Friday already

Seems like I'm still trying to catch up at work.  Well I did take 2 days off last week and have been having to work around a CPU failure that happened on Monday.  I'm just starting to feel some pressure to get some things going that I've had on the back burner.    Oh well, having projects I have to tackle is good, otherwise they wouldn't miss me much if they decided they needed to trim the program budget.

I did ride Sadie Monday, Wednesay and today.   I still have not got in gear to call the instructor I want to try out.  Its ridiculous how bad I am about making calls to set things up.  There is also an element of laziness and not really wanting to commit to driving to a lesson on weekend mornings but I do want to get the training on the horse so I need to just 'GitRdone'.

Shade got the week off, she should be good to go this weekend and its supposed to be much nicer temps.  I'm 'on call' at work so will plan to stay home but I should be able to get in a decent conditioning ride on the sandy field roads. 

 I'm feeling like there is hope for continued 'Tea Party' common sense correction to congress and that Romney and Ryan 'can' win (I don't expect that I'll have confidence that they 'will' win before the voting is over) and I'm pretty encouraged by Ryan as the VP pick.   Seems to set the stage that Romney is serious about fiscal conservatism and he won't just continue the unsustainable spending path if elected which was my big fear.   If they can overcome the MarxSpewMedia and Dem vote fraud this year we might have 16 years of good presidential leadership.

 Not sure what I'll do if the country chooses national suicide instead.  I'll feel like I should emigrate and perhaps I will try to go to Canada.  They are less free than the U.S. today but they might be more free than the U.S. after 4 more years of Barry, + there would be a bit of 'going Galt' and withdrawing any support I am giving to the U.S. system and hoping plenty of conservatives would do the same and leave the socialist leeches sucking on a corpse sooner rather than later. 

So I guess I need to make a CL ad for moldy hay

And I need to be very specific with instructions for dad when I'm gone.   I stuck some hay from a bale that had just a little bit of mold on it in a basket, wanting it fed to Grey while I was gone because Grey is not super sensitive so if the hay is not really bad he'd be fine.  But dad must of figured I was leaving hay to soak for Shade when I got back vs me thinking he would think the hay in the basket was what I wanted fed right away.

And I think Frosty mini is allergic to hay mold too --I am however NOT going to spend $400 for tests for this ungelded, untrained for any darned thing, and unlikely to ever BE trained or used since I don't mess with the mini's and the parents would rather sit and watch re-runs of crap they've seen before than mess with the horses.   I'll try and figure it out for Frosty via trial and error and give him the cheap benedryl capsules.   No testing and no high dollar supplement for him. 

   Last week I 'thought' I told dad to feed only the new hay we just got and stacked in there and added an explanation with "I HOPE Frosty is not allergic to that hay since we just stacked it in there"    He heard it as "I think Frosty must be allergic to the crested wheat hay so feed the mini's brome hay (only brome hay in their area is stuff with some mold on it that I did not want fed to my allergic big horses)     Well Frosty still has definite hives this morning so I think it is a good bet that he is allergic to the hay mold.  We must have gotten some special mold that stirs up the skin vs just being a fine dust that sets up coughing, or both Frosty and Sadie are special and react via skin to the mold allergens.

I'm so frustrated trying to juggle what to feed to whom and trying to always get the hay next to the horses for feeding cuz I don't trust dad to set a bad bale or bad flake from a mainly good bale aside vs trying to feed it.   I don't want to feel quite this needed.  I want to feel like he would muddle along and his horses and dogs would be just fine if I jump ship.  

Finally found a great reason to procrastinate my ride travel

I had a bad tire on my trailer that I noticed only after I had backed it out and was about to catch horses.  I'm probably going to have to get my back axle aligned or something as both tires were wearing on the insides.  I replaced one that I say exposed wires on the inside and replaced the other one for it to become my spare as the spare was quite worn and had cracks visible.   When we took off that tire it was also wearing way heavily on the inside of the tire.     So since I was not sure I wanted to ride the 25  both days anyway I postponed driving to the ride until today.

 Getting to the point I need to get moving now or I won't have daylight to take Sadie for a trail ride today and that has been the plan; perhaps I'm a bit nervous and procrastinating because of that.  But going out by myself, while not quite as good as going out with a good babysitter is better than going out with a non-babysitter and feeling pressured not to cut their ride short.  If I go out by myself I can just turn around if I don't think I 100% safely get past an obstacle.

Ugh, need to pack up for my weekend ride

Mom is back in hospital.  Her lungs were filling with fluid wednesday morning, she called paramedics, felt like she might not make it having dad drive her in.    Hospital did tell her it was good she didn't wait so probably was a good thing to call the paramedics as that mobilizes the hospital folks too.   I am a lousy 'doc' substitute.  She was having some issues tuesday but her doc that it might be hyperventilating from the O2 being too high.   Possibly it was a bit,  her color looked OK to me tuesday and she seemed to feel better after I turned the O2 flow rate down.

My fridge in my weekender trailer is not working at all.  I forgot to ask dad if he could check on it.  Might have a blown fuse,  I can use a cooler, not like its a long trip and I don't even bring serious perishables anyway but its a bummer,  but with us both dealing with mom suddenly being seriously ill, the fridge was not on the radar.  

I'm wavering a bit on bringing Sadie, almost tempted to just take Shade rather than have to deal with a 2nd horse but I do want to get exposure for the kiddo.    Don't know what is going to happen wrt to going to WY in 3 weeks.  Probably dad will have to stay home,  I think he wants to wait and see if mom is even released to home but I don't think they will say she needs #weeks in a nursing home so if we don't line up an aide to stay in the house; or see if there are any assisted living places that will do a short term stay then someone will have to stay home and if we wait there probably won't be time to get arrangements made.   I almost feel like I should not even go, but I really feel like its a great ride to get a 50 done, and will give me time for plan B if we would get pulled.    I suppose I could just encourage dad to cancel, but I just don't want to put off him doing stuff he enjoys.   He doesn't seem to have any major health issues but he does seem to need a lot of sleep, which keeps whispering to me that his healthy years might not extend very long.  

on plus side I rode 5 of 7 days ...

On the negative side I did not trailer Shade out for a longer ride on some hilly trails this weekend.   Only went about 6 miles on sunday from home.   Oh well,  I think I was partly making myself an excuse to not ride the 50 this weekend because that ride has been a long day a lot of times and was a long hot day last year and I think the forecast is hot, but I should have taken a moderate rather than short length weekend ride to prep for the 25 mile distance.  And I must look up the ride info and email that I'm coming, hope they have open registration on friday, most rides do, but they like to have an aprox. head count.  I keep forgetting to contact the new manager.   Old RM used to send out emails to all former entrants.


I rode Sadie 3 times and Shade 3 times in 8 or 9 days and Sadie  was pretty good all those rides but I fell off her riding with L on saturday.  We were only maybe 200 yds  from home and I was relaxed and apparently off center a bit.  Maybe Sadie got an insect sting, anyway she suddenly started jumping and I fell right off,  soft landing fall but I was holding the rein and she was still wound up and while not rearing was raising both front legs 18" or so off the ground and doing little pivots on her hinds.  I was a bit nervous she was going to step on me before I quickly got to my feet.   Got on and rode her the last little bit home.   L was "you're getting back on her?, oh I guess that is what you are supposed to do"  LOL.   Darn right and it was not like I had to shake off a jarring fall to do it. 

Poor mom.  She has been feeling pretty sick and miserable from the after effects of them scoping her lungs.   She also feels like dad and I are not adequately concerned or sympathetic.   I suppose we are not. Because mom has developed a habit of groaning about all her aches and pains etc and has been chronically sick at least 90% of the time for 4-5 years now,  we tend to just tune it out, especially when she seems to be just groaning and grumbling mostly to herself.

  Sounds cold, and I suppose it is; but dad takes her to the Dr when she request and so forth and I catch up her neglected housework and gardening and am available if she needs something.    Now dad and I should recalibrate our sympathy meters because mom is more sick than she was, but that 'boy who cried wolf' parable is applicable for more than just telling whoppers for attention.   With virtually no periods of her keeping a stiff upper lip and just coping silently I got mulish and developed attitude of  sod you for trying to force me to utter sympathies -- we are taking care of your horses and the house and farm and that should be enough without having to mouth sympathetic platitudes.  I can't seem to just flip a switch and turn on sympathy now.  Besides I tend to loathe people who are oh so sympathetic, 'you poor thing, that's just awful ....',  but disappear when you need something done vs appreciating the folks that might not voice a lot of support or sympathy but they show up when you need tangible help.

So mom is home and tethered to a tank

Apparently the standard oxygen set-up is to just give you a tank and yards of tubing to allow some mobility.   I don't blame mom for not liking all that tubing.   I guess we'll have to see how it goes.  If she only needs to be on O2 for a week or so its probably not worth bothering with a concentrator, but if its a month or more I think we should see if they rent them or even buy one if they are not crazy expensive and then re-sell on CL or donate when she no longer needs it.  

 She was 'diagnosed' with COPD or something and just given a prescription for nasal spray or inhaler a few years ago so she has had some long term issues and that has probably contributed to the general sickliness that I had attributed to too much antibiotics from an overly helpful doc when she was doing the pre-school teaching for a few years and catching colds from the little germ bags hat 'became bronchitis' and then the damm jaw infection from the implants.  I'll be proactive to try to keep my teeth but if I do lose them and have discomfort with dentures I'll be a toothless hag and subsist on soup and malts  --like it would be a hardship to have to suck down malts to get calories LOL.  

  Mom has had some issues with chronic cramping/spasms in her hip for months now so  maybe getting full oxygen will allow that to finally heal.  Its all depressing,  in January she seemed to be much better, sis and her SO were down for the Stock show and we went and did a fair amount of walking around and so on and mom was excited because she had not felt well enough to go in ages.  I thought laser treatments from the chiro for the chronic jaw pain and the hip had finally licked the problems and she would have normal health to enjoy a bit of golden years, join dad doing a few site-seeing trips and stuff.    

At least they did go to Europe several years ago, thank goodness they didn't try to wait until dad was retired.  Another reminder that life is short and unpredictable and it is important to carve out time and/or money from the general 'rat race' to do fun stuff periodically as we go along.   Can't just expect to be able to complete a 'bucket list' starting after you retire.  

Mom has scarring in her lungs

I thought she was not getting a whole lot better from the antibiotics for the diagnosed pneumonia.   Dr.s scheduled to do a bronchoscopy and may take a biopsy depending what the camera shows I guess.  I hope they don't find cancer.    But perhaps I did have a sense that her poor health lately had a physical root cause and thats why I should not be working on moving away.   OTOH I am a huge wimp about personal change.   They will also do some kind of heart test but my gut feeling is that any heart issue was from working too hard due to the low oxygen from the lungs and being so overweight.   I think lungs can heal, although at her age maybe not so much.   She is not wanting to be on home oxygen.   I don't know why, she must have negative mental images, but with the concentrators and stuff they have now you aren't just tethered to a nasty tank and the O2 should help metabolism and the weight + give a lot more energy so I believe I'd be "sign me up NOW"  if it was me.