Any excuse to spam with pics of my pony :)

As an addendum, don't try to give me any crap about the films being "not like the books." As I stated when the first one came out, people who say that have never read the books, they've just seen those terrible tedious 70's and 80's films where Holmes stalks about pontificating and doing nothing like Hercule Poirot in a deerstalker.

Don't make me drag out my annotated editions and start quoting- there will be a landslide of nerdy information, and you will be sorry.

Two-Sentence Movie Reviews

Sherlock Holmes - A Game Of Shadows

Like Holmes himself, it's brilliant, convoluted, desperately entertaining, thought-provoking, and a lot of fun to look at. It's also suspenseful and hysterical by turns, and we're trying to decide whether this or the first one is the better film- a terrific problem to have.

Work is still insane. I've been called in at all hours on all days and I barely know which way is up now. I'm looking forward to Sunday; we're declaring it do-nothing day and will be completely incommunicado.

Someday, when we have a rumpus room, I want a sign that has "Edie's Bra" scrawled on it over the bar.

So I had a terrific ride today, which surprised the crap out of me. I hadn’t ridden since Tuesday, and thinking about it I may actually have longed her instead, so it was probably a week since I’d had her under saddle, being as I was too damned tired from my ridiculous job to ride at any time prior.

At any rate, it’s cold here and snowy, and that usually makes horses a little more energetic than usual, and she’s a thoroughbred, a breed normally known for being varying degrees of high strung. But I am certain that Fi is in fact not nervous or high strung at all, only lazy and accustomed to getting out of work by pretending to be spooky, and that supposition was once again proved today. I took her in the indoor, got on, and she offered to be spooky about the door. I thumped her (i.e. gave her a stern leg aid) and said, “Cut that out! You know you’re not afraid of anything in here!” in the sort of cross voice you use with a six year old who is about to flush your keys down the toilet. This would not work with a horse who was actually scared, but Fi just sighed and ignored the door and went right to work. We did it again when a boarder brought her horse in for a lesson (I’m convinced she only offered to be disobedient because the horse in question is her pasture partner and her boyfriend and she wanted to stop working and go see him) and another thump and a stern word and she was right back to work again.

After the ride, she even stood still when I show sheen’d her tail, although I had been informed by the barn staff that she “flips out” for spray bottles. The first time I used it on her she offered to be spooky, I snapped at her, and she contented herself with walking in slow circles in her stall while I calmly held her tail and followed her and kept spraying until she quit walking and stood still. Three days of that and I guess today she decided the walking was a waste of energy and she may as well stand still because all she was doing was tiring herself out. I have high hopes that within five years, she’s going to be the steadiest horse in the barn.


(How do I know the difference between a horse who is actually scared and one who is merely shamming? Fourteen years doing this professionally, a very sensitive feel for body language, and a gelding who was actually genuinely terrified of a great number of things and couldn’t help his reactions. Fiona doesn’t in any way exhibit any signs of real fear, just a sort of “Maybe she’ll fall for this and I’ll get out of work” attitude :)

I've been meaning to blog for a while now, but we've been run off our feet for a month solid- plane trips, appointments, insane work schedules, lots of driving, deer season, errands, barn trips, and getting to see friends have just taken completely over. And it doesn't leave us with much to report; the friends are fine, the errands are accomplished, my work is still wall-to-wall insanity, the car is working nominally, the appointments went fine, and Fiona is doing well. In fact she just had her teeth done and she's doing a lot better than before.