Sunday, April 30
May. 1st, 2023 12:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderToday I am grateful for:
Very lovely weather.
I was able to get up early (for me) to attend the Liberty demonstration being held at a friend/client of R's. The whole event is a fund raiser for the horse rescue that she works with.
Getting up at that time throws my day off quite a lot, because I give Hollywood arthritis medication, so I had to shift that to later in the day, and I can kind of shift it back a bit tomorrow, etc.
The woman hosting the event had a horse in training with R last year, and takes some lessons on her property. She and her husband must be pretty wealthy, as they have a full indoor arena and recently built a new house, and so on, and it is not run as a business. She only has three horses there.
There is a barn with four box stalls connected to the arena, and there is a second floor that is an open finished space. It's huge.
The Liberty demonstration was in the arena, and it went very well. R did two different freestyle demonstrations with two of her horses, and talked about Liberty and answered some questions. The woman who hosted the event did a demo with her horse, the one R helps her train, and one of the young riders did a Liberty demonstration on the ground, and some ridden trick riding.
The horses were all done up with hair extensions and such (though I kind of feel like it's nice just to appreciate a horse's natural beauty), and it was wonderful to watch.
Then upstairs in the big area above the arena, there were vendors and "mingling" time.
I chatted with the girl who rides River, and her Mom. I feel better since I established with R that River is definitely not for sale, and hopefully there will be no more attempted manipulation of my heart strings.
I hadn't said much of anything to the Mom when she texted me, all I said back was that I was happy her daughter was doing so well with River, and completely ignored the part about "rehoming" him.
In talking with this girl, we talked about her looking for a horse, and even SHE said they had a couple of horses sitting in the pasture at home that might work for her. I don't know why her Mom seems to think they need to look for another one. Just commit to the time and training on one they already have!
Anyhow, our chat was pleasant and drama-free.
I enjoyed seeing everyone, it's surprising how many of these people I know as acquaintances. It is also a little overwhelming sometimes at these events, because I spend a LOT of time alone, or around only one or two people at a time. To go from that to being in a group of about fifty people, many that I know well enough that it's good manners to seek them out and chat is a lot.
I worry about sticking to light topics, not being "weird", and remembering details in their life.
It was nice to see one woman that used to have her lessons right before mine, who has a new baby. I'm sure she'll be back at some point, but for now she's just getting used to motherhood.
It was a great day, especially since this is the first time they've done it, and everything went very well.
I ended up winning a prize from the raffle, and it is likely worth a ton of money. It's a bunch of horse supplements, the kind of on the edge herbal stuff. Thing is, I'm not sure if I'm going to use it. None of this makes sense to just randomly give to a horse, unless the horse actually has a medical issue where it was recommended. I am not comfortable just giving my horses some herbal remedy just 'cause. Also, one container of something might be good for..a month. Am I going to see a real change in anything in a month? There are like, ten different things in there, so...I just give River like ten different herbal therapies for a month and see what happens?
No.
I will have to look at it, and talk to R, and maybe just give it to people who are already using it or something.
Then I went to see River. We did a bit of work in the arena, which he did well, and then went outside where the obstacles are set up again. We went through them at Liberty with me on the ground, and while mounted just using the neck rope. He did pretty good, needs work on the same things he always has issues with.
It was a lovely day for it.
I chatted with R and her family, as they came back with the horses as I was finishing up.
I came home, and was all out of whack, and tried to have a nap but it didn't quite work.
I learned about Aisin-Gioro Puyi, the last Emperor of China. This is a LOT to absorb, and mostly I skimmed around and got just a general idea of his life, but DANG this guy had a strange ride.
Bacame Emperor very young, was of course treated like a god and that made him a monster, but also was not really educated, knew very little about the country he ruled or it's problems, was a sadist to everyone around him, then was deposed, given a puppet dictatorship, deposed, and on and on and just more war and revolutions and on and on, and he was tossed around like a dog toy and finally made an example by the Communists.
As he got older, he actually came to terms with how awful he had actually been as an emperor, though I doubt that anyone helped him understand how unfair his upbringing had been. He found peace in doing manual labor like gardening, was generally seen to be kind to those around him, though he never was able to really live like a normal person and remember to flush the toilet or close doors and so on, as he had always had servants to do that for him.
It's a very long and detailed, but fascinating read. I can't imagine that this guy's life ever made any sense to him at all. No wonder gardening was peaceful for him, nothing else made any sense.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puyi
Very lovely weather.
I was able to get up early (for me) to attend the Liberty demonstration being held at a friend/client of R's. The whole event is a fund raiser for the horse rescue that she works with.
Getting up at that time throws my day off quite a lot, because I give Hollywood arthritis medication, so I had to shift that to later in the day, and I can kind of shift it back a bit tomorrow, etc.
The woman hosting the event had a horse in training with R last year, and takes some lessons on her property. She and her husband must be pretty wealthy, as they have a full indoor arena and recently built a new house, and so on, and it is not run as a business. She only has three horses there.
There is a barn with four box stalls connected to the arena, and there is a second floor that is an open finished space. It's huge.
The Liberty demonstration was in the arena, and it went very well. R did two different freestyle demonstrations with two of her horses, and talked about Liberty and answered some questions. The woman who hosted the event did a demo with her horse, the one R helps her train, and one of the young riders did a Liberty demonstration on the ground, and some ridden trick riding.
The horses were all done up with hair extensions and such (though I kind of feel like it's nice just to appreciate a horse's natural beauty), and it was wonderful to watch.
Then upstairs in the big area above the arena, there were vendors and "mingling" time.
I chatted with the girl who rides River, and her Mom. I feel better since I established with R that River is definitely not for sale, and hopefully there will be no more attempted manipulation of my heart strings.
I hadn't said much of anything to the Mom when she texted me, all I said back was that I was happy her daughter was doing so well with River, and completely ignored the part about "rehoming" him.
In talking with this girl, we talked about her looking for a horse, and even SHE said they had a couple of horses sitting in the pasture at home that might work for her. I don't know why her Mom seems to think they need to look for another one. Just commit to the time and training on one they already have!
Anyhow, our chat was pleasant and drama-free.
I enjoyed seeing everyone, it's surprising how many of these people I know as acquaintances. It is also a little overwhelming sometimes at these events, because I spend a LOT of time alone, or around only one or two people at a time. To go from that to being in a group of about fifty people, many that I know well enough that it's good manners to seek them out and chat is a lot.
I worry about sticking to light topics, not being "weird", and remembering details in their life.
It was nice to see one woman that used to have her lessons right before mine, who has a new baby. I'm sure she'll be back at some point, but for now she's just getting used to motherhood.
It was a great day, especially since this is the first time they've done it, and everything went very well.
I ended up winning a prize from the raffle, and it is likely worth a ton of money. It's a bunch of horse supplements, the kind of on the edge herbal stuff. Thing is, I'm not sure if I'm going to use it. None of this makes sense to just randomly give to a horse, unless the horse actually has a medical issue where it was recommended. I am not comfortable just giving my horses some herbal remedy just 'cause. Also, one container of something might be good for..a month. Am I going to see a real change in anything in a month? There are like, ten different things in there, so...I just give River like ten different herbal therapies for a month and see what happens?
No.
I will have to look at it, and talk to R, and maybe just give it to people who are already using it or something.
Then I went to see River. We did a bit of work in the arena, which he did well, and then went outside where the obstacles are set up again. We went through them at Liberty with me on the ground, and while mounted just using the neck rope. He did pretty good, needs work on the same things he always has issues with.
It was a lovely day for it.
I chatted with R and her family, as they came back with the horses as I was finishing up.
I came home, and was all out of whack, and tried to have a nap but it didn't quite work.
I learned about Aisin-Gioro Puyi, the last Emperor of China. This is a LOT to absorb, and mostly I skimmed around and got just a general idea of his life, but DANG this guy had a strange ride.
Bacame Emperor very young, was of course treated like a god and that made him a monster, but also was not really educated, knew very little about the country he ruled or it's problems, was a sadist to everyone around him, then was deposed, given a puppet dictatorship, deposed, and on and on and just more war and revolutions and on and on, and he was tossed around like a dog toy and finally made an example by the Communists.
As he got older, he actually came to terms with how awful he had actually been as an emperor, though I doubt that anyone helped him understand how unfair his upbringing had been. He found peace in doing manual labor like gardening, was generally seen to be kind to those around him, though he never was able to really live like a normal person and remember to flush the toilet or close doors and so on, as he had always had servants to do that for him.
It's a very long and detailed, but fascinating read. I can't imagine that this guy's life ever made any sense to him at all. No wonder gardening was peaceful for him, nothing else made any sense.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puyi
no subject
Date: 2023-05-01 03:48 pm (UTC)I had to empathize about the get-together at that barn. I'm the same way at parties. At my best, I can put on an extroverted persona and make conversation here and there at parties, but it's so extremely exhausting to me! If I'm not up to expending that much energy, I'm more comfortable finding a nice corner from which to watch the action-- or maybe finding a person or two to really talk with on a deeper level.
no subject
Date: 2023-05-01 07:27 pm (UTC)Most of the time, I'm not super interested in the history of China either, because it is just an enormous history, and it doesn't seem personal.
I found this article fascination because it was more about the life of one man, was reasonably recent, and was a personal and emotional account. Not dry dates.
I was fascinated about how his life/reign happened right on the cusp of an era. China had been ruled by Imperial individuals for thousands of years, and all in one lifetime they were tearing Old China down and bringing in a more or less modern Communist regime.
This man went from ruling an enormous country he didn't even understand geographically, having his eunuchs flogged, and so on, to cleaning the streets and apologizing to people he bumped into.
no subject
Date: 2023-05-03 03:31 am (UTC)