Time for the final bow
Rows of deserted houses
All our stable mates highway bound
Give us our measly sum
Getting the air inside my lungs is heavenly
Starting out with nothing but crippling doubt
We'll rest easy justified

Suffered a swift defeat, I'll endure countless repeats
The gift of memory is an awful curse
With age it just gets much worse, but I won't mind
I won't mind I won't mind I won't mind

Stable Song, Death Cab For Cutie

Well, it is a very, very dark moment right now for me. The things that have made me go into a panic attack at this very moment are: (in no particular order)

1. "You'll go back for your next injection in two weeks and if that doesn't help things, then I'll send you back to Dr Smith for a surgical consult."
2. Sprint's crapped-out service.
3. The fact that everyone I would normally talk to about my current freak-out situation is gone and apparently phones don't work in the Virgin Islands or California...
4. I owe the government $256.00 in taxes. Normally I'd be frustrated but okay with it but please refer back to Box 1 above.
5. My now impending EMG (electromyogram). What's that, you ask? I'm glad you asked:

The skin over the areas to be tested is cleaned with an antiseptic
solution. An electrode that combines the reference point and a needle for
recording is inserted into the specific muscle to be tested and attached by
wires to a recording machine.
The needle may be repositioned a number of times to record the
electrical activity in different areas of the muscle or in different
muscles.
An EMG may take 30 to 60 minutes. When the testing is completed, the needle and skin electrodes are
removed and those areas of the skin where a needle was inserted are cleaned. You
may be given a pain reliever if any of the areas where a needle was inserted are
sore.

How much fun does that sound! And...to boot I also get to have a "Nerve Conduction Study." Not nearly as exciting and not riddled with needles, but involving "shock emitting electrodes" and "recording electrodes," respectively.

Anyway.

This just plain sucks, and I can't think of a more eloquent way to say that so there you have it.

However--"plagiary" is a word, despite the fact that I had to argue and finally agree to disagree on it.

Sooo...it's 10:30 PM. Two hours to go. Great. In the meantime, I will regale you with tales of my day.
Oh. Wait. Nevermind. There are none!
Well, not so. This has been a really strange day. And it is starting to feel very, very long. I woke up at 5:10 AM and had to do one of those "jump out bed as soon as the alarm goes off or else I never would have gotten up" deals, and then I proceeded to race down 35, which I have to say is oh-so-nice on a Sunday at 5:30 AM. If every day were like that at 5:30, it would be worth getting up that early. I was back at my parent's house by 6:30 at which point I got back into bed and slept until 9:30. It was very strange. Sleeping in my old room is always strange, mainly because other than the walls and the general location, the room looks nothing like how it used to look. So that's weird.
Then I decided to take Gus with me to work, mainly because he hadn't been out there in ages and I figured since we were only going for a little while it would be nice for him to get out of the house. So we went outside and I ran into one of my adult students, who lives across the street from my parents. I knew she lived there but it's just strage to run into someone you are used to seeing in one capacity walking their giant Great Dane around in the street. She's actually a really nice lady, I enjoy teaching her--mainly because she's got a great sense of humor, very similar to mine in fact. I like her. Ha.
We drove out to the barn with the windows down. Although I was dressed like it was 40 degrees outside...it wasn't. Got to the barn in time to see one of the ponies (whom shall remain nameless) being cornered by the shavings area by all of my guys. Apparently he had chosen that morning to make his great escape while they were cleaning his stall. Sneaky boy. I felt very much the warden I am when they put him back in his quarters.
At any rate, I wandered my way down to the ring at 11 AM sharp, for the 3' group which consisted of a jumper and a children's hunter. Things went pretty well. The one lowlight of the morning was when we watched Gus trot over toward the septic field and then proceed to wallow in a shallow pool of muck...ugh...so after the 3' lesson I dragged his half-black, half-golden ass up to the washracks and hosed him off as best I could. Then it was time for the 12:00 lesson of the 2'6"ers. Poor Peppy had to do 2'6" duty with a lesson kid. The kid rides pretty well, puts him at good distances and stuff, I just feel so bad for the old guy. He really doesn't need to do all of that. The rest of the group was pretty good...hopefully good enough to hold their own in Pin Oak next week.
Then I wandered back up to the barn, made some phone calls and headed home. For most of the afternoon I read online news (global warming, yikes, why are we acting like this is all of a sudden some huge surprise?) and tried not to let myself have a panic attack over this stupid "procedure" tomorrow.
Annndd...oh. So I got home and (this is a nice story) checked the mail from yesterday (oops). I of course was dumping it into the mail bin by the front door and I really wasn't looking at all to see what the mail was but something caught my eye and it was this magazine called Military Officer. Yes! I had a nice chuckle and kind of a "What the...?" moment and then saw that it was addressed to my deceased grandfather, who retired from the Navy. I don't know why this $4 monthly magazine is still getting sent to my parent's address, addressed to him. And strangely I have never seen it before in my parent's house. Which I guess isn't saying all that much, but still. So since I was bored, I decided to thumb through it and I saw that one of the cover stories was about the antiquated "Posse Comitatus" act, which of course has been heavily touched upon in my world especially during the Katrina debacle. (I looked for a link on Military Officer's webpage, but they have yet to update their site, as the headlines are from March's issue and this was the April issue.)
Anyway, the article itself was set up in a pro/con debate. It was, to say the least, a little bit of a letdown. I think even IG Waggoner and myself debated on a more eloquent, thoughtful level than the Military Officer's sources did. I'm even tempted to write in a response to to the editor, but I think I'll just let this blog be my outlet instead.

And it just goes to show you how awesome Myspace really can be, both Mariel and Geoffrey, my sister and I's early (i.e. I was 3, Mariel was 4, Grace was 5 and Geoffrey was 6 when we all met) childhood friends are both on Myspace now. Too cool. There's talk of a reunion when the siblings are all home for the summer. I have run into Mariel a couple of times in the last few years (actually a few months ago downtown) but I haven't seen Geoffrey since I was in middle school, wandering the mall with friends during Christmastime.

I digress.
I returned to my house because this house is incredibly boring and my dad's computer drives me crazy. You have to virtually look upward when you use it and the mouse in incredibly insensitive. My mom's computer is an Ibook and I hate, hate, hate using Macs.
Plus, I had promised Shiri yet another commemorative video, since I make her one every time she returns.
This was a challenge...it is always hard to time anything specifically to music, but I managed to do it. Three hours later, it was on YouTube and now available to my adoring fans. Enjoy.
It will take a little explaining...if you're wondering about the sky shots, it is mainly a joke involving our road trip to CA back in September when she moved. We were driving through the California desert (I believe we were driving through Indio, actually) when this big blimp was overhead. It was far away and just looked like a silver disc and Shiri thought it was a UFO or something. I had to explain that it was a blimp. Once we got closer we saw that it was the Goodyear blimp. Anyway, the footage in the video comes from a video she made me once she got to CA, when she was on a date and they were at some scenic vista overlooking the "LA smog" (as they put it) and she saw a blimp. If you look closely in the opening credits you'll see the blimp between the words "From Rachel."
The rest of it is mainly just some really old footage from when we first moved in...she wanted to make these green canvas paintings, but of course it was February and raining so we would have to go paint on our balcony. She finished hers but mine sadly were never completed and are still sitting in the pantry. I'm just not crafty! There are also some fun pictures from drunken nights and some reenactments of music videos ("you make me wanna la-la!" and a clip from a video I made her when she went to Florida the first time and I was completely miserable because everyone left me. And there are some cutlet scenes, natch. She loves that kind of stuff. Hahaha.
And for those who are wondering about the last picture of the little butler holding the flowers, that is James, who her parents gave to us from their house. I loved James. I begged her to let me have him when she left, or let me at least have 1/2 custody over him, but alas, James and his little French bistro corner left with Shiri. James, however, was the best.
I think I did a pretty good job. In fact, out of all of my roomie videos I have made, I think that's my favorite one so far. I dredged up some really old pictures (like the very first picture we ever took together) and some really random stuff...but somehow it worked out together. I did this one with ShowBiz, which is what I first started off my movie making on but then I switched for a while to MovieMaker, because I didn't realize Martha had ShowBiz on her computer. But ShowBiz is way better. You can splice out 3 different audio tracks, and it's a lot more user-friendly. The one thing I do like about MovieMaker is there is a filter you can put on photos that makes them look like old videos. It gives photos movement and even makes it look like something stationary is kind of moving around. There is a similar filter on ShowBiz but it just kind of makes everything look grainy, not as though the actual object is moving.

Well we're a little closer to 12:40 than we were when we started.
Wish me luck tomorrow!

While waiting for Shiri to arrive at 12:40 AM CST, I was clicking around on YouTube (rather than watch yet another lame episode of The Sopranos), and I found this. Once you get past the notion that it's really, really creepy...it's actually pretty cool.

This just in! The one year, the one freaking year, that I am not able to attend the oh-so-fab Pin Oak horse show, they have dragged out a rather A-list celeb.
Typical.

Here's to you, Queer Eye.

Some people are lucky. Some people are born with wisdom teeth that never grow in and don't need to be taken out. Some people are even born without wisdom teeth. Some people get pregnant and have babies and then have epidural anesthesia and then at the end of everything they have a little screaming child in their arms.

(Okay...so maybe they're not so much "lucky" but bear with me here, I'm trying to make a point...)

However, select few like myself are born with four wisdom teeth that all come charging in at once requiring a painful extraction and an even more painful recovery. If you're really fortunate, you could also be like me and have to get an epidural steriod injection tomorrow and at the end of everything just be drooling and out of it from the IV sedation.
So tomorrow morning at 9 AM I am going to get to be dragged to the Pain Institute (yes, you read that correctly, I'm not just being cynical) by Shirikins, flown in for the occasion thanks to the new round of Southwest Airlines tickets my parents have compiled (meanwhile, the fam minus RTF is traveling the Virgin Islands and the BVI). The highlight of the experience will be having my wife here to take care of me, however I am not looking forward to the "procedure" itself. Yes...apparently it involves iodine being shot through me and an X ray machine telling the doctor where to stick the huge needle that will the inject a cortisone and an anesthetic into my epidural shaft between my L4 and L5's.
I have no idea what any of that means, or how painful any of that will be, but anything involving needles and IV sedation usually is ranked pretty low on my "to do" list. Natch.
Supposing everything goes well, I will be out-of-pocket for three or four days, and then perhaps I'll get back to work. There is a chance I will need to have another injection in a few weeks, oh and a chance of life-long spinal headaches. Yes. Since I lived with spinal headaches for the entire duration of middle school I guess this will be nothing out of the ordinary if I do get them, just expect my new user name to be "Even Meaner Rachel."
So keep not just me in your thoughts, but the entire staff of MRS who will certainly be busting their humps tomorrow getting to the Pin Oak horse show in Katy. I know I'll be thinking about them.

Just keep thinking happy thoughts...

Just when I needed a laugh...

Somehow I made it back from Las Vegas, despite the 1 1/2 hour delay in the Albuquerque, NM airport. Yes, I took what I like to call a Travel Day flight. What is that you ask? Well, when you are traveling from central standard time to pacific coast time, you TECHNICALLY should get there in a negative amount of hours. Unless you fly Southwest, in which case it is TOTALLY possible to leave Austin, Texas, stop in Midland/Odessa and make pink unicorns and flamingos out of clay while passengers deplane and also board, then make a stop in Albuquerque, deplane into a v.Southwestern looking airport (i.e. ugly and skeezy) and wait for an hour and a half. During that time it is also possible to order a rum and coke at the sketchy bar but instead be served a Wild Turkey and Coke, which is okay because it only had about a drop of whiskey anyway. Then it is equally possible to get on a plane traveling to Vegas at seemingly 125 miles an hour (i.e. a Cessna 172 rate of speed) and arrive, somehow, at 8:00 PM, PACIFIC COAST TIME. Yes folks, I got to the Austin airport at approximately 1:45 earlier that day and got to Vegas at 8. The picture below depicts a "souvenir" from our last trip to Vegas, when upon boarding the monorail we were assaulted by a very fun elderly woman who was carrying around a hand that had a bird pop out of it on a popsicle stick. For whatever reason, it became a pivotal part of our previous trip so I brought it along to surprise Shirikins with this time. If I look tired in that picture, it is because I was.
Luckily, the city of Las Vegas works in mysterious ways and was so ABSOLUTELY FREAKING AWESOME that it quickly made me forget how much I hate the act of traveling. As soon as we drove in the shuttle toward the Strip and I saw the lights, it was like coming home. Okay not like coming home but Vegas is just the coolest. There is nothing in the world like it. The lights, the atmosphere...just tons of crazy, different extremes going on all over the place and I love it. You've got tons of money in a poor, poor environment, people winning and people losing, poor people, rich people, over-the-top Bellagio-esque scenes and then bottom-of-the-barrel Terrible's "gamble for gas" scenes. I love the fact that everything is so night and day in Vegas...you can come back to the hotel at 6 am and go to sleep until one in the afternoon and that is your night, and as you blink into the sun rising over the eastern casinos, you can see families waking up and old people drinking coffee and getting ready for their day in the world of Las Vegas. It is just spectacular.
Okay I'm not just going to drone on and on about the social paradoxes in Las Vegas.
So day one, or rather night one we got to our hotel (the Westin--a couple of blocks off the strip, right alongside the Barbary Coast/Caeser's/Bellagio area) and met up with Shiri and her friend Debbie, who is an aspiring actress/comedian. We spent the first hour debating which outfit to wear, since each of us somehow managed to pack enough clothes for at least a 4 night's stay. Once we finally got dressed and decided where to go ("Let's just stay in...") we hit the Strip and first went into the Flamingo, probably my least favorite casino on the strip and not just because I don't like flamingos. I just don't like the vibe of the place...cheezoid. But alas, we decided to have a bite to eat at some cafe since some were hungry. Martha and I shared a cobb salad that basically was like 4 pieces of lettuce with about 10 lbs of toppings. When the check came, the Asian waitress was like 'Dat man already pay for you meal...' and pointed at some dudes in a booth. They tried to get the guys names and the woman was like 'Shay Clow' We were all going Okkkkay...turns out it was 'Shane Cloud' and his friend Patrick ?, some really sleezebag guys upon closer inspection. Although Patrick did tell us that he had won $10,000 in a karaeoke contest at which point I told him to sing Journey's 'Don't Stop Believing' and he belted out the first 3 lines pretty damn well. But they were creepy nonetheless and would not leave us alone so measures had to be taken. That is the only explanation I can give for this. It's not like I came up with the idea, exactly...it was part of our annual scavenger hunt requirements. Yes, we had a multi-media scavenger hunt this year, and it required capturing certain tasks on videos. And, by the way, I had NOT been drinking when that video was taken (well, at least not for a few hours), I just love Vegas.
After "we lost men to the Barbary Coast" (credit goes to Debbie for that classic line), we hit up the Bellagio and met up with a "friend" of Shiri's (I use the term loosely since I have now met him 1/2 the amount of times she has and ever will) who worked at Caramel, a lounge inside the Bellagio. We had this awesome pineapple shot which was so good, but didn't really do anything, and then I went out and proceeded to win about $150 at a blackjack table surrounded by 50 year old men from Long Island. I was on a roll. But the girls wanted to go to a club at the Mirage that Shiri's friend had gotten us on a list for, so I grudgingly teetered my way down the Strip to the Mirage. Lucky for them, the Mirage is one of my favorite casinos. We made our way past a huge line to a somewhat smaller line and "faked it" until we got to the front of that line. The club was called Jet (or Jett? Or Jhett? Who knows) and was ... a club. Some said it had better music than the Austin ones, which is probably true (Purple Ribbon Allstars, anyone?) but nevertheless, it looked and felt like any other club I've ever been in--however it was packed.
Jett is where we met "Mr. Vegas," who took a liking to Shirikin's teeny pony tail and was providing table service of vodka. So we got all over that. Mr Vegas proved to be a good connection (hence we call him Mr. Vegas although his real name was Christian -- to which Shiri quipped "Hi Christian, I'm Jewish") to the rest of the LVN world--the next day, after we wandered around drinking mango margaritas and posed for this photo in Caesar's Palace (for those who cannot tell, it is not just a picture of Debbie's thong so much a photo of us groping a statue, fulfilling yet another scavenger hunt obligation) and also this picture, which was just plain hysterical, Christian steered us toward a great restaurant called Piero's. Shirikins and I both went for the halibut special which was good, but not as good as the halibut in Austin at Eddie V's, we both agreed. However, Piero's boasts oodles of Las Vegas history and makes you feel like you're in an episode of the Soprano's, since it is supposedly mafia-ridden. When we asked our waiter "Is there anything you can tell us about the mafia we can't learn on TV?" he replied "Well, what do you want to know? A bunch of my friends are dead." Mmm-kay. We also found out that Nicholas Cage had been there just 2 days earlier, which is close enough to a celebrity sighting, wouldn't you say? Some old men bought us desert, so rather than being prudent and ordering one or two, we each ordered a separate giant desert. Christian showed up as we were winding down (or rather, winding up) and took us to probably the coolest place I have been thusofar in Vegas, a club called The Mix. I wish we'd been able to get a better picture of the place, as this photo to the left was actually taken in the bathroom. The bathrooms were insane: they had floor-to-ceiling windows with amazing views northbound of the entire city. The rest of the lounge had huge windows as well looking out over the Luxor immediately to the north and then everything else. It was pretty freaking awesome and they played some great music there as well. It also was just busy enough to be comfortable and I got some good stock market advice (i.e. don't invest in stocks) from the Citibankers that were there at the table next to us.

You may wonder about some of the stats, so here goes:

Hours in Vegas: 36

Hours of sleep in Vegas: 8 (albeit during the day)

Money won: $150.00 - Bellagio - blackjack

Money lost: $40.00 - Westin Lame-O Casino happy hour - blackjack (or lack thereof)

Money I would have won had I known that sports betting closes at night and placed my bets earlier in the day for Wisconsin to win at 40-1 odds: $1000.00

Scavenger hunt items completed: not many

Trips to the Stratosphere: 0 - regrettably

Time spent with friends: Priceless!

All in all, Vegas 06 was different than Vegas 05, yet equally fulfilling. But let me just say--the fact that I managed to go to LVN twice while I was 21 is a feat that even I would never have thought I was up to back in my younger days.

Only a few hours until we depart for Las Vegas and the excitement is brimming in the air. I think the excitement is mainly because they finally fixed our air conditioner (24 hours without it was long enough, thanks) but also because the roomies will all be reunited at last (+ one obligatory married woman). It will be great to see Shiri again in the flesh rather than leaving long winding messages on her voicemail while I sit on I-35 in traffic. I predict some great video footage coming out of this trip just like last time and since Shiri has now figured out how to upload to YouTube, maybe the general public will get to enjoy it as well.
Those of you familiar with the lore from our last trip to Vegas in 04 of 05 will remember the scene: two thirtysomething year olds (one married) and two twentysomething year olds (one just turning twenty one!) made their rendezvous in LV and had a rip-roaring time playing $5.00 blackjack all night and quarter slots all day long. Shiri proposed to me in a dramatic ceremony on the Strip and a scavenger hunt that started off as just something to do turned into a large spectacle in which I earned tons of one dollar bills by telling people "I need a $1 bill with someone's signature on it." Panhandling was never so easy at the base of the Sahara, where we slept for a grand total of 6 hours for the 3 days we were there.
The scene will be a bit different this time. Thanks to Priceline and the power of 4 females, we will be staying at the Westin for a steal--so we'll be a little bit closer to the action. We will don our cheesy engagement rings to fend off the general male public--perhaps Shiri and I will renew our vows. I'm looking forward mainly to riding around on the public light rail system and laughing hysterically at random people sitting around me as well as raking in some serious bank at the blackjack tables if possible. My goal is to come back with $300 more than I left ATX with at which point I will attempt to purchase my first firearm. What could be more appropriate than buying a weapon with some (more than likely) laundered cash from Sin City?

And maybe, just maybe, when I get back, I'll go back to work.
No promises.

Yes, I have become quite the slave to the ways of the I-35 corridor. I made impressive time this AM though, in fact I arrived at work thirty minutes ahead of schedule. I woke up (officially) at 6:40 AM and managed to be at work by 9:03 AM. I was tempted to pull into The Ranch and check up on things (namely my forlorn gato C-LO) but instead stayed in “the zone” and kept driving to The Ranch II.
It was a quiet weekend at The Ranch II, and I can’t exactly complain. I only received a couple of phone calls regarding an ad on my 6-horse trailer that I am eager to sell. Apparently this guy has 2 Belgian draft horses and apparently a carriage that he is interested in putting in the trailer. I explained to him that it was the perfect type of vehicle for those means since it dwarves our large Warmbloods (it’s about 9’ tall and the dividers at a slant are about 10’ long).
I had to call the office and talk to Cindy about what the GVWR was (8,000lbs) and then call the interested buyer back. Apparently she had mentioned it to Rusty and this morning he came in and asked about the potential buyer. I told him about the guy having carriage horses and how he wanted to put his horses in the trailer along with their carriage. He kept nodding in agreement saying “Yes, that’s perfect for how big it is,” and the he launched into a story about how years back he wanted to take his horse around in the trailer to parades and put a carriage in the trailer with it but he could never find a trailer with a big enough ramp opening. That’s when I said matter-of-factly, “Well, Rusty, you know why that didn’t work out is because that would be putting the cart before the horse.”
Ah. My dad would have been proud of me at that moment.
Aside from my early AM pun (must have been the coffee I had), not much else exciting has gone down at the Ranch II. I am supposed to go and consult with a neurosurgeon referred to me by my mom’s head honcho and I have been swimming and treading water in an effort to fend of my eventual spinal fusion.

I am now on my second dose of 2 hydrocodene and while my typing is a little bit impaired and the pain is a little bit dulled, sleep apparently does not come so easily.
Moments ago I was lying down, on my back, which I will inform my audience is not my preferred method of "sleeping." I like to sleep on my stomach (also referred to as "my face" by some), with my arms crunched up like a chicken.
Somehow the thought crossed my mind about how miserable lying on my back is and I remembered this movie called "The Slaughter Rule." It was an obscure film that I grabbed a few years back at the video store, first because of the title. I ended up renting it mainly because it was a Sundance movie and they are typically right up my alley.
The Slaughter Rule is a low-budget film about a young guy growing up I think in Nebraska and he is recruited by this gruff, elderly man for a six-man football team. It starts off as a typical low-budget "Friday Night Lights" type movie, maybe with better acting. Clea DuVall, one of my favorite younger actresses, is the Ryan Gosling's, aka "Roy", main squeeze. David Morse plays this guy named Gideon who is the washed-up coach.
There is a weird twist involving Gideon's questionable character and subsequently sexuality at one point, which the movie totally didn't need, but for the most part, it revolves around people's dreams and aspirations and when, exactly, do you give up on those goals? Hence, the "slaughter rule." For those of you not familiar with it, the slaughter rule basically refers to any sporting games (I think they have it in soccer, baseball, football, etc.) where one team is losing so drastically that the game ends. It's also known as "the mercy rule."
When I saw it, years ago, it asked some questions that were definitely needing to be answered in my life at that time. When do you give up on pursuits, when are you losing enough to not have a chance of ever winning.
And tonight I found myself thinking about that and somehow I started to realize that those questions may once again need to be answered, this time in my career. I'm starting to feel that I may have to call mercy sooner than I expected to in this industry. And that's a scary thought. Not because I don't think I will find something to do, but because I don't really want to do anything else. I cannot imagine what life would be like without the one thing that I have worked so hard toward achieving. And I did achieve it. I didn't lose. But I am losing now. The prospect of a life filled with pain does not appeal to me. Nothing is worth that. I have seen what an injury does to someone whose career is on the line. It doesn't just affect your work. It affects everything around you and everything that you do. Your life becomes consumed with uncertainty toward the next day and what you loved suddenly becomes painful. The doctor today asked me what I did and he said "Wow so you get to ride horses and do what you love, huh? That must be great." And there I was, wincing in pain just sitting on the exam table, and I said "Yeah. When it doesn't hurt me."
People make their decisions in life and around careers based on many factors. Location, finances, significant others, personal satisfaction. The worst thing in the world is to pick a career and then have to sacrifice your health in order to pursue it. It never works. You know your job causes you pain and you hate it for that reason and that reason alone. Maybe it surfaces in other areas, maybe I find other ways to be unhappy in my job, but I am starting to realize it is because I am losing huge. I am playing the game and floundering.
So when? When do you invoke the slaughter rule? When do you call it off? When is the gap between a W and an L big enough to say "I'm done."
It's a tricky thing, the slaughter rule. They call it slaughter because something dies. There is a death of a person who knows the end, sees it, and calls it a game.

A Dream Deferred
by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore-- And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Yes, you'll notice that I have added "ShinyStats" to my blog, a v.cool free counter system that tracks my totals and I can see a quite nice graph whenever I need to feel wanted.

Shame on me for not having updated this in forever, but I do have good reasons. My main reason is the current condition of my lower back, but let's start where it all began, the San Antonio Charity Show last weekend.
What a poorly run shamble of a show. After talking to some of the other trainers who had attended the show in years past, apparently the show was huge this year. So that tells me that it has grown too big for it's volunteer-run britches and they should probably have a professinoal management company come in and manage it from now on. My advice for next year: if you know you're going to have 150+ horses in attendance, open up the outside arena and run the little classes out there (pre-beginner, baby greens, walk-trot, etc.). There is no reason to run all of those classes indoors. Also, ditch the sections A and B for everything. I mean...come on! There was no need to have a baby greens class on Sunday AND Friday, that's why no show in the world does it that way. If you are an adult on a baby green horse and you don't have a pro to prep it during the week, then you should stick to Mortifieds (aka Modifieds) and/or Low classes.
So the show was long, hard, and apparently somewhere between Friday riding and Sunday packing everything up, I did "something" to hurt my back. Badly. Well, okay, not hurt my back since it's a chronic thing, but somehow I managed to create more pain in my back than I have had in years. The last time I went through this pain was probably about 5-6 years ago...and I think it's worse this time, although it's hard to say. Shooting cutting pain while I sit down, my right knee is dull/numb/stiff, and it's getting harder to walk. Good news is that I got a Rx for hydrocodene today, bad news is that I also got a Rx for 36 prednisone. Great. I know from experience that it totally screws your metabolism (i.e. makes you blow up into a balloon) and is basically the "you're screwed" Rx. There's really no other option other than an MRI after this...which I don't want to do until I absolutely have to.
So since I can't ride--it doesn't hurt, but the powers that be don't want me to and I would rather not risk falling off--and physically can't run and I am taking the human equivalent of Weight Builder, I'm going to have to figure something out since coming home every night and icing my back while watching American Idol (which is exactly what my chiro told me to last night when I was sitting on the exam table crying) sounds like a Rx for serious weight gain. I walked down to the pool tonight after work and treaded water for about 5 minutes, swam easy laps for 10, and then treaded water for another 5. Probably not the best idea, but it was freezing cold...almost felt like icing my entire body. I am pretty sore, I think mainly from all of the adjusting and therapy I had last night and this morning. He put me on the muscle stim. last night and today, and then this morning treate me with cold laser therapy, which is apparently a new phenom (or new to me). Apparently "cold" mainly just means low-energy, and the theory is that (in my case) it will stimulate the discs between my vertebrae and hopefully help the inflammation go down. Quien sabe.
Meanwhilst, in much happier news, plans are in the works for a return rendevous in Vegas which would be super fun. Apparently The Shiri is going to use her charm and feminine wyles to score us a "cheap room" at the Wynn from some insider-LA friend. An oxymoron I know and rather over-the-top seeing as I plan on parking myself at a "Super Fun 21" $5 blackjack table at the Stratosphere in an attempt to win back the $400 I had to pay in BONDS to the Travis County Precinct #3. Long story short: I am taking their asses to court since they have charged me with failure to appear but I have proof that I did, indeed, "appear." Call me Loophole Mean Rachel.
I have been compiling a LV playlist and I find it so incredibly good (this might be the drugs talking) that I am going to share it with my many fans.
1. Pretty Vegas - INXS
2. Lucky (Dance Remix) - Britney Spears
3. A Little Less Conversatino (JXL Remix) - Elvis Presley
4. You Better You Bet - The Who
5. Tubthumping - Chumbawamba
6. Head Sprung - LL Cool J Feat. Timbaland
7. Your Love - The Offspring :)
8. Party Up In Here - DMX
9. Starry Eyed Surprise - Paul Oakenfold
10. Talk - Coldplay
10. Semi-Charmed Life - Third Eyed Blind
11. Gin and Juice - Snoop Dogg
12. Mambo No. 5 - Lou Bega
13. Toxic - Britney Spears
14. Leaving Las Vegas - Sheryl Crow
15. With or Without You - U2 (to make me cry a la when Shiri sang to me in the Blind Pig hahaha)
16. I'll Be - Edwin McCain (to make Shiri cry a la when I left for San Franscisco and sang into a spoon to her)
17. My Girl - The Temptations (our karaoke song)