Recalculating

 Trying to make the best of this holiday weekend, but the weather ain’t cooperating! I “stuck with the plan” yesterday, picking up Tony to haul back to Minneola for a day ride. It rained pretty steadily for most of the day - so much for my smart phone’s “40%” predictions! 

We stopped at the DQ to kill a little time/have a quick snack, but in the end, we wound up just saddling up & riding in the rain! As I told Tony, the whole purpose of these kind of challenging rides is to make you appreciate the luxuries of life, like a hot shower & dry clothing! It was good to catch up with Tony - he had not ridden with me since our 4th of July parade; in his view it’s been “too hot”… he has completed his online radiology technician course; he now has to pass a test to be certified & then he can look for a J*O*B. Getting out of the house & being exposed to a wide spectrum of the human race will be the real learning experience for him…

I have left the trailer hitched with the remote hope that the weather might clear out & I might get in another ride this afternoon or tomorrow, maybe even with my friend Karen? I need to talk to her face-to-face about my concerns about her eldest daughter: I know there’s not much you can do to intervene w/a young adult person** & she doesn’t wanna do anything to jeopardize her relationship with her granddaughter, but Melissa‘s recent social media posts strongly indicate binge drinking if not alcoholism. “I wish I could just stay drunk forever“ seems pretty self-explanatory!

** part of my ex’s rationale for coming down so hard on Zach during his teenage experimentation phase was the fact if you really can’t do much to get treatment for someone who is technically an adult if they won’t sign themselves into a treatment program - whereas for a child, yes of course a parent can. Not that I think that was the right course of action - I would’ve held to the professional recommendations to give him a chance to flunk out of outpatient therapy before imprisoning him in an inpatient program. Perhaps it did have a valuable “scared straight” aspect,  but you would’ve thought it might’ve made an impression on Ex, knowing that his son was the only one in the whole facility who was not there as part of a plea-bargain type legal arrangement?!?

I need to go get a few minor household chores taken care of - moping around that I’m not getting to enjoy trail riding like a small group of my friends who trekked up to Colorado for Labor Day weekend is counterproductive!

Legacy & Memory

 Journaling has been a helpful mental health tool for me since I was a teenager: over the years, I’ve filled multiple notebooks; I regret in a fit of pique I burned a stack of my old ones after H1 read a few & gave me shit about it (actually used that sensitive info as a blunt-force weapon during our ongoing marital wars - he even stole a volume during our divorce & tried to present it is “evidence” that I was an unfit mother! Fortunately the judge wouldn’t allow that “evidence” to be admitted) 

I’ve got a separate blog chronicling those last couple of years of the Custody War & Zach’s tumultuous young adulthood; at some point I’ve contemplated having it printed out as I have done several other volumes of my “work”, ha ha! and gifting it to Zach… I just haven’t figured out the appropriate age? 21 was too young; at 25 he was just getting settled into grown-up life with Victoria (not to mention striving for the finish line of college) - maybe age 30?? And would it be considered a poison-pen gift? I don’t want to cause him additional trauma, above all. But as he asks questions about his father & my’s relationship, as well as my current views as he & Victoria try to navigate forging a marriage - perhaps reading my “Reports from Ground Zero” would be most helpful? It’ll certainly be something to read during his travels! 

No relationship is perfect; everyone makes compromises (duh!) - I called my “childhood boyfriend” to catch up last weekend (we never actually dated, much to my chagrin! since he is 4 yrs older than me - my godmother‘s next-to-youngest son; we were big playmates when we were young) We spoke for an hour & a half on the phone, a “mental health break” for me as anxiety has been gnawing away. His younger brother (3 months younger than me, yikes!) is suffering from early-onset dementia & a big challenge there will be convincing his wife to seek appropriate care for him in their isolated location in SW Texas… As always, “it’s complicated” as I need to fill in a lot of backstory to make it all makes sense!

(Warning: long superfluous backstory here, so you may want to skip to next paragraph!)

My godparents, being good, observant Catholics, had six children. My godmother & Mom  were BFFs since junior high - both got married shortly after HS graduation, but JoPat got quite the head start - having 5 kids before my mom managed to retain her pregnancy with me! I am 3 months older than Paul, but it took me a while to catch up, being a premature infant & all, so my mom delighted in taking out her “twins”, much to my godmother’s chagrin!

Everyone thought Paul & I would end up together, but I guess we had too much familial closeness during our upbringing - Eeew! It would’ve been like kissing your brother for real! I had my romantic sights set on  Paul’s older brother Chris, but with our 4-yr age gap, by the time I joined him in high school, Chris already had a girlfriend - alas! The years passed, Chris married Paula, I married Michael & of course we diverged in our own lives’ directions, touching base briefly at such family events as other weddings, our parents’ 50th anniversaries, then the steady progression of funerals. I can’t help but imagine one of these “paths not taken”…

Full Spectrum

 At least I can still appreciate the glimpse of my little farmhouse in the early morning sun - it is certainly fetching! (& from a distance you don’t notice the faded paint, the chipped siding, or the rotted handrail on the porch - more things on Val’s To Do list, or more accurately, “To Manage” since I certainly won’t be up there slinging paint or doing carpentry!)

I have stayed in my DVM single-mom’s group mostly out of inertia, although I’d like to think I can still offer commiseration & useful advice here & there. Not to mention the “rubbernecker effect”:  “There but by the grace of God go I” - I do appreciate the fact that I was divorced almost 26 years ago, before social media was such a thing. All I got busted for was writing things in my blog decades ago…

My former SIL tells me that my ex was diagnosed with Stage 3 melanoma after he had a “wart” taken off the back of his neck. My mind immediately goes to my frenemy who lost her husband a few months ago from the same damn thing: he didn’t follow up on his melanoma which took about 3 yrs before it metastasized to his liver & took him down. (I almost reached out to K last month to see if she wanted to join us on our little unofficial campout in Fort Stanton, but in the end I left it alone)

https://endurovetssparkjourney.blogspot.com/2025/04/i-keep-dawdling-around-distracting.html

Anyway, in my FB group & elsewhere, it seems like everybody is “on the spectrum” to some degree or another, which from my POV seems to be a way to justify a hell of a lot of bad behavior - obviously I’m just getting to be a cranky old woman! Maybe I’m obtuse myself & I’m reading too much into another friend who seems to be avoiding me when I couldn’t get to her farm call on her schedule (her horses were due at the end of July - I explained vaccines don’t sour like milk; when I called her last week to see about coming out, she had already made other arrangements) I extended what to me seemed like another olive branch, inviting her to ride with me yesterday, but she was preoccupied elsewhere. I am reminded of the old Ann Landers quote: “What other people think of me is none of my business”

The upside is, I took Twoie out on his first solo ride with me yesterday - he did very well, if a little low energy… that’s OK, it’s still the dog days of summer after all! 

                                     Starting from the parking lot, going out to trailhead

                                                     They recently restriped!

Pande-monium

 (Just a catchy title - it’s far from “pandemonium” around here - just in my own head, perhaps? as we have actually entered “The Ides of August”, when things temporally slow down at the veterinary clinic as the kiddos go back to school!)

But I’ve been reflecting on my not-so-ancient history as time keeps ticking on… seems as if I’ve been jumping from crisis to crisis for so long, I don’t know any other way to live? I make a lot of jokes to myself as well as to my closest friends about how badly I need to finish sawing through that gnarly umbilical cord that keeps me engaged/worried about my son & his adventures. It doesn’t help that all I hear about are the crises - one day, Zach is ready to call the whole thing off, but on the next he’s going over to her grandparents for a big family conference. Victoria had asked me about coming on the great wedding dress expedition: I told her of course I’d love to come, but the times I would available would be Wednesday afternoons, Thursdays or the weekend.

She selected her dress yesterday (Monday), texting me after the fact to say she really hoped I could come when it was time to pick up the dress in December. I reiterated that I’d love to & the days I would always be available - I’m not saying I wouldn’t bend the rules to take off on a Monday, Tuesday, or Friday afternoon if that’s when it absolutely positively had to be! So “we’ll see” - I’m not trying to be difficult but these are the facts of my life. (I had texted the kids Sunday afternoon, just to see if they wanted to catch a movie during the heat of the day - they declined because they were shopping for Victoria‘s undergarments for said wedding-dress fittings) V already selected her $800 Louboutin shoes during their “spring break” trip to the Pacific Northwest…

Back to my weirdo word-association games - in lecturing myself about NOT being the overbearing mom or MIL, I recalled the sci-fi flick which I probably exposed my son to at too-young-&-impressionable of an age: "Pandorum". (We didn't see it in the theatre - as I recall I picked it up from the Walmart discount bin, making Z probably 12'ish?) I'm a solid Dennis Quaid fan & he did a good job of portraying the existential horror of being trapped in space w/a malevolent entity... or not??

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1188729/

At least we got in a good 8-mi training ride Sunday morning before the blazing heat o' the day...

Carousel

 Whelp Tina Fea is obviously part cat, she’s on about Life 6 now… She has perked up & started eating again, which I blame on getting near the end of the bag/her food being a little bit stale! So obviously I will just have to buy the smaller bags & go to the store more often 😳

My colleague (Dr L the surgeon) called me Friday night when I was trying to figure out my way into a new-to-me horse camp** - fortunately the gallbladder tumor was benign, everything else is basically OK with mild stomach inflammation. I will need to give her another round of antibiotics. She even begged a piece of cheese off of Christina after our ride, the little fart! Unfortunately, I slept poorly because I still have an infestation of little black ants in my horse trailer - I went & bought some new ant baits.

** Quick overnight trip to Mineola: several people were planning on going, but the threat of rain & for Sam, family illness caused them to cancel. It was a test run for Catie to ride my Specialized saddle on Baraq; it fit both of them well! Unfortunately I couldn’t be in two places at once - my friend Lisa‘s brother-in-law‘s funeral was also on Saturday, but I just sent a nice dish garden. I felt a few twinges of guilt, but I think pre-existing promises to the living superseded paying my respects to the deceased. Certainly Lisa herself has been as gracious as ever - I would love to get a transfusion of her positive attitude!

Perhaps the universe gave me a love tap - I got up Sunday morning with a painful L ankle - I wish I knew what in the hell I did to it?!? The pain was localized at the bottom aspect of my lateral shin but it was not bruised? It’s as if I have a shin splint right above the ankle - it’s not in the joint itself or the ligaments…

I bought myself a neoprene ankle brace from Walgreens which has helped a little bit, but I’m still very crippled. It’s frustrating because I accomplished next-to-nothing that I wanted to do; I was confined to my recliner on Sunday and limped around most of the day Monday. By Tuesday it was slowly improving - an awkward dismount maybe??

In other news, the lovebirds are disagreeing about their pseudo-elopement plans so there may not be a wedding after all?!? I am trying to stay somewhat neutral but I think Victoria needs to recognize the grandiosity of her plans may not match up with the reality of what they can afford. Zach spoke harshly to her when she was whining about not having her grandma there, but as I said, what they had lined up had 16 members of her family while Zach had 5: Peran & I plus his 3 best friends (aren’t you required to have a bachelor party in Vegas?!?)

Victoria‘s parents were mere teenagers - 17 & 18 when they had her; their shotgun marriage didn’t last any time at all. Andy & Adela wound up fighting an extensive court battle to wrest custody from Celeste, who had neglected Victoria badly. “It’s complicated” as most family matters are, but Zach fears that inviting Joe & Celeste (V’s bio parents) could ignite a firestorm, spreading to the aunt, uncles & cousins and taking the focus away from what it should be, which is Zach & Victoria‘s union. Besides, it’s no longer a simple elopement when you have 23 people involved!?!

In other news, I’m so discouraged at the many ways my body seems to be failing me these days. If it’s not my ankle, it’s pains spreading up into my knees & hips! I was awakened several times last night just by shifting positions. Part of this I can blame on a crappy old mattress, but still?!? Guess I’m going to have to start taking preventative ibuprofen or naproxen at bedtime. I have been following several tai chi practitioners on Instagram, but I still need to do the exercises - it’s discouraging when I’m out of breath after half-a-dozen arm swings, or falling off balance from simple calf raises! “The longest journey begins with a single step” as I well know; but even as a weekend warrior I’ve never found myself as far down in the hole before! I am dismayed every time I walk past my rusting tricycle in the garage, still haven’t made the time to take her into the bike shop.

The Universe in a Blade of Grass

 (or a tiny Chihuahua)

I was misremembering my poets: I thought the “universe in a blade of grass” quote was Eliot (my favorite poet - go figure, right?!?) but that’s actually Whitman…

I was meditating upon this as I try to transfer love & healing energy to dear lil’ Tina Fea - Tuesday night she was on another hunger strike. Initially, I blamed it on slightly stale food, so I went out & bought her a new bag of Fresh Pet. She still only ate a few nuggets & vomited in our bed overnight. Last night she was sincerely interested in my Salisbury steak, so I fed her a few bites of that. So far so good - she seems to be resting comfortably with no more nausea. I was really hoping to hear something on her biopsy reports (while Dr L was in there, he took biopsy samples from her stomach, liver, upper & lower intestinal tract with of course the gallbladder tumor being the most worrisome. I told him “in for a penny/in for a pound” - might as well do the full GI exploratory!) Hopefully I’ll hear something today. And even if I don’t save her, at least I did my best to give the best chance at life these last few months. Even these small gestures are worthwhile - if I’m not leading by example WTH am I doing?!?

This distracts me from the social media posts from my friends in Michigan at the Shore to Shore ride: a 5-d/265 mi peninsula-crossing expedition for those who undertook the full challenge. (If I had been able to go, I would’ve settled for 25 mi each day, which requires a crewmember to transport you & your equine between checkpoints) I had actually spoken to Peran about it, but when push came to shove I couldn’t make it work - not when I was determined to have my summer pilgrimage to Ft Stanton. Catie & I will have to settle for a day trip to Mineola (new-to-me E TX trails which look nice)

https://www.mineolanaturepreserve.com/o/naturepreserve/page/equestrian-trails

The Human-Animal Bond

 (a misnomer as soon as I typed it out - but it’s how the topic was presented to us as veterinary students… as it amuses me to no end when some people get greatly offended when humans are categorized as the animals which we certainly are! Very clever, technologically brilliant, philosophically-oriented naked apes but part of the animal kingdom just the same. A more correct phrasing might be “Human & non-human companion animal bonding” - probably too clunky, it will never catch on!)

The great news is, my little companion animal Tina Fea came through her surgery with flying colors. Dr L removed her diseased gallbladder & biopsied her stomach & liver as well as a couple of sites along her intestinal tract. I’m getting my day lined up to pick her up in triumph this afternoon, bearing sandwich trays for the staff (hope no one is vegan). I’ve started returning to my assisted-stretch appointments even though I haven’t done much of anything to earn them in the way of physical activity. Then, last but not least, I’ll be trekking to my attorney’s office in Frisco for the minor settlement in my personal injury case. 

Another very welcome piece of good news is the fact that somehow, Zach has convinced Victoria that a mini-elopement to Vegas is the best way for them to start married life together. He has booked the Little White Wedding Chapel, where my girl Misti & her husband Travis got married for Valentine’s Day ‘26. Their package includes 10 guests - causing me a minor heart spasm when Zach plaintively asked if I was certain Peran wanted to go because “I’m not even sure if he likes me sometimes”! Honey, I’m not sure how much he likes me sometimes!?! 

I did not disclose this to Peran as we were doing mundane Married Couple Things like selecting a new dishwasher last night, but I solemnly swear we’ll have that talk at some point. Years ago, I bitched to my closest friends that the best route to my heart was treating my son well - while Peran was a great stepdad when Zach was little, the challenges of teenage-&-young adulthood did not sit well with him. A fundamental difference of opinion: I told him I thought P’s parents had done him wrong - which basically involved putting Peran out with 3 cardboard boxes containing his earthly possessions when he was 18. Nevermind that everything turned out all right for Peran - we live in a different culture & a different world now. But apparently Peran can’t see past his own blinders…

In other news, another death in the family, so to speak - as my friend Lisa lost her brother-in-law basically due to complications from ignoring his periodontal disease (he developed septicemia & had already been undergoing dialysis for kidney failure). It was a miserable way to go 😔