O Holy Nightmare

Xmas Eve

Just as I get home from feeding the horses at my local barn, Suz rings to tell me that "Silas isn't right" and she has called the vet. It's the call every horse owner dreads, with the c-word hovering, menacing but left unsaid.

But at first it didn't sound like colic.  He was cold to the touch, shivering, temp 98F.  There was freezing rain but he was dry under his spiffy new waterproof sheet and his winter coat is thick and fuzzy.  In fact, he's only had a sheet for about a month and a half.  He survived his first three winters with no blanket and never a sign of minding the cold.  My first thought was that he had sweated under the unaccustomed sheet and gotten chilled from that but they quickly warmed him up, he stopped shivering, his temp returned to normal, but his eye was dull and he wouldn't eat.  He wasn't kicking his belly or showing other signs of colic though, and he was pooping.  [Sorry non-horse people, but the presence or absence of poop is the difference between life and death for horses, so we're obsessed by it in a way that we understand seems bizarre to you.]

But the freezing rain delayed the vet's arrival and by the time Dr. C. arrived Silas was wanting to roll and the barn slaves were walking him around the indoor.  Suz gave him oral banamine for pain relief.  He was liking the attention but still obviously not his normal cheeky self.  Vet gave buscopan and butorponal for pain relief.  He heard gut sounds in all four quadrants [horses fart a lot – sorry again, non-horse people] but he did detect what he thought was a slight impaction in the right colon.  He was severely dehydrated so he started an IV and also tubed him.  Silas was refluxing badly – he got 9 litres of fluid.  The more he examined him, the more serious it appeared, and it was decided that he needed to go to hospital, at the very least for the IV and to administer pain meds since obviously the oral banamine was getting nowhere.

Luckily, Suz was both able and willing to trailer him the hour and a half to the nearest hospital.  Did I mention Xmas Eve is also her birthday?  I was beside myself and helpless being both broke and far away; I can never repay her dedication and kindness.  Her response was simply that she knows I'd do the same for her, which is true.  And she and everyone else at her barn adore Silas and would do anything for him, never mind me.  When I lamented her birthday and Xmas Eve being ruined, she replied that she was just happy she caught it in time to help him, that she could have found him dead or beyond help, as has happened in the past.

But Suz's devotion to me and my baby boy was not shared by the hospital.  They would not admit him without a credit card that would hold $10K, which is the typical amount for colic treatment, and all three of my cards are maxed out.  It's the first time in my life that has happened and I have had no access to credit for an emergency such as this.  To make matters worse, I have always been diligent about insuring Silas since before he was first shipped to me as a weanling.   But I just had to let his insurance lapse because I could not afford the premium.  This makes me sick because insurance would have covered all of this staggering expense that is now going to be piled on top of my existing debt.

So what did I do?  I called one credit card, lied about my income, and got a $2500 increase on my credit limit.  A start, but not enough.  Back when my dog was sick, I had used a special credit card just for vet bills.  But he died in 2011 and it had since been deactivated for lack of use.  I had to reapply for it, again lying about my income, and got a $7K limit.  That gave me at total of $9.5K.  Not quite the $10K minimum they wanted, but they took it, thank fuck.

It was nearly 4pm before he arrived and was examined and I got some news.  I have never been so scared in my entire life.  And this was Xmas Eve, my favourite holiday.  Looking back, I don't know how I got through the day.

Sometimes just the bumpy trailer ride alone can get a colicky horse to poop but no such luck.  Vet at hospital at least sounded cool and competent over the phone.  She said he had a huge impaction, not small like regular vet had opined, and his small intestines were extremely distended and severely displaced.  They tubed unbelievable amounts of foul reflux.  She said she had never smelled such an odor, quipping that "Silas was making silage."  It had clearly been brewing for awhile, but he'd eaten his dinner with his usual gusto the previous evening, kicking his dish and demanding it be filled as per his usual entitled insistent attitude.  Friesians have a reputation for being so stoic that by the time they refuse food and actually show clinical symptoms of illness, they are practically dead.

They loaded him up with oil, salt water, and drugs for pain and to relax the gut and encourage motility and said they'd ring me Xmas morning unless there was a change for the worst:  "No news is good news."

I spent a literally entirely sleepless Xmas Eve night with the phone on my pillow, willing it not to ring, and trying not to imagine worst-case scenarios.  For the non-horse people reading this, the dread is that the intestines will twist, necessitating surgery to remove the necrotic section.  Friesians do not do well with anaesthesia, and the prognosis for colic cases needing surgery is extremely poor.  Most who go into surgery do not wake up.

Xmas Day

Vet reported that he was much brighter in the morning – he'd pooped twice and pulled out his IV, and was making it very clear that he was NOT happy the other horses were getting fed and he wasn't.  But there wasn't much change internally – impaction not cleared, still bloated, and small intestines still horribly displaced.  He wasn't coming home but vet was optimistic that he just needed more time and that surgery could still be avoided.  They'd given him lots of mineral oil which she hoped to see streaming disgustingly down his legs by the next morning.  I breathed, just a little bit, but still got no sleep Xmas night.

Boxing Day (or St. Stephen's Day, as you prefer)

No oil.  I had hoped for better news this morning but exam (I'll spare non horse people the details of how this is done) showed that the small intestines were still displaced and blockage must not be clear due to the oil's non-appearance.  They were giving him hot mashes and horse tea (water with a handful of sweet feed mixed in), which he was eagerly sucking down.  We decided that turning him out for awhile might shake things back into place.  (Also, feeling better and not being used to confinement, he was climbing the walls in the stall.)  There was a risk he could roll and create the dreaded torsion that would necessitate surgery, but, at this stage, vet and I agreed that the likelihood movement and even rolling would help outweighed the risk it could hurt.  Her hypothesis is that the intestine is resting on a section of colon that is still impacted and once it clears it will fall back into place.  If not, well, the other possible explanations are all ominous.  She said she'd update me later.

Unfortunately, per the evening update, he didn't move around much in turn-out – lazy or just exhausted from the ordeal.  So, the plan is to keep giving him tea and mash overnight and hope to see that oil by morning.  At this point, I am so tired I can hardly see straight.  I desperately wish I could see him but can't afford to drive all that way and have nowhere to stay if I could.

And he won't be coming home tomorrow even if impaction is cleared and intestines are back to normal because the next step is challenging with hay to see if he colics again or digests it with good motility.  So, he won't be released until at least Wednesday at this point.  And Suz is out of town for a week's much-deserved holiday so getting him home is a problem.  Luckily, she has a boarder who is willing to pick him up after work any night this week.  I HATE to be in anyone's debt, but I have no choice here.

I hoped he'd be out of the woods by now, and surgery would be definitively ruled out.  But I have another anxious night ahead.  I wish I could just be with him, even if there is nothing I could do to make him better.  I just want to touch him and talk to him and tell him I love him a hundred times a minute.

Un-Happy Valley Half-Marathon

Some people run to win, some run to live, some do it out of masochism, some genuinely love it, others just want to build cardiovascular fitness to play their sport of choice.  Most are trying to outrun Father Time.

Me, I run to eat.

I love to bake.  I prefer to bake for other people but I have been known to, um, taste things I've baked.  I love wine, and cider.  I love Mexican food, as well as Indian, Thai, Greek, Italian, and pretty much the entire UN of food options.  I love chocolate and pizza a little too much to have ever found out if skinny feels better than they taste.  And I love ice cream just slightly more than life itself.

In the horse world, we call horses that seem to get fat on air "easy keepers".  You have to feed them a fraction of what a typical horse of their size and workload would need to prevent them from resembling a real-life Thelwell pony.  Alas, I'm an easy keeper, too.  I can maintain my weight on far fewer calories than is typical for someone of my age, size, and activity level.  I have to exercise tremendous restraint in order to be able to fit through doorways.  No exercise burns as many calories as running.  It also suits my solitary nature.

So, if I don't run, I can't eat, and that's no fun.  I took a long break from running when I was depressed and unhappy with my life, career, and relationship.  Alas, I did not take a commensurate break from eating, and I am paying for that still.  I have lost over half of the weight I gained but I still have many miles to go to run off the remainder (which I wish could be done without losing the boobs, but that's a rant for another post).

Goal-oriented by nature, I entered the lottery for the NYC Marathon when I began running again, and I commenced a more ambitious training program than I had undertaken when I ran it in 2002.  But my back decided to thwart my plans, and I have completed less than a quarter of it.

I'd signed up for a few halfs as part of marathon training.  I wrote about the Kingdom Run in August, which remains my favourite race despite the fact that I always finish last.  Today was the inaugural Happy Valley Half-Marathon, created by the owner of my local gym, where I have been attending at least six classes per week, along with yoga, cycling, and working at the barn, to augment my running.

I knew that, being 14 years older and 40 lbs. heavier than the last time I ran a marathon, getting back up to my usual snail's pace would be a challenge.   Nonetheless, my stubborn goal for the marathon remains to beat my previous time of 5 hours.  Unfortunately, nothing in my training indicates it is realistic to expect to finish in less than 6 ½.  I am not built for speed, but such an abysmally slow time would not even count as a finish for me, no celebration and no reward deserved.

Was not wearing this t-shirt.

Pace has been much more of a problem for me than endurance, so I have focused my training on improving my average pace per mile, but with my training having ground to a halt over the summer due to my back, I haven't made much progress.  My Kingdom Run time was 3:01; my goal today was to beat 2:30.  I failed.  My time was 2:44.  I wasn't quite dead last but I was finisher 349 out of 358.  The winner, 21, male, finished in 1:23, and the first female finisher, also 21, finished 9^th in 1:32.  Now that's a time I wouldn't be embarrassed to post.  The August race was run entirely in the rain, which was unpleasant but is unlikely to have slowed me down any.  The rain of the last two days abated before today's race, thank goodness, but it was replaced by a bitter cold wind.  The course was covered in wet leaves.  I ran gingerly and was fine – my running shoes are worn through and have no tread, so I have to be careful no matter the conditions (no, I am not an idiot – I had planned to replace them before the marathon but finances did not permit) -- but I saw a number of people slip and fall.  I wore a scarf over my face but I have cold-activated asthma and breathing was absolute misery from start to finish.  I do enjoy running immensely, and I never once felt tempted to walk during the Kingdom Run.  I hadn't a single sore muscle during or after the race, and I finished feeling like I could have turned around and ran it again.  Today I had to fight for every step.  I didn't walk – that is an unbreakable rule of racing; I don't think you belong on the course if you have to walk – but I wanted to.  My quads hurt the entire time, which has never happened before, and there was never, until the last mile, a moment when I thought, "I've got this".  There certainly wasn't a millisecond when I thought, "I can easily run twice as far in two weeks".  I pushed myself through the entire race, freezing and completely miserable, without enjoying a single stride.

It also seemed weirdly long.  The first mile marker sign I saw was mile 5, and I was feeling like it should have been at least 10 at that point.  Each mile after that felt like four on a normal run.  I was expecting RunKeeper to show me that the course had been marked inaccurately and I'd really run two-three times as far, but it only said 13.4 when I crossed the finish line, a negligible difference.

After the August race, I drove back to the lovely guesthouse where I was staying, showered, and went back into town for lunch.  I never at any point felt even slightly sore or tired that day.  Today I showered and went for my usual Sunday brunch at a local café, which revived me slightly, but I still needed a nap, and I am not a napper.  I was ambivalent about going to a concert tonight but decided that I might as well go because nothing productive was going to get done today.  Tomorrow, I'll do an easy 6 miles and see how it feels.  I should not be the tiniest bit fatigued or sore from a half at this point.  The brutal weather is one obvious culprit.  I stood breathing the steam from the shower for a half-hour before my lungs stopped feeling as if they were on fire.  What I really need is to go to the hot tub place.  That would sort me right out.  That was a local haven I lost access to when City Boy left, as they have a two-person minimum.  It pisses me off – they could just use cameras to make sure solo bathers don't drown.  Ok, I am kidding about the cameras, but I do think the policy is unnecessary – I would happily give them my first born to be able to go there.

Besides the weather, another difference between the races may be mental energy.  At the August race, I had just seen Silas and was a blissful week free from a job I hated.  I had hot summer days of freedom to look forward to and a little money to live on until I found a new job.  Now, money's run out, haven't seen Silas in nearly 3 months, and I have to continually tamp down the fear of not getting a job when it's almost November and I haven't yet paid my October bills.  I know I will get one eventually, it's just getting hard to stave off both creditors and panic.  That may be draining some of my running energy.

Thanks to the two solid days of rain, my back had a break from running and felt better than usual before this race.  I have started clenching my hands and jaw tightly when I run, bad habits that waste energy.  I try to stop when I notice but it's an unconscious reaction to coping with the back thing.  Luckily today I got until about mile 4 before it started to seriously impede me, and it wasn't until I had stopped and milled around after the finish and started to walk to my car that it completely seized up. I am still not sure how I got to my car.  I am hoping that it will at worst do the same thing on marathon day: hold off on being completely debilitating until after I cross the finish line -- in, I hope, less than 5 hours.

Noting a minor milestone, because life is fleeting

Ever hear a new song you love so much you can't stop singing it even in bed so you can't sleep because you can't get it out of your head?  I had the rare pleasure of stumbling on such a song yesterday and have been on a high since.

I made use of that today.  City Boy texted me out of the blue to ask me to ride his horse.  Now, I haven't seen him since November, when he was such an appalling arsehole that I was quite happy never to endure his infantile presence again.  I did see him through a window once since, but that doesn't really count:  In July, City Friend gave a reading from her new novel at a bookstore that was unfortunately located a few doors down from City Boy's fencing salle.  As I walked to and from my car, I could see him sitting at his computer, though he never looked up and I sure as hell didn't wave.   Following the reading, we were invited to a nearby bar.  We wanted something non-alcoholic as it was sweltering, we were dehydrated, and we hadn't eaten, so we ordered ginger beer.  After a bit, City Friend said, "Do you feel funny?"  I didn't.  A few minutes later, it hit me.  I asked the barmaid if there was alcohol in the ginger beer.  She said yes, it was a regional variety that was very alcoholic.  I'd never encountered alcoholic ginger beer, not to be confused with the local delicacy Ginger Libation, which you must try if you haven't (go for the cranberry), and neither had City Friend.  I was so thirsty I had nearly finished mine before this discovery.  City Friend, busy being plied with questions about her book, was not even halfway into hers.  We decided she was in better shape to drive home.  I relate this story because not even in this state was I remotely tempted to tap on the window.

City Boy has an arrangement with our trainer to get a reduction in the board he pays for his horse, Bishop, if he allows her to use him for lessons.  Post break-up it was made clear to him that if he tried to dictate that I couldn't ride Bishop, trainer would rip him a new one – and he's already a big enough asshole that he doesn't need a second.  But he did order me not to ride Bishop outside of lessons – he had installed his new Ego Boost in my place and that was her prerogative now.  But the Ego Boost, as predicted, dumped him after six months, and trainer has taken every opportunity to inform him how good it is for Bishop's development for me to ride him.  He resents this, of course, and she says the same about the Ego Boost, who still rides Bishop as well.  Yes, he now has two exes riding and training his horse for him.

Trainer has been unavailable for lessons most of the summer so it has been frustrating as, being unemployed, I finally have time to ride.  City Boy initially enquired if I had a lesson today and I replied with a rant about trainer's absence.  He then said he was going to do some groundwork with Bishop and I could ride after.  When I showed up for the hand-off, he was uncharacteristically subdued.  He offered to hold Bishop whilst I mounted and to adjust my stirrups.  He said I could ride Bishop whenever I wanted.  He asked if I wanted him to wait whilst I rode as the farm was deserted.  I said no; he left.

There was no emotional fall-out from this meeting.  Looking at him, it was impossible to believe we'd shared a bed for 13 years.  I felt nothing.  I've been through so much dealing with the detritus of that relationship in the last year, in therapy and otherwise, I'm not sure what there is left to feel.

That gave me the mental space to deal with my other issue: fear.  I've ridden since I was a kid, and I did some stupid stuff back then (not that you notice the dain bramage), but my confidence waned as my sense of mortality grew, and my confidence was finally and completely shattered in a bad fall seven years ago, around my 40^th birthday.  I fractured my pelvis in three places but it was not the injury per se that haunted me; it was the nature of the fall, from a spook that not a single member of the USET could have sat.  You know those old cartoons where a character goes off a cliff and is sitting there for a few seconds in mid-air, oblivious to his plight?  That was me.  One minute we were trotting sedately across the ring, next I was hanging in mid-air wondering which body part was going to hit the ground first and how much it was going to hurt.  It felt like I had a really long time to think about this.  I swear, my horse was back in the barn, in her stall, before I touched the ground.  It's funny, we spend so much time training horses to do lateral work, and they resist, maintaining that it is just too difficult to move sideways.  But one scary noise and you get some impromptu Olympic-level lateral moves.  Too bad we can't video these to show the horse later, "See, don't tell me you can't do a side pass!"

That fall occurred when I was going downhill in a bleak period of my life and I lost confidence in all areas, not only riding.  What rattled me when I tried riding again was the lack of control.  This was not a spook I could have prevented or anticipated, nor something I could have sat by being a better rider.  That fear made me a timid rider, and horses, being prey animals, are sensitive to their rider's emotions.  If you are tense and nervous, your horse, used to picking up life-saving cues from other members of the herd, assumes there is a good reason for this.  He becomes tense and nervous, and more likely to spook, which creates a vicious circle.  My trainer has cleverly dealt with my fears by working me hard in lessons; she keeps me too busy for fear to get a foothold in my consciousness.  (And it's a win-win because she says she can't work at this high level with any other rider in the barn.)

But now I was alone.  Not just not in a lesson, but the only human on the entire farm.  The chickens, alpacas, goats, and other horses weren't interested, and the barn cat was nowhere to be seen (she wouldn't have cared either).  So, I cued up my playlist on Spotify, set up my wireless speaker in the arena, and rode to music.  I sang out loud, swaying to the music, playing a variety of songs but with the seductive new one in high rotation.  I think Bishop was a bit nonplussed; not sure if he shares my taste.  But he felt I was relaxed and happy, not tense and anxious, so he was, too.

After about 45 minutes of work, and this after City Boy had already lunged him, Bishop was getting a bit fatigued in the heat.  He didn't want to canter and I was going to let it go – he is still green and lacks the confidence to canter with a rider, we'd done a lot of work already, I hadn't ridden in awhile due to trainer's schedule and my back problem, and there wasn't anyone else there.  But then the song from that euphoric scene in Brave when Merida gallops through the countryside happened to come on and I told Bishop he had to go for it.  He caught my excitement and I got a beautiful uphill canter depart.  I didn't make him go in a circle; I didn't ask for a collected canter.  Instead, I whooped and hollered at him and let him go all the way around the arena, as if we were galloping across the countryside, something I haven't done in a decade.  He's normally so afraid of losing his balance cantering with a rider that he won't hold it more than a few strides.  It was such a novel experience for him to have someone whooping at him to go, go, go, that he forgot to be afraid and he figured out how to carry me without trying, he just did it.

Afterward, I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him and he seemed quite pleased with himself.  When I told my trainer later that I thought he'd had fun, she said, "You let him be a horse."  We're always so fixated on what he has to learn, doing exercises that challenge his body and mind, that I don't think he usually has any fun when he is ridden.  He endures it, as horses do, but he doesn't enjoy it.

Why is this blog-worthy?  Well, all blogs are self-indulgent but, more specifically, I have few moments of pure, unadulterated joy in my life.  I am a lucky first-world denizen; it's not that I live in a war zone or in poverty, I'm not depressed.  It's, well, without going into details that would upset family, suffice to say I was raised in an environment where happiness, however fleeting, whether induced by endorphins or luck or love, was feared and discouraged.  Happiness was not to be trusted.  I never bought into this on a rational level, but it has affected me on a subconscious one.  I can't feel that welling of happiness in my chest without having to fight an automatic urge to tamp it down.  The few times true happiness has won through have involved music or horses, and in the last 24 hours, I've experienced both, and combined them successfully.

On Thursday, I ran into a former work colleague in a local coffeehouse.  She was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer last December and quit to focus full-time on her treatment.  With her husband and kids, she is going through her bucket list, trying to make the most of the time she has left.  She was excited to report she'd just gone to a Bruce Springsteen concert.  She's a year younger than me.  I'd like to live life to the full without the wake-up call of a terminal disease.  I'd like to not resist every positive feeling or experience.  So, it's a start.

So, am I officially an adult now?

I just bought a mattress, for the first time in my life.  (Alas, I didn’t see this article on the best mattresses for sex until the next day.  Luckily, it’s so crappy & poorly written that it wouldn’t have made a difference.)

What prompted me to make such an expensive, adult-like purchase?  It's kind of a long story, but, like many such tales, it comes down to pain.

In high school, I bought myself a futon.  It was so much cooler than a conventional mattress & box spring, not to mention cheaper.

& I did the same thing in college, selling that futon to some gullible incoming student when I graduated.

When I moved to Scotland in 1997, I wasn’t living in a dorm or a furnished flat for the first time in my life & I needed some semblance of a bed.  I did, literally, sleep on the floor until I got some temp work & could scrape together the money for a futon.  It was made from organic cotton only, no foam or wool or other fillers.  Calling it “firm” would be generous; I’m not sure it was a huge improvement over the floor.  I shipped it overseas when I moved back to NYC, where it took up most of the floor space in my studio apartment.

I rather liked it on the floor but, when I moved up to MA, I decided it was time to treat myself to a frame, which I have rather charmingly strung with fairy lights.

By 2012, the cotton futon had gotten so compressed that it felt like I was sleeping on concrete.  City Boy bitched about it, too, & I gradually developed chronic lower back pain.  I was unemployed but at one point I was in such agony that I splurged on a cheap new futon, as documented at the time in this blog post.  It had springs in it to make it softer than a regular futon, almost a hybrid form of bedding.  City Boy, of course, refused to contribute to the cost but he did do one useful thing: he procured a feather mattress topper from a friend who was giving it away.

I put the futon & mattress topper on top of the old futon, princess & the pea style.  

It wasn't really a pea; the princess had tucked her
dildo under the mattress & forgotten about it.

For awhile, my back was better.  & when it wasn’t, it gave me an excuse to see my smoking hot chiropractor.

But over the last year, as my life has otherwise gotten better in every respect, my back has gotten worse.  Even sexy chiro can’t help at this point.  The springy futon feels comfy; I have no proof beyond circumstantial evidence that it's the source of the problem.  But I’ve begun to worry there might be permanent damage being done, not to mention how the lack of sleep ages me prematurely & drains my energy.  It affects my ability to focus on work or pleasure, makes me irritable, intrudes upon exercise, & generally circumscribes my life.  This is not the best time for me to be using up the last little bit of credit on the one credit card that isn’t at its limit, but if a new mattress fixes the problem, it will be worth the risk.

Part of fairy tale often left out: Goldilocks stopping to stir her
honey pot when she tried each bed.

I tried a bunch of mattresses, Goldilocks style, &, to be honest, it is difficult to tell in the showroom which will be comfiest in the long run.  I chose a mid-priced option — neither the cheapest nor the most expensive.  I couldn’t splash out on a luxury model, nor do I think all the bells & whistles are necessary, but the money would be wasted if I got a cheap-o model that wasn’t supportive or didn’t last very long.

Trying out the mattresses in the showroom, I was surrounded by couples, many of whom had just bought houses.  Some were buying mattresses for guest rooms, which struck me as a real luxury.  It seemed like such an adult thing to do, like buying property or insurance.  It made me wonder if we ever completely stop feeling like we are play-acting at being adults.  Everyone I’ve asked said that feeling never completely goes away.

Had to pay for delivery as I don’t know anyone with a truck, but they hauled away both old futons, which is convenient, as the alternative would have been to drag them into the garage for raccoons to nest in.  The cat, who hides under the bed when strangers come into the house, was deeply traumatized that it failed to be the safe hiding place she was used to.

The new mattress is so much higher than the futons that it almost completely covers the headboard.  I hope I can still hold onto it. 

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

No new post today.  I had insomnia last night & didn't get to sleep until after 5:30am.  The sun was up. I was awakened by the sound of the weed whacker outside my window at 10:30am and of course couldn't go back to sleep that late in the morning.  So, I got less than 5 hours sleep.  I need 8 but I can function on 7.  I cannot function on less than 7, under any circumstances.  So, that means this entire day is shot.  I won't be able to tackle anything on my "to do" list today, which is frustrating.  Even worse is that I was intending to go to yoga at 7:30am and of course could not do that.  If I try to exercise or really do much of anything without a bare minimum of 7 hours sleep, it makes me ill and aggravates my arrhythmia.  I should be doing so many things, not the least of which is applying for jobs, so, I am not in a good mood today.

Worst insomnia ever.  I know the root cause is anxiety about money and it may have been exacerbated by the weather.  I love hot weather; heat doesn't bother me but, supposedly, our bodies sleep better in cool rooms and it was 99F yesterday and didn't cool down much overnight.  My house usually remains cool all summer—too cool, in fact, as I have had to put the heat on occasionally in cold, damp summers past—but I still wouldn't have an air conditioner even if it didn't.  I hate them.  I'd much rather be hot than cold, although apparently my sleep is affected even if I prefer being warm.

To add insult to injury, the landlady's grandson ran over some of my flowers when he mowed the lawn.  I had carefully nurtured nasturtiums from seed, protected them from the local rabbits, kept them watered during the current drought, and he mowed them down right to the soil.  They had just started to bud yesterday.  He knew I was angry but I couldn't say anything as I can't afford to pay my rent.  Besides, he is the landlady's grandson.  It's not like I dare rip him a new one in any situation.

I hate not having my own farm!  I need my own place, where I can have as many animals as I want, and plant whatever I want, where I want, and restore everything with the best quality materials available.  Neither of my parents has ever owned property so you'd think I'd be used to rentals but I am not the renting type.  I crave control and I am extremely picky about taste and quality and historic preservation and environmental responsibility.  I spend a fair amount of time for a broke person with no house of my own looking at top-of-the-line appliances, retro-styled of course, and countertops and jetted tubs and natural-filtration pools and fantasizing about everything I am going to put in my house when money is no longer an object.  I just wish that day would come yesterday.  I am tired of renting and waiting to be rich.  I don't want a job; I just want money.  If I had money, I'd be too busy to work.  I would be working on my farm and breeding and training my horses, traveling, raising a family, growing my own food.  I'd even learn to sew and make my own clothes if I were rich enough.  I'd write fiction and cookbooks and design knitting patterns, because I'd never be distracted by worries about money.  I'd finish my PhD and publish in my discipline because I wouldn't be too run down from work to focus on it.  I'd study voice again and finally have the leisure to practice and really try to make it as an opera singer, see how far my talents and accelerated study of vocal technique would take me.  I should have been born into a wealthy family, then I could have done all this by now.  Aristocratic and titled would be ideal.  I'd love to be "Lady" or "Her Royal Highness."  Well, wouldn't you?  C'mon.

I think I made a mistake when I was younger.  I vowed never to get married, never to have children, never to be financially dependent upon anyone, and to be with someone only for love.  What I should have realized is that financial stability is the most important thing in life and that someday, when it was too late, I would want a family of my own.  I should have found the richest guy available and married him, regardless of considerations like love or compatibility.  Then I'd have my horse farm, my friesians, my animal rescue, my restored historic house, and even children, perhaps.  Thinking I could earn enough to purchase these things on my own (er, not the children) was foolhardy, naïve in the extreme.  My mother struggled to raise me as a single mom, working long hours at a job she hated to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table by herself.  She always warned me never to become financially dependent upon anyone and never to have children since they are such a financial burden.  I took that message to heart and I still don't believe it is ever a good idea to be financially dependent upon someone else, but the missing piece is that you can't make it on your own.  The world is simply too expensive.  You can't start out poor and claw your way up to being rich on your own.  You need family money to help you start or you need to marry money.  Or you need to get very lucky, making it big in some lucrative field, but that is a fairy tale for a fortunate few.  No, for most of us, to make money you have to start out with money, and lots of it.  The farm I dream of will cost a bundle, and it isn't possible for me to earn enough money to buy it.  I don't think winning the lottery is a good financial plan so, what to do?  All I want is money.  When you don't have it, nothing else matters.

This is not my desired style of house; it just amuses me that the horse is in the dining room.