Success!

The new router works - we have successfully touched base in England with the Owlvark's parents via Skype!

I already did a review for Horror Hotel, but we feel the need to revisit it and say that never has a film needed Solomon Kane to step in and fix all the crap as much as this one. With a large sword, and no tolerance for the whining and cringing of the leads. He'd be completely bored with the lame-o evil guys, though- he's faced Cosmic Horror without flinching, and a repurposed Wild West set full of mopey middle-aged immortals aren't going to give him much exercise.

So Fi was all cuddly and nibbly again, which was entertaining, and she stood stock-still for me putting the diaper rash cream on the remnants of her mud fever, which was unexpected and nice. Usually she picks her feet up for me to hold when I'm putting junk on them, but today she just sort of hung out and waited for me to be done. The knock on her left front from the overreach is healing nicely, and is quite a bit smaller than it was before she knocked it open again, and from the look of her bell boots she's been turned out in them, which is good- it'll help keep her from knocking it open yet again.

I didn't ride, because I'm still letting my shoulder have a break; working most of last week was a strain on it, and it's still just a tiny bit twingy, and I'd rather take a little time off now and let it heal rather than having it turn into a long-term battle by pushing it now.

I wonder if anyone else has a photo of the exact- exact, mind you- moment they fell in love with someone?

#watching the 2005 Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. Trillian and Arthur are talking at the fancy-dress party#

Arthur: I have to say, without the beard you look at least 80 years younger.
Trillian: Well, maybe I’m de-evolving?
Arthur: Ha ha!
Trillian: Ha ha!
Arthur: Well, I should inform you that I don’t date single-celled organisms.

Trillian: Let’s go somewhere.
Arthur: Where did you have in mind?
Trillian: Madagascar.
Arthur: That new club on Dean Street?
Trillian: No, it’s a country. Off the coast of Africa.


Me: This is… This is what I did to you, isn’t it?

Owlvark: #smiles#

Me: I… Yeah, this is us. I just turned up in your life, and basically told you we had to have an adventure.

Owlvark: #still smiling# Yes. Although you didn’t suggest Madagascar.

Me: Well, I wouldn’t have ditched you for the galaxy’s biggest douchebag, either.

Fi was really funny today when we went to go see her. It’s blowing snow horizontally and colder than blazes out there, so I had decided not to ride, and figured if she hadn’t been freelonged I’d turn her loose in the arena for a while. As it happened, they’d all been fl’d, so I contented myself with picking her feet and checking on the remnants of her mud fever. When I went in her stall, instead of the normal brief breath exchange (horses breathe into each other’s nostrils to greet each other) she decided she wanted a protracted sniffy session, swapping sides of her nose against mine, and eventually she started acting as though she was going to start nibbling my face, which is not a terrific idea. Still, she wasn’t being aggressive, just silly, so I laughed at her and pushed her nose away. When I was picking her front feet, she started nuzzling my back, and nibbling ever so slightly on my jacket. It was very funny. I kept laughing and pushing her nose away, since I do not have a horse’s tough skin and if she had swapped to the nibbling horse friends do to each other I’d have lost some hide, but it was funny to see her so affectionate. It reminded me of Windsor and this game we used to play; I’d hold my fingers up to his mouth and he would lip them in between his teeth and just hold them there for a while.

Junk Store Loot!

So we hit the junk store and the secondhand store in a nearby town today, and came away with some excellent prizes! The Owlvark scored a 1940 Philco tube radio for four dollars, we found an old folding wooden chair, and I found a runner sled in excellent condition! Exploration of the secondhand store gave us three jigsaw puzzles, a Fisher Price boat toy (still saving up old Fisher Price toys for the eventual children; they're the best toys ever :) and a book of photos from the Alhambra.

Two-Sentence Movie Reviews

The Lair of the White Worm


1% Bram Stoker, 1% hair gel, 98% bollocks. Should have been titled, "Lair of the Bickering People."

A couple of pics from today's lesson- they're a little blurry, but the indoor is hard on cameras, and the back door being open really confuses the auto-focus.

Life In The Duamuteffe Household

Watching Adventure Time ^_^

February has not been a good month as far as injuries go. I pulled most of the muscles in my right leg rather badly from working in the mud, then once that had healed got a sinus infection, and now that that's relented I've wrenched my shoulder. It is frustrating to have a job in order to pay for my mare, only to have it leave me either too sick, too tired, or too injured to ride her.

What Time Is It?

Adventure Time!

(The fuzzy thing on my shoulder is my cat hot water bottle cover; I wrenched my shoulder at work and I'm trying to see if I can unlock the muscle a little.)

Interestingly, the overreach Fi hit on Tuesday is healing well and is in fact smaller now than it was before she knocked it open. So it's a good thing, I guess. I'm still riding her in bell boots, though, at least until it heals. Luckily Cam's boots fit her, even if they are a little big.

So since we tend to get a bit behind on the chores around here in the wintertime, we've joined Chorewars to try and make it a bit more fun. Frankly, even if we weren't a bit behind, gaining D&Dlike experience points for doing chores would appeal anyway :)

Something I whipped up for the Tumblr Famblr, in hopes it would make their Valentine's Day a little easier.

So Valentine’s Day is coming up, and I’ve seen a few posts about people lonely because they haven’t got “someone.” And frankly, that word choice worries me, because if you think about it, “someone” is practically “anyone, ” and “anyone” is a terrible idea when it comes to a relationship. Western culture as a whole seems to have this emphasis on holidays of this nature to encourage the use of that phrase- “I don’t have someone, ” and it’s dangerous, because unconsciously it’s about a half step away from “Oh no oh no find me anyone anyone ANYONE sweet Jesus just grab that one from the bus stop-” and that is about as unhealthy a concept as I can think of offhand for what is supposed to be a nice holiday. (It’s a commercial crass holiday, but still, it’s technically supposed to be a nice one.)

Look, just because society may be unconsciously pushing you towards being in a relationship, it doesn’t mean you have to have one to be a good/complete/or otherwise successful person. This is not “keeping up with the Joneses.” Being in a relationship with someone solely to patch up a perceived lack of something necessary in your life is about as effective as treating a gunshot wound with a bandaid- the problem is far bigger and internal and won’t be solved with a simple application of John or Jane Doe.

If you’re lonely, sure it’s just fine to want to find a partner. It’s normal, it’s great- go have a look! The trick is looking for a person you like, who complements your strengths and weaknesses, who you are attracted to, and with whom you have much in common. You should never approach a relationship solely for the purpose of having a relationship- it never goes well. Being in a great relationship is absolutely amazing, but being in a bad one or a mediocre one just to avoid being by yourself feels unbelievably awful. Hold out for a good one- hell, hold out for a great one!- and know that even though you may be lonely, you are avoiding the serial monogamist pitfall of “The only thing worse than being with someone is being alone, but the only thing worse than being alone is being with someone” that comes with just dating someone for the sake of being with someone. Don’t be with a someone- go out, look around, talk to people, and make a choice to be with ______ because they’re awesome and they think you’re awesome.

Also, this living Thewell pony belongs to the farm across the street from Fi and company. I wish it was standing so you could see its stubby little legs; it is exactly like the ones in the link.

So after two weeks off, Fiona ended up being terrific- we had a spook or two, and she was quick at the start, but I was expecting something of the kind. She is a TB, after all, and it's cold today, and she hadn't been out yet, and she hadn't been ridden in a fortnight, and all those things could have conceivably added up to a rodeo. But instead she was just a little quick, a little distracted, and a little resistant, but we worked through all of these things, and by the end of the ride we were getting some really good moments. I am very vocal when I'm schooling on my own, so I was singing and whistling and exhorting her to work with me and quoting random things that seemed to fit. I think it amuses her. It keeps her attention on me without me having to badger her, too, which is a help- I think she will get in the habit of paying attention to me all the time when we're working, but she's definitely out of the habit right now and I don't want to be constantly nudging her to the point where she tunes it out.

Annoyingly, she overreached and hit the healed overreach from just before I bought her in the Fall and opened it again, which was unfortunate, but she was good about me spraying it with Blu-Cote (she picked up her hind to kick at it, realized I was still bent over there spraying, and put it back down until I was done) so she got a big handful of treats straight from my pocket- the only time I ever feed by hand, in fact. (Horses that learn expect hand-fed treats all the time get incredibly pushy and hard to handle, so we mostly just give them treats in their feed buckets.) It's not a bad knock, she's just opened the big crusty bump again, and it was hardly even bleeding. If it was properly cold and snowy I might not have even bothered to spray it, but as muddy as it is I don't want it getting infected. I'll have to throw bell boots on her when I ride on Thursday- I hope Cam's old ones fit, because I don't have another pair.

Fi decided to pose for me during her free-longe session. :)