joflasher | Long weekend full of ouches

Thanks to work needing a day off (or so they thought) to install water towers or some such, I had Friday through Monday off. Somehow, I managed to spend massive amounts of money while doing almost nothing. Okay, that's not quite true. I got the Brick fixed and boy was she ever broken ... to the tune of over a thousand dollars worth of damage to her head gaskets (still under warrenty), radiator and front axles. Don't ask me what I did to her cause I don't know. Unfortunately, I still think I can smell oil burning. I'll get a second opinion tonight and then haul her back in if its verified by another nose. My wallet is definitely still smarting from that one.

Friday, I didn't see a movie with

nuns but that's okay, we had fun wandering around the used book store down near davis. Saturday, the Boy and I had lots of fun making vast amounts of dimsum and hot&sour soup for people. We have enough soup left over to drown a rat. HMmmm...soup for lunch.

Sunday, I went up to see Tisa.
She hadn't been ridden in a week due to the Brick being in the shop. On top of that, they kept all of the horses in on Saturday due to that blowing cold rain. I ended up with a rocket horse instead of my laid back pony. Normally I'd just let her run but circumstances just didn't allow it. My choices were to either ride in the indoor with other riders or ride outside where the footing sucked. I choose outside until the other riders left the indoor. Not a good ride in either location. Seriously, EVERY time I touched her with a leg, no matter how gently, she poinged straight up and took off running hell for leather.

She also got quite irate about being forced to stop in her headlong bolts. Little witch actually tried bucking under saddle and not the little "I'm pissed" bucks either. At least, not for long. She did one or two of those, got reprimanded and decided to go into a full fledged hissy fit, complete with rearing, bronco bucks and more bolting. I know she was hyper and had been cooped up and wanted to go. I was making allowances for her trying to run constantly and ignoring any hint to slow down but I have only so much patients. I ended up spending two hours doing walk trot transitions until she finally wore herself out and gave up. Utterly exhausting ride. On the up side, she doesn't hold grudges and was perfectly willing to be cooperative and friendly on the ground. We went for a small walk in the rain with me leading her and that went over much better...just a little prancing and that was always with slack in the lead rope, not pulling or crowding me at all.

In between all of that and over most of Monday, I painted. Soon I will have two new pieces up. I'm painting dragon scales and I'm being very very slow about it, though. Haven't painted a dragon in years. I forgot how anal I am about scales. Probably why I don't paint dragons.

Monday evening, I fell over with a migraine and did the standard "help, I'm blind, where's the toilet" eye and stomach dance that goes along with it. I had made a roast for dinner and the Boy tells me it was good but I didn't really get to eat much of it. I felt better this morning but my eyes are still doing the post-migraine different focal lengths trick. Always makes driving an adventure ... but hey, what's life without adventure?