All New Things

To everyone who bugged me to finally update this blog...HERE, ALREADY!!!!!! Just kidding, I deeply appreciate having loyal fans. The harassing e-mails were particularly warming :-)

First and foremost, a big welcome to the newest member of the family: Charmin, the snowy white pony every little girl wants for Christmas!!! Mom's been head over heels for the little guy for months and finally decided to give him his forever home!

Look how cute they are! Charmin is the spitting image of the pony who taught me how to ride; Jump For Joy, aka JJ. JJ was a little terror (mostly by the doing of humans, but what did I know back in the day?) but I adored him. He was an amazing school horse who taught me flying lead changes, jumping...and as normies, we had a very strong bond.

Charmie, as we like to call him (Dave also refers to him as "Spawn of Satan") is LBE to the fullest. Where Jet finds it more interesting to figure out ways to NOT do ANYTHING, Charmin will leap logs, climb up the sand box and jump down from the highest level, trot next to you... and LOVES terrorizing other horses. He's created quite a stir since he moved into Jet's pasture. He also beat up Rookie and Numerous recently in the turn-out, which would explain why Dave keeps trying to secretly sell Charmin up the river whenever potential adopters come out. This is also one of just many reasons why we affectionately refer to him as "Lucifer."

I know, he LOOKS so sweet and innocent, right?

Jet the Dream Child seems to have figured out he has a new step-brother and he could not be LESS thrilled. It's actually quite comical to see little Lucifer trotting like a hairy sewing machine towards Jet, ears pinned, and Jet, one of the tallest, manliest looking horses in the herd, flee in terror. It's like the old wives tale of the elephant who's scared of the field mouse.

One of the reasons I've been out of commission for so long is my job had it in to work me and my co-worker around the clock until we dropped dead. I guess the figured they would sweep us up under the bar mats or something after that. Who am I kidding? They would have propped us up and still nagged us about payroll as our corpses lay slumped across our desks, staff peeking in and asking us if we would approve vacation time. I seriously did not see Jet for more than 5 minutes over the course of an entire MONTH. It got to the point where people would innocently ask how my horse was doing and I would stamp off in a huff, snarling, "How DARE you??" under my breath. I would look at his picture next to my computer, eyes filling with tears, trying to calculate when I could possibly sneak up there to just give him a carrot before I headed off to work. Welcome to the recession.

I wish I could say that the money helped, but it didn't. Beverage management is a thankless job, mentally, physically, and ESPECIALLY monetarily. I took the promotion a year ago at my other casino because it seemed like I could never find a bar with longevity and at 25, beginning the climb up the corporate ladder looked most impressive. I started in Vegas as a barback...2.5 years later, I was running the beverage part of a whole casino resort on the Strip. Not as glorious as it sounds. No benefits, no 401(k), insulting pay, long hours, and endless aggravation from my subordinates AND my superiors. Although I will say at both casinos where I was the boss, I had a GREAT department. They did the best they could. But I was miserable. I missed my horse. I missed bartending. I REALLY missed my horse. I missed sleeping and having a chance to change the oil in my car, too. But mostly...I missed my horse.

By a sheer miracle, I snagged a summer gig bartending at one of the best resort pools on the Strip. Through recent events that do not include the generous pay of my job, I'm even financially stable enough to enjoy some much needed time off, so I am on my own personal "vacation" until my new job starts. Back to the serene life of bartending and basking at Shiloh for the time being!!!!

The one who seemed to be more thrilled was none other than Jet. I KNOW Jet doesn't understand what I've dealt with. But it sounds so much better to anthropromorphize. On Valentine's Day, Deonna left me a message that Jet had a puncture in his knee, which was consequently swollen like a balloon. After I got over the initial horror (meaning my over-protective RB self finally realized that "swollen knee" was not synonymous with "dead"), I started joking at work that Jet was fed up with being neglected. To have Mama come up, desperate times called for desperate measures, and he purposely went off and stabbed himself on something. The really funny part was, when Mom and I showed up 2 days later (Dave and Deonna doctored him until I could make it - thank you again!), I was expecting to see Jet constantly shifting off his puffy leg, eyes glazed in misery. Instead, he was hopping around, chewing on another horse's face. He had a look of, "Ah, crap. Busted," when I made my presence known. Still, I had to say, "Babe, if you missed me so much, you could have just sent me a text." When I tell you that this horse HAMMED up the attention, I'm still not giving him enough credit. Talk about an Oscar-worthy performance.

I squeezed in a day off recently to check off our self-assessment. While his circle and sideways are weaker than they once were, we really didn't do too badly for not playing for so long. I realized that the horses truly DO NOT forget the games, no matter how long it's been. Rather, Jet was pulling every test out of the book, telling me, "YOU'RE rusty...I'm not!!!" Looking at it from that perspective, I was able to keep my emotional fitness in check, and I think that's what made our self-assessment as successful as it was.

Today was my first official day as a "free woman," and Jet was ALL about sharing my good mood. In fact, when he heard me calling Charmin's name when I first arrived, he abandoned his breakfast and rushed to the gate. I particularly enjoyed how every time I'd tell him, "Mama's free for the next few weeks...it's just you and me now," he would rub his head against my shoulder. In between helping with some chores around the ranch and meeting some new arrivals, I found moments to lay in the dirt with Jet and graze with him (well, HE grazed, I played with his ears). I was hoping to groom him up and shed out the remainder of his winter coat, but he could smell the apple cookies in my pocket and was hell-bent on taking apart the grooming bag. So I decided to turn his pushiness to my advantage, grabbed my carrot stick, and took off to the opposite side of the pasture. It was one of our first real tries at Liberty and we had a BLAST!! He made so many honest efforts, and kept his ears and eyes on me at all times. All in the name of cookies, of course, but I loved how interested he was in playing and how hard he tried, and he loved that I understood what made him tick. I was even able to make him figure-eight around the poles that hold up a lean-to. It was actually a two-step process, but since we were at Liberty for one of the first times, I didn't want to press the issue too much. As Pat says, "Ask less than he offers, wait for him to offer more." So when he offered a turn around 1 pole, he got a cookie, then a stop. Then I asked him to circle around another one. He chased off a horse that was in his way and I expected him to lose focus, but nope - came right back to his path, turned past the pole and came back to me. THAT was cool.

Not bad for such a long lay-off.