Chin Up, Chest Out, Shoulders Back

 A banner weekend for me in more ways than one: physically, emotionally, maybe even spiritually?

I took my girls to our Southwest Veterinary Symposium in Fort Worth; I seem to have succeeded in showing them a good time on a little mini-vacay - I booked us rooms at the Sheraton. Metroplex traffic has gotten so horrendous - I know I saved us between 3 - 4 hours each day of commuting time. I had to get my truck serviced Thursday for this upcoming weekend’s trip, so I was a little late getting out of my gate;  coming up to Fort Worth in the late afternoon I only hit one minor traffic jam which probably delayed me 10-15 minutes but felt like forever!

I did not book Dr. M & her husband a hotel room since they were going to stay with her daughter in Heath (a nearby suburb which under normal circumstances would be 30 minute commute). However, after 2 days of bucking northside traffic, on Friday night Dr M bunked with me - & Saturday night we had a full-fledged slumber party since her husband stayed over too; he didn’t feel like driving back after our celebratory “family dinner”. (Well, it wasn’t a full-blown slumber party since I couldn’t convince P to sleep over, he just drove over for dinner - & what a dinner it was!)

To Be Continued…

As you can read, I continue to cope with most of life's issues through dark'ish humor - and while I was not thrilled to sacrifice my privacy in my upscale hotel room (I know for my mother, highlights of her existence were our vacations when I became a teenager: we were well-off enough that we no longer had to camp out, we stayed in hotels & ate in restaurants where somebody else was doing the laundry, the cooking, & the dishes! Of course I absorbed those traits), I was trying to make the best of it & even felt some guilt after Dr M's profuse gratitude. It really was not that big a deal!

The physical aspects of my victory came from surpassing 10K steps on Friday, attending my first "real live" yoga class on Saturday (not perfect but I tried to keep up), and fasting all day Saturday in preparation for our Big Fancy Family Dinner Saturday night - Dr M & her husband were celebrating his successful recent cancer surgery which he came through like an absolute rock star. He insisted on picking up the check at the Ft Worth Stockyards steakhouse (easy to remember as it's named Lonesome Dove) where we enjoyed exotic sausage (rabbit & rattlesnake), wild boar ribs, and sharing tidbits of elk tenderloin, Berkshire pork chops, bison ribeye, and my own beef filet which, hands down, was one of the best pieces of meat I've had in my whole life! MM insisted on picking up this hefty tab, so I could justify my hotel room sharing as part of "paying the piper".

Trainspotting

 Last week, Big Boy, one of the few remaining operational steam locomotives in North America, came through Ellis County on its big multi-state tour. He steamed right down the tracks across the road from my clinic - I was not out early enough to see this, so I drove down to Ennis to catch the whistle stop. I will get some photos posted later; it was damned impressive.

https://www.up.com/heritage/steam/4014/

On Sunday afternoon, we got the surgery trailer cleared out so that yesterday I was able to work completely in my building. This was nice as long-awaited rainstorms came through; we didn’t have to trek back-and-forth to the surgery trailer. I hope to get news from the bank today that Dr. W’s loan has been approved and then we just have to finalize details of when he will pick it up? Hopefully it won’t be this weekend as we are going to the state veterinary conference, but even so, Zach has already volunteered to be my handoff man. He’s as anxious as I am to get those funds so I can pay off some debts & start catching up on dadgum tax payments! One hurdle at a time…

Things seem to have stabilized with Kristy’s mom under hospice care at home. I certainly hope nothing dramatic changes so Kristy can enjoy (as best she can) our short little weekend in Fort Worth. She & Misti have been plotting out which lectures they will attend; I haven’t even had a chance to look at their schedule so that will probably be Thursday evening’s chore when I check into our hotel. (I splurged to get us hotel rooms since it will save us close to three hours of commuting time each day)

But speaking of chaos, my son does seem to thrive on it - he was filling me in on more drama in his personal life with Victoria. Obviously they’ll either work things out or they won’t - for now I can just be content that all is well in his professional career - he is picking up extra shifts, socking away some overtime so he and Victoria can go to Tulum. My boy is figuring out the true cost of things and I haven’t even finished transferring responsibility for his utilities and car payment…I’m giving him a few more months to adjust to adult life.

Speaking of which, I’ve got to get on with my own! Life doesn’t feel very carpe diem-ish now, but next week will be better when I’m prepping for my ride at Pole Canyon

More Blessings

 I’m doing my best to cultivate that “attitude of gratitude” but it’s challenging when I creak out of bed feeling like The Tin Woman - multiple joints stiff & achy, where’s my WD40?? By the time I pace the aisle of my barn, getting the ponies fed, it’s better but I’m grateful to settle in with my cup o’ coffee.

My FitBit logged me at 3.2 miles Saturday; while it didn’t feel as if I walked 5K at the time, today the ol’ bod is telling me differently! I didn’t have a chance to download my photos from the festival - Monday Monday! - but hopefully I’ll have that opportunity today. More gratitude on the front of having a full complement of staff members; Kristy reported further declines in her mom’s condition as I expect she’ll linger for weeks or months under hospice care** - I make no claims as to my diagnostic abilities with humans.

All systems “Go” as we should have Dr M back on board Wednesday; she also confirmed my ride dates in October, so I sent off my entries for next month’s beautiful Pole Canyon ride (10/4 & 5). But unfortunately my young friend Heather is letting her own anxieties get the better of her: I had offered her a ride to Pole Canyon but she doesn’t think Smidge is ready. I really have no business taking off work myself, making such a long haul for these short intro rides but what the hell, it’s carpe diem time!

** while my dear friend Rhonda lasted merely 6 wks after her lung cancer diagnosis, my “god-sister” Dana (my godparents’ only daughter, about the same age as Rhonda) lingered in a comatose state for over a month under hospice care. And I shake my head bitterly at the lost opportunities with my half-sister Linda: I feel as if I was robbed of my chance to have our relationship “out in the open” since I thought learning of her existence would’ve been too big a shock to my mother. Poor Linda’s been gone almost 20 months now, yet while I wouldn’t say my mom is “still going strong”, she is still alive if unwell. I know that sounds awful of me, but she seems to take no pleasure out of life anymore.

And pleasurable or not, I’ve got to get on with my work duties.

Counting Blessings

 I will never turn down an impromptu invitation from my son - Saturday afternoon he wanted to go downtown to the Viva Dallas festival, a pre-celebration of Mexican Independence Day (which is actually today, Diez y Seis de Septembre). It actually worked out well because I had a 3 PM acupuncture appointment: Zach was working Saturday, so by the time he got home, mowed the front yard & took a shower, it was perfect timing. 

We drove downtown, parked at a lot a couple of blocks away (which was “merely” $11, the festival itself was free!) and hiked over to City Hall Plaza. What’s not to like? We ate tacos & elote, listened to mariachis, watched the dancers and saw some impressive displays of horsemanship. I was especially impressed by the young lady riding astride in the full flowing skirt.

Zach couldn’t stay out too late because he had to get up for work Sunday morning - this was perfectly agreeable to me also… We strolled around admiring our architecture and I tried to fill Z in on some of the controversy - many traditionalists were not in favor of our modernistic City Hall design or the Henry Moore sculpture in the plaza. The modern faction won, I think mostly from a desire to prove that we were not Fort Worth! If you walk a few blocks west, you can see the traditional cattle-drive, western bronze sculptures. Zach had to do his employee orientation inside City Hall by which he was favorably impressed.

 But then Sunday morning, it was back to reality - like it or not, I had to get my mother showered. Let me just say that I can handle animal clean-up much better than the eye-watering combination of stale urine and body odor. I tried to work as quickly &efficiently as I could and I got it done. On the classic movie channel they were doing a Lonesome Dove marathon, which turned out to be far superior to the disappointing Cowboys game.

All Shook Up

 I was fortunate yesterday morning when we went riding & my friend Sam volunteered to ride Silas. Dr M’s husband was released from MD Anderson last Wednesday and they drove immediately to come get their pet baby skunk Lily whom we had been babysitting. All went well with his surgery and hopefully I will have Dr M’s help back as usual in another week and a half - that means I can start laying plans for my fall ride schedule. While this seems ludicrous with my meager stamina, it does give me something to look forward to. The next scheduled event is the Pole Canyon ride the first weekend in October (actually there’s a ride in Oklahoma 9/21 but that could be pushing my luck) - I’ve been on the fence as to whether Silas or Baraq gets the nod?

We did a 10 mile out-and-back trail yesterday, and Baraq nearly beat me to death between pulling & jigging when we turned back towards “home”. I had serious doubts those first couple of miles until he simmered down a bit - but there was literally nothing to be done? It wasn’t as if I could dismount & hike it back to the trailer - I couldn’t play take-backs and ask Sam to ride my lil’ fire-breathing dragon; the man is my friend, after all! So this was a minor accomplishment right there, just making it back to the trailer in one piece. I was exhausted afterwards, so even though I should’ve gone to visit my mom, instead I camped out in my living room and watched the Cowboys’ season opener.

So while Mr Silas may be “slow but sure”, he’s the only logical choice to campaign this fall. In other news, Aphrodite has escaped my attempt to make a safe enclosure for her in the shallow end of my pond and is now “wild n’ free” - this is fine by me and thankfully my husband didn’t freak out. We went able to spotlight her (glowing green gator eyes) Saturday night when we got home from our movie date. We went to see “Reagan” - Dennis Quaid did an excellent job in this cheesy puff piece which had Reagan literally riding off into the sunset. Peran was much more enthusiastic, where to even begin? So I did not.

Happy Anniversary

 (I cannot write this phrase, or utter it aloud, without mentally singing the Flintstones version of their silly little song: Happy Anniversary, happy anniversary, happy anniversary, haaaaaappy anniversary!!!)

https://youtu.be/UhMzeGZhxWk?si=RSfL15VwUHHXewZH

Obviously I watched far too many cheesy cartoons as a child - but Zach & Victoria celebrated their unofficial anniversary by taking a mini-weekend trip to Broken Bow, Oklahoma. As much as I joke about sawing through that gnarly ol’ umbilical cord, it’s hard when my phone is pinged by a notification for their AirBnB reservation - my number is still primary on that account! Besides, they needed mommy to feed the dog and cats - Mr. Tyson lost his farm privileges a couple of years ago, when he tried to kill my sweet ol’ Tweedledum over the automatic dog feeder. I know I posted about that fiasco…

https://endurovetssparkjourney.blogspot.com/2022/10/snapshots.html

So lucky for Zach, Labor Day was also a holiday for me - but when I got to the house Monday morning, I found the frog with a dirty half-inch of water and Mila the python with NO water in a filthy cage. There wasn’t any point in lecturing him about it long distance, but I will not tolerate animal abuse/neglect. Reptiles and amphibians tolerate a great deal of this, probably proportionally more so than dogs & cats - there is a great deal of ignorance about proper care despite everyone carrying a mini-computer around on their phones. But in my son’s case it was sheer lack of initiative.

I am the first to admit my own husbandry is often less than optimal. I have felt horrible for Aphrodite and her little oversized goldfish bowl of a water trough, but I finished reinforcements to her ramshackle pen-on-the-pond and we released her into it Monday. Photos will be posted, but I’ll have to admit I was horrified by my own appearance as I had my friend shooting video of her release. (See previous entry about the Venus of Bristol) 😳