This will be so awesome...

Tomorrow night will be the final class in the beginner workshop. I actually got up on Saturday and went to a beginner "flow" class as well, which was nice even though it caused me to rearrange my entire Saturday morning.

There's another beginner workshop being offered starting next week, as well as a "next level" one. I've been wrestling with whether I should re-take the beginner class or move on to the next level.

This morning it hit me: since I am planning to try to go to two classes a week anyway, and since the workshop package actually works out to be a little cheaper per-class than the dropin rate... maybe I'll sign up for both. That would be Monday and Thursday classes, which spaces them pretty well, and I can push myself a little at one class and consolidate at the other. I am a GENIUS!

Yesterday and the day before were in the +25 Celsius range (American friends, I have no idea what that is in Farenheit, you'll have to do the conversion yourself, but it's mighty warm.) I went out to the barn last night to longe Mitzi, who still hadn't had her once-every-spring blowout on the longe line.

One of the other boarders was there and asked if I planned to ride. I said no, not until we got the explosion out of the way. (Seriously, it's been frozen or sloppy-wet for weeks, and then suddenly POOF!)

And then I looked at my little white polka-dot mare, and she was a little grey-and-dirty-brown pinto, and I knew if I had planned to ride I would not have been able to anyway because there was no WAY I was getting all that filth off her last night. She was mud-luscious black from her breastbone (including armpits) to her udder. How do horses even DO that?

And then she got out on the line and went from trot to canter in two easy steps, although she seemed fairly sensible at first. And then EEK A WOLF! and she took off, went around one circle bogging her head and flagging her tail and pogoing behind like she was planning to really get Western, settled down more or less, and ran and ran and ran.

Switched directions after about ten minutes and ran and ran and ran.

Cooled out, went back in the barn all soft eyes and relaxed ears, and brushed a few cats' worth of hair and a couple pounds of dirt off her.

And then I listened to Cat Stevens all the way home.

Yeah. I dunno about today, but it was definitely spring yesterday!

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's
spring
and

the

goat-footed

balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

So it turns out the smartest person in Canada is an offensive lineman for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.

According to a two-hour CBC reality/game show that tested "six areas of the Theory of Multiple Intelligences: linguistic, logical/mathematical, visual/spatial, bodily/kinesthetic, musical and interpersonal."

Based on the evidence of my dad, I never thought football players were dumb, but this is interesting to know!

I was on the bus this morning (yay, end of transit strike) and was looking at Facebook on my Blackberry. I found this, and now everyone on that route is wondering who that woman was who kept giggling to herself:



Thanks, Facebook Friend! It's nice to start Friday with a laugh!

A friend of mine shared this, and I followed suit.



None of you will be surprised to hear, the first person who "Liked" it was my mother. Yeah, she'd always have approved of the sentiment, but since she watched all those episodes of The Wire, she's definitely more relaxed about language.

Obviously.

Retired some years back, the Labrador helicopter was once used for search-and-rescue:



I was sorry when they retired, just because I always thought it would be reassuring, to see that smiling face coming toward you!

Airshow footage of an Avro Vulcan doing a low pass. It's short, so watch all the way to the end with the sound on:



Pilot humour, clearly!