Parental Concern...

As I mentioned in previous posts, my parents are in town and my mom provides a great source of entertainment.  She is notorious for not reading when she goes to the grocery store.  The one day I came home and she started complaining about how expensive beef was and I just assumed that it was because I am not exactly in beef country.  I laughed it off, until I was in my refrigerator and saw she bought organic beef.  This made me laugh, because she thinks organic is the devil.  As I was chuckling about her buying organic beef and teasing her, I read the package more carefully and saw that it said, "raised on a vegetarian diet."  Say what?  Is there another diet that cows have besides vegetarian?

This is pretty much a summery of my childhood

(I am the smaller one 

and the bay is the only reason I am still alive,

he took excellent care of me.)

Last year when they came, I took them to a recognized event.  I wanted to go watch and I figured that I could convince them it was fun, since my mom loves jumping.  I ended up volunteering and mostly leaving them to their devices.  By the end of cross country day, my mom wanted to know what were going to be my cross country colors and when Stinker and I were going to be doing this.  At this point I had purchased him, but I hadn't ever seen him.  He was still with D.  Also, it should be noted that I hadn't started jumping either...Some times I wonder if my mom is trying to get me killed.

Fast forward to this year, my mom has been bugging me for months wanting to know if Stinker would be jumping by the time they got here.  I kept telling her we weren't there yet and she was missing the subtleties.  Part of this is I have been down playing all of his EPM issues, because I know her answer would be sell him and get a new horse.  She doesn't get that I am attached to this horse and quite frankly I would be concerned that he would end up in a bad spot if I tried to sell him at this point.  Not everyone wants a horse that doesn't walk and halt consistently.  Since Stinker and I aren't jumping I assured her, she would get to see Pongo and I jump.

What I was hoping she would see...

Well, I had a lesson and was jumping Pongo and my mom got bored.  She ended walking around the pasture looking for birds and not watching.  Despite saying she was.  How do I know she wasn't watching?  Well Pongo and I were attempting a two stride, and I lost his right shoulder and he drifted right, so on landing we were headed straight towards the right standard of the second jump.  I never thought about stopping or bailing on the jump even though, that would have been easiest.  Instead I pop him on his right shoulder as he was thinking about bailing and we ummm took the second jump.  I honestly am not sure how we managed it, but he did it and while it pulled a rail he didn't stop or even hesitate after the pop.  It was not pretty, because it was long and crooked and I lost a stirrup.  My mom didn't even comment on this and I know she would have made fun of me for losing my stirrup if she had been watching.

My face she would have seen had she been watching...

Last year, I asked my mom if she wanted to take a lesson.  I know she rode a little english as a kid, but that has been 50 some years, and they don't have horses any more so I thought it would be fun.  This year I asked her if she wanted to do another lesson and she announced that she would only do it if she could do a jump lesson on Charlie (who she rode last year).  So stay tuned for more comedy of errors.

Please don't kill my mother by getting overzealous...