Shock and Nawwww!

Okay, first I've got something burdensome to get off my chest here (no, not those silly ;o) Life is full of disappointments; some big, some small. But every once in awhile you experience something that strikes without warning and transcends tragedy. Therefore, I feel a deep seated need to publish the following letter from my [thoroughly] broken heart:

Dear John;

  I am writing to you to express the terrible sense of betrayal I am feeling; you have been with me for only a few short years and I cannot understand how you could just disappear from my life like this. I searched for you for so long and was elated when at long last I finally found you. You were there for me during that brief and shining time before my cancer and while I missed you terribly through the chemo, I can still remember our joyous and bubbly reunion a few months after the end of my last treatment. 

  How can you do this to me so suddenly? Could you not have told me that things were not going well for you? You didn't even bother to come up with a suitable candidate for replacement, you cad! You have doomed me to another desperate search. How long that will take I shudder to think. Who else can help me keep it all together like you can? Without you I know I will disintegrate into chaos and utter disarray. 

  And I can't believe you yanked every last bottle of your stupid Curl Around Shampoo off every shelf in the country. What did I ever do to you??? Well big fat raspberries to that, you putz!

Frizzily yours,  Jen

Thank goodness Ebay was there with a [rapidly dwindling] stash of John Frieda to save the day. Not to mention my 'do - such as it is. (I'm still mad at him though ;o) And did I really just buy 12 bottles of shampoo and conditioner at one time?? EEK I'm a hoarder. *hangs head in shame* Yep, sure did. At least the shipping was free.

Don't you just hate it when something you know and love goes *POOF*? Ah well, C'est la vie, right? Meh. Okay, now let's get to the Expo, shall we?

You know, sometimes I'm terribly thankful to be A Nobody. I've never aspired to fame - just the fortune part - *grin* and I'm definitely missing a large portion of the competitive gene. I have neither won nor done anything overly notable (and don't care either - so Ha). But you know what? There are no huge expectations hanging over my head either (well, other than mine that is ;o) and the only person putting pressure on me is me. I'm thinking it is more than enough mortification to get "that look" from one of the horses that says I just had a ginormous brain blip.
When you're famous, however, any and all of those mental moments and ill-fated foibles become public fodder that travels faster than the speed of light (just ask Pat Parelli who took a hard public slap to his superiority complex courtesy of someone's stallion at a clinic ;o) Even Mark Rashid [my horse hero] talked about his own equine attitude adjustment in one of his books. He said straight out that he had started to believe his own press and suffered the consequences. Humbleness is probably the single most important thing to remember when working with horses (and they are more than happy to remind you, should that important factor ever slip your mind for a moment *grin*).

For egotistical *cough* whatever reasons, instead of bringing his regular [and advertised] mount for Saturday's performance, the entertainer, who was the reserve champ from last year's Mustang Makeover, decided to bring along a green broke mustang instead. While it wasn't a total train wreck, I couldn't help but marvel over the self-inflicted stupidity of someone who I presumed was lots smarter than me about horses (otherwise I would have been the one out there, right?).  Even veteran equine performers can have those I'm so not up for this today days, so I'm going to say that this horse did extremely well under the circumstances: Huge gloomy arena, strange smells, people (not me) firing off flash photos, pouring rain, funky yellow lighting, and a very loud [fairly garbled] sound system. I'm betting there will be considerable post performance damage control to be done.

Sandy and I spent a lot of time wincing; particularly after he lay the horse down and stood on the saddle (that's not very nice there, slick). Not everything that can be done, should be done; didja not know that dude? I don't think I'd care too much to have a little kid standing around on top of me, even if I was wearing a nice big belt. Oy.
Anyway, I shot a few short clips for you guys and slapped 'em together to share. He ran out of bullets after two runs of shooting at and missing all but one of the balloons. He apologized and explained that this was his very first time shooting from the back of that particular horse. This would be the main reason for the BooBoo Award. I'm not the brightest bulb on the porch, but I'm thinking that's probably not the time or place to introduce your green horse to something new and scary. The shooting is up first in the clip, followed by a pretty neat looking leap into a moving trailer. Kudos to the obnoxious woman in black who was nice enough to ask me if I could see. Too bad she didn't bother to listen [and move] when I politely said "No ma'am". There were a couple of close calls where it became obvious the horse had had enough; and control got pretty dicey. I stopped filming the last clip about two seconds too soon (darn it), as the horse body slammed the gate for the second time in a desperate attempt to get the heck outta dodge...

I'm going to say that the best and biggest surprise of the day was clinician Tommy Garland, who showed up on an - are you ready for this? - Arabian. *shocked gasp* Naw, really? That was definitely a new one. What cracked me up (and I sooo wish I had thought to video it, or at least get a picture) was that his horse actually looked right up at the crowd and scanned over the people with obvious interest while his rider spoke. Too funny; not a single one of the other horses "looked up" all day. We wandered around the stables later on, and found him calmly munching hay in his stall. Out of all the horses we "visited" down there, he was the friendliest (most rolled their eyes and backed away). Not only gorgeous, but reproducible (yoohooo Bellllllaaaa... woo! A studly hubba-hubba for you right here sistafriend) If only. Here's a photo of that gorgeous boy:

Well, I think that's [definitely] enough for now. Thanks so much for reading this far and have a blessed week everyone!