So I'm really tired. But -- I can't go to sleep until my one pair of sheets finishes drying (long story involving a pissed off Chubby Charles and her blatant ways of retaliation)...so alas I'll update this sucka.
I had a very nice weekend and break from work, only to return to what in layman's terms is known as "work." Yes. Please solve the following equation:

9 horse/8 horse trailer * lots of supplies (45 - 25 gallon buckets with chains and clips, 3 - 6'x4' rubber mats, 2-5 - 80 lb. trunks) + one Mexican - one driver's license= ?

Yeah.
Aside from that...
I learned a few new factoids this weekend. Namely:

Curling is a pretty cool pseudo-sport but it causes permanent cross-eyedness.
Curling loaves are probably the funniest things I have ever seen on cable TV. I couldn't find any pictures, but I did find some random song involving curling and Minnesota. "Come on baby put the rock in the house..." (probably the only worthwhile line in the whole tune) I'm glad to see someone else has plenty of time on their hands.
I cannot get a Southwest flight from Vegas to arrive before noon in Austin. A crying shame.
Chubby Charles hates me.
I don't hang out in roadside bars. I already knew that!
I learned how to do strike through text in HTML. Woah.
There is a gaping HUGE typo in the trailer for the SJP/Matthew Mcwhatever movie. The last huge typo movie (that I recall) was 2 Weeks Notice (sans the possessive apostrophe). Sorry. I'm lame.

Hey--it's the small victories.

In a Past Life...

You Were: An Obese Despot. Where You Lived: Spain. How You Died: Dysentery.

I've gotten kind of into all of this. Why...I don't know.

...you can find me in The A! An interesting quiz with very surprising results! No wonder I loved The A so much!

American Cities That Best Fit You:

65% Atlanta

60% Austin

55% Chicago

55% Denver

55% Honolulu

I know how you feel. I really do. I've been there. I've been cursing the loud girls next door when they have their parties and I cannot find a parking space between here and building 18. I've wanted to mow down people who stare at me accusingly as they let their teeny weenie Yorkshire terriers run around off-leashes by the exit gate.
However, for the most part, I keep my cool. Why, you ask? Because you never know, you just never know, how shitty the other person's day might be going.
So. When you decide to write "ASSHOLE" in a red, oil-based crayon of some sort (it actually smacks of a grading pencil) on the driver's side window of the company truck that I drove into CGR at 8:00 PM last night after a 11 hour work day that included maintaining a fever while breathing through my nose while driving a horse to Elgin at 6:00 PM through downtown, rush-hour traffic, maybe you should consider next time the person who parked that truck.
And maybe, just maybe, she's not an asshole but a sick person who figured no one in their right mind would need to park in the very back parking spots in the rain and parked the truck and trailer as neatly as possible so as to only take up 4 spots rather than the 6 that were there. This said "ASSHOLE" then had to walk back in the rain to her apartment building--mind you all the way across the complex!--coughing and sputtering and feverish and tired.
Secondly--maybe next time you just leave a note! A note! That's cool. "Fuck you, bitch!" on a piece of paper under my windshield wiper would have been easier to take at 8:30 AM than this giant, red scarlett letter (or letters). There I was scrounging up tissues and napkins trying to wipe the word off my window. Yeah. Didn't really work, thanks.
In closing, I understand your outrage. I do. But could you please find it in your heart not to take it out on someone's vehicle?
Until then, I'll just have to go buy some Goo Gone.
Sincerely yours,
Not-As-Mean Rachel

Apparently I actually am sick, for-real sick, as in 100 degree fever sick. Fantabulous.
I have been laying in bed all morning tossing and turning. Of course I couldn't fall asleep last night even with the help of NyQuil--I didn't get to sleep until 3 am. Good times. I got up at one point before I fell asleep thinking "What's worse than not being able to sleep? Taking NyQuil and not being able to sleep." Yeah. I think I'm on to a new ad campagin for them with that. It made me feel even sicker--I couldn't think or see straight--but wasn't enough to actually knock me out.
I watched an episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch this afternoon. Sad I know. What was even more depressing was that I had already seen the episode. Albeit years ago but still. It was the one where she wants to go to her crush's Halloween party but her aunts make her go to their family get together instead, so she makes a double of herself to go to the party. Her double can only say 3 sentences: "I'd love to!" "That's sounds great!" and "Mr. Poole can really be an idiot sometimes." I think Mr. Poole was the science teacher or something...can't really remember. Anyway, it got me thinking about if I had a double I wanted to send to work in my stead, what would I have her say?
Here's just some of the things I came up with:
"This is Rachel from out at the barn returning your call."
"How exciting for your daughter."
"Was your horse a good boy/girl today?"

Man this is just getting worse and worse.

Along the same lines of uninteresting, sad things: Things That Make You Go...I'll Never Vote Again
So...anyway. I am now trying to decide what to do with myself the rest of the afternoon/evening/late night.
I think I am going to download some episodes of The Office onto my IPod and watch them. Yes. Maybe in a little bit I will feel like eating, but I don't actually have anything to eat so it is going to require a trip outside of the house. That's the worst, going out in public when you're all skeezy from being sick.

Off to wallow some more...

Yep.

I've changed my background. Just got bored with the other one.

I don't know. I felt sick all day. And I don't know that it was actually that I was sick in the traditional sense--I think I've contracted allergies somehow and I was tired since I didn't go to sleep.
But I think I'm kind of just sick in general right now. I miss Shiri. I miss having a friend here that I can talk to. I miss my sister. I don't think she will ever come back to Texas again and can we really blame her? After her last experience over Christmas in the House of the Living Dead (aka my parents' house), I wouldn't expect her to ever want to come back. She has people there now that she wants to be around.
I'm sick of unsound horses. I'm sick of words like "navicular" and "OCD" (as in "osteochondrosis" in horses). I am losing patience with the stretch of Hwy. 290 I drive up and down weekly it seems like. I can't stand going to the vet. I hate the smell and the dank stables and the weepy-eyed horses that stare at me as I walk down the aisles.
There is this horse there right now that I saw a week or two ago when I went for a different PPE (read: prepurchase exam). She is this giant draft horse, the biggest horse I have ever seen. When I was there last week, she was standing in the treatment room with her giant ankles and cannon bones shaved. Her hooves looked like big rocks--really big boulders. DrB who is about 6'5" was dwarfed by this shaggy black horse, that's how tall she is. He was taking her in to do surgery on her digital flexor tendon.
Today I saw her in one of the recovery rooms. She was standing with her hindquarters toward me, facing the wall. Her long, whiskered head was drooping and her eyes were vacant and pained. Her left leg was bandaged and you could see where the drainage was coming through the bandage from the incision that DrB had made. She was clearly in pain--she was rocked back on her heels and using the wall as support for her hind end. I watched her for a long time and it made me want to cry. Actually if I'm being honest I wished I had a gun because I would have shot her. I have always had a hard time with seeing how people put animals down, as in how vets deal with that, but at that moment I felt her pain and it was excruciating. She would rock back and forth slowly from her heels onto her toes--all of her body was sore. She had a gaping wound on her hip, likely from laying down, similar to a bed sore. Her alfalfa was in the corner of her stall, untouched. A stockpile of antibiotics sat outside the stall.
DrB walked by and said "Do you know this horse?" For a second I thought he meant the big horse but then I realized he was motioning to the horse across the aisle, a small, gangly grey horse peering through the bars on the door.
I looked at him for a moment but I didn't recognize him. "No..."
"It's Ghost."
Ghost. Literally a Ghost from my past--he was once a rather pain in the ass green horse that I rode a couple of times when I worked at the old barn. The rest of the time Kelly or the owner would ride him. I had always disliked him--he was always nosing around and had no manners and a horrible left drift when you rode him.
The thing now looked skinny and emaciated. He looked unhappy.
I was surrounded by unhappy, sick horses.

I guess that's why I am now unhappy and sick as well.

The SuperBowl was SuperLame, I don't think anyone will dispute that. Personally I am starting to chalk SuperBowl Sunday up with other days of the year that are historically anticlimactic. To name a few: New Year's Eve, birthdays, National Day of Mourning (the Canadian's started a day to mourn the staggering number of workplace-related deaths and after hearing how physically dangerous my job is, they decided to have the day be my birthday).
Nevertheless, every year people go out in droves to celebrate one day's worth of football and revel in corny Budweiser commercials involving unrealistic computer-generated Clydesdales. So off Christina and I went to the Pedernales Lofts, an very modern complex off of East 6th street. It is a big rectangular horseshoe of lofts centered around a main pavillion where the GSD&Mer friend of Christina's, Ken, holds parties. Below is a shot outside the main gates, and the pavillion is just inside to the right. Between the buildings there is a giant retaining field which I am now going to refer to as the Field of Deaths.
Christina and I were somewhat late, missed the opening kickoff because we were too busy messing around on her new IBook. She was trying to learn how to use Photoshop so I taught her how to clone colors and retouch by using the stamp. Then we took her picture, which was a photo from her trip to Belize, and changed the filters on it, which was funny because Christina reacted to each filter as if she was seeing a child being born. She was amazed. Every single filter was even more exciting and exotic than the one before.
When we arrived, it was already about 5 minutes into the 1st quarter and the Seahawks I believe were ahead by 3. As it turns out, this early start was not enough to bring the Seahawks to victory.
We noticed in the large retaining field that there were two big sumo suits, and Christina asked Ken what was up with them. "Oh. Those are the suits Danny brought," Ken replied matter-of-factly. And as if this served as a valid reason he added, "Danny works for the Ice Bats."
Oh. I see.
"We're going to have people get in them at half time," Ken went on to say. "You and Rachel up for it?"
It doesn't take much to persuade me to do, well, just about anything. Part of my agreement with myself to do everything that scares or intimidates me. So of course, I knew that I would end up in the sumo suit.
What I didn't plan on was the near-death experience I would soon have.
Halftime rolled around and it was do-or-die. I tried not to think about the 50 or so twentysomethings standing around the field as I got down on all fours and wiggled my way into the sumo suit. Here's the funny thing about that--you are completely helpless once you are in that thing and the velcro is done up. You could very well never get out of the suit again because all of your defenses are gone--you cannot bend your arms or legs.
So someone has to pick you up. Or a few someones. Like so...
That guy actually ended up needing help as it is next to impossible to pick someone up by yourself--the suits weigh a TON.
So off Chrissy and I went, bopping around in our hockey helmets.


Things were all fun and games, just like they always are until someone gets hurt of course. Chrissy and I chested each other good-naturedly. No complaints here with the sumo suits. They make you feel invincible--which probably isn't such a great feeling in hindsight.

Then. It happened. Out of nowhere, I turned to my right and saw Danny, the guy who almost killed me, running straight at me. This is a big dude, I would guess 6'3" at the least and probably weighing about 210 lbs or so. Literally knocked me over at warp speed.
I fell backward and hit my head, of course the helmet which you can see is way too loose didn't do anything. I think I had a stinger! Where's the stretcher? Where's the courtesy cart? I did get a round of applause when I finally was helped up. But my neck still hurts.
Then Chrissy fell over and hit her head. You can see the agony on her face in this picture.
After it was all said and done, we were glad to have survived. And I think we probably grew a little closer in our agony. As we both agreed, Sumo SuperBowl was fun but never to be done again. I am now able to check that off my life's list of experiences.

First impressions were really bad
I was always grumpy, always mad
You were "hip" and way too weird
And I think when I met you, you were growing a beard.
It wasn't cool, I gotta say,
When I put all of those jumps together one day
With a rubber mallet and no help from you
And the temperature rose to 102.
I would come in and gripe about things in my life
About all of my horses and all of my strife,
Checks would never get printed on time,
I would get mad and say "Well, that's just fine!"
"See if I care, you insolent fool!"--
But I'd be by at four-thirty once my engines had cooled
Then one day I fixed the chip on my shoulder
And since then my engines ran always much colder.
And we found that despite all of our rocky start
We really were quite good coworker's at heart
Trips to the Gingerman and Doc's for free beers
And dance party Fridays were the highlight of the year
New office staff may come and may leave
And I'm excited for all that you will do and achieve
Just remember when you're out there listening to Sade
And thinking of flamingos in teacups that we made
That even though I finally have my own computer
I will never again have an NPR-friend-commuter.

Who's not skipping down the streets of the city?
Wendy's Trial Ends
A couple of thoughts on this subject.

One: I'm glad they hit these people hard (or at least what I feel is pretty hard). What kind of idiots do this? The story first of all is just plain weird because of how they obtained the finger. From a friend who lost it in an accident? Huh? Did the guy not have his finger put back on? And...um...okay, what did they tell the friend? Who is this friend?
Two: Has anyone seen the commercial that Wendy's currently has out, replacing the word "dollar" with something on their 99 cent value meals? Again, huh? Let me just say--if anyone ever told me while I was putting on make up getting ready to go out that I looked like "a million crispy chicken nuggets" I would do one of two things:

• Get mad

or

• Get mad

Yeah. Really.