Jun
29
What Time Is It?
Filed Under horse shows, horses, tennessee walkers | 1 Comment
It’s horse show time! You know how you can tell? Because my website will go down. The business website and my blog are on the same web space, and without fail it will suddenly become unavailable as soon as I’ve got hundreds of proofs that I would like to upload as quickly as possible.
The horse show yesterday was one of our regular Walking Horse Association shows, which I like a lot. It’s fun to see the regular association folks and to see how the horses change from show to show. It’s also nice because when I’m photographing, I know most of the horses. I know how they move and how I need to adjust my timing to get the best possible picture of them.
I rolled out of bed around 6:30AM, which, for someone who sets their alarm to make sure they’re awake by noon, is quite early. There are few things I don’t mind waking up early for, and luckily horse shows are one of them. School? No way. I hate waking up early to go to class and can find all sorts of reasons to not do so.
I got to the show at 7:40 and set to work in the office. When people sign their horses up for different classes, they have all the horse’s information at the top and then list all the classes they want to be in. Office workers such as myself take those sheets and transfer the horse’s information to each class sheet so that every class has a separate sheet with all the horses entered into it. It’s not too technical, but it does take some time. There are actually three sheets for each class sheet. You write on one and there are two carbon copies behind it. This means that you have to press really hard with the pen to make sure that the writing makes it through to the third sheet. I’ve actually had an achey writing hand the next day from having to write so hard. That’s lame, I know. But by the end of the summer the muscles in my hand will ripple and I’ll have to buy new gloves to encase the body builder-esque physique of my digits.
Tennessee Walkers are popular because of their great, smooth gait. Instead of trotting, which is where diagonal sets of legs hit the ground at the same time (and cause a lot of bounce), they do what’s called a flat walk and a running walk. There’s no time in these gaits where all four feet are off the ground, which means that instead of bouncing around, the rider just floats along. It’s great for people with bad backs or joints especially.
The breed association (The Tennessee Walking Horse Breeders and Exhibitors Association, aka TWHBEA aka “Twee-buh”) gets to use such slogans as:
Ok, so they don’t actually use that last one, but I’ve seen bumper stickers saying as much. Maybe TWHBEA should consider using it for an edgy marketing campaign…
Because a smooth gait is such a big emphasis in the TWH breed, there’s a special class at our shows called Water Glass.
Each rider gets a glass filled with water. The judge asks them to do various gaits and maneuvers and the goal is to spill the least amount of water. Whoever does that wins the class.
The Water Glass class at this show was one of the more technical I’ve personally seen. The riders had to circle half the arena at the flat walk and running walk, halt repeatedly and then do a series of figure eights across the arena, halting every once in a while. It was pretty impressive, really. I probably would have dropped my entire cup.
Luckily, yesterday was a pretty nice day. Sometimes our shows are so hot that I’m tempted to run up to competitors, grab the water glass from their hand and douse myself with its contents.
Jun
27
A Doozy of a Day
Filed Under Uncategorized | Comments Off
Today started out well enough. I woke up before my alarm (so what if my alarm was set for noon?) and rolled out of bed. I had a dentist appointment early this afternoon and wanted to have plenty of time to get ready. I really don’t like being late.
I ended up leaving right on time. I stopped at the end of the lane to get the mail, where I found a letter addressed to me from the county clerk. Upon opening it, I found that I’d been selected for jury duty. I read through an insincere letter assuring me that they hoped my jury duty experience was interesting and rewarding, a survey filled with personal questions about me and another letter telling me how important it was to turn in the survey on time.
Reading all that literature put me a little behind schedule. Nothing that a little judicial speeding wouldn’t help, though. I was doing just that when I came up behind some sort of farm implement (yes, you would think that as an Ag business major I would know what it was, but honestly I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention during that lab out at the farm because we walked into the machine shed where a dead rabbit was sprawled out and my professor said, “Shhh! He’s sleeping, don’t wake him up.”) that was crawling along, of course on the only section of road where there’s no passing and a series of curves that last for several miles. Being stuck behind that thing cost me several minutes, and I was going to be certifiably late to my appointment.
Peeved, I drove the rest of the way towards my dentist’s office, picking up speed and making up lost time the whole way. I was all set to be a maximum of 3 minutes late when I noticed an unfortunately-marked car go past me, pull a U-Turn and come up behind me with lights flashing. “Aw, shucks,” I muttered to myself. Ok, so what I really muttered to myself would involve several asterisks, and I didn’t so much “mutter” as I yelled it over and over again.
I ended up calling my dentist office while waiting for the officer to write my lengthy citation to let them know I’d be a few minutes late.
When I finally arrived, I was called into my appointment in fairly short order. I was glad, as it gave me less time to study my ticket. I was just there for a checkup, but I had to undergo the torture of x-rays. If you’ve never had dental x-rays, consider yourself blessed. They insert something the relative size and shape of a shoe box in your mouth and tell you to bite down on it, causing it to stab painfully into your gums. Plus! You get to repeat it on both sides. So even though relief has washed over you and pain endorphins are helping you to fight back the tears every time they remove the shoe box and put it back in at a different angle, you can’t relax too much, knowing it’s going to be coming back for the other side.
My appointment went well. The girl cleaning my teeth said that everything looked pretty clean, but, she said, my gums were bleeding a little, which is a sign of gingivitis. I was feeling surly at this point, but I refrained from asking her if maybe it was a sign of the sharp metal hook she was waving around in my mouth like a pair of nunchucks.
Upon returning home I once again perused my jury duty letters, pondering the various methods I’ve heard through the grapevine of getting out of the whole shebang. Since I’m more or less an honest young lass, I’ll probably just show up and do whatever I have to do. However, I’m wondering all three of my speeding tickets might not aid me, at least a little. On the survey is a question that asks whether I’ve ever been proven guilty in a court, and if so on what offenses. I want to fill it out in big block letters that say, “YES - THRICE - FOR TOTAL AND BLATANT DISREGARD OF THE LAW.”
Jun
26
Language Barriers
Filed Under Uncategorized | 2 Comments
Recently while revamping my blog’s layout, I noticed that my Google ads over to the side kept bringing up information about English as a Second Language courses and ads for other such language tutoring services. Honestly, I was a little offended. I know that I have a bad habit of not proof reading before posting, which leads to some interesting misspellings, but I didn’t think it was that bad. I think that I still come off as a native speaker. I hope so, at least.
Finally it dawned on me that my blog title, in all its Spanglish glory, was pulling up these ads. Ah well, no big deal. I mean shoot, I took four and a half years of Spanish in school, I’m practically bilingual (by that, of course, I mean that if someone were to say anything to me in Spanish, I would confidently answer, “No sé, no sé!”).
Today my language skills were further tested when I attempted to make a comment on my sister’s blog. I was asked to type this into a blank in order to prove that I was not a robot:
Now I went to public school, but I’m pretty sure we covered the alphabet. And yet, I was at a loss. Some people might have been shaken by a sudden inability to recognize letters and characters. Not, I! Instead, I couldn’t help the smug glow that came over me as I thought to myself, “Woohoo! I’m as smart as a robot!”
Jun
25
Defending the Bully
Filed Under dogs | Comments Off
Bradley’s become a bit of a bully this summer. As with most bullies, it boils down to insecurity. When we’re at school, he’s the only one getting attention. But when we’re at home? A chubby little cat-dog named Olio gets in the way.
So Bradley has taken to interrupting any time I spend with Olio and reminding the little whippersnapper who’s boss around here. The other day, Olio and I were playing in the living room with the Honky Goose (aka that mallard toy I bought for him last summer). I shook it around and Olio hopped around after it. Bradley trundled in with a deceivingly playful bounce in his step, walked up to the game and snapped his jaws in the air right between the Honky Goose and Olio. Suddenly, Olio decided that he was done playing with me.
Bradley has also recently become obsessed with lying on the floor of the computer room instead of in his bed. At first, I thought he was just doing this to spite Mom because she tries to corral him and his spirit is just too wild. Wild like a mustang! Well, if mustangs didn’t like to run through the countryside and instead preferred to be chauffeured through it while lounging in the back of a minivan, then yes, he’d be a lot like a mustang. It suddenly dawned on me one evening that Bradley wasn’t lying on the floor to spite Mom, he was lying on the floor because it put him directly in between me and Olio.
Yesterday, Mom had Olio standing on a foot stool so that she could brush him and attempt to remove a little of the thirty pounds of excess hair he’s carrying around. I was sitting nearby when Bradley awoke from his nap, sauntered in, stuck his face in Olio’s face and gave a big yawn, which showcased all of his very large teeth.
“He’s such a bully,” Mom said. I was too busy chuckling to respond.
It made me think of all those kids who get bullied in school, and how people get outraged and cry out something along the lines of, “Where are the parents of that little monster and why aren’t they doing anything?!”
I identify with those bully parents. And I can’t help but wonder if, when confronted, they just chuckle and say something like, “Yeah, but my Browie Boy’s got such a cute little pointy shep shep nose!”
Because that’s the angle I’m working.
Jun
23
The Terror of Terriers
Filed Under dogs | Leave a Comment
80’s fashions are coming back into style, believe it or not. This is bad news on some levels, because some of the styles rediscovering popularity are truly horrendous.
On the other hand, it’s good news because when things come into fashion, they tend to trickle down.
First the coasts get in on the latest trends. Then it moves to the central part of the country. By the time it gets here, even the clearance dog clothing rack at Target has 80’s-licious fashion.
This is better news for some than it is for others.
As you may have guess, I include myself in the “good news to me” category. Olio has different views.
Really, though, I think he didn’t like the way it accented his neck rolls. But the ruffles on the sleeves really… they really… well, I’m sure they do something.
Jun
22
Here’s a scenario you might enjoy working through.
Two sisters are going to a movie. There are two theaters to choose from. Both are playing the movie they want to see at frequent time intervals that work with the sisters’ schedule. Both sisters have student ID’s. Theater 1 sells movie tickets to students for $4 a piece while Theater 2 offers no student discount and tickets are $9 a piece. Which theater will the sisters choose?
I bet you’ve got it all figured out, eh? The obvious choice would be Theater 1. But this scenario leaves out a very important variable: alcohol-serving establishments within walking distance of the theaters.
My sister (who shall remain nameless to protect her identity, though hopefully by now you’ve narrowed it down to thee potential candidates) and I decided that we should go see The Hulk (not a great movie, by the way, but not terrible). We had the above decision to make, with the added information that the only place that serves alcohol in the vicinity of Theater 1 was Olive Garden. Drinking at Olive Garden seemed a highly undesirable choice, so we went with Theater 2, which is near some restaurant themed around Chicago-style pizza that contains a bar.
If right now you’re wondering, “Why would you go drinking before going to a movie?!” I can only tell you that the previews are a lot more exciting that way. It can be a little dangerous, though: one time there was a preview for some action movie, and suddenly the screen was split into four different scenes, and they were all flashing and intense and we got scared and confused.
We parked at the movie theater and strolled over to the restaurant and what ensued was a little drinking (and by “little” I mean, “the amount of time that lapsed was remarkably small for the amount of alcohol consumed”), a little refusal to buy overpriced food (which probably would have helped with the aforementioned alcohol) and a little watching of bad action movies. And that was all before leaving the restaurant!
Now, I don’t want you to think that be went stumbling out of the restaurant and crawled our way to the movie theater, because we certainly did not. In fact, we walked quite capably and my sister even added in a fancy move where she swung her arm back and forth in a huge arc, as though she was cross country skiing and trying to navigate over a small hill. This movement was further accentuated by her excessively loud and enthusiastic praise of the sunset.
It’s probably best that we went to Theater 2, because I doubt she could have found her student ID anyway.
Jun
21
The New Look
Filed Under website stuff | 4 Comments
Once again, I’ve overhauled things and redone the layout of my blog.
Things should be pretty self-explanitory. I don’t think too much is different from the last layout, just rearranged a bit. One thing that is notably different is that links to the pages about me, the animals and my photography are now up at the top of the page instead of over in the side bar.
The one new feature is the daily photo. If you click on the thumbnail, you’ll be taken to the Daily Photo section of the blog with the full picture and explanation. So often I have pictures that I never get around to posting because they don’t really fit into an entry or because the story behind them isn’t significant enough to warrant an entry of its own. The idea is to have a different photo each day, and that’s ultimately my goal. So keep an eye out for changing pictures!
Also note that only one picture is shown per day. Which means you need to use the navigation arrow at the bottom of the page to move from day to day.
I also went through the archives and edited posts that had weird characters in them (no, I’m not talking about my sisters). For some reason, a lot of my older posts had an “” after each punctuation, a long with other random things. I think I got them all, but if you happen to see some, let me know!
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Kalin is twenty-three years old.
Contrary to popular belief, she's not bilingual (though after 4.5 years of Spanish you'd think she'd know more than she does).
She loves Herefords and Tennessee Walkers. . . [READ MORE] -
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