me: Ky, my characters are running rampant in my story, halp
Kyrilean: "The clear blue sky suddenly began to darken as dark rolling clouds moved in."
"Lightning lit up the sky as the thunder rolled like massive freight trains through the sky."
me: okay mister metaphor
Kyrilean: "In a sudden flash, a lightning bolt slammed into the ground in front of Amber's characters!"
"As the light dissapated(? shit!) a being of immense power stood before them!"
"It was Kyrilean, God of the Skies, Overlord of All!"
me: ...
Kyrilean: "In a thundering voice he boomed, 'Knock that shit off! Your running rampant is giving Amber fits!!!"
and to think you didn't even have to pay for that!

So Saturday I go to pick up Ashley for pony time...

..and she doesn't respond to texts...

...and she doesn't come down...

...so 15 minutes later, I leave. She shows up at the therapy barn later (like, 10?) saying that she'd woken up at 8, but fell asleep leaning against the kitchen counter waiting for food to microwave. Then she left early because her ankle and knee hurt.

...

...

Girl, WTF am I going to do with you? GET THE FUCK OFF WOW AND PRETEND TO KEEP A NORMAL SCHEDULE, WOMAN.

I was pretty upset after Ulduar tonight.

So I've been GM for what, still less than a week? I'm still a bit insecure, still finding my feet...and raid leading has NEVER been something I've been comfortable doing by myself. Well, in tonight's raid I should have had Josh, Steve, Ashley, and Andy all with me. Well, Josh didn't want to go...

...and Steve said he needed to go grocery shopping....

...and Andy and Ashley didn't really want to go, either. They came, sure, but they came and did their job and were just sort of...quiet. Well, it went horribly. We downed Hodir...and only Hodir, and then only after a couple of wipes. Freya was more wipes. I deal with people well. Picking apart fights and seeing what we're doing wrong? No. So I flailed at the officers and...nothing. Ashley was alt tabbed when not fighting doing something else. Andy at least apologized and said he'd had a bad day and was tired, but the end result was still me feeling shitty and unsuppported.

Come on, guys. You're officers, and quite frankly, I need your help. If nothing else, I need your pats on the back while I find my feet. If you all flake out on me all at once, that's just...

...crappy.

My NaNo is plugging along here, for the interested:

http://darklordsblood.wordpress.com/

The thing with Arrens is actually a running joke stemming from Twitter and my World of Warcraft blog.  Sorry, Arrens!

Number of orchids I have killed: 5

Saturday, I hatched a random hare of an idea.  It will likely never be more than an idea, but I'm wasting time chewing on it anyway.

I wonder if the therapy barn would sell me Nova?

Nova is a Morgan x Arabian gelding.  He used to be a show jumper, and is now rather infamous for being a stall agressive, leader-nipping horse.  Few volunteers want to handle him and he's lightly used at the moment.  So why the hell do I want him?

I think that he needs, more than anything, a new job.  I think that if he had only one or two people who worked with him who took the time to learn his particular needs/wants (and he is a very particular guy), who gave him an active and more interesting life, that he might not BE such an angry horse anymore.  I mean, look at this face:
 

( Piccy! )What part of that face says "I'm a dick for no good reason" to you?  I just think that he's not a good fit for a therapy horse.  Besides, to all reports he's not bad under saddle...just a complete prick to everyone on the ground.  He's never actually bitten me, just threatened to...a lot.  Since even Shiloh, the worlds sweetest horse ever, has bitten me when uncomfortable, I'm not ready to write him off as mean just yet. 

I don't know-it's just a thought.  I mean first they'd have agree, and then he'd have to check out sound to still jump...

Lesson Recap:

Junior came up lame, AGAIN.  Those older throughbreds are something, aren't they?  So for lack of another mount, it was back to Lucky.

Poor insecure, unused to other riders Lucky.  Poor...SPOOKY Lucky...

I apparently am very good at staying on spooking horses, as Diane observed that not many people were able to stay on him, and I managed it three times.

...

...

I will say: daaaaaaamn, but that boy does NOT spook in place.  Good thing we were on a lunge line, or it would have been a wee bit more complicated.  You can totally get a death grip on the front of an English saddle-this is good to know. 

OMG HORSES WALKING IN FRONT OF THE ARENA DOOR IN THE DARK ARE GOING TO EAT ME OMG.
OMG SOMEONE WALKED IN WITH JINGLING KEYS OMG.
OMG SOMEONE WALKED IN-wait, didn't we do this already?  OH YES WE DID OMG.

Otherwise, it was a game of "let's keep the lazy sucker trotting!"  it's amazingly difficult to post, keep him trotting, and keep him on a circle, too.  Go figure.

/facepalm

So I'm all like

WTF

I have a box

and like

I open it

and I'm like, GOD DAMN IT

FUCK YOU ALL TO HELL

FUCK YOU ALL STRAIGHT TO GOD DAMNED HELL

and Josh is like, WTF is that

so I have to tell the story

and then I squeeze it

and I'm like OH GOD IT MAKES NOISE WTF

so

damn you,  _e of the IRC people

damn you for sending me sheep

Friday was a good lesson because not only did I find out that Junior CAN make smaller turns than bus, but I also somehow, magically, mastered the sitting trot on him.  Woo!

...of course I wasn't able to repeat that feat on other horses, but it's something, right? 

Saturday the therapy barn was closed for the summer-to-fall transition, so I met up with another volunteer to play with her horses.  She's looking for shareboarders for them, and I'm tempted.  I'm so very tempted, but I just don't have enough days in the week for this nonsense!

She has two geldings, Coldsteam and Grenadier.  Coldstream is 3/4 TB and 1/4 Percheron, and Gren is half and half.  The reason that she's afraid she'll have a hard time finding leasers is because they are also 17.2 and 18.1 hands, respectively.  Not everyone has the OMG FUCKING HUGE HORSES YAY reaction that I do.   Riding Gren was like riding a table in some respects (wiiiiiiiide back), and he was a wee bit lazy, but he seemed like such a good boy.  Coldstream reminded me more of Junior, being more full of GO GO GO and also being slyer about things like doing shoulder ins along a wall when I asked for a damn circle!   I've never ridden a more energetic walk, oh my goodness.

I really wish I could get Josh into horses.  Otherwise, I really have to cut back on how much time I spend with them, because it seriously cuts in together time.  Mrrrr.  I just wanna combine my two favorite thiiiiiings.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,877155,00.html

...

...

REALLY?

In an extraordinary decision, Judge Camarata denied the Burkes' right to the child because of their lack of belief in a Supreme Being. Despite the Burkes' "high moral and ethical standards," he said, the New Jersey state constitution declares that "no person shall be deprived of the inestimable privilege of worshiping Almighty God in a manner agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience." Despite Eleanor Katherine's tender years, he continued, "the child should have the freedom to worship as she sees fit, and not be influenced by prospective parents who do not believe in a Supreme Being."

/stabs

How is to say she can't?  KJajdhasjdhashdja.

So I was being tortured with a sitting trot...and we were doing a lot of walk/tot transitions.  Well Junior, being the rather clever and gung-ho horse that he is, has come to think that ALL periods of walk/trot transitions comes with CANTERING after it.  That was...totally not the plan, but he thought it was.  The first time he canters anyway he does a good job of throwing me off balance with a quick duck around a jump.  The SECOND time (he was sneaky!) we were more controlled and I pulled him back to a walk aaaaaand...

...he was limping.  Badly.

DINGBAT.

/facepalm

I was switched to Lucky, who is Diane's paint gelding.  Now Lucky is a wee bit special, because he was a halter horse when he was young and apparently just a show piece, because he didn't understand things like...being patted on the neck.  It freaked him out.  Anyway, he's really only been ridden by Diane, and a few times by her daughter...so I confused the ever living hell out of the poor guy.  He's also MASSIVELY LAZY and my legs are going to KILL me tomorrow due to how much leg I had to give him to get him to go.  

So...poor Lucky, I broke his brain...and poor Junior, hurting himself being a spaz.  Thoroughbreds, I swear!

So I bought a pair of half chaps...and they are blue and pretty and I love them but...

FUCK THEY HARDLY FIT OVER MY CALVES.  Like, it's hard to zip them...so hard that, after fooling around with them a bit yesterday, my thumbs now hurt.  Yet according to the size chart, I should have ordered one size smaller.  What the HELL?  I can't go up one-then they'll be too long.  I hold out some hope that they might stretch a wee bit over time and be a bit better.  I can wear them, just...yeesh.

Of course they don't really go over my riding boots well at all, because they are kinda poofy-topped, more tennish-shoe like boots.  Nnngh.

...so now I need new boots...?

I would like to know why I kill impatiens, but have no trouble getting African Violets to thrive.  WTF?  I keep reading how African Violets are supposed to be semi-difficult, or at least not loleasy, and yet they are the only plant I have that doesn't look like shit right now.

The sense there is no making!

This horse needs to not sell until I can have him, y/y?  Though I wish he was a couple of inches taller.  I'm such a sucker for black horses with chrome, though, and there's a surprising dearth of English horses in the area.  Why this is the case when most of the TRAINERS and BARNS seem to be english, I don't know, but such is life.

Actually, I think it's mostly "cheap" English horses that are hard to find.  All the backyard busdies go western.

...which is not something that my co-worker will ever fully grasp.

I know I make mistakes and forget things, but I'm tired of feeling browbeaten.  I'm tired of being bitched at by someone who then turns around and does things I'd get yelled at for.  But if I complain and someone says something to her, she'll just got more passive agressive because there's only two of us...it's not like I can pretend I didn't complain.

Blah.

...but here, have horsies.

( This is why I tend to photograph trees. )

You know...I have things that I want to post, but I never can at the time and then they just...fade away.

Like last week, one of the horses at the therapy barn SPAZZED during a lesson.  I was leading a very cranky Morab a bit behind this QH mare, who straight out half-reared.  The leader was one of our more experienced people, thank god...but what the hell?  I don't think this horse is going to transition very well.  For one, she was a reiner...and is a fussy girl on top of that.  Considering how sensitive reiners can be to cues, I'm just not sure about using her for riders who may not entirely be in control of themselves, you know?  

But I'm not the barn manager...

Ponies continue to be devious creatures out to get me.  Pepper the POA was demoted from Favorite Pony spot after episodes of biting buttons off my pants, and jumping over mud puddles.  Seriously, Pep.  It's a mud puddle.  Get over it...no, no, not that way!

The new Halflinger mare, Dolly, has not yet exhibited signs of evil.  We'll see.

We've started using western saddles for some of the kids and I lol at people not knowing how to cinch them.  Though I had to re-teach myself how...

Lessons continue to progress and Junior continues to be a silly, spacy goof.  I missed last weeks lesson and hope that won't really affect this week much.  :(

I has a Braden and Tia! With luck they will be settled quickly and then we can snag Braden a job with Josh's company...providing that Josh's company hauls itself out of its latest OH SHIT OH SHIT backlog.  It should, but right now there's massive OT involve and my Josh is going to be tired and cranky.  The money will be delicious, though.

/random

ASkdjaksldjklsjd.  I didn't realize that having my riding lesson on Fridays would cause so many issues.  WTF social people.

So we were to do something for Josh's sister's birthday this weekend, and since the county fair wasn't going right now she opted for the...Ren Faire.

Hell yeah!

I was costume-less, because half of my costume is with my stuff back in Cali...and I think that stuff is pretty much...er, gone (is it, Braden?  Blah).  Naturally I wanted to piece a new one back together, so I was looking at stuff...initially thinking I'd replace my chemise and go from there as I had my skirt and bodice, as much as I now disliked the bodice.

At one point I tried on an entire get up to get a better feel for it...and interestingly enough when I walked out like THAT the budget became a lot more flexible.  It may or may not have been related to how I walked right up to him and went HI and he looked down and...( ...clevage!... )

I just bought tickets for the Vienna Teng concert in October.  Fuck yeah!

Josh was like LOL NO, so I'll drag Braden and Tia with instead.  Silly Josh.

For the record, drunken Apples to Apples is better than drunken Monopoly.

...that was my 4th of July, yes, why do you ask?

Also!

Wild strawberry liqour + amaretto + 7 up = WIN
White grape vodka + sparkling white grape juice + peach schnapps + amaretto = WIN
Amaretto in ANYTHING = WIN