Well, the jockey is embarrassed, Bodexpress clearly has an energetic takeoff out of the gate, and did his best to do his job for the day…
The Derby was weird. The Preakness was weird. The weird goes on.
I don’t watch horse racing. I will not watch a race until I am certain nobody got hurt. But when it goes well, it’s a joy to watch them run.
Used to have a horse. Keeping on in the city, however, is difficult, and finding a safe place to ride, more so. When I had to sell him (to pay my cat’s vet bills) buyers had to audition—I refused two. Sold him to a gal he liked—he was showing off for her; and she had a place in the country, so it was much better for him.
First off, I used to ride the big Percherons back from the field—I was three, so sitting astride one of the guy’s necks and getting a fistful of mane when we had to go down and up steep slopes from the creek—Dad leading, of course. After them, I rode old Bill—it was a big deal when I was trusted to saddle him and go off on my own into the south 40, which was mostly woods. If anything happened, Bill would come back; and my instructions were to stay on no matter what. Which I did. Bill did some strange things, but never threw me. He could teleport at the sound of a grasshopper, because our area had rattlesnakes, and Bill (the last Bill) hated snakes. There were actually three bay horses, all named Bill. You can see where Vanye’s Mai was right in the tradition.
My cousin and his wife who live in NM are into horses. He still rides at 83, she doesn’t any more. Both of their horses are 20+ years old. Their daughter used to show jump. I love the heavy horses but have only been able to worship from afar. I’ve been promised steak for my B-day (Tues)(70). New Knee Day is Fri.
WOL, Happy Birthday in a few hours! What a present—a new knee.
My birthday was last Friday—60 for me.
BTW, there’s a series of shows on Netflix hosted by some cat named Monty Don about the gardens of Italy and the gardens of France. Might be interesting if you haven’t already seen it. The one on Italy was pretty good.
PBS has shown Monty Don’s garden series, but my favorites have been the 4 part series on gardens of the Islamic world and the one on British gardens, also 4 part. Britain has been fortunate in that except for dissolution of the monasteries, a brief civil war before effective heavy cannon and a bit of redecorating by the Luftwaffe, it has gardens that have been unchanged, or are capable of restoration over the past 400 years. Each of Don’s British series covers gardens of a particular century. As I start my annual wrestle with my little patch of moss, rocks and mock orange it certainly affects one’s perspective.
I rode a lot growing up. Horses are wonderful and interesting critters.
My earliest memory is of being lifted onto the back of my dad’s buckskin cow-horse. Flash was everything you could ever want a horse to be, and I was lucky enough to be his favorite human. My dad once told me that, if you’re lucky, you’ll have one great horse in your life. He was that.
BritBox is live streaming the Chelsea Flower Show starting at 3:00 today.
Huh, it just occurred to me that a century or two ago, as long as I could’ve afforded to keep, feed, and maintain a horse or two, I could’ve been far more mobile and independent. That presumes I would’ve learned how to ride; I never have. But if I’d been born in my grandparents’ generation or further back, I would have learned by default, as they all did, either in Oklahoma and Texas, or in Virginia.
My city still has it legal for people to own and ride horses within the city, but the city has become less and less friendly to horses in my lifetime. The trail riders, however, come in for the rodeo each year and go through town on the highways heading into Hermann Park, for the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. The music on offer has branched out quite a lot from traditional country and western and bluegrass, with Tejano and Norteño and other Latino styles and some Louisiana styles, but also more modern rock. However the rodeo events and the livestock show and the food on offer, still mostly harkens back to the days when the rodeo and cattle and sheep herding and raising of other livestock were a vital part of our state’s history.
May the 18th would have been my paternal grandpa’s 135th birthday. I did the math after doing the math for my dad’s birthday. He would’ve turned 89 recently. — And I’ve just realized, September would be my maternal grandmother’s 110th birthday, but 102 years was more than plenty.
Although I don’t remember other horses (and donkeys and mules) mentioned, for my dad and his siblings and for my grandma and grandpa, one favorite horse of theirs was called “Old Tobe” or “Tobe.” He must have been something, as I heard a few things about how much they liked him, what a good horse he was, when I was little, long, long after Old Tobe had gone to the great mountains, hills, and valleys in the sky. He was apparently gentle and sensible, both a farm workhorse and used for riding or leading the wagon, if I understood right; and I think they had one other horse at the time, or else a donkey or mule (a Jenny, so a female). I’m not sure, but I think he may have been a dark grey, sort of an iron grey horse.
— Last night, I kept hearing a cat, and checked. I’ve been hearing one or two lately, either strays around the apartments or belonging to residents. When I looked, I discovered a very skinny half-grown or else stunted cat / kitten, probably female, and probably dark grey. She said hello, which surprised me, but once she sniffed my hand, I guess she decided that was close enough, and enough greeting for her, and off she went. She, I think, probably belongs to a neighbor, except she’s at that quite thin stage that ordinarily would fit a half-grown kitten around 3 or 4 months old.
I still find myself thinking about Smokey nearly every day, and I hope he’s been adopted by now. I stilll wish I’d found some other way to deal with that or curb his behavioral problems. I hope he’s happy and with a new family.
Goober’s doing fine, but has decided that with no other cats for competition or companionship, and now that he is a definitely senior kitty, he can be more vocal and demanding. And he’s somehow decided that he should get moist food or dry treats more often. He seems to be big on one set of flavors of moist food, and has inexplicably decided he doesn’t like the other set of flavors he’d been getting. I am trying to use up the older set and avoid those for a while. He’s eating every bit of the one set he likes, most of a third set gets eaten, and the set he’s decided he doesn’t like, he will eat only if he has to, so he’ll eat a small portion and then not eat the rest, even if I leave it until the next feeding. (He won’t starve, there’s always dry available, and I know to adjust how much moist he gets, so as not to waste too much, hopefully not any.) Why he’s liking the one set and not the other, I don’t quite know. It isn’t only the texture, because he used to prefer the pâté to the gravy or other types. But something about the new kind really hits the spot for him. As far as I can tell, his teeth and stomach are doing fine, so I _think_ it’s only a taste / texture preference or boredom with one set of flavors and liking the other. — But the change from so non-assertive to a little more demanding about food is a remarkable change, and I don’t mind, except that at feeding time, now he’s a nag. Heh. (Smokey used to do all the nagging and Goober would stay mostly silent, unless he really wanted something.) So a little change is a good thing, I think. I figure he’s arned it. He’s on the way to 13 and will be 12 and 7 months at the end of this month, plus an estimated 8 weeks old at the time I got him.
No garden here, just small strips of lawn and hedges, very sculpted, pretending to be natural plants instead of landscaping. — If and when I get a rent house, I am looking forward to a yard and any trees, flowers, etc., and the chance to add something nice over time. I do not like being so far inside the city, with too little of growing things and nature. I’m not really a gardener, but still, I feel the need for nature to soothe the soul. It is not good for us to be so removed from nature and growing things and animals.
I put in a request today for Amazon to “Tell the publisher” I’d “Like to view it on Kindle” for:
Finity’s End – not yet available in ebooks or audible audiobooks, sigh;
Cyteen – not yet available in ebooks;
(Regenesis is available, however)
Rider at the Gate
Cloud’s Rider
These two are still available used in the old (80’s?) pb print editions, burgundy and something between phthalo blue and Prussian blue.
The Goblin Mirror – even the price used is $14 to $24 and up. — I don’t think I’ve read this one. It looks like it’s independent of the other Russian-inspired books, Yvgenie and Rusalka.
I found a used hardcover of Goblin Mirror this past January at the Arisia Science Fiction convention and snapped it up. I had only once read the book before, several decades ago and forgotten all the plot except it involved exploring “underground” and it had a very different but excellent magical touch to it. Yes, it’s great and well worth searching out.
I’d just like to be able to read the Foreigner series on Kindle. As I live in the UK this seems to be an impossible request, which I’ve been making for years. At 77 I’m resigned to never being able to finish the series – arthritis makes holding hardbacks too uncomfortable, and I’ve converted the majority of my library to Kindle, the notable exception by necessity being most of the works of CJ Cherryh.
@Naomi, I thought if I could buy a second set of those books on Kobo I could send you the unlocked Mobi files, but Kobo won’t allow me to buy the same books twice.
Sorry, but I don’t want to pirate.
@CJ, would it work for you if I sent the files to her, and she paid you their price in Closed Circle PayPal donations?
I know it’s not the same, as the bookstore price gets shared out among the store, the publisher and cover artist etc., but it seems the best I could come up with.
It seems a pity if a faithful and honest fan can’t get to read (the rest of ) the series because of arthritis and the UK publisher being too slow to digitize.
If you both think that’s a good plan, could you CJ send my email address on to Naomi so she can mail me which book she needs first? (Let’s try it with one, first…)
As admin you can see those, I think, and I don’t want to put mine on the open Internet…
Thank you Hanneke
If you find your way south of OKC, I have a pair of Appaloosa who would appreciate more love.
I started riding as an adult, and envie those of you who rode as children. I had to reserch riding styles and apply them buy trial and error. Now I work part time as a farrier and trainer (geting to old for flying lessons but still start driving horses).
DB is our babysitter and combined driving horse but he is to dang tall for anyone with creaky knees. Upside he drives, and is unfazed buy oil feild traffic. Upside he can carry the non riders with me in the cart.
My problem child is Little Miss, first horse I started, and other than the grand children ( to think I remember meeting you at leper-con in Phoenix like it was yesterday) she won’t carry any one else.
It must be hard to gloss over horses and the relationship one develops with them as a writer who has been blessed to grow up with them.
It’s been a wile, but I am glad you and the Mrs. are doing passably well (growing older isn’t for the faint of heart is it).
Ugh. Ugh! UUUGHHH!! The library’s a/c went down half an hour after staff arrived. It took 6 hours of ever-increasing temperatures before we could get someone in to service it — 86 degrees indoors with a similar relative humidity is maddening. Admin wouldn’t allow us to close. At least now, an hour before closing, the temperature is close to reasonable, but I am still highly irritated at people making ‘let them eat cake’ decisions in another part of the state. I ate 2 popsicles for lunch. We set heat records across the island, but climate change is imaginary, donchaknow?
Whew. Yeah, I recall what that feels like. Popsicles, however, are a real blessing! — And if that fixes the A/C for the upcoming high summer, then maybe it’s worth the awful 6 to 8 hours? Trying to find an upside, here. 😀
Our first full week above 90 is starting, mid-70’s at night. So it is actually _cooler_ than normal, especially for the last several years, for late spring / early summer. Enjoying that while it lasts. By July 4th, when Stranger Things season 3 comes out (yay) oh, I may be in need of popsicles and watermelon. Possibly combined.
Hope you and the library, staffers, and patrons, and books and media, are all doing fine. The “Let them eat cake” folks … historically, that attitude tends not to fare well, one recalls. However, one also would hope for a less drastic than historical method of learning to do better. Heh. OK, that went way too dark too fast…. Sorry, all.
I’m in a good mood, despite a weird day. Never mind. I think I ended up posting enough for a short story last night, nearly, in opinion and off-the-cuff essays, aka replies. 🙂
My grandfolks kept their plow horses after they retired. I have happy memories of “riding” Coltie, which was really Grandpa leading him around the yard and county road. Fell off once when one of those long-armed mowers was cutting the grass nearby and Coltie startled….no worries, put me back up, Grandpa!
I think I am getting the internet, I am in the Spokane airport catching up, when I get back next week I am going to try Hughes net which is now accepting my location and my neighbor said she loves it. Just wanted to say your horse tales takes me back to our first horses, pulled logs, then my Dad got me Blaze a 1200 #er, tame as could be, pokey leaving but he sure could fly coming home! Miss all my horses. Thanks for jogging those memories.