Bob Ross - Bodhisattva.

Rob Paravonian Hates Pachelbel

I thought some of you might not be familiar with Rob Paravonian, who is one of our favorite comedians. This is probably his most famous bit, but check any of his stuff, especially when he goes off on pop music.

So I had another great ride today. Fi was fussy and grumpy (I think she’s in season) and there were all manner of things in the ring to distract her- flapping plastic, a horse on the longe, another horse under saddle- and our left canter depart left a lot to be desired, but that wasn’t the point. I had one flicker of anxiety, and I turned on it and tore it savagely (from a metaphorical standpoint) and not once did it rear its ugly head again. I rode Sunday without a single flicker of it at all. I’m going with the idea that, eleven months after making the decision to buy her and six years after the death of my gelding, I am on the mend. In other news, I finally got to deworm her myself (I’ve been getting the memo too late to be in time to show up and the barn staff ends up doing it for me) and she’s really very good about it; I gave her a sniff of the tube and she started chewing resignedly and took the dose without trying to spit it out. She got extra treats to try and take the taste out; it smells like sour apple candy but I suspect the taste is a little different. I've made great strides in getting her to let me spray her with things, too; I was told when I bought her she "flips out" for spray bottles (it's a reasonably common thing with horses) but through patient and slow application I can now spray her tail with Show Sheen without a backwards glance, and this week I've been able to spray her legs and belly with fly spray. I still use a towel as an applicator for her neck and head, but we're getting there! I am certain within five years she's going to be the most laid-back horse at the barn.

“What holds true then remains the case today: no film makes you kill. Having a mind to kill, at least in any systematic fashion, means that your mind is ready-warped; that the warping may well have started long before, perhaps in childhood; and that you may perhaps seek out, or be drawn to, areas of sensation—notably those entailing sex or violence—which can encourage, inflame, or accelerate the warping. Whatever we learn of the Aurora murderer, whatever he may profess, and whatever the weaponry, body armor, and headgear that he may have sported, and however it seems like a creepy match for what is worn, by heroes and villains alike, in the Batman movies—despite all that, he was not driven by those movies to slaughter.” - Anthony Lane (The New Yorker)

There will be discussion in the coming weeks about what caused this, with movies as the likely front-runner, and there is an automatic jump to this because people want something tangible to blame- books, movies, video games, guns, TV, music, the internet- because those are tangible things they feel they could have control over, as opposed to how it unfortunately actually is, that the type of person who has decided to murder a roomful of strangers did so because of something very wrong inside them already, something you can't see, legislate, control, or often even notice until it's too late.

So we are finally back from the barn, just shy of eleven o’clock. The farrier was scheduled for 7:30, but, much like doctors, when one client takes more time than usual it makes the next one later, and then it snowballs, so by the time they got to us it was 8:30. I let the other boarder go first, so by the time he started on Fi it was about 9:30. She and her pasture pal had been fine about being brought in from the pasture at twenty past seven, when the sun was low and hot and the flies were horrific, but by the time he started work on her it was cool and dark and she much rather would have been in the field. Still, she was fairly good, not pulling back on that left front at all and not really doing more than attempting to eat the farrier’s belt and nibble his ears, which is sort of par for the course for her. (I pull her face away and tell her not to get fresh. :) She was a little fidgety and irritable by the end, but again, not to a terrible extent and she never did anything that merited more than a sharp word. So that was nice, especially given the rather new set of circumstances we were operating under. She also appreciated the new fly sheet, since she’d been without one since the donated one turned up in pieces and the bites on her sides are awful, and hopefully this one will last and I won’t have to dig bits of it out of the field. If it survives the weekend I’m ordering the neck piece for it and we’ll see how it goes.

Feeling unattractive is hard. You’re not shallow, stupid, or a bad feminist if you don’t like the way you look. But please stop telling yourself you’re worthless because of the number you see on the scale. There are a lot of important things in life. Being a size four isn’t really one of them.

So we had a lot of fun at the fair last night- we drove to a fairly big one to make sure we got some good fireworks for the Fourth, and we had a terrific time on the midway. The Doc needs pills to ride any rides (if he isn’t driving, he gets motion sick on anything but trains) and we hadn’t brought any with us, so we stuck to the food and the games. I still seem to have a knack for the game where you throw rings over knives, and I won a terrible crappy folder with “S.W.A.T.” haphazardly stenciled on the blade (which was okay but I had been aiming at the gloriously kitchy modified butterfly thing that was speckled pink and blue) The Doc and I both had a go at the game where you use a Thompson mockup to shoot bursts of plastic shrapnel and attempt to obliterate a painted star from a piece of card, and I came very, very close, but the bottom was still held on with a shred of paper and had folded over behind where I couldn’t see it, so I had to go on without the intensely goofy looking stuffed honey badger with “honey badger don’t care” written on its chest. (I then had to remind myself that I was no longer twelve and should not be disappointed and if I wanted a damn cheap stuffed toy I could go home and buy one off the internet. But anyway) We wandered through the livestock exhibits, watched a barrel racing competition involving kids under five with stick horses, nearly escaped death by diabetes from how cute it was, petted goats and admired chickens, paid a dollar to see a giant horse, fed a five-legged sheep, and watched trick dirt bike jumps. We drank two enormous lemonades (what is it about fair lemonade? It’s so expensive but it tastes so damned good) and some fried food (I had deep fried cauliflower the size of my fist- amazing) and then I promptly remembered that I was no longer young enough to drink 32 ounces of oversugared lemonade and eat fried food and walk for two hours on a 90 degree fairground without consequences and we had a nice long sit down on some convenient benches while I decided whether or not I was going to have to yak. A nice girl sitting near us who offered us the rest of her deep fried Oreos did not help the issue (unintentionally, of course) but luckily soon dusk fell and it cooled off and I felt much better. And then the fireworks started, and it was wonderful. They had a great display, and afterwards I managed to win a small purple unicorn by hitting balloons with darts. The guy running it even gave the Doc a prize because it was the Fourth. We drove home through an amazing thunderstorm, and fell into bed exhausted. All in all, a successful holiday.

I think the heat is making everyone crazy. :/ I am really looking forward to a break in the temperature- I suspect 65 degrees is going to feel like 30 when we get there.

We had a wonderful time in Cherry Springs; it's a gorgeous place with lots to see and do. We didn't do a whole lot, though; it was hot out there, so we mainly did a little hiking in the morning and spent the rest of the day lazing about with books. The whole place is lovely, there was hardly anyone there (although we were told the week before it had been nearly full up) The astronomy field is amazing, and the campsites are nice, and it's a good base for day trips to the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon and to the Austin Dam park. Next time.