I almost posted my rant on an internet BB

Thought better of whinging there.  I've vented about the situation before and it would be too close to gossiping behind backs.    But as I was typing up my whine I remembered that most folks I met in real life were pretty close to how I had thought of them from internet posts.   It really is this one case where the postings have been so much about how hard-working they were, volunteering for flood cleanup, volunteering to clean stalls for critters evacuated due to fires etc.  And then with me, doing nothing that I don't tell them they need to do.   I'm not a great manager, naturally telling folks "make sure you do this and this and that"  so it annoys me highly when I *expect* that I would not have to demand basic courtesy chores be done and find out the hard way that nothing more than what I spelled out in advance gets done.

I am so cynical and yet not cynical enough

I have always had a pretty high level of cynicism for 'too good to be true' deals from anonymous public.  And I have developed a pretty good level of  'yes the public is so dumb they will fail to see through the media'  thanks to cases like Matt Shepherd.   I knew that WY was no hotbed of of homophobia but even I figured it was possible that a couple of young men were so full of hatred that they killed Matt because a gay man had flirted with them.   Then came to find out that that was just a media invention and inspired the killers  lawyer to use a lame 'gay panic' defense but that folks who were involved in the case knew that Matt was a meth dealer and the pair that killed him were clients, one was on a 5 day meth bender and was bisexual and had been in bed with Shepherd.  But they wanted to present a narrative that gays needed special protections from the masses who were not enlightened like the rich urbane folks.

But still I tend to take people that I meet, even through internet bulletin boards at face value when they post about all the stuff they do and then find myself disappointed and angry when I find that when I do them favors like hauling their horse, or even giving the horse a quick boot camp when it was getting unruly to nip in the bud the chance of it going outlaw they just take the favor, mumble a quick thank you and slip off w/o cleaning up the horses pen even though the mom has bragged online a lot about how they cleaned up the pen of the neglected horse they took under their wing.

Perhaps I should have been flattered that they knew they didn't have to worry that I'd leave their horse standing in shit over his fetlocks, but I was pissed that they didn't clean up after him when they came out to ride.   Then it was "oh you are on the *cookie list*"  We always bake Xmas cookies for folks that have done nice stuff for us during the year.  Except I found out they came to the town where I work, but didn't bother to stop to leave me any after several postings about how I was getting cookies.   I didn't need any dumb  cookies but to have been told over and over about what they were baking and oh you were so nice you are on this list it was a let down when they didn't bother to bring me any.

Last year it was hauling them to Garden of the Gods and cleaning all the horse pens where we stayed, not just cleaning up after my horse, but I told myself it was ok since they did the supper, but when the taking them to an endurance ride this year turned into "R *has* to volunteer for band the night before"  and I had to demand that twin brother J come so I would have some help when I thought about it and was like "oh shit I can't handle that by myself"  it was kind of the last straw for me.    J was a great help but I'm still so annoyed at prima donna R and mom that I don't want to do anything with the family anymore.      But I feel a bit bad that J is paying price for the lazy sister and the mom that is not discouraging sister from using the fluttering lashes to get out of doing the work for what she wants.

So should have been using fly masks

Tanzaknight and RazzMo got pink-eye from the flies hanging right around their eyes.  I skipped going to a ride Oct 8th to ensure I didn't spread something contagious or overly stress Tanzaknight when he might be under the weather.

Vet was out today and figures it is a horse version of pink-eye.   They got their tear ducts flushed from  the nostril end, some ointment and advice to use fly masks on them and put antibiotic ointment in the eyes for 5 days if they will let me.   So I feel like a bad horse owner for not using fly masks the last few weeks when the flies did start hanging around the horses' faces so heavily.   Grey Moun removed his mask when I was trying to be nice to him and I had decided to skip masking and had never even tried them for Tanza.

I was not severely bummed to miss the ride because I had thought way out that only 2 weeks after the Spanish Peaks ride might not allow enough recovery time but then Tanzaknight was so strong at the end of that ride, didn't have any fill in his leg issues or weight loss so I had thought 'ok we may as well go to this last ride for the season'  Oh well.  It was not a bad ride season compared to the lean years when Shade was starting to the arthritis and before I got Sadie.   We entered and completed 5 rides for 205 miles.   We won't get any MRER award because I moved up to 50s after the first 2 rides but completing the BigHorn 50,  getting through the Mtn Mettle after the trailer tire loss and no real sleep from trying to sleep in cab of dad's pickup and finishing the Spanish Peaks ride feeling good is better than getting a fleece vest or jacket.