Saturday, August 9, 2008

Olympic Rambling, Sort Of

I'm watching dressage. Fascinating. Not something I'd ever do since I'm somewhat petrified of horses. I was on a horse twice, both times awful. The first, in my own drive way. The transformer on the electric pole at the end of it blew up just as we were passing by and the horse panicked. Not the horse's fault I had no idea what to do except to hang on. I was panicked too.

The second time I was on a horse I was 16 and in England. It was drizzling. The horse was inexperienced. Its feet kept slipping out from under it. The person who set it up for me was inexperienced. The saddle kept slipping from side to side because it wasn't tightened enough. I was inexperienced. Tears kept slipping down my cheeks because I just wanted it to be over. Good thing it was drizzling so it went unnoticed. Again, not the horse's fault.

Perhaps I would do better on one of those spectacular dressage horsess. At least that way one of us would know what we were doing. I'd like a gorgeous gray one please. I'm partial to them.

I won a tidy sum at a horse race once on a pretty gray horse that I chose because of it's color even though those with me laughed since it wasn't a favorite and didn't stand a chance. There's a racetrack about 45 minutes away. It's an absolutely beautiful day, cool and brilliantly sunny. I wish I had someone to go with. It would be fun to walk around, holding hands, placing $5 bets, people watching, looking at all the pretty, powerful, scary horses... Maybe someday I'll get to do that again. Maybe tomorrow I'll tell you about my forray into the world of internet dating. Or maybe not.

But I digress. I watched some team handball today too. The power and speed of those women was downright frightening! And volleyball, both hard court and beach. Not sports for me to play. I tend to close my eyes when objects are flying towards my face. My reasoning - If I can't see it, it can't hit me. Yeah, I know. Don't say it. That technique has always worked for me and that's what counts, right?

Oh, I sat on the porch for the fireworks last night. Impressive, I'm happy to report. They were spaced out at three locations across the top of the mountain so the entire skyline was sparkling. Fortunately we had a twenty minute late afternoon downpour so there were no real worries and everyone could enjoy them, even the city's firemen.

Have a great Saturday, whatever you do.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I love horses and race tracks. I would totally go with you. The Mr. and I go all the time. Or we did when we had money. I do read the forms and understand the odds. But occasionally I will still bet on the pretty one, and sometimes it does come in first.

We should go to the track together. Then you can tell me about the internet dating thing you tried to casually slip into the post. ;)

XoXoXo
Dakota

Unknown said...

Horses - painful, uncomfortable and I would sucked as a pioneer woman.

After talking to a woman at work about her internet dating experiences, I find it quite interesting - nope, not going to do it myself - but I understood more why people did it. So yeah, speak about it if you want to but your comfort is more important than our need to pry

Unknown said...

I'm curious about the racetrack, maybe someday when I'm home and we're both feeling adventurous we could go... although I imagine us holding hands would cause a stir in central PA. ;)

And yes, the volleyball chickies are amazing, I still wish I'd gotten to be one of them but unfortunately my life didn't pan out that way... not that I'm terribly sad about that! It's not bad as it is.

Unknown said...

Oh, and my recent adventures in internet dating have been busts... but I am holding out hope for the Penn Design student...

Unknown said...

I close my eyes when objects come flying at my face, too, so I'm no good at softball or volleyball.

I used to ride horses and I loved it. I was learning to jump but once the horse fell with me (luckily neither of us was hurt) and it scared me to death. They made me jump right away again, but I was always scared of jumping after that and never really got into it.