I love all animals! Except this one.

When I was a young miss, my parents presented me with the opportunity of my young lifetime. Horseback riding lessons. This in itself was a great sacrifice of time, money, patience and more so for my mother because of her absolute fear of horses. She couldn't bear to see her less than 90 pound little girl on a great big 1200 pound "blood thirsty beast". Horses do not eat meat, nor will they ever eat meat. They *will* however, occasionally hold a pathological grudge against the two legged. Specifically, two legged teen girls with long brown braided hair. Those ones drive unbalanced quadrupeds right over the edge firmly into the realm of insanity. There were plenty of horses in the barn to choose from, don't get me wrong. I rode all of them. Calm, sedate steeds who would never ever think about deviating from the steady clip, clop, clip, clop that droned through the barn each hour of each and every day that passed. Wonderful schooling masters who would correct themselves in spite of the gangly uncoordinated rider giving every mixed signal in the book. They were so good, you could stand in the center of the ring with the trainer and speak commands that the horse would follow with a zealots loyalty. *yawn* Good for practicing your show ring smile. Perfect. Tepid.

 The antithesis of a schooling master was a beautiful chestnut morgan named Shasta. She was the pride and joy of a trainer I had as a young teenager, and the trainer had owned her since she and the horse were young. She could do no wrong! She was the embodiment *PHYSICALLY* of the perfect horse, and I admit she was quite a looker. She unfortunately was unhinged from any sort of reality and was bent on breaking at least one of my bones each week. It was like a personal goal of hers. This sort of psychopathy was truly legendary. To this very day, I am so sure that had the horse whisperer come to meet our dear Shasta, he would now be known as the kitty cat whisperer. Or the wombat whisperer. ANYTHING but the horse whisperer. She had that effect on people. What a gem.

Separately, those words are innocent. Put together like that... I wanna cry.

Bring it, horse. 

 But she was so pretty! And she moved like a four legged ballet dancer! When I got on her, it was like trying to control the pure fury of a tornado. A really, really graceful tornado.

 Typically the lesson would begin by be going out to the paddock to try to catch her. She would squeal and snort all in an attempt  to return me from whence I came, all to no avail. This was not exclusive to me, she greeted everyone except the trainer in this warm and cuddly fashion. When she saw or heard the jangling of the halter, she would pin her ears and they would remain in the pinned position unless she had A) thought of a particularly brutal tactic to unseat me or B) she was back in the paddock munching on her hard earned hay.

Why do I bargin with a terrorist?

After spending twenty or so minutes dodging her hind hooves, getting head butted, stepped on, farted at, bit, and trying to remove the mud and grit she loved to roll in as I was approaching her paddock, I would finally have a presentable horse to tack up. Shasta would take in a deep breath as soon as the saddle came into view and make it nearly impossible to cinch up the girth around her bloated chest. Luckily for me, I had a trick for that. (*No* I didn't ram my knuckles into her ribs) I would put the saddle and bridle on and walk her until the poor thing had to breathe. Then when she would exhale, I'd tighten it up bit by bit. She hated me because she HAD to breathe. Ha. Thank you biology!

 Upon entering the ring, my trainer waiting patiently in the center ready to purr out soothing words of instruction to my young horse crazy mind, I would mount the beast. Each and every time, I hoped that she would just do what I was asking her to do without the battle of might, which she would win every time, or the locking of wills, which at best was a 50 / 50 draw. Even getting her to take a step was sometimes a ten minute bargaining session. The frustration was made more poignant by the soft spoken coo of my trainer, looking on at her most favorite steed, and puffing out obvious instructions to the dolt atop of her.

  Nothing struck fear in my tender heart like the triumphant words of my trainer "AH! There you go!" Those words, meant to inspire feelings of success only meant one thing to me. Shasta was about to become a very spirited ride. Every time those words were uttered in a lesson, something terrible was about to happen. She would climb the walls, spin around, bite or kick another horse, her head would spin and she would projectile vomit green pea soup. Oh no... wait.. I'm getting her mixed up with another demon.

On your mark! Get set! Break your bones!

Normally, the sensation of being aboard a beautiful mount, hair blowing in the wind, the horse and rider moving as one is truly a beautiful thing. Sadly when that feeling is injected by a premonition of doom, your young life flashing before your eyes and the acrid scent of abject terror, the moment is sort of ruined. No longer was I a teenager in the middle of a sedate dressage lesson, but the unwilling passenger on a tilt-a-whirl powered by pure nitrous oxide. A crazed carnival ride that holds some strange grudge and who, against nature itself, craves the taste of *my* blood. She meant business, and she was the CEO of pain. At some point in the melee she ceased to be a horse, but became the full on four legged embodiment of a norse (sounds like HORSE. No coincidence there) berserker.

 As horror typically goes, these scenes seemed to drag on forever and I am lucky enough to have a prefrontal cortex FULL of these babies! I mean they go on and on. In the barn, on the trails, on the cross country course, after giving her a bath. Shasta was terrible. I would undoubtedly gain some semblance of control long enough to grind out that this horse was being "mare-ish" (which is the equivalent of saying she is PMSing.) and my trainer would look at my white knuckles, the sweat rolling down my face and Shasta's body, see the tell tale tick in my left eye and conceded that I had enough. With a sigh and a nod, she would release me from this torture and permit me another horse for the remainder of my lesson.

Poor Shasta dripping with malevolence would not realize that she in fact won. One or two laps around the arena at a very secured, very collected trot would be enough to satisfy my soft spoken task master and I was finally allowed to dismount. Immediately, Shasta would drop to the ground and try to roll the saddle off of her.

Git this saddle offa... wait! Did you say BARN?

<3

 Right then and there as we began our walk of shame through the arena and back to the barn her whole outlook on life would change. Her ears would perk up, she would have acquired a bounce to her step (if only she would do that in the ring for me) and every great once in a while, she would nuzzle my shoulder and puff the back of my head with her breath. *sigh* She really was pretty.

All the riders in the barn were subject to this brand of inhumane treatment weekly by trainer and horse. On occasion, I would be grooming a schooling master, dull and doe eyed and hear a tell tale shriek rip through the barn. All of us who were getting ready for our lesson would raise our eye brows ever so slightly as we looked over the stall walls at each other. Someone in the area is taking one for the team. When that rider burst out of the ring battered and bruised with a jolly Shasta tip toeing her happy carousel horse trot behind them, we would nod in acknowledgment of the sacrifice made that day.

 I still love horses and always will. I have learned to stay away from the ones with a vendetta.

Out with the old...

A lot has happened since we moved to the new place. For starters, J and I are no longer. Those of you who know us are not shocked at all by that news, we were rolling downhill faster than the gyrowheel (See "physics for the real world" post) and it was basically done shortly before we even moved. Without getting into the details, we are both happier for it. Yay!!

 There is a new development in the world of Sy and I. We have a little family going on! I met a man named David and he has brought a daughter and lovely extended family into the mix. We couldn't be any happier! You will meet David and his daughter during the course of this blog I am sure. In fact, they were mentioned in the previous posting "He sees you when you're sleeping".

 Happy 2013 in a few days!

Math / physics for the real world.

This past weekend was my son's fourth birthday and as a super fun special surprise, the guy I was dating and I purchased a BIKE for him. Not just a lame little kids trike, but an honest to goodness two wheeled pedal bike. It is meant to look like a dirt bike, complete with the front racing number on the handle bars, front and rear brakes (also the brakes when you pedal backwards for kids) and a day glow, safety orange paint job. Slick. Just what he has been asking for since he could speak.

As mentioned in the intro post, I am into tech things. True to form, I found a SUPER awesome gadget for the bike that is touted to make training wheels obsolete and make crashes a thing of the past. Or at least reduce the amount of blood spilled in the process. Either way I was thrilled to buy it and charge it up at home. The "it" I speak of is a gyro-wheel. The eleven pound, sixteen inch wheel has a rapidly rotating gyro (disk) inside that at full spin, will prevent the tire from tipping over. Thusly, letting us ditch the training wheels and use the sick looking red and black gyro-wheel to help our young lad learn the ins and outs of riding a bike.

 We had the bike ready to unwrap, but decided not to add the gyro-wheel so Sy could get used to the bike and we could adjust seat height etc before installing the wheel itself. I charged the tire and off we went to that guy's family for the party. Everything was picture perfect! We swam in the pool, we had great BBQ for dinner, ate some yummy, icing laden cake and opened some wicked gifts. Then, it was time for the bike. He opened it and was the happiest kid in the state! (Who wouldn't be with a safety orange, pseudo-dirt bike?!) During the course of the day, Jess and I had been telling his family about this really awesome tire that would let us take those blasted training wheels off and let my child experience the pure awesomeness that is bike riding. The family wanted to see this thing in action, and lucky enough, we brought it AND it was fully charged!!

Shiny and new!

 The OOOOOOs and AHHHHHHHHs were deafening. It powered up like a WWII era jet, the red and black inserts spun with a hypnotic hum and people were captivated. I don't blame them, this thing is sick.  As they were all watching the dynamic gyro-wheel do its stuff, that guy I was dating suggested I give it a bit of a push and knock the side of it to show how rock solid this powerhouse of a toy was. I happily obliged! Look at this, all! It doesn't fall over! It picked up speed and I gave it a bit of a kick, true to the manufacturer's word, nary a wobble.

 As I basked in the fact that this was possibly a close second to the greatest gift on the planet, I began to notice that the infallible tire was indeed *still* not falling over. And it was picking up speed. And it was traveling down a hill. *Still* picking up speed and not falling over. As the mental calculations were adding up, a pit formed in my stomach. There is a CREEK down there!! One flashback of the directions echoed in my mind. "Do not submerge in water.. Doooo Noooot subbbmeeerge in waaaaaaattterrrrrrr!"

 Recalling another equally ominous image (the price tag), I decided NOW was the time for action. See Dani. Run, Dani, RUN!

RUN Dani! RUUUN!

 Unfortunately, my lack ability to calculate physics and apply it in the real world resulted in a slight *cough* delay of my sprint. (I had to carry a one then invert the fraction and that trips up everyone!) The  gyro-wheel blissfully rolled over the brambles, through the bushes, then in an awe inspiring climax, launched itself off the bank and smack dab into the middle of the flowing creek. As it was floating and spinning in the creek, it still didn't fall over. Kudos, Gyrobike, makers of Gyro-wheel! It really works!

Down periscope!

 In spite of the fact that I am used to chasing down small fast moving juggernauts (Sy), the fact that I was laden with energy boosting carbs from dinner and have the fight or flight response of a gazelle, I did not make it in time. Hurling myself downhill over uneven ground was only the first obsticle. I had to navigate my way as gracefully as I could (the audience of family members was still in a trance from the exposure to awesome) through a twine fence, and barrel my way through the barbs and stickers of bushes before finally coming to a crescendo of my own, diving in after the gyro-wheel.

 Standing there in the creek, dripping wet and holding a whirring, clonking Gyro-wheel, I felt triumphant! I got it!! It was only dripping a little, right? And the strange buzzing was there before.... right? I didn't care at that moment because all I wanted to do was get out of the creek and dry this sucker off.

 The party wound down a few hours after the creek incident and we were able to pack up the bounty of gifts and return home. We dried it off as best as we could, took it apart (bye bye warranty!) and let it air dry for a few days. After looking it over for rust or any kind of real damage, Jess's attendant put it back together for us... and it still works!!!