The Chocolate Card

Forget Platinum, Gold, or the elusive “Black” card.

We’re rolling out the new Chocolate Elite card for readers of TLH.

theliteraryhorse.wordpress.com

Thanks to the stellar help and kindness of Stacey Kimmel-Smith from Behind the Bit, TLH now has a badge, with code, you can stick on your blog, Face Book page, or sport on your latest tattoo.

Because I’m a card-carrying member (Level: Troglodyte) from the paleolithic era of blogging, you’ll have to email me for the code to put on your site, blog, FB or tattoo.  I have no clue how to do that neato little box in the side bar that says “copy code”.

HorseBloggers is Stacey’s brainchild, her invitation post can be found here, with instructions and reasons to join.  There will soon be a HorseBloggers page on TLH for your reading and clicking pleasure.

BTW, the chocolate card is your free pass to all things sugar and horses.  Is there a better combo?  I think not.

The Mother of All Road Trips

It’s time for Barbie to go get pregnant.  We’re thinking of it as going off to college.  Higher education.  Potential pregnancy.  Same-same.

Did I say that out loud?

I could bore you all with the “reasons” why I in invited myself along:  never been to an AI facility, totally bored with broken ribs, fun with Daisy and Bella, want to see and take scrapbook pics of Barbie in her new digs.  All true.  But you know the real reason, right?   Let’s see, three hours going, an hour there, three hours back.  SEVEN  hours!

Finally, a road trip with eating potential.  That’s at least a Happy Meal.  It would make a Happy Meal look downright modest.  FRIES.

Daisy spends forever (the night before) buffing a mud encrusted Barbie to an other wordly gloss. No arriving at the Fancy Schmancy clinic looking like a horse cutout of The Great Salt Flats.   She’s going to arrive as a show ready hunter.

Timing is tight on moving day. I volunteer to get there early for HazMat duty, in case she rolls.

We Have Whack

There’s a lot of psychological theorizing out there, about why someone’s whack might go out.  There are the straightforward reasons: death in the family, jerk in the family, owning a bathroom scale.

But usually, it’s more amorphous.  Something along the lines of “Nobody Likes Me, Everybody Hates Me, Think I’m Gonna Eat Some Worms…”

At times, the first kicks in the second.  That’s a doozy.

I was at the point yesterday, of wondering if I was going to go for the fat red night crawlers, or the skinny white worms.

Why?  I don’t know.  It was a good day.

Whacks.  Go figure.  When they disappear, they leave mass destruction of psychological gray matter.  Ben and Jerry repeat ring the doorbell, and peer through the windows.  I stayed away from home.  I did the grocery shopping.  (This is not the smart place to go when one is trying to get away from Ben and Jerry.)

I got attacked by not one, but TWO old-fashioned donuts, pretending to be a healthy lunch.  A big Vegas style sign appeared over my head, flashing:  LOSER  LOSER.

Oh for Pete’s sake!  Get it right: the correct term would be; GAINER.

My Whack is Out

I’ve been trying to come up with ways to put it back in.  It’s unfair really, that if one’s back goes out, one can get someone else to put it back in.  But if your wack goes out, you’ve got to try to do it yourself, without professional training.

Does that make sense to any of you?  I thought so.  I think we’re all onboard that we should have professional Whacktors.  That way, after a long work week, we can get a Saturday morning mani/pedi, see our Whacktitioner, and be all fun and good looking again.

After some thoughtful review, in which I tried to figure out why my Whack was out (which resulted in me finishing all the to-do lists, waxing the house ceiling to floor, and trying to learn to cook again), I came to the conclusion I was blaming the victim.  I thought my shortcomings were the problem (I’m so self-centered).

Would we say to someone else, “JOHN!  You idiot.  You let that silly fender-bender throw out your back, now go fix the car!”  No.  Of course not.  We’d drag John onto an old door, heft it into the back of the pick up, and take him to the chiropractor.

I began to search for Whacktitioners.  Turns out there are TONS in California.

Machine Wash Cold, Tumble Dry

While waiting for my funny bone to kick in (Hoo-boy, do I have a whopper of a  Road Trip to relate!), I thought I would share  tiny humorous moments.

Make Yourself at Home:

It’s a Sunday morning. Shaun is still at her mom and dad’s, the kids are gone, and all is quiet and peaceful.  Great time to grocery shop.  No one will be in the store.  I run my errands, haul in the groceries while rifling  my internal dinner Rolodex, looking for the recipe that won’t leave me on the receiving end of:  “Let me guess.  Chicken and salad.”

Beautiful day.  Maybe I’ll go give my personal trainer a bath.  It’s 70 degrees.

I unpack the chicken, lettuce, and um, salad dressing.  Didn’t I throw a pork chop in there?  Some broccoli?  Maybe they have a point.  Aha!  I tossed Doritos in at the last second.  I’m saved.  I’ll make my famous “Dorito encrusted blackened chicken”. (Just as soon as I invent it.)

My cell bings.  It’s Daisy.  What’s she doing at 9:30 on a Sunday morning?

Daisy: There’s a guy in the laundromat who brought his coffee machine to make a pot of coffee?

Jane: NO!

In Memorial

Shaun’s Mom

10/27/1920 – 04/03/2010

Shaun’s mom was a gifted water-color artist.  We’re lucky to have some of her work.  She was skilled in all sorts of crafts and made wonderful things for family and people in need.  She had the gift of being strong-willed and capable of getting things done: her life was dedicated to her family, her art, her community, and her church.  Many things got done.

She had a quirky and lightening quick wit. Once, while attending a fancy gala, an appetizer of frog legs was placed in front of her.  She looked at them for a moment.  Then she picked them up and made them dance the Can-Can across her plate.  In a ballroom full of elegant invitation-only dinner guests.  We won’t say where exactly, let’s just say we are not ruling out The White House.  Her companions were horrified or in stitches.  (It was something a good wife just did not DO in the 1950’s. The etiquette!)  What made it even funnier, is she was known as the person to follow: if other guest were not sure how to handle their cutlery or a situation, they were advised to watch Shaun’s mom, as she was always proper.

This leaves me with an image of a vast sea of  elegantly appointed tables, elegantly dressed men and women, at a State dinner, making frog legs do the Can-Can.

She will be greatly missed by her family, her church, and her community.

This is one of my favorite personal photos of her: she looks every inch a queen.

We will miss you.

I Need Airbags

I emailed Daisy, Bella, Molly and Grace about the fractured rib.

Daisy wants Jane Gets Impaled: The Video.

Bella was shocked and concerned.  (Her experience with cracked ribs has more to do with major crashes: 2 ton bulls, an ornery steer, or a bad rotational in Eventing.)  When I told her how it happened, she was no longer shocked (typical Jane accident) but still concerned.  Very politely said she will not laugh.  She will NOT laugh.  She WILL NOT laugh! I AM NOT LAUGHING NOW.

I’m pretty sure she’s regretting loaning me her extra Gitmo roping knife until I can get one of my own.

Molly wants to know if I’m okay, can she do anything, and says not to worry, that Melody will be waiting.

Grace wants to know if I’m okay, AND she knows exactly what I need for my new sport, which she promptly helps name.

What new sport?  The one I plan on lobbying to Olympic levels: Hurling At Horses (HAH, for short).  I figure it will fall somewhere in the Eventing category.

What do we need?

The Girl Scout Motto: Part 1

Be Prepared.

I was a Girl Scout.   We earned badges in different subjects, to be well-rounded in our preparedness.

For those of you outside the US, the Girl Scouts is a kind of girls adventure club where you learn useful stuff  like how to make footstools out of tomato juice cans.

We were prepared for any extreme footstool emergency.

The Cold War was on.  If the Russians pushed the big red button first, you could count on US Girl Scouts to rush into a massive civilian relief effort to replace all the annihilated footstools.

For those of you who are instantly up in arms at my mildly sarcastic tone, please realize I’m speaking only from my personal experience as a G.S. in the 1960’s.  I had to learn the proper way to cut a sandwich, so the bread didn’t condense at the point of impact.  For the benefit of (cough cough) my future husband.

The Girl Scouts have come a long way into modernization, and I seriously doubt there is still an award for making a good white sauce.   Or that you can earn points for vacuuming the Scout Leader’s home.  I think you have to know CPR now.  Much more useful for nuclear emergencies.

That motto though, it sticks with you.

A case in point:

Bella, Daisy and I got all dressed up and went out to dinner to celebrate our birthdays, which are reasonably close together.  Makeup, dresses, glitz and glamour.  (We love not recognizing each other.)  There were beautifully wrapped gifts topped with that lovely chiffon wire ribbon.  Mine was knotted, with a bow over it.  I couldn’t get the dang ribbon off to save my life.  There was a pause, then we all simultaneously start rummaging in our elegant handbags.

Why?

For our knives, of course.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

My Gym is Trying to Kill Me

Day One: Death by Stupidity

I make it to the gym before it closes.  Drat.  Plenty of time to walk a couple of miles at a good clip.  I mitigate the agony by reading and pretending I have no relationship to my legs.  I get the endorphin benefit: I am not hungry!  People would pay for this!  Oh, right.  I am.

Day Two: Death by Humiliation

I walk.  Nothing hurts.  Therefore it’s not working.  Time to add Nautilus machines.  Buff Gym Guy advises me to start at 20 lbs on each machine, with only 3 reps each, to ease back into working out.  Uh-huh.  I don’t live on Buff People Planet.  When he’s not looking, I pull the pin out of the weight stack, and use the machines with only the 5 lb balance weight. Reps?  Is he crazy? I want to ride tomorrow.  On my planet, we put our body through the motions, and then add weight once there’s proof the machine doesn’t cause convulsions or loss of consciousness.