What a doofus
Oh for the love of Pete. You know those days where nothing really goes wrong in a drastic, important way—but nothing ever goes quite right, either? So the whole thing becomes one hilarious (in retrospect) example of Murphy’s Law?
Welcome to the last twenty four hours of my life.
First I tripped over my own feet. Twice. Bruised both shins. Then I went out to the barn, and because the weather has been weird lately we had this odd combination of melting stuff and icing-over stuff, all covered in a thin layer of new snow. Icky conditions, right? I told myself to be careful getting out of the car, got out of the car, turned to shut the door, and ended up falling/slamming my hip into the door instead. What a doofus.
By the end of the night, I think I had a bruise on every part of my body. All because of stupid stuff I did. Like pausing to make sure a mare was lined up straight to go into her stall (so she wouldn’t hit a hip on the door frame, right?)—and then turning around and walking confidently… right into the door frame. I smacked my hip and shoulder right on the edge while the mare stood there rolling her eyes at me and giving me this “Can you find someone competent to put me away, please?” look.
And then. And then! I get home last night, and my internet’s broken. Ok, the modem. Not the whole internet. Normally resetting the modem fixes everything, but not this time. No, this time they had to come fix it—and they couldn’t come until today. Which meant instead of all the work I meant to do last night, I got to read a book.
Or I would have, if my cat hadn’t decided to become very ill. I felt so bad for her—she was so embarrassed about it all.
Until I woke up this morning and discovered she’d been sick again, and this time had tried to cover it up—with my shoe—and I didn’t feel so bad for her anymore. My shoe! She dragged it out of the closet and plonked it on top of her mess. Isn’t she thoughtful?
So she’s at the vet’s now, getting all sorts of tests run. She hates being at the vet. And again: I’d feel bad for her, except she peed on me while I was putting her in the kennel. I was actually pretty happy to turn her over to the vets for a night or two.
(Before anyone thinks I am being flippant about Pook because I don’t care about her, let me point out that I rearranged my entire room last month so her favorite hiding spot—under the nightstand—would be next to one of the heat registers. Making it extra toasty warm for her. And when I come home from the barn all tired and stinky and wanting a hot bath and a hot dinner, the first thing I do is turn on the heating pad for her, so she can snooze on it for an hour or so. And at night, when she comes by and lets me know she wants to go to bed (she has this walk she does), I will sometimes go read a book in bed for half an hour or so to let her cuddle in and get nice and warm before I go back to work. Because I am my cat’s slave. I’m being flippant because laughing about it all is much more productive than worrying every minute. The vets will do their magic and she’ll be fine. I hope.)
But back to my Murphy’s Law day. I got home from dropping her off at the vet to wait for the computer techs to come by and fix my modem. They showed up—right as I was cleaning up the last mess Pook made. Figures. He couldn’t have waited five minutes more? And he was very cute—I don’t know if that makes it better or worse.
Bet your day is starting to look better, isn’t it?
Obligatory Occasional Cat Post
People who have cats, babies/toddlers, and puppies can’t resist cornering every random stranger they meet and flashing wallet pictures at them. Or, worse—giving them detailed stories about what said cat, baby/toddler, or puppy did that morning. This is a medical condition known as Gushitis and there is no cure.
I’m just explaining why I have to post about my cats every so often on this blog, even though they aren’t horse related. My spleen could explode if I didn’t.
So. Tweedledee and Tweedledumb eat Cheerios. With relish. We discovered this accidentally, when they got to some spilled Cheerios before we did. At least we know what to feed them the next time we forget to buy cat food.
Meanwhile, old lady Pook has made her own discovery: heating pads.
She and I were curled on the couch together—I had the heating pad on my back and she was using my lap for her own personal heating pad, as she does. I got up to get a drink. Opportunist that she is, she moved to the cushion I’d been sitting on, because she knows all about retained heat and warm cushions.
Except this time I’d left the heating pad on. I came back from the kitchen to find her stretched out on the pad, purring her heart out.
Eventually, I convinced her that my house mate’s seat warmer thing (you heat it up in the microwave and it stays warm for a couple hours—it’s a great cushion to take to sporting events) was just as nice as the heating pad. Nicer, in my view, because there’s nothing electrical about it. Less worry is good, right? I wanted my heating pad back, too.
My house mate came home from work and looked at the two of us stretched out on the couch, both with our heating pads, and asked, “So, what’s wrong with you?”
“Sore back,” I said. That sounds a lot better than “It’s cold and I’m a wimp.”
“What’s Pook’s excuse?”
“It’s cold and she’s a wimp.”
She looked at Pook, still stretched out and purring happily, and sighed. “I’m not getting that seat warmer back, am I?”
Yeah, I should have thought of that before I borrowed it. I did promise to buy her a new one, though.
Fix it and forget it
I woke up this morning with all three cats staring at me. At my jugular, to be precise. Tweedledee was perched very vulture-like on the night stand. The other two were practically tying bibs around their necks. I woke up because Tweedledumb raked his claws against the wall and the sound was not unlike that made when sharpening a knife.
They ran out of food yesterday, you see, and missed dinner. That’s completely my fault, but let’s be honest: they’re all a bit fat and missing one meal wasn’t going to kill them. I never thought that missing one meal might kill me, but perhaps I should have: these are the Mob Cats who Disappeared Nessie, after all.
I am reconsidering my plan to be the Crazy Lady who lives alone on the hill with her cats. I think I’ll be the Crazy Lady who lives alone on the hill with her goldfish, instead. It’d take some really determined goldfish to murder me in my bed.
This anecdote was supposed to transition smoothly into the topic I really want to talk about, but it doesn’t seem to be working out that way. Don’t you hate it when you can’t articulate the train of thought that led you to a certain subject? I’m just a bit unsettled by the cats.
They were drooling. Aren’t you supposed to die of natural causes before you get eaten by your pets?
Anyway.
I have a habit of agonizing over things I can’t do anything about, especially if they are things in the future that will probably never come to pass. But I don’t pass up a good chance to agonize over something that already happened if it presents itself.
Chocolate helps with the first problem, but it was riding that helped me sort out the second.
One of my biggest challenges at shows was understanding that if something goes wrong in the middle of a course or test, it was not the end of the world. You fix whatever the problem was and then forget it—and ride the rest of the course like everything was perfect. I didn’t really believe in the “fix it and forget it” mentality until I started riding Dressage.
I think it was the time I blew a movement and scored… oh… a two… and then regrouped and scored an eight in the next movement that finally convinced me one mistake was not the end of the world. My trainer had been telling me that for ages, but it was seeing the 2 and 8 next to each other on the score sheet that convinced me.
After that, I was better in the hunter ring, too. We just didn’t realize how much better I’d gotten at moving on—until one Eq on the Flat class.
Generally, the eq classes were dominated by two riders and the rest of us scrapped for third and fourth. But I went into the ring that day and I knew I was on—everything was perfect. (If this were a TV show, things would go all cloudy and wavy and then you’d get a gold-tinted view of Perfect Me with even the buckles on my spur straps sparkling and orchestral music in the background. Aren’t you glad this isn’t TV?) As we lined up, I allowed myself to hope I’d actually won the class.
As they called ribbons (starting with eighth), I became more and more confident. Finally, three of us were left and the first place ribbon was going to be called. I knew there was no way I could have been out of the ribbons with that ride, and I almost started walking out of the lineup when the announcer called “In first place…”
I was that confident.
Good thing I didn’t actually walk out of line. I didn’t place.
I exited the ring, expecting my trainer to explain what had happened. She asked me what had happened. Two other trainers came over to ask what happened, because they had me pegged as the winner. The girl who won wanted to know what happened because, from what she had seen, she thought I had the class too.
Later in the day, my trainer came over to me and said, “So, why didn’t you tell me you lost a stirrup in the eq class?”
“I what?” I said, now even more confused than before.
“You dropped your stirrup. That’s why you lost.”
I had, in fact, dropped my stirrup. My outside stirrup. As we went into the corner by the judge’s stand. For half a stride. I don’t think I even consciously registered it—I picked it back up and just kept riding.
I looked at my trainer, slightly horrified. “I forgot,” I said, trying to explain why I hadn’t been able to explain what went wrong. After all, I knew losing a stirrup in an eq class is auto elimination, so I should have come out of the ring knowing exactly what went wrong. “I really did. I fixed it, and then I forgot all about it.”
In the end, the placing in that class is irrelevant. I have other blue ribbons on my wall and, frankly, I couldn’t give you any details about the ride that won them, beyond what class it was in. And only that because it’s written on the back. But I do remember that eq ride—not just the hubbub afterward, but the feeling of the ride itself. That’s memory is better than a blue ribbon.
Plus, I learned valuable lessons that day. Like: When you are winning a class, the judge has nothing better to do than watch you and wait for you to screw up. Also: “Forget it” does not actually mean “forget it.” It means “Move on, but take note so we can discuss what happened later.”
Ah. Nuances. Someone should have said.
Revelation!
You know how cats will sit staring at a wall for hours on end?
I finally understand it.
I’d explain it to you, but I have a feeling it wouldn’t make sense unless you’d also been up for 30-some hours and had spent the last three hours listening to the TV go “Whoop! We found it! Whoop! We found it! How ‘bout you?” My god. What happened to Sesame Street?
Anyway. Thought you’d like to know there’s a perfectly logical reason for cats to stare mindlessly at the wall. They aren’t being weird. Well, not weirder than normal.
You may return to your regularly scheduled programming, unless that includes this stupid “I Spy” show, in which case you should find a good infomercial channel, which will be less repetitive and annoying. Hard to believe, but true.
A different sort of shaky
Pookie did her “We’re all going to die” routine this morning. And seconds later, yet another earthquake.
I assume I’m just noticing them more in the wake of North Korea, the Japan quake, and the Hawaii quake. Alaska gets dozens of quakes a day, or something like that, so this isn’t unusual. And they’re all very small—if you were walking around, for example, I doubt you’d notice them.
My aunt says the Hawaii quake was sort of fun—they got out of the house and to higher ground, and then there was nothing to do but ride it out. She wasn’t on the island near the epicenter, and it doesn’t sound like she had much damage.
I can see where it’d be sort of fun. I enjoy the little ones, personally.
It’s a bit like the times when a hurricane is blowing through and you know you’re safely shut up in your house and you’re going to get minor (or no) damage. Then a hurricane can be fun, too.
I just wish I could convince Pookie they’re fun. This “run for your lives” thing is getting old.