Life Hacks: Can Opener

You have cats? Dogs? Critters who eat food from tins? Have you tried a safety can opener?

can top

I would have sneered at the idea as a useless fad until my father gave me one. I now use it on every can. If it is not to hand, I’ll tear the kitchen apart, ignoring our traditional can openers in my quest.

The mechanism uncrimps the rim of the can, leaving a smooth, harmless surface on can and lid. Cat food cans are given to the dogs as clean-up treats. Lids are rinsed off without slicing fingers in a sacrifice to the gods of recycling. Plus, the unit never touches food, so no grungy cutting wheels.

can bottom

It takes a while to get the angle exactly right. For the longest time, I had my dexterous, non-catperson Chef open the nightly cat tuna. I remember my father pulling it out of his suitcase during a trip to Chicago, so I know we’ve had it since 2007. No sign of wear or failure.

Mine is a Zyliss, but any brand would work.

Rhyme photobombs my photography studio.
Rhyme photobombs my photography studio.

Foto Friday: Or Not

Still haven’t gotten started on the photo project [Recommitment]. Or written any more Off Topic posts. I’ve even fallen off on gratuitous cat snapshots. Where will the Internet find cute cat pictures if I don’t supply them?

I couldn’t begin to tell you where my time goes. Folks out there have careers and compete. I don’t have a job and ride once a week. Free time ought to be accumulating around me like dust bunnies.

Part of the delay is hopeless despair brought on by professional envy. One of the riders at our barn is professional photographer Meg McKinney [website, Facebook]. Last weekend, she took photos at the show. (She was off grounds for my classes. I’m in the background for one but ain’t gonna tell you. I look awful.) Show album here. The choice of subjects. The timing. The focus. The composition. The color. The … everything. This is what happens when one has a real photographer behind the wheel.

With practice, I can get better. I’ll never be good. Not like that. You could give me a camera set-up that costs more than my car, a year of intense instruction, and I still wouldn’t be a visually expressive person.

Grumble. Gripe. Grouse.

Perhaps next week the life fairy will fly through with magnetic pixie dust that magically pulls my act together.

At least Rodney is having a good time.
At least Rodney is having a good time.

Clinic Report: Saddle Seat with Christy Parker

A post-show clinic by the judge, Christy Parker of Pine Haven Stables & Riding Academy, Brunswick, Georgia.

Day One: Private
Since this was immediately after the show wherein I performed so exceedingly well [Show Report], the lesson was on getting the left lead canter. Since this was a lesson not a show, of course we got it.

Overall, the guest instructor’s method had more dressage stirred into the mix: bending, leg yield, changes of direction. She gave more corrections and varied from the standard pattern. My regular instructor is more old school. Say I, with my vast experience in differing styles of saddle seat training.

Too much advice can feel helpful in the moment but ultimately leave the rider lost. I had a dressage instructor who taught through headphones. I executed all kinds of marvelous maneuvers as he oversaw our every footfall. Once he left, my mind was a blank.

In China, Tai Chi is taught without comment. Students follow the model of the instructor until they stumble on learn the pattern for themselves. This ingrains the lesson but can be frustrating in process.

I suspect a balance is the answer. It usually is.

The clinician thought my position was technically correct but looked uncomfortable. Again, it was a lesson. I ride lovely in lessons. It is only at shows that I start flinging my upper body about as if I’m trying to shave two seconds off the inside turn in a jump-off. She had me lower my hands into what was a more natural position for me. Later, I asked my instructor which I should use, the raised hands I had been working on previously or this new method. The answer: both. Well, THAT was helpful.

Perhaps my regular instructor has me exaggerate the saddle seat position in a vain effort to keep my sloppy hunter/jumper habits from creeping in. Sloppy habits that I picked while riding h/j, not that h/j habits are inherently sloppy. Just to be clear.

The clinician talked about flair. Once a rider has the basics, she needs to work out a particular way of holding her hands or of moving her body that gives the ride individuality. I had never heard equitation discussed in terms of expressing individual style.

Speaking of style, a knowing smile often works better than an ear-to-ear grin. As they say in football, when you get to the endzone, act like you’ve been there before.

Of course, this was before I found out I still had issues with gross motor control. Nuance will have to wait.

Day Two: Group
We all rode super-reliable camp horses used for beginners. These were the horses who would not object if the rider began exhibiting weird and erratic behavior such as sitting the trot, putting the knees on the withers, reaching forward to touch the ears … Are you nodding your head yet? Yeah, me too. We did all of those exercises that we all know, but really only do when we are warming-up at a Pony Club rally.

Watching the group before mine, I noticed that the kids braced themselves on the neck/held on to the mane during the trot two-point without stirrups. Naturally, when it came my turn, I knotted my reins and stuck my hands out to the side like I was playing airplane. Tough, yes, but the desire to show off is a fine motivator. I can’t gloat too much. We started on a very unlevel playing field.

The exercises made sense in the aggregate. For me, they may not have been the best choice. I could feel my hands drifting down towards the withers and my weight shifting toward the center of the saddle. When I stop consciously holding the line, 2 years of saddle seat goes poof and 30+ years of forward seat reemerges.

Today is my first lesson since the show/clinic. We’ll see how bad the damage was.

Show & Clinic Tweets: SSF, Chelsea AL

retweeted by Wheels Down, an airplane/airport account.

Found this on my phone along with another unsent Tweet. Guest Tweeter? Phone randomly sending out old tweets? Whatever. I was tickled (and very hot). So, I added the question mark & sent it out. Or tried to.

Between the mystery Tweets & trouble contacting the mothership from inside the barn, the phone & I got confused. Second guest Tweet disappeared. Thinking back, it may have been one from Nationals about the leadline class. ?

She said she could hardly tell I lost my stirrups. My leg never moved. So that was nice.

Losing a stirrup in equitation is like hitting a rail in hunters.

Show Report: SSF Chelsea AL

ASHAA Summer Fun Show I
June 7, 2014
Stepping Stone Farm
Chelsea, AL
2013 Show Report & Ringmanship
2012 Showing in The Sun

Academy Pleasure WTC Adult, 3rd of 3
& Academy Equitation WTC Adult, 2nd of 3

Well, that was a first.

I completely and utterly failed to get the left-lead canter. Oh, I’ve blow a lead before, but always corrected before it was too late. Not this time. Had it been a dressage test, I would have gotten a 0 for the movement.

Trump and I had problems with that lead in our last lesson. As soon as I sat up & asked nicely, he was cool with it. I wasn’t worried about the show. I should have been. When he failed to execute upon first request, I descended into bad habits. Previous Horse was an ex-racehorse. He would canter by telepathy. I got in the execrable habit of pitching my shoulder at him & letting him plop into a flat canter. Saddlebreds do not move in a neck-out, nose-first hunter frame. They certainly do not move in a neck-out, nose-first, on-the-forehand, bad hunter frame. Trump was all kinds of confused by what I was asking him to do. When in doubt, he racks.

I did this in both classes. I have no idea why I wasn’t last in my second class. Third place must have had an even worse day.

Wait, that’s not all.

In the first class, I lost my stirrups at the canter, the one in the second direction that we managed to achieve. I never have trouble keeping my stirrups. First, I lost one. I had about two strides wherein I could be slick and pick it back up. Instead, I lost the other one. At this point, I had the choice between fishing for my stirrups or steering the horse. I hunkered down, hung on, and waited until we walked.

When one is learning the sitting trot, it is often easier without stirrups. I’m told that eventually one can sit equally well with or without. I never got this far. But I did spend a lot of time trotting and cantering without stirrups. No biggie. I’d already blown the class anyway.

Otherwise, at the four trots & the one canter I didn’t whiff, I was stellar. I was tight with my upper body and piloted flawlessly with my hands in the ideal saddle seat position.

Or not.

Apparently, I was moving all of my body parts to various unsyncopated rhythms. Not as bad as Dixie Cup [Show Report: GIHP], but nowhere near the improvement of Mid-South [Show Report: MSSP].

I’m stumped.

I ride one way. I get good ribbons. Smiles all around. I ride what seems exactly the same way. I lose. Displeasure is voiced at various decibel levels. I do not doubt that a difference exists. However, I really and truly cannot feel the difference. If I can’t feel it, how can I fix it? It would be asking someone who is colorblind to pick out drapes.

I’m not that good a hunt seat/dressage seat rider. I’ve done a lot of both, had fun, and been blessed with great moments, but no results that would raise eyebrows if listed in The Chronicle of the Horse. I’ve just accumulated sufficient muscle memory to screw up the saddle seat. Yes, I am annoyed with myself today.

(It is possible to be a lovely, sympathetic rider without ever competing: educating greenies, galloping racehorses, trial-riding retirees. Not me. Winning was, and is, my goal. With a happy, working partner, but winning.)

Afterthought: Trolling through the archives reveals similar sentiments expressed back in September using close to the same words [Show Report: UPHA]. When I was still in Walk-Trot, the problem was intermittent. I won more classes than not. Now, my lack of saddle seat equitation has become more obvious. I suspect because a) hunter/jumper/event showing is mostly at the canter, therefore more muscle memory & b) cantering is closer to jumping, therefore more Cowabunga!