Unworthy

 My mother crammed my baby book to overflowing with every single bit of minutiae concerning my growth & development - however one part that made an impression on me was the meaning of my name: “Worthy”. I think it’s been an ongoing battle ever since, although in recent years it’s been more of a battle for simple survival than any real “tests” as far as proving myself…

“All My Husbands”: Peran continues in what I would call his long-term adoption of benign neglect - mostly ignoring me as he does his own things. He acted surprised when he announced he was going into town yesterday afternoon & I said I’d go with him - we then drove in complete silence, even though I joked with him a bit about my music selections. He dropped me off at Walmart while he went to the auto parts store…

My “trail husband” Sam was reclusive & withdrawn during our ride yesterday, even though he hugged me & greeted me effusively as he always does… He strode off ahead on long-legged Thunder & was obviously not interested in carrying on a conversation. Any ride is a good ride although I was stiff & sore as I fought an intermittent headache yesterday. (I came home to crash in the recliner for an hour & a half to take a brief nap, which is why I think Peran was surprised when I said I’d go to town with him)

And my Army Guy is lost in the ether - while we routinely have been going three or four days between Telegram messages, it’s been 10 days now & I have to admit I have no idea what’s going on…Is he dead,  is he injured, or has he just gotten tired of our little pen-pal relationship?? Let’s face it, it was pretty one-sided because I seemed to be giving him a lot more insight into what makes Val tick then vice-versa. He claimed to be a 56-year-old widower whose wife died of leukemia, but I heard few details as to who’s raising his kids, for instance? He sent me a few scattered pictures of them at various ages…

And in other news, Andy has extended an olive branch (apparently) with a Facebook video which I have not watched yet. I’m gonna let it sit. Overall I’m convinced text messaging is a horrible way to communicate!

Three Dog "Morning & Night"

 86° yesterday afternoon, yet 37° this morning - welcome to Texas, in other words!

I called up Aphrodite for her first feeding of the season just before I took Catie back to the clinic to collect her bunnies & hand her off to her mom. Couldn’t convince Christina to slow down for a few minutes to grab a bite, but I had made us a family brunch yesterday which was nothing fancy - bacon & eggs! I had given some thought to making biscuits, but we had bagels & French bread that needed to be consumed. Peran seems to appreciate our little slice of pseudo-family time so there’s that…

As hard as it is to disentangle myself from these three precious little dogs, I must get back to Real Life.

Gingerly rubbing my L eye - I have a nice shiner where Twoie ran me under a branch! But it honestly looked like purple eyeshadow, tempting me to smack my R eye ;-)

This is Twoie bravely leading across the scary metal bridge from 2 wks ago on my trail ride

                                           The piney woods of SW Louisiana (Sat morning's start)

 

Oh, remembrance of things past! (you can see from the ride times that these were technically difficult trails; a fast, race-paced 50 miler might finish in less than half that time)

Unfinished Business

 (I just checked my pO2 to see if this forgetfulness* of mine, which seems to be worsening here recently is related - I don’t think it is because my pO2 is 96 right now, oftentimes when I check in in the evenings after hard day’s work, it’s 93 or 94 but I can raise it to 95–96 with a little deep breathing)

* I sat down with my coffee after a brief scan of ye olde social media & then forgot my title, which to me is the most important part of getting my writing juices flowing

At any rate I guess I’m just fatigued - while I’m glad I went ahead & hauled home last night, again it was a lot of work & effort when, in the end we came in overtime. Ugh! At some point it will reach a point of diminishing returns, especially with diesel hovering close to $5/gallon - ouch!!! This translated into roughly $200 in fuel costs for our 500-mi haul. When I add up the fuel, the food, the horse motel stop we did Thursday night**, & our entry fees, this little weekend jaunt cost me just under $600 - that’s presuming the relief vet that I hired to hold down the fort for me Friday paid for herself (I’ll have to look at those figures mañana). At any rate, it’s only money ain’t it?!?

** it was “only” a 6-hr haul, so I decided to break up the trip Thursday by hauling roughly halfway, stopping at an RV park in East Texas which had a nice little rustic barn. I contemplated doing the same thing last night, but I’m glad Catie pressed me to come on home - she’s sleeping in this morning, but I’ve already got the trailer unhitched & the first load of laundry going

& now “the rest of the story” - we have not had a endurance ride in Louisiana for 20 years. At that prior event, I rode good ol’ Quigley, while Christina rode Zach’s awesome little red mule Midge. Midge powered on through, finishing just under the time limit but Quig & I got pulled for lameness. I also had Zack that weekend - at 7 yrs old, he was not quite ready to do a 55-miler so I just took he & his friend Willy so they could play & explore those piney woods… The trails are sandy loam with a lot of zigzagging in & out of creek beds, interspersed w/old railroad berms. These trails are shared with a dirt bike club, if that tells you anything about their technical nature - in other words, fairly tough!

So I’m proud of Twoie & Baraq for powering through yesterday - even more so of Catie, who was worried about doing 25 miles when she hasn’t ridden much recently! (She did great, fueling up on milk & cookies during our break) I’m going to finish my coffee & go generate some breakfast for us; we’ll meet her mama at the clinic this afternoon to do the handover so she can take her bunnies home - I spayed & neutered a pair for her. Photos to follow!

In the meantime, let me see if I can post a video link of my friend Kathy’s -

https://fb.watch/FSyrU0ZOy-/?fs=e

 

Springing Forward

 (Which in my case is more like plodding wearily forward, but hey, at least I’m still moving!)

This spring time change always hits me much harder than “falling back”… I was at my long-anticipated Shanghai trail ride - purely a social event, not for any points or mileage. Still a lot of work & a lot of driving - I don’t know how much longer the benefits will outperform the wear n’ tear? It was great to see all my friends, not to mention my friend Tina was effusively thankful that I hauled dear ol’ Silas to be her mount. Silas himself was proud of being selected - he’s such a good, unassuming, quietly competent gelding! Mr Twoie performed admirably also - I don’t seem to be able to share the video clip of him leading the way across our last obstacle, the scary metal bridge! but I took a couple of screenshots that I will add later. Fearless Leader Cindy’s horse balked, her granddaughter’s did the same - dear Twoie sidestepped right around to pick up the lead.

And Saturday night, I saved a life when I almost stepped on a juvenile rat snake who had apparently gotten accidentally backed over in the driveway. He got a little “squished” with some head trauma & broken teeth but thank goodness it was mostly soft sand. I brought him home with me for treatment but I should be able to return him to his home turf at the end of this month when I go back for our endurance event at Pierce Ranch.

                                             The beautiful Pierce Ranch at sunrise

                                            The Dirty Dozen before our final obstacle (the metal bridge)

                                                   Cicero the Texas rat snake

Retail Therapy

 I am abashed to admit that I was not really looking forward to my “Girl’s Day Out” Saturday with my friend Janay & her daughter. Janay & I are fellow veterans of ye olde custody wars: we met as fellow victims of an unscrupulous custody evaluator who had a real axe to grind against mothers! (Out of a group of five, I was the only one who retained primary custody; his actions were truly unethical & horrifying) I’m thankful we were able to band together, file complaints, testify at a board hearing & get that man disqualified from performing custody evaluations…

Janay & I have stayed in touch; in many ways we continue to deal with the repercussions of our family implosions decades after-the-fact, trying to help our children as we handle our own issues. Are the kids all right? For now, things to be seem to be headed in the right direction.

Anyway we met for brunch & set off from there to go to good ol’ NorthPark Mall (Janay & I have such fond memories of this mall from our own childhoods; it was one of the first in the Metroplex!) & do some “retail therapy”. I bought some jewelry: a necklace & earring set for Ashley as she is retiring after 28 yrs of grooming dogs for me! We are having a big “clinic family” dinner Wednesday night so Dr M & her husband can attend. I was contemplating how “the joy is in the giving” as I also bought little stuffies for a couple of my employees’ kids & thank-you cards which I need to pass around. Then I came across these great thoughts from Dr Deb as I skimmed FB this morning:

I write because it is therapy for my brain and helps me make sense of what I see and do everyday and it helps me grow as a human.  I write because I have been there and done that and if my story helps someone not make the same mistakes I have made than it was worth the time to write.  I write because if we never share what we have learned then we are responsible for the future generation’s failures.  I write because then people can read or not read and hopefully if they do read they will open their mind up to consider what and why they do what they do and maybe learn from my mistakes or lessons.  I write in hopes that one day my children will read my writings and learn from my mistakes and not have to go through the same struggles and stupidity lessons.  I do not want to be doing the same things and acting the same way a year or five from now because growth is constant and if we never do any self inspection, we never grow and who wants that life?!

                                            The Three Muskateers juicing up!

                                              (I wish my baby would still hold hands w/ME ;-)

                                                       The stuffed toy

                                      A real nudibranch (Addyson really loves 'em)