innovation or full circle? art imitates life or life imitates art?
http://www.boston.com/news/odd/articles/2005/07/29/museum_to_let_naked_people_in_free/
#663 When your roommate goes away for the weekend
12 hours ago
29 July 2005
27 July 2005
26 July 2005
my lovely boss, mara, has given me the perfect present...a statue of the indian god ganesh for my desk. i was fascinated with hers, and she informed me that he's in charge of removing obstacles. who's looking out for your life path, hmm?
::taps fingers together::
so.
i'm writing to you live from the heart of domesticity (my office in cohasset). it's a bit of a temporary situation as my...well, start up...is going through a merger with a company in westwood. by the end of the year, we'll probably be dealing with an office in westwood, one in boston, and this satellite in cohasset. but for now, it's really pretty lovely. cohasset is essentially a yuppie preserve, billing itself as "a fishing village nestled along the southern coast of the greater boston area". we refer to it as "another town that hosted the kennedy family". regardless, it's nice to walk out of the door to a french bakery and smell the ocean. home is home.
i've decided to turn over to blogger because, as allison put it so nicely, i was feeling "overexposed" on livejournal. i've made a fresh start on almost everything else this year; why not strike my blog and begin again? for awhile i was writing to myself each night, traditional journaling, but i must admit that i missed the feedback. i'm a broadcast whore, but to those of you who choose to read, all i ask...is nothing, actually. spectators may come and go, and i will write when the spirit moves me without regard to audience.
as some of you may know, the grand breeze is out of commission. he has at least another month of stallrest, so i've chosen to apply my riding hours elsewhere. an old friend of mine, alex, has her own barn and training program here. i'm not necessarily avoiding my own barn, but things are different over there. alex has a barn full of people at different levels with their own agendas, and plenty of horses who have different needs and talents. i find this to be very refreshing. for the non-horsey folk out there, there are two basic ways to tackle the issue of finding horses to support such a varied lesson program. alex could have spent a nice chunk of change and acquired several horses who are old hand (or "made") who'd pack around blithering idiots without the slightest complaint. (i'm sure you can tell that i'm not a huge fan of this method.) what she chose to do instead was to fill her lesson program with horses who have their own quirks and need a little bit of tough love. they're sane, sound, willing geldings and mares, but they aren't quite refined for the most part. those are the types of horses who can certainly be taught what they need to know, and for most riders, it's a great learning situation as long as the horse is first and foremost safe (with "pliable" coming in at a close second). the nice part of this for me is that alex assumes i've learned something after eighteen years in the saddle and that it can only be good for these horses to have someone who's a bit more on the experienced side taking them out. essentially, i just show up and she points me to the day's assignment. i enjoy it, because frankly, horses who are the same each day are rather boring.
one such horse is sir, a 15 hand app gelding who has spent the past ten years cantering up and down a trail. it's easy to glom onto the rangy TB geldings who are great hunter and dressage prospects, but for some reason i attach myself to the sturdy little underdogs who are all blaze, socks, heart and attitude. alex bought him about a month ago after much deliberation. sir's maiden voyage in alex's arena involved head tossing, refusing to go into corners, egg-like circles, and an abhorrence of the rail. add a trailering struggle to that and a wee bit of cow-kicking, and we weren't sure what we were dealing with.
as a rider, i may not have the pretty thing down, or the natural grace, but what i can bring to the table is a bit of tough love. a horse like sir generally reacts well to some firmness, and i enjoy the challenge. he KNOWS what's supposed to be happening, he's just not going to do it unless he has to. to make a long story much shorter, alex and i decided to bring sir to a very small local show this weekend with the intention of taking him off the trailer and letting him see the sites. he's very calm and level-headed, so getting him used to the idea of going somewhere was appealing. i got to be his mom for the day. shortening the story again, our hero actually took division champ in walk trot for green horses! yes, most of this was entirely unplanned, but he was such an old pro that no one could believe it was the same horse. he was ridiculously proud of himself and stood like a statue while admiring children braided his mane and stuck their fingers up his nose. he's quite cute in the pictures.
here's the weird part...i spent what felt like a bazillion years being on hyperdrive on the national circuit with breeze. we did very well...truly. never once did i feel proud. it was always focusing on what came next, how many points we needed, etc. etc. etc. but with sir...well, i'm still feeling the warm fuzzies three days later. he exceeded our every expectation and rose to the occasion. we never planned to rush him, unlike the baby horses on the stock breed circuit. he let us know he was ready, and he stole the limelight. here's to green walk trotters. i can't think of a better way to spend my barn hours than helping a second-hand horse to feel proud of himself again. call it maternal pride, but i think i'm turning into a fixer in my old age.
so.
i'm writing to you live from the heart of domesticity (my office in cohasset). it's a bit of a temporary situation as my...well, start up...is going through a merger with a company in westwood. by the end of the year, we'll probably be dealing with an office in westwood, one in boston, and this satellite in cohasset. but for now, it's really pretty lovely. cohasset is essentially a yuppie preserve, billing itself as "a fishing village nestled along the southern coast of the greater boston area". we refer to it as "another town that hosted the kennedy family". regardless, it's nice to walk out of the door to a french bakery and smell the ocean. home is home.
i've decided to turn over to blogger because, as allison put it so nicely, i was feeling "overexposed" on livejournal. i've made a fresh start on almost everything else this year; why not strike my blog and begin again? for awhile i was writing to myself each night, traditional journaling, but i must admit that i missed the feedback. i'm a broadcast whore, but to those of you who choose to read, all i ask...is nothing, actually. spectators may come and go, and i will write when the spirit moves me without regard to audience.
as some of you may know, the grand breeze is out of commission. he has at least another month of stallrest, so i've chosen to apply my riding hours elsewhere. an old friend of mine, alex, has her own barn and training program here. i'm not necessarily avoiding my own barn, but things are different over there. alex has a barn full of people at different levels with their own agendas, and plenty of horses who have different needs and talents. i find this to be very refreshing. for the non-horsey folk out there, there are two basic ways to tackle the issue of finding horses to support such a varied lesson program. alex could have spent a nice chunk of change and acquired several horses who are old hand (or "made") who'd pack around blithering idiots without the slightest complaint. (i'm sure you can tell that i'm not a huge fan of this method.) what she chose to do instead was to fill her lesson program with horses who have their own quirks and need a little bit of tough love. they're sane, sound, willing geldings and mares, but they aren't quite refined for the most part. those are the types of horses who can certainly be taught what they need to know, and for most riders, it's a great learning situation as long as the horse is first and foremost safe (with "pliable" coming in at a close second). the nice part of this for me is that alex assumes i've learned something after eighteen years in the saddle and that it can only be good for these horses to have someone who's a bit more on the experienced side taking them out. essentially, i just show up and she points me to the day's assignment. i enjoy it, because frankly, horses who are the same each day are rather boring.
one such horse is sir, a 15 hand app gelding who has spent the past ten years cantering up and down a trail. it's easy to glom onto the rangy TB geldings who are great hunter and dressage prospects, but for some reason i attach myself to the sturdy little underdogs who are all blaze, socks, heart and attitude. alex bought him about a month ago after much deliberation. sir's maiden voyage in alex's arena involved head tossing, refusing to go into corners, egg-like circles, and an abhorrence of the rail. add a trailering struggle to that and a wee bit of cow-kicking, and we weren't sure what we were dealing with.
as a rider, i may not have the pretty thing down, or the natural grace, but what i can bring to the table is a bit of tough love. a horse like sir generally reacts well to some firmness, and i enjoy the challenge. he KNOWS what's supposed to be happening, he's just not going to do it unless he has to. to make a long story much shorter, alex and i decided to bring sir to a very small local show this weekend with the intention of taking him off the trailer and letting him see the sites. he's very calm and level-headed, so getting him used to the idea of going somewhere was appealing. i got to be his mom for the day. shortening the story again, our hero actually took division champ in walk trot for green horses! yes, most of this was entirely unplanned, but he was such an old pro that no one could believe it was the same horse. he was ridiculously proud of himself and stood like a statue while admiring children braided his mane and stuck their fingers up his nose. he's quite cute in the pictures.
here's the weird part...i spent what felt like a bazillion years being on hyperdrive on the national circuit with breeze. we did very well...truly. never once did i feel proud. it was always focusing on what came next, how many points we needed, etc. etc. etc. but with sir...well, i'm still feeling the warm fuzzies three days later. he exceeded our every expectation and rose to the occasion. we never planned to rush him, unlike the baby horses on the stock breed circuit. he let us know he was ready, and he stole the limelight. here's to green walk trotters. i can't think of a better way to spend my barn hours than helping a second-hand horse to feel proud of himself again. call it maternal pride, but i think i'm turning into a fixer in my old age.
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