Smelly Mom

One of the things that's different this time around is my tolerance for that horsey smell. When I was a kid I loved the smell of horses. All the smells. But not so this time around. It's particularly strong this time of year the horses are wooly and you can't bathe the manure stains out properly plus with the horses wearing blankets that are caked with ground in poop and it smells like, well.. Ass. It doesn't help that my current barn is barely halfway through the boarder stalls before I leave at 11. They haven't even looked at the school stalls which are pretty foul by then.

The school horses spend most of the morning out in the pasture, so it's not like they're standing in it while they wait for the stall cleaners to get to them. They're fat, well shod and clearly loved, healthy animals. But the smell on my hands and clothes when I get in my car is substantial.

Did some jumping today. I actually rode a small course for the first time since 1992. That's a long time between courses. The horse I was riding was a bit like driving a car with a loose bolt in the steering column. He was brave and honest to the fences, but getting him there was a bitch. I'd be looking over my fence and giving what I KNOW are the correct aids for "turn here" and "Go there" and he'd keep going straight. It was pretty funny. I eventually figured it out. But it was tricky.

But the smell on me afterward is profound. I was thinking of the Seinfeld episode where Elaine can't get the BO smell out of her hair. I get home and I run for the washing machine and the shower. I don't remember needing to do this back in my 20's. I wonder if that's another DNA shift from having two babies is a more profound sense of smell.

Weird.

Wildcard

I came to the Patriots Party late in life. Somehow giving birth to a boy-child shifted my DNA in such a way that I've come to love football. Last Sunday Rich and I went to the Wildcard game between New England and Baltimore at Gillette. Here we are before the game:

We were cautiously optimistic about New England's prospects. Just my luck going to the first home play off game we've lost since 1976. I'm a HUGE Wes Welker fan and I knew it wasn't going to be the same without him. (I plan on naming my next horse Welker. I have her all picked out in my head! She's a 15.2 or 3 super reliable, versatile OTTB that gets the job done. A real packer.) I pretty much knew what kind of game it was going to be in the first 17 seconds when Baltimore ran in for a touch down on the first snap. Everybody in the stadium watched, jaws dropped, stunned. Then Brady fumbled on the first possession. Yeah, it was that kind of game. So, we just kicked back, cheered and enjoyed our fabulous seats. It was still fun just to BE there. Yeah, it would have been even WAY more fun if we had won. But it's still amazing just seeing the players up close.

It was also wonderful watching Julian Edelman's star rising. We've been enjoying his progress all season. I expect great things from him over the next couple of years. He's a spunky ball of testosterone. Everybody was yelling JULIAN!! JULIAN!! every time he made a play. After the third preseason game, Rich posted one of his few status updates ever to FB. It just said "Yeah, Edelman can stay."

And now I get to experience the end of season let down... No more Patriots football? Until August? At least now we root against the Jets and the Colts. And Rich and I are determined to go to at least one or two games per year. Because it's really kind of awesome.

And I hope next time Tom Brady walks into that tunnel after a game he does not look like this. Dude was in serious pain. Next year is going to be much, much better. (Do I sound like a Redsox fan now?)

ps: more game pics here.