Here there be dragons...

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

Stupid Should Hurt

Okay...  So let's preface this by saying that, for a wide assortment of reasons - mostly related to horses being horses - I pretty much haven't ridden in about six weeks.  Other than the occasional tune up for a client or five-second demo ride (at least once at the halt - that counts, right?), I really haven't so much as gotten on a horse.

No worries though, right?   I'm fit, healthy, and have a reasonably active life style.  Should be no problem.

Let's look back at that with the aid of that nasty, condescending little devil, Hindsight.

You see -- all the horse issues resolved themselves at the same time.  Yeah!   So I rode one on Sunday.  It was a short jump school.  Easy and fun.  I enjoyed myself.  Horse enjoyed herself.  The world was good.  Brena did the barn, so all I had to do was teach.  No problem.

Monday did half the barn, hopped on a greener horse for another jump school.  A lot more like work and less like fun, but still all good.  Got a reasonable amount accomplished, except...  It seemed my cardio wasn't *quite* where it should be.  Maybe holding my breath?  Have been guilty of that before.  But considering the ride logically, I felt honour-bound to dismiss that.  Not likely given the circumstances.  No show.  Well behaved critter.  Nothing complicated or challenging.  Really a pretty relaxing ride, all things considered.  *sigh*  Guess it's time to start running again.  I hate running.  Have I mentioned that lately?  And I haven't done anything that even resembles running since spring.  Steph and I even walked Mud Hero!  hahaha

Ah well - switch horses and start over.  This one a dressage school.  But wait, why are my abs sore when I try to sit trot?   That is *not* a good sign.  Esp after last two rides were jumping.  hmmmm.  Ah well, suck it up and continue.   Ride is successful, but makes it clear there's some homework outstanding *sigh*   Teach for the evening, go home and sign up for pilates class on Wednesday.  Some of you may remember my earlier post about being shown up in pilates class in yuppieville.   Yup - that's the one.

The brighter amongst you might be questioning this.  But what happened to the running idea?  Ah my friend, but clearly core strength is more important than cardio.  Must focus on that first.

Wait what?

Okay so I hate running.  >;-P  That is all.

So Tuesday am I wake up and as I roll over to hit the snooze button my abs chose that moment to inform me of what a horrible life choice that was.  Seriously.  I actually couldn't get out of bed.  I'm sure that had *nothing* to do with the cold outside and warm comfy duvet.  It certainly had nothing to do with staying up till all hours on the computer the night before.  It absolutely had everything to do with my poor abs, which after riding only two (that'd be two.  Not too or to, two.  Which was apparently two too many *sigh*) horses the day before, were now on strike.  And therefore, I couldn't sit up.

But unfortunately the horses really couldn't care less about the state of my poor overworked abs.  They still wanted to be fed.  Unreasonable eh?   So I gracefully exited the bed (read: blankets and I rolled into a heap on the ground reaching for the ever escalating cell phone in a desperate attempt to silence its screeching) and made my way to work.

The abs' complaints were quickly forgotten in the general chaos of "one of those days".  A scheduled lunging day for pony in training, so riding muscles got off easy.  Normal muscles got their normal workout mucking stalls, throwing hay, and hauling water (all kinds of fun, let me tell you!).  But it's not much of a workout when it's an every-day thing and they're used to it *sigh*

And so I let the pilates class signup stand.

Wednesday rolls around, entirely too early.  Mornings really need to be dismissed from existence.  Could we get on that please?  But I was committed to the pilates idea.  Not only that, but I had an even more brilliant plan (you're not new here, surely you can see where this is going...?):  why not combine pilates AND cardio?

Why not?

"Because that's a really STUPID idea.  That's why not."  So speaks our friend Hindsight again.  *sigh*

Yeah.  Sometimes my ambition outweighs my common sense *sigh*    So I got Bev to drive me to pilates so I could run home after.

I'll wait while you clean up the wine you just snorted at the screen.

Okay now?

Right.  And not only that, I plotted a route that'd take 5k.  An easy enough distance.  If one ever runs anywhere.  And hasn't just completed Yuppieville's own sadistic version of hell.

And did  I mention this route also passed a Dairy Queen?   AND a fabulous bakery?  Right, that's just all kinds of evil.  And I definitely had it in my head that if I really wasn't up to running, I could just detour there and then walk the rest of the way home enjoying my treat.

You see, I am capable of logical ideas!

Right.  Guess which one I did?

Pilates was comparatively easy.  Not to say I'll be able to sit up tomorrow, but compared to some of the classes there, it wasn't completely killer.  So no excuses, ran home.  And not only home - the whole 5k route.  Only thing, when I plotted the route on Google, I failed to notice the gym was downhill from home.  Which means the run home would be all up hill.  Fail.

I made it though.  And in reasonable time too!  Not fast by any means, but I've never been fast, just acceptable.  Cardio was better than I thought but my legs...   Oh dear.  Lactic acid in the quads was noticeable less than half way home.  Now that I've been sitting for a while, well suffice to say getting up again - or worse, trying to move! - is going to be a challenge.   And tonight is sailing -- going to try really hard not to fall off the boat *g*   Tomorrow shouldn't be too hard - only one horse to ride.  But Friday is the day after the day after and it's brutal.  And then Saturday is hay day.  Go hard or go home right?

And now, I'm off to Dairy Queen.  I think I've earned it.

Much ado about nothing...


So, that was a day and a half.   Wow.  In the short version - absolutely nothing happened.  So you may as well stop reading now.  Trust me.

I don't know if I should be pleased or insulted that you're still reading >;-P   Don't follow instructions well, do you?

Ah well -- I think the fact that nothing happened is exactly what made it so frustrating.  What should've taken an hour or two seemed endless.

Yup.  Just like that.
I wanted to stop by the printer to have flyers printed, drop the car off to get its oil changed, and do some banking.  Otherwise there were ideas about cleaning and doing laundry and writing and a few other odds and ends.  Right.  Suffice to say, other ideas are for sissies.

Alright so I *might've* contributed to my own demise by going to bed at a slightly less than civilized hour last night *g*  And keep in mind, civilized in my world is anytime before 2am.  Before midnight is almost unattainably impressive.   So uncivilized...  Well, use your imagination.  I'll give you a hint - I didn't get home from work till about 11, so it wasn't super early.

Regardless, being a responsible adult (stop laughing!), I set my alarm and it did, in fact, go off.  Several times. With the enthusiasm of a series of exploding bombs and the resulting sirens *sigh*
I used to love this movie!
When I eventually deigned to acknowledge it, it was to see I had half an hour until my car was supposed to be at the shop.  And that clock is currently running about 10 mins slow.  20 minutes. Car has to be 15 minutes away.  And I'm still in bed.

Frig.

But, it turns out, this might not be the first time this has ever happened to me.  Up, showered, dressed and out in under 10 minutes.  Sweet.  And it's not really a 15 minute drive, I just tell myself that so I'll be early.  Really a 10 minute drive, so I should still be on time.

And then I hit the train.  Really?   I couldn't stop my eyes from rolling.  The only saving grace is that I was in Oakville and not on my way to the barn.  Trains in Oakville are about thirty seconds long -- I was still good to go :)   Made it in time to drop the car off.

Except I'd failed to run the "on the way" errands.  And now no longer had a car.  *sigh*

Fortunately Bev saved the day and generously offered me her car :)   Thanks Mum!  hahaha okay so...  Printer.  First stop was Staples -- quick and easy to deal with, but they can't print full bleed.  Booo.  Not going to work.  So Googled for print shops in Oakville -- there are a surprising number of them *g*   The one I knew about apparently doesn't exist before, but there were three others that looked promising.  I ranked them in order of my own interest and figured out where the top two were.  Reasonably close to each other, so that's good.

Driving looking for 30...  Found 28 and 34...  I hate to keep saying this, but really?  Okay so a little more research proved user error -- we'll blame the lack of sleep.  Sounds good to me.  I actually needed 20.  And sure enough, when I got to the *right* address there was the sign on the building.   The empty building.

I'm serious.  Occupying the large, otherwise-empty store were three baseball caps sitting on a counter.   I tell ya, I couldn't make this stuff up!   I do kinda want to know the story behind the hats.  Although I suspect it wouldn't be nearly as entertaining as the one my mind spun so maybe I'm happier not knowing.   The rest of the place was empty.

Out of curiosity I called the phone number I had for them.  I was a little surprised to get an answer -- maybe there was an upstairs?  But no, when I asked where they were located, I learned they're on the other side of Burlington.  All that remained here was their sign.  And the baseball hats.

Okay, nbd, because you see while searching for that shop, I happened to find the third one on my list -- the one I hadn't mapped.  Small world and all that.   So I went in to talk to them and they were capable of doing what I needed.  But snarky and condescending.  I just wanted to get out of there.  So I left my email to send me a quote and ran away.

I was starting to feel just a little disenchanted with this whole idea and, sitting in the parking lot, my phone rang.  I gave it the death glare but it continued to chime away.   Okay fine - answer it.  It's the girl who's organizing the marathon I'm supposed to have a booth at on Saturday.  Apparently the City of Oakville has instituted a new requirement -- they need proof of liability listing them on the insurance.  Ummmm say what?  They're not on my insurance -- my business is in Campbellville.  And this is suddenly making it all seem like way too much hassle.  So ostrich it (ummm if you're not familiar with that Laur-ism, it means stick your head in the sand and ignore it till later) for the moment and continue my travels.

Third -- fourth! -- print shop of the day.  It took pretty much everything I had to force myself to go in.  But here, here I found good customer service.  KKP for anybody interested.  The people were pleasant and helpful.  The only other customer in the store was fairly entertaining, so that's always fun.  On a side note, I was a little astounded at the number of things they had posted about copyright laws and how they refused to violate them.  Ummmm really?  Are people that ignorant about asking a professional copy store to copy illegally?   But obviously so.  Ugh.

But the staff there knew their stuff and were easy to deal with.  They suggested a minor change to the file that would make it print better and since they're not far from home I decided I'd take said file home and make the change.  So with quote in hand I went home.  On the way, I got the call that my car was ready.  Sweet!

Go home, fix the file, find quote from other print shop.  Slightly cheaper, but not guarenteed by Friday.  And I didn't like them.  Will go with the people I liked.   Return to mechanics and find all is well.  Car doesn't need anything extra and is deemed to be in good health!  Woohoo!!!  If you know my history with cars, you'll understand how very exciting that news actually was >;-P   Drop new file off at print shop -- all good there too.  Now, hours after it began, the day is *finally* starting to go as it should.   Sweet.

Right.  You're not new here.

Next stop was the bank.  Line was long and moving ridiculously slowly, but sobeit.  I was told something would be done by today; I needed it; I would wait patiently.  And I daydreamed my way through the line and eavesdropped shamelessly on the other customers.  Really, what else is there to do?  Nothing fun going on though.  So eventually I make it to the counter, get 3/4 of the way through business, and then am told that the piece I needed would indeed be done today.  By midnight.  Wtf?  Seriously - that deserves more than "Really?".  Is there any way to expedite this by about 6h?  "Uh maybe - let me ask somebody."  Fast forward another 20 mins of twiddling thumbs and listening to other clients.  And then no.  And while I will likely be up at midnight and able to return for that transaction then, I'd be willing to bet nobody would be there.  If they'd just told me Thursday at the beginning - no problem.  But telling me it'll be ready on Wednesday, wasting a good hour of my day, only to inform me it'll be Wednesday at midnight?

Suffice to say I was less than amused.

When all else fails...
So I turned my thoughts toward sailing.  Last week I *really* wanted to go and didn't.   Worse - I found out that the hurricane apparently let up enough for a great race.  I could've gone!   Which made it even harder.  Today though weather was stunning, so I was pretty excited.  But wait - the ostrich.

*sigh*  So I call my insurance company to figure out what all would be involved in solving this dilemma.  And my usual contact is on vacation.  Of course she is.  Welcome to my life.  "Would you like to talk to somebody else?"   Ummmm yes please.  hahaha I've no idea who, but hey surely you can recommend somebody?   Indeed she could, and the person she recommended me to was awesome.  Fast and sharp and helpful.  Solved the problem quickly and painlessly.  Superstar customer service -- esp juxtaposed with the bank.

So far a bit of a brilliance or disaster day.  Probably a good thing I didn't try to ride my horse!

But at least now, it was time to shrug off the stress and go sailing.  Well almost.  First I had to get there.  QEW was stopped, but that's not new -- I'm used to taking Lakeshore down and have got the hang of which lane to be in when.  All good.  Except my usual "correct" lane wasn't moving.  But I bided my time until the giant vehicle in front of me moved over revealing a complete lane block for construction.  Booo.  But traffic in the next lane was being civilized, one car fitting in between each of the cars in the other lane.  All good.  Except the guy who theoretically *should* have let me in wasn't about to.

"Really?  Don't be an ass; it's not like I have any choice about this."

Oops.  Was that out loud?   With the windows down?

Fortunately the look he gave me was amused, and he stopped and let me in.  I smiled and waved as I took the offered space and of course got out of his way as soon as we passed the construction.  And at the next red light, he asked me out.  hahaha yeah - welcome to my life.   I have to admit I'm always thoroughly amused when that happens.  This is the third time now.  A couple years ago I actually went on the date -- was even a reasonably good one; we talked for ages.  But circumstances being what they were at the time, nothing ever came of it.  And circumstances being what they are now, nothing would come of this either *g*   But it did have me in a fairly good mood when I got to the yacht club.

Even with the construction, I made it with about 10 mins to spare.  Sweet!  The whole crew was out for the last Wednesday sailing night, and the wind picked up as we headed out.  Woohoo!  And then, right before our heat was about to start, died abruptly.  Oh dear.  If a snail and a giant turtle raced, backwards, they might still have beat us *sigh*  It was painful.  But - it was close, which was interesting.  They were applying some pretty serious strategy to get somewhere when the wind gods took their toys and went home.   Kinda cool.  Would've been way cooler at speed, I admit, but still interesting.  And even better that we won :)   That always helps.

And possibly the most stunning sunset/moonrise I can remember seeing.  Almost surreal colours on a stunning sky and a red cityscape.  Awesome in the most literal sense of the word.  A large part of me lamented my lack of camera, but part of me appreciated just floating there enjoying it.  What better way to spend a fall evening?  Absolutely amazing.

Out of curiousity, why are you still reading this?  I did tell you right in the beginning that nothing happened right?  And, well, nothing's going to continue to happen.

Because you see, after sailing was the finale of America's Got Talent.  Yup - one of my guilty pleasures.  Not quite sure how I got addicted to that, but sobeit.  The act that held me fascinated got kicked out a week or two ago.  So sad.  But my second choice was still in and there was a third that I'd forgotten about but when I watched the review decided was socially acceptable as well.  So I watched the presentation while typing this.  My guy was eliminated fairly early on.  Booo on that.  No accounting for taste I guess.  But the third choice won - so reasonable :)  An unusual act, to be sure, but that's part of what makes that show so interesting.  Completely indescribable acts can win.

True story.  Except finishing the book *last* night led to this whole story....
And I wasn't quite finished this post, so I searched valiantly for something else to watch on TV and found Bond.  Not my favourite one by any means, but really any Bond is acceptable.  And so the day begins much as it ended - not great, not horrid, and with stuff exploding. Night!


Promise kept.


Came across this today and it amused me enough to include it here because, well really, story of my life :)

So Lexi's being a teenager these days, hence the lack of posts about fun and exciting stuff cause, well, we don't get to *do* fun and exciting stuff.  *sigh*   Mostly we dance around on our hind legs.  When she does deign to go forward it is, admittedly, brilliant :)   Gives me lots of hope for the future.  But the rest of the time.  Ugh.  Normal 5yo behaviour -- but usually I back them significantly earlier so by the time we get here we have some basic rules installed.  This...  This is less fun.   Ah well - five years from now when she's a superstar, it'll be amusing to look back and remember...  Sane, quiet, weak-willed horses do not go advanced...

We're into the fall schedule at GRS now so things have been crazy getting switched around this week.  A good number of the uni girls are back though and there are a few new ones, so all good.  Having lots of fun with them.  Competitive team is gearing up for champs, so also all sorts of exciting :)

Have my book back from the editor but alas it has a fair amount of work to do and I've been less than dedicated to doing it *g*   Suspect as the last of this wonderful weather fades, that will become more appealing.  Somewhat amused that summer has finally chosen to visit -- in September.  Classic.

Actually did manage to get a summer day on a beach this year.  Wow - amazing.  Esp given the combination of lack of summer days and lack of free time!  Hahaha I can't remember the last time I was on a beach in Canada *g*   A whole bunch of girls pitched in at the barn to give me the afternoon off -- it was awesome.  I have the greatest group of people at my barn.  Does make going to work every day a whole lot more fun let me tell you.  And not going to work - equally amazing :)    For she who never stops moving, I've discovered I'm remarkably good at lying on a beach (or in a hammock) with a book.   I have two speeds: stop and go.  Very little in-between.

Had quite the war with our smoke detector the other day.  Apparently when it reaches its tenth birthday it starts beeping.  And won't stop.  Ever.  It's been replaced and banished to the garage -- where it continues to chirp every thirty seconds or so.  It's becoming a game to get out the door and in the car without being chirped at >;-P

And referring to home furnishings...  Our clock:
What time is it?
Okay I think that's quite enough random babbling for now.  Lots of sun, gorgeous night out, high energy teaching...  I should know better than to sit in front of the keyboard when I get home :)