FInally grown up and random thoughts

The other day, when I had horses all over hell and gone, I ended up with Hotrod and Target together in one place. Hotrod is the mother of Target, who was part of Sly's first real foal crop--the batch we kept all of to see how they would turn out. For the first time, I not only see how much he has grown up, but how much he looks like her.




Aint that something? So much alike.

In addition to this random thing I was thinking, I have thought up some other irritating things today.

First, why in the hell do I watch Million Dollar Listing? I cannot stand two of the three real estate agents. I would like to hit Josh square in his face and then mess up Chad's hair. They both piss me off. Madison is the only one I like and he cannot decide who he wants to sleep with.

Second--Madison quit again today--until February, or so her note says. I can hardly begrudge her that--she wants to do Scholar Bowl. She always gets sick of it when it gets cold--hell who doesnt? I sure do. Tonight I timed myself--7:16 til 7:52--everyone fed, every water trough filled, ten stalled horses had their stalls cleaned. I even moved a round bale with the tractor, and figured out a solution to a jacked up corral panel. Not so bad. I am a multitasking son of a gun. I can swing 45 minutes a day out of my life to take care of my own damn animals. I will miss Mad though and I always worry when she does this--was she afraid to tell me? Is that why she did not come over all weekend, even to see Barry? I hope not.

Third--this puts a damper on my weekend plans. I was either going to go to Chicago to see Barry or to OKC to the NRHA finals, to meet a friend. To do this, I was going to have to bail on dinner with Jodi and Jackie in the metro east--which is bad bad bad even though they knew that could happen when we made the plans. I am thinking Mad quitting on me could be a sign that I have no business pissing off money going all over when I am spending four days at the cutting futuiry in Fort Worth next weekend. Also, surely I will need a nap. Forth Worth is always a notoriously expensive weekend. It is very stressful to see these potentially imaginary signs every where I go...makes me wonder if they are really signs or I am nuts. No wonder I have migraines.

Fourth--I totally forgot to buy dog food again. I had to feed them hot dogs. Mark that as reason sixteen why I cannot have real kids--I would forget to get their food. I have been suitably punished though as I spent a good part of the evening thinking about twice baked potatoes and cannot find the stinking potatoes!

Fifth--I have not been to the gym in a week until tonight. I so needed it--I have felt like a slug--not sleeping well, not feeling right at all. When I am blah like that, I tend to eat eat eat in an effort to make myself sick, I think--so I will feel SOMETHING. I totally need a shrink. Anyway, I took a book and enjoyed reading it and not falling off the bike for almost an hour--and then I guess I left it there. Of course I did--I was really enjoying the book and would have liked to have finished it tonight. Crap.

Sixth--I have to get up at the crack of dawn to go to the Amish joint to see if they are coming to do fence. I so hope so, I need to get these horses out of the pens and back into the pastures. While there, I learned that they have had to eat that roided up rooster I liked so much. Evidently he was raising all kinds of hell when the girls went in to get eggs, so off with his head! I am oddly saddened by this.

Seventh--peeg has a new friend. And I even like himn--Charlie the cat. I hate an adult cat and I love this dude. It is like I am operating with a head injury all these weird things I am doing.

Eighth--and this is a big one even though the whole rest of my world already knows it--I have had to go to the three-hook bra. You know, .like big knockered women and grandmas wear. I am neither of these things, yet there they are--three hooks in a row. This is worse than when I realized that cute underwear needed to be a thing of the past for me.

That is enough rambling about not much for one nite--if I keep this up, I will be up too late and not get to early morning festivities I am planning.

Photo shoot outtakes--how fast it can go wrong

Pretty Bubbles had her photo shoot today for her registration photos. These photo sessions are always hysterical. Babies can go from zero to sixty in a split second
See? A little mixed up.
Full on mad.
Woops. Over correction.
What happened? Now she looks all nice, like she did not just throw a tantrum. Babies are so squirelly.

This is the last one of the year. I think I am going to name her Demon Cat. Her Dad is Highlight Cat ( like you cant see the Cat in her from a million miles away, she has all the Cat factors) and her dam is Diablos Youn Gun by Yong Gun. Now I am off to see if that is available

Only in my world

You will not believe this one--yesterday I got word that I had horse escape issues again. I spent all afternoon rounding up horses and putting them on lockdown so they could not get out again. I have horses on top of horses up in there--pens full of em.

As you may recall, a new fence is being built. The horses have realized their means of egress has been compromised and are making new escape paths. Bastards. This led me to mosey down the road to the house of my Amish people to ask when they will be back to finish that section so I do not live in fear every day.

Well it won't be right now. Why, you ask? WHY? Because my main fence builder is in Mexico.

Mexico.

Since when do Amish people go to Mexico? What are the doing? Hunting cheap drugs and hookers?

That seems unlikely.

Well that was a bust

This surgery of dad's was a bit of a bust. The best part is that the neurologist is hot hot hot. And evidently we will be seeing more of him, so that is a plus. Yes, he went for heart surgery, but ended up with a hot neurologist. He is a medical nightmare--all of these heart and brain problems were discovered as they tried to do follow up on his bladder cancer--tests they cannot do with his heart in this condition. And the bladder cancer was only discovered because his stomach was tore up. And every bit of it is complicated by the fact that he has diabetes.

Every step he takes forward, they have to go back four steps to set the groundwork so he can withstand more treatment. In other words, we never get anywhere, because something else breaks practically on the way to the doc, every time.

The plan for this week was to do some stents in the arteries where he previously had a quadruple bypass. Unfortunately, despite the doc's best efforts, they could not get the job done. Evidently, the plaque buildup inside the arteries is so hard, the doc could not break through it.

The surgeon did manage to poke some holes in some areas of it, so there is a little more blood flow than there was. His plan is to try this again in three weeks or so, to try to poke some more holes in another spot, to try to increase blood flow. First, they have to wait for the contrast dye to get out of his kidneys, before they put more in there--his kidneys aren't great either, as you can imagine.

No one really seems that terribly worried about his heart. There is some new tool that they described as an ultrasound jackhammer that they think will work to break up the plaque, but the hospital does not own one. They intend to buy one, but do not know when that will happen. Fat lot of good that does us, huh?

The larger problem seems to be the blockage in an artery in his brain. I guess it is shocking that he has not had a stroke yet, and we are supposed to be watching for signs that the blockage is causing trouble.

It is amazing the difference in this hospital--which is really really nice- and where he normally goes. Everyone seems to know what the other docs are doing, and that is never the case at his regular place. I am sure a good part of the difference is attributable to Matt, a friend who runs dad's surgeon. He coordinates and follows up and spends time to hang out with us, which makes the time go faster.

The bottom line is that we are nowhere.

But on a good note, Barry will be home tomorrow nite!

Perfect fall afternoon

Jenna and I went on a 3 mile jaunt today--she usually jogs it, but had to tone it down for me today. We did a short spurt of a jog but walked so fast the rest of it that I was breathing pretty good. Good enough, says me! It was really fun--totally unplanned, and satisfies my need to multi-task everything I do. Good call sister!


When we got home, Sam was playing in the leaves. The pic at the top may be the best one I have ever gotten of him. As cute as he is, I tend to get the most unflattering expressions on my camera--I have no idea why. He usually looks like Popeye with one eye shut--but this one is great.


He had a ball. It is hard to have a bad day when you get to watch someone have so much fun. Match that with the new dog, Pebbles, gaining so much weight, and it was swell.
She wont ever be cute, but growing hair and packing on a couple of pounds has made her far less hideous than she was two or three weeks ago when we found her. And she is straight up funny--we gave her a bath and she was very tricky--acted like she was perfectly content then tried to shoot out of the tub like a slippery otter--so hysterical. I think she found the perfect place to live.

In other random news, my dad is having heart surgery tomorrow. This is not an altogether rare occurrence for him, but I think it has been about 12 years since he had the last one, when he had a quadruply bypass. Now he is all clogged up again. Supposedly, they are just planning to put stents in there, but I have a feeling that might not be all that happens. I do not know when I will be back, so you all hold down the fort for me!

Daisy needs a name

Part of the big project list today was weaning the last two foals, Daisy and Bubbles. Because of everything else that had to be done, only Daisy got her pictures done to submit her registration. But she needs her name first.

So that is where you all come in. Dad is Slydun Haida of course (Haidas Sugar Doc x Double Play Sandy) and her dam is Midnights Hasty Jane ("Snap"). Her sire is Midnight Haidaway by Haidas Little Pep. Her dam is SR Hasty Jane by Docs Hickory

Bring on the suggestions---I have a couple of weeks to get this in, but if I do not do it soon, I will forget about it and run late.

In addition to weaning these babies, I dewormed a bunch, moved a bunch around, and gave the last of the shots to Bijou. I Fixed a section of divider fence that the horses promptly tore back down- repeatedly. I gave PK1 shots to the very few pregnant mares, overflowed two water troughs, cleaned stalls, bought shavings, doctored Tango, and then pulled cockle burrs out of manes for almost two hours.

It feels good to have gotten so much done, even if I ache, and my fingers are torn up from cockleburrs. I slept fifteen hours last nite, and feel like I could do it again. I cant wait til tomorrow to play with the horses again. This 60 degree Novemeber weather cannot last forever

Two steps back

I was so excited for tonight to give Tango her last shot and call her a healthy, cured of cellulitis, filly.

NOPE.

She is swelled up again tonight. It has been two or three days since there has been swelling, but I still should not be this upset. I know cellulitis is serious, and I know we have been at this for three weeks, and tried three different antibiotics...but surely we will get it taken care of eventually. But damn it, I am frustrated.

She is getting better about taking her shots like a nice girl, which is pretty impressive, since she gets two hits a nite. Who would get nice about that? She is handling it all right though.

I have to call the vet tomorrow to tell him to scratch my story of yesterday, telling him that I thought we had it beat. I need yet another antibiotic.

My concern is that the next option is likely Baytril--which has to be given IV. I cannot hit a vein reliably unless it is in some saint like Playmate or Twister (yeah, I realized I just called those two demons saints--that is how out of kilter I am). Unfortunatly the vet does not have facilities for me to just leave her there and let him do it either. I sure hope he has another suggestion, or I do not know what I will have to do to make this work. Whatever it is though, we will get through it.

I just feel like wallowing tonight, I guess.

Which is a shame, as I got cute new hair today, have had a couple good days of eating so I feel better, and am cooking up some steak for my dinner tonight. I even saved up carbs to I can make a twice baked potato--something I have never done before. This could be interesting.

If anyone has any great stories of how you cured cellulitis over nite, this would be a good time to share that wisdom!

Big changes up in here

And this time I am not talking about my moodiness.

Barry may be moving to St Louis, from Chicago. That will put him an hour and a half from home instead of five hours! It won't be for long--three to six months--but I will take it. We are having so much fun looking for apartments online. He is comfortable enough in St Louis to live somewhere fun, like Soulard, or the Central West End... that will be totally different than anything he has ever done before.

He may be moved as early as the end of December. He is going to be the project manager on the new project there, and I think he is excited to show his company how things should be done. He has so much more experience than most people they have working for them.

And how nice that I can see him more often-- we can have dinner together, or if something goes berserk here, he can be here pretty quickly

YAY!

Things that irritate me

As you know, that is pretty much everything. But TODAY the thing that pretty much irritates me the most is that I went to spinning and considered taking an aerobics class afterward. But since my doc had called in some Celebrex for my elbow to the WalMart pharmacy and I did not know how long they were open, I did the responsible thing and went to WalMart.

That is when it all went to hell. It is way too big of a project to go all the way out there, but to get there and find out that the doc had FAILED to call in my scrip really pissed me off. I almost never take a pain killer, but I tried this at his suggestion, to get the inflammation down and potentially save me from having tendon surgery, and it is really workin. Except not when they will not give it to me.

In an effort to see if it is worth it to drive out there, as opposed to having it called in to another closer pharmacy, I asked how much it was. $132 for 30 pills. WTF? Is that with my insurance, I ask? Yes, since your insurance does not cover it. Almost no insurance covers it. Are you freaking kidding me? Why have insurance if it does not cover what I need? I will be damned if I will pay $132 a month for this stuff on top of my five thyroid pills, etc. Oh hell no.

I guess they would rather pay for surgery.

It infuriates me that my doc does not get to decide what I take-- the insurance company does. What a load of crap.

And of course, I spent $50 on food and still forgot the low carb bread.

Then I went to Lowe's, where I spent an hour being talked out of the flooring I went to order. The dude convinced me to go with a solid hardwood rather than the engineered I wanted. He sent me home with a sample, and I think it will work just fine and it is way better than what I wanted to use. However, I do not really like the whole attitude of the worker telling me that what I wanted sucked---but I guess that is another battle I will not win.

I did not get home until 8:30. When I tried to carry in pig's food, I dropped it on the floor and the bag broke. You can imagine how pig liked that. I had to sweep up most of it and pack it in something else, but it still left too much for him. When I went out there just now, he was asleep and a cat was eating his food for him.

I better go to bed before I get irritated by something else

Good way to end the season

Gyro got to go on the last ride of the season at Sam Dale State Park today--partly because she offered and partly because the big trailer is at the dealership for repairs, and it took most of the tack with it. She is not at all fussy about her equipment, so she was the easiest . It was nice-Madison has had her most of the year, so I have not gotten to ride her and I miss it for sure.


It was about 65 degrees and pretty sunny for most of the trip--look how green the grass still is. We do not see this weather in November in this area very often.
Linda brought Dirty for her ride. He seemed to wonder why he had to come.


We were not the only ones taking advantage of the weather--we ran into a lot of groups out there. Check out that teeny pony--Linda offered to buy him right out from under that poor child.




Gyro was embarrassed at her lack of concho--it has been missing for years. But it was one of the few headstalls in the old trailer, so she had no option.


This was another stranger horse we happened across. He was pitch black--I love black horses
The black horse had friends. This butt shot cracks me up.


This is Bella, the bitty mule, that belongs to some other people we know. She is darling
I love old barns. I wish the color in this shot was better, but nothing to be done about that now.
Gyro was beside herself to be released in a big patch of grass when we were done riding. She was a good girl, so she deserved a little snack. She was not quite herself today for some reason.

Because the coloring was off in the woods, I took some random artsy fartsy pics. That is so not my forte




It was a nice day. This park closes tomorrow for the season, so the rest of our winter riding will have to be elsewhere.

Scenes from the Hood

It is not like everyone else's hood, that is for sure. But I like it.

It is a good balance to my weekday life of dealing with killers and perverts. Now if there were more than two days a week of this slower life, it would be perfect

Generations

Playmate has been put in charge of the babies. I figure at 28, she probably has a few things she can teach them. Now that Grandpa, Nita and Lucky are gone, I wondered who would step up and take over.
Playmate is enjoying every minute of it. She leads them on adventures all over their pastures, and also babysits when they need to take naps. It is fun to watch.
Taking pics after the time change is killing me--there are very few opportunities during the week, and when I get the chance, I have to use such high ISO that the pics are grainy. That sucks.
But sometimes, a surprise cool shot comes out. I love this panning shot, but I promise I could not do this if I tried. I love the way the two sorrel Slybabies are positioned behind the roan filly, almost mirror images of each other.

I have to make more time to take pics of these babies before they grow up and it is too late

How I screwed up my day-this time

I might as well admit that as screwy as the last 24 hours have been, they are not really out of the ordinary. And that is just sad.

Last nite, I managed to get myself lost in the dark on my own freaking property. I could hear hotwire popping, but I could not see it. Out in the pastures amongst fifty head of mostly mares is not the safest place in the world when you cannot see, but there I was all the same.

I lived through that and made it to this morning. First order of business was catching and doctoring Tango, who is battling a pain in the ass case of cellulitis. I have never had to treat such a thing, so it throws me off my game a bit. I am not used to having "firsts" around here anymore when it comes to animal health. Tango is turned out in the front pasture with about seven frenemies..so I have to catch her to give her the morning antibiotics. She is not a fan of this, after taking shots for more than a week by now.

So I chase and chase and catch her--after tromping through the pasture until I cornered her. This was one of the few days I was dressed like a human being instead of a clown, as Barry describes it. I had on new jeans, new fancy mules with a heel that make me feel all growed up and a shirt that takes an iron. Pretty impressive huh? Far cry from my standard workout clothes or jeans and tshirts. Not the best choice for pasture crawling

I caught Tango, tied her to the gate and went to get her shot. By the time I got back, someone had bit her, pushed her into the water trough and untied her--so I had to catch her ass again. Got that job done, and headed to town to go to work.
This shows how she has been swelling above the wrap.....cross your fingers it simmers down soon.

I called the vet on the way to work, and the insurance man, and the elevator to order dog food...basic morning stuff--amazing how much I can jam into a three mile trip.

The work day was kind of normal--I had a streak of clarity and actually got something done. Bout time too as I have been in a rut of stupidity.

Late afternoon, before it got dark, I ran home to deal with Tango again. The vet wanted me to unwrap her and change to gentacin shots. 20cc--and of course, I do not have a 20cc syringe handy. I was going to pick one up at the vet when I stopped by to get Simba's meds, but for some reason they were closed in the middle of the day. So no "don't pee the bed" meds for Simba and no 20cc syringe. That means means two shots for Tango. I knew she would love that. And she did--bent two needles, and I managed to stab myself in the thumb with it. Typical. I unwrapped her leg to let the swelling move around. Let's hope that turns out okay. Ignore the dried goo on her leg--that is old Underwoods dried on there. She hurt too bad to be agreeable to scrubbing it off. The pink at the top is the actual ouch...and that white is paper towel stuck to her leg. I had my hands full cleaning this up now that the wraps are off. Notice the difference in size at the joints.

Back to work I went for a few more hours, where I had some more visions.

This is where it gets stupid.

I left work close to 7 p.m. As I usually do, I used the secret clicker to open the truck doors. Then I get in and look in my purse for the real keys. Cannot find them, so I get out and get the secret keys and attempt to use them to drive away. That is when I learn that the real keys had been in the ignition the whole time. Smart. Off I drive to the gym. Go in, wear myself out, come back out---truck is locked. No big deal, I can use the secret key. Nope, they are in my purse too. In the truck.

Crap. I had to call the tow truck, who took their own sweet time showing up while I shivered a bit in the parking lot. On a good note, I think I am getting the frequent flier rate with the tow truck, as this was the cheapest one ever. There has to be some good news huh?

Finally, it is like 8:30 and I swing by the farm to see that things are done, and am so relieved to be home. I loved my pig, give him some piggle food, and get in the house just in time to realize I did not pick up the damn dog food.

Well that is just too bad, as I am not going back out now. I had the scraps of one bag and one can of dog food, so I told Simba and Slater to work it out amongst themselves. That is about 1/4 of what they normally eat, so I dug out a few packs of hot dogs and defrosted them. Not like I was going to eat them. I think they are content now--at least they are snoring on the couch, so they are not complaining about my failure to provide a suitable meal.

Finally, I have time to sit down and download some pics from the last week. I am kind of afraid to even get up, for fear of what I will screw up next.

Key West

I don't think anyone acts right in Key West--and this is one of the few pic of us there, because most of them show us looking like fools. that, and I cannot reliably report what we were doing in each photo, because Honest to God, I do not remember. And I am pretty sure that is for the best.
On our second day there--when we intended to return to Key Largo, we thought we might should get some culture. At least that way, we would be more likely to have stories we could remember. To that end, we went to the Little White House. Truman spent a lot of time here, but so have a lot of presidents.

This house is just off of Duval Street, which is where most of the action is. It was all decorated up for Halloween, but its larger claim to fame is as the house where the original Chucky lived. I learned all about it on the Ghost walk I pirated, which scared Amy. THAT is not what should have scared her about this experience.
This is Ernest Hemingway's house--stop 2 on our get cultured tour. I really wanted to go here, but mostly just to say I did, and it turned out to be really interesting.
This is his bedroom. Only this cat hangs out there--perched up on the pillow. Evidently, he is the boss of the upstairs, and only allows one other specific cat to ever come up there. Now that is power. All of the 60 cats on the property are descended from his actual cats--and many of them are those six-toed freak cats. Evidently he got off on that sort of thing, so lots of these cats have more than their fair share of toes.
This is Hemingway's office, where he did most of his writing. Back in the day, there was a catwalk from the second floor of his house to this office, which is on the second floor of the guest house. That is gone now.
The grounds really are gorgeous, and it is cool how the cats mosey around and somehow manage to ignore all the people.
This is the Episcopal Church on the corner of Duval--it is haunted too, supposedly. I just thought it was pretty.
This is Amy, doing God knows what on the phone, God knows where. Actually, I think that might have been the front porch of the place we stayed. More on that later
I do not know where this is. But I can tell you from what I am wearing that this was taken on night two--the night we were not supposed to be still in Key West. We learned so much about Hemingway and his drinking holes that we had to go have a reenactment--and at each turn, we would learn that even though certain bars were supposed to have been the one, they were not really--that one next door was, or some such garbage, so then we had to go there. Somewhere along the way, we ran into 2 for 1 beers, and the rest of the day was shot clear to hell.

This did not help. This is a Big League Chew. Pretty, isn't it? We had it at the Lazy Gecko. It is cranberry juice and Three Olives bubble gum flavor vodka. I am not a real fan of cranberry juice or vodka for that matter, but now howdy was it good. We shared it, which was good because it was pretty sweet. This was also the scene of me angering a real jackaass of a gay man. I mean really angering him. No matter how much I tried, I could not fix it. That was interesting. He looked like Mr Clean and he was mad even though I did not even tell him that.
Some people.
This is a naked bar--at least on the third floor. And for real, there are signs that say "No Public Sexual Activity". Who ever would have thunk I would ever be in a place with a need for a sign like that? Not me. Certainly not at my age. I never saw any naked people though.
Sloppy Joe's is the most famous bar in Key West. It was a nice place, great music even in the middle of the day. There were all kinds of people in there, families, older people, groups of younger people, kids etc..that made it kind of fun to people watch. The cruise ships were in but it was about 70 degrees and windy as hell, so they did not have anything else to do. This is supposedly where Hemingway hung out--but it is not the location he hung out in. That was really around the corner, at Capt Tony's--also haunted. See how some girls can get a little liquored up in the daytime, just trying to have a legitimate cultural experience?
This was truly one of the best things about Key West. We stayed at Simonton Court, on Simonoton Street just off Duval. It aint cheap, but we got a good deal at the last minute, and even though I am very much not a bed and breakfast kind of girl, I loved it. Too bad we were so busy, we did not get to spend too much time in it.
This is the main house of Simonton Court. It has 4 or 6 rooms in it, I think, and they serve breakfast on the court in front of it. The whole place was a cigar factory back in the day--this Mansion, as they call it, was the owners house. There are a couple other houses they call cottages, and a townehouse, and an "inn" and a manor house, which is what we got.
I do not remember the last time I was "shown" to my room. This is the foot path from the front of the property to each of the other accomodations. There are also four pools---one is a black bottom pool, one that used to be the cistern for the factory, and two other little ones. Each place has their own pool
This was part of our room. The curtains hid the sliding doors that walked out directly to our pool.
This was our little pool. Too cold to get in it, which I bet does not happen very often.
All in all, Key West was awesome. I am not sure it is worth$3.8 million for a place to rehab like this one, but it was great. I cannot wait to take Barry there. I thought it would be just debauchery and hedonism, and there is that--like New Orleans sort of. But cleaner. There is so much more though. We never even sat foot on a beach, we were so busy.

Now hopefully that angry Mr Clean dude will not see me when we go back