From the bookshelf. Rereading/relistening to Rivers of London. My comfort read of the moment. ~~~
Finally achieved a second perfect month with the NYT Crosswords. It only took me two years. [2019, 2020-almost]
I would also recommend the NYT Spelling Bee. I have always been terrible with anagrams. I can barely find three-letter words in Scrabble. Possibly from being traumatized at an early age by my paternal grandmother who could have Scrabbled for her country. Yes, I’ve tried since. Wasn’t pretty. I am so bad at anagrams that I simply skip them when they show up in crosswords and hope I can find the answers from the cross clues. Despite my previous inability with the form, I’m having great luck finding words with Spelling Bee. Possibly the non-linear arrangement. Possibly the ability to repeat letters. Dunno how much is accessible without an account.
ntybee.com. NYT Spelling Bee Answers and Analysis. While I usually get to the top scoring level, I rarely get ALL the words. So, I have created an intermediate goal of getting all the pangrams and all the four-letter words. I use this to find out the word-count distribution. An unofficial fan page?
NYT: The Genius of Spelling Bee by Amlen, Nov 2020. Update. Explains the origin of the nytbee site. I admit, I did not read it completely before posting. I figured a NYT article on a NYT puzzle would not go too far astray. I did make a point of finishing it before the day was over. #HowTheSausageIsMade
Speaking of Scrabble. Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players by Stefan Fatsis (Houghton Mifflin 2001). Mentioned before. Worth repeating. [Writing Rules, Writing Life]
Awareness of the outside world. Your Local Epidemiologist. Thanks to AV for another interesting find. ~~~
Weekly Walk Columbiana Sports Complex March 17, 2021 Distance – 3.14 km, note units Time – 43:41 min Mileage [LEJOG, this date]
The Boston Athletic Association offered a Pi Day Challenge. Run (or walk, in my case) 3.14 miles on 3/14/21. I missed it by THAT much.
Not quite Pi Day.
Not quite round.
Not quite the diameter.
Definitely not 3.14 miles.
I had plans, such plans. I would walk a circle on Pi day. I would draw a circle with the GPS.
Scouring the map led to ovals galore, a few triangles, but no circles. Perhaps a cul-de-sac in random neighborhood? That would thrill the residents. Perhaps 70 times on the paved inside of a traffic roundabout? Boooooring. Free-hand a circle in the pasture? Lots of walking while staring at the screen to adjust the path. Aha! The Court Square Fountain in Montgomery, complete with BLM mural. A long drive for a walk, but definitely hits the Find New Places metric. Al New Center: King’s Canvas is an Alabama Bright Light in living color, by Shamsi-Basha July 2020, fountain photos by McKinney.
Turns out I didn’t walk at all that week. Resting hip. Doesn’t hurt during the day or when I walk. Aches at night enough to keep me from sleeping well. I sleep, just not well. Very little keeps me from sleeping. So, time off.
When I started walking again, I looked for a flat, dry area. I think slipping around in the mud in the pasture was what made my hip sore in the first place. Our soil has a high clay content. The slightest amount of rain leads to skid city.
I found flat. I found no mud. Dry? Not so much.
Your factoid for the day. Due to their day-month-year notation, Europe celebrates Pi Day on 22 July, or 22/7. “Pi denotes the relationship between a circle’s circumference and its diameter and is denoted by the fraction 22/7 which calculates approximately to 3.14.” timeanddate.com: Pi Approximation Day
Awareness of the outside world. I hate April Fools. To quote myself & to paraphrase Lewis, unless very cleverly executed, pranks are merely socially acceptable cruelty. Do I dislike the day because I am a credulous sap who is easily gulled? Absolutely. That does not mean I am wrong. [2012, 2013]
~~~
Rodney and I have been legit jumping over tiny crossrails. Why haven’t I mentioned it?
The aim of the exercise is NOT to jump. Instead, we need to learn to trot over little piles of wood as if they were ground poles rather than jumps. Give them the effort they deserve, which is minimal. I’m all for cantering into the ring sideways ready to slay dragons. Let’s wait until that level of enthusiasm is merited.
Second, last time I warbled on about Rodney jumping, it disappeared almost immediately. [Recap]
We saw that documenting each jump Milton took led nowhere. [Getting A Break]
I wanted to establish repeatability before I went public. OTOH, one day of good schooling does not a habit make. I’m glad of our progress but we are not doing what I would call jumping yet. We are not trotting, much less cantering, down to little jumps. However, talking about our three-phase progress yesterday meant letting the cat out of the bag.
Awareness of the outside world. Ugh. Where to start. Shootings, plural. Georgia voting law. Chauvin trial. Here, have some happy news. NYT: America’s Bald Eagle Population Has Quadrupled, by Taylor, March 2021.
~~~~
How far are we from dominating the AEC? Or at least completing a local, micro, mini, intro event?
Progress Dressage. Rodney will walk, trot, and canter on command in a dressage arena! We could probably get from A to Z in any Beginner Novice or Novice test. Ready to go. (Hurriedly crosses fingers.)
Cross-country. We trotted out in the XC field at FCHP!! Even though he pretzeled himself during part of it, the marbles did not threaten to roll off the table.
Show Jumping – We trotted a course of tiny, tiny crossrails!!! Even when he jumped, it was a calm, quiet little hop.
In Work Dressage. At some point I am going to have to pick up my reins and actually ride dressage. We are currently doing our best hunter flat class impression. Meh. Finish with a number not a letter.
Cross-country. Not going to pay the extra fee for XC schooling until we are super calm over show jumps and reliably quiet about hacking in the field.
Show Jumping. Still leaping where the script calls for trotting. Putting in more effort than required, which means he’s still rushing them in his mind.
Outro
Yes, we have been jumping. More on this tomorrow.
A young family member asked about horse sports. If I’m gonna generate this much text, it’s gonna be a blog post.
Please note. This is an impressionistic overview of the field from my perspective. This is not a definitive treatise on the subject. For more info, most horse activities have a governing body that would be only too happy to tell you about their sport at great length. One thing you can say about horse folks, we are not shy about sharing our enthusiasms. Adding all the associations would turn this post into a linkfest. I leave you to search further on your own.
Thank you M. That was fun.
Blog Hop Invite. Which horse sports have you done?
POLO. A classic format game wherein two teams facing each other with goals at the opposite end of the playing field. My memory bank is telling me this is the only true team sport in the horse world. The rest of the “teams” are composite scores from individual performances. This upsets some people. I’m not sure why. Vaulting, below, I would classify as group activity. PC Games, also below, is a relay.
The game has global variations.
Personal Involvement. I have never ridden a polo pony or played in a game. I’ve groomed polo ponies and watched a few matches.
A long time ago at a horse show far, far away. Photo by Deborah Rubin
JUMPING. Olympic sport. Objective. Run fast. Jump high. All members of the competition perform one at a time over the same course. Timed event. Scoring variations abound.
Personal Involvement. Done many times in many places with many horses, all at a moderate level. This was Previous Horse’s shtick. Highest I’ve jumped in competition was 4″. So far.
DRESSAGE. Olympic sport. Semi-subjective. Objective in that you have a list of things accomplish; subjective in that a judge evaluates how well you accomplished these things. Think ice skating. Horse and rider perform a pattern, which can be pre-established or free-style. No jumping. Unless you count Prix-Caprilli classes which are rare, and is splitting hairs.
Personal Involvement. So much dressage, all at an elementary school level. Literally. The highest I’ve gotten is called First Level and can be thought of as first grade. Current horses have only done nursery school level.
EVENTING. Olympic sport. The above two disciplines plus cross-country, which is solid jumps out in a field. If you buzz over a jump fast and clean, XC is objective. It becomes subjective when you have issues at a jump. Think an umpire calling safe or out. XC is timed.
Personal Involvement. I used to do this. I want to get back to this. I keep buying horses who disagree.
DRIVING. World Equestrian Games sport, i.e. international but not Olympics. Eventing with wheels.
Personal Involvement. With Bliss at Indiana CDE
REINING. WEG sport. Dressage in a Western saddle. Less trotting, more cantering. Ends with dramatic slide.
Personal Involvement. None.
VAULTING. WEG Sport. Acrobatics on moving horses. Done singly or with multiple persons at once.
Personal Involvement. None. Would like to try if I can find someone willing to teach an old fart.
ENDURANCE. WEG Sport. Races of 20, 50, or 100 miles. Race to the finish. Some subjectivity in judging of the horse condition.
Personal Involvement. Virtual Tevis last year. Not at all the same thing, but it’s what I got. [VT archives]
PARA-EQUESTRIAN. WEG Sport. Dressage for para-athletes. Included to fill out WEG roster of 8 sports. Para-driving is also a thing.
Personal Involvement. None. Haven’t seen in person. Have seen some dressage videos that are amazing. 8 minutes of walk?!? I can barely get a horse to walk across the diagonal in a decent fashion.
Speaking of completing the roster, “The FEI’s two remaining regional disciplines, horseball and tent pegging, still conduct independent championships.” Wiki: FEI World Equestrian Games.
Personal Involvement. I have no idea. You’ll have to go ask them.
HUNTERS. American version. Me jump pretty. Based on foxhunting. As with other field and bench activities, the discipline is only tangentially related to its roots. The average top-flight show hunter would categorically refuse to participate in a day’s fox hunting through mud and briar. The English version, called show hack, is flat only.
Personal Involvement. Back in the day, we didn’t have low jumpers. If you wanted to hop over fences, this was your main choice. So, I’ve done a lot. None of it at a fancy level.
WESTERN SPEED EVENTS. Barrel racing. Pole bending. Roping. Cutting. How long does it take you to perform the task at hand?
GROUP CLASSES. Also individual performance, but you are all in the ring going around together. Minimum level of performance in that you must execute the required gaits without becoming a danger to yourself or others. This is rare. Most competitors go into the ring expecting to complete the required movements. After that, it is the judge’s opinion of who is best on the day.
This a huge section of horse competition. Hunters have one flat class in each division. Breed shows are almost entirely group classes. Dressage is starting to have group classes for dressage equation. Discipline-based group classes lean toward performance; breed-based classes lean toward being the epitome of the breed.
Personal Involvement. All of my saddle seat shows, save for a few patterns, were this kind of class. Most of the photos are solo because a) the photographer works hard to isolate the subject, b) getting out of the pack is part of showmanship, or c) it’s a victory pass. My ASB driving classes were also group classes.
PLEASURE DRIVING. Anything you can do with a horse that doesn’t involve jumping.
IHSA. A hunter competition at the collegiate level. Since my day they have added collegiate eventing & dressage. They may have had Western IHSA when I was in college, but not where I rode. Also the ANRC, which I think was similar with the IHSA but with fancier horses.
GYMKHANA. Games that involve much running back and forth. A team sport in the relay style.
Personal Involvement. None. I was too old when I joined Pony Club. [Celebrity Mounted Games]
KNOWDOWN. Not a sport, but included because part of Pony Club. 4-H as their own version.
Personal Involvement. None. Ditto.
TETRATHLON/PENTATHON. Riding is part of a multi-disciple competition.
Personal Involvement. None.
HALTER CLASSES. Judging the body style of the horse. Certainly a competition. Could it be classified as a sport?
Personal Involvement. Never done. Never seen. Have opinions. Moving on.
RACING. A business more than a sport.
Personal Involvement. Rode a racehorse during training. Never on the track. Groomed a racetrack. Only job I’ve ever been fired from. Previous Horse & Milton are both retired racehorses. [Riding Abroad]
STEEPLECHASE. Racing over jumps.
Personal Involvement. Reading Dick Francis novels.
I would prefer to do this in an enclosed space. Generally when we are somewhere with an arena, we ride for a while. By the time we are done, Milton has been good/is tired and/or I’m tired. [Old Arena]
It never seems to be the opportune moment.
Since I’m not riding/working Milton, he tends to disappear from the blog. It’s not my story, so I don’t tell it.
Upon reflection, I’m willing to talk about Milton’s driving because I am involved to the extent of being his header and – maybe, eventually – a navigator. [When Milton Adores Me]
tldr: Pfizer #1 last Tues. Went smoothly. Mild tiredness.
PSA 1 – Make an appointment to get vaccinated.
PSA 2 – If you find an earlier appointment, awesome! Take the first available. Then, please go back to cancel the first appointment. This will allow the vaccination site to schedule more people.
Writing this for the record & in case anyone is curious as to the process.
Signing Up
The local major medical center is hosting several vacc sites. My age group opened up on March 22. The week before, the vaccination sign-up page had my age group already listed. Did that mean I was eligible? Did that mean they were taking names for when I would become eligible?
Whatever. Sign up & let them sort it out.
Filled out form. Answered questions. They asked what day, what time, which site. I said first available, first available, first available. Crossed fingers that they wouldn’t schedule the same time as the blacksmith, just about my only immovable appointment in any given month.
How did I feel about Tuesday the 23 at 9:40?
How did they feel about me showing up an hour early on Tuesday the 23rd?
Come the day, I was only 5 minutes early. There is enough morning chores that it’s hard to get off the farm in the single digits. That’s why my saddleseat lessons were always 10:30 or 11.
Drive-Thru Vaccination
First person. Was I here for the vaccine? Yes, I was. On you go then.
Second person waved me into one of 8(?) lanes.
Third person waved me down under a long, shallow tent that covered all lanes.
ID. Was my car in park? Did I have my pen handy? They had advised appointees to bring one. Paperwork. Explanation of shot & procedure.
Roll down to next tent. Paperwork checked. Door opened. Shot. Tiny, tiny needle. I’ve had mosquito bites that I felt more. I will be scheduled to come back in three weeks.
Windshield was marked with my departure time, after the mandatory 15-minute observation period. As I passed down the line, various marks and checks were put in the top corner of my windshield. Trucks are not convenient for short volunteers.
The whole operation was amazingly efficient. I barely had time to strip down to the short sleeve shirt. They also advised this. Obvious, but I could see myself automatically putting on long sleeves in the morning.
Roll down to the waiting area. Chat from person with medical type ID. 15-minute wait explained. Honk if I feel anything at all. Please leave door unlocked in case we need to reach you quickly.
I brought a book, of course. Spent as much time people-watching. Particularly since I needed to keep my eye on the line of cars that advanced as the people ahead of me were released.
People kept circling thru to check that I was vertical.
Ready to go. Please follow the direction of the people in the yellow vests.
Done.
Drive-thru vaccination. Who knew?
Reaction, Or Not
The next day I was tired. Hard to tell if it was reaction, sloth, or relief. Took the day off.
The second day after was a bad weather day. Second one in a week. The sort of day when you have lots of time standing around waiting but you get nothing done. I wrote it off as a second sick day.
Day three, Friday. Still tired and cranky. A bit foggy. Misdated a few checks.
Reaction to vaccine?
Natural inclination?
Reaction to long week?
Only the Shadow knows.
My arm? Mild, but sore enough that for two nights I did not want to sleep on that side. Sharp amount of discomfort for a few hours on Wednesday. Go body! Train that immune response!
~~~
For your entertainment.
Reads – Lock In, “Unlocked”, & Head On, by Scalzi. Author takes the zombie/pandemic trope, adds robots, and makes it into a science fiction detective story.
Virtual Brush Box 