O is for Overtime. If you are joining me from Blogging A To Z, welcome! Since the blog is already daily, with topics for each day [About: Schedule], there is no specific A To Z theme. I may even skip a few letters. Gasp. Clutch the pearls. The goal for this year is less crazy, more visiting. [Ze State of Ze Blog 2014]
On more than one occasion, I have opened the stall door to zero response on the part of the occupant. Sometimes he’s eating. Sometimes he’s chilling. In neither case does he make any effort toward the door. [Daily Routine – Morning]
If I have time, I close the door and let him bake a while longer. Usually, he comes out on the second attempt. OTOH, there are days when I try three times and finally have to chase him out or use a halter to drag him out.
At the same time, I have to prevent Rodney from running into the stall [Inner Brat]. Rodney is learning to stand in an assigned, out-of-the-way spot while I decant Milton. He’s good about it, but if I take too long, he breaks the sit-stay.
I never doubted Milton values his naps [Update]. Now we have further proof.
N is for Not Again. If you are joining me from Blogging A To Z, welcome! Since the blog is already daily, with topics for each day [About: Schedule], there is no specific A To Z theme. I may even skip a few letters. Gasp. Clutch the pearls. The goal for this year is less crazy, more visiting. [Ze State of Ze Blog 2014]
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As the confidence increases, so does the back talk. Remember when Rodney mutinied going up the hill [Rodney’s Hillwork]? and then about standing [Rodney Channels]? The rot has spread to the ring.
I got on. We started walking. Rodney became fascinated with a stand of trees at the edge of the pasture.
Who’s there? (Dramatic Reenactment)
I booted him in the side and told him to keep his eyes in the boat.
This is huge.
We were having a conversation under saddle. Okay, the conversation concerned what a brat Rodney was being, but one must to start somewhere. He wasn’t putting his hooves over his ears and waiting for the world to stop bothering him.
I say “not again,” but really I’m tickled. I can cope with attitude much better than with a fragile flower.
Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott
Update: One reader said that the annoyed came thru more clearly than the tickled in this post. I was annoyed. Rodney was being a twit. He was being a bog-standard, work-avoiding, exasperating horse. The fact that we had reached a level of normality where I COULD get after him for being annoying, THAT has me tickled.
The Immersion Room at the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum has the neatest interactive table. Although the word “interactive” gets tossed about, this one really is. You use a stylus to draw on a screen. The result is displayed as a repeating pattern on the walls. Too cool.
Since my life is a blog post, I asked my friends to design Rodney’s Saga wallpaper. Voila!
Letter design & photography courtesy of the A Squad.
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No SketchBox lettering for April. It was pencils, which I have always hated for their messiness and impermanence. I tried, but not even the pretty colors and fancy holder could not overcome my loathing. The other item was a self-filling sepia pen that I could never get to work. #artfail
120 Academy Showmanship Driving, 1st of 2
121 Academy Reinsmanship Driving, 2nd of 2
Both classes with HB Whizbang (Snippy. Or Mr. Snippy, we think he may prefer a more formal mode of address. Or perhaps even Mr. Whizbang. But I digress.) Thank you to the Alvis family.
As we came into the first class, I thought Snippy was looking around. He was. He wanted to make sure everyone saw his mighty marvelousness. We had a nice extended trot but not the dirt-flying, power-skids-in-the-corner trot that I was looking for.
In the second class, the competition had a better round &/or we had a little less energy that led to a little more wiggle.
Good drives, but not bulletproof.
As Sam is my security blanket under saddle [Report I], so Alvin is with the cart [Show Report, Photo]. Pro-Am last year was some of the best driving I have done [Team Awesome]. The thought bubble over Alvin’s head is so easy to read. Mainly he’s checking to see how much the rider or driver can handle [Report: Second Class]. If he is convinced you are ready, then it’s Luke in the X-wing saying, “Hang on back there.” I have not yet found those dials with Mr. Whizbang.
And yes, I was concerned – say 10% – that stomping too hard on the gas pedal would stir up the misbehaviors of our last lesson [Lots]. So, I was fractionally defensive, but not as bad as in my riding classes. Who woulda thought that one day I’d have a better time driving than riding?
132. Academy Equitation WTC Adult, 2nd of 2
133. Academy Showmanship WTC Adult, 2nd of 2
136. Academy WTC Championship, 5th of 6
All classes with A Woman of Design (Desi)
Thank you to Reagan Upton
Sam & I rock the Georgia National Fairgrounds. At the fall show, we are undefeated, four for four, two years in row. At Pro-Am, which tales place in the spring, we are almost undefeated. In 2014, we won two out of three. In 2016, we won all our classes, including a moderately large all-age championship. Us old farts gotta ride hard to beat the young & cute.
Although Trump & I scratched out a win and Robert & I had fun galloping around the Championship, Pro-Am 2015 was not my finest hour. Neither was 2017.
Second of two can indicate a close race. Second can represent a personal victory. This was not one of those days. I would have been last in any company. There were no specific errors of course. Desi and I walked and trotted and cantered where we were supposed to. We got our diagonals and leads. There were simply an accumulated abundance of style and presentation flaws.
I pulled my socks up for the third class. However, the judge was done with me by then. Or perhaps I didn’t get my socks as high as I thought.
Possible Reason 1: I suck. Or, at least, I sucked on the day. Sometimes, you’re the windshield; sometimes, you’re the bug.
Possible Reason 2: I make the mare crazy. I have an electric seat. In lessons, I do not ride Desi with a stick. It was deemed that I would need to carry one in the show ring. I think the combination of me with a stick was more than she could cope with, causing me to ride defensively. Coach Courtney disagrees. She thinks the mare was perfectly fine and that I was willoming and flolloping in the saddle for my own ineffable reasons.
Either way, the observable facts are that I did not carry a stick in the third class and that the third class was, if not good, at least better. What if I had started off in the first class without a stick? Woulda, coulda, shoulda.
Possible Reason 3: Clashing Styles. In my dressage lesson [Rodney’s Dressage Lesson], I was told to widen my hands, to look down at the horse (yes, he really said ‘Stop staring off into space.’), and to move my arms in rhythm with the horse’s walk. In my saddle seat lessons, it’s pinkies inside the reins, look up, hands up, hands together, and sit back (as in actually back toward the cantle, not just stop slouching). I have no doubt I will be able to ride both eventually. However, there may be a period of adjustment as I learn to run two sets of code simultaneously.
I know – intellectually – that a bad day at a horse show is still a good day, but I’m having a hard time feeling it at the moment. Onwards!
