Injury Update

Well, my back is better, my neck, shoulder and head are better.

But I woke up yesterday morning with a little tweak in my ribs... nothing major just annoying, the same kind of tweaky "hmm, that hurts" kind of feeling I've gotten several times before when I've taken a tumble, it always goes away.

Well, it normally goes away. I figured I'd just bruised something, but by last night I was beginning to wonder if I'd popped a rib out of place. Sleep last night wasn't as plentiful as I wanted it to be.

Last night and this morning just the tiniest fraction of an inch in the wrong direction (and the wrong direction seems to change depending on the time of day, angle of the sun, direction of wind and barometer reading...) and I'm going "Holy shit that hurts!" instead of "hmm."

I don't know what I did, the painful rib isn't floating around enough to be popped out of place, and it doesn't hurt enough to be cracked. It almost feels like the rib tried to pop out of place, bruised all the connecting tissues and stretched them like old underwear elastic, and then settled in to wait for me to get lively again. There's just the barest hint of what might be a bruise where the rib comes to the sternum. Or it might be the crappy lighting in my bathroom, hard to tell.

So, I didn't ride today, and probably won't tomorrow. We'll see how it feels, and all that. Instead I worked on grooming that I've neglected, getting Monkey's mane and tail back into shape so he doesn't look like so much of a hobo.

Of course, I braided his tail only to realize that I didn't have any bands. So I trekked to my car and dug in my backpack to get a hair tie. Luckily I still had a black elastic in there or Monkey might be sporting a purple scrunchie right now. But he looks better now, tomorrow I'll take the hand clippers out and do his bridle path, and some scissors to trim his tail and mane into something a little more even. His tail is growing out nicely, if it's not braided it brushes the ground, but it's not as full as I might like. I'll probably trim it back to his hocks to where it's fuller and let it grow out again, try to keep it from breaking off as bad. I'll probably trim the base of his tail, too, it's looking a little frizzy. If I'm going for beautification I might as well go whole hog and trim the fuzzball at the base of his tail, too.

As soon as it stays nice for a while, Monkey boy is getting a bath, too. He's all dusty in his undercoat. He probably won't enjoy it, but he'll get it anyway.

There's A Naked Black Man in My Apartment!!!

So, E came here after his feed crew, and asked if he could borrow my shower. No big deal.

Then he starts telling me about how the speaker for the revival tonight (that he's been planning since the beginning of last semester) is stuck in Denver, after two flight delays and missing his connection, because he can't get a rental car.

So, online to Hertz and reserve a car for the guy, call him and tell him and he's spotted a rental place right next to his hotel, so rather than take a cab back to the airport he's gonna try them first. No biggie, I can cancel the reservation online when we find out what the deal is.

Now, E is in the shower, but before he went he smarted off with "With all the rumors that are already floating around about me being over here, what would they think if they knew I was in your shower!"

His phone is sitting here, and I have orders to answer it if it rings. If it's one of the people from school, I'm going to be very nonchalant and tell them "Oh, he's in the shower right now, I'll tell him you called."

Of course, if he forgets anything here, I'm going to give it back to him very publicly "you left this at my place the other day, you forgot it in the shower."

(Because, of course, there are already rumors floating around, because of one girl who lives in the next building over in the apartment complex asking everyone "what's going on" between me and E because his truck is over here "all the time.")

He said he'd make sure to take his underwear with him when he left.

Spoilsport.

Well, Now

I feel like an honest to god writer!

Today in class when the instructor decided to read a couple of descriptions that "stood out" from the bunch, the first one she picked to read was mine. She had a few suggestions on it, but wrote at the bottom, "Outstanding writing. Definitely worth revising."

*blush*

Head, Shoulders Knees and Toes....

That's what aches. Ok I'm exaggerating again.

Class went good today, we rode and Monkey did good, everything was kosher... about thirty minutes before the scheduled end of class Marilyn told us to lope them around some.

We were having fun, the only problem was Monkey was wanting to dive in on the right hand turns, so as we were coming around the end of the arena I was lifting my inside rein, to pick up his shoulder, and his head dropped and he broke in two on me.

Bam.

I was not expecting that, there were no signs, nothing, just all of a sudden he dropped his head and I was airborne over his shoulder. I rolled about three times and came up on my knees going "well, that sucked."

That one is literal.

I thumped my head once, tweaked my back a little, and my right shoulder, nothing major. I just don't know why he did it.

It's probably something as simple as he wasn't ridden yesterday, and one of the other horses got too close to his butt for his liking, but we're going to do some work tomorrow.

In other news, I don't have feed crew for a while and I don't have class till eleven tomorrow. My puppy butt is sleeping in, in my nice bed with my nice electric blanket to heat out all the aches.

I'm afraid to take off my boots...

Because my toes might be black with frostbite. I've been at the barn for two solid hours, and when I left the house this morning it was four below, with a windchill of eleven below.

But we judged horses today for eval.

Everyone kept saying "ugly" on this one horse who really wasn't ugly, he was just rough. So Marilyn had me bring out Red.

JJ ordered everyone to find one good thing about Red, conformation wise. Marilyn said he had withers. JJ said he had a tail, and could get rid of the flies. No one else could come up with anything. I just started laughing at the expressions on people's faces.

JJ asked me what he had in him, I told him I had no clue, I bought him at an auction because of his personality on the ground, and he turned out to be a jerk in the saddle.

But, Red has been officially labeled as "Ugly", as if I needed the help to figure that out!

The "On" Switch

Even the best of horses tends to get a bit lazy once in a while. They don't want to listen, they don't want to move out, and they just turn off.

At that point, it's handy to know what your horse's "on" switch is. Whether it's a certain tone of voice, taking two trips around the arena at a dead run, or even a specific phrase, like "lets go!"

Monkey's "on" switch is quite simple. All I have to do is pick up the trailing end of my rein in my right hand.

The little fart didn't do bad today, but I wanted to work on pivots while everyone else did the class time thing, and he just wasn't wanting to do it. So I shortened my reins up, picked up the "on" switch, laid the reins over his neck and gave him leg pressure, and I'll be damned if he didn't spin around like a pro. To the right that is. He's still got issues to the left. But we side passed and pivoted and backed halfway down the arena, once he realized that yes, he really did have to do it. But that is his on switch, the signal that he recognizes that turns on the "yes mommy" portion of his brain instead of the Bart Simpson portion. He has fun when he turns on, too, he just has to try the brat side first.

It's not like I beat the horse, I can sit relaxed on his back and swing the end of that same rein around until it whoops and he doesn't twitch. That's just the signal that he understands that yes, he really does have to do what I'm asking for.

In other news, the goober was convinced that a piece of paper was going to eat him today. We were trotting on the rail and he spotted it, dropped his head to look at it, decided it was dangerous, and jumped it. Surprised me a bit, but I was ready for him the next time.

At the same time, while I was trying to get him to extend his trot a bit rather than get choppier, he decided to lope instead. A nice, rocking chair gait, only slightly faster than the horses who were actually doing the long trot. If I could get him to do that when I ask for the lope, I'll be the most comfortable rider in the class. Of course, when I tried for it later, he wouldn't give it to me.

Silly horse. We'll keep working on it.

Soon as I can make it back home....

I'm kidnapping Eldest Nephew. Then I'm hitting the Loaf and buying some scratch cards.

Farmmom won the halftime and third quarter pots last night. Too bad both teams had to be peckers and score after that, or she'd have won everything but the first quarter, and come up with an even larger chunk of change.

Otherwise, I was amused at the fact that they had to clear the field to finish the game with one second on the clock. What can I say it made me giggle that the officials had to poke and prod everyone off the field. And that the Patriots' coach had a quiet hissy fit and left for the locker room.

Sadly enough the thing that amused me the most was the way that Doug Williams clutched the Vince Lombardi trophy to himself, cuddling it against his cheek like a favorite teddy bear.

Is it just me, or did he give anyone else the impression that if he'd let go with one hand his thumb would have flown to his mouth?

What can I say, I'm easily amused.....