DON'T YOU JUST LOVE THE LOOK ON THIS CAT'S FACE?

It just kills me. Has nothing to do with anything else, but....

So tonight I am NOT watching a movie about Gandhi - I am watching "Dirty Jobs" (one of my FAVORITE shows on television - I LOVE Mike Rowe), so listen, I CAN GRIPE and COMPLAIN and LIST all the stupid things in my life that are bothering me tonight (any and all Gandhi fans, stop reading right now):

1. Now, Harmony, don't read this one - It is IMPOSSIBLY hot and muggy tonight, and we have no breeze at all. I have three fans on me, I am practically naked, and I am sweating like a pig (side bar here - did you know that pigs actually cannot sweat? That's why they are always laying around in the mud - it's to regulate their body temperature when it's hot).

2. I literally caused a horse to flip today. We have real grass here for at least the monsoon season (see above) and a few weeks following, so I have been taking the horses out to graze (save some on the cost of hay).

Let me set up the screen for you - I have two horses who are like night and day. Najale is young, excitable and LOVES to jump around, rear up and kick his hind legs out any chance he can. Sally is old (about 70 from a horse's view), methodical and INSANE if she is separated from Najale. He's not her biological child, but EMOTIONALLY she has tied herself quite literally to his side ("tied with a silver chain" - line from a great Crosby Stills Nash song).

So it's difficult to take the two of them anywhere together - Najale is racing around, showing off with stunts and bucks and kicks, while Sally is panicking that he's going to get out her sight but at the same time unable to keep up with him.

Brilliant me, I think, well, since Sally is always certain to hang around, I'll just keep hold of Najale and simply tie the lead rope around Sally's neck with a hang-man's knot (that really is the name of the knot).

And it worked - for about ten minutes. Then I noticed that the knot on Sally was sliding up her neck (actually, it was sliding DOWN as she had her head down grazing), and AS I WAS STEPPING OVER TO HER to tighten the knot, and get it back down (up), she STEPPED on the rock, panicked, began to fight against it, causing the knot to TIGHTEN, and then literally THROWS herself backwards.

Poor old girl, it took me a couple of minutes to calm her down enough to get to the knot, and then a bit to get the tightened knot unDONE. I don't know if she will ever trust me again. She wasn't hurt, thank goodness, but shook up pretty good.

Of course, while this is happening, I simply deserted Najale, throwing his rope down and racing to Sally. What does he do? Nothing - remains exactly where is was, chomping on the grass peacefully.

3. I spent about 45 minutes helping my daughter Joy prepare for her food handler's exam (fast food workers need to have it renewed every three years, I think). But it isn't just quizzing her - it's explaining what metal stick thermometers are, how you use them, what latex is, why there is that little F by cooking temperatures, how big four inches is, and why ice cools things....

I am very proud of Joy, and how much she has done with her limitations. And I have in the past been allowed to read the questions to her as she takes the quiz, and then rephrase them so she understands what the question is actually asking while not giving away the answer....

But going through a 25 page pamphlet while sitting at Carl's Jr. during the lunch rush.... I'm just grateful it's only every three years.


Wow - thanks, Harmony and Jen. This helped.