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duh 
"catpurrs"
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 Posted - 03/30/2008 : 08:39:44
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I hired a young guy to put up more fencing. I want to partition the 20 acres around the barn for pasture rotation and to separate horses by age and function and so on. He got started today and accomplished an amazing amount of work.
One of my riding students came for a lesson today. It was cool with a north breeze, which can make horses feel frisky, so I was extra careful to keep close watch on the horse with her. I was on my feet on walking with them the entire time.
Because of the weather and being on my feet all day, I ended up in a great deal of arthritis pain in hip joints and the bottoms of my feet, which felt like they were burning. It was bad enough to make me wish I could retire from horse training and lessons.
I came home and fell asleep on the couch in front of the TV. Several hours of sleep and I felt better.
I can't retire from horses yet because the horse economy here has continued its download spiral that began on 911 and it is very hard to sell or even to give away a horse. Activists got the US plants that slaughtered horses for human consumption closed and the effect has been devastating. Add to that, the extended drought in the southeast that made hay expensive or impossible to get for horsemen of that region.
Fuel prices are so high that I expect the numbers of folks participating in horse shows will be significantly less this year. I know I won't be going to anything very far out of town. Hay and feed prices are going up because of the expense of the fuel expended while harvesting.
So, I expect the issues with underfed horses and abandoned horses nationwide to become worse. |
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thefoxboy 
"Four your eyes only."
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Posted - 03/31/2008 : 00:52:23
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Yep, fuel prices are driving up the cost of everything.
I had arthritis pain in my knee a few days ago, that sucks, I know how you must have felt.
The first time you asked "How was your day" is almost 3 years ago.
That was when I made the rescue out of the burning car... April 8, 2005. I'm expecting to hear from his mum, she makes contact every year on the day, she also gives thefoxcub presents for his birthday and Christmas every year :-) |
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duh
"catpurrs"
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Posted - 05/07/2008 : 08:11:31
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Here I am, again taking a break while at work.
I decided to give up my job, working 3rd shift. I like the job very much, but the sleep deprivation is beginning to get me down. If I had time to sleep during the day, it would be different.
Much to my surprise, my boss asked me to work 2 more weeks while he hires a replacement. That is standard, I know, but I kinda thought maybe he'd just be glad to be rid of me, or not even notice or care if I stopped coming in.
I found one of my broodmares dead of old age this morning. Her foal is 4 weeks old and will be OK, but it is sad that the old girl couldn't have held out a couple more months. The broodmare, 'Beauty' was looking so good, that finding her dead was very unexpected.
Fuel prices continue to rise. It is scary to think of how high that will drive horse feed and hay prices this year. It seems now that the hay and feed a horse consumes is worth more than the horse. (Of course, I raise foals only occasionally and primarily for myself to train and ride.)
My best friend married my other best friend a week ago. They took their kids and flew out to Vegas to be married by an Elvis impersonator. Then they flew back to Kansas City, dropped the kids off with the grandparents, and went on to watch the Rolex equestrian Eventing while honeymooning.
Don't know why, but over the past few days, I've been thinking a lot about being 53 and how amazing it is that so many things I think I remember fairly well actually happened 3 decades ago. Who was it who said that Life is what happens while you're planning other things? Or something like that.
My mom was my age when I was pregnant with my daughter. She seemed so old then!
My son, my 'baby' will be 22 in a few days. Wow. I still remember when I conceived him, LOL!!!!!
I'm still trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up. |
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w22dheartlivie 
"Kitty Lover"
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Posted - 05/07/2008 : 09:28:49
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I complain about being out here now in a no-horse town where maybe 35 other people live, but it's not completely bad. I walked up the road this evening to borrow a cup of sugar (really!!! It's not just a cliche) and realized that same neighbor had mowed my side yard on the other side of the garage, which I can't see from the house. On the way over, I stopped and picked a lovely bunch of lilacs off of the fully blooming bush and the house smells wonderful.
On the way back home, I stopped in to say hello to the (now) very old couple who had what amounted to the community swimming pool in their yard in the 70s. I say community pool because everyone in town (then closer to 100, 10 of which lived in the house next door) pitched in to help dig the hole and later to help lay the cement bottom and sides. What that meant was that everyone who helped was free to come swim whenever they liked, so long as you helped sweep the debris out of the water at some point during your stay. When I became a teen, we used to sneak down there after midnight and take long, leisurely (and sometimes sensual) swims. That was at a time when hefty liability insurance wasn't a consideration and upkeep didn't cost an arm and a leg. Technically, I saved a guy from drowning there when I was perhaps 7 or 8, but that's another story.
The man will be 87 soon, and the woman will be 90. She was asleep, but he was sitting at the kitchen table, eating from a half gallon of mint chocolate chip ice cream and watching the Indiana election returns. This man worked for 45 years at a local factory that made piston rings for Detroit automobile factories. It was a very reliable and steady company that produced a plethora of what we called penny millionaires. Some of these people worked on incentive and made upwards of $20 an hour clear back to the late 70s. They had a decent lifestyle and an even better retirement package that included a hefty pension check and full health benefits until death. When I asked how he was doing, he said that he'd had prostate cancer but had beat it. He'd stopped going to his checkups, though, last October because the company that had bought out the piston ring factory had gone bankrupt and although his pension checks, reduced from before the bankruptcy, still came, they had cancelled his health insurance. The cancer center sent several letters and finally called, so he went back last month for a checkup. The doc asked why he'd stopped coming and the man explained. The doc told him that he wouldn't charge any more than what his Medicare (government sponsored medical care for the elderly and disabled) would cover, so he's going to start going again.
There's a lot wrong in this country, and this is how we take care of our elderly. This man is lucky, he had 21 years of good retirement support but there is a whole country full of folks who are moving into that realm and won't have that to rely on. For me, I'm just glad I got my phone bill paid this month and the yard got mowed.
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w22dheartlivie
"Kitty Lover"
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Posted - 05/12/2008 : 03:48:49
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Mother's Day is always a bittersweet pill for me. My mom died a long, long time ago, when I was barely 18 and I have no children of my own, so it's another one of those holidays geared to celebrate family that doesn't apply to me. My friend Kennetha came to see me before going on home from her own family geared day. Her mother is still living and she has her surviving daughter and three grandsons. Her daughters were and are my goddaughters, so Cari sent me a catnip plant for the windowsill. I guess I did get acknowledged.
Still, it's tough. I moved back to the home where I lived with my mother and where she died. I've said to my aunt that this house is full of ghosts. She scoffed a bit and said the house wasn't haunted, but she knew what I meant. Every shadow, every corner, every nook and cranny is filled with my childhood, and each only reinforces that of the eleven people who might once have filled this house on Mother's Day, only three of us remain. One of the three I never see. Sometimes, I can almost see my grandmother sitting on the "sun porch" and rocking in her wicker rocker and can almost hear her aluminum walker clicking and clinking as she walked through the house. I do maintain that one night I thought I heard my mother's voice and it reduced me to tears. The hub of the Volkswagen axle that was the center of the merry-go-round my clever grandfather built for the granddaughters is still standing upright on its cement foundation in the sideyard, although the seat assembly has long turned to dust. I've had people ask me what it was for and had to produce the newspaper clipping showing my sisters and I riding on it to prove we had our own amusement park.
I miss my mother and oddly enough, it doesn't lessen with time. I am so grateful that Kennetha came by today, since she took me to the cemetery to leave the bunch of lilacs I picked from the bush outside at mama's grave. Now I wish it would stop raining. |
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duh
"catpurrs"
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Posted - 05/12/2008 : 05:41:26
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quote:
Originally posted by wildhartlivie
Mother's Day is always a bittersweet pill for me. My mom died a long, long time ago, when I was barely 18 and I have no children of my own, so it's another one of those holidays geared to celebrate family that doesn't apply to me.
I don't care about Mother's Day. I'm a scrooge about holidays in general and specifically about those that involve obligatory gift giving. 
This morning, my DH asked what I was going to get for my mother. I said, "ah...a lump of coal? What are you going to get yours?"
"A lump of coal," he joked back. Then he said he would go shopping for both mothers. Good. I hate shopping.
We had to go out to lunch with my parents. I hadn't visited them for several weeks, after the last time Mom jerked me around. At the restaurant, Mom asked my DH if he could drive her to her appointment in another town to get her pacemaker batteries replaced. He explained that he would be unable to, due to having to go out of state to a meeting.
She asked my son (who is 22 and recently graduated from technical college) but he has a job interview.
I kept my mouth shut. After awhile, she slipped a note across the table to me. The note asked if I knew someone she could hire to drive her to the appointment.
I brightly mentioned that Senior Services does regular trips to that medical center for our community's seniors. Mom sat there and put on a show of tears. I didn't give a damn; she has always used tears or temper tantrums to browbeat me into compliance. I've become numb about it.
Dad will drive her anyhow, I am certain. Whether he should is questionable, on account of his age and so on, but I am confident that if he thinks he can't handle it, he will let me know.
I won't go into the issue that led me to this point, but will sum it up thus: It was time for some tough love.
---
A few hours later, we had to do the restaurant thing again, with DH's family. DH's family are all very nice people but I don't feel comfortable with them. Nothing in common. I feel sorry for my DH because of that. If I were a better person, I would make an effort to reach out. Instead, I focus on being pleasant and there in body if not in spirit.
The acoustics in that restaurant made the tinnitus much worse and so after finishing the meal, I escaped to the outdoors. Awhile later, my son joined me, because the noise in the room had bothered him with his cochlear implant.
Damn I'm a self centered bitch. I like Livie's story better. |
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Sean 
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 05/12/2008 : 06:05:46
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I was told many years ago that I'd be disowned if I ever mentioned mother's day to my mother on mother's day.  She (along with my father) hate commercial guilt-induced consumption. So I ignored it entirely as I always have done.
Until I was invited out to lunch at a country restaurant/cafe with my brother, sister-in-law (who is a mother and doesn't mind mother's day being acknowledged), nephew, niece, two sister-in-law's sisters, and one of their offspring. As I like all of them I agreed, and we had a very relaxing lunch outside in the garden in the sun. I had seafood chowder with foccacia and pesto with a trophy-winning sauvignon blanc. Followed by warm chocolate mudcake. 
And that was that. 
Oh, and while on the road I educated my nephew (who is 14) on the subject of death metal with Incantation - "Onward to Golgotha". He liked it but it's a little too heavy for him at this stage. But he'll grow into it. Next: black metal. |
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duh
"catpurrs"
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Posted - 05/12/2008 : 06:56:54
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quote:
Originally posted by Se�n
Oh, and while on the road I educated my nephew (who is 14) on the subject of death metal with Incantation - "Onward to Golgotha". He liked it but it's a little too heavy for him at this stage. But he'll grow into it. Next: black metal.
You're a corrupting influence.  |
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benj clews
"...."
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Posted - 06/07/2008 : 21:01:01
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Just gotta' post here because I had a truly momentous day. It's not every day you get to meet one of your absolute idols in person, shake them by the hand and ask them all the questions you can think of but that's what I got today. Don't get me wrong, I'm not some kind of celeb chasing obsessive- there's maybe a handful of people who've inspired me with their abilities that I would leap at the chance to meet and this was once such case. Now I know very few here will know who I'm banging on about, but this is such a massive deal to me, so I couldn't help but shout about it.
So, who is it? Well, it's a comic book artist by the name of Brian Bolland- someone who so rarely appears at signings or conventions it's taken me 20 years to catch up with him. He (or, more to the point, his art) is what got me hooked on comics and, with his ridiculously detailed panels of art and amazing grasp of lighting and shadows (largely rendered purely in black ink using an absolute mastery of cross-hatching technique) just blew my mind and reinvigorated my love of drawing like a bolt of lightning. For my money, nobody before or since has come close to his perfection of the craft (but I could be biased) and you can't help but go "Wow" at a Bolland picture. Here's just a small sample of his work: http://www.brianbolland.net/gallery/batman.html (oh, and Demonic also has a Bolland picture of the Joker as his avatar here).
Anyway, after an hour of queueing up outside a comic shop in London today, I got to meet the great man and I wasn't disappointed. Of course, he signed my books and posed for a photo, but I even got a decent chat with him despite the sizeable queue behind me. Best of all, he even drew me a sketch of the Joker, despite his reputation for taking months to draw what most artists churn out in a week. I'm absolutely on top of the world now- for me, it really doesn't get better than this- it's a dream come true and I'll forever cherish my personalized sketch 
As a side note, Dave Gibbons (artist on, amongst many other things, the classic Watchmen series) was also there (also happy to rattle off a sketch) with nothing but praise for next year's film adaption of Watchmen. Sounds like it's gonna' be a corker. |
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lemmycaution
"Long mired in film"
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Posted - 06/07/2008 : 22:05:45
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| Great! |
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w22dheartlivie
"Kitty Lover"
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Posted - 06/07/2008 : 23:09:33
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| That's too cool, Benj. I felt a little bit like that when I met Gahan Wilson at a convention and he drew a picture of a vampire, sprinkling salt on the neck of a sleeping woman, with the caption "With a shared affection for the undead." |
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 06/08/2008 : 00:21:41
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quote:
Originally posted by benj clews
- it's a dream come true and I'll forever cherish my personalized sketch
Cool. You gonna scan it and show it to us?  |
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benj clews
"...."
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Posted - 06/08/2008 : 00:52:17
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quote:
Originally posted by Se�n
quote:
Originally posted by benj clews
- it's a dream come true and I'll forever cherish my personalized sketch
Cool. You gonna scan it and show it to us?
No probs... http://www.fwfr.com/uploads/bolland.jpg |
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Sean
"Necrosphenisciform anthropophagist."
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Posted - 06/08/2008 : 00:59:15
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quote:
Originally posted by benj clews
quote:
Originally posted by Se�n
quote:
Originally posted by benj clews
- it's a dream come true and I'll forever cherish my personalized sketch
Cool. You gonna scan it and show it to us?
No probs... http://www.fwfr.com/uploads/bolland.jpg
Cool. He didn't quite have the time for the cross-hatch lighting effects  but still... it's a sketch of the Joker drawn by him... for you. Awesome!
His lighting is truly awesome, e.g.., this one here
http://www.brianbolland.net/gallery/batman/batman_28.html |
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benj clews
"...."
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Posted - 06/08/2008 : 01:13:01
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| Yep, shame he didn't have time to do the shading. Mind, it took him about 5 minutes to draw that... I suspect had he added lighting (not to mention his tendency to draw hair on an almost individual hair basis) we'd've been there all day |
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lemmycaution
"Long mired in film"
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Posted - 06/08/2008 : 04:54:33
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| Ben???!!! |
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How was your day ... again.
