The Old Guy

From as far back as I can remember I've been in love with horses. When I was a kid I lived and breathed Walter Farley and Marguerite Henry books. I've never met a horse I didn't like and to this day I can find something good about the worst of them. If money were no object I'd take in as many abused, neglected and old broken down horses as I could just to let them have a little peace and comfort...but unless I happen to win the lottery, it's probably not gonna happen. The old broken down ones tug at my heartstrings the most.

I'm not in the horse rescue business because horses are expensive to keep.  God forbid I should end up being like one of those hobo's ass rescuers who show up in living color on the Fugly blog.  I have three of my own and I don't need any more equine mouths to feed with the price of hay being as ridiculously high as it is. Not to mention vet bills...I cringe every time I have to call the vet. 

There's a couple of different roads I can take to get to and from work.  The flow of traffic usually determines which way I go which means I always choose which ever way the booberdoober in front of me isn't going.  I just don't have the patience to follow someone who wants to drive ten miles per hour under the speed limit.  The first way is definitely shorter in distance but the other way offers me peace of mind and keeps me from intentionally ramming the poor schmuck in front of me who has no idea he's become the target of my road rage.  The long way led to the old guy.

Like most horse owners, I always look at horses pastured along the road when I'm driving.  I do try not to drive off the road while I'm doing this.  Does anybody really keep their eyes "on the road"?  I don't think so.  Anyway a local rancher has a barn and corrals alongside the road and I always look to see if horses or cattle are in the pens.  The first time I noticed him there weren't any cattle in the corral, just a big ol' gray horse munching on a pile of hay.  The next couple of times I drove by, I could see that he was a little ribby, but since he always had a pile of hay in front of him, I never thought too much about it. 

For the next month or so my life was relatively booberdoober free so I didn't have to take the long way by the barn.  When I finally saw the old gray horse again, all I could think was "holy shit he sure went downhill fast".  He looked like a walking skeleton...munching on a pile of hay.  I immediately wished I hadn't seen him. 

The following day was booberdoober free but I drove by the barn anyway, mostly to see if the old guy was still alive, silently praying I wouldn't see him laying there dead. To be honest, I'd really rather have the Disney version of life where everyone lives happily ever after and the little rabbit always makes it to the hole in the nick of time leaving the bobcat scratching his head and finding his chow somewhere down the road out of my sight.   I prefer to avoid the harsh realities of life whenever possible.  Until I felt myself sigh when I saw he was still standing there I didn't know I'd been holding my breath.  On the rest of the drive to work I start wondering if the guy who owns the barn would give the old guy to me.  I know the barn owners last  name but what would he think about some strange woman calling and asking he'd give away his horse? 

As soon as I got to work I called my friend, D, who's pretty fearless, knows everybody, and more importantly, is a fellow horse lover.  (She has ten by the way...not that she's a hoarder or anything...really.)  I asked if she'd seen that old gray horse by the barn.  D said she hadn't really noticed him so I told her how he'd gone downhill pretty fast and asked if she thought the owner would give him to us.  Notice how I said "us"...I pretty much guilted her into helping by telling her how pathetic the old guy was and in the end, I think she agreed to call the owner just to get me off the phone, probably thinking the owner'd tell her to go pound sand.  Bless her heart.

(FYI, I wanted to call the Barn Owner, BO, but it made me think of stinky body odor, then I thought about calling him BM, for Barn Man,but it obviously made me think of bowel movements, so I simply left him an unnamed "he" most of the time....just thought I should clear that up.)

D called me back after she talked to the barn owner who said he'd be happy to give us the horse but he'd have to clear it with his dad.  The next day when he called her back he asked D if we were sure we wanted the old buy?  He said the old guy was twenty-nine, couldn't be ridden, and was pretty much on his last legs.  Since the younger horses were pushing him around, the old guy ended up in the corral by himself so he could eat as much as he wanted without being run off from the feed.  He wondered why would we want him?

"We're just a couple of crazy women who like old horses" D told him.  He didn't get it.  Most people wouldn't.

Yikes!  Now I had to call OF (Old Friend of undesirable snackage fame) and ask her if I could put an old horse in her barn.  OF said sure...we could put him in what she jokingly calls the "medical unit"...which is basically a stall with mats and a gate.  Bless her heart.

I went to the barn that afternoon to pick up the old gray horse.  D was supposed to meet me and she wasn't there yet, but the barn owner was there.  I recognized him from riding with him years before, shook his hand and introduced myself.  He's a really nice guy who figured either nature was gonna run its course or he was going to end up having to shoot the old gray horse.  He kinda laughed when he asked again if I was really sure we wanted to take him.  I laughed and told him I was sure.  He still didn't get it.  Most people wouldn't.

When I led the old guy to the trailer he seemed a little stiff and wobbly on his feet.  Holy shit, I thought, what if he can't step up into the trailer???  He sniffed the trailer floor...another holy shit moment...it never occurred to me that the old guy might not load well.  This was obviously not a well thought out plan...I mean, how much pressure do you put on an emaciated horse to get them to load?  At what point is he better off with a bullet?  Thank God I didn't have to find out.  After a little sniffing, he managed to haul himself up and in.  After I got him loaded, D showed up and we both thanked the barn owner for giving us the old guy.  On to OF's place...with another mouth to feed.

Please God, don't let him die in the trailer.  That's what I'm thinking all the way to OF's place.  I didn't want to leave the old guy loose in the trailer because I was afraid he might need something on each side to lean on.  I tried to go really really slow around the curves in the road.  D followed me and was probably shocked at how slow I was going.  How come I never noticed this many curves in the road before?  Jeeez...can't they build straight roads?  Why do they have to have all these curves?  I finally hit a straight stretch and got to speed up a little.  I just wanted to get there before he died in the trailer.  I started to relax a little in a short straight section of road.  It was a brief respite.  I shouldn't have sped up...up ahead was a four way intersection with a traffic light and the intersection had a giant hump in it.  I knew this hump was there because many a time I've felt like my car was going to go airborne trying to make it through the intersection before the light turned red.  Yellow light...go very fast (Remember Starman?) This was a fairly new intersection, and you'd think they could have done a better job leveling it before the final paving, but nooooo, they left that giant hump in it.  I know it sounds like I'm exaggerating here, but really, I'm not.  The light at the intersection turns yellow.  Please God, the prayers continue...don't let him die in my trailer.

I was in a quandary...do I stop or do I go?  There's nobody to tell me what I should do.  D's the one who I'd usually ask about all things driving related but she was in the truck behind me.  I didn't know if I should slam on the brakes and throw the old guy against the trailer wall or speed up and make a mad dash through the intersection?  I didn't know what to do.  Which would cause him more problems?  I had no idea.  If I went flying over the hump in the road will the trailer go airborne?  Will the horse go airborne inside the trailer?  Would all four feet go in the air and, more importantly, would he land on all four when he touched down?  I'd never thought about this.  I'm guessing it'd be the horsey version of an E Ticket ride.   "Please God", I prayed, "just don't let him die in my trailer"...as I gunned it through the intersection.  Why?  Because I just wanted to get there before he could die in my trailer.  I know...it's a stoopid reason.  But it worked.  He didn't die in the trailer...although he was a little wide eyed and sweaty when we got to OF's place. So was I...

God love her, D laughed about the intersection debacle when we got to OF's house.  "I didn't know if you were gonna go for it or stop"..."and then you went".  Looking back, it was pretty funny.

After a couple of days, OF said "I think we should call him Earl"..."it fits him".  And so the old gray horse got new name.  At first he didn't seem interested in soaked pellet mush, until we started adding a sweeter senior mix to it.  Seems old Earl has a taste for the sweet stuff...don't we all.  The first time I heard him nicker for his food was a couple of weeks later.  It made me smile inside.

I'm so friggin' grateful to have friends like OF and D who, without any hesitation, said yes to some scatterbrained idea to try to help an old horse out.  They get it.   Most people wouldn't. 

Most people would think it was the stoopidist thing.


P.S.  Before & after's of Old Earl.  He's now 29 and lives entirely on a diet of soft senior pelleted feed. 

I'm A Moron

Like many people my age (oldsters), I'm forced to wear reading glasses.  Anymore, I can't read anything without them.  I used to try.. okay, sometimes I still do... reading a number out of the phone book sans visual accouterments.  Mostly I just get annoyed that I've wasted time trying because I end up needing the glasses after all.  I don't know why I still try this but I do...and yes, I do know the definition of insanity.  Sometimes it seems like if I hold the book at a certain angle in direct light, I can still make out the numbers I need.  So there I'll be holding the book in front of me, angled away from me, with my head tilted up, looking down my nose at the book...trying to decipher the blurry print.   It's kinda pathetic that I still feel the need to try, isn't it?

I used to have reading glasses everywhere.  Being a sucker for a good deal, or at least what seems like a good deal at the time, I've purchased several sets from TV shopping networks.  How I manage to lose them is a mystery...they're like socks...they just disappear.  Am I unknowingly putting them in places so I don't lose them?  Am I going to move a carton of ice cream in the freezer and find a pair of glasses that I don't remember putting there?  Who would put glasses in the freezer anyway?  Old people, that's who.  Why?  So they wouldn't get stolen of course.  Who would want to steal reading glasses anyway?  Oldster burglars?  Please God, don't let me find reading glasses in the freezer.

So far I've managed to avoid the dreaded "old lady chain" that holds the glasses around my neck, but I know it's coming.  The problem with my aged eyes is that I have to use the readers to see print, but I can't walk with them on.  Oh sure, I can leave them on the bridge of my nose and walk around with my head down looking over the top of the glasses but they always feel like they're going to slip off, and besides, it looks weird.  If I put them on top of my head they get stretched out.  I need a chainless solution.

Yesterday I had to take a packet of papers to a woman in another office.  I'll call her "J".  I know when I get there I may have to read something so I throw a pair of glasses in my jacket pocket. Always be prepared...that's my motto...I have many mottos...I get them from The Husband who has a motto for every occasion...his favorite is "A working woman's a happy woman"...technically I'm not sure this qualifies as a motto.  Anyway, back to my journey of delivering papers...J is on the other side of the building so I have to wind my way through aisles of cubicles, a maze of hallways, and locked doors that need a magnetic badge pressed against them to open. I like to call them magic keys...I know they're not really magic.

I'm thankful I had the foresight to put the glasses in my pocket since I had to try to actually see what J was showing me on the wad of papers I shoved in front of her.  After we talked about work, we started chatting about non work stuff...killin' time on the government dime.  While we're talking my glasses fell out of my pocket.

Me:  "Oh no, my high dollar reading glasses just fell under your chair".

J:  "Well I don't want to move 'cause I'm afraid I'll roll over them"...I think she thought I was serious about them being "high dollar"...which they aren't.

So I bend down and start looking around but can't see them.

J:  "Maybe they went under the drawers".

I look but the drawers sit flat on the ground.  I see a metal clip under her chair and start to think maybe that's what I heard fall.

J:  "Let me get out of the way so I don't roll over them" as she eases out of her chair with a move that would make any contortionist proud...and the chair doesn't move...I'm impressed.

We're both hunched over and can now see under her chair, and plainly, there's no glasses there.  I can't figure out how they could have bounced so far away when J turns to me and says:

"What's on your face?" as she busts up laughing.

Okay, so I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer...but really???? I'm wearing the glasses that I've been searching the floor for.  Yep, right there perched on the end of my nose.  I look at J who I've only recently met and who now, rightly so, thinks I'm a moron and start laughing.   There's no reasonable explanation for what just happened other than the fact that I'm now "officially" an old fart. I expect bright orange pin curls are just around the corner.

All the way back to my office I keep laughing.  Then I start to notice that strangers are looking at me as I walk along the halls laughing.  I'm sure I looked like a crazy person hearing voices in her head and laughing at what they were telling me.  People avoided me and got out of my way.  Nobody wanted to make eye contact with me and I could see some of them elbowing their partners and not so subtly nodding their head toward me.  "Watch out for the crazy lady" was written all over their faces...which started me thinking...

Next time the grocery store's crowded I should try looking at the food in my basket and laughing out loud, all by myself, as I push the cart toward the checkout stand and see if people move to another line to get away from the "crazy lady".  I wonder if it would work?  Never in a million years would I actually do this, but I really want to.  I know...it's the stoopidist thing.

Anal Spice

I went to dinner with some of the Old Chix last week. Only four of us could make it this time. Me, Em, Cee & Lo. All of us are well on our way to sixty...and, unfortunately, not in dog years either. We went to a different casino this time that had a brewery. I don’t like beer but fortunately for me they served other adult beverages so I had my fave....pineapple grapefruit juice with vodka. It doesn’t have a name...trust me on this. Every time I order it the cocktail waitress asks me what it’s called and I just repeat the ingredients “pineapple grapefruit with vodka”...it’s not a Greyhound...that’s just grapefruit and vodka. I found this out the hard way...by believing the cocktail waitress knew what she was talking about when she said “Oh, that’s a Greyhound”in her chipper little size 0 voice with clothes to match. Finally, I thought, my drink of choice has a name and I was just too stoopid to know it. I nearly gagged when they brought me a chimney glass filled with plain grapefruit juice and vodka. Now when the cute little waitresses try to tell me a name, I just make sure they know I only want half grapefruit and half pineapple with a healthy dose of vodka for good measure. They can call it whatever their little heart desires.

Remember the Spice Girls?  Well, I thought about calling the Old Chix the Old Spiceters.  Why you ask?  For the sole purpose of renaming Lo..."Anal Spice".  Kinda sounds like a candle fragrance in a gay porno shop, doesn't it?  The new name is a perfect fit for her....even she would have to admit it...then she would have to spend hours analyzing why she feels the need to analyze everything. Fortunately Lo, aka/Anal Spice, and hereafter referred to as AS, has a wonderful sense of humor and can laugh at herself...unfortunately she is also compelled from her innermost being to analyze everything in the fucking world.  AS has moved on from the familiar phrases like "your plate is too full" to "she keeps long accounts" or "you're keeping short accounts".   Huh????  What happened to simplicity?..."she has too much to do" or "she holds a grudge"?  AS is good natured enough to laugh with us when we mock her about this...which we do...at lease Em & I do...but we're kinda the assholes of the group.

I can totally see AS reading self help books.  It seems like every time someone reads the latest self help book, new catch phrases roll off their tongues to make them sound like they've got "it" all figured out.  But every one's version of just what "it" is, is different, isn't it?  Talk about a boon for the self help writers!  They get to define "It" for their latest book of invaluable information which will change your life forever...yes forever!  And you'll be able to feel oh so much better about yourself once you realize that the new "it" is the one you've been searching for all your life.  The previous self help book you read had "it" all wrong.  Alas, you must read the newest book to find that the forever life changing "it" from the old book wasn't "it" at all, and everything you thought you learned about the old "it" was now pure hogwash.  But just read the newest book and your life will change forever....It's a vicious cycle, isn't it??

Fortunately for me, I read mostly for entertainment.  No self help books here.  Oh sure, occasionally I read something because I need technical information about something I'm trying to do...usually horse related...or gardening related...or cooking related....but generally I read strictly to be entertained while I'm lounging on the couch eating fattening snackage.  It gives me a reason to sit on my ass and basically do nothing but live in a fantasy world.  Sometimes I feel guilty about this, sitting around doing nothing when there's always chores that need doing, but not often enough to keep me from doing it...sitting around reading I mean...not the chores.

Never, not once have I felt the need to analyze what I've read.  One time the wife of a work friend wanted to share books, so okay I thought, we're just going to trade books.  I knew she was kinda cuckoo before I agreed, but I didn't realize she was going to want to "talk" about the books after we read them.  Boy, was I surprised.  I was trapped by a crazy woman telling me how a certain book made her feel "all dark" inside. (It was a fucking murder mystery.) I started hearing the Twilight Zone theme running through my head.  I did a lot of smiling and nodding.  We never traded books again.

I would never last in a book club where everyone read the book and then had a little get together to "discuss" the book.  Because frankly, I don't care.  It doesn't matter to me what anyone else thinks about the book.  It's enough that I was entertained for a few hours.

I've never felt the need to peruse the shelves of self help books at Barnes & Noble.  If I wasn't stoopid, I might worry about why bad things happen to good people.  I don't spend much time wondering about the "why" it happened.  It just happened.  It's the stoopidist thing...