dancinghorse | Seasonal Confusion, Schlemmer-Topfen, and squeeage

Also, per request (

raithen, you know who you are), Miss Tia. (Big butt, much?)

There was a very small bat zipping around the barn tonight. On Twelfth Night. That is one confused bat. The 50mph gale combined with eerie warmth probably woke it up and sent it hunting--it couldn't have found much, because all the bugs got blown away. I had the kind of day that maketh one wanteth to thcream: trying to do barn chores while being sandblasted, having to repair a corral shelter because it had pulled off two of its posts and was flapping literally in the wind, having to repair the goat's shelter because one whole corner of its tarp snapped its bungees (which involved climbing on The Ladder to about 10 feet up in the gale and snapping ball bungees back in place on flappy tarp), and meanwhile having to drive to Tucson and back twice because Spot is not a happy doggie. She has a disc out in her back, and has been getting progressively worse. The vet has her on two kinds of meds plus 30 days of stall rest. Spot is [a] a claustrophobe and [b] an escape artist. Putting her in her crate results in leaping and spinning (very bad). Barricading her in a corner of the living room (she is allowed a space the size of a small bathroom, but the cats have that and she would go nuts all by herself, so...) has resulted in two escapes so far. I think I have that resolved. I hope. She can be in the lr when I'm working, as she can snuggle up against the sofa I'm laptopping on. When I'm not there, in her crate she goes.

This was going to be a lovely quiet week in which I wrote many many pages and rode many many horses and lived a life of ease and bliss.

Hah.

Monday, 19 pages plus assortment of horses longed and ridden. Ahhh, virtue.

Tuesday, Curt the Wonder Shoer appeared to shoe various equines. Always a welcome event, but there went the day.

Wednesday, two weeks before estimated date and two days before revised date, NewPuter arrived. That was a Dell card purchase in a state of absolute desperation--OldPuter has not worked properly for many a moon, overheats chronically, has a wonky keyboard and spacebar such that I've been writing novels on an ancient Inspiron 4000 (vintage 2001) for the better part of the year, and when we added DSL and wireless to it, its 256MB of RAM would periodically gasp, "Too Much Information!" and collapse in a fit of the vapours. Rather not the thing for all the freelancing gigs including the one where I download many many many images for a startup photo-stock site.

So with

smoemeth aiding and abetting, I hit a seriously cool website with spectacular deals and got $750 off a very spiffy PowerBook knockoff (technically the Inspiron 6000). Having at last graduated to the class of beings who need a whole lotta RAM, I hit the sale and got 1GB to go with the 80GB hard drive.

So, on Wednesday, much squeeage: it arrived two days after it shipped. And there went the afternoon and evening setting it up, installing Mozilla (first time for me, I've been surviving with IE and Eudora) and generally enjoying Geek Heroism. OldPuter was never the laptop of my heart, I don't like the slippery round keys or the big square screen or the 12 pounds' worth of weight. I fled back to the prior incarnation partly because of its square, stiff, clicky keyboard and light weight, plus its more rectangular screen. And here I was back with square-stiff-clicky-squee and widescreen and Boooooooooooful media-level resolution (don't need or really want a media machine but that was the deal and the whells and bistles do come in handy, I admit, especially the comes-with photoshop and the DVD burner).

Thursday was all about galeforce winds (not good for riding in) and the dog--analyzing, diagnosing, calling vet--and more learning curve on NewPuter and Mozilla. Had to get rid of Mozilla Suite and install T-bird and Firefox individually because la Suite wouldn't let me install my Google toolbar (must have Google toolbar)--it was missing one of its install drivers which meant no installing anything else, either--and relearning a lot of the menu setups as a result.

I lurve T-bird and am coming to really like Firefox. Should have decamped to them years ago.

And today was more dog and more vet and more NewPuter and yes, I have been getting pages in but the horses have been feeling seriously neglected.

And, ah yes, Schlemmer-Topfen. That is a German glazed clay pot given to me by

smoemeth after years of being told how wonderful hers and our dad's were. One soaks the lid in water, then fills the pot with good things (in this case, potatoes and carrots and frying chicken stuffed with apple and fresh thyme), puts in cold oven, turns on oven, goes away for 90 minutes and when one comes back, there is deliciousness. It has about half an hour to go.

Also to be noted: Plans for the first Horse Camp proceed apace. Presidents' Day weekend. Taking reservations now. Be there or be a non-widescreen with a slushy keyboard and no engine.