Mondays should be shaved from the week.

Anyone who reads my blog knows I’m not a fan of Mondays. So decidedly, I am already predisposed to grumpiness the moment my alarm goes off every Monday morning. With the addition of daylight savings, where an hour of my precious sleeping-time is taken away… well, you might as well be taking my grumpiness, and simmering it in a saucepan for hours and hours until it becomes a reduction of dense, thick, viscous, tasty evil. A glaze of ire, which will flavour my day richly with its savoury darkness. Yes, it’s like that.

Okay, so I’m not *that* evil. I’m not evil that’s up to par with the likes of Hitler or Nero… I’m slightly closer to that creepy lady that seems to exist in every neighbourhood… the one that glares at passers by from behind her tatty curtains with narrowed eyes and a frown that seems permanently embedded into the lines of her skin. You just know there are little skeletons of unfortunate children who lost their ball on her property, or who were dared to go trick-or-treating at her door, all hidden the spare room, tidily arranged in a file-box under the bed.

Luckily, I had a nice weekend to balance this horrible weekday this week. I spent it mostly with S-II who came a-campin’ in the small space we managed to carve out for her in the ‘craft-room’ (which is more like one of the rooms from Clean House—I half expect Niecy Nash and her team to appear at my door with her finger wagging and the castigations flowing from her mouth). She worked on her new regency ballgown under my less-than apt guidance, and hung out while I forced more Firefly episodes on her and made her uncomfortable with various interactions with my husband. I think that’s why Steph II gets so much of my respect… she’s one of the only friends I have who can brave my teeny house and my weird antics for a whole weekend. She’s a brave, brave soul. Sunday, I spent time with Taglius Stampy McHoofington… who I dare say, is looking more like a Dutch warmblood or Baroque horse and less like a Belgian draft every day. My cinnamon destrier! He’s getting less ponyish-looking because I’ve worked his hay-belly off and built up some muscle. He is really moving nicely too.

So, to the meat of the post today... I am seeking feedback!

I am considering roaching (cutting off) Tag’s mane. I hear gasps of horror whenever I mention it from my fellow barn-mates… however I think shaving his mane off, and then letting it grow back Trojan-Horse style might make for something attractive for one, and for two, I’m hoping his brittle, ragged mane will grow back better and stronger. I am sure for some months it will be awkward-looking when it gets too long to stand up any more and start falling down his neck in an equine equivalent to the classic Poindexter-bowl-cut.

Should I roach Tag’s mane (I would leave his forelock, of course!)? Here is a picture of a draft with a roached mane. Tag has that big, thick, cresty neck. I think he’ll look even more dignified and noble with the Mohawk… but sometimes I just love his creamy mane, and dream of braiding it like they do with drafts. It will grow back though.

Here’s a Fjord pony with very nicely roached and cleverly trimmed mane. Fjords have the primitive dorsal stripe that puts a black stripe right down the middle of their mane… so this owner has used the two tones to their advantage and made this cool design… Tag has no such stripe… nor do I care to maintain that kind of mane-topiary… What are your thoughts? Do take the poll, and comment all you please!

Have a decent Monday… for what it’s worth… being Monday and all.

PS, this Office special is supposed to be a grey wolf. I think she personally looks more fox-like… despite her colouring. I had fun building the background though. I even put an older office special in a frame on the wall. I’m such an egotist. ;)

Happy Friday brings some relief and resolution.

It’s been figured out.

Flower’s ailment has been identified and hopefully resolved.

Her vomiting had been non-stop… pretty much whenever she even moved; however the night before last, after a visit to the specialist for the third set of x-rays; which didn’t reveal much of anything except some wire… she got much worse. She was trembling and breathing shallowly. I thought she was going to die. I stood in the kitchen, tearing up leaves of red lettuce and chopping peppers while blubbering like a fool. I’m sure the tears were for lots of things in addition to my ailing little dog… but nonetheless, the idea of losing something close to me fills me with terror.

The specialist told my husband as he looked at the latest x-ray: “Well, I can see she’s eaten…” and my husband replied, “no, actually, she hasn’t.” It established that her stomach had _something_ in it. The specialist wanted $1,700 to use a scope, and warned that they would not guarantee being able to extract anything with the scope… so surgery would be next; and performed by the specialists… it would be $3,000. We took her home to think about it… With hubby’s layoff, we simply didn’t have that option. And specialists don’t work deals or allow payments. In fact, I calculated it out; based on the charge simply to interpret an x-ray for ten minutes; veterinary specialists get $600 an hour.

Our own vet, Flower’s ‘PCP’ so to speak, at Linwood Animal Clinic is a great person. I worked as an office manager there for a few years, and the people who remain are like family to me. They’ve all known Flower since we got her at 8 weeks back in early 2005. She was frustrated about finding the cause of Flower’s illness… and she was determined to not let the worst happen because we couldn’t find $4,700. She offered to do immediate exploratory surgery, and it was a darn sight cheaper than the specialist and we had the option of payments.

So Flower had exploratory surgery yesterday. They sliced open her precious tummy and took out a wad of random things tangled together from her stomach, and as they pulled, another wad, tethered by what looks like a thin elastic that one finds on the stems of flowers, came out of her intestinal tract. She had about 75% blockage in her intestines. She was apparently in some serious pain.

So she’s home now, and on the mend. She’s pretty pathetic. We came in last night and put her carrier down and opened the door, and she didn’t come out. She just lay there, her little eyes rolling around looking at us. We moved the cage to the fire, and she finally emerged, tottering on her wobbly legs and flopping down by the fire shivering. We covered her with a blanket.

Hubby just sent me this picture. I don’t think she has enough blankets and throws. She still looks pretty sad and pathetic. Despite the massive expenditures and debt… how could we not do whatever we could to save this precious thing? Really...

Anyways, here's my Happy Friday office special. It's a little rabbit mum preparing her little rabbit daughters for a nice game of Graces. It was an important exercise for growing girls, to learn grace and coordination. Have a lovely weekend.

Food Network stars... really?

I got into a lively discussion with S-II after a lunch today about the merits and lack thereof in some of the Food Network’s ‘star chefs’. And let me tell you, there are a few I despise… with the fire of a thousand suns… and some whom I adore. But let's talk about the ones I cannot bear at all first...

Runner up on my “Should Be Shot Into The Sun” list: Rachel Ray

I CANNOT STAND Bobby Flay. He’s an arrogant *$^%!#. Aside from the fact that he cooks my least favourite style of food… the guy is just a cocky jerk and really, a bit of a ass. Humble? Not even in his vocabulary. I mean, let’s just look at the premise of his throwdown show; that alone shows how huge an egotistical melon head this guy is.

“Oh, hello there lady or man whose carefully hewn famous dish that has been perfected enough to earn them a successful business and helps carry on a family legacy of good, wholesome, delicious food; I’m Bobby Flay... and I know your dish has earned its own standing in your community, its own level of fame, it’s something you are very proud of, and it’s something that is helping you and your family achieve success; but guess what? *I* CAN DO BETTER!!!!! I’ll bring in some judges to PROVE IT. Because I’m so great I have to prove it by attempting to trounce anyone who’s earned their own salt even without $80,000 in culinary training.”

Seriously? J……… E……… R……… K………!!!!

Okay, there’s so much to annoy me that I couldn’t possibly list it all here… but let me just point out the key annoyances that make me despise this detestable creature:

1) That 2-packs-a-day voice.
2) “E.V.O.O.” I mean really? JUST SAY IT, IT TAKES JUST AS LONG THAN TO USE A BLOODY ACRONYM!!!
3) “Yum-o” ::::::sigh:::::::
4) Has a cooking show about cooking from cans and boxes. College kids cook from cans and boxes. I wouldn’t be surprised to turn on FN to see her making grilled cheese with an iron saying: "Add some EVOO and sprinkle it with dried parsley and Yum-o! A classic Italian time-saving dish!"
5) The gratuitous cleavage.
6) Her mere existence.

FN Stars I can deal with:

Alton Brown

S-II and I disagreed on some levels about this guy, but I am firm in my liking of Alton Brown. S-II thinks he’s annoying and ‘in-your-face’. Yes, he’s quirky and weird, but I see him as the Bill Nye the Science Guy of Food Network. Geeks deserve some weirdness license. He’s geeky and odd in his presentation, but I love Good Eats. It has taught me so much about cooking and the science behind it, and he has that sort of humour I grew up with… that very weird, in-your-face sort of quirky bizarreness. I like Alton, and think he’s great. He’s really knowledgeable but not arrogant about it. Just goofy.

Duff Goldman

So, the cakes are… okay. They’re not spectacular. Some of them are just bad, some of them are beautiful... but it’s not the cakes that I like… it’s Duff. He’s just… real. He’s funny. He’s goofy ,and I really like the atmosphere of the workplace and the people that work for him, they’re all really cool people. He’s not really cocky, he’s not pushy or self-absorbed. I admire that about him. He keeps himself real and humble—despite the cameras.

What Food Network stars *should* be like but never will:

#1 on my “Should Be Shot Into The Sun” list: Bobby Flay

Clouds over the Cinnamon Sunshine

Mon pauvre bébé! Poor Tag! Saturday, we arrived at the stable to find the big hoofy one like this:

Now, this might not seem terrible… a nice relaxing doze… But you have to know Tag to see the red flags in this picture.

He is lying next to a perfectly fluffy, succulent little pile of hay. It’s one in the afternoon. It’s at least a few hours past breakfast time. It’s one in the afternoon and he is lying down, next to a perfectly fluffy, succulent little pile of hay and it isn’t eaten!!!! There shouldn’t be a molecule of hay left anywhere in that stall!

Now I must remind you; my horse is really just a larger, longer-legged, hairier, carrot-whorier version of a pig. Yep, he’s a swine. The horse would run over his own mother for a few bites of hay. He will yank my husband’s arm out of his socket just to nibble up a few bits of hay that had fluttered down from the loft. So to see that picture… you can know right away… Tag is not feeling well AT ALL.

And worse… he didn’t attack anyone for carrots (doom and gloom music). You must understand… he is always harassing people for carrots. He was lethargic and quiet. He did *eat* some carrots, and ate them with some enthusiasm, but his constant pestering was not there. His lippy, mouthy, poky and proddiness just wasn’t present. Poor baby!

I was pretty upset. I know, I get super-fussy about these things. Horses are large and stompy but they are really extremely delicate creatures. Their fragile legs aside, a horse’s digestion can be thrown off just a little and they could easily die. Colic can be fatal. Horses cannot vomit. If they eat something bad, it has to go through their entire system and out the other side. And if a horse’s diet changes radically… they can get very sick. Horses get blockages, twisted intestines and all manner of terrible afflictions that sometimes are fatal. So yeah, I got upset. I worried about changed food, about this, about that. I worried.

Tag was also VERY STINKY. I discovered he’d had a bit of an accident on his legs and tail and he had to get a bath. Now he smells like baby shampoo. It turns out Taggie had a fever… so it wasn’t mild colic (and he had other signs of it not being colic…)… this morning, according to the owner of the barn, his temp was back down and he was eating. He hadn’t been drinking at all. I will check on him this afternoon. ::sigh:: It seems this is right on par with my karma these days. Good things going bad. Bad bad bad. Will this year of gloom never end? Will the clouds part and shed me a little bit of sun? :::WHINE!!::: Daddy’s 80th birthday is fast approaching. Next Monday. He is incoherent and lost. Flower is still ill… still coughing… still vomiting. The specialist wants $1,700 we don’t have, to scope her throat, and now Taggie is sick. I hope this is a bug. I can’t bear the idea of losing him. He’s my ray of sunshine. Cinnamon sunshine. :::ugh:::

Happy Friday from the Leeuwens.

Meneer Leeuw en Vrouw of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands.

The Reason for Office Specials?

Yes, I am relying quite a bit on the ArcSoft program to colour my office specials these days. I think it’s because I’m getting tired of having to photo-edit out all the page-rippling and muddiness caused by washing the watercolour pencils on copy-paper. It probably wouldn’t be a problem if I had PhotoShop here but instead I have ArcSoft, which is about as refined and versatile as sea lion on land.

I think I need to upgrade the office special to draw them not on copy-paper but on water colour paper. I know, it won’t be much of an office-special if I do, but at least it’s still something I created it on breaks at work while scarfing a Fresco crunchy taco! I’ll have to reflect on this decision.

I joined a little women’s gym (and spa) recently. It’s a small gym with brand-new, beautiful machines that have their own dedicated flat-screen TVs in front of them so you can watch Perry Mason or Jerry Springer while hoofing it on the elliptical and treadmill. It’s clean, beautifully decorated, welcoming and quiet during the day. Today, I went there, and because the Gym is near what is called a “Service Center” but what is really a “Feed the Tweeker-Meth-Heads Facility”, I had a little… um.. encounter as I was leaving. As I was pulling out after my workout, I’d lowered the driver’s side window to let in some fresh air, because the Prius was stuffy and reeked mysteriously of horse for some bizarre inexplicable reason… and this short, very hard-ridden, wrinkly faced bottle-black haired harridan comes stumbling by from the service center and asks in a Wicked Witch voice: “Hey.. can I get a ride?”

My response was naturally… “Uh… No.” She then flips out and says: “Well then you’re a fat f**king whore!” and my kneejerk response was “Yeah… a fat f**king whore with a CAR!” I drove off giggling, watching her just go off on this screaming ramble as she crossed the lot.

I think this is part of the reason why scenes like my office special are so prolific inside my head. It’s this world. What a world we live in… what a really dark, bleak sort of place it can be sometimes. It’s hard for me to find empathy in my heart for people like Hagatha there, with her snaggle-tooth mouth and sour face. I can think about all the circumstances that lead people to drug abuse… to alcoholism… and in many cases, these are things I’ve gone through, my sisters and brother have gone through, and yet none of us are screaming like banshees at strangers in cars as we walk out of service centers. We are all products of our environment and our choices—and it can go either way for all of us. We can succeed to some measure, or fail. We can try to be strong, or we can give up and hope we’ll be taken care of.

A wise old friend of mine once said to me after having fallen very hard from very high; “We are *all* only one step away from the street.” Nobody should fool themselves that they are insulated from the same fate as Hagatha… The only thing we can guarantee is to make better choices when faced with difficulties, and not expect solutions to come to us. We are responsible for ourselves alone.

I’m in this frame of mind because I watched a documentary called “The Bridge” recently. I do not advise that just anyone watch it. It’s pretty bleak and depressing. It’s about the Golden Gate Bridge… and those who are drawn to it to commit suicide. The movie shows actual footage of people jumping to their death, and interviews people close to those who jumped. There was not a lot of hopefulness in this documentary. It was very, very sad and I've been in a sort of funk since I saw it. It teaches a hard lesson… there are people out there who simply do not want to be, or cannot be helped. This world is just too hard for them. They handle it by jumping off beautiful bridges--or turning themselves into bitter, screaming crones by marinating their bodies in chemicals and alcohol.

I handle the difficult world by drawing tea parties.

A satisfying Sunday.

Last night was my special birthday ball. It was a delight. I was up Friday night until three AM trying to sew together the velvet robe that would cover my white gown. I made so many mistakes and blunders due to my fatigue, that I stumbled into bed nigh morning, and was too exhausted to do anything else that day besides prepare for the ball. Steph II had secured a rustic spot with open fireplaces by a shining lake, and had peppered the walkways with little lamps to guide party-goers in. She'd hired a caller, and there was dancing and an array of little noshy treats. There was also the most beautiful birthday cake known to man...

"What is your favourite flower?" she texts me the day before. "Tulip," I respond, "Whafferr?" I ask. "None of your business..." she retorts. I figure her mother is going to do a little arrangement... but no. Stephanie scored on so many levels with this cake. It shows true friendship; she pays attention. Cream and lavender... my favourite tones. Lovely designs. The cakes within... OMG... all flavours I love. Buttercream enough to make you melt... and a tasteful single candle instead of being evil and enumerating my years as some bratty friends do. :)

Guests brought me lovely gifts--something I did not expect at all. My husband actually got into costume and danced with me... it was so wonderful. As we drove home, hubby was still peckish, so we pulled into a Burgerville and discovered they still had, until the end of the weekend, their elusive seasonal Chocolate Hazelnut Shake.. my super-favourite nummy treat of all time. So delighted, we drove home, I noshing on this rare and delicious treat for the last time until Christmas 2010.

Today, we had breakfast with the inlaws, followed by a trip to see my equine cutie pie. There were two highlights to this particular visit: 1) he would be able to try on the horse blanket my husband gave me for my birthday and 2) my brother in law, Joe, brought his camera so he could take some shots for me of my cinnamon cutie. I think he did a bang-up job. I don't like having photos taken of me... but there were a few I could live with. :)

"I am noble and strong..."

"But can you see the sweetness in my eyes?"

"Do I not make a fine silhouette with my rider astride?"

A little run in the sunshine never hurt anyone.

Gawd, I love my horse.

"Hey, camera-boy... got any carrots?"