I embrace my inner 12 year old

August 25-30 a friend and I took the train to Vancouver, BC, to attend a convention for fans of the TV show "Supernatural." Picture a bunch of middle-aged women acting much like those girls in the audience when the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan. OK, we weren't quite that bad, but it was close.

Friday night, a bunch of the actors hosted a karaoke party. I almost wasn't even going to go, 'cause seriously? Karaoke? But it turned out to be an absolute blast, mostly because the actors were having such a good time.

For me, the most amazing thing about the event was the actors: they were all smart and funny, and they genuinely seemed to be enjoying themselves. To a one, they were all gracious with their fans -- none of them was just going through the motions. I got my picture taken with Steven Williams, who played Mr. X on "The X-Files"! He was a real sweetheart to this fangirl.

I've had some interest in Willow from an eventing barn in Texas. A student there may be taking her for a trial lease--I'm waiting to hear. I hope it works out. I'd like for her to have her own person again.

omg sun

A rare sunny day yesterday! And the bees left Huey alone, too.

Not in the video was a little hop, skip, and a jump Huey threw in during warmup, much as he always does, but for some reason this time it tweaked my back. I didn't notice too much as I continued to ride, but when I got off all the muscles spasmed at once. Fun! I didn't sleep well at all last night, and when it was time to get up this morning I actually had to crawl to the kitchen to feed my dogs. Luckily everything is limbering up as the day goes by. Ice and naproxen sodium.

I volunteered at the roller derby last night (luckily they had me selling tickets, where I could sit the whole time), and at some point my volunteer partner, who was handling Will Call, said, "Hmm, there's someone on here named Captain Tightpants."

I practically ripped the sheet out of her hands, and yes, there it was: 4 VIP tickets reserved for Captain Tightpants. Now, I just happened to know that Nathan Fillion was in town yesterday supporting Arcimoto, a local electric car manufacturer. He owns an Arcimoto. So I thought to myself something coherent like "omg omg I'm gonna meet Nathan Fillion omg omg." But then I got hold of myself and asked the volunteer coordinator just exactly how that Will Call got put on the sheet, and she shot down my hopes and dreams, telling me that it was the ECRG (derby league) who set aside the tickets and invited Nathan via Twitter, and there was little chance he would actually show. Yet another dream, dashed on the rocks of harsh reality.

Nathan, next time you're in town for an Arcimoto gig, call me? K?

The Bechdel test

I ran across this video on Twitter a few days ago and thought it was really interesting. In the past ten years, with the popularity of Buffy, Sidney Bristow of "Alias," and Zoe of "Firefly," I really thought that the zeitgeist of women in television and movies was changing. Now I see that, if it is changing, it's doing so at a glacial pace.

Today, I found both of these pictures in the same article at TVGuide.com. [Insert inarticulate cry of rage and despair here.]

Dreams

Pretty much everyone has the high school anxiety dream, right? The one where you can't find your locker, and then when you find it, you can't remember your combination, and it doesn't really matter anyway because you never attended class all semester and today's the final.

Since I shipped Willow off, I've been having my dressage anxiety dream every few nights. In this dream, I'm at a show, and my class is coming up in a couple of hours. I think to myself, "Plenty of time to braid, tack up, and warm up." Then I check my watch again, and it's suddenly half an hour before my class. No time to braid, I can't find my stock tie, and my stall isn't where I thought it was. Last night, in addition, I realized Willow and I had mistakenly ended up in a PSG class. I was wondering how I was going to fake the tempis. I hope the dreams stop when I get back to riding again in a few weeks.

For the second time in my life, I have pneumonia. I had it five years ago, when I was living in Lubbock, and I didn't realize what it was until it had progressed quite a bit. This time around I suspected I might have it (something about the barky, squeaky, wheezy cough) and caught it before it got bad. Yesterday I vegetated on the couch all day and plowed through most of season 4 of Angel. Unfortunately, it's a pretty funny season, and every time I laughed it set off a coughing jag.

Have y'all seen the latest video from OK Go (a.k.a. the guys with way too much time on their hands)? I find it mesmerizing, even more so than the treadmill video.

This video prompted me, for the first time, to wonder who, exactly, was Rube Goldberg? Wikipedia says:

Reuben Lucius Goldberg (July 4, 1883 – December 7, 1970) was an American cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer, and inventor. Goldberg is best known for a series of popular cartoons he created depicting complex devices that perform simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways – now known as Rube Goldberg machines. Goldberg received many honors in his lifetime including a Pulitzer Prize for his political cartooning in 1948 and the Banshees' Silver Lady Award in 1959.

So now I know.

O, sadness! How will we ever get to the zoo?

Sesame Street is forty years old! H/t to my friend Erica, whose FaceBook posting reminded me of the Twiddlebugs! I hadn't thought of the Twiddlebugs in at least thirty years. They're a family of bugs that live in Ernie's window-box garden. They're not terribly bright, but they get an "A" for enthusiasm in everything they do.

And the Twiddlebugs then reminded me of the Yip Yip aliens, who always scared the crap out of me. They still creep me out a little.

Supernatural drinking game

Supernatural has recently catapulted itself into my top five all-time favorite shows. It's in with rarefied company:

1. Firefly
2. The X-Files
3. Buffy
4. Twin Peaks
5. Supernatural
(Um, yes, I'm a bit of a sci fi nut.)

During my last couple of runs, I've been hashing out a Supernatural drinking game. It has kept me occupied (and occasionally giggling) for three miles at a time. Here's what I came up with:

• Dean or Sam props open the Impala's trunk with a shotgun: drink!
• Dean and Sam sleep on the floor of Bobby's living room, even though he's got, like, 15 bedrooms: drink!
• Somebody's cleaning a gun: drink!
• Somebody calls somebody a "douche": drink!
• X-Files reference: drink!
• Car porn: drink!
• Evidence of John Winchester's general suckiness as a father: chug!
• You think the writers can't possibly find a way to make Dean feel worse about himself, but then they do: chug!

Willow is doing just super. She's off my hand! Hallelujah! And she's starting to give at the base of her neck instead of mostly just at the poll. I've been really working the carrot stretches with her to loosen up her neck. After each ride, I have her stretch in both directions towards her hip and in both directions down and past the front leg, and I also have her bring her head down and between her front legs, and chin to chest.

Yesterday I tried for some more flying changes, and got her to change in front once. Several strides later she corrected behind as well. Today I introduced shoulder-in in canter, and she did great. We also worked shoulder-in to travers to shoulder-in in trot. All this is so much easier when I'm not holding up her front end.

Just call her Bubbles

Today we had sunshine with temps in the low seventies, so Willow had a bath. I swear she was just as happy to be bathed as I was to bathe her. She was stinky. There's nothing like rinsing off five months of winter blech. Willow was sassy when I took her out to dry off and graze! She kept shaking her head and pawing like she was thinking about taking off. Spring fever.

Here's some video from Friday's ride. Willow's still not loose as a goose, but she's somewhat looser than a Mack truck, so I'll count that as progress. When I ride by myself I'm still trying to find the sweet spot that's forward without rushing. In this ride she could have been more forward in trot. And she's still bracing in the canter, but I can see flashes where she gives for a few strides. Our next lesson is Saturday.

So, I mentioned that episode 6 of Dollhouse was much improved. Well, episode 7 was pretty bad again. I haven't watched episode 8 yet. It's only my undying love for Joss Whedon that makes me stick with this show.

Last Tuesday I saw The (English) Beat at the WOW Hall. My friend invited me; she's a connoisseur of 80s music. I recommend the show if you ever get the chance to go. It's fun, danceable ska. And Dave Wakeling is still a cutie.

Go from the leg, give to the hand

Were y'all wondering if the meth heads came back and stole my laptop, too? Sorry I've been such a sucky blogger lately.

Willow was super-duper in lesson #7 Thursday night, and Leslie had nothing but nice things to say. Things like: forward, focused, submissive, bending, soft. Willow even let Leslie walk along beside her in trot and canter, clapping to ask for more forward. Even four weeks ago, that would have freaked Willow out. I'm so proud of my bull-headed mare!

So how'd we get there? Well, for the past two weeks I've been focused on nothing but go from the leg, give to the hand. Working to unlock every locked place from withers to bit. It hasn't been pretty or pleasant. Willow has bucked me up unto her neck more than once, but she really doesn't like it when I land on her neck, so she seems to be giving up on that strategy. I've also been working a lot on just making her stand and give, and that has resulted in marathon backing around the arena, but again Willow realized that that strategy was accomplishing very little and giving her a sore butt, so she has stopped doing it. No matter how mad she's gotten, she hasn't gone up or bolted, so good girl. And slowly but surely, our fight club sessions have gotten shorter, and been replaced by dressage-like activity. Culminating in Thursday's great lesson.

What else? Well, I had planned to give up on Dollhouse after five horrendous episodes, but I kept reading how episode six was the one to watch, so I gave in and watched it, and it was like Fox suddenly realized they should stop crapifying Joss Whedon's project and let Joss do his thing. Episode six was like a completely different show, with interesting characters and an intriguing plot. You know, the stuff Joss is known for. Plus, Tahmoh Penikett wandered around shirtless for a bit.

Sadly, I was not nearly so impressed with Tahmoh's other project, which had its series finale last Friday. Overall, I loved Battlestar Galactica, but other than the mutiny arc, I've felt that season 4.5 has been pretty weak. And I thought the finale was frakkin' awful.

[spoiler alert!]

So many things I just couldn't buy: Why did Cavil kill himself? There's another Earth (Earth II)? Why would Bill fly off and leave Lee forever? On a similar note, these 30,000 people have just been through four years of hell together, and now they're going to scatter to the four corners of the earth (II) and be isolated farmers? For that matter, did everyone agree to destroy all the ships, or did the Adamas just make that decision on behalf of everyone? Whatever. Oh, and Gaius and Six are angels? Starbuck too? Am I an angel? Maybe you're an angel.

If you want to see angels done right, watch Supernatural.

I know the BSG writers had an impossible task, trying to end this epic series in a way that would satisfy its fans, but they had backed themselves into so many corners with decisions they made earlier in the series, that they had nowhere to go. I wish that, like the cylons, the writers had had a plan. Although the cylons didn't appear to have much of a plan, either, despite what the opening credits claimed.