible, albeit at a much slower pace than I'm used to. My orthopedist said it was a bad break and a good one: bad in that there are multiple cracks running all the way through the base of the humeral head bone, but good in that the ball is still perfectly aligned with the rest of the bone, so surgery will not be required. My arm will be immobilized for another two weeks minimum, at which time new x-rays will be taken and a recovery plan will be put in place.

Given the fact that I was in the middle of a transition plan after being laid off when I was injured and it became clear that I could no longer work, in order to preserve as much accrued vacation time as possible I have decided to apply for state disability. Dealing with both of these issues simultaneously has been incredibly stressful, and seeing the true colors of people I liked and trusted in my professional life has been demoralizing, frustrating and terribly disappointing. Never again will I consider a boss a friend, a lesson you would have thought a professional woman in her mid-40's would have learned long ago.

Emotionally I feel quite broken as well, splintered and cracked. I realize that when you add narcotics, pain, sleep deprivation, financial stress, and loss of mobility and independence together you get a potent toxic brew, and I've been trying to rest and relax as much as I can.

I'm scared of Tucker, our extremely exuberant Golden; he's completely oblivious to the sling and the change in my actions and demeanor. It would be very easy to get bumped by him or lose my balance as he raced past me. Bailey, on the other hand, has become my protector and almost constant companion, my therapy dog has put his work vest back on. D has been incredibly patient and caring, taking care of my every need. I honestly don't know how I would have gotten through the last week without him. Thank goodness his temporary job doesn't start for another week, perhaps the one lucky break in all this mess.

We stopped by the barn to see Miss on the way home from the orthopedist. I breathed in the sweet earthy smell of the place and felt my shoulders relax...but as I approached her stall I instinctively covered my left arm with my right and realized with great sadness that I was afraid of her too. She isn't one of those horses that will stand quietly while you pet her, she is always pushing her nose into you, sniffing for treats and moving around. I fed her a few cookies and got in a few satisfying moments of contact with her warm silky coat, but then I had to step away. Her big sister Somerset is one of those gentle pettable horses and I was able to stand next to her for a few minutes stroking her soft nose and under her forelock, even resting my forehead against her neck.

I have two solid job leads and I'm hopeful I will have phone interviews this week. I'm concerned that the visual first impression of the sling and the reality that I wouldn't be able to start work for another 4 to 5 weeks will cost me an opportunity. In any other job market I would feel confident that an employer that wanted the best candidate would be willing to wait but these are not normal times. That's yet another way that I feel helpless, but all I can do is my best and that includes working at keeping as positive an attitude as I can. My friends and family are rallying around me -- my mother even called outside of the obligatory birthday and Christmas telephone conversation schedule after my sister told her what happened -- and I know this will be over with before I know it. A blink of an eye in the grand scheme of time. A mandatory rest stop on my own amazing race. In the meantime, drop me a note if you can, and I don't care if that's a shameless call for comments.

Adding Injury to Insult

2009-03-16T14:35:00.000-07:00

This will be short out of necessity...I fell while attempting to get on Miss as she walked away from the mounting block on Saturday. Since my left foot was in the stirrup and my hands holding the reins, when I lost my balance I fell without being able to break my fall and landed with all my weight on my left shoulder. I broke the humeral head, the round bone that connects the shoulder to the arm bone. It's not a bad break so it probably won't need surgery, but they can't cast it so I am just in a sling for 6 weeks or so. It only hurts when I move, but when it hurts it's the kind of pain that makes me feel nauseous.

Timing could not have been worse. Not only can I not drive, right now I can't even be driven anywhere, that's too much jostling. That will make job interviews difficult.

I did get the really good pain meds from the ER doc, and the entire ER adventure only took 2 hours, including x-rays.

Could we make this the last shitty thing to happen for a while, please?

Paying It Forward

2009-03-14T09:39:00.000-07:00

This week has been very hard. I trained three other consultants on the two software platforms that my former clients' are on, which apparently made them subject matter experts. I've heard that many of my colleagues were confused and concerned about my leaving, and when management was asked why I was on the lay off list, they were told that I didn't have a lot of work, even though I had a lot of clients. This was either a bald-faced lie or a demonstration on just how ignorant management was on my body of work for the last three years. When my colleagues asked who they were supposed to call on with questions, they were told that my junior associate "knew everything" and she could help them with any issue. She has one third of the experience and education that I have and her most recent experience with my specialty was 5 years ago.

I know that dwelling on my anger and disappointment doesn't do me any good but unfortunately until I can totally walk away from this mess I know I will not be able to let it go. There is nothing worse than losing your job then being asked to stay for several weeks to help with the "transition" of your work to others. I could have said no to that offer but I could not afford (financially) to give up several more weeks of pay and an extra month of health insurance.

I have been nothing but professional, responsive and helpful to my former employer and, to the best of my abilities, I will continue to be, as hard as that is. I plan to walk out of there with my reputation and my dignity intact.

On a much more positive note, I had the opportunity to pay it forward at the barn as well. I recently met a wonderful young woman, a university student who recently brought her horse to board where Missy lives. In fact, her Mitten lives three doors down so we share a common tack room. We don't like to admit it, but horse people can be solitary and fall easily into cliques, and I know all too well what it's like to be the new girl. I spent a delightful half hour showing her around the property, introducing her to the horses that I knew and sharing some of their history. She was so genuine, open, sweet and funny and we immediately clicked. On the way home it occured to me that I was old enough to be her mother, yet she's been riding many more years than I have, an interesting dynamic to say the least. Because I am in a vulnerable emotional state, upon further reflection my brain came up with: if I had had a daughter, I would have wanted her to be like Casey. And that made my heart hurt. But I am thankful to have a new friend.

I found these beautiful old prints online and will be sharing them with you over the next few posts. I'd love to get the whole series.

Night Mare

2009-03-07T21:54:00.000-08:00

Print by Wilma Sanchez

It may be slightly hypoerbolic to say that this was the worst thing that could happen, but I hope you will forgive it. I got laid off this week. I've been laid off or have otherwise lost my job many times, but I have never been in the situation I find myself now: both my partner and I will soon be unemployed, unless one of us finds someone willing to pay us to do something in less than 40 days. I know, I have been unhappy at work and wished for something different, but I wanted to be able to handle that on my own terms and in my own time. I knew business was down and thought perhaps my hours would be reduced, but honestly I did not think they would let me go entirely. Coming on the heels of losing my biggest client, I can't help but think that must have played into their decision. I am really, really trying not to go to that place where I blame myself and think that everything I touch turns to shit, eventually. Back to being Typhoid Mary. No, I am not going to go there...

To add insult to injury, not only am I still having to babysit my replacement at the client I just left, I am now having to help my company come up with a transition plan for someone else to take over the work at all of my clients.

My body is in bad shape. Nearly every muscle in my body is tense and sore, I'm having spasms in my back, my neck is tight as a rope and my calves feel like they are on the verge of seizing up every time I stand up.

My chest and face are breaking out like it's the night before junior prom. My endo pain is flaring and I am spotting in the middle of a cycle. My stomach seems OK, surprisingly, but that's probably because I'm not eating much.

My sleep is disturbed by nightmares, sometimes the same dream over and over all night long. I've dreamt more than once of having to give up Miss. I will never allow that to happen. I would sooner lose my house than one of my animals, they are innocent and my complete responsibility.

I got the news on Monday. It took until yesterday to really sink in. I know there are literally millions of people in far worse shape than me, but somehow that is small comfort.

I rode Miss today and will again tomorrow. She's happy to have a job. I'm thankful at least one of us does.

The Cathedral

2009-02-15T18:41:00.000-08:00

[I wrote this segment on February 15 but left it unpublished until now. A huge work-related upheaval had played itself out earlier in the week, which I will explain further below.]

One of the blogs I follow is Adventures of a Horse-Crazed Mind, a prolific fellow British Columbian with a wonderful voice. The following passage was taken verbatim from a recent post of her's about learning to overcome a fear of horses.

"Why would I ride horses, if not for the love and reverence that their fleet limbs and heart inspires within my own? If not for the bond that fuses me to him- so that when he runs, pure of mind and ardor, our spirits run together? If not for those heavenly moments wherein there is no definition between where my body ends and his begins? For the awe of their beauty or for the solace I've found in the touch of a downy muzzle against tear streaked cheek? Horses are for me, absolutely worth any risk their infinite strength or lightening fast reflexes present. To feel that magic is one of the greatest joys in my life...a joy I lost for a little while but thankfully found again. My hope is that on my last day, and on many days in between, I will have been touched by that magic- by a horse."

Charles Darwin said "The rainforest is the cathedral of my religion", I'm paraphrasing but that's pretty close to the quote from his diaries. I'd like to be able to say something profound like -- Missy's stall or the arena is the cathedral of my religion, but alas, I cannot. I don't hear angels singing when I ride, I don't see my own soul in her beautiful brown eyes, and I haven't experienced that heavenly moment Horse-Crazed describes where I lose the sense of where my body ends and her's begins. Maybe 2 1/2 years just isn't enough time. Or maybe I should stop trying to find this mystical connection and let it be what it is.

===================================================================

I've been floundering of late, adrift in a sea of depression and feeling like I don't do anything in my life well. On the heels of my setback with Missy, this is largely due to the fact that for the first time in my 7 years as a consultant, a client has asked that I be taken off their account. I made a mistake, I take full responsibility for that, but despite my best efforts at damage control the management could not get past it and I will be replaced by another consultant from my company. I'm sure this happens all the time, but not to me. My manager has been supportive and thanked me for the 2 1/2 years of work that I put in at this client, even though apparently that made little difference in their decision.

Nobody is more surprised than me that I ended up in a profession where much of my time is spent working with numbers. I am a words person, always have been and always will be. My job has changed over the last 5 years, and especially over the last 3, becoming more and more of an accounting job. There are still parts of my job that I like, but more and more of it not only do I not like, but I also feel like I am over my head as far as the skills that are required. I could take a few years' worth of accounting classes to get to where I feel I need to be in order to be the expert that I am supposed to be, but I don't see that happening. I do not have an affinity for it and I am not that motivated. This makes me feel like I am spinning my wheels, dreading certain projects or certain clients, and to some extent, a fraud.

I know that this feeling comes directly from my history, I have to be perfect or everyone will see what a terrible person I am. I need to find a way to feel good about my work again, and I know the only way I am going to do that is to find a better situation. Unfortunately the job market is very tight right now, so in the meantime I am going to have to do a better job of taking care of myself and asking for help when I need it, which is very hard for me.

I was able to ride Miss yesterday; between her lost shoe and the weather that's not been possible lately. I was grateful to be able to walk and trot quietly around the arena, reconnecting with my body and my voice to the beautiful creature beneath me.

Like A Circle In A Spiral

2009-02-07T19:26:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday we took the dogs down to the beach for our usual walk along the coast. Sorry all of you stuck in the icy grip of winter, but it was absolutely gorgeous and about 72 degrees.

We could hear music as we came around the little building in the picture (which is a surfing museum), which isn't that unusual. When we turned the corner we see a bunch of people dancing while hula-hooping, if you enlarge the picture and look closely you will see a guy holding juggling pins as well. He says to us: FREE HULA HOOP JAM!! Come and join us. Or, you can borrow one of these bikes for a spin!!

I'm guessing that the lady on the far right is a brave tourist who decided to join the locals. About 50 yards away there was a bongo drum circle forming, also a normal occurance in our quirky and wonderful little beach community.

I'm grateful for all the wonderful advice and comments on my last post. My ride after the aforementioned runaway was quiet and uneventful. We have done a lot of work on using the inside circle to slow her down, it just didn't work well when she was galloping and there was nowhere for her to turn other than into a jump. Unfortunately, a few days later she lost a brand-new shoe and I haven't been able to even lunge her since then. Her farrier is in Guatemala tending to his dying mother and our backup farrier has been unavailable all week. Oh well, it rained on and off and I was completely swamped with work all week. I'm looking forward to getting back on her and cantering in a circle for the next few months.

(Bridle) Pathways

2009-01-25T16:29:00.000-08:00

Do you ever feel like you're not on the right path? Or wonder where the hell the path you're on is taking you? I feel like that all the time.

Last week, on the 21st, was the two year anniversary of the day I took ownership of Missy. I had a lesson, which have been rare these days, and we cantered in a big circle off the lunge line. I'm learning to be more gentle when I ask and to open my shoulder so it is easier for her to turn, I tend to tense up on the right side when we start going fast. I felt really good and stable in my seat and in control, even though she'd been grumpy the whole lesson.

Two days later we were riding on our own in the big (jumping) arena. I was determined to ride even though I was in a melancholy mood. I rode myself mostly of my funk and wanted to continue our new routine of having her canter for a few steps in each direction at the end of our ride. To the right, perfect: she picked up the right lead, didn't bend to the inside too much, and even slowed to the trot instead of to the walk. So now I'm feeling pretty confident.

And we all know what happens when you start feeling too big for your riding breeches, right? Your horse makes sure you know that they've got your number.

Instead of staying in a big circle at the end of the arena where there aren't any jumps, I decide I want to go all the way around the perimeter. I get onto the straightaway to the left and ask her to canter, she picks it up and for the first few steps everything is fine. Then we pass the first jump and she realizes I'm not going to make her stay in a circle. In an instant, she puts her ears back and kicks into another gear -- now we are full-on galloping. Immediately I start to try to pull her back but instead I end up turning her head to the left, which makes her veer to the inside. Now we are headed straight for an oxer jump with white gate stantions and I think, she's either going to balk or she's going to jump it, either way, I'm bracing to fall. At the last possible second she pulls up and lifts her front hooves over the right hand side stantion. I honestly have no idea how we didn't hit anything. She stops on a dime, snorting and pawing. I guess she had fun. I almost had a heart attack. The girl lunging in the round pen asked if I was OK, apparently she saw the whole thing. "She seems hyper today", she says, and I say something to the effect that she's always like that. "Oh, she always runs out from under you like that?", she says, and instantly I feel like a complete idiot. I mumble something about her being green at the canter and ask Miss to walk.

I get her untacked and curried and settled into her stall and finally sat down on the tack room step and started to cry. I could still taste the metallic flavor of the adreneline in my mouth. I felt like I'd taken a huge step backwards. Isn't that always the way?

525,600 Minutes

2009-01-01T22:20:00.000-08:00

How do you measure a year? By any measure, 2008 was not a particularly good time for anyone I know. Having said that, I was fortunate enough to not lose my house in a wildfire that came way too close for comfort, nor have there been any foreclosures in my circle of friends, so at least we all still have a roof over our heads. There have been many disappointments, frustrations and sadnesses, but despite everything I somehow end the year and start this new one with a sense of...dare I say it...hope. Not the trite "yes we can" kind, although I am a supporter of our new president, but rather the personal light-in-the-darkness kind. Following a meme that's going around, here's my synopsis.

List 5 Five Good Things That Happened Last Year:
1. I rode Missy exclusively for the entire year.
2. I became much closer with a girlfriend I've known for a long time, a relationship that's had its ups and downs.
3. I took more pictures...still not as many as I would have liked, but an improvement over the previous year.
4. I went home (to Canada) for the first time in 3 years.
5. I feel much more comfortable and competent with the most challenging parts of my job.

List 3 Bad Things that Happened to You this Year:
1. I lost my best friends.
2. My long-dormant endometriosis raised its ugly head and affected my riding and my state of mind.
3. I spent much of the year fighting depression.

List 5 things you want to do in 2009 - not resolutions just a big picture to do list:
1. Ride more consistently and get Missy out of the arena and more comfortable being in open areas.
2. Go to the World Cup Finals in Las Vegas in April.
3. Write more -- I'd like to start work on something, I'm hesitant to call it a novel but there's definitely a story in my head trying to get out, and also here on my blog as it helps me to process the events of my day-to-day life.
4. Take better care of myself, listen to the cues my body gives me.
5. Ask for help when I need it, try not to live in my head and to speak my mind.

List 3 Lessons you Learned in 2008 - don't have to be related to the bad or good things as long as it was learned in 2008.
1. Things (and people) aren't always what they seem. I keep having to re-learn this year after year.
2. I still have a lot of stuff to work through.
3. I'm a better person than I think I am, my horse told me so.

Most Favorite Read of the Year:
Human Traces by Sebastian Faulks. I'd never read anything by Faulks before and now I am hooked and can't wait to read the rest of his body of work. It was the kind of book that I had to bookmark pages of so I could go back and read passages over again just for the beauty of the language, and it takes a lot to impress me literarily. Bringing together the history of psychiatry with a compelling love story in a historical setting was my cup of tea.

Most Favorite Movie Watched of the Year:
Atonement. Hands down.

Most Favorite Horsey Moment of the Year:
Cantering on Missy after owning her for 2 years and riding her for a year and a half.

Santa ordered me a new helmet for Christmas and it comes with a free matching fleece jacket! I ride English but I wear jeans and brown suede half-chaps, so the black velvet helmet is a bit out of place, besides, this one is a lot more comfortable and has great airflow. I should get it next week. What did Santa bring you?

Raising A Glass

2008-12-23T19:40:00.000-08:00

I'm working on a year-end post -- hopefully it will be full of contemplative and revelatory statements, or at least a good helping of snarky, but until then I have wrapping to do and Christmas bark to eat. Please enjoy my favorite picture of our beautiful boys in the meantime, and join me as I raise a glass to toast bloggers everywhere.

Convergence

2008-12-17T18:40:00.000-08:00

Last week, not only did the stars literally align (OK they were planets, but that doesn't sound as good), something else happened that's been 25 years in the making: my husband, his father and his son were all together.

The last time D's father saw his grandson he was under 2 years old, he's 26 now. I won't post their picture because I want to respect their privacy, but believe me when I tell you they all look remarkably alike. It must be strange and wonderful to be able to see what you are going to look like at 50 and at 90 just by glancing across the dinner table. Even though D's father is energetic and is still driving and travelling, his is 88, so it was important that we make this meeting happen and that it be documented in pictures. Of course, me being me, I got a little emotional about the gravity of the moment, but nobody else seemed to be affected by it. D's son seemed a little nervous, but you can't fault him for that, I certainly would be!

Triad

2008-12-07T10:42:00.000-08:00

Walk, trot, canter. The three basic gaits. Seems simple enough. Just walk, trot, canter, no big deal.

I had gotten to the point where I was very comfortable cantering on the lesson horses and I loved it. My body moving in sync with the horse, the rush of speed, giving the horse her head and letting the reins steer only. When I started riding Miss exclusively I had to take a giant step backwards and really learn how to trot again. Apparently I was right in my assertion that riding the lesson horses was not teaching me how to ride Miss, as it took some time for us to trust each other and learn each other's cues and idiosyncracies. Lately, despite living in a fog of depression I've been feeling like it was time to take a step forward in the arena, so last weekend I asked my trainer if we could put Miss back on the lunge line at the end of my lesson (when she was tired) so I could canter a few steps. As I suspected, she was a little hesitant, as she had not cantered on Miss for several weeks, but I insisted that she was in a good space and I felt confident enough to at least try. Miss was confused, to say the least: why are we putting the lunge line back on? This is weird. Are you SURE you want me to canter? But after a little prompting she took one giant step and we moved into it. She picked up the correct lead, which she does 98% of the time, but more than that, I could tell she was on the right lead. We only went maybe 4 or 5 strides, but she covered more than one circle with that, she has a huge stride and loves to go fast. She slowed to a walk instantly at my whispered command and we praised her lavishly. Then we did it again the other direction and I was more prepared for the transition this time and felt pretty comfortable. Even though all told it was less than 30 seconds, it was a breakthrough. Both me and my trainer were very proud of both of us. I really needed this. Hopefully we'll do it again today at the end of my lesson. After a year and a half of riding her, we reach the mythical triad.

My trainer didn't really let on when I took her what a difficult horse she is to ride, for anyone, never mind a total beginner. That's probably a good thing, my ignorance allowed me to have more confidence than I would have otherwise. I see other people riding their horses and think, wow, that looks a lot easier than riding Miss, but also, a lot less fun. At the canter she is elegant and high-headed and beautiful. I'm just along for the ride.

All the King's Horses

2008-11-29T11:57:00.000-08:00

Most of the time I feel like Humpty Dumpty, so broken that I can't be put back together again, but the horses don't notice the cracks and wouldn't care about them if they did. Here are some of the coats of many colors of some of my friends.

Blue

Maggie

Hunter

Keeper

Tony

Diamond

Belle

Me and Missy

The Fog

2008-11-13T17:50:00.000-08:00

I've fallen and I can't get up. I just can't shake this depression. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I'm pretty much constantly in pain from the endometriosis. Sitting for long periods of time exacerbates things, and of course I am either sitting in front of a computer or driving, all day every day. I used to look forward to riding, but now I think, what is the point, either I will be in pain while I am riding or, if not, then I will pay for it double later when it really kicks in.

I also hate this time of year. Starting with Halloween, heading right through Thanksgiving and Christmas, all of it just reminds me that I don't have a family of my own, I am far from my nuclear family and even if I wasn't, I wouldn't want to be with them anyway.

At least I can drink and take pretty much any medication out there, since, as all the commercials say, I'm not "pregnant, nursing or plan to become pregnant". Silver linings, people.

Also, just a quick note of clarification, that little filly Devious lives where my Missy lives, but she doesn't belong to me.

Rules of Engagement

2008-11-09T12:33:00.000-08:00

During the two years after our wedding in which my husband and I discussed whether or not we were going to even try to have a baby, the rules of engagement were laid out. They were, for the most part, his rules, and I had no choice but to agree to them. Even with my agreement, I had no guarantee that he would ever be ready to do something I had taken for granted was part of our future.

The two rules not open for discussion were: no adoption and no heroic efforts. We both have our own personal history with adoption, mine oblique and positive, his personal and devastating. While I did want to have our child, I would not have been against the idea of adoption had he been willing. Since he was not, it was not on the table, and that was all there was to it. No heroic efforts meant no IVF. Period. Partly that was because of the cost and partly it was the line that we drew in the sand for how far we would go, and we were in agreement on this point. At the time I was blissfully ignorant of what was to transpire in the next three years, I had every intention of getting pregnant without medical intervention. After all, I was relatively young (I thought) at 38, and I had received an enthusiastic thumbs up from my doctor.

The fact that we were unsuccessful in having our own child and the fact that his son is now a part of our lives doesn't put adoption back on the table. There are times when I resent the fact that he does have a son, and a grandson; his legacy is guaranteed not only into the next generation, but indeed the one after that as well, so I cannot expect that he will understand how I feel.

I am not equating the idea of having a child with life-long happiness or even having someone to take care of me when I get old. My own mother is a prime example of how this is often not the case. Of her four children, one is dead, one has completely cut her out of his life, one has settled into a superficial and artificial truce and one tries valiantly to stay in contact without losing her sanity. She is in increasingly poor health, bitter and alone, and she will die that way.

My father started a second family after he divorced my mother and now, at 75, is saddled with a depressed and beligerent teenager who refuses to go to school, get his driver's license or do anything except play video games and entertain friends in his room.

I know that I look at having a family in a way that is both existential and hypothetical, and that isn't the day-to-day reality of the hard work, heartbreak and frustration of being a parent. With the bad comes a lot of good though, and I will miss out on a lot, I already have. We always want what we don't have, that's part of the human condition. I know that I will always be working on this, it isn't something you get over, but I hope at some point it won't hurt as much.

Hourglass Figures

2008-11-02T19:30:00.000-08:00

Last week I finally saw a new doctor for my annual exam. She was young and friendly and casual, answering "OK, cool" to almost every question. She listened to what I had to say and agreed to let me try the drugs I had done research on. We agreed that surgery didn't make sense at this point, since in most cases it doesn't do much for pain management, and encouraged me to keep her informed on how the drugs were working for me, and if I wasn't satisfied we would try something else. That was a nice surprise, a doctor who seemed to care about my well-being.

This was a regular OB/GYN office, and during my short stay in the waiting room a steady stream of women in various stages of pregnancy came and went. It has been a very long time since I've been around any pregnant women and I was not prepared for how this affected me. Every single one of them had that uncomfortable "can someone get this kid out of me" look about them, and I found myself thinking that I would change places with any of them in a heartbeat. Three years out from letting go of the dream of having a family, and the emotions are just as raw and close to the surface as ever, with the right catalyst.

The biological imperative to procreate is not so much a clock as an hourglass. Once you make that decision to (try to) become pregnant and turn it over, the hourglass becomes invisible, you know the sand is falling to the bottom and eventually you will run out of time, you just don't know how long you have or even when all the sand is gone and you are just spinning your wheels.

Looking at all those women made me feel like my entire reproductive system, a large part of my body, including my breasts, was never going to be used for its intended purpose. I felt like an expensive porcelain figurine: beautiful, coveted, admired, but by definition, useless.

I know that makes it sound like I don't like my body, but that's not true. My body looks better today than it ever has, I am toned and lean and strong. But my body will never stretch and grow and create sustenance like women before me have for millenia. I am what is known in genealogical terms as a "stub", a branch of the family tree that will never go any further. The women who don't have children are sometimes referred to as having "no issue". Ironic.

I've been thinking a lot lately about what my legacy will be, without children. What is my purpose in this life?

Same Time Next Year

2008-10-19T12:28:00.000-07:00

Every year at the end of September and the beginning of October, two things happen.

The acorns fall from the sky in hailstorms and I fall into a depression. This year I had a lot of other things on my plate to bring this on, but layered on top of the current issues is the fact that sometime in the last three weeks would have been my due date had I not terminated a pregnancy in 1985. They say time heals all wounds, but apparently for me that isn't true, because twenty-three years later I still go into mourning every year. It always takes me a while to figure it out, but when I do I start to feel the grief lift, ever so slightly. This makes the three years that I've been trying to get over not being able to conceive a small raindrop in a huge bucket. I suppose there will always be times when it feels like my heart is breaking when I see a child and wonder...what if.

I am starting to see through the storm clouds, if only for small periods of time. I am still very sad and lonely and missing my friends, I am still angry and resentful that my riding is being affected by my messed up reproductive system and I am still coming to grips with and resigning myself to the reality of my home life. But sometimes I think that maybe everything will be OK.

This little previously unnamed filly finally has a name: Devious. That doesn't really work, does it? I call her Diva, she doesn't seem like much of a diva yet either but I just can't call her devious.

Songs In the Key of Life

2008-10-08T14:43:00.000-07:00

Another thing I didn't mention is that I cannot listen to music right now. At least, not music I am familiar with, meaning anything on my iPod or iTunes. This is because every song reminds of something or someone and more often than not, makes me cry. I don't need another reason to cry right now.

Every time the phone rings my gut wrenches in a knot and I wonder what terrible news I will hear upon picking up the receiver. I'm waiting for another shoe to drop. How many shoes do I have? What am I, a centipede?

Discuss Amongst Yourselves

2008-10-07T18:47:00.000-07:00

Molly cautioned me to watch my nutrition and take care of my body. One of the things I didn't mention was the fact that I've lost quite a lot of weight in the past couple of months. So much that very few of my clothes fit me anymore and I had to buy some new pants and skirts. I started with the size I usually wear, then had to step down a size and then another, to find things that I could wear right now. To add to the irony, I gave away all my skinny clothes because I thought there was no way I would get this skinny again, after infertility treatments and sliding headlong into perimenopause. Eating is something that doesn't cross my mind often, and sometimes when I do eat I feel like it wasn't worth it because I feel like crap after. Like everything else, I have to start slow and build back up to what's normal.

Cricket said a lot of nice things (as did everyone who took the time to comment), but I have to say that right now I don't have the time, the money or the will to go back into therapy. I've already spent years talking to professionals -- 6? 7? I've lost track -- and still I ended up here, even with the happy blue pills. I realize that the hallmark of someone who needs help is someone who refuses it, I understand that I am depressed and that my self-deprecating thoughts are counter-productive. I have to trust that I will know if and when it makes sense for me to go back to therapy, as I have before, and right now that doesn't feel right.

Julianna, my dear friend, thank you for letting me know you are still out there. People often tell me that I am strong, I have to be, otherwise how could I still be a functioning member of society after all the things that have happened to me. I am a survivor. While that may be true, I have survived, as I said in my last post, when I get depressed and defeated like I am now, instead of tapping into the strength that enabled me to get here, I feel the weight of my past like the earth on Atlas' shoulders and I stagger under it. This too shall pass.

GP in Montana told me that I should keep praying. I don't pray, because I don't believe in God or any higher power. There, I've said it out loud, written it down, and its posted on the internet for all to see: I am an atheist. I've often thought that the only way my childhood could have been more confusing or messed up was if my family had thrown religion into the mix. I know people who garner great comfort and joy from their faith and I don't have a problem with anyone praying to whatever or whomever they choose, its just not something that is a part of me. I don't believe that there is anybody out there looking out for me, taking care of me, or who loves me unconditionally, those are earthly pursuits in my world. I do believe that riding helps me a great deal and does keep me out of my head. Missy has taught me a lot of lessons in the last two years and I can only hope that my presence in her life has made it better. She needed a person and apparently, I needed a horse.

DinoD, thank you for reminding me again that this is a transitory state, and one that I have weathered before. Every day is different, some days I feel like I am making progress, and others, not so much. I wish I could keep moving forward instead of moving forward only to slip and fall backwards again, but that has always been the way that I eventually get through rough times.

Ollie and Kym, my longtime friends, thank you for being there. Writing does help me to sort out my thoughts, putting jumbled thoughts into words, then into a structure called a sentence, then a paragraph, creates order that no other endeavor does. In order to make it make sense to others, I have to create some order inside myself.

I know you would all rather be reading about and looking at pictures of horses, and I do have some new information and images to share on that front, but for now this is what I need to write about.

Alone In A Crowd

2008-10-04T18:28:00.000-07:00

Left to my own devices I stay inside my head, and that is not a very friendly place for me to be. The dominant voice in there is extremely negative, I dare say she hates me; she bullies the other voice that tries to get a word in edge-wise when things get out of hand. There is the me that the outside world sees, the pretty, totally-put-together, smart and capable woman who looks 10 years younger than her real age...and then there is the real me, the girl who is profoundly sad and lonely, who cries a lot and at worst believes she should be punished for being so wicked and at best believes she deserves nothing. I'm scared. Scared every day that people will find out what a fraud I am.

With all due respect to Barbra, I am a person who needs people and I don't feel the least bit lucky. I've lost some very important satelites this year and without their signals I am feeling quite lost. I'm about to lose another from my time zone but I'm hopeful she'll still be able to broadcast from her new sector of the sky. According to a popular social networking site and my email contact list, I have well over 100 friends, yet I feel alone. I feel disconnected from almost everyone, and the one person I don't feel disconnected from is many hundreds of miles away in another country.

Even the shallow social constructs of the workplace are not available to me as a consultant. I am either working at home, alone, or I am sitting in a strange office for the day while I work at a client site. I have a couple of long-term clients that I visit regularly, at one I even have a designated cube that I have decorated with a few horse pictures, but I do not belong anywhere, I am not an employee and therefore are treated very differently than those around me.

Riding, in particular the type of riding I do, English and training to do show jumping, is for the most part a solitary endeavor. I admire and like the other riders at the farm, and I'm sure they admire and like me too, but we are not friends. We don't know anything about each other outside of what we see and discuss vis a vis our horses. Perhaps this is best, as I've already related, if they did know the real me they would probably shun me.

Since the beginning of the summer, in addition to the things I've already related, two people I knew died, I was evacuated from my home for 3 days because of a fire and my husband lost his job. In short, I'm a mess. I'm plagued by headaches, stomach issues and even had a panic attack recently. I tried to see my old doctor last week for the endometriosis but apparently I am not smart enough to navigate the health care system here, even though I've lived here for 20 years. She wasn't in my "group", so I have to start all over tomorrow, find a new doctor, make another appointment and probably wait another month. The good news is that now it only hurts when I ride. Small comfort.

I'm tempted to turn off the comments so the entire internet won't think I posted this as a pathetic means to gather support. Even more pathetic, I do need your support, even if you don't know me. More than that, I just needed to write this down. I can't just deal with one problem at a time, instead, when I am in crisis, I open up my Chest of Horrors and drag out lots of other things from my past, since they are all related. I pile them on top of my head until I topple over like the Flintstone's car when the bell-hop puts the plate of ribs on the window. I've never gotten over anything or anyone.

I will be OK. All I can do is keep repeating that until I believe it.

Scar Tissue

2008-09-20T11:00:00.000-07:00

My old nemesis, endometriosis, has reared its ugly head once again. I've been relatively pain-free since my last laparoscopy about five years ago, but severe stress can bring on a flare-up and I certainly have had my share of that in the past few months. The pain is in exactly the same two areas that it always has been, which helps to keep me from thinking this is something new that's gone wrong in the long history of my fight with my reproductive system. However, having said that, since my older sister (by 15 months) had a partial hysterectomy earlier this year due to some other issues, until I know for sure there are moments when I am able to convince myself that I am dying from ovarian or cervical cancer. I tend to do that to myself, I am a catastrophist when it comes to my own life. I take "what's the worst that could happen" and manage to twirl that into something even worse.

At least I still have my horse. Yes, my sweet Missy is doing very well, sound, healthy and willing, and we've formed a strong bond that helps me so much. But...most days I am in too much pain to ride. Those days when I can ride it isn't for as long as I'd like. It turns out that riding is possibly the worst possible thing I can do to exacerbate the endo pain. Let's see: open up the pelvic bones by straddling a large object, then repeatedly put pressure on the affected areas by sitting then rising then sitting then rising...you get the picture. I feel so pathetic walking my horse around the arena with tears streaming down my face.

Since I no longer need the services of an RE I am going back to my original OB who I haven't seen in many years. My appointment is on the 30th, I'm thinking we won't get very far that day and I'll come back for an ultrasound then we'll have to talk about whether I have surgery again. If you've got any extra goodwill to share, I could use some right now.

This is just the tip of the despair iceberg, but it is what I feel comfortable sharing with the world right now.

Wake Me Up When September Ends

2008-09-07T19:44:00.000-07:00

Once again I find myself in a very, very dark place, but I am working on a post. Seems I can't go more than a few months without falling into a pit of despair. However, I know it is more detrimental to keep poison inside than to let it spill all over the ground.

Special Delivery

2008-06-08T11:54:00.000-07:00

This little filly was a surprise last Saturday at the farm, at least two weeks early. You might notice that the foal looks nothing like the mare, that's because she's a surrogate. The biological mare kept losing babies (do they call it miscarrying in the horse world?), so the final time she was inseminated and the embryo was deemed viable, it was flushed from Judy and put into Pepe for the duration. The dam and sire of the filly are both full saddlebreds and Pepe is a quarter horse, but of course she doesn't know she isn't the "real" Mom and is being a wonderful mother. The night before the birth Pepe wasn't showing any signs so the next morning they put her and Judy in turnout like usual. About an hour later one of the workers noticed the baby safely nestled in the straw and alerted the owner. So Judy was the only one who got to witness the birth; I like to think of her as Pepe's equine midwife. The little one doesn't have a name yet, the owners can't agree on one since they were hoping for a colt (that'll teach them!), so for right now she's just Filly.

The other day I was getting Missy reading for her exercise on the lunge line, I had brought her down from her stall to the wash rack to put on the "boots" that protect her hooves and hocks. There is a big motorhome/horse trailer parked right there with an old beat up orange construction cone sitting behind it. She's standing quietly like she always does and I'm busy putting on her boots when I start to hear this sound sort of like a soft fog horn. Then again.

Missy was breathing into the top of the cone and making a sound like when you blow into a soda bottle! I was laughing so hard! She just kept doing it, maybe 5 or 6 times, she was enjoying it. She's such a talent, my girl.

Mares Eat Oats

2008-05-25T17:18:00.000-07:00

The reason I stopped blogging was because the issues that were consuming me were deeply personal and private and didn't involve just me. Sometimes this public forum just isn't appropriate, as much as writing things down and getting feedback helps. I was able to do that with several people IRL, but the issues continue and I'm far from feeling like any kind of resolution has been reached or that resolution is even possible.

Despite the limbo on one front, I feel compelled to share the trials and triumphs with my beloved Missy. My first ride on her was May 20, 2007, so we've just passed our one year in-saddle anniversary, and I've been riding her exclusively since January. I convinced my trainer that continuing to ride the lazy quarterhorse lesson horses was not a good primer for learning to ride my hot thoroughbred.

Last year we went through a spell where she threw her head around so much it was nearly impossible to ride her, and it turned out that she had to have some dental work done. She has an overbite and some other dental issues and after she healed from the work (including the removal of several wolf teeth) she was much better. A couple of months ago she started the same kind of attitude, only this time it seemed much worse, so after a few weeks of extreme frustration and disappointment my trainer decided we would try a hackamore, which is basically just a bridle without a bit. Within a half hour she was a different horse. It seems counter-intuitive to be riding a hot horse with a hackamore, which is usually considered to have less control that a bridle with a bit, but she doesn't have any bad behaviors, she just wants to go fast. She's learning to wait for my audio and leg cues before moving from one gait to another and usually is pretty good about slowing down and stopping when I ask her. Every time we start out she takes a few minutes to settle down and realize she doesn't need to fight a bit that isn't there, but we have made some amazing progress in the last month and a half.

So much so that my trainer is finally ready to let me ride her on my own! This is huge. Part of the deal I made when I took her was the farm would comp my lessons until I was ready to ride her on my own, so they have a monetary incentive, but my trainer is extremely cautious and would not be doing this unless she felt we were both ready. She is not the easiest horse to ride, I was starting from scratch and she was coming off of a 3 year haitus, so I suppose that in the grand scheme of things one year doesn't seem like such a long time, but to me it seemed like an eternity. Especially since I had to watch other riders, who in my opinion were not as skilled as I was, ride their own horses while I had to be supervised.

I look forward to writing more often and catching up with all my bloggy friends. I haven't been ignoring you as much as just needing a break from the whole blogosphere. I'd love to hear what you've all been up to.

Update

2008-05-01T19:59:00.000-07:00

Thank you to everyone who checked in on me and sent me good thoughts and wishes. I'm still in a place that is dark a lot of the time but I promise I will be back soon, at least with some pictures for you to look at while I figure out how to write again.

A Beautiful Mess

2008-02-24T13:48:00.000-08:00

Still here; still struggling. I have a lot swirling around in my head but it's too fragmented to write down. I feel like my life is too big for me at the moment and I don't know how to make it smaller.

If you want to know where I am right now, take a look at this amazing post by "music is art".

The Perfect Storm

2008-02-03T15:18:00.000-08:00

Sometimes the universe seems to conspire against me and many different elements come together at the same time to form what seems like an unsurmountable obstacle. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that I've just crawled out of a pit of despair.

It started when a chronic medical issue raised it's very ugly head and stepped into the spotlight. Even though this is something I've been dealing with for a long time, it can still zap my energy, obliterate my fragile self-esteem and make me feel hopeless and bitter. You couple that with two solid weeks of bad weather, a couple of power outages, 10 to 12 hour days working with ungrateful clients, not being able to ride my horse and becoming isolated from my social circles (because of the bad weather and the heavy work schedule) and you end up with a very unhappy woman. I shudder to think where I would have been without my blue happy pills, probably in a fetal position in a cellar.

My sister is bi-polar, and I have witnessed a few of her manic phases. Although I suffer from both anxiety and depression, I don't have the euphoric highs of the manic depressive, instead my anxiety manifests itself in the form of panic. The meds do a good job of dampening those tendencies, but when I get into a depressive cycle it doesn't do nearly as good a job in keeping me from sliding downward.

Normally I feel the urge to write it all down when I feel depressed, but this was different...I felt so shitty about myself I didn't think anyone would care enough to read about it and even if they did, they would be so put off by the nasty bile I was spewing they wouldn't care to come back to read any more. All I could do was work my way out of it, every day giving less weight to the negative thoughts and trying to pay attention to what my body needed (sleep, food, etc.).

So, if you're reading this, thanks for checking in on me. I'm getting there.

The Best Laid Plans

2008-01-13T21:07:00.000-08:00

I really wanted to blog more this year and here we are, nearly two weeks since my last post. I'm partly blaming the weather. A series of storms hit the Bay Area last weekend and we were without power from 5:30 am Friday to 10:30 pm Sunday. We do have a generator but you can't run it constantly and it doesn't run everything. Our homes and lives need electricity to function, its just how things are set up in our modern world.

I'm also partly blaming work. When you work in the financial world, the first two months of any calendar year are the busiest, and when you have 20 active clients like I do, you can do the math and figure out I don't have much free time.

The weather also prevented me from riding all week but I do have a lesson on Miss tomorrow morning. I lunged her yesterday and today and she is looking sound and fit. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the hard pads the farrier has been using are going to continue to keep her sound. Even though we're coming up on one year since I took ownership of this horse and about 8 months since I rode her for the first time, I don't think I've ridden her 10 times yet. Between the weather, her health and mine, it's been a difficult first year. But, I am commited to making this relationship work and the past few months have been more productive.

Here are the last group of pictures from our trip to St. Lucia, if you are considering a trip to the Caribbean I would highly recommend it. If you've seen the Pirates of the Caribbean movies you'll recognize the Pitons.

Seahorses

2008-01-01T11:01:00.000-08:00

I'm very glad the holidays are over. You may have noticed my absolute silence on the entire matter...this is always a difficult time of year. With neither religion nor children, both sides of the celebration are lost to me. I miss my family but I'm constantly disappointed by them. I'm coming out of my rabbit hole and allowing myself to feel again, finally. I rode Miss yesterday and will again today, I had a little chat with my trainer and we're both committed to having me on her back as much as possible.

To start the year off right, here are some more (horse-related) pictures from St. Lucia and a couple new ones of me and Miss at the bottom (notice her new sign?).

This young boy and his yearling creole came down to play in the surf almost every evening at sunset.

D and I on our creole-thoroughbred cross horses on the beach.

Coming back out after a swim.

Blogging St. Lucia

2007-12-15T17:16:00.000-08:00

Hard to believe we've already been home for almost a week, I guess that's a good thing, the vacation seemed to go slow and the workweek went quickly. Here is the long-overdue post about our vacation in the West Indies.

The island of St. Lucia sits almost at the bottom of the chain of islands we think of as the Caribbean, third island north of Venezuela, some 1,500 miles south of Miami. It has been independent since 1979, before that it was a British protectorate, but it changed hands 14 times between the British and the French for 150 years. The French named almost everything on the island but it definitely has a British flavor to it. You drive on the left, the British Queen is on the money, all the school children wear uniforms, our resort even served high tea every afternoon. School is taught in English but everyone also speaks Patois, a Creole language. At least 85% of the people at our resort were British, it is heavily marketed to them and Virgin flies direct from London. Surprisingly for a couples-only resort, there were many older couples there, some with their adult children. It was a little strange having an all-white guestlist and an all-black staff, but the staff were amazing, they even put on two variety shows. Between three bars on the property you could get a free drink from 9AM until the "last couple retired". Food was excellent, we ate at our resort exclusively other than the day we drove down to the other end of the island to one of their sister resorts to go snorkeling.

The people are beautiful, especially the young men - dark-skinned, small-waisted, broad-shouldered, washboard abs, either bald or with dreadlocks - you either work in the tourism industry or you do manual labor. As with any third-world country, there is a huge gap between the rich and the poor, with very few in between. Most people live in tin or wooden shacks on small parcels of land, but we never saw any evidence that they weren't making a living and weren't reasonably happy.

As far as the island itself, you run out of superlatives. The water begins at the shore with pure white foam, moving backwards from clear to cerulean to teal to royal to cobalt to navy to indigo at the horizon, the perfect temperature above soft white sand. There are lush jungles and mountains, the roads windy, narrow and for the most part, without lines. I've posted a sample of the over 300 pictures we took, these were all taken at our resort. More to come.

Balancing Act

2007-11-25T16:04:00.000-08:00

We all juggle far too much in our modern lives, trying to keep our work, our social lives, our relationships, our responsibilities and our minds and bodies running at optimum speed and productivity. I haven't been doing a very good job managing all the segments lately. We leave for St. Lucia this coming Friday and all I can think about is how stressed I am about the cross-country flight and how much work I'll have to catch up on once we get back -- how sad is that? I know once I get there I will relax but I suspect I have a very tense week ahead of me.

My trainer Willow was still very nervous about me riding Miss last weekend, every time she lunged her she'd been crazy, so before my lesson she gave her a weak dose of tranquilizer. This turned out to be a mistake. She was so dead it took all we had to make her canter on the lunge line and I spent the entire time having to push her forward and pick up her head.

I rode her again today without the drugs and she was fine, although her right front was obviously a bit sore. She's due for new shoes tomorrow and it's possible the pad has worn down and is causing the soreness. Let's hope that's all it is anyway. It was such a pleasure to ride a horse that needs hardly any leg to stay at a nice big trot. She's so comfortable at the trot, it's like riding a giant sofa. I hope that I've proven to Willow that I can ride her without being a liability.

I was chatting with another horse owner at the farm about my frustrations and she said she'd gone through the same issues with her young mare and that the farm has to protect itself, plus nobody wants anybody to get hurt. She told me I shouldn't think of myself as a green rider anymore, that she's seen me ride and thinks I'm great, that I have balance. You can't teach balance, she says, you either have it or you don't.

Strange how on my horse, perhaps the most precarious place I could be, is the one place right now where I do feel balanced.

Tucker Time

2007-11-10T18:23:00.000-08:00

I've mostly pulled myself out of the funk I descended into last week. I suspect that no matter how much time passes, every once in a while that grief will surface and I'll need to deal with it.

Kathy commented on my post about reconnecting with my old friends that she's never been able to explain how big a part her horses play in her life to non-horsey people. That's been true for me in all facets of my life, not just with this group. Not one single person asked me about riding or even said anything about all the pictures I posted. When I asked A what he thought about it when we met for lunch all he said was that he was surprised. One of the ladies has a 12 year-old daughter who rides; I guess it either seems like something a young girl would do or its looked at as an elitist sport or activity, not something they would ever come into contact with.

Tomorrow I'm supposed to finally ride Miss again. Yes, that's right, I still haven't ridden her since she got sick in mid-September. After a month off my trainer started doing ground work again and then eventually started riding her, but she wanted to get in a good half-dozen rides before I got on her again. Due to schedules and the weather, that took longer than expected. I'm more than a little frustrated. I realize I am still considered a novice, but I am beginning to resent the fact that I have to have permission from my trainer before I can ride my own horse. I would be happy just to get on her and walk around, but Willow doesn't seem to think Miss would allow that, even after lunging. To rub salt in that wound, I got a notice from the farm owner that they are increasing my board roughly 12% starting next month, and I am now paying one of the farm hands $40 a month to blanket her. They do comp me a lot of things, including lessons for almost a year, so I can't and won't complain, but I would feel better if I knew I could ride her when I wanted to. She's had no issues with her feet since the farrier put pads on her the last time she was shod, so I'm crossing my fingers that will continue.

Tomorrow is the day we picked as Tucker's birthday, since we don't know the exact date. We adopted him through Northern California Golden Retriever Rescue in November 2000 when he was approximately 1 year old. Happy 8th birthday, our sweet and silly red dog. (Check out Bailey's birthday post from May if you missed it.)

Definitions

2007-11-04T10:23:00.000-08:00

When someone says the word "family" to me I think of my nuclear family: my parents and siblings. To anyone who has children, "my family" means themselves: their spouse and their child or children. I think of me and D as a couple, a unit, a pair, a partnership...but not a family. Maybe I would feel differently if we never wanted children and never tried to have a baby, but since we did and failed, it doesn't seem to fit.

Yesterday I had lunch with A, my old boyfriend that I've recently reconnected with. He drove down here for some personal business and we spent a few hours together. He has two sons, 17 and 12, and has been married for almost 20 years. I mentioned in my last post that I'm finding it hard to wrap my brain around the fact that all my contemporaries have teenage kids, but that's because I've spent the last 5 years surrounded (somewhat virtually) by women who are infertile. Normal people get married in their 20s and have kids, there's no question, no drama, no tears.

Of all the married couples we know, only one doesn't have any children, and they are the parents of a stillborn son. Many of those infertile women I've met persevered and now have children as well, by some means.

On the long drive home I was unprepared for how sad I got. We'd had some laughs and it had not been a serious afternoon by any stretch. I was so happy that he was so happy, and we'd talked about how my life turned out just fine, but in all that history there was so much wasted time, so much heartache. After spending 5 years getting up the courage to get out of a horrible marriage, while D waited for me, we were so damned happy just to be together we didn't think of anything but ourselves for the next 5 years. Finally at 36 I decided it made sense to marry this wonderful man and, for the first time in my life, I felt safe enough to want to have a baby. You know the rest. As I cried in his arms last night, D whispered, you have a wonderful life, and I whispered back, I know. I wish I had never wanted a child, so I didn't have to carry this grief.

I'll get back to the horsey posts soon, I promise, I've just needed to process some of this by writing it down.

=================================================================

Right after I finished writing this I found out that the wife of one of my old drum corps friends was killed in a car accident a couple of weeks ago. The funeral was today; I suspect they waited until their daughter (who was driving but not at fault) was out of the hospital so she could be there. I've spent the day in a teary daze. I just can't imagine losing my husband. They have three children in their teens, she was only 41. I hope noone reading this takes this the wrong way, but when I heard this news I was happy for my friend that he had children. Please tell someone you love that you love them today.

A Life Condensed

2007-10-30T20:57:00.000-07:00

If you met up with someone you hadn't seen in XX years, more than 10, and they wanted you to tell them about your life, what would you say? I've had the opportunity to do this more than a few times in the last few weeks, getting caught up with the folks from my old group at home. Everyone says pretty much the same thing -- I got married in (year) to (so-and-so) and we have (more than 1) kids named (thankfully nothing too silly so far). Without exception, everyone I have reconnected with who is married or has been married has kids. It isn't even a question of whether you have them or not, just how many. Their kids range in age from 2 to 18. Remember I haven't seen some of these people in 30 years, so that shouldn't be that difficult to wrap my brain around, but it is. I'm sure its weird for them when they find out I don't have any kids, and so far nobody has been too much of an asshat. Many of them live without spitting distance of where they lived as kids, so again, I am the odd one who lives not only far away, but in another country. Especially now, Canadians are nationalistic and protective of their non-war status, which I totally respect.

But, knowing when and who you married, how many kids you have and maybe even what you do for a living doesn't tell much about who we are, does it? Perhaps I'm in a space right now where I am craving a deeper connection. I'm sure they would all think I was nuts if I started telling them how the smell of the ocean makes me cry, or the touch of a dog's paw in the middle of the night reassures me, or how my husband's voice can still make me giggle like a schoolgirl.

In other news, my usually mostly-well-behaved lesson horse Angel bit me on Saturday. HARD. I tacked her up and got on her, then decided I needed to tighten the girth one more notch, so I jumped off next to the mounting block. She didn't think the girth needed tightening, thank you, and reached around and sunk her teeth into my left outer thigh. The bruise is the size and shape of a decent sized egg, and at first you could see two half moons with a white line down the middle, the demarkation of her upper and lower teeth. Now that it's a few days' old the line is muddled and its starting to get that sickly green color under the purple. I hope it fades before we leave for the Caribbean in a month.

Finally, I called my sister the other day to wish her daughter and her husband happy birthdays and she told me she is having a partial hysterectomy next month. Needless to say this was a surprise, given that she's only 15 months older than me and I had no idea she was having any gynecological problems. Apparently she's been bleeding since January and her GP just last month finally decided to send her to see a "specialist". She lives in a very small, rural town in the interior of BC, but still -- holy shit -- this really pissed me off. She also told me that when she saw the gynecologist he didn't even do an ultrasound, just a pelvic exam and told her she has massive fibroids and recommended they take them out along with her uterus. Is it even possible to detect fibroids from a pelvic exam? There's nothing I can do about this but for once I was happy to have my US health insurance.

Memory Lane Has Potholes

2007-10-24T19:01:00.000-07:00

My ex-husband called me last weekend to let me know that a group of people that I marched drum corps with and that he and I taught and taught with had started a group at one of the very popular networking sites. I had never visited this site but found the group very easily, and set up an account for myself complete with photo albums. As I've mentioned here before, I started marching in this group in 1976 when I was 12 and stopped at 18, then took a year off and came back in 1984 to teach for another couple of years, so my entire teenage life was spent with these people. Some of them I hadn't heard from since the late 70s/early 80s, but there they were, right there in the magic box. Its quite jolting to see a picture of someone you knew from 30 years ago then to see a picture from today, especially if, let's say, they've let themselves go just a bit. Wow. Anyone ever been to a hairdresser? I had to really, really look hard at some of the faces to find the teenagers I knew; I'm sure some of them didn't recognize me either, but I'm hoping that's because I've aged rather well.

This photo was posted by someone else in the group, taken in 1979 -- my D is the second drummer from the right. Isn't that cute? I kept telling him that all of us were total groupies of his drum corps, this is proof. (We didn't meet until 1989.)

I don't think I need to tell you what happens when you put 100 or so 12 to 20 year-olds on buses for weeks at a time. It was such a soap opera! People switching partners, hooking up and breaking up several times over the course of a summer. In 1977 I had my first real boyfriend, he was a drummer (natch) and we were together for the entire summer. I even have a very bad picture of the two of us at the back of the bus. God, we were so young! He's a part of the group and we've been swapping stories all week, it's been very fun. The next time I go home there will definitely be a reunion.

Having said all that, looking at these old pictures is dredging up a lot of stuff. First, I see myself in all these pictures and I have absolutely no memory whatsoever of that moment. I see that it is me, and I know all the other people in the picture, but there's nothing about it in my head. I guess that's normal, although it seems like a spark should have been set off by at least one picture. Pretty much everything before the age of 17 or so is just gone. That includes most of school as well. Of course, I remember the horrible stuff, but nothing from day-to-day.

Many of you newer readers don't know my history of sexual abuse, mostly at the hands of my older brother, who was killed in a car accident in April 2005. Before my Dad kicked him out of the house for being high at the dinner table one too many times (saving me unintentionally), the abuse had been elevated to include a good friend of his, who was invited to join us several times. The last time, he raped me while my brother played lookout. This was in the summer of 1975, I was 11 and they were 18.

The following year when I joined the drum corps I could hardly believe my luck -- getting away from my family for weeks on end -- sign me up! That guy from the picture at the back of the bus was my first real experience with what was normal, and he was so sweet and nice to me. All we did was kiss and hold hands the whole summer. He helped me to begin to sort out what was appropriate and what wasn't, and I am deeply grateful. Of course, he had no idea of how damaged I was at the time, but I was very fortunate to hook up with a guy like him. And now we're friends again.

In the same vein, a close friend that I met in 1990 in a therapy group for sexual abuse survivors told me the other day that our therapist committed suicide in 2004. We're both trying to process this information. So much intense work was done there, for several years, and I credit that doctor with helping me to work through a lot. I'm not quite sure what to do with this information; it feels very odd that it happened almost exactly 3 years ago and we've just found out now. We never got the chance to go to her memorial...anyway, I'm just throwing that out there.

I apologize to my horsey readers for this post, but sometimes the dark side does raise it's head around here. It ain't called the Velvet Cage for nothing. Miss is sound and well and Willow will be getting on her this week, which means I should be riding her this coming weekend.

Time Passages

2007-10-07T19:27:00.000-07:00

Growing up in the Vancouver BC suburbs, I was used to having four distinct seasons. The first five years in Northern California were difficult, I felt like I was living in perpetual spring and summer and my body clock felt out of whack. Now that I've been here for almost 20 years (which seems impossibly long), I've become more attuned to the more subtle changes in temperature and moisture. We live at 2600 feet above sea level but only about 10 miles from the ocean, so the weather up at the house is often very different than it is "down the hill" at sea level, and almost always different than it is "over the hill" in Silicon Valley and the rest of the Bay Area. We get snow a couple of times a year but it doesn't last, which is just fine by me.

Our 2 acre property is all trees, mostly oak trees, which means one thing this time of year: acorns. Some of these trees are 200 feet tall and 8 feet across, so when it gets windy the acorns are falling from a great height, hitting the house in loud barrages that scare the dogs and sometimes even make me duck. They look positively mammillary, don't they?

This lovely birch tree is along the dog-walking route around our neighborhood and is a good arbiter of the seasons.

We took a friend down to the farm yesterday who hadn't been there for a while and he was astonished to see how much the babies (of all species) had grown.

This picture of Piggy Sue was taken October 12, 2006.

This picture was taken yesterday. She's a very friendly and vocal pig, and she loves smoothies, if you ever come to visit. Seeing this pig with her snout all pink from the fruity goodness in the cup is one of the cutest things you'll ever see.

This picture of Ruby (with mama Roxie) was taken the last week of May when she was about a week old.

This was taken yesterday. Now that Ruby is bigger the unusual blaze she shares with her mama is even more amazing. She's grown out of that ugly duckling phase and her winter coat is coming in, making her soft and fuzzy again.

This is Que Sera Sera (Katie) at 1 day old, taken on June 17, she's Missy's niece as her mama Sera is Miss's full sister.

This was also taken yesterday, so she's about 3 1/2 months old. She's a big friendly girl with a lot of personality. What a joy it has been watching these fillies grow, another childhood wish fulfilled.

Damn, now I want a smoothie.

Brand New Day

2007-10-03T15:21:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, dreams do come true. Welcome to the world, little one.

That's Hot

2007-09-30T14:26:00.000-07:00

Actually, I'm hot. I'll admit that I'm not bad for a woman who's pushing 45 like a British nanny, but that isn't what I'm talking about -- I'm literally broiling most of the time. At 41 my doctor told me I wasn't ovulating anymore and I got a first-class ticket on the Early Menopause Train. In the last six months my temperature gauge has gone on the fritz, stuck on high. I don't have what I would call hot flashes, they don't come on all of a sudden, it's more of a gradual thing and lasts for an hour or more, then I generally slide headlong right into freezing.

Anyone who says that riding isn't a physical sport has never been on a horse. I was an athlete most of my life and I hardly sweated at all; now I am making up for it. I don't smell bad (thankfully) but the wetness under my arms is quite disgusting, at least to me. Have you seen the commercials for the new "clinical strengh" deodorant for women? The person who wrote the copy for this ad is a fricking genius, the tagline at the end is: Because You're Hot. The best part is that the product actually works. Hallelujah.

Speaking of hot, last week marked the beginning of the new fall TV season. Guilty as charged: I love TV and I don't care who knows how many hours I watch a week. I don't watch soap operas, game shows, talk shows (except my boyfriend Jon Stewart) or reality shows (except The Amazing Race), so I don't feel bad about it at all.

Monday
Monday has always had a dearth of good TV, and no, I don't watch Heroes. I caught the series premiere of Journeyman and quite liked it. It takes place in San Francisco and it's always fun to feel connections to the places you see on the Magic Box. The acting was believable as were the special effects, which on a show like this could be a killer. I'll keep watching this one.

Tuesday
The season openers of both NCIS and Bones were good, these are old friends. I taped Reaper but I haven't watched it yet, anybody care to weigh in on that one?

Wednesday
I wasn't crazy about the Private Practice preview last season and the first episode didn't really toast my raisin bread either, but I'll give it a bit longer. Just like Joey outside of the Friends universe, it felt like a bit too much Addison for me to stomach. I somehow screwed up the DVR so I only taped the second half of Criminal Minds, but I think I can figure it out. With Mandy Patinkin leaving the cast I'm not sure I'll continue to watch or not. CSI:NY is also an old friend, but I've taped Bionic Woman and Life, so I may need to cull some Wednesday viewing. Bionic Woman is also being shown on Sci Fi, so that may give me a little breathing room. I'm also going to check out Pushing Daisies.

Thursday
My other boyfriend Derek Shephard is also back, along with the rest of the docs on Grey's Anatomy. The season opener was a bit ponderous, and Izzie's storyline with the deer was stupid, but it saved itself in the last five minutes; although, seriously? There is no such thing as break up sex. If you break up with someone and the first thing that crosses your mind is you want to have hot sex with them, then you did not just break up with them. Doesn't matter, it's so beautiful when that boy smiles...

The original CSI solved the cliffhanger from last season with Sara. I won't give it away in case you haven't seen it yet and want to, but I was a little disappointed they didn't take the harder route. Does that give too much away? The Without A Trace premiere was also a little slow, but it will get interesting once they divulge that Sam is pregnant.

Big Shots was a nice surprise, I almost didn't tape it but I'm glad I did. Just seeing Dylan McDermott and Michael Vartan back on TV is worth it. Now, that's hot.

Friday
In Moonlight we have our first dud of the season, in my opinion. The male lead, a vampire, is charming and good-looking, but that couldn't make up for the bad acting/writing/special effects, I could only watch it for the first 15 minutes. Numb3rs started off with a bang, an enjoyable hour with Val Kilmer guest-starring.

I'm still watching Damages and Mad Men as well, both continue to dish out surprises both in plot line and in how good the acting is. Nip/Tuck starts at the end of October and I cannot wait to see how much they ratchet up the kink factor now that the good doctors are in LA. Speaking of LA, Californication on Showtime is also very good, very funny.

Billet-Doux

2007-09-22T11:54:00.000-07:00

Dear Miss:

Wishing things were different in the past is just a well-dressed regret, but it sounds so much nicer so I'm going to stick with that.

I wish I could have seen you as a baby, those who did say you were adorable. There aren't even any pictures of you before you're full grown, which I can hardly believe, as many pictures as I've taken of you in the past nine months.

I wish I had started riding long ago, but I know it came along at just the right time, when I was listlessly floating in a sea of grief and failure. Thankfully I had some natural talent for it, or at least was told that and believed it, as my fragile state at the time would have cracked and crumbled if I didn't feel some success right away.

I wish your original owner hadn't treated you like a trophy, buying you expensive tack but spending very little time either on the ground or in the saddle.

I wish they hadn't waited 3 years to decide to give you back to the farm, as in that time you were idle and lonely. Yes, you were fed and turned out and shod and vaccinated, but without a job to do and without a special person to bond with.

I wish I had been better prepared at the moment when our lives intertwined. The extent of my riding history was a handful of trail rides in the last 20 years and six months of mostly regular lessons at the farm. I am still completely humbled and flabbergasted at the idea that my name even came up as a potential new owner for you when it became clear it was too expensive for the farm to keep you without any board coming in. You were the last baby of the farm's breeding legacy and it was absolutely out of the question that you leave the property. That day when Willow cautiously told me the story and asked if I wanted you as my own, I turned into an internally squealing 12 year-old -- Look at the pretty horsey! Then I watched you on the lunge line, the big floating trot gliding you around the ring, the correct lead every time on the bright canter and I thought, Jesus, this is a lot of horse for me. When you put green and green together you just get a deeper shade of green. But Willow promised to help us, and she has, she's so patient and I can see that she loves you, which counts for a lot.

I wish you didn't have so much pain; that's what is heartbreaking, to know that there is little I can do to help you other than follow the vet's suggestions.

I wish I could articulate the joy I feel just being near you. That soft nicker you make when I come around the corner of the barn and call your name -- Missy-mare -- and you rush over to the fence to greet me. The simple pleasure of sitting on the grass at your feet while you graze, you stepping carefully around me and nuzzling me gently to move over, as the best grass is always the grass I'm sitting on. The way your thick mane flops over half-way down your neck no matter how much I work on getting it to lay on the right side. The way you pick up your front feet at the walk, prancing proudly next to me even if we're just heading to the wash rack. The way your ears look like a mule's when I'm sitting on your back. How my body seems to fit with your's just right, like you're a shiny brown chesterfield.

While it has been difficult to get started on your back only to have long stretches where you need to rest and heal, I'm not ready to give up on you. We're partners, you and me, and when I look in your deep brown eyes I know you feel the same way.

Love,
Mama

================================================================
Epilogue: I am grateful for all the advice that you all gave, and I want to make it clear the giddy 12 year-old did not make this decision. This horse was born and has spent her entire life at this farm, being looked after by the same staff and the same vets, so her entire history is known. There is no reason to believe she has any unknown underlying long-term problems, other than the cracked coffin bone. After 3 years idle, she's been under saddle barely 6 months, and we've done more work with her in that time than the previous owner did in the first 4 years of her life. D and I still want to get a horse more suited to a beginner so he can ride if he wants and I can always be assured of a mount (well, there's no guarantee that you'll always have a horse to ride, no matter how many horses you have, but you know what I mean). We'll keep assessing her as we go along, but we have just begun.

P.S. I made myself cry writing this post!

In Sickness and In Health

2007-09-19T13:20:00.000-07:00

There is a reason I named my horse Mystere...she is still such a mystery to me. We were letting her rest another day or two last week after her last shoeing, she cracked the left front coffin bone when she was a 2 year-old and it always comes up a bit sore. I've been lunging her lightly and she was fine when I left her Sunday afternoon.

Monday afternoon I get a call from my trainer. Missy wasn't eating (a sure sign something is wrong) so they took her temperature and it was 105! A horse's temperature is normally between 99 and 101, so this was a big red flag. The vet came and checked her and didn't think it was colic, so she gave her a shot of banimine, which is basically horsey Tylenol and said to keep taking her temperature. She took some blood, which came back positive for a viral infection, so antibiotics weren't going to help. Her temperature has been fluctuating, but is still over 102, so we are continuing with the meds and just giving her hay, which is all she seems to want to eat.

When I went to see her she had those sad eyes that animals get when they aren't feeling well, and heat was radiating off of her, poor thing. The vet said she needs a week's recovery for every day she has a temperature. So, at this point, she'll be off for about a month. *sigh*

This happened the same day I found out that the client I had been working all the extra hours for (the home of Mr. Wart Hog), pulled the filing for their IPO. I knew this was going to happen, but still had to put in all those unpaid overtime hours, for nothing. To say I was upset that night was an understatement.

I haven't gone back to actually count, but I think I've ridden Missy 5 times since the first time in May. Every time we get her on schedule something else happens. She's had two major infections, cut herself badly twice (once requiring stiches and staples), and been lame 4 times. I don't want to give her back to the farm -- that was part of the deal we made, if things didn't work out I could give her back -- but I was very frustrated and worried. Worried she's got health issues that will keep cropping up, worried she's too much horse for me, on and on. I just can't imagine giving her up, I love her, but I need a horse that I can ride on a consistent basis as well.

I know this is status quo with horses, shit happens all the time. We even considered buying a cute little Paint mare, but they were asking too much for her. After a very sweet and encouraging email from my trainer in which she told me she would never have suggested I take Miss if she didn't think I could learn to ride her and that I had made great progress considering I started from scratch a little over a year ago, I came down from the ledge and decided to lease the mare I usually ride for lessons, Angel. At least for a little while, until I get more riding time under my belt and Miss has time to get back under saddle. She's young, and maybe being pushed into fairly rigorous training after being off for almost 3 years is still catching up with her.

Feel free to throw words of encouragement my way. Here are two pictures I took of her last weekend.

Looking fat and happy...

and from another angle, looking svelte and fabulous.

Sideways

2007-09-07T19:12:00.000-07:00

As if getting a black belt in Aikido weren't enough of an accomplishment for 2007, last weekend D became a certified advanced scuba diver. The desire to do this was sparked by our planned trip to St. Lucia in December, but it was the worst possible time for me to take the classes, what with working ridiculous hours and being sick the entire month. I'm perfectly fine with snorkeling, frankly, but I may reconsider, I'm not sure about the whole idea yet. I'll post some scuba pictures in another post.

After the final dive in Monterey we went to have a celebratory drink with D's dive partner, B, and one of the instructors. We ordered something to eat but B declined, saying she had "eaten enough cookies earlier to kill a horse". Of course, I couldn't let this go so I replied that it would take an awful lot of cookies to accomplish that, my horse seems to have the ability to put away countless cookies at one sitting. She asked what kind of horse I had. "She's a thoroughbred", I said. She got this look on her face that told me she thought that meant "purebred", so I set her straight on that point. Then she asked what kind of riding I did, Western or English. When I told her English, her got another puzzled look on her face and blurted out, "Who DOES that anymore?"

OK, now I'm confused. Her questions seem intelligent but she has no idea what she is talking about. I glance at D for some help and tell her it's quite popular, actually, especially in the part of the Bay Area where we live. The instructor asks what the difference is. She gives him a pat on the arm as if to say, boy are you dumb, and says with great confidence, "Both legs on one side, silly!"

We couldn't help it, D and I burst out laughing. M says in self-defense, no, that's sidesaddle, and we proceed to explain the difference (ever watched the Olympics?).

I felt a little bad for her, but she dug her own hole. As much of a beginner as I was when I started taking lessons last summer, even I knew more than she did. That's been one of the most surprising things to me, how little the average person knows about horses, or the things they think they know that are flat out wrong. I'm guilty as anyone else, I thought palomino was a breed and not a color, I had no earthly idea what a martingale or a surcingle were and didn't have a clue what the lifespan of a horse is. I have a client who is in his 40s who told me he's never seen a horse in person. How is that even possible? I guess if you lived your entire life in the city...that made me sad.

Anyway, when she said "sidesaddle" it conjured up all kinds of images in my head so I had to do some research and learn a little bit about it. Turns out there is a thriving sidesaddle community, both national and international and there are sidesaddle classes at many elite horse shows. (I've seen it with and without the space in between the two words, I'm not sure which one is correct.)

The image that popped in my head initially was of a woman dressed like this, performing at a renaissance fair.

I found many wonderful paintings and woodcuts of women riding side saddle, here's one of Jane Austen.

Our good friends at Wikipedia tell us that..."In Europe, the sidesaddle developed in part because cultural norms for the upper social classes dictated that it was unbecoming for a woman of apparent wealth or high social status to straddle a horse while riding. The practice was reinforced by folk beliefs suggesting that riding astride could destroy a girl's virginity, impair her ability to bear children, or provide a lady with an unnatural sexual stimulation. [Well, goodness we can't have that!] Riding sidesaddle was also practical, since long dresses were the required fashion. The earliest functional "sidesaddle" was credited to Anne of Bohemia (1366-1394). [I wonder if she was considered a Bohemian for doing this?] It was a chair- like affair where the woman sat sideways on the horse with her feet on a small footrest. The design made it difficult for a woman to both stay on and use the reins to control the horse, so the animal was usually led by another rider, usually male, and sitting astride. [A good way to keep a wandering woman under control.]

In the 1830s Jules Pellier invented a sidesaddle design with a second, lower pommel to the sidesaddle. In this design, still in use today, one pommel is nearly vertical, mounted approximately 10 degrees left of top dead center and curved gently to the right and up. The rider’s right leg goes around the top, or fixed pommel, which supports the right thigh of the rider when it is lying across the top center of the saddle. The lower right leg rests along the shoulder of the left (near) side of the horse and up against the second pommel (called the leaping head or leaping horn.) lies below the first on the left of the saddle. It is mounted about 20 degrees off the top of the saddle. This pommel is curved gently downward in order to curve over the top of the rider's left thigh, and is attached in a manner so that it could pivot slightly, to adjust to the individual rider. The rider places her left leg beneath this pommel, with the top of the thigh close or lightly touching it, and places her left foot in a single stirrup on that side.

Although that description is wonderful, I still couldn't really grasp what the saddle looked like until I saw this picture. Looks entirely too precarious to me. I have a hard enough time staying on riding "astride".

Then I read on and discovered that people actually JUMP OVER THINGS while riding sidesaddle, they even do cross country eventing. My velvet hat is off to these folks.

I would love to ride in a classic outfit like this some day though, I've always loved the look of formal riding attire.

I absolutely adore this replica Edwardian outfit -- gentile, feminine, classy -- can you see me riding Mystere dressed like this?

Speaking of Miss China, she's finally sound and we've been working hard. That's one of my many nicknames for her, created the day Willow asked her, "Are we going to have to bubble wrap you?" (to keep you from another mishap). I rode her last weekend, then twice during the week, and will be taking another lesson on her tomorrow afternoon. I am still giddy at the idea of riding my own horse.

Hat Trick

2007-09-02T14:04:00.000-07:00

The Drum Corps International (DCI) championships that we went to in Pasadena earlier this month are on ESPN2 this coming Wednesday, if you want to check it out.

This is a good segueway to a post that I've had brewing for a while now, like a couple of years.

As a bit of history, I can't put it any better than our friend Wikipedia: "Classic drum and bugle corps are North American musical ensembles that descended from military bugle and drum units returning from World War I and succeeding wars. Traditionally, drum and bugle corps served as signaling units as early as before the American Civil War, with these signaling units having descended in some fashion from ancient drum and fife corps. With the advent of the radio, bugle signaling units became obsolete and surplus equipment was sold to veteran organizations (such as the Veterans of Foreign Wars and American Legion, two major organizers for classic drum corps). These organizations formed drum and bugle corps of civilians and veterans, and the corps performed in community events and local celebrations. Over time, rivalries between corps emerged and the competitive drum and bugle corps circuit evolved. Traditional drum and bugle corps consist of bell-front brass horns, field drums, a color guard and an honor guard.

Drum and bugle corps have often been mistaken for marching bands, since there is a similarity to both groups having horns and drums; and they are both essentially bands of musicians that march. The activities are different in organization (marching bands usually associate with high schools and colleges while drum corps are freestanding organizations), competition and performance (marching bands perform in the fall at football games, drum corps usually compete during the summer), and instrumentation (classic drum corps use only brass bugles and drums, marching bands incorporate woodwinds and other alternative instruments)."

My first husband marched in the very first champion of Drum Corps International in 1972, the Kingsmen from Anaheim, California. My current beloved marched in the winningest drum corps in modern history, the Blue Devils from Concord, California. I marched from 1976 to 1982, then taught on and off through 1989, so a good chunk of my formative years was spent in a corps uniform. My corps was small and competitively unsuccessful, but that didn't stop us from travelling thousands of miles each summer to attend the championships, wherever that might have been. My first DCI was in Denver in 1977, so it seemed like 30 years was a good time for some perspective on where things are today.

The bane of my existence during my marching years was the "shako", the traditional hat with a feather plume on the top that everyone, including the color guard, wore back in the old days. I had very long hair and had to wind it on top of my head then put the shako on, which created a sweaty, sticky ball of hair when I took it off. In keeping with their military roots, all modern drum corps to this day have uniforms that have military uniforms as their starting point.

Here is a picture from a site dedicated to European infantry and their attire.

Here's a picture of part of the Blue Devils' snare line in 1979 (my beloved D is the handsome one on the right).

Here is what Blue Devils' snare line looks like, almost 30 years later.

Yeah, not much different than Napolean's army. I think the main culprit is the hat. Some corps wear a hat that looks a bit like what the Three Musketeers wore in the movies, referred to as an "Aussie", but essentially the uniform has remained unchanged save for some minor changes in the cadet jacket.

That's for what is referred to as the corps proper: the drumline and hornline. The color guard, on the other hand, has run off the rails when it comes to their uniform. As I said before, back in the day the guard wore the same hat and cadet jacket as everyone else, and wore a skirt with some variation of a boot for the bottom half.

Here's a picture of the aforementioned Kingsmen from 1977. I was in the rifle line in my drum corps.

Here's a picture of the Cavaliers from last summer, an all-male corps from Illinois that I happen to really like, but seriously, does this make sense? The guard is dressed like Borg and the rest of the corps is dressed like D'Artagnan.

This year there were guards dressed as gypsies, horses (in brown multi-colored jumpsuits with long fake pony-tails), painters, you get the idea. Right now there is such a discrepancy between the two parts of the corps that I find it distracting. From a visual perspective, the corps that I enjoyed the most this year were the ones that had some correlation of their uniforms between the sections.

We can't go backwards, so going forward I think the activity needs to find some middle ground. Pull back with the guard costumes and make some changes to the corps proper uniform. As far as I'm concerned, the horse-related show would have been a lot more fun if the corps had been in cowboy-inspired outfits. At the very least, get rid of those damn shakos.

On My Way

2007-09-02T14:02:00.000-07:00

I'm here and (finally) doing fine. Miss is good too, she's sound and full of pep, I'll be riding her tomorrow. I'm working on a real post and will hopefully get it up tomorrow.

Jenna! So glad to see you. I hope you are well.

Same Cough, Different Week

2007-08-24T14:41:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'm still sick. And no, I haven't called my doctor. I know that coughing and runny nose can last 3 to 4 weeks, so I'm not worried yet. It was getting a lot better earlier this week so I took a chance and did a riding lesson on Wednesday morning, which turned out to be a mistake -- by that evening I was back to where I was a week before. Last night I took two extreme cold night time liquigels and that knocked me out for most of the night, so today I feel a bit better and the cough is more productive. Unfortunately I haven't been able to let my body rest as I've been working ridiculous hours. I don't get paid for overtime since I'm on salary, but they do take that into account when they pay bonuses, so I will get compensated for it one way or another. If I work on the weekend things will start to slow down next week. I need to clone myself.

Soul Coughing

2007-08-13T21:51:00.000-07:00

I've been suffering with a nasty summer cold for going on two weeks now. I've been through the sore throat and stuffy head phase, almost through the nasal congestion phase, but it's this cough that just won't go away. My back hurts, my stomach hurts and my chest hurts. Plus, there is nothing more sexy than coughing. We spent the last five days in Pasadena watching the Drum Corps International championships and my poor husband was stuck in a hotel room with a woman who woke up every two hours coughing and walked around in a daytime cold medicine haze. Sorry honey. The weather was nice, we saw lots of friends and watched from the comfort of a suite at the Rose Bowl, so no complaints on the trip, just could have done without the hacking.

My work schedule this week is hellacious; my newest client was not happy that I was gone for most of last week and is now making up for it by pushing an unattainable deadline on his project. I'd like to believe my consultant mantra in situations like these: Your bad management and planning does not make this my crisis. Unfortunately I think in this situation it does make it my crisis and I am going to be working my ass off for someone who has the personality of a warthog.

So, please send me your empathy, your best cough-stopping tips and maybe a few jabs at Mr. W. Hog. I have several posts for y'all that will just have to wait.

More Songs about Buildings and Food

2007-08-02T21:49:00.000-07:00

As promised, here is another in my series of music posts. Kudos to you if you got the Talking Heads reference in the title. I dare say, I bet there's nobody out there reading this over the age of 30 who doesn't know all (or most) the lyrics to at least a couple of these songs. You might not even know you know all the lyrics, yet somehow when you hear it, there they are, saved in your brain for just such an occasion. If you want the download of the entire list, send me an email (link is in the upper left) or leave your email in the comments and I will gladly send you the zip file.

1. Ballroom Blitz by Sweet -- Ready Steve? Andy? Mick? All right fellas, let's go!

2. Bang A Gong (Get It On) by T. Rex -- you're dirty sweet and you're my girl.

3. Brown Eyed Girl by Van Morrison -- this song got a little bit ruined for me when I found out it was Lacy Peterson's favorite and they played it at her memorial service, but I still love it.

4. Goodbye Stranger by Supertramp -- it's hard to pick just one song from Breakfast in America, this is my favorite though.

5. Hooked On A Feeling by Blue Swede -- if you knew the name of the band you get extra bonus points. Ooga chaka, ooga chaka, etc.

6. I'm Not In Love by 10CC -- I probably still have the very first mix tape I ever made (recorded from the radio onto my beloved Panasonic cassette tape player), this was the last song.

7. Love Is Like Oxygen by The Sweet -- yes, it is, isn't it? You get too much you get too high, not enough and you're gonna die. That's deep.

8. Magic Carpet Ride by Steppenwolf -- come on, you gotta admit this is a cool song. Are all these songs about drugs??

9. Magic Man by Heart -- ah, the lovely Wilson sisters. Try to understand, mama.

10. Money Honey by The Bay City Rollers -- I know what you're thinking: that girl has gone off the deep end. Seriously? The Bay City Rollers? Seriously. It's a great song. Short plaid pants for everyone!

11. More Than A Feeling by Boston -- close your eyes and slip away.

12. One Is the Loneliest Number by Three Dog Night -- two can be as bad as one.

13. Sharp Dresssed Man by ZZ Top -- every time I hear this song I see them spinning those fuzzy guitars.

14. She's Come Undone by The Guess Who -- this song is actually called Undun on the album, maybe that's the Canadian spelling? (See, I can make fun, since I'm Canadian.) When I was a young girl I wanted to marry Burton Cummings.

15. Summertime by The Zombies -- a lovely waltz version of the classic.

In my music travels I also make a note of the name of any band that I think is clever, silly or just plain bizarre. Here are my lastest:

Half Man Half Biscuit
Parenthetical Girls
Oxygen Ponies
Peanut Butter Wolf
Young Antiques
Bipolar Bear -- my favorite of this list!
Chainsaw Kittens
Pagan Babies
Chicken on a Raft -- great, now I want chicken.
Ice Cream Socialists -- my second favorite, makes me giggle every.single.time.
Bastard Fairies
Genghis Tron
Get Cape. Wear cape. Fly! -- giggling again.
Two Cow Garage
Chicken Poodle Soup
Bowling for Soup
The Self Righteous Brothers -- brilliant!

I hope this little trip down memory lane makes you smile. Get the zip file now!

Mixed Media

2007-07-28T17:51:00.000-07:00

UPDATE AT THE END OF POST.

I love books. And TV. And music. Here's my take on a few offerings from the first two categories. I'm going to save the music piece for a second post as this is getting quite long.

Books

Synopis from Barnes & Noble.com: On a winter night in 1964, Dr. David Henry is forced by a blizzard to deliver his own twins. His son, born first, is perfectly healthy. Yet when his daughter is born, he sees immediately that she has Down Syndrome. Rationalizing it as a need to protect Norah, his wife, he makes a split-second decision that will alter all of their lives forever. He asks his nurse to take the baby away to an institution and never to reveal the secret. But Caroline, the nurse, cannot leave the infant. Instead, she disappears into another city to raise the child herself. So begins this beautifully told story that unfolds over a quarter of a century in which these two families, ignorant of each other, are yet bound by the fateful decision made that long-ago winter night.

[The book]...explores the way life takes unexpected turns, and how the mysterious ties that hold a family together help us survive the heartache that occurs when long-buried secrets burst into the open.

I was fairly disappointed with this novel. It had a lot of elements that interested me, a very big lie and secret that was carried for a long time, a family member with a disability (who was supposed to go to an institution), photography, etc. However, the book is choppy, mostly because the author skips forward in time four or five times and picks up the stories of the characters again. She beats us over the head with the facts over and over, making sure we don't forget that this girl's mother and brother think she died while the husband suffers the consequences of keeping the secret. One huge element missing from the story is the daughter herself -- while crusading for her rights and education, the author missed the boat by not giving her her own voice amidst the others. Two out of five paws from me.

Synopsis: In this follow-up to his popular debut The Kitchen Boy, Alexander again mines the considerable lore of the Russian imperial family. Rasputin, the legendary mad monk, is also a family man raising two daughters in 1916 St. Petersburg. As he ministers to the tsaritsa and her royal brood during the last week of his life, 18-year-old Maria strives to understand the menacing aura surrounding her father. She is both loving and rebellious, but her adventures are limited to a flirtation with a young man who will betray her in a plot against her father. Alexander's wild-eyed romp through a period much studied for its contradictions and cruelties will be a staple of most historical fiction collections.

I knew going in this was a "young adult" book, but I enjoyed it well enough. I've read and seen a lot of documentaries on the fall of the Romanovs, and Rasputin certainly did his part in their fate. The book was compact in size and scope, covering the last week of Rasputin's life, and written convincingly from Maria's perspective. Three out of five paws.

Synopsis: Just as the smell of popcorn and the allure of fiery sword swallowers and exotic animals once drew spectators to the big top, readers will be drawn to this story of life in a traveling circus during the Depression. After Jacob Jankowski's parents die in a tragic car accident, the bank repossesses their home, which had been mortgaged to finance Jacob's veterinary studies. Jacob jumps a train carrying the Benzini Brothers' Most Spectacular Show on Earth and is hired on because of his veterinary skills. The circus world is not all glamour and glitz, Jacob soon learns, but a hardscrabble life where both animals and workers are exploited and often mistreated. The author brings alive the circus culture with historical details and a wonderful menagerie of characters, including Uncle Al, the unscrupulous business manger; Kinko, a bitter dwarf; Marlena, the beautiful horse-riding star of the show; and Rosie, an elephant with personality and a secret. The story is told in flashback, through the eyes of Jacob, now ninety-three years old and in an assisted-living facility. His memory is jolted by the arrival of a circus in the parking lot nearby and his mind wanders back in time. The book's many complex layers-adventure, love, history, suspense, and a surprise ending-and Gruen's sensual prose are enhanced by period archive circus photographs at the beginning of each chapter.

I really enjoyed this book, in fact, it's the best book I've read in a while. The vocabulary isn't extraordinary, but the writing is solid, the characters are interesting and the period details convincing. Anyone who can write in the first person in the opposite gender to their own has some skills in my opinion. Some reviews have said the ending is contrived, but I disagree -- I loved the ending and felt satisfied as I closed the book on the last page, something I've missed greatly recently. Four out of five paws!

Next on my nightstand is Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. I wanted something I could really sink my teeth into. Last year I read The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, my first Eco read (where have I been?) and I discovered many words I never knew existed, never mind knew the meaning of. I'm thinking this is going to beat the pants off of Dan Brown.

What are you reading?

TV

Besides "So You Can Think You Can Dance", my favorite program with my least favorite name (who's the marketing genius who thought that up?), summer television can be a trying mish-mash of insipid reality shows and re-runs. This summer has been better than most. Here are three new shows, none of which are on the big networks, that I think are worth checking out:

Mad Men
The Setting: In 1960, advertising agencies were an all-powerful influence on the masses. Personal and professional manipulation and sexual exploits defined the workplace and closed the deals. The high profile Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency created advertising campaigns – from cigarettes to political candidates -- better than anyone. It was a time of great ferment. Women had barely begun to come into their own. Librium and birth control were on the move. Ethics in the workplace, smoke-free environments, sexual harassment and ethnic diversity were workshops of the future.

The Premise: The series depicts the sexual exploits and social mores of this most innovative yet ruthless profession, while taking an unflinching look at the ad-men who shaped the hopes and dreams of Americans on a daily basis.

I've seen two episodes now and I am hooked. On, of all things, AMC (American Movie Classics), it isn't surprising this series is great, considering that executive producer and writer of "The Sopranos" Matthew Weiner is behind it. They get everything right here, you are in a totally believable Manhattan in 1960, from the hairstyles and wardrobe to the seatbelt-less cars and the incessant smoking and drinking. New episodes air first on Thursdays at 10, but repeats are on almost every day.

Damages
DAMAGES is a legal thriller set in the world of New York City high-stakes litigation. The series, which provides a view into the true nature of power and success, follows the turbulent lives of Patty Hewes (Glenn Close) the nation's most revered and reviled high-stakes litigator and her bright, ambitious protégé Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne) as they become embroiled in a class action lawsuit targeting the allegedly corrupt Arthur Frobisher (Ted Danson), one of the country’s wealthiest CEOs. As Patty battles with Frobisher and his attorney Ray Fiske (Željko Ivanek) Ellen Parsons will be front and center witnessing just what it takes to win at all costs, as it quickly becomes clear that lives, as well as fortunes, may be at stake.

My friends at FX have come up with another winner! Only the home of Nip/Tuck could come up with a legal thriller with so much bite. Both Glenn Close and Ted Danson are perfectly cast as the opponents on this battlefield. New episodes air on Tuesdays at 10, but again, repeats are on several times during the week.

Saving Grace
In her television series debut, Hunter stars as Grace Hanadarko, a tormented, fast-living Oklahoma City police detective who, despite being at the top of her field, takes self-destruction to new heights. After seeing tremendous tragedy in her life, both professionally and personally, Grace lives life hard and fast. She drinks too much, sleeps with the wrong men and defies authority. Grace has a tender side with her 22 nieces and nephews, but that is a side that most of the world doesn’t get to see. It all catches up with her one night when, as she’s driving too fast after too many drinks, she hits a man who is walking along the road. In an uncharacteristic moment, Grace asks for help, and she gets it – in the form an unconventional angel named Earl (Leon Rippy, Deadwood). Earl tells Grace that she is in trouble and running out of chances, but he wants to help lead her back to the right path. The journey, for both of them, will not be an easy one.

I'm not sure about this one. I am a huge Holly Hunter fan, and her character is so flawed that it's probably almost as much fun to do the part as it is to watch. Being an agnostic threatening to out myself as an atheist, the fact that the "unconventional angel" is a redneck, tobacco-chewing Billy Bob Thornton lookalike gives me a bit of hope I can keep watching. And Grace is, to say the least, initially skeptical, but by the end of the first episode she's already changed her mind about believing in God. The show is a tug of war between good Grace and bad Grace, but I'm not convinced it works fully. Fans of Hunter's gritty performance will roll their eyes at Earl, and viewers who warm to the show's spirituality might be turned off by all of Grace's drinking, cursing and screwing. I'm hoping they can make this work. New episodes air on TNT (which explains a lot) on Mondays at 10.

What are you watching?

Update: I watched the second episode of Saving Grace and I got bored half way through. I even got all the guys she's sleeping with mixed up, and Earl (the angel) just bugged me. I'm gonna stop watching it. But, I watched the second episode of Damages and liked it even more than the first episode. The third episode of Mad Men is on tonight.

Sidelined

2007-07-26T18:33:00.000-07:00

Missy is officially lame. Even I could see she was limping quite badly on her left front today, so I guess the farm owner was right after all. *sigh* I hope she isn't getting an abcess in that foot, but whatever it is, we'll treat her with TCL and hope she gets better soon. I'm disappointed I won't be able to ride her for a while, but at least Willow has switched me from Huey, who takes a LOT to keep going, to my original mount, Angel (this picture of us was taken last year). Once Angel gets going she can be quite forward and requires a bit of steering, especially at the canter, so although she has a piddly little trot and canter compared to my Miss, she's a more comparable ride. Willow has started me going over poles at the canter while at a two-point! Oy. My thighs kill me after each ride but, no pain, no gain.

It's been a while since I took pictures of the babies and they are growing and changing so fast. Here's Katie and mama Sera playing in the sprinkler earlier today. Egads, this is a big filly! They're hoping she doesn't end up taller than 17 hands. Sera is 16.3 or 16.4, she's the tallest of the three sisters.

Ruby, on the other hand, is changing her color like a chameleon. Right now she looks like someone played the ole binoculars-with-black-paint trick on her.

She also has a good one inch growth of dark roots in her mane, as you can see here. She looks like a startlet who is in dire need of a trip to the hairstylist.

I'm working on a TV/books/music post, it's time for a little multi-media around here.

D is going to the east coast for work all next week, and I'm not looking forward to being apart for that long. I'm going to take that as a good sign, after living together for 14 years.

Current Events with a Side of Humble Pie

2007-07-22T20:23:00.000-07:00

Thank you all for your kind and thoughtful comments on my last post. I too think about what will happen when my mother dies. Honestly, I have no idea how I will feel, probably seventeen different emotions at once. My aunt said of her (and my mother's) father: I went to his funeral to make sure the bastard was dead. At this point I don't keep that kind of anger inside anymore, but there are things that she's done and said that are unforgiveable and therefore, I cannot hand her a Get Out of Jail Free Card. The wonderful Helen over at Everyday Stranger is pregnant with twins. In a recent post she confessed that she's worried the babies will turn out just like her. I was always worried that if I ever became a mother I would end up just like my mother, a thought that sent me back into therapy after we started trying to have a baby.

*sigh* There are many more posts about her to come, I'm sure. Moving on.

I check out the celebrity news now and then, I enjoy pictures of red carpet gowns as much as the next gal and I faithfully read People every time I go to the hairdresser (every 5 weeks). But, I have to say, lately there's been a dearth of sponge-worthy celebrity/entertainment news.

Call me crazy, but I couldn't care less about:

Britney

Lindsay

Paris

Nicole

Posh & Becs

and finally...*ducking to avoid the flying objects*...Harry Potter. I think I read the first 100 pages of the first book and put it down. I've watched the first two movies as they were playing at someone's house I was visiting and I thought it would be rude to leave in the middle. I know many of you and many people IRL who are as crazy about Master Potter as their kids. Even if I had kids, I wouldn't like the books, although I would be happy to see my youngster reading them. I think it's very cool for the kids that started reading the HP books when they were about the same age as the kids in the story, and that they've sort of grown up together. I also think it's wonderful that the first billionaire author is a woman who started from nothing.

And finally...for those of you who ride, you are painfully aware that it is a very humbling experience. No matter what level you're at, the minute you begin to think you've got something down pat, your horse will remind you that personality trumps technique every time, and humble pie is a dish best served cold.

Miss seems to have gotten through her dental adventure fine, but she's still fighting something. Whatever is going on in her system is moving through her legs in turn, one day she'll be off on the left front, the next day on the right rear. I'm not used to dealing with a creature who seems perfectly fine one day and the next can't be ridden for a week. It scares me to death when they throw around words like "crippled", but I guess in horsespeak that's a transitory state.

Last week I came down to lounge her before our ride and worked her pretty hard. At the very end Willow come over and asks, "Is she limping?" Immediately my heart is in my throat -- obviously she wouldn't have said that if she didn't think she was. Willow got on her for a few minutes, then let me walk around on her, but declared she was "pretty lame" on the front left. She looked perfectly fine to me. I felt so bad I was almost in tears.

So, she's been off for 5 days and Willow tells me its OK to give her a light lounge today and leaves to get lunch. I'm just about done with a light workout with her when the owner of the farm comes over to stop me, saying that she looks quite a bit worse than she did the other day, finding a pulse in 3 of four legs. Again, she looked perfectly fine to me, maybe a little lazy, but I was purposefully not pushing her. I feel like I can't be trusted to take my own horse out without someone else looking at her first to make sure she is fit to work. Ugh. Pie anyone?

Killing Me Softly

2007-07-14T18:34:00.000-07:00

There's been a lot of rainbows and butterflies on this blog lately, and rightly so, my life is enviable and I am very grateful for what I have.

Having said that, nothing else in my world is as big a killjoy as my mother. Like the anti-Mary Tyler Moore, she can take a wonderful day and suddenly make it all seem worthless. She is truly the definiton of toxic. With all due respect to Brit, I doubt she has any idea of the impact such a person can have in a life.

After alternating between trying to have some sort of actual adult relationship with her, to completely being out of contact (both of which have their pitfalls), she and I have settled into a superficial truce of 3 phone calls and 3 cards a year, all of which are interchangeable. She called me last week, violating this fragile agreement and putting into motion the depression that is soaking into my psyche, like a sponge in a mud puddle.

She would never call just to chat, and we had just talked a couple of weeks ago, (Donna's Birthday Call, #2 of the year), so I was surprised to hear her voice on the other end and was immediately on the defensive. "What's up?", I asked immediately after we exchanged greetings.
[Everytime I talk to her I have a parallel conversation with myself; its often the only way I can make it through without laughing, crying or hanging up. I've included these thoughts in blue.]

Suddenly it sounded like she was on the verge of tears. My mother does not do crying.

[Acting! It's called acting! She's such a thespian.]

"Well, I'm sorry to call you with bad news."

[Who died?]

"Remember when I got so sick two years ago? I thought I had the flu and couldn't get out of bed for two months, and nothing Dr. H did helped?"

[I'll have to look it up in my catalogue of Mom's Illnesses, I think that's in Book XXVII.]

"Well, after waiting for months to get some diagnostic tests done, I just got the results. It turns out I had a heart attack and didn't know it. Dr. H said the damage looks to be about two years old, so that's why I had chest pains. I'm sorry to have to tell you this, I didn't tell you when I talked to you last month because I didn't want to ruin your birthday or your anniversary."

[Like this news would have devastated me to the point where I would have cancelled my plans?]

At this point she stops for effect and sniffles a bit, clearing her throat. "I'm sorry to hear that," I say, at a total loss for words.

"I wanted to let you know so if you heard anything from anyone about my "condition" in the future you would know what they were talking about."

[The only person who talks to you that talks to me is my sister, and yes, I heard those air quotation marks. So now that you know you've had a heart attack -- not that I really believe anything you're telling me--it's safe to say that at any moment you're going to keel over dead and that will be the reason?]

"I also wanted to tell you because you and your sister are in your 40s now [no shit, Sherlock] and you both should be watching your blood sugar [lest we forget your beloved borderline diabetes diagnosis from last year] and your cholesterol."

"I'm fine, Mom, I have a physical every year and those things are checked."

[But thanks for the heads up, its always nice to have a list of things when choosing how one is going to die.]

"So now I have to be on blood thinners. I guess those baby aspirin weren't doing enough."

[Damn those Germans who make aspirin!]

"The prescription I got isn't on the list for my insurance, and I can't afford $120 a month for this medicine on my pension."

[If you think I'm going to send you money, you got another thing comin'. You sucked out 80% of Dad's pension in the divorce.]

"He gave me some samples but I am fighting with the pharmacy to get it added. People think in Canada you get anything you ask for and everything is free, well it isn't really like that."

[Yeah, I know, I lived there for 24 years, remember?]

Again at a loss for words, I say, "Well, I hope you get that sorted out."

Switching gears a little, she says, "How's D's Mom doing?" This is her not-so-subtle way of bringing someone else into the conversation that she can use as a mirror.

"She's doing fine, she has her episodes but always seems to pull through."

Big sigh. "Well, I guess she's just like me...things start to wear out."

At this point I can't suppress my real voice and say, "Mom, she's 86 years old, you're 74."

"I know, I know," she says, with a hint of aggravation in her voice, "I just hope you girls don't have to go through what I have."

I honestly don't recall what she said for the next few minutes, I stopped paying attention, I think I actually started typing a response to an email. When she stopped talking I let the air be dead for a second, then she started in on the coda of every conversation:

"Well, like I said...[insert verbatim of earlier conversation here]...and I'm sorry to give you bad news."

I've yet to figure out what the bad news is here. I suppose it is a bit scary (to normal people) to find out that you had a heart attack and didn't know it, but she is fine now, albeit with some damage to her heart.

This turned out to be one of our better phone calls. I don't think she mentioned my late brother (The Golden Boy) once, unless it was when I wasn't paying attention, and she even refrained from bashing any family members. While my calls to my Dad always end in an exchange of I love yous, my calls with Mom end in a duet of Take cares, it's the best we can do.

I told D about the call that evening when he got home. He was also puzzled as to what the bad news was. I told him, she depresses and exhausts me. I don't think my feelings now have anything to do with the news of the call at all -- it was just her unexpected intrusion into my day that set off this wave.

The most disconcerting thing about all of this is, like Diana in A Chorus Line, I felt nothing. No compassion, no empathy. I have (successfully?) removed her from my heart to the point where I just don't care about her.

I know she is toxic. I know she doesn't really care about me or my health, she is the center of her universe and, like a deranged planet, her mission is to use her gravity to pull in as many smaller bodies as possible, to increase her power. She can't quite grasp (or doesn't notice) that I've left her sphere of influence and have changed my composition to deflect her efforts.

I recently finished reading Halfway House by Katherine Noel, a novel about a family with a daughter who is bi-polar. I've mentioned before that my sister is bi-polar, and has been on lithium for many years. I suffer from both depression and anxiety, but not in the extreme highs and lows that are the hallmark of the disease. A passage from Halfway House described exactly how I feel sometimes:

She could be knocked off balance at any moment. It could be something obvious, like Angie crying, or it could be something more oblique, like a girl begging change downtown. Worst of all, feeling glad at even the smallest thing -- an unexpectedly beautiful day, the taste of sharp cheddar -- would immediately remind her that she was sad. It was as though, between happiness and unhappiness, she'd discovered a trapdoor she'd never known was there, one she couldn't close.

I think of it more of a wormhole than a trapdoor, same premise though...happiness can slap me in the face and remind me of how unhappy I am. It's hard to explain to normal people.

I grieve for the loss of the mother I never had, which seems like an exercise in futility. I like to think that she has no power over me, but the way I feel today says otherwise. Maybe every time I go through this grieving process it will get a little bit better. I can only hope.

I'll Take Equine Dentistry for $200, Alex

2007-07-07T10:34:00.000-07:00

Miss has been out of sorts for the past couple of weeks. One lesson, she was so dead I couldn't keep her head off the ground and literally rode her for five minutes before we gave up, thinking she was just having a bit of an off day. The next lesson we couldn't get her to stop and she kept putting her tongue over the bit. We started to notice that she was worse towards the right, picking up the wrong lead at the canter (something she never does), and throwing her head around. I kept telling my trainer I thought there must be something wrong in her mouth but she didn't really take me seriously.

She should have. After about a 10 second examination the vet said, "Her wolf teeth needed to come out." Ummmm, OK. What the hell are wolf teeth? Thanks to this site and a few others, I learned all about them.

For you non-horsey types: At the front of a horse's mouth are the incisors. At the back of the horse's mouth are the premolars and the molars. In between the incisors and the premolars is a relatively tooth-free space called the interdental space; this is where the bit sets. In the interdental space, there might be certain additional teeth call wolf teeth. These are very small teeth located in front of the second premolar and do not have long roots that set them firmly in the jaw bone.

Though not all wolf teeth are troublesome, veterinarians routinely remove them to prevent pain or interference from a bit. Normally, contact with the opposing tooth keeps biting surfaces equal. When cheek teeth are out of alignment, hooks can form. Hooks on the upper cheek teeth can interfere with bitting. Hooks on the lower cheek teeth can force the horse to chew up and down; causing stress on the jaw muscle. Your equine veterinarian can remove these small hooks to stop unnecessary pain.

Miss also had a few of these little hooks, so she must have been very uncomfortable. Poor thing. He gave her a good healthy dose of tranquilizer, then lidocaine in her gums, but she was very good (thankfully) and they were able to do it all at the farm so we didn't have to trailer her to the clinic.

Good thing this happened, because I hadn't spent enough money on vet bills lately. Seriously, I'm glad we took care of this right away, so we can get back to having happy riding experiences for both of us.

Here's a recent pic of Daddy and Miss, aren't they both just so darned cute?

Fantasy Island

2007-07-04T16:08:00.000-07:00

As I swelter in the heat of this 4th of July, suffering through my first period in three months, I'm wondering why I have to have a period at all. I'm doing research on this topic that will end up being another post soon.

In the meantime I'll write about my vacation plans (since I know you are all dying to know what they are). Unfortunately we won't be making it to Ireland this year, but we definitely have a trip in the works.

In August we are driving down to Pasadena for five days to attend the Drum Corps International championships. Despite the fact that I've lived in California for almost 20 years, I still consider myself to be a weather wimp. Temperatures over 90 make me wilt. So, why, you ask, would you go on holiday to southern California in August? We scored tickets in a box suite at the Rose Bowl for all three days of competition, so I'll not only be in the shade, I'll have someone bring me food and drinks as well. Now, that's how to watch a drum corps show!

More exciting than Pasadena in August, our big vacation this year will be spending the first week of December on the beautiful island of St. Lucia (pronounced Loo-sha, which wasn't my first try either).

Click to enlarge maps.

We used the same travel auction site that we used to book our trip to Belize in 2003, and saved about 40% over the retail price, based on the website of the resort. If you want the name of the travel site, email me or ask in the comments, since it wouldn't be hard to figure out which resort we're going to and for some reason that makes me a little nervous. This will be our first all-inclusive, couples-only resort, but it isn't one of the Big Name companies. When I went to the site I wasn't looking for that specifically, or even St. Lucia specifically, but for some reason this package called to me. I really had no idea it was so far south: 1,500 miles from Miami and only 500 miles from Caracas, Venezuela.

If any of you have any good tips or stories about St. Lucia, I'd love to hear them; if you have a horror story I'd rather be kept in the dark. When I told a co-worker we were going to this island she was very excited and said, "Oh! My daughter's college roommate worked for the peace corps there! She loved it..."

pause

"...until..."

longer pause

"...she was attacked and raped on her way back from a party one night."

WHO THE HELL SAYS SOMETHING LIKE THAT TO SOMEONE GOING THERE ON VACATION?? Geez. Then, my mother tells me my late brother and his second wife (who I hate more than him, if that's possible), went there and it was "their favorite island". Right there I knew she was lying, as there is no fricking way they've been to more than one Caribbean island, let alone the one speck of land that we've chosen. It really pissed me off for a few days, thinking I would have the thought that he had been there the whole trip, but I've mostly gotten over it. My mother is an evil genius when it comes to knowing just what to say to inflict the most damage, delivered with a spoonful of sugar, of course.

My first question after we booked the trip was, do they have horses on the island? As it turns out, they do, mostly creole horses, and you can ride them from the hillside right down to the beach and even into the water. Here's a short video if you want to check it out.

I hope all my American friends had a great 4th!

Threshold

2007-07-02T21:20:00.000-07:00

Seven years ago today I put on this beautiful dress and glanced through this portal towards my future.

Yesterday, through a series of fortunate events, I found myself on the other side of that door, holding the hand of my future as we attended a summer wine tasting and music concert on the very lawn where we were married.

Happy Anniversary, baby.

Sunday Is For Pictures

2007-06-24T18:12:00.000-07:00

Katie is a very friendly baby, right from the start she had no fear of people and would come over to whomever came to visit her for a scratch. Here she is being coy peeking over the fence.

I love the symmetrical socks!

She's usually such a goof...

...but occasionally you can catch her in a serious pose. Hard to believe at a week old she's already tall enough to look through this window in their stall.

This is Ruby at 2 weeks old, doing her giraffe impression.

Resting in the sun.

Here she is yesterday at one month, hanging with mama in the big grassy pasture.

Here's my baby after our ride yesterday.

Finally, Wilbur here must have had a bad night...shhhhhhhhh.

A Stitch in Time

2007-06-22T10:30:00.000-07:00

Today is my 43rd birthday. I've always loved having a summer birthday, the first full day of summer, actually. Since my mother was in labor for the entire previous day and I wasn't born until 11:30 at night she likes to remind me that it was the longest day of her life, not just the year. Thanks, as always, Mom, for your insight and compassion. Did I mention the part about me being a mistake?

This past year has been one of the best years in a long time. Riding has not only brought me the newest love of my life in my beloved Mystere, it has instilled a revived sense of accomplishment and purpose, and it has also brought me into the fold of a wonderful community.

Speaking of Miss, she got her staples and stitches out on Tuesday and the wound looks great, although the scar will take some time to fade. I'll be riding her later today, a wonderful gift.

To replace those stitches, Tucker had some put in on the same day. Sometime during our trip to the dog park a piece of foxtail got embedded into one of his paws and we didn't notice until it had formed a nasty abcess, which had to be lanced and closed back up. Tucker is like a six year-old boy who is always skinning his knees: he plays so hard and doesn't care about much other than his ball, his dinner and cuddling.

Since I already have the aforementioned birthday diamond pendant necklace, we'll just be heading out to one of our favorite bistros for dinner sometime this weekend. My own Summer of Love has just started, won't you join me?

Fathers and Fillies

2007-06-17T20:30:00.000-07:00

I just got off the phone with my Dad. It does my heart good to talk to him now, he seems so happy in the life he's made for himself with his "second family" of his common-law wife and his teenage son. Even from a very young age I knew my parents didn't like each other very much and I always wondered why two people who had so little in common ever got together in the first place. I suppose there was a time when my mother was relatively normal, and they got together in their early 20s, but I honestly don't know how he stuck it out for 30-some-odd years of marriage before he finally left her. I know now that they both had affairs, even though all we ever heard about were the insinuations from my mother.

I realize looking back that a lot of my memories about my Dad start with a particular scent. He worked for 25 years in a large sawmill, so when he got home from work he had that earthy smell of wood and sawdust. He also taught gymnastics my whole childhood, coaching full time after he retired from the sawmill at quite an early age, since he started working there in his late teens. Although it doesn't sound good to anyone else, the way he smelled of sweat and gymnastic chalk was very comforting to me. I spent a good part of my early life in the gym and it was something we did together that helped to form the special bond we shared.

We were not the most demonstrative of families when it comes to showing affection. No kisses or hugs when sending the kids off to school or to bed, heaven forbid. Despite the moratorium on love in our household, I would always sit next to my Dad on the couch when we watched TV after dinner (my Mom sat in an armchair on the other side of the room), and he would hold my tiny hand in his large, calloused one. His hands were so rough from working with wood for so long that he could take things out of the oven without any protection.

Every kid thinks their Dad is Superman, but my Dad really COULD beat up your Dad. He was a champion bodybuilder and was a red-haired Adonis in his day. His biceps were so large that even as a teenager I couldn't put both my hands around them. He would pick me up like a barbell and raise me over his head over and over, or he would have my sister and I sit on his back while he did a hundred push-ups. Later when I started to take gymnastics seriously he was my coach for a while, and all the other kids were always so jealous when they found out that Coach Ron was my father.

I was and always will be so proud of him, for all his accomplishments despite a 9th grade education. For teaching me all about nature and to respect all living things. For being the man who could fix anything or build anything, and whose teeth spent every night next to the bathroom sink in a glass. I love you, Dad.

D's son called him today to wish him a happy father's day -- my heart is again filled.

This picture of my Dad and his mother was taken in 1950 when he was just 17.

This is one of my favorite pictures of him; he's where he loves to be, out in nature. It was taken in 1959 when he was 26 and the father of two year-old twin boys.

That's me in Daddy's arms, taken the winter of 1965 when I was a year and a half. Nice shirt, eh? My mother made outfits for my sister and I out of the remnants of that shirt a few years later. Oy.

Here's me and Dad at my wedding in July 2000. It always shocks me when I see how much he looks like what I remember my grandfather to look like now.

==================================================================

We just got back from the farm and Baby Horse Watch 2007 is officially over! Missy's sister Sara decided she just couldn't wait for her due date on the 21st and had her baby last night all by herself. Meet Que Sera Sera, aka Katie, 1 day old. You can't see it in either of these pictures, but she has the same star as her mama, just like Ruby and Roxie. Of course, more pictures to come.

Good News Post - Family

2007-06-16T11:17:00.000-07:00

I know what you're thinking...a good news post about Donna's family? WTF? These miracles do happen occasionally. First, my big brother is coming to visit in a couple of weeks. Big, as in tall, and big, as in 7 years older than me. Now that my other brother is gone I feel like my sister and brother and I are a more cohesive unit. He's a software consultant and is currently working in Orange County (he lives in the Vancouver area), so he's driving up to spend the weekend with us at the end of the month instead of flying home like he usually does. I can't wait to show off at the farm. He knows nothing about horses but loves animals, like all of us kids.

The second family news came out of nowhere; well, actually it came out of Northern Ireland. Back in April my Dad's father's brother's grandson called him from a small town on the Irish Sea near Belfast. If you didn't get that convuluted connection, my grandfather and his were brothers. Probably the best news is his wife runs a B&B and he told me to save my pennies and come and stay as their guest for as long as I wanted!

My Dad told him to call me since I am the current keeper of the family history, so he emailed me and we exchanged pictures, then he called me too. He has a soft accent, much less than I was expecting. We talked for about 45 minutes and he gave me some very interesting tidbits of information, the most surprising of which goes towards my "roots of riding".

It turns out his father and his father and his father and so on back to at least the 15th century were all horsemen, specifically farriers, the guys who shoe the horses. They worked for the very wealthiest families in England and one of those families bought a large piece of land in Northern Ireland and when they moved over they brought my family's ancestors with them to continue to tend their horses. His father still works at a famous thoroughbred breeding farm to this day. He has a daughter who is a land surveyor and a son who is a professional rugby player!

He says we could spend two weeks just in graveyards. He also said you can't speak to the dead, which is why he is making an effort to get to know as much as possible the family that he's just discovered. We've continued to send emails and pictures back and forth since then. I hope he's getting as much of a kick out of this new relationship as I am.

Here's a few pictures from the area where the family has lived for generations, County Down. I just love the rolling green hills and the close proximity to my beloved ocean.

Good News Post - Animals

2007-06-10T11:37:00.000-07:00

The finger is doing much better, although it is stiff and a bit swollen every morning when I wake up (especially if I've ridden the day before) and if you look at it from the side you can see that I can't straighten out the tip completely anymore. It will probably be like this from now on, as any injury after 40 -- humph-- won't heal quite right.
====================================================================
Miss now has staples in the cut in her nose, the stitches in the middle of the cut came loose and she had a pretty big bump there, but it isn't infected and isn't affecting either her appetite (that girl does love her food!) or her performance in the ring. I'm now walking and trotting on my own after a couple of lessons on the lunge line and I am just thrilled with her progress. She will stand at the cross ties for tacking up and at the mounting block like a champ. Willow tells me we are now beyond the point where she was trained before -- 3 years ago -- and she is relishing having a job. She's still a bit of a spaz at the canter, especially to the left, but once she settles in she drops her head. I took my first lesson on June 5th last year...so much has happened in a year! Willow says I was on the accelerated plan.
===================================================================

Ruby is growing like a weed and is becoming quite friendly, which makes it harder to take her picture since she runs right up to me every time she sees me! Here's a shot I took of her imitating her mama Roxie. Missy's big sister Sara is due within the next two weeks. She's huge! Poor thing. This is going to be a very big baby.
====================================================================

After a bit of a health scare in which Tucker lost a lot of weight, his thyroid meds were adjusted down and he is now out of the danger zone. We went to the dog park yesterday. How we all love this place! It's the only off-leash park in our county that is actually a park, as opposed to a cyclone-fenced parking lot with redwood chips and a hose.

More good news to come.

Indelible Ink

2007-06-06T11:02:00.000-07:00

D got his tattoo on Sunday, isn't it fabulous?

Diamond in the Rough

2007-06-01T19:35:00.000-07:00

Owning a horse (a green thoroughbred mare, no less) is a bit like juggling hamsters -- a tad unpredicable. Last Monday I had a good lesson on one of the schooling horses and was just cleaning up my stuff to head up to see Miss when the farm owner whizzes up to me in her golf cart with a worried look on her face. "Missy has a cut on her nose and needs stitches," she blurts out, then speeds off to pick up Willow. I head up to her stall to find a gash in her nose, a vertical cut about 2 inches long.

It seems she was up to her usual trick of trying to steal hay from her pony neighbor by sticking her head through the bottom of the pipe fence between their stalls and cut her nose on a sharp piece of hog wire when she pulled her head out. It wasn't bleeding and she didn't seem to be in any great pain, chowing down on her dinner, so we just cleaned it and left a message for the vet to come in the morning.

I rescheduled a client visit for another day and headed down on Tuesday so I could be there to pay the vet and check on her; I would just be too worried about her all day if I didn't. The cut was a lot deeper than any of us had thought and required a double layer of stitches to close it. She was so brave! He didn't have to anesthetize her, she just stood there and let him put a needle of lidocaine right into the wound then stitch her up. I, on the other hand, got woozy at the sight of that needle and all the blood on the cleaning gauze and had to step away.

I managed to snap this picture of her with her nice shaved nose with purple stitches. D said she looks like a moose! I had a carrot in my hand and she wouldn't back up so you get the extreme closeup shot.

Here's a picture of my new necklace as well. You can hate me, just a little bit, if you want.

Baby Steps

2007-05-28T19:38:00.000-07:00

The monkeys in my head have been furiously writing blog posts, at times keeping me awake and at times taking my concentration away from whatever else it was I was supposed to be doing – working, or even worse, driving. Time has been at a premium lately, and typing with my left index finger and my right hand stifled my creativity for a bit. Now that I am using typing as part of my self-inflicted hand therapy I can get rid of some of the posts taking up precious gray matter.

As I posted before, my trainer Willow got on Miss for the first time on April 6. Since then she has continued to work diligently with her and, thanks in large part to her hard work, I was able to get on her myself on May 20. If I hadn’t broken my finger I think it would have been a little earlier, but nonetheless, right on track based on the timetable we had set up back in January.

You’ll note there are no exclamation points in that last paragraph. Honestly, that first ride was more than a little discouraging. I hesitate to call it a ride; I literally got on her and walked around the arena a few times. I think my trainer was a bit nervous because she hadn't been ridden in a week and my finger still hampers my left hand's reining capabilities. Willow makes it look easy, but I see now that she needs a lot more training before she is able to understand and be able to do what I am asking her to do. Of course, I knew that she was green when we started this process, and I know that for a 7 year-old who hadn’t been ridden in 3 years she is making remarkably quick progress, but…well, this is all about me, isn’t it?

If I do say so myself, I am riding pretty well on the horses they use for lessons, which are by default very well trained. But riding Miss is a whole different story, I feel like I am learning to ride all over again. I must say that she is extremely comfortable to sit on, which in the long run is pretty darned important.

I think there was just too much emotion built in to that moment. That morning before we went to the farm D and I had breakfast with a friend then wandered two doors down to an upscale jewelry store that was having a big sale. A necklace caught both of our eyes and we walked out a few minutes later with a tear-shaped white gold pendant with a quarter carat diamond at the tip. It’s absolutely gorgeous, an early birthday present and to help celebrate The First Ride. Just a little pressure, not much.

The next day I had a lesson in the late evening. I was just packing up my stuff when we heard a great racket from the birthing stall. Willow immediately knew that the pregnant mare was “casting”, meaning she had laid down and was unable to get her feet under her in order to stand, and was kicking the fence of her stall. I stifled the urge to say, “You mean she’s fallen and she can’t get up?”, instead giving the experts there a few minutes before I headed over to check on her, where I witnessed the last push and pull and the arrival of a perfect foal. It was remarkably quick (less than 5 minutes), and remarkably clean. I suspect you don’t want a huge Come Eat My Baby, She’s Right Here mess out in the wild. The umbilical cord broke the first time the mare stood up, since working scissors without opposable thumbs would be a bit of a challenge. Within 90 minutes the filly was standing up and taking her first wobbly steps, her legs completely out of proportion to the rest of her. Geez, it takes us humans, what, a year to stand up?

Ruby is criminally cute, as you can see by the first of many pictures I’ll share with you. She is one week old today and is thriving. As you can see she has the same unusual blaze as her mother.

Yesterday Willow lunged Miss then brought her over to the mounting block to get on. It took her a good 5 minutes to get her to stand still. I was not so secretly glad that Willow was having so much trouble, otherwise when it happened to me I would have thought it was my inexperience. Miss was very quiet and Willow was able to walk, trot and even canter (for only the second time) so when I got on we walked for a bit, then Willow put the lunge line back on her bridle and we trotted, which made it feel like I could actually call this A Ride.

If you want to see a short video of me posting at her gorgeously floating trot, let me know in the comments and I'll email it to you, I'm not going to put it up on you YouTube.

Figure Eight

2007-05-18T19:33:00.000-07:00

I’ve always like the way the number 8 looks. As Schoolhouse Rock so poetically put it, it’s a circle that turns round upon itself, and if you place it on its side it's a symbol meaning infinity.

Our beloved big yellow dog Bailey turns 8 today. All of our animals were born in 1999, that was the year we moved to the mountains where we now live, a very good year as it turned out. He's my very first dog and has been a joy since the day we brought him home.

Here are some of my favorite pictures of him, and a dog-related song from Tori Amos' new album, American Doll Posse.

Tori Amos -- You Can Bring Your Dog mp3 (right click, Save Target As)

Mood Swing

2007-05-12T12:40:00.000-07:00

My sister has bi-polar disorder, which used to be called manic depression. It didn’t manifest itself until she was in her early 20s, specifically one weekend when she was with me in Seattle. Her usual shy and quiet demeanor was taken over by a personality that didn’t need sleep or food, one who thought nothing of buying expensive jewelry using a closed checking account or convincing a car salesman to let her “test drive” a car by herself, which she then drove 100 miles. I called her husband and our father, who drove down from Vancouver, helped me find her and wrestled her into the back of Dad’s car, she literally kicking and screaming. I was scared out of my mind with worry and fear, fear for her and also for myself – was this what was in store for me? She’s been on lithium ever since, more than 20 years, with a brief interlude during her pregnancy 16 years ago, which landed her back in the psych ward right before and after the birth of her son.

I also suffer from both anxiety and depression, but the swing from one to the other isn’t quick and my anxiety doesn’t have manic tendencies. Regardless, mental illness is something I’ve been dealing with my whole life, first vicariously through my mother and now with my own issues. I’ve done a lot of research but most of the writing is so dull I can’t take much of it, so I’ve been enjoying the book Halfway House by Katharine Noel, which tells the story of a teenager who literally goes off the deep end (to the bottom of a pool), and is diagnosed as bi-polar. The story is told from her perspective as well as those of her parents and brother, I’d recommend it.

The last book I read was called Madeleine is Sleeping by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum. This is without a doubt the least linear book I’ve ever read, and although it was frustrating at times to my ordered mind, I appreciate how difficult it is to come up with a method of story-telling that is unique, and the imagery is incomparable.

Here is the first “chapter” in its entirety (if you’ll forgive the indulgence):

hush

Hush, mother says. Madeleine is sleeping. She is so beautiful when she sleeps, I do not want to wake her.

The small sisters and brothers creep about the bed, their gestures of silence becoming magnified and languorous, fingers floating to pursed lips, tip toes rising and descending as if weightless. Circling about her bed, their frantic activity slows; they are like tiny insects suspended in sap, kicking dreamily before they crystallize into amber. Together they inhale softly and the room fills with one endless exhalation of breath: Shhhhhhhhhhhhh.

From there the book goes back and forth between Madeleine's dreams and how the family deals with a member in perpetual sleep.

As I mentioned in my last post, typing with just the index finger on my left hand has hampered my ability not just to type, but to think, it seems. I’ve been depressed on and off, frustrated at how long it is taking for my finger to heal and anxious that I still can’t bend the joint. As with all things, you never know the true value of something until you no longer have it (or the use of it, in this case).

I still have two pieces of good news to share, but they will have to wait for another day, I have to go see Miss now.

Interview Questions

2007-05-12T11:52:00.000-07:00

I apologize for taking so long to get these up, I was in Texas for five days last week for a business conference. I don't know how those of you who live in humid climates do it, is there some secret for not sweating profusely if you're outside for more than 2 minutes? The evening outing at this conference was at a ranch (naturally), and they put on a decent little rodeo for us, you can't even tell from this picture how sticky I am!

For those who are playing along I hope you will forgive me for giving the same questions to everyone. Typing is a frustrating challenge (I’m used to being able to type as fast as I think) and besides, I think these are good questions. So for anyone who wants to answer, put them up on a post on your blog and let me know so I can go and read your answers.

Question 1: Why do you blog?

Question 2: Is there an event or relationship from your life that you would say helped to define you as an adult?

Question 3: Is there something you cannot currently do that you would like to be able to?

Question 4: What makes you laugh?

Question 5: If you could travel back through time and view any moment, what would it be, and why?

Step Up to the Mike

2007-05-04T15:49:00.000-07:00

Molly over at Holamole’ grabbed a meme from one of her readers and I jumped in and asked to be interviewed. Here are her questions and my answers.

1. Being originally from Canada do you think you’ll ever move back there? Why or why not?
I’ve never had any real yearning to move back to Canada, I’ve been gone for nearly 20 years now so it doesn’t feel like home anymore. When I was there I lived in the suburbs of Vancouver and I definitely would not want to move back there, so if we were to move to that area it would be to a totally different environment. I do love Vancouver Island and could see myself there; my Dad and a favorite aunt and cousins are there and there is a big swath of Pacific Ocean and a ferry ride between me and my mother.

2. Since you are a relatively new horsewoman do you have any advice for other women wanting to make the leap for the first time in their adulthood?
Just do it! Don’t think you are too old to start something new. Find a place where they teach other beginners of all ages, a place you don’t feel uncomfortable and give yourself some time to make progress.

3. How do you imagine your life with Missy 10 years from now?
I’d like to think she and I would be able to do anything together – jumping, trail rides, even therapy work (I already do therapy work with one of our dogs).

4. We’ve got similar taste in movies (from your profile.) What is the last movie you saw that made you include it in your short list? Any obscure movies that you loved?
The last movie that made the list was either Chocolat or The English Patient, nothing I’ve seen recently has really rocked my world. Probably the most obscure movie that DID rock my world was Closet Land, starring Alan Rickman and Madeleine Stowe, and only those two. It isn’t for the faint of heart, and for someone with abuse in their background at times it is almost unbearable to watch, but the performances are incredible.

5. What are the ups and downs of having a step-son?
Honestly there has been no down-side. We gained more of a young adult friend than a step-son, he doesn’t ask anything of us and we have a very easy and friendly relationship. It still makes me almost giddy to be with him, he looks so much like his father and they are so alike, in all the best ways, my heart just swells with love and gratitude that he chose to allow us into his life.

If you'd like to play, leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.” I will respond by asking you five questions in the comments here on this post so check back here. I get to pick the questions. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions, and so on...

From the Inside

2007-04-28T11:52:00.000-07:00

X-rays freak me out a little bit. It’s not so much the thought of radiation, although it never feels good to have the tech leave the room while I’m stuck under the machine with a lead skirt on, its more the idea of looking inside myself. More of an existential issue than a physical one. I even sound nutty to myself sometimes.

I’ve had three x-rays of my left hand now and there’s been no healing yet, according to the ortho doc, but he said that’s normal with fingers. Your body goes through a process and the bone itself is the last part of it. I have a purple stripe of a bruise across the joint on the underside, while the rest of the finger turned a sickly green color, most of which is gone now. It doesn’t hurt if I keep the splint on straight and tight and remember to elevate it before it starts to throb. Every once in a while I will forget enough to try something I shouldn’t and I am reminded that I have a broken finger, like tightening a girth, for example. The ortho doc wants to see me one more time in three weeks to check on the healing progress and possibly get rid of the splint.

Part of the radiologist’s write-up reads “…there is mild palmar angulation of the head of the third middle phalanx.” One of you nurses out there correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that means my finger is crooked. The doc said it will probably always be that way.

I rode yesterday for the first time since the incident, almost two weeks. That might have been a bit premature, it was very difficult to control the left rein, but I didn't want to wait any longer to ride again. As it was I could feel my body wasn't hitting the right positions and my legs weren’t under me enough. We are going to try to do a light lesson this weekend sometime on the gray horse Tommy (who I rode yesterday), he's about the easiest horse outside of a pony there.

I also had a mammogram recently and just received the results: the girls are OK.

Comments on the Comments

2007-04-22T12:25:00.000-07:00

I’m now able to type with both hands, I just can’t use the broken finger, so I am typing like my Dad at the moment. Many things are difficult; it’s more frustrating than painful. My darling husband helped me wash and dry my hair last night, what a sweetheart.

Going back to my Death and Taxes post, Callie advised against taking the drug I mentioned. In truth when I said I’d be willing to try it that was more for the purposes of the post than a pre-cursor to a phone call to my doctor. It would be interesting to have insight into how my thinking patterns on everyday life would be different if everything wasn’t filtered through the dark lenses of my past, but I’m far too concerned about side effects to actually take a drug like that. Drug use was a part of my abuse; also my own history of being misdiagnosed and given inappropriate and/or dangerous drugs and my mother’s hypochondria and rampant prescription drug addiction make me very hesitant to take any drug.

Cricket referenced specific treatments for PTSD. According to his bio, my last therapist is a member of the California Psychological Association, Obsessive Compulsive Foundation and EMDR International Association, and is certified as a Cognitive-Behavioral Therapist, Clinical Hypnotherapist, Expert in Traumatic Stress and Addictions Counselor. He did some EMDR sessions with me (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), and they were helpful. At the time I was basically house-bound with panic attacks and depression, and he brought me back to functioning again. Most of the time I feel quite normal, presenting what I think are normal responses to sad, stressful or happy events, but when the deep recesses are accessed through a trigger I just have to wade through it. This will be a lifelong pattern.

Sarah thanked me for being brave enough to talk about things so personal in such a public forum. I appreciate the comment but in truth I don’t feel brave at all, I feel selfish. The Mother Voice in my head starts berating me -- Who the hell wants to hear about your crap? You’re just looking for sympathy! Get over yourself, etc.

For a very long time I kept many many secrets, fearful of the repercussions of talking, so talking or writing about my experiences is liberating and cathartic. I’m not here to be a poster child for anything, but I also know from living inside the cage that it can be helpful to others to hear or read about a similar story to their own, to know, as Rising Rainbow and Sally indicated, that you are not alone.

I have a couple more posts in the works, both good news, but for today I will leave you with some more spring flowers, purple-themed.

Now With 100% More Painkillers - Updated

2007-04-16T18:38:00.000-07:00

Thank you for all your comments. I would like to respond to them all, but unfortunately I broke the middle finger of my left hand yesterday and typing with one hand is a tedious process.

Short version: it was very windy and Miss was spooking in the crossties. I grabbed her halter in an attempt to settle her and just at that moment the door to the tack room 3 feet in front of her slammed shut and she reared. My fingers were caught between the halter and her nose chain. When I got my hand out the segment of the middle finger above the upper joint was at a 45 degree angle. Not.a.good.thing. I instinctively shook my hand very hard a couple times and that helped with the angle but it still looked crooked. Then I noticed a piece of skin along the outside of my little finger was thrashed and it was bleeding. Then I felt dizzy and had to lay down.

Miss is fine. Finger is splinted and taped to ring finger. X-ray showed break right at the joint. Waiting for referral to orthopedist. I guess I'll be pretty famous at the barn now!
==========================================================

Saw ortho today, weird old guy. He said I did "a fine job" of breaking my finger, but that he wouldn't recommend surgery (thank God). He gave me a clear plastic high-tech splint to wear to try to help straighten out the end of my finger, and wants another x-ray taken in a week to check on progress. He said to wear the splint for 5 weeks! I'm going to go crazy typing with one hand for that long, don't expect any wordy posts for a while.

I went to visit Miss yesterday and found out that the best rider at the farm broke her collar bone and suffered a concussion in a bucking incident/fall yesterday. They haven't had an injury in over 5 years, now two broken bones in less than a week. I hope I didn't start a really bad trend.

Death and Taxes

2007-04-13T20:57:00.000-07:00

We all have anniversaries in our lives, some we look forward to with great anticipation, while others we wish we could forget entirely. As a person who has lived through a lot of trauma, sadness and fear, unfortunately many of my memories are those in the latter category. I’ve spent a lot of time in therapy and will probably be on the Blue Happy Pills the rest of my life, and I’m OK with that. I read several articles today about research into using the beta-blocker drug propranolol to help lessen the intensity of memories in people who have been diagnosed as having PTSD. This one is a good representative.

Clearly this topic is in the media right now due to the many soldiers coming back from the war zones in the Middle East having survived physically but with broken minds. I’ve lived with my memories for so long now I can’t really imagine what it would be like to have their power lessened, although I would be willing to find out.

I realized today that I had let one of my anniversaries slide by without my noticing: the date of my abortion. Not that I don’t remember the date, I do, it was March 21, but for whatever reason this March 21st I did not think of it, not once. I suppose you could count that as progress, I would call it a delayed reaction as I did think of it today.

This year the government has given you until April 17th to file your tax return, and this corresponds with the 2nd anniversary of my brother’s death in a car accident.

I continue to grieve. I mourn so many things… the loss my mother feels for her beloved son, my brother the loss of his twin, and (perhaps selfishly) those years I lost thinking I was weak or sick or accountable, and the very real loss of the ability to resolve anything – my anger and sadness at his inability to take responsibility, my fractured relationship with him and how that bleeds onto my relationships with others within the family...so many things.

Sometimes I feel whole, I take a breath and don’t expect the air to come whistling out of the cracks, but sometimes I feel irreparably broken, and no amount of time or love or therapy is going to fix me.

You probably have heard by now that the great American writer Kurt Vonnegut died this week. This is the image from his site. Some day I hope to join you, Mr. Vonnegut, out of the cage.

Play It Loud

2007-04-11T14:15:00.000-07:00

I heard Rocco DeLuca and the Burden on Jimmy Kimmel Live a while back and I fell in love with the song Colorful. It's been on constant rotation ever since I downloaded it. I can really get behind the lyrics as well (verses only):

You swim like you're on fire
Live like your last day
Drink like it's water
There's no tomorrow
And you think no one can hear you
Raise your hands to be called on
You know all the answers

You dance like no one's watching
Sing 'till the song ends
Then you sing some more
And we can hardly believe it
Words that flow from your mouth
Drink like it's water

You are an enigma walking
Make no excuses for the way that you carry on
And we can hardly believe it
The words that flow from your mouth
Drink like it's water, girl

Go to VH1, scroll down a bit to You Oughta Know: Rocco DeLuca & The Burden link and play the full-length video. And turn it up.

What's your current Play It Loud song?

The Mane Event

2007-04-09T14:49:00.000-07:00

Seems me and my horse have something in common: naturally thick hair. At the farm where she lives the horses that are ridden English have their manes pulled or cut to between 4 and 5 inches, ostensibly to keep them above the rein line. Because Missy’s mane is so thick, having it this short causes some problems (in my view). First, I think it looks terrible, all choppy and uneven. Second, you can brush it all you want but the moment she shakes her head it naturally parts half-way down her neck, the upper part laying on the left and the bottom part laying on the right. Did I mention I think it looks terrible? I kept meaning to tell my trainer not to pull it again, so last week when I went down and saw that it had been pulled, I finally told her that I wanted her to leave it alone so I could see what it looked like a little bit longer, maybe it would all sit on the right like it’s supposed to that way. After an awkward moment of silence during which she physically stiffened, she said quietly, but with emphasis, “English horses don’t have long manes!” As I was walking away with Miss I said over my shoulder, with good humor, but with emphasis, “Well, she’s not an English horse, she’s MY horse, and for now we’re going to leave her mane alone.” She followed me for a bit, explaining that you don’t want the mane long enough to get caught up in the reins, blah blah, but I stuck to my guns. During my next lesson she said she would show me how to thin it out so it would sit better on her neck. I don’t want it to look like my friend old Walter here, I just want it to look natural.

At least my farm doesn’t crop the tails! As you can see she has a beautiful tail (does this horse make my butt look big?). For those less fortunate horses there are always tail extensions. You can also get mane and forelock extensions, but in general those look very fake, even to my untrained eye.

Two weekends ago I went with the lovely Coloratura to the first hunter/jumper show at Pebble Beach and was very pleased and surprised to see all age categories represented, from kids on adorable ponies to women over 50 in the jumper and equitation classes. I suppose there’s time for me to compete yet, should I decide to go that route.

As I mentioned in my last post, last weekend I went to the Grand National Rodeo and boy howdy, what a different crowd that was from Pebble Beach! The thing I love about Western folks is they aren’t afraid to wear all the regalia and they don’t feel the least bit ridiculous doing so. There were some pretty damn hot cowboys there; too bad I’m not single and about 20 years younger! I almost bought a pair of Ariat cowboy boots and now I’m kicking myself for not getting them, they were so beautiful and comfortable.

The “mane event” of the title (sorry, couldn’t resist) happened on Good Friday: my trainer Willow actually got on Missy’s back. She had told me before that Miss hadn’t been ridden in about a year and a half, but she looked back in her notes and now says its closer to 3 years. She’s been lunging her with all her tack on for several weeks. She lunged her and she seemed fairly quiet so she put her helmet on (something she rarely does) and quietly got on. Miss just stood there like it had happened yesterday, then walked and trotted as asked. She does throw her head around a fair bit so we may have to put a martingale on her for a while, but overall both Willow and I were very pleased. Mama’s so proud! When I took her in January we talked about me being able to ride her by about May. Looks like we’re right on track.

Photos of the Day - Easter Edition

2007-04-08T16:42:00.000-07:00

I took these yesterday at the Grand National Rodeo in San Francisco. Damn, now I want a lamb (or two)!

The Harshest Cut

2007-04-01T11:51:00.000-07:00

I found out last Monday that a friend has breast cancer and is having a single mastectomy tomorrow. She's my age (early 40s), single, no family close-by. She was pretty nonchalant when she announced to everyone, saying she didn't want anyone to feel sorry for her or make a big deal of it.

I literally cannot stop thinking about her and what she must be going through. Like most women I have a love/hate relationship with my breasts. They are small, always have been, so of course I always wished they were bigger, even just a little bit. Despite their size, or perhaps because of it, they are perfectly round, symmetrical and, if I do say so myself, rather pretty. I like them. I'd like to keep them.

She's about to have a part of her body removed. Yes, she will have reconstructive surgery and eventually, hopefully, noone will be the wiser. But she will always know there is a part of her that is missing, and what is there in it's stead isn't real.

I don't have any personal experience with cancer of any kind, and know nothing about mastectomy other than what I've researched this week, and I hope I never do. I have a slip in my purse for a mammogram. I'm making an appointment tomorrow.

Directionally Challenged

2007-03-24T19:37:00.000-07:00

I have mild dyslexia and it manifests itself in a very specific way: I have trouble with left and right. If I had a dime for every time someone has said to me, “No, your OTHER left” (or right), I would have a whole lot of dimes. Seriously, I have to really think about it and half the time I get it wrong anyway. I’m one of those people who have to turn a map around until it matches the direction that I’m going or I just can’t follow it. I’m better without a map but even then, if my directions say TURN LEFT I have to really think about which way that is and get in the appropriate lane. I almost failed my California driving test because I was going to turn right when the guy asked me to turn left. D’oh.

You’d think after spending half my life marching and teaching marching (in bands and drum corps), where you always step off with the left foot, I would have figured it out, but noooooooooo.

Speaking of directions, if you ask D how to get somewhere he will invariably give you what I call Boy Directions. For example: go north on Baker Street for 3 blocks then turn southwest onto Thunder Road, follow for half a mile. As opposed to the directions that I would give (Girl Directions): turn left on Baker Street, when you see the big yellow house turn right on Thunder Road, the driveway is on the right after the big oak tree.

What the hell does “go north” mean, anyway? Let me just whip out my handy-dandy compass or GPS and I’ll be right there.

Anyway, my point here is that my problem with left and right has seeped into my riding. My trainer will say, shorten up your right rein a little bit, and I’ll go to shorten up my left, you get the picture. More specifically, this affects my posting to the trot. When you post to the trot, you rise up out of the saddle for one beat, and then sit down in the saddle again for one beat, while gripping with your knees to stay on, so you aren’t being bounced around mercilessly.

If you haven’t guessed by now, I’m having trouble posting to the correct “diagonal”. As the horse's front outside leg (the closest to the fence) goes forward, you should be rising in the saddle. As that leg goes back you should be sitting in the saddle, and so forth. The horse moves its legs in diagonal pairs at the trot; that's why it's called "posting on the diagonal". This is one of those things that you just have to keep practicing until you get it right, I guess, and I’ve heard and read a lot of people have trouble with this. The weird thing is, when I think I am on the right diagonal based on looking down at the horse’s front leg, I’m always wrong. So today my trainer said, stop looking and just feel it, and I was actually right more of the time than not, but I think it’s a 50/50 chance and sometimes the dice rolls more in my favor.

Does anyone has any tricks of the trade to help me with this?

I lunged Miss today and she started out fine but got spooked by something and started racing around in a tiny circle, then when I tried to slow her down she stopped facing me and reared up. Not.a.good.thing. Especially for a horse who is still recovering from some mystery infection and swelling in the legs. I made her walk to calm her down then threw in the towel. I washed her hind legs (which are still a little swollen) with beta-dine scrub just as a precaution. We’ll see how she is tomorrow.

On a happier note, Spring has arrived and the flowering cherry in front of the house has brought forth her lovely pink blossoms overnight. I took these pictures last Spring.

Follow Up

2007-03-19T13:33:00.000-07:00

My thanks to everyone who voiced their concern for me and for Miss. She’s doing much better, has her appetite back but is still a little foot sore and two of her legs are still a little swollen. This little episode pushed back once again the start date for Willow getting on her back, but I guess there’s no hurry. I’m just becoming a little impatient to ride my own horse. I do everything else except ride her! Willow is letting me ride on my own now and I’ve been riding my new friend Tommy, the flea-bitten gray I talked about before. He’s such a sweetheart, one of those bomb-proof horses supposedly, although he is half quarter horse and half Arabian, so he can sometimes spook at the little things (like small pigs).

Following up on some other questions that have come up in the comments lately:

DinoD and Thalia asked about my letting go of the infertile label. Honestly it doesn’t make me feel any better about our childlessness, but it does somehow make me feel better about myself. You would think it would be the other way around, if I kept the infertile label, that would have meant that it was “out of my hands”, whereas if I just waited too long, that was my decision. Go figure -- another paradox. As they say, living well is the best revenge, and I’m really trying to do that.

DinoD also asked about Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. First, let me say that the author did a wonderful job in getting the voice just right. The book is written in retrospect when the narrator is an 80 year-old woman, recounting her life in rural China in the 19th century. This was during the time of foot-binding and arranged marriages, and reading of the women’s inferior status even after marriage was difficult for me. A successful foot-binding resulted in a foot no more than 7 centimeters long, about the size of an average man’s thumb. A foot of 14 centimeters was considered big. I can’t imagine how painful it must have been to have all your toes broken underneath your foot and then be forced to walk on it for hours on end. Once married the women were expected to produce sons, and if they just had daughters, or even worse, no children at all, their lives were even more difficult. The one extravagance they indulged in was a secret language called nu shu, a way for the women to communicate without their husband’s knowledge. I’d recommend this book for its historical voice and insights into friendship and hardship.

I’m currently reading House of Sand and Fog but I’m not really enjoying it that much. The fact that it takes place in the Bay Area is a bit of a plus but I’m finding it pretty slow moving. D and I got gift cards from a national bookseller for Christmas and I already spent them both on 9 new books! Now I have to decide which one to read next.

Finally, Ramona indicated she could get behind only having 4 periods a year. For those of you who are interested in the prescription I'll be taking, you can get more information directly from the manufacturer here, or read more on this here blog.

Good News & Bad News

2007-03-16T20:02:00.000-07:00

Today was turning out to be a banner day.

I had my annual physical on Wednesday. My new friend Perry Men-O-Pause is kicking my ass, so I asked my doctor if I could go on continuous birth control to cut down on the symptoms. If I have to be on the pill (to keep my endometriosis in check), I might as well take advantage of the technology that exists and only have 4 periods per year instead of 12. Contrary to popular belief, it is not medically necessary to have a period every month. Not only did my doctor agree, she faxed in the Rx right away and my insurance is going to cover it at the same co-pay as my other BCPs.

Her office called today to say all my labs came back normal, including thyroid, Pap and cholesterol, which was a little high last year.

This afternoon we got our tax package back from our accountant and we owe a little bit for Federal and are getting a little refund from State. We were worried that we had not paid nearly enough in estimated taxes so this was a huge relief.

To celebrate all this good news I decided to go down to the farm. I just got home. I cried all the way.

Something is wrong with Missy. My trainer and the vet think she has some sort of infection and it is manifesting itself as extreme soreness and swelling in all four legs. Poor thing, she was in so much pain she didn't eat until dinner, and she usually has a very good appetite. She wouldn't walk all day either. My trainer wrapped her legs and gave her antibiotics and pain medication and she finally ate a little bit of dinner. She ate the treats I brought her and ate a little bit of hay, but she definitely is still in pain. After I left her stall she laid down in the soft sawdust. That about broke my heart to leave her laying down like that. My trainer is going to check on her early tomorrow morning and call the vet to make sure we shouldn't be giving her some other kind of medication. This happened to her big sister Somerset last year, just came on all of a sudden and after 3 or 4 days of antibiotics she was OK. I am hopeful this will be the case with Miss as well.

I was hoping I could get through more than a couple of months of horse ownership without a health crisis. Damn, I wasn't expecting to get so upset, when Willow told me what was going on I took it all in and asked appropriate questions, but when I went up and saw her I just lost it. I longed her pretty hard yesterday and I immediately wondered if this was my fault. I'd appreciate any of you horsey types telling me your success story if you've had something like this happen with your horse.

A Year in a (Blog) Life

2007-03-12T19:51:00.000-07:00

Saturday was the one year anniversary for A Velvet Cage. I felt like I had limped along long enough at my old blog, which was primarily the story of our fertility efforts. I wanted a new (darker) look and feel, and a broader focus. Incidentally, I no longer consider myself to be infertile, I think I just missed my window.

I'll continue to meander about, writing about books and music and horses and dogs and whatever else strikes my fancy or gets my dander up. Thanks for coming along for the ride.

The Cost of Living

2007-03-09T20:15:00.000-08:00

Despite the fact that I work in the financial business we have our taxes done by a professional. Not because it’s a particularly difficult return, far from it, I’m sure if we set our minds to it we could do it ourselves using a tax program. The fact is, I spend so much time dealing with other people’s money and taxes I don’t even want to think about doing my own return. Since the cost of tax preparation is a deduction from year to year, I figure we paid for his services once and now the fee just gets rolled forward. Or something like that.

D and I went through this year’s questionnaire last week and filled in the boxes for our earnings, attaching the 1099s and W2s. Where the hell did all that money go? Tens of thousands of dollars! We do all our banking online and if I glance at just a month’s worth of transactions its very easy to see where it all goes – groceries, gas and the on-going monthly bills eats most of it up.

I’ve been through some very lean times in my life, when I knew where every penny was and where it was going, my checkbook always balanced. Now I am lucky enough to know that, under normal circumstances, I don’t have to worry about how much money I spend, there will always be some left over. My sister and her husband don’t write anything in their check register for the same reason.

This is a huge life change. We aren’t very organized or frugal, we pay just enough attention to make sure we don’t pay bills late or go into overdraft. When did we get so nonchalant about money? When we no longer had to watch where every penny was and where it was going. I just got a substantial raise when I switched from hourly to salary, but I would bet you there won’t be a substantial increase in the money left over in the accounts from now on. We spend what we make.

Is this a bad thing? How many of you have a budget and stick to it? We put money into the savings account when we can, but inevitably it gets transferred back to checking when a big expense comes up. In the last two weeks D got new tires for his SUV and I had major service on my car that involved a new catalytic converter and a rental car for a week, but it will be paid for by the end of the month.

I’m in my early 40s and D’s in his late 40s, should we be more worried about retirement? We both have old and current 401ks and lots of life insurance. I spent the last 40 years worried about my past, I don’t want to spend the next 25 worried about my future.

Life Lessons from the Barn

2007-02-25T22:11:00.000-08:00

I’ve been invited to submit a post to the Horse Lover’s Blog Carnival, this week being hosted by Patricia at Experiments in Training Equines. The description says: Equines have a way of teaching us what we need to know. This carnival is dedicated to the times when equines have taught US a thing or two.

As a novice rider and horse owner I’m afraid I have no innovations to impart, maybe someday…but I can share the things that I have learned not only from the horses but from the act of taking on the role of equestrienne. For anyone who rides none of these will be news, but perhaps it’s good to reiterate them anyway. Looking back at the list it looks like lessons we should have learned in kindergarten. We are always in school.

Leave your troubles at the gate. If you’re anxious or sad or (especially) angry, then maybe put off riding until you can get your emotions in check. When I first started I was treating the horse like the elliptical at the gym, a place where I could let my mind wander – boy was that a wrong idea!

Be prepared. There’s a lot of stuff to haul around and take care of with riding. Not just your tack, but all the little things that you need to have at hand when you need them. More than once I’ve put a horse in the cross ties only to realize I didn’t have the right brush or a towel, so I had to leave the horse to retrieve the item.

A little goes a long way. This goes for almost everything from shampoo to your aids. You can always add more, but you can’t take back.

Be careful. If you’re lucky like I am you are around horses that are well-trained and love people, but they are large animals and it’s up to us to keep ourselves out of harm’s way – I’ve been stepped on a few times and it puts a real damper on your day.

If you fall, get up. Get up, but take your time. Take a minute to pull yourself together and make sure you aren’t injured, but if it’s at all possible, get back on your horse (assuming they are also OK).

Be respectful. At my barn there isn’t a lot of security and trust plays a huge part in our community. Never borrow someone else’s stuff without asking, even if you’ve done it in the past with their blessing. Keep your tack and other equipment clean and clean up after yourself and your horse. Get to know what's appropriate for each horse that's around you with regard to contact. Some owners don't like others just coming up and putting their hands on their horse, and its always a good idea to get to know a horse a little bit before you make contact.

Be aware of changes in your horse’s body and demeanor. I’m still getting to know my horse, and I rely on my trainer to let me know if something happened while I wasn’t there, but you should be the main caretaker for your horse, body and mind.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. As I’ve said before, sometimes it feels like the learning curve I’m on is so steep I’m bound to lose my balance. Nobody ever learns everything there is to know, that’s impossible. There’s no such thing as a dumb question.

Get to know your neighbors. Both my human and equine neighbors at the barn are an integral part of my experience and I make a point to introduce myself and keep the communication alive. My horse is around these other horses every day and I should be comfortable with them if I expect her to be, ditto for their people.

Every day I learn something from other bloggers and from my general reading and my time at the barn. I hope some of these points have been at least a good reminder and perhaps a nice memory of when you were just starting out, how wonderful yet terrifying it can be.

Communiqué du Jour

2007-02-22T19:04:00.000-08:00

No special reason for the French title, I just thought it sounded better than “News Flash”. Once in a while I like to pass on news that’s interesting to me that I hope you will also find interesting. Let’s see…totally random order:

One of my favorite characters on Grey’s Anatomy, Dr. Addison Montgomery, ex-wife of Derek Shepherd (aka McDreamy), is getting her own show. The spin-off hasn’t been named yet but the 2-hour pilot will likely air in May, giving the network some time to make the decision to include it on its fall schedule. Any guesses for names for the new show? I think she is just gorgeous.

Speaking of gorgeous, you've probably seen the media hype surrounding Daniel Radcliffe's performance in Equus on the London stage. He's a bit skinny for my taste but I applaud him for breaking out of the mold we've put him in.

From the back cover of the paperback of the play, published in 1975: “In Equus…Peter Shaffer depicts the story of a deranged youth who blinds six horses with a spike. Through a psychiatrist’s analysis of the events, Shaffer creates a chilling portrait of how materialism and convenience have killed our capacity for worship and passion and, consequently, our capacity for pain. Rarely has a playwright created an atmosphere and situation that so harshly pinpoint the spiritual and mental decay of modern man.” I’ve never seen nor read the play, but my interest is now piqued, and not just because little Harry Potter grew up to be Parry Hotter.

Hallmark has just come out with a new line of cards called Journeys that are getting mixed reviews. I must not be the only person standing in front of the car rack thinking, they just don’t make a card for what I’m trying to say. Most of the time that’s because they don’t have a Mother’s Day card for a mother who was emotionally toxic and wielded a rubber strap, or a congratulations card for the woman who just had my father’s baby who also happens to be his first cousin.

Yes, there is an infertility/miscarriage card (like they are the same thing?), and like most of these cards, they don’t mention the actual event, but you get the idea from the context.

This isn’t a terrible idea, although in most cases I think it would be better to buy a blank card and put in a simple personal message to the recipient. There are some good tips on the Hallmark site under the heading “More You Can Do”, besides sending one of their cards:

** Give your friend two mugs and her favorite coffee or tea. Then make a date to stop by and listen.
** Offer to help out with specific everyday tasks: grocery shopping, filling up and washing the car, shuttling the kids around, pet- or plant-sitting or caring for the yard.
** Work with their circle of friends to provide regular meals in disposable containers—drop them off in an insulated cooler to keep them warm or cold. If you don’t cook, chip in to schedule the delivery of pre-made or frozen meals from a catering service.

Finally an update from the barn. I promised I would post a picture of my new (used) Pessoa saddle if I kept it, and I’m not sending this baby back! The saddle I’ve been using since last summer is the saddle used for everybody who doesn’t have their own, i.e. the people taking lessons or leasing. It’s OK, but too big for me and very flat with no padding. My Pessoa is the right size and has tons of padding, not to mention it’s beautiful and looks great on Missy. I ordered these adjustable stirrups, my trainer recommended them because I have arthritis in my knees. The stirrups the saddle came with are a child’s size and are just a tad too small for me. I also ordered expensive Beval Italian calfskin leathers. I hope everything lasts me for a good long time, I tend to have expensive tastes but I think there are some things you shouldn’t scrimp on. Like the tack I am relying on.

I’m exercising Miss on a longe line by myself now, another thing that’s not as easy as it looks. She’s very good and loves to move, but when I make a mistake she lets me know. It’s very easy to get in front of her, especially when she gets going, and she ends up getting spooked and stopping because she doesn’t understand what I am asking her to do. I apologize and say, “Sorry honey, operator error.” She continues to snuggle her way into my heart and I’ve been carrying around pictures of her in my purse since we got her, showing her off to anyone who looks remotely interested when I mention her.

Last weekend for my lesson I rode a new horse, a 19 year-old flea-bitten grey named Tommy who looks almost exactly like this mare. I had no idea that was a color of horse! Almost every time I go to the barn I learn something new. Sometimes I think I am on such a steep learning curve I'm bound to slip and lose my footing. More than once I've been overwhelmed by the responsibility and commitment of owning a horse. But then I look at her sweet face and know we will muddle through, together.

In Loving Memory

2007-02-15T18:56:00.000-08:00

I first wrote about my Aunt S. in August 2005 on my old blog. She was born deaf and blind and lived most of her life at Woodlands, a famous (and infamous) institution in the Vancouver, BC suburbs. For some reason it was important to me to find her, even though I'd never met her. The family had lost track of her since my grandmother died. When my Dad and his brother did finally locate her in October 2005, they were making arrangements to meet with her when we got the terrible news of her unexpected death in December of that year.

Since then I've been meaning to read some of Helen Keller's writings to get a first person account of what life is like for someone who is both deaf and blind. I just finished reading The Story of My Life, published over 100 years ago in 1903. It really is a remarkable story and is surprisingly modern in its style and form. I knew the basic story and I saw The Miracle Worker years ago, but I had forgotten many of the interesting facts. I feel like such a slacker after reading that she was able to learn how to read and then later speak not only English, but also French, German and some Latin and graduated magna cum laude from Radcliffe. She was also a life-long dog lover and had many dogs in her life including pit bulls and mastiffs, and is credited with introducing the Akita to America after a puppy was given to her by the Japanese government on one of her several visits there.

This is part of the text on Helen Keller from a site called "Americans Who Tell the Truth"...I haven't looked through it to see what their point of view is, but I found this quote to be especially applicable today: [She is] primarily...remembered for her advocacy for the disabled, but as a member of the Socialist Party, she also strongly supported such groups as the ACLU, IWW, and NAACP, and campaigned for birth control, civil rights, women’s suffrage, and world peace. "We, the people, are not free,” she once said. “Our democracy is but a name. We vote? What does that mean? It means we choose between Tweedledee and Tweedledum. We elect expensive masters to do our work for us, and then blame them because they work for themselves and for their class." There are some who called her a Communist and all sorts of other things I won't repeat here, you can form your own opinion, and my interest was not in her religious or political leanings.

Getting back to my Aunt, if you will forgive me the indulgence I want to share excerpts from the eulogy at her memorial service, given by a supervisor at one of the group homes she lived in:

"She may have been deaf and blind, but she had a strong personality and fought for her independence all her life. When she was at Woodlands she made 30 roommates' beds every day and participated in Day School 5 days a week. She usually walked with a cane from her ward to school by herself. After she moved into the community she continued to help with housework and enjoyed swimming, music, cooking and walking in the neighborhood park, even getting on buses for the first few years until her arthritis forced her into a wheelchair. She was a diligent perfectionist. She liked to dress neatly in her own way. She liked to fix her sleeves with no wrinkles and made beds to the standard of a 5-star hotel. If her work was disturbed by others she would re-do it. She enjoyed jokes and sensed other people's humor accurately many times. She would burst into laughter when others laughed. She was an ordinary woman. She liked to be pretty, to have her nails done or facials just like many other women. She will be missed."

Rest in peace. I will never forget.

The Gentle Warrior

2007-02-12T18:20:00.000-08:00

We sauntered past another milestone in the Cage household over the weekend…my beloved husband attained the rank of “shodan” or first level black belt in the Japanese martial art of Aikido. In simple terms: “It employs locks and holds and utilizes the principle of nonresistance to cause an opponent's own momentum to work against him or her. Aikido emphasizes the importance of achieving complete mental calm and control of one's own body to master an opponent's attack. There are no offensive moves. It traces its origins to Japanese martial (samurai) traditions dating to the 14th century, and it was developed as a modern form in the early 20th century by Ueshiba Morihei.” (from Wikipedia)

As with most things Japanese there is a lot of ceremony that goes with the practice, which makes it very interesting to watch. There was an actual test of techniques in front of a panel of judges, then a ceremony in which the three shodans received their belts and hakama and put them on, and gifts were exchanged. Even though it was pouring all day, about 30 people made their way up the mountain to our house for a pot-luck party after the festivities at the dojo were over.

The fact that he didn’t start training until he was 42 and it only took him 6 years to get his black belt is a testament to his dedication and effort. I’m just so damn proud of him. But, I refuse to wrestle with him anymore, it just isn't a fair fight. He knows a lot of Japanese now too, a useful side effect. In the next few years he hopes to travel to Kyoto with his sensei (teacher) and other students to train and see where it all started. The sensei at his dojo looks like the librarian at your local elementary school, a slight blonde woman in her late 30s with a pony-tail. Many of the most accomplished practitioners of this art are women.

Here’s the kanji, or calligraphic symbols for Ai, Ki and Do, which means harmony, spirit and the path or way, respectively. D’s planning on getting his first tattoo of the kanji to celebrate this event, he’s not sure where its going to go yet. Cool, huh?

Here's a little demonstration video if you're interested, and yes, that is a lady throwing that big guy around like he was a wet noodle.

Waxing Philosophical

2007-02-04T21:00:00.000-08:00

I need to get into the habit of writing down my thoughts on a daily basis, I often find myself writing bits and pieces of blog posts in my head as I’m driving and then I lose them when I get home.

The job transition continues. I gave back my (ancient) laptop and access card to Large Software Company last week. I hadn’t been in the office for a couple of weeks and my team knew that was going to be my last day, how silly of me to expect that after four years I would get…I don’t know…anything? I wasn’t expecting a party, but geez, if it were my teammate who was leaving I would have made a little bit of an effort, perhaps a card or even lunch. Oh well. The whole thing was very anti-climatic and honestly, that helped to make me feel less sad.

I have a verbal offer for salary from the consulting company and it was more than I had hoped, but more in line with what I should have been expecting, had I more belief in myself. I’ve been struggling with a software program that I recommended, as have the accountants that also need to get output from it, so I’m playing referee between the vendor and my clients within the company. As I am neither an accountant nor a programmer, I feel I am ill-equipped for this position, but I am learning a lot.

I finished reading She’s Come Undone. This was one of the hardest books I’ve ever read, even harder than Lucky. Lucky was about one event, the author’s rape, but Undone dipped into My List so many times I felt like I was being sucker punched every other night. Just goes to show you that my story could in fact be a novel.

I continue to fall more in love with my horse every time I see her. She’s a petting zoo pony in a thoroughbred’s body, so affectionate and trusting; I would even go so far as to call her cuddly. At least with me. Her two sisters are high-strung, high-maintenance and classic mares, moody and sometimes bitchy. I bought the used Pessoa my trainer found me, it should be here tomorrow. If I keep it I will post a picture.

I was disappointed in my lesson today. I missed my lesson last week because the rings were too muddy. Every time that happens I spend more than half the next lesson just getting to where I was last time. I can canter OK on my own at an easy speed, but the moment the horse steps it up a bit I’m bouncing all over the place and losing my stirrups. I know, I just need more practice. But now I have a huge incentive to get better, faster. I take Missy out of her stall and put her in the cross ties, groom her, walk her around the farm and let her graze, I even walked and trotted next to her in the big ring today, but I am nowhere near ready to ride her. Patience is not one of my strong points.

I am thoroughly enjoying being at the farm every chance I get, and I already feel like much more of a part of the community there now that I am an owner. The vast majority of the riders there are women (in addition to the owner and the trainer) and that’s part of what makes it such a magical place. In fact, the only men usually on the property are the barn hands!

I have been noticing that I’ve been more conscious of the little things lately. The spider web in the corner of the pig stall is beautiful. The old red bicycle propped up against the tree on my way home catches my eye and I smile. The clouds make a technocolor splash across the sky. I am in awe of the incredible dichotomy of the horses, so powerful and so fragile at once. My computer calls to me less. But since it is the medium into which I write, I will try to heed the call more often.

Party of Nine

2007-01-28T11:56:00.000-08:00

Last night we had dinner with D's brother and his family, which included his niece and her 4 year-old daughter, D's Mom, and his son and 3 year-old grandson. We went to a national steakhouse chain as we needed someplace with decent food that was also kid friendly. It was the re-tying of a knot that got undone a long time ago, and it went very well. This was the first time D's brother and family had seen C in 24 years. The kids were adorable together and we all took pictures of each other, including a very good shot of D's Mom and niece, taken by 3 year-old S.

There were many hugs and kisses at the end of the evening and I was once again so proud of C and S and D. My heart is healed a little more every time we are together.

C and S haven't met D's sister and her family yet, but another four people at this dinner would have been too much. One step at a time.

And now for the horse update! I went down to the farm yesterday and got Mystere out of her stall and tied her up at the washrack to groom her. She was filthy again, as it was after turnout and one of her favorite things to do is roll. It took me a good half hour to get her to the point where I felt she looked respectable, but I didn't mind, every touch is part of the relationship-building process. I made an appointment with the farrier to get new shoes in a couple of weeks. He's a sweet older man with a heart of gold, he congratulated me and told me Miss was a sweet girl and never gave him any trouble, and that she had his favorite trot on the property. It's slowly sinking in that I have a very valuable and enviable horse.

Willow took me to the tack store and I bought brushes, sponges, buckets, a lunge line and whip and ordered a padded bridle. She found a good used Pessoa saddle online for me, we're hoping to negotiate down from the price, but with saddles you really get what you pay for. You can buy a Yugo or you can buy a Ferrari; I'm looking for something in the BMW range. The older Pessoas were made in England and are much better quality then the newer ones, which are made in Venezuela. We put all her new stuff in the tack box and pretty much filled it up. This is all happening so fast, but I'm already thinking how long its going to be before I can actually ride her.

One step at a time. I'm off to see Miss.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

2007-01-25T18:41:00.000-08:00

She's mine. I signed the bill of sale today (for $1), the boarding contract and the list of special arrangements we had agreed to. They even threw in free hauling to the vet. They moved her today from her extremely large and expensive stall to a smaller one farther from the office because a new boarder wanted to pay full price. This was part of our arrangement. Miss seemed fine in her new digs and was getting along famously with her new pony neighbors. Willow put a bridle and surcingle on her today and lunged her. At first she wasn't that crazy about having all that tack on but she shrugged her big shoulders and went to work. We'll get a saddle on her this weekend.

Pinch me. I'm a horse owner. I am humbled by the farm's trust and belief in me, this is obviously a very special horse to them. I found out today Miss has a very nice wood tack trunk complete with brass nameplate, although it doesn't have much in it. Willow is taking me to the general tack store after my lesson on Saturday to pick up the few essentials I need right now, and will keep her eye out for a good deal on a saddle.

Here's another shot of Mystere, showing her other good side.

Mystery Abounds

2007-01-21T19:47:00.000-08:00

If wishes were horses, mine came true today. On the one year anniversary of meeting D's son for the first time, we have added another member to our family: as of today we own a horse! Notice I didn't say we BOUGHT a horse...the farm where I ride gave her to me.

Here's the story: she's the baby sister of the farm owner's thoroughbred. The people who have owned her for the past 5 years moved to LA about a year ago. They haven't been back to see her in all that time and just called to tell the owner that they are giving her back to the farm, they aren't paying one more penny, that the farm could put her to sleep if they wanted, they were done with her. What assholes! That's illegal too, but that's besides the point.

So, they needed someone to take ownership of her. They are willing to do just about anything to keep her at the farm, she was born there and has spent her entire life there (she's 7). So, they aren't charging me for the horse, they will charge me half of what the boarding and food costs would normally be, they are going to comp my lessons until Missy is back in shape so I can ride her (3-6 months, she hasn't been ridden in a year but has been exercised regularly), and they are going to train and/or retrain her for free. Plus teach me all the stuff I need to know to be a horse owner.

It's a deal we couldn't really say no to. If we did say no they would have to sell her off the property and it would break all their hearts to do that. This is happening about a year earlier than I had thought it would, but it's a great opportunity. I was planning on leasing in a few months anyway and now I'll have full access to her plus free lessons, so it will be costing us about $100 more/month that what I am paying now. She is a young horse and has great bloodlines, her big sister is a champion hunter/jumper. She has two full sisters at the farm and the owner of the farm owned both her parents and her grandparents.

As you can see she's a pretty bay mare (chestnut brown with black on her lower legs and a black mane and tail) and she moves very well. Her "barn" name is Missy, I've given her the show name of Mystere, which means mystery in French. She's very sweet and loving, despite not having her own person for a long time. She needed a person, and I guess I needed a horse.

All you horsey types, I'm interesting in your opinion of her movement.

Six Boxes

2007-01-19T18:22:00.000-08:00

The other day I went to LSC to pack up my office. Not only because my reign, I mean, my contract there is ending, but because that group is moving to another building on the campus. After four years of work I had four boxes of files for them to keep and two boxes of personal stuff to take home. I know that isn't fair, the vast majority of my work is on the computer, but I'm a tangible kind of a gal. I kept my laptop for now as I haven't got sign-off on the project I've been working on for another department there, and my badge to get into buildings will only work through the end of the month.

I was really sad when I got home and it took me a while to really pinpoint why. Yes, I will miss my friends and my old boss there, as I already spoke of, but it was something else. It occured to me today as I sat at my computer at home: I no longer have an office of my own, anywhere. I am office-less. I had a really nice office at LSC (well, actually a cubicle), it was in a corner so I had a view and windows on both sides. I had Monet prints on the walls and French dessert plates in swirly metal holders on a shelf, a beautiful plant that survived all these years and a good stereo.

The office at my one consistent client is used by somebody else the other 4 days of the week that I'm not there, although I suppose that doesn't mean I can't put up a few things on the walls. Pardon me while I adjust. I'll be back later this weekend with some more horsey stuff. In the meantime, here are two pictures I took on my way home from the farm last weekend.