Jezebelle had another big day. I’ve always wanted to ride in a parade, and today my wish came true. Jezzie and I rode in the Jenison Memorial Day parade along with Paige V (a little girl from my church) and her horse. I was a bit nervous last night at how Jezzie might react to the chaos…large crowds of people and sirens and marching bands and jet planes don’t generally make for a very horse-friendly environment. But she jigged a little for the first block or so, but then she just kind of realized, "i guess we’re in this for the long haul…" and settled down to walk quietly on a loose rein. As we passed by, I would hear the crowd shout, “Horses!!! Look at the horses! Look at their sparkly feet!” My favorite parts, of course, were when we passed people from church and other people I knew.
I think the horses looked great…I was up at 6 am to braid Jezzie’s mane and tail and put glitter polish on her feet. It’s so fun to dress them up…the stars we painted on her rump reminded me of "My Little Pony" toys Now I have my very own BIG pony.
her tail…
glittery feets!!
I’m hoping acrylic paint washes out of horse fur…otherwise we’ll have red and blue stars on our butt for our next show…I dont’ think the judges will like that.
Here we come…
Walkin down the street…
Paige’s horse is the most adorable little old Arab gelding. He was a little handful today (didn’t settle down as much as Jezebelle) so her Dad Steve ended up leading her the whole way.
Isn’t she adorable?
Jezzie is such a honey. This picture makes me want to kiss her all over.
Wavin to some friends
Dad is yelling at me to turn around so he can get more pictures.
So we did…
After the parade, we headed over to DeRuischers’ house (in Jenison) for their annual post-parade brunch. I had several requests to take the horse back off the trailer and give pony rides, so I ended up giving rides to a bunch of little kids…
…and one big kid. “I want to take a photo of me on this shining steed, in front of my ranch,” Jim said. I’m pretty sure he was more excited about the horse than most of the kids were.
So all in all I ended up walking around the D’s backyard about 50 times. It was kind of chaotic and nerve-wracking…everybody wanted to touch the horsie and I was constantly chanting, “stay away from the horse’s feet! Don’t get behind the horse!” The kids really enjoyed themselves though, so it was worth it. The adults thought it was pretty funny to have a horse in the middle of the subdivision…a lot of the neighbors even came over to see the fracas.
Then, we loaded up (with nary a fuss or refusal!) and headed back home to the farm.
…but if you try sometimes, you’ll find you get what you need.”
Timeless wisdom from the Rolling Stones. It’s kind of deep, when you think about it.
Anyway, today I was kind of hoping for a blue ribbon, which I didn’t get. But what I did get was pretty kickawesome anyway.
I realize I’ve not logged on in some time. Shame on me. I’ve wanted to post but I have so much to say and so little energy to say it with–life at the moment is great but tiring. (And more great than tiring.) So I’ll try to post more now. There are some things I really want to catch up on–I’ve been meaning to write about my violin studio recital that happened two weeks ago already.
But for now, I’ll just ramble on about horse showing because that’s what I did today. Jezzie and I and Brenna packed up and headed out to our first show of the year, the WMAHA Spring show.
Brenna and I rolled into the showgrounds at around 8:30 and after registering, we set to work on grooming and getting our stuff out.
It still kind of astonishes me how much work goes into preparing a show horse for the ring (especially a grey one). I spent 3 hours on Friday night bathing, detangling, whitening, and clipping Jezzie, and another several hours polishing equipment and packing Jezebelle’s “beauty supplies”. At the show grounds we comb and detangle some more, polish the feets, and apply product to make her coat and face gleam in the sunlight.
Soon after we began the beauty treatments, my dear friend Jen met us there to help out as groom, and her sidekicks Eric and Lucas hung out with us, too.
Our first class of the day was my all-time favorite: Arab Native Costume. Brenna got some pretty spiffy pictures and video:
as the video starts, we are the grey horse on the inside in the blue (not the one in red on the rail.)
How awesome is THIS photo?
After that class, we had to scramble back to the trailer to quickly braid Jezebelle’s hair and change tack and clothes for the rest of our day.
I’ve been agonizing for months–and still am agonizing–over what discipline I ought to show Jezzie in: saddleseat or huntseat? Perhaps the implications of this require some explanation for the uninitiated. Saddleseat horses are show horses. They’re supposed to be all full of flash, dash, pizzaz, and spirit. They pick their feet high and have a positively electric way about them. In saddleseat, you wear a fancy 3-piece suit and tie. It’s all about the lookin’ good. And that’s it.
Does she look very electric in this picture??
Didn’t think so.
Hunter horses, by contrast, ought to be dependable, steady, and quiet. They carry themselves forward and low, in a businesslike way that would be useful and beneficial to a horse and rider spending hours out in the hunting field with the hounds. Hunters are the traditional equestrian look, wearing English-type field jackets and tall boots and velvet helmets. Hunters are practical.
Saddleseat is my favorite to ride, although it’s the more difficult of the two.. And while Jezzie can do fairly well at it when she’s at her peak of fitness and has the right shoes on, she really seems to favor hunters with her quiet nature and thick, low-set neck. Frankly, she’s kind of lazy, too. (Like owner, like horse…) So, I decided that this show season, we’ll work on some gaps in Jezzie’s training, and while we do that, we’ll see what we can do in the hunter ring.
And I have to say our first crack at it wasn’t too bad. We did get second place in one of our classes, and sixth place in the championship class.
Of course, being that it’s Jezzie we’re talking about, there were some pretty goofed-up moments, too. Overall we put in a few really good rides and came home with a lot of things to work on and improve.
Generally a set of hunter attire, from head to toe, will cost upwards of $300, and that’s for all off-the-rack stuff. I couldn’t actually afford that, so it was time to improvise, and while my look isn’t Nationals-perfect, I think it turned out OK. The helmet was something I had already. The tall, all-leather boots I got in like-new shape on eBay for $20. The breeches, shirt, and hunt coat were all pieces from Goodwill, and I stayed up until 4 am last night working on them. The coat was originally a men’s blazer, which I took apart and totally re-made. In order to make it look like a hunt coat, I had to take it in, add bust seams, convert the center back vent to a double vent, and move the collar up. It’s not perfect, but for a three-hour makeover, I think it turned out pretty good
When I’m up at 4am sewing on Goodwill blazers after having spent 3 hours bathing a horse that definitely did not want a bath, it’s pretty easy to question why and how I ever thought horse showing was a good thing to get into. I mean, really. Who decided it was fun to pack up more supplies than are generally required for an arctic expedition, dress up in layers of wool and/or polyester suits, and hang out around a sun-drenched riding arena for the better part of an 80 degree day (or a 40 degree rainy day)? And all for a lousy scrap of ribbon? Pretty lame, right? Not to mention how easy it is to covet thy neighbor’s horse (or at least thy neighbor’s horse’s long, hooky neck), thy neighbor’s saddle, thy neighbor’s trailer. Why subject oneself to such?
I do it for the chance to gallop around the ring in an outlandish costume while Sting’s “Desert Rose” plays over the loudspeaker and the crowd whistles. I do it because it’s a valuable chance to be tested, to benchmark my progress as a rider and my horse’s progress in her training, and to see how we stack up against “the competition”. A chance to push “harder, faster, stronger.” It’s good to have goals and events to work up to, otherwise there would be no motivation for progress. I do it for the chance to meet and hang out with other crazies (and wow, some of them are CRAZY crazies. But some of them are really nice.) And for the chance to admire some fine specimens of my favorite one of God’s creatures. And….yeah. because for some masochistic reason, I think it’s fun.
We didn’t bring home any blue ribbons today, but something did happen which was even better. Ever since I’ve owned her, Jezebelle has given me crap about getting on the trailer. First it was a fear thing, because my trailer is fairly small. But since then it’s become just a bratty behavior problem thing. She loves to think she’s boss of me.
Well, today at the show when we were loading up to go home, I just flat out didn’t put up with her “Trailer trash”. Anytime she took a step back, I went all crazy lady on her, smacked her with the rope, and backed her 20 feet. Well, apparently that got old quickly because she was on in less that 10 minutes.
When we got home, I unloaded her. And then asked her to climb again. Here’s what she did.
pardon the post-show clothing and my spazzy demeanor–I don’t usually sound this flaky but this is just what happens when I get 3 hours of sleep and I’m just home from a show )
I could not believe it. I know I sound crazy in the video, but this was the first time she’s ever willingly loaded for me. It was such a huge step to get over this issue–no more fights when it’s time to go somewhere! That moment was worth more than a slew of blue ribbons.
In case my plugging The Birth of Freedom in my last post didn’t get the point across, I’m bringing it up again.
This is a very well-done project and I’m excited to have played a (very, very small) part in it, and I’m really geeked that I know the people who did most of the work on it.
Here is the trailer:
And this is the teaser (first 2 minutes of the movie):
Sometimes I do this thing where I imagine in my head what my life would look on TV or in a movie sequence, complete with a soundtrack and credits. I kind of wonder if this habit is one of my random weirdnesses, or if other people secretly do it, too…
Anyway, the opening sequence for the TV episode version of this week in my life would have shown various cuts of me trucking down the highway and stuck in traffic bright and early Monday morning, and then driving in circles downtown a couple of times, trying to figure out exactly which parking lot it was that I could access with my magical Dashlot passcard. The song “Under Pressure” By Queen (or maybe the My Chemical Romance cover version) would play in the background. Just as I begin to freak out because I can’t find the right parking lot and I’m going to be late, I find a gate that my passcard opens and I park my vehicle just as the DASH (Downtown Area SHuttle) bus is pulling up. I slam the truck door and race (in high heels) to the waiting bus, and ride GR public transportation for the first time since a kindergarten field trip. As the bus lumbers away from the stop I start freaking out, worrying I got on the wrong one. But soon it stops in front of my building and I’m there, breathlessly just-on-time for my second week of work at my RealJob(tm). (and the song ends.)
Every day when I walk in to the lobby of the big downtown office building, with the sound of my high heels on the tile floors echoing off the high ceilings, I feel a sense of naive, childlike wonderment, as if it’s all just a big game of pretend. I still can’t believe I’m here, working in such a cool place, doing this job. In the morning when I’m putting on my fancy work clothes and high heels and perfect makeup I feel like I’m a little girl playing dress-up. I mean, I expected to become a barista upon graduation. Working at an internationally renowned nonprofit research institute, not so much. *grin* Honestly, I love it and hope that this feeling never quite goes away.
I cross the lobby and take the elevator up to the third floor, and there I am in our office suite, the office suite where I have my very own desk. This is the hallway outside our suite. Maybe I’m just a nerd for posting this. But I can’t get over how pretty it is and that i get to work here.
And here it is, the place where all the action happens. My very own cube with my very own filing cabinets and my very own desk with my very own MacBookPro. As you can see, I’ve been settling in OK, with all of my special stuff set up nicely on the desk. Supposedly a tackboard has been ordered too, so I can put more stuff on the walls. I hope it comes soon, because I like stuff. (You really should click on the photo to visit its flickr page and see all the little descriptive notes on it, because that’s fun).
the other corner of my desk
My tassel, proudly displayed
My very own phone. As you can see, it helpfully displays the date, the time, and my extension, in case I’ve forgotten, as well as my very official title, which makes me smile all the time. I may be just a lackey, but doggone it, I’m a senior lackey.
“Biggby” Coffee just opened a new location right across the street from my building, and all week they’ve been giving away free grande mocha mochas and white lightnings and caramel wonders and chilled mochas and whatever else you could want. So I’ve had at least one free coffee every day this week. Methinks I’ll be sad next week when the promotion is over and I will not be able to afford coffees every day.
This is the back hallway from our suite to the bathrooms. I love these wood floors. I love the way the light shines on them and my shoes click-clomp on them. Sometimes I feel like dancing and/or skipping down the hallway. Sometimes, if I’m sure there’s nobody around who will see, I do.
Although the week was filled with glee and wonderment, it was pretty intense at times too. My boss (the webmaster) was away at a web conference, leaving three-day-old me in charge at the controls. Fortunately, I didn’t break anything or make too much of a fool out of myself. But it was a little overwhelming at times. I was kind of lost, I did manage to design and build this website, which I’m pretty proud of: Birth of Freedom Documentary. This is a kickawesome website for a kickawesome project. “The Birth of Freedom” is Acton’s new documentary on the history of freedom, starting with ancient Greece and following it all the way through Martin Luther King Jr. The documentary premiered tonight with a party at the VanAndel Museum Center and will be released to DVD this fall. I believe it will also air on PBS at some point. Anyway, you should watch the preview. It’s pretty awesome and inspiring, in my opinion.
Now I have my very own BIG pony.
