Here there be dragons...

"I'm telling you stories. Trust me." - Winterson

This place seems strangely familiar...

hahaha yeah so Anna sent me that and it made me laugh n laugh so I thought I'd share :) So do any of you remember the old text-based adventure games? (yeah I *might* be dating myself a bit here). Think no graphics. "You have entered a room. There are no windows. There is a table in the middle and three wooden doors. What do you do?" And you'd type a command, say "Look at table" and invariably it'd reply, "I'm sorry, I do not understand." So you'd valiantly try again: "Look on table." "You see a tall purple vase. It has three red flowers emitting a sweet scent and one white flower that is faded next to the others." "Smash vase." "I'm sorry, I do not understand." And so on :) Ok comeon tell me I'm not the only one who played these? Anyways, if you've nostalgic memories about "adventure" games of yore, you have to check out Lost in a Forest. hahaha it amused me anyways. But then, as we've already seen, that doesn't take much. I do have to wonder though -- is it really worth the $ to register the domains? :) First show next weekend. And I'm totally hyped about it. I don't remember the last time I was hyped about a show. Methinks this is not a good thing. Not when my pony picks up on my adrenaline -- she has enough of her own! On the plus side, it's making me feel like a little kid again so that's always fun :) hahaha could be, ummmm, interesting :) Esp as she still doesn't jump more than about three fences in a row without loosing her little mind... And is only *just* (like as of today) figuring out how to judge the width of square oxers. She has a tendency to put the highest point of the arc over the back rail -- making the jump about twice as wide as it should be. Like I said -- interesting >;-P Thankfully Supergroom has agreed to come assist :) hahaha I'm sure at least one of us will have a brain that day. Best case scenario it'd be the one with four legs, but I'm not holding my breath on that *g* I always find it amazing that I can take 15 riders to the show and have everybody organized and in the right place at the right time, but with just one -- esp if it's just mine -- I suddenly need help. Probably because it seems too easy so I don't put the effort into organizing it I should; but then, that's why I have such amazing students to help me out. hahaha Lesson today was a blast. Had a good laugh when I realized that my coach is as creative in his jump building as I am :) I've literally never had a coach who thinks that way before. The gymnastic we were doing is one I've never done before -- also a fairly rare occurrence. On a curving line a little bounce, two strided to a big square oxer, two strides to a little bounce. The issue being we only had four sets of standards. So the first and last of the bounce fences had to be made out of creative materials :) He made one out of precariously balanced cavaletti (do *not* knock this one over! -- sound familiar anybody?) hahaha and the other one he put the mounting box in the middle and balanced the pole on top of it. Si definitely took a good look at that. And the BM walked in the door with "what is THAT?" -- hahaha she (and her coach for that matter) is often amused by what her one lone "crazy eventer" sets up :) "Next time your coach sets up something insane, text me so I can come watch." hahaha not so likely to happen, but amused me nonetheless. Sienna didn't even blink at the cavelleti creation (but then, I've built strange and unusual fences with those before). She definitely backed off the "pole on mounting box" jump but did jump it on the first try, and with nearly perfect form (since she'd been rushing the other way, backed off put her right about where I needed her to be). Yeah so I had to take a pic of this one, mostly to prove that I'm not the *only* one who will occasionally improvise in jump construction (anyone remember Stonehenge in L's hay field? hahaha) Primary down side being of course you can't raise the fence *g* Very sad that at this angle the T sized oxer looks like about PE *g* hahaha ah well :) If only it rode as easily! Had a good laugh the first time we came off Sienna's difficult direction. It was, shall we say, less than perfect. And when she landed I gave her a good pat anyways. So my coach calls me over. "Ok analyze," he tells me. "Well we came in with a serious left drift and got in way too tight to the first one, which landed us too collected and too far off the line to get the two so asked her to stick in the three which meant she had to cat-leap the oxer. Which despite the laws of physics she managed to do, so I patted her." Now I have no idea what he was expecting me to say, but he gave me the strangest look and says "yes, that's exactly what happened. Now go do it right." hahahaha You'd think by now he'd realize my analytical abilities are generally fairly well developed - esp as he has a fairly good read on my riding and where the mental blocks lie. For the record we did do it correctly after that. Several times :) Pony was jumping really well. So much fun :)

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