Mr. Rogers is a lying sack...

  Jonathan and I have been together for 23 years, with a minor hiccup in the beginning of our relationship when I decided to take a job in Arizona and give his 20 year old butt some "space".  The 3000 miles of "space" ended up in a lot of pricey phone bills, him visiting me in AZ for 2 weeks (which turned into 6 weeks) and my eventual move back to the east coast to live with him. Phew. It turned into a freaking fairy tale. Now onto the meaning of this particular blog.

  We've lived in a total of 6 houses since declaring our love for one another. My sister once told me that she'd run out of room in her address book to keep up with our new abodes. It's true. We've bounced around. Most of our rented homes had no neighbors, which was fabulous. Turns out, despite the fact that we aren't wild party animals, or nudists, or angry, difficult people, we don't do well with close neighbors.

   Our first run in with a crabby neighbor was at our second home together. It was in an older house, chopped up into apartments, and we lived on the second floor, with our two cats. When we moved in we assured our downstairs neighbor that we were quiet tenants, who ran a horse farm, went to bed early and made little noise. Turns out, in her opinion, we lied. Sally was an overweight single mom, with sad eyes, premature arthritis (she told me about her condition the first time we met her) and a totally negative attitude. She lived with her 8 year old little girl, who was cute, sweet and under the thumb of her teutonic mommy.  On our first night at our new apartment, we had two friends over for a quiet dinner, accompanied by some "gentle" music. The following morning I was awoken by furious pounding on our door. It was Sally and she was furious.

"You SAID you were quiet people!" she yelled in my face. "And yet, you were up listening to music and banging around until 10:30 p.m.!"

I was stunned, humble and apologetic, but she stormed off on her stubby, chubby, achey legs, muttering about how I was a liar.

Fast forward to a few weeks...

   On a serene, summer night, I received an angry call from Sally saying, "I've found something that belongs to YOU!"

With trepidation, I went downstairs and knocked on her door. I was met by an irate Sally, who was holding a large, padded patchwork bag that contained an ornate glass pipe.

"Is this yours?" she sputtered, shaking the bag in my face.
"Uhh, no. I think it belongs to a friend. It must've fallen out of his car when he left last night, " I replied.
"It's a glass MARIJUANA pipe that my little girl found in the driveway!" she screamed. "She's 8 and she found a MARIJUANA pipe in our driveway!"

Crap. I cursed the friend, who dropped it and proceeded onto damage control.

"Oh Sally, I'm so sorry," I said. "But it was an accident. The guy who owns this is a chef, they all do drugs. They're bad people. We'll never have him over again!"

Baffled by my diplomatic approach, she softened ever so slightly and almost smiled. Reading her body language, I ventured on.

"Have you ever smoked pot? It might be helpful with your painful, arthritic condition? I've heard it can be very therapeutic and perhaps, even assist with your insomnia?"

She narrowed her pig eyes, and gave a little laugh.

"I'm always in pain," she said. "And I have so much trouble sleeping."

I thought I was golden. I was wrong. Her mean, nasty nature took over and she said, "Don't ever let something like this happen again. And by the way, I'm sick of hearing your cats running around at all hours of the night!"

She thrust the padded bag in my face and slammed the door. Wow. I walked back upstairs and told Jonathan that I thought we'd made a mistake by moving to this place.  He reminded me that it had been my idea to move to this apartment, so it was up to me to make it all fine.   To be continued...

Oh Sh*t!!

   This morning I awoke to a strange sound coming from the street. As I shook off the grogginess that I endure every morning, due to my nightly Bendadryl dependence from crippling allergies this year, I deduced that the sound was a truck. A big truck. Oh!! It was the rolloff truck that I'd ordered last Thurs. to come pick up the manure dumpster for the farm. And I had neglected to move the Chevy Tahoe that was parked in the driveway, blocking the path to the dumpster. Ordinarily, I'd get dressed and leisurely feed the throng of screaming pets before I lolled my way to the barn to feed the horses. Today was different. Let me explain something further, the man who drives the rolloff truck (I'll call him Bud), is a short, brick of a person, with arms like Popeye, no neck and a big, blocky head,  who I've been told has anger management issues. Picture a tiny version of The Incredible Hulk, minus the shredded clothes and green skin. For the two years we've been here, I've been terrified of sparking his ire. He's never been rude, nor has he ever really shown me his temper, but it's fully palpable in his demeanor. He's like a volcano, silently simmering underground, with the constant threat of blowing lava all the way up to the sun. I had to act fast.  I threw on a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and skidded through the furry bodies of my pets to the bathroom, where with shaking hands I coerced my contacts into my half opened eyeballs. Of course, one contact had to give me trouble and I cursed at the folding, flaccid lens, frantically trying to probe it into a shape that would attach to my eye. Contact don't do frantic. They respond only to gentle cooing, re-wetting and steady hands. With some effort, I controlled my emotions and somehow got the damn thing to adhere so I had some semblance of vision before I galloped down the path to the barn.

    My first stop was to get the keys from the tack box, where they'd been stowed for safe keeping. The Tahoe isn't always here, but since one of our customers goes on frequent vacations, she kindly allows us to use it when she's away should we need to hook it to her trailer in an emergency, or just to go on a field trip with the horses. Keys in hand,  I ran out of the barn, like a Kenyan marathon runner and jumped into the driver's seat, just as Bud was spotted, stalking around the corner of the rolloff truck, arms stiffly at his side, hands clenched in fists of pure iron.  Meekly, I waved and he looked at the ground ( I think he was counting to ten, no doubt a tactic he's learned over his anger riddled years to keep himself from losing his shit and committing unwarranted murders). The new dumpster was already dropped into place in the driveway, blocking me from getting the Tahoe onto the other side of the barn, but I quickly maneuvered the SUV over toward the stable and safely out of the way. Bud gave me a terse wave and with some effort barked, "That's good".  He was still looking at the ground.
 
   I sat in the driver's seat for a moment, adrenaline coursing through my newly woken up body, absorbing the fact that I'd come within seconds of certain death.  Crisis had been averted. A narrow escape. I would live to see another day. Of course, I'm exaggerating, but it makes for a better story. Humor me.

  Once our month worth of horse shit had been hauled off, and the horses had been fed, I headed back up to the house to feed the wailing pets, make some tea and prepare to waste an hour on Facebook (it's my day off, not my normal practice. Again, humor me). As I settled into my desk chair, steaming cuppa tea in hand, I noticed that the answering machine was blinking. When I pressed play I heard  breathing. Labored, intense breathing. Angry breathing. I checked the caller ID and it was Bud's number. Apparently, he'd been calling the house number just as I'd arrived to move the truck. I can only imagine what the message might have said if I'd been 20 seconds later. It would've been delivered through clenched teeth, in a high strained voice, with veins pulsing in unprecedented rage. I'm almost sad that I missed it. But then again, I'm not. Bud the rolloff driver is a force to be reckoned with, he's a bad hombre. When you run a stable with a manure dumpster, you don't mess with the irritable man who takes the shit brimming dumpster away.  It's just bad form. Horseshit is a fact of our lives here and trust me, you do not want to piss off our rolloff truck driver, who hauls it away. I dodged a bullet, people. It was a good day.

Ballad of a Sad Tree

Sing along to the tune of "Don't Cry for Me Argentina"

Don't cry for me Weeping Cherry
The truth is we're tired of your sorrow
If you'd just cheer up
Life's not that bad
We'd like you better
If you weren't so saaaddd...


  This is our gigantic Weeping Cherry. He's the biggest, baddest, weepiest Weeping Cherry in the land. It's his time to shine on the property, with those lacy pink petals, delicately waving in the spring breeze, taunting the bare trees with his splendor. As beautiful as the tree is at the moment, the harsh reality is that when those pink petals are shed, like the tears of a spurned lover, he turns back into an ordinary tree, with green (how unoriginal) leaves.  The name is obvious if you've ever had one of these tree's on your property. Once the tree is past it's prime the sweet pink petals drop in a confetti-esque fashion. Every time I walk down to the barn it's like I'm being lauded in my own personal parade. I pause, I wave and I thank the little people. The dogs have pink petals in their hair to go along with the various dead leaves, bits of shrubbery, and burs. My floor is decorated with precious pink petals, so it's always got that "day after the party" messy look going on, despite my best efforts with the Dyson. So you get it, the petals are a metaphor for tears, the tears of a sobbing, inconsolable idiot. Oh, poor, crying tree. Boo-hoo, I feel so sorry for you. Sometimes I feel like kicking his trunk and telling him to get over himself. But I don't, because it's a tree.  I wouldn't kick a tree! I just FEEL like it sometimes. Like when you feel like telling an obnoxious person at the grocery store to "Shut the F up!", but you don't actually say it out loud, because that would be impolite and they might hit you.

Soon the other trees will have their leaves. I'm looking forward to the stately oak outside my office getting his leaves on. I'm tired of these naked trees. It's obscene looking at them with their spindly, exposed limbs and grooved trunks. I'm surrounded by tree porn, save for the Norwegian pines in the front of the property, who sway to and fro in the constant breezes, as if shaking their heads in shame for the naked hardwoods. Well, at least the Little Pink Prince has on his fancy frock of frilly petals, until he completes his teary striptease.  Have you ever thought of trees as natures version of a group of raunchy strippers? Me either, till now. I'm glad I can blog about these meaningful, deep thoughts.

Happy Spring!

Writing Angst

I've been in the midst of taking an online fiction writing class which has thoroughly taken up all of my writing energy, hence my absence on my blog. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. But, really it's true. I've come to a few conclusions about writing conditions, well,  productive writing conditions, or better put, writing conditions that actually produce decent writing (if that's possible in my case). Fiction writing is tricky business. Sure, I can blog any old, bloggy nonsense, pepper it with a few simple stories about my animals, insert some curse words, hit send and I'm done. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Whatever that means. I don't know what it means, but I like to say it and I do. Often.  Fiction writing entails imagination, characters, plot, point of view and that's all I have to offer since I'm only in week 4 of the class.  It's wicked hard!!

  That being said, I've decided that it's easier to write with a cat on my lap. I'm less inclined to randomly jump up to find something to do other than force my brain to squeeze out a word, character, or sentence that is stubbornly eluding me. I really don't like to disturb a sleeping kitty.  Miss Girl and Mia are only  too willing to help me in my writing endeavors. Bless those sweet, furry bodies. Without them I'd be stuck at "The..."

Also, I shouldn't have my iPhone near me while I'm writing. The beeps, rings and trills are a constant distraction. It doesn't help that I'm more than willing to stop writing and attend to my phone's "needs". The iPhone needs to hang out on silent mode. It equals punishing silence.

 Another thing I've learned is that I shouldn't be allowed to have a cherry chapstick on my desk. Whenever I hit a sticky point in a story (which is ALWAYS), I apply another layer. Let's just say that my lips won't be chapped until 2052 at this point. I end up with the most slathered lips in the history of lips after a writing session. I repeatedly pick up that tube and anoint away with reckless abandon.  I look like I've had collagen injections after a mere hour of writing attempts.

And, as much as I love Facebook, with the constant posting of friends and family,  near and far, the internet is the biggest foil to my writing pursuits. Just say no to logging on for "a minute". It's never a minute. More like an hour and then it's time to get to real work ie: my job as a horse trainer. Not sigh because I don't like my job, but it means I've screwed myself on the hours I've preserved for writing. They're precious, like semi-precious gems. Think cubic zurconium. Or gumball machine rings. 

Just know that I'm trying to write fiction. Anything, anything at all. The class is fabulous and I'm enjoying it. It's testing all of my mental faculties and I feel like I'm getting my money's worth out it. Will it provide another career? Will I end up a fabulously successful writer?  Will I get past the first sentence of a story that I think I can share?  Time will tell. But there's no pressure. No pressure. Pressure to a writer, even the most newbie writer EVER is the equivalent of kryptonite to Superman. Know this.

What is up with this song?

http://youtu.be/G1a4UqgN53w    Since I'm a computer idiot I can't quite figure out how to attach this link, but maybe it can copied and pasted? It's an old version of Rhinestone Cowboy, by Glenn Campbell, complete with lyrics.  I feel it's only fair to warn you that once you listen to this song it will be embedded in your brain. For days on end.  Possibly forever. I have Glenn Campbell's Grammy award show performance to thank for doing this to me. I thought that if I watched it on Youtube and really belted out the lyrics that it might help exorcise it from my brain. I was wrong. It's now stronger than ever. I've even got Jonathan singing it. We've been possessed by this song. I fear we shall both go mad. Now that I know the lyrics I can't believe that it was such a hit in its day. They're awful. And Glenn's hair in the video is equally as disturbing.  I might need shock therapy. Or very strong medication. Or both.

Of Mice and (Wo)Men

     During the winter season my cats choose to stay inside away from biting winds and frosty fields. They loll around on our furniture, scratch the couch, chase one another, meow for no reason whatsoever and grow fatter. Big Zekie has recently developed an insatiable curiosity with the closet that houses our stacked washer/dryer unit. About five, or six times a day he feels the urge to walk into the bathroom, paw open the closet door (which creaks like a prop in a haunted house), meow a few times, peer intently into the dark recesses of the closet and then waddle away. I have no idea why he does this. Cats are messed up animals. The good thing about their winter schedule for me is that I don't have to deal with the plethora of animals that they bring into the house during the other three seasons. No scurrying chipmunks, no panicking birds fluttering their wings helplessly against the ceiling and windows and best of all, no carcasses.
    The other night I was making a 3 a.m. trip to the loo and out of the corner of my sleep filled, blurry eyeballs I saw a small brown mouse running across the floor.
  "Oh Buddy," I said. "You picked the wrong house to break into."  As if on cue, Mia came trotting into the bathroom causing the mouse to dart behind the toilet. I ran back to the safe haven of my bed, thinking may the force be with you, little mousie because I'm not in the mood for a search and rescue mission at this hour of the night.

 The next next morning I tip toed into the bathroom and saw no sign of the mouse, dead or otherwise. I supposed that maybe he'd gone out the way he came in, therefore escaping a certain deadly ending. As I passed through the doorway into the living room I saw the mouse sitting next to the book case, with Miss Girl sitting NEXT to him and Marbles eyeing him greedily from across the room.  The clock was ticking and I knew I had to act fast.  Grabbing a red Solo cup (thank you Toby Keith for forever planting your song in my head) I swiftly scooped the mouse up and covered the top with a cd case. Remember I've been catching mice, moles, chipmunks, etc. for years now. I should host classes on this shit.

  Opening the door, I felt a wave of guilt over putting the mouse out in the cold, but there was no alternative for him. He had to go out, or face the fangs and claws of four bored felines. I set the cup down, fully expecting the mouse to dart away, but instead he came part way out, stopped and repeatedly rubbed his mouth with his hands. And then he turned in circles to the right like a shopping cart with a sticky wheel. It was then that I noticed the small wound on the top of his head. One of the stupid cats had performed some kind of brain experiment on him. I could just imagine the conversation:

Mia: Hey Marbles, have you ever pierced the frontal lobe with one claw to see what would happen?

Marbles: No, but that's a brilliant idea! Let me go pick the furniture for a minute so my claws are good and sharp. Be right back.



  Well, the damage was done and he didn't look to be suffering so I brought him a small hunk of cheddar and left him preening and circling in the red cup. Throughout the morning I checked on him several times. No real changes to report. Just hanging out in the cup, and he didn't touch the cheese. The cats had turned him into a mentally impaired mouse who needed to go have round the clock care at a mouse rehab center.
When it began to rain I decided that I would get the mouse and put him in some sort of container where he could attempt a fair recovery in the barn. Now I don't have all the facts, nor was there any forensic evidence to be recovered, but when I went up to get him the cheese was gone and so was the mouse. My two dogs stood behind me, both failing to make eye contact with me as I questioned them on what had happened in the last hour.  I'll never know for sure, but I'd like to think that one of the dogs ate the cheese and spooked the mouse out of his catatonic (forgive the pun) state, enabling him to find the mental faculties that involved running the hell away from this House of Satan. That's my version of a Hollywood ending, rodent style.

Terrible Timing

  I can't believe that our indoor ring roof is being re-shingled as I type. Our landlords are nice people, but I'm not sure what they were thinking by having this work done during the winter. Here are a few reasons as to why it's a bad idea:

1. It's cold
2. the roof is covered with thick frost every morning
3. we can't ride in the indoor while the workers are up there
4.we can't ride outside because it's freezing out and the ground is frozen
5. we can't ride until 4 p.m. when the workers leave for the day
6. who in the hell wants to start riding at 4 p.m. in the winter?
7. the roof is huge and this company sends a mere two laborer's per day, who spend a lot of time chatting and listening to really, really bad music on their crackly radio

 
    After two long weeks the guys got one half of the roof done. Then they took the entire week off between Christmas and New Years, which if you remember was a very mild, lovely week.  Well, the truck just rolled into the driveway on this below freezing morning and I bet those men are just de-lighted to be scampering up the frosty ladder to start ripping shingles in the frigid Millbrook wind. To make matters worse, they started on the side of the ring that is always exposed to the sun. Now they are working on the "dark side", which never gets a single ray of light. So if you're thinking that you have a crappy job just imagine being a roofer stuck on a slippery, humungous, shaded indoor ring roof in January. Oh, and Billy Squier is belting out "Stroke Me" on the radio ( a song that no one should EVER have to hear after 1986).  Puts things in a little perspective, doesn't it?