Monday, October 19

[gottawonder]

Today I am grateful for:

A good talk with one of my sisters today. I know you are probably all wondering "how many sisters does this woman have?". The answer is six. That's why it sounds like I'm always talking to different sisters all the time. I am. I also have two brothers.

Going to see River. The barn owner, R, got River from the pasture and brought him into the barn for me so I wouldn't have to go get him (she had to bring in other horses from there anyhow). I felt that this was so thoughtful of her.

I had a nice ride on River while she was giving lessons, and I was okay for being warm even though it was pretty cold out today.

Driving to and from the barn safely; it was snowing.

A quiet evening with the critters. I finished a book called "The Lonely Hearts Hotel" by Heather O'Neill. It was well-written, but kind of...manipulatively sad. It was almost that classic Victorian tragedy, it had orphans who were strangely gifted, a boy and a girl in love. Of course they were not destined to be happy, got separated, had all kinds of shitty things happen, heroin, prostitution, gangsters, then they were happy for a while, but of course that couldn't last, etc. The only trope missing was the heroine dying of consumption. I have to admit, the author did an amazing tight wire act of always teetering on the edge of too sentimental vs. too horribly sad, and it just wobbled back and forth on that bitter/sweet note all the way through. You never got comfortable and you never quite gave up hope. I'm not sure if there's a name for this genre, but it's kind of like "The Match Stick Girl", or maybe something by Dickens. It was really good, but I'm not sure I would say I liked it.