Barn Pixie

In an attempt to find comfort, and some small measure of predictability, in the current chaos, I found these double pendulum animations. Staring at them, and realizing that the patterns are wild but bounded, nonrepeating but bounded, has improved my brain.

In COVID news, the mayor and my two neighbors who were sick with it are better and back to their usual work. The number of cases in the county is falling. The redder, more reactionary towns in my county are full of people who do not believe in virus or masks, parroting the mendacious individual in the white house, and they spent a lot of Memorial Day weekend out and frolicing.

It seems like half the things I read are "when the vaccine comes, when we all behave better, when we have better leadership" and the other half is "this virus will always be with us, vaccine development is very different from distribution and compliance, we will be doing this FOR.EV.ER" and I am getting whiplash.

I am also getting whiplash from Alice's planned top surgery. It was slated for June 2, and we both assumed it was postponed indefinitely. Then she got a call last week to come in for her pre-op appt and she was slated to go forward if the state allowed different standards for W. Mass than Boston. And then they called back a week later and gave her a new date for October. And also I don't know what to say to my kind and well meaning but nosy step-mother. So it was on, off, on, off again and I am feeling raw around the edges and can only imagine what Alice is feeling although she is mostly bummed about being too hot over the summer.

She and her crew are all dispersed, even the ones back home in town here are present but unreachable, and biding their time until the next thing happens. There are no jobs to apply for, there are no places to go to be young, there are no pieces of a summer of 2020 to have right now, so they visit by phone and group chat and various skype and discord things I do not understand to keep each other sane and cheerful.

A couple additional shoes have dropped.

We heard from Alice, and SEA, that they cannot in good conscience send 30 kids to New Zealand even if they (the kids) are going to self-isolate on a ship for six weeks, so the sea component is cancelled or postponed - they're still trying to figure out which and how and how to pay for it. The vast percentage of tuition goes to making the ships run, and the ships run even if there are not students on board. We'll hear more from them as they figure out how to structure the rest of the semester to cope with some hideous combination of credits, promised ship time (Alice's biggest wish) and the looming possibility that all schools will be closed unilaterally, from the state, instead of from internal caution or decision making. Alice thinks this decision will last a week or so, until something else shifts. I could/should go see her now, while I can? or while I am allowed to? because she might be quarantined in WH for a while if the virus suddenly erupts in the state. SEA has been taking kids to sea since 1972 - this is the first time they have ever had to cancel classes. They must be stunned. I'm stunned.

siderea has declared it is time to hunker down, shortly after Al decided the same thing. We, as a group of 20 people who have dinner together, are deciding how to cope with Family Dinner in a pandemic.

It was raining so nicely and I was so cozy in bed this morning it was hard to wake up and face the morning.

A friend from the last house, and a decade ago, came to visit with his two kids. Aerin and Will had been friends for 3 or 4 of their five years when we moved. They almost remembered each other. The combined kids fell in with the gang next door (two of hers and two of his in this new combination) plus the spares from around the neighborhood, and played soccer and four square.

Alice requested a bike ride and back to school pants, so we combined them and rode to the mall (6 miles down the bike path) and accomplished the things she needed, and rode back. She rocked it. I am so proud.

The kids, Alice especially, say we should practice listening to them now, so when we are old and getting dim we will have the habit of paying attention. I told her that if nice things happened when we listened, like bike rides and ice cream, then it would be easy for all of us.

And then at the video store I saw another friend with his two kids that I used to see at the Y all the time. They are huge too.

Good lesson this morning on the nose cone of the rocket mare, who thinks the weight of the rein is too much contact. We got some verra nice moments, but wow, hard work.

Aerin is working hard at Bassoon. It is a new clef, new embouchure, new notes, weird fingers... she is doing well, and working hard, but after not too long both her fingers and her cheeks give out and all she can do is honk.

Well, I'll be.

That's my kid! Right on the page at MSN! Although the people who wrote the picture captions haven't a clue.

I got to ride horses today. It was a good day.

Alice is on the Spirit of Massachusetts, steering. Actually by now I hope she is sleeping.

I decided that if Bob really adores Kaboose, he should ride her better, so I administered a lesson of sorts. He has to sit up and ride from the center of his back, instead of the middle of his stomach. Plus be quieter. Part of what he likes about her is that she is more sensitive. Which means (to me) that he has to be a quieter rider, out of kindness and efficiency.

I rode Penny, and we worked on transitions because most of the comments in our tests were balanced between "hollow in transition" and "half halt needs to improve impulsion" - sooo lots of  get-off-my-leg and bend while you do it. Also I HAVE to stop holding her on the left rein so hard, because we have a veryvery bad feedback loop going there.

Leonor was thinking about transforming Ruby into a driving horse, so I watched her do some Clint Anderson lungeing and then I put a surcingle and bridle and side reins on her and we did some classical dressage lungeing. I could see her thinking. She is not sure. Also when I took off her tack, she trotted over to the gate, unstead of hanging around mooching for peppermints. Which made me laugh, because nearly nothing makes her not mooch for peppermints.

the tall child is tall(er)

yes, that is your chocolate child, Txanne

the minuses:

I can't think of any other pluses. The croci won't appear till the freezing mostly stops. Spring won't start until I see a crocus. 

In other news, the red mare, the bike ride on Sunday in the amazing sun, and the fabric made of washers that I constructed yesterday
Also, I used a saddle on the blonde Haflinger tank in my lesson today, and it felt Really Odd. I couldn't feel his back, and I felt kind of bereft. And those dangly things I was supposed to put my feet in? What a curious concept(!)

And finally, may I protest some major inadequacies in the mood choices? There is no Present, no Inquisitive, no Puzzled - to name a few I have wanted to choose and been unable to. humph. We are Not Impressed.

I wrote all about it here.

I'm tired.

It was a really good day.