Back in the Saddle

My head is kinda poundy (prob b/c if you look at the timestamp from last night's post, it was around 1:50 and didn't actually fall asleep until well after 2, and then got up at 7) so I'm pretty tired and this will prob be a short one.

And since my mind is devoid of a particular topic I think I'll describe another one of my "life as a sit-com" stories: my first time on a horse.

Like many young girls, I was a proud member of the very prestigious organization known as the Girl Scouts. Yes, the camaraderie was nice and I learned that selling dozens of baked goods could lead to earning a brand new stopwatch, but prob the best part of being a girl scout was the trips we went on. On one such trip we went to a dude ranch, complete with a lake with paddle boats, making s'mores, and of course, horses.

I also used to be one of those girls that "loved" horses (despite the fact I'd never been on one and only seen a few) so I was pretty thrilled at having the chance to finally ride one. However, standing by a fence with a horse a hundred yards away and standing right next to one can be a little disarming. This thing was huge! I took a hard gulp and allowed the cowhand help me up. If it was a little dizzying standing near this big animal, being atop it was nothing short of nerve wracking. But since I was among my fellow scouts I wanted to make sure I didn't come off as a wuss. Plus my mom was one of the parents that came along to be a chaperone, so I figured that nothing traumatizing would happen. I prob should've taken the hint when I realized the helmet thing they gave me was a couple sizes too big...

When everyone else was settled on their horses we took off at a gentle amble following the head horsewoman. It started off normal enough (although alot of the magic of the moment was lost when my horse constantly took piss-breaks and I got a nice shot of the horse in front of me pulling off to take a crap).

Meanwhile my helmet kept sliding down over my eyes, and I had to quickly shift it back in place while still holding the reins like my life depended on it. Finally I got annoyed and jerked my hand up....and accidentally jerked the hands with the reins as well...

In a matter of seconds my gentle amble turned to a pretty quick trot as the horse reacted to my hand motion. Through bumps and what I could see beneath my freakin Lord Helmet headgear, I bypassed all the other girls, the chaperones and even past the head leader. She took off after me while I was terrified (and besmirched at the irony that I'd die doing something I always thought I wanted to do) grasping the reins. When she did finally catch up to me she was muttering plenty of expletives and managed to get my horse under control. My mom tried to come up next to me to make sure I was ok, although I'm pretty sure she was trying to suppress her giggles at the same time.

As the saying goes, I did eventually get back on the horse years later and did have a better experience...except for the horse slipping on some rocks while we were going down through the woods, but thats a horse story of a different color...

Alright kiddies, on that note have a great weekend, and I'll see you back here on Monday!