~o:> After Word

If you’re getting sick of me writing about our endless mishaps, then you’re in good dang company.  This is a ripped off letter I sent to Rachel today, and I’m using it as a blog because my brain has run very, very dry:

So last night I was thinking – hey, no irrigation.  No appointments.  Nothing exciting.  I’ll be able to sleep myself out for the first time in a week (if the puppies don’t get to me first).  But no.  G woke me up (very nicely, but WAY before I was ready) to tell me that my dear L was tossing up her guts at home.  After all this Murphy stuff, my s-i-l (who has medical radar) told me there’s this terrible bug going around.

And here is Lorri – about ten minutes from giving birth, sick as a dog.  So I had to get up, in case I was needed, which – some fifteen minutes later – I was.  The doctor had ordered her to the hospital for tests, so I ran over to stay with Scoots (you know how terrifying it is for me to be alone with very small, charming tyrants) until his other grandmother (the nice one) came. (Scoots and I had been lying on our backs, riding air bikes and singing very loud and were just staring on V8 and butter bread for breakfast.)  At which time, I had to run to the hospital to look after Lorri, since Cam had a big meeting with a prospective client.

The deal is, I was beginning to feel pre-tt-y weird myself, as I see I sort of suggested in some paragraph below.  I nearly got myself wrecked at least twice, both times in arguments with trucks that would have flattened me.  And my lower back had sort of fused into this achy tightness.  Cam didn’t care; he was feeling worse. So was Char.  So I got there, after overshooting the place by about twelve blocks and having to come back and find it again.  And it was on the wrong side of the street.  I mean, the right side, which was not what I was expecting.  See?  See how it is with me?

But I got her taken care of.  Which is so easy.  She is SO great.  And took her home.  If the med they gave her to stop the nausea is the same stuff G took at Disney World, she’ll probably sleep for the next week; maybe even through the delivery.  Then I ran for GatorAide.  Then I had to put the horses in.

|What time do you need the horses brought in?  Let me do it!!!

HA.  I knew you’d say that.  So I hurried and put them in myself so you’d stay put and rest.  And know what happened?  Three of the blighters (hope that isn’t a bad word) had gotten into the wrong part of the pasture.  Mostly they came in when I went out there yelling.  But not Hickory – way back in the back corner-ohh, no.  I thought he was being good, he spun around on his back foot and started across the pasture to the gate, but in the first three sides, he’d kicked that broad, gold butt of his up in the air with BOTH HEELS AIMED AT ME.  I mean, I was thirty feet away, but it’s the thought that counts.  So I yelled at him and lumbered after, swinging the rope.  I thought he’d head right out the gate (I had evidently left it open while I was trying to set the benighted sprinkler – thanks to my irrigation snafu), but no – he dashed all over that pasture, back and forth, with me, drooping with whatever this is, chasing him, murder in my heart.  Finally, he seemed to finally notice the open gate and crashed out through it.  The rub is, he is SO BEAUTIFI: when he’s at full flags aloft like this – bouncing like a horse made of air, head up – gorgeous.  And bratty through and through.

So into the arena he went, with his fifth “up yours” kick in my direction.  And I had had it.  Sun or no sun.  Aching back or no aching back, I chased that little sucker around the arena till he tried hiding out in one of the back corners.  Picture that big body – head up, LOOKING OUT AT THE MOUNTAINS.  Like, if he’s not looking at me, I’m NOT THERE.  Or he’s invisible.

So I drove him away again (I guess I shouldn’t say “chase”  because that gives a whole different feeling than harrying, which is what I was doing – if I spelled it right.  Which I probably didn’t.  Because my brain hasn’t worked right since about noon yesterday.  In the middle of the workout, I was stopping to talk to Cam on the phone and went downstairs – why? – and went back upstairs to finish the work out – which I never did – and completely turned the wrong way at the top of the steps, going to the OLD exercise room, which I never have done since we changed it.  How many characters can you jam between parenthesis?)(I was driving him away again, if you’d lost track.) and it went on a little longer till he ended up in the corner again, this time facing me.  Head a little lower.  Licking a little bit only.

You know, at that point, Monte Roberts has you turn your back, since that’s what the alpha mares do in the wild.  Then the chastened pony is supposed to come walking contritely up behind you and put his nose on your shoulder.  Which all of them have done at one time or another – all my horses.  But not Hickory.  He’s never done it.  In the end, I’ve always walked up to him, and his capitulation has been to hold still and let me touch him and boss him.  But today, I faced him and held out my hand, looking at him sternly.  I thought he wasn’t going to move.  But he lowered his head a little and walked v-e-r-y slowly to me.  At which point, I stroked him, and he put his head all the way down, the way he does when he wants the halter off.  But there weren’t, as they say,  no halter.  So I put the rope around his neck and backed him and turned him and made him move his back end around, all very peacefully.  I finally took the rope of and grabbed his forelock and pulled him along till he followed me to the barn, where I fed them all.

So that’s why I missed book club.  And now I’m lying here (after a cat-nap I wish had lasted all night), waiting for a thunderstorm to break – even though I know it won’t.  They never do when you want them.  And if you aren’t resting, I’m going to drag myself over there and breathe on you, and THEN won’t you be sorry.

love, love, love

PS. I AM stealing this letter for my blog.