Whoa

Yesterday I worked on getting the horse to stop and then not creep. It's a lot harder than one would think. I have to remember to grip with my thighs, sit deep in the saddle, check with the reins and I'm allowed to cheat and say "whoa" or "ho" but "ho" makes me laugh. There's nothing like a 60 year old woman with the maturity level of a 14 year old boy. Sometimes when I'm doing everything correctly and the horse is still ignoring me, the trainer will get on and fine-tune him. I'm just too afraid of doing something wrong to be as assertive as I sometimes need to be. Once she's convinced him that he can do what is being requested of him, I get back in the saddle and things generally progress nicely from there. The extra thigh pressure is so minute that it's almost imperceptible. I also have to remember to not keep hauling back on the reins, but release almost immediately. It's just all so nit-picky and I absolutely love it!

I will be attending a couple of clinics in April. I think I will limit myself to just one session with the first clinician since I already signed up for all four days with the second one. These clinics gave me an excuse to order some new breeches and a white saddle pad. I'm holding off on getting a new helmet but mine will be three years old in July so I'm thinking I may be due for a new one.

The horses are shedding despite the fact it was below zero last night and we had a bunch of snow earlier in the week. I'm furminating and using "Slick N Easy" in addition to the regular currying and brushing. In gratitude, the horse stepped on my foot yesterday.


I don't think anything is broken but that fourth toe sure doesn't feel too good today.

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Jury Duty

IF YOU'VE EVER BEEN CALLED FOR JURY DUTY.....THEN YOU HAVE TO KNOW THIS IS PRICELESS! Enjoy a good laugh! These are from a book called: "Disorder in the American Courts," and are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and now published by court reporters that had the torment of staying calm while these exchanges were actually taking place.
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ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget.
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?
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ATTORNEY: Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in voodoo?
WITNESS: We both do.
ATTORNEY: Voodoo?
WITNESS: We do.
ATTORNEY: You do?
WITNESS: Yes, voodoo.
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ATTORNEY: Now doctor, "isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?"
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
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ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the twenty-year- old, how old is he?
WITNESS: He's twenty, much like your IQ.
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ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?
WITNESS: Are you kidding me?
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ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?
WITNESS: Getting laid
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ATTORNEY: She had three children, right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
WITNESS: Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney. Can I get a new attorney?
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ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death.
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
WITNESS: Take a guess.
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ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about 20, medium height, and had a beard.
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
WITNESS: Unless the Circus was in town I'm going with male.
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ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS: All of them. The live ones put up too much of a fight.
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ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
WITNESS: Oral.
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ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.
ATTORNEY: And, Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: If not, he was by the time I finished.
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ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?

WITNESS: Are you qualified to ask that question?
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And the best for last:
ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No .
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.

That Was The Week That Was

Super Bowl Sunday - Husband drives into Anchorage to watch the game with his buddies. Some things are enjoyed more in a group atmosphere, or at least with one other person feigning interest which I didn't feel like doing.
I decide to hang some pictures. I had purchased a lot of 3M hangers so as not to have to hammer nails into the walls. I measure where I want the pictures, clean the area with alcohol, let it dry, apply the hangers and let them sit for over an hour before hanging the actual pictures. Less than five minutes after placing the pictures on the wall I am sweeping up shards of glass from where the pictures crashed to the floor. Fortunately, I had only hung two.
Approximately 9:30 my husband calls to say he is about to head home from Anchorage so I can expect him in about an hour. About 90 minutes later he arrives home. The truck had slid off the highway on black ice into a ditch and he was unable to get it unstuck. A nice man who had seen the accident gave him a ride home. (If I was Rising Rainbow I'd stop writing at this point to pique your curiosity. But I'm not and I only can write when I'm in the mood so I shall continue on)

Monday - We call a tow truck to meet us at the accident location and head out in our other vehicle to retrieve the truck. Truck is nowhere to be found. We drive up and down the highway about four times and neither we nor the tow truck driver can locate it. We return home and I call the police department to file a stolen vehicle report. First I call the Anchorage Police Department and am told that I have to file a report with Wasilla State Troopers since that is where the vehicle resides. Anchorage gives me a now out of order phone number for said State Troopers. I finally find the right number, call, and am told that no, the State Troopers will not take a report because the accident/theft occurred in Anchorage Police Department's jurisdiction. So, I call back APD, get the same story, tell the Trooper's side and the clerk said she will check with her supervisor. Sure enough, Anchorage takes a stolen vehicle report.

I still needed to do my weekly grocery shopping and was able to drop off the broken pictures at a frame shop that is on the way. Miracle of miracles it costs less that sixty bucks to have the glass replaced plus the owner said they'd be ready the next day. One picture received a tiny scratch from the broken glass but nothing I can't live with.

Tuesday - 3:30 a.m. the phone rings. The police have located our truck (right where it was supposed to be) Can we be there in twenty minutes? Um, no; so they will haul it to an impound yard. Later that day when we're actually awake I call and cancel my riding lesson. We could have driven into Anchorage afterwards but I didn't feel like dealing with rush hour traffic. I get a second call from the police to make sure we'd been notified that the truck was located. Since I'm somewhat more coherent I ask if the dispatcher can tell me how it was discovered when we hadn't been able to find it. It turns out that an officer had stopped a hitchhiker (it's illegal to hitchhike on the highway) and the hitchhiker told him about the truck in the ditch. Apparently it was far enough down that it couldn't be seen from a vehicle on the roadway. So off we head to Anchorage to get our truck out of jail.

Since the impound lot was somewhat close to my old barn I dropped in to visit everyone. My friend was riding "my" mare so wasn't troubled when I started whining about her riding "my horse." My former trainer just laughed.

So, back before we left Wasilla I had e-mailed a woman about a brass bed I saw for sale on Craigslist. I figured we might as well look at it since we were going to be in Anchorage anyway. She called, we arranged to meet and I was able to purchase a queen sized brass bed frame, with rails, for only $50.00. Kind of made the truck debacle worth it. Of course the bed frame wouldn't fit in the truck bed so we had to disassemble it. So now it's in our shed and we'll get it set up one of these days.

That's basically the highlights of the week. I got my pictures back and managed to ride a horse yesterday. I snagged a locker at the barn so I won't have to haul all my riding gear back and forth. Target had everything I was looking for when I shopped there. It looks like a charity will take my old, chewed up by the dogs, furniture.

Some weeks start out bad and turn into really good ones after all.

Catching Up

I don't seem to be able to read all the blogs I subscribe to on a daily basis any more. Either I'm subscribing to too many or you guys are just writing a lot more. Actually I think the culprit is lack of time. Anyway, I did read for hours yesterday and at least got this past week caught up.

I usually ride on Tuesday and Friday afternoons but my trainer asked me to ride Saturday morning instead of Friday. No problem and I was actually kind of relieved because I'd twinged my back shoveling snow the day before and could use an extra day off. Then I had an insane idea of calling the Anchorage barn and seeing if I could ride with my old Friday night group. Then I came to my senses so didn't follow through.

There was a lovely man in the arena with his two geriatric horses when I arrived yesterday morning. I asked if it would be okay to bring "my" horse in with them and he said no, but he'd move his back to their stalls. His horses were very friendly and kept nosing my pockets for treats. They're on strict diets so no goodies for them.

The arena had not been sprinkled so was extremely dusty. My trainer watered a path that I stayed on for my lesson. My horse had his teeth floated on Thursday and any resistance to rounding his neck seemed to have been cured by that. I'd like to say its because I'm better at requesting it but I really don't think I can take any credit.

After the lesson my trainer said she needed to leave for an appointment but that I could ride for a couple more hours if I wanted to. I only rode for a little while longer because, truth be told, I inherited the "what if something bad happens" gene from my mother. There didn't seem to be anybody around and had I been thrown I probably would be on my own. Not that this horse acts up or anything, it's just the "shit happens," especially around large animals. Thus, I had most of the afternoon to myself for blog reading once I got home.

Our house in Anchorage finally rented and the family is moving in this weekend. We are driving in tomorrow to finish emptying out the garage and get a new washer and dryer installed (Are we lazy or what?)

January Doldrums

It is almost 40 degrees and raining today which turns the ground into an ice slick. Our sloped driveway looks like a challenge that I don't want to attempt surmounting. I watched our neighbor back his truck up their driveway and scatter sand or ice melt. Glad I don't need to leave the house today.

This is a dreary time of year with not much going on. I'm glad I have riding lessons twice a week that get me out and moving. Friday's lesson was fantastic and I feel like I'm really starting to ask for and get leg yields from the horse. He also stayed round for the majority of the lesson. It's so gratifying to hear my trainer say, "Yeeeesss" when I get it right.

Now that the holidays are over I need to start organizing my stuff. Everything's here and stashed but I don't know where. My objective during the actual move was just to get stuff put away and out of sight. I'm used to knowing where a particular item is located. Right now I have to search and a lot of times fail to find what I'm after. I suppose I'll need to pull everything out and start from scratch. I can't imagine why I'm not more enthusiastic about this plan.

No sugarplum visions for me

Oh heck no. I dream about day after Christmas sales and getting to the Hallmark store after everything's been sold out.