Yerk*
. . . Connie is, of course, my latest excuse for running late, at least on Tuesdays and Saturdays. And a very good excuse she is too.** Yerk. I usually eat dinner at 9:30 on bell ringing nights but the rest of the week I try . . . I used to try . . . for dinner at a slightly more civilised . . . or anyway a slightly more social . . . hour. But then given the rest of my uncivilised and unsocial hours, not to mention my personality, I think perhaps I should view a 9:30 supper as merely bringing my final meal of the day into sync with the rest of my whacked-out schedule [sic].
So after Connie I whirled home and zapped through my email*** but then incredibly it was already 3 o’clock so hellhounds and I came pelting down to the mews for lunch† and while I had dutifully brought my proofs with me, somehow I was irresistibly drawn to the piano. I’ve chosen my folk song for mangling, I mean McKinleyfying. Gypsy Rover. Hee hee hee hee hee. Woodie Guthrie or someone is spinning in his grave. I roughed it out yesterday but of course none of it is right so I’ve begun the grisly bar by bar process of rewrite: where every time you happen on a few notes in a row that you like, they don’t fit with anything else, including the last few notes in a row that you liked.
After about an hour of this my brain heads for the high country, shouting, I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!†† So at that point the hellhounds and I charged back to the cottage and I snatched up my secateurs and rushed outdoors to deadhead urgently . . . Sunday’s friend was pie-eyed from jet lag and has no garden of her own; tomorrow’s friend is a gardener. Furthermore I lost yesterday to hay fever ††† and this time of year you really have to get out there with a whip and chair on a daily basis . . . or you do the way I garden. And then I had to spend MOST of my gardening time effing watering.
And now I really really must read proofs. Must. Read. Proofs. Maybe just five minutes to see if any of the few-notes-in-a-row have gelled–or can be persuaded to have gelled–with each other, now that my brain has had a break. . . .
* * *
* Yerk: a kind of baritone eeek.
** We did half pass^ today!! I’ve never done half pass . . . well, not what you could call successfully anyway. There’s way too much to remember to do at the same time–all your various limbs and appendages are each doing something else, individually, and while they probably could, it’s the old brain that breaks down on the management function. ^^ This is obviously something Connie is good at . . . but I don’t suppose we’d be getting many ‘8′s if there was a judge looking at us either.^^^ However I regained my honour as a dweeb by totally ruining our flying changes.+ Sigh. This is the mare, you may remember, who changes leg if you so much as look in the other direction, and here I couldn’t get it when I asked. Eventually Jenny figured out that I was asking wrong: dressage style is with the horse straight–hence being able to ask for a flying change every stride if you like/dare–while the show-jumper style is with the horse very slightly bent in the direction you’re asking for the lead change toward: a show-jumper flying change is practical, it’s about being on the right leg and in the right balance for the next freaking great fence you meet. Oh, gods, I moaned, I’m confusing her. No, no, said Jenny kindly, it’s something to work on. The Positive Teacher Approach.
Someone came to look at Horse-for-sale for the second time today. Sigh. I tell myself that if Jenny sells him she’ll get someone else in who’ll be just as interesting. Which is also to say that my taste in horses is very like hers.
^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-pass There’s a video link at the bottom of the page, and if you go there you’ll be spoilt for choice.
^^ No, wait, does my elbow go in my ear, or–?
^^^ Points out of ten for each movement. If I ever came out of a dressage test with an average of 8, I’d die of delirious joy.
+ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_change I can’t get the video link to work, but there’s always: http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/competitionnews/388/258991.html Long term readers of this blog will remember that I went entirely nuts for Blue Hors Matine or however you spell her. At nearly the beginning of this test you see her from the front, apparently skipping down the middle of the long side: that’s flying changes every stride. Most of us are happy to ask for one change down the long side of a dressage ring. She also does some very nifty half pass a little farther on. But it’s her passage–that high-stepping, dancing trot–that makes me cry. If I have a Riding Goal, it’s to ride a good passage, some time before I’m so old and creaky I need a crane to get in a saddle. I wonder if Connie would like to learn passage . . .
*** Checking carefully that there wasn’t a third set of galleys/proofs about to arrive
† The hellhounds never mind late meals. I wish they minded a little more.
†† Or possibly: Yet, freedom, yet thy banner, torn but flying, Streams like the thundercloud against the wind
††† Yes, better today, thank you. I assume the acute outrage of the pollen-cloud field is wearing off, but I also finally found a homeopathic remedy that made a dent. Both the upside and the downside of homeopathy is the individuality business: you don’t just have a homeopathy remedy for hay fever, you have to find the particular remedy that suits you and your hay fever–which may not be the same as last week or last year. When you’re sneezing your brains out through your ears, it’s very difficult to concentrate on the selection process, and I started at the wrong end of the list.
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somehow I was irresistibly drawn to the piano.
Somehow! (Any work but the work you should be doing. *grin*)
Glad to hear your hay fever is doing better. :)
(Any work but the work you should be doing. *grin*)
****** EXACTLY. And reading proofs doesn’t feel . . . quite *real* somehow. It feels like something you can just dash off in your spare time. and I SOOOOO know better!!!!!
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Reading proofs seems like…well you already wrote the danged book. It’s how you wanted! Any mistakes left are THEIR fault. (Not that most readers will care about mistakes not being your fault. They will still blame you!)
Honestly, though, proofs do sound like a challenge. Reading the words on the page rather than the words you know should be there? This is how typos and file gnomes meet up… :(
Any mistakes left are THEIR fault.
****** Yes, but they don’t CARE. It’s just a *&^%$£”!!!! JOB to them.
(Not that most readers will care about mistakes not being your fault. They will still blame you!)
******* YES. EXACTLY. And a really grisly typo/missed lines will throw a reader right out of the story and that is the WORST.
Oh, indeed. I sent a story to a friend for a crit once, and she emailed me in the middle of what was supposed to be a dramatic ending. I don’t remember what the line was exactly (it’s changed fifty times since then, of course), but it was SUPPOSED to be something like, their silk shirts caught lamplight or something.
She emailed me with eleven lines of laughter (this is after she caught her breath in real life) to let me know I’d made a horrible typo.
I missed the R in shirts.
*facepalm*
*Snorksnorksnorksnorksnork.* Oh dear, poor you! :)
“it was SUPPOSED to be something like, their silk shirts caught lamplight or something.
She emailed me with eleven lines of laughter (this is after she caught her breath in real life) to let me know I’d made a horrible typo.
I missed the R in shirts.”
“*Snorksnorksnorksnorksnork.* Oh dear, poor you! :)”
Was the passage with the typo written just after you’d been reading one of Robin’s posts on Chaos’ digestive system, by any chance…? Such descriptions tend to remain active in the mind, I find. :)
Was the passage with the typo written just after you’d been reading one of Robin’s posts on Chaos’ digestive system, by any chance…? Such descriptions tend to remain active in the mind, I find. :)
This was a few years ago, actually, but I’ve never fully recovered. I’m extra careful when writing the word shirt these days. Similarly, pass and mass and anything else like that I might accidentally miss the first letter, which I did once in chat and there was silence for about ten seconds while everyone waited for me to catch it.
These days my typos are mostly silly. ;)
I’ve been known to find ‘funk’ problematic. As in, you know, blue. :)
Oh please can we have video of you on Connie? Ask Jenny to “shot” you maybe?* – I’m managing camera, point, shoot, so I really truly know that you can too ;)
* A variation of “kill me now!” that might be managed lol
It’s on the LIST. It’s a LONG LIST. And I’ve only just STARTED riding Connie . . . and the minute someone pointed a camera at me I would instantly forget how to do ANYTHING.
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* A variation of “kill me now!” that might be managed lol
******* Yes, that’s after I’ve seen the video!!!
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I’ve just put some more pics on flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/26303732@N02/sets/72157605797430454/
– no bullies (!) but I admit I took out the photos of me (the dogs are MUCH better looking . I do empathise – I felt like “kill me now” after I saw those pictures ;)
He looks pretty rehabilitated!
What about those CRUFTS pics, you procrastinator???
That is beautifully done doggie language by Rosie! I just read a wonderful book on same by Brenda Aloff–”Canine Body Language: A Photographic Guide”– and your pictures are great illustrations. (Plus, that Rosie, she’s gorgeous, isn’t she?)
Do have fun reading your proofs, and good luck with your hay fever.
I apologize, the computer ate my name. That was me.
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Worry not, you are not mucking up your meal schedule, you are just on Greek summer time. Breakfast between 9:30 and 10:00, lunch after 2:30, evening meal at 9:30 only if you want to be super early. It makes sense if you’re only getting to bed at two or three in the morning. Way to go, you’ver transferred a Mediterranean way of life to the English countryside. It’s a lifestyle choice *grin*.
It’s like my love of little black Mediterranean olives and the fact that I wave my hands around a lot when I talk. I’m Greek really. :)
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*****If I ever came out of a dressage test with an average of 8, I’d die of delirious joy.*****
(*SNORT*) Not to mention being on the Olympic team and being guaranteed the gold medal. I’d heard that the average overall scores at Grand Prix level were in the low 60s! If someone is getting averages of 8, that person is riding at WAY too low a level! :-)
*****I have a Riding Goal, it’s to ride a good passage, some time before I’m so old and creaky I need a crane to get in a saddle.*****
Keep riding and you’ll never get that creaky. When I was a freshman in college, one of the women on my dorm floor had an 84 year old grandmother who regularly rode to hounds every week. I suppose that when that got to be too much for her she toned it down to dressage. Maybe she’s still riding out there somewhere….
Judith
If someone is getting averages of 8, that person is riding at WAY too low a level! :-)
***** Or they’re riding at little local shows, which is all I ever aspired to. And that was a LONG time ago, when I still aspired to showing AT ALL.
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9:30?? Good heavens. My entire family (including two teenagers…) is usually in bed by that hour! :)
so the half pass is like crab-walking for horses…. interesting…. very cool, I hope you get it down. =)
Yes, I was going to comment that you’re eating dinner like a Spaniard. This time of year, when it’s light forever so it gets to be past 7:00 pm before you know it, it’s easy to get to 9:30 before dinner is ready. The dog, of course, eats well before this–it is NEVER 7:00 before she knows it, the clock in her stomach starts hopeful chiming any time after 4:00. The only real downside is having to do dishes at 11:00 p.m.
My dog-training instructor is also a horsewoman, and likes to use the half-pass movement to teach dogs where their rears are and how to use them. This isn’t as obvious as it sounds.
I got some puppy pictures today–Sister’s litter at 3 days old. The two tiny ones (the boy and one girl) got tube-fed for a couple of days and now are nursing well and gaining weight–so far, so good. Regardless of what their color looks like now, these are all fawn babies like their mother. Pictures are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/diane_in_mn/
As I understand it, those very-late-evening diners have SIESTAS during the day. I haven’t learnt the siesta trick. Sleep during DAYLIGHT? What’s THAT about?
AWWWWWWWWWWW. :) Oh, **puppies.** . . . I’ve lost track, is this the litter you’re hoping for one from, or the other related litter?
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This is the litter we are hoping for, so we are grateful that there is *one* boy. The person who handles for me owns the stud dog, and she would have had to listen to some serious grumbling from me if her boy had produced all girls! :) The litter sired by Alpha Bitch’s brother has two boys and three girls; they are a week older.
So you’re first in line for the single boy? Okay, I’m impressed. :) *I* have boys because there were no spare girls.
oh passage – yes, passage – the best!
I did it in a lesson once and sort of by acident*, but it DOES feel every bit as splendid as you would think.
*we were doing a collected trot and our instructor encouraged us to put more oomph into it and see how much energy we could put into such a slow motion and the next thing we got slower and springier and started bouncing very slowly, but while feeling like on a loaded cannon ball in the best way ever. Instructor congratulated me, got everyone else to watch for 20 seconds, then told me to stop so the poor hunter I was on would be able to move again the next day (instructor thought the horse would be using muscles he didn’t know he had, but it was a dressage lesson and it was fabulous!).
:)
Lucky you! –and I’m always DELIGHTED to hear when non-dressage people do/take some dressage lessons. The basis of EVERYTHING is flatwork. Dressage doesn’t mean that you CAN’T then jump or event or just go for comfortable schmoozy hacks. I’m sorry that there’s sometimes some really stupid snobbery about it.
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I like reading about your experience with horses. It makes me ache for horses and it also makes me feel like I don’t know anything even though I pretty much grew up riding. My grandparents have a ranch out west and I grew up helping with the cattle, very western, very different from what you describe here. I wonder if it is too late for me to learn all of this stuff about half passes and flying changes. It’s a whole other horse langauge that I’m not familiar with.
OF COURSE IT IS NOT TOO LATE. You’re still breathing, right? :) And . . . it’s not ENTIRELY different. If you’re used to riding and communicating with your horse, then it’s really all jsut details . . . okay, a LOT of details, but still . . . details. :)
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By the way that video of Blue Martine made me cry. I don’t know why…I guess I’ve just never seen a horse dance like that or maybe it was that huge grin from the ride at the end.
:)
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Huzzah and Hurrah!!!
Diana Wynne Jones has a new book! (At least it’s new over here in the USA)
HOUSE OF MANY WAYS
So, Robin, you can afford to go ahead and treat yourself to reading THE PINHOE EGG.
Life is, indeed, good.
HURRAH! I’ll get it off the shelf . . . :)
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I guess Greeks and us Israelis are alike, then. we have lots of olives (though admittedly different from the Greek ones) and we talk with our hands just as much as with our mouths! :)
I hope your Hayfever leaves you for good and that truly there will be more time in the day for all you (and I for that matter) want to do.
still have nowhere near caught up to the blog – that’s because you’re being proliferous (I think that’s the word I want to use, lol) and that’s super cool.
<– babbling cause tired and have recital tomorrow. after recital will have time to read blog! :)
Have I posted about my trip to Israel? It was fairly soon–within a year or two–of my having moved over here when it was still all pretty strange. And I was SO GLAD to be in a country where EVERYBODY waved their hands a lot, and raised their voices, and so on. :) Although I did inadvertently get embroiled in a bargaining thing with a street merchant who mistook me for someone who knew what she was doing and was willing to engage . . .
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I don’t think you posted about your trip to Israel.
I’m not surprised you got into a bargaining thing, lol. we’re known as hagglers (I suck at it, myself).
I hope you liked it!
It was a bit of a mixed deal, but that wasn’t Israel’s fault. We were there for a book conference and what we were told was going to happen and what did happen were . . . somewhat different from each other. But we met some extremely lovely people.
The Half Pass and Flying Change videos were wonderful. The Half Pass looks so much like the Grape Vine dance step. Cool.
I second the call for video of you and Connie.
****Feh.****
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Hmmmmmmm.
No rush. And certainly no stress is needed for you.
Books *are* needed though. ;)
And a pic of Connie :)
Although a pic of the Hellgoddess riding her steed through the countryside with her loyal Hellhounds at her side would be *very* cool. :)
We’re WORKING on the pic of Connie. She doesn’t understand HOLD STILL, DRAT YOU very well. :) And I’m kind of putting off asking Jenny to take a photo of us till it’s a little likelier that she won’t immortalise one of our . . . uh . . . *cartoon* moments.
I understand completely. Taking pics of horses is an *art*.
Yes. And I’ve LOST it.
Hi–I don’t know you or anyone here very well, but I have a favor to ask…
One of our beloved dogs has bone cancer–could you light a candle for her?
Thanks, and glad Connie is wonderful and hope the hellhounds are doing well,
Nema
Oh dear. Good luck. Candle lit.
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Lighting candle and sending prayers for you and your dog
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My thoughts are with you. Give her a hug and a kiss from me.
Judith
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One of my Danes had bone cancer. He did wonderfully with amputation and chemo and assorted supplements, and he had a good life for almost four years post-diagnosis. We were very lucky. I wish you and your dog the best of luck too and will definitely light a candle for her.
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Candles and positive thoughts coming your way.
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Very positive good thoughts coming towards you and yours. I will light a candle this evening.
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