Family

Moving On

Posted on April 15, 2008 by Debora

Sorry about the long absence. Been dealing with some life changes, and apparently the first thing to go was my usually compulsive need to write.

With crushing irony in light of last month’s romantic marital musings, Steve and I have separated. It wasn’t any lack of love that ended the marriage; we were just too different. Different goals, different values, different interests. During our almost-twelve years of wedlock both of us compromised and sacrificed so much of ourselves to make the marriage work, that by the end we both felt like we’d lost touch with who we really were. Letting go of the struggle was almost a relief.

It was all as amicable as a breakup can possibly be. He kept what was important to him and I kept what was important to me; there was no overlap, nothing we both wanted enough to argue over. That’s a sort of sad commentary in itself, I suppose.

I love this house and Steve doesn’t much care where he lives as long as there’s room for his band equipment, so I stayed here and he moved back in with his parents a quarter-mile up the road. They seem happy to have him: the prodigal son, back safe where he belongs at last. The kids took it hardest, but we’ve made it as easy as possible for them and they seem to be adjusting well.

I could go on and on about all the effort that went into this marriage and why it ultimately failed, but…I don’t feel like it.

So. Moving on.

To celebrate my birthday I did something that I was never able to do with the city-phobic Steve: I took the kids to visit one of my favorite old stomping grounds, the Mission Avenue part of Riverside. I used to live on the corner of 7th and Locust, within walking distance of the library and museums and everything, and my memories of that area are warm.

We started the day with a climb up Mt. Rubidoux. The weather was gorgeous, and all the winter rain made the scenery a lot greener than usual. The Santa Ana riverbed wound lush and verdant alongside the city’s edge, looking nothing like its usual sandy deserty self.

We took the “down road” up. Steeper, but shorter.

The cross at the summit. Its sheer size never comes across in photos:

The view from the top:

The Friendship Tower and Peace Bridge:

Elizabeth likes livin’ on the edge. In each of the next three pics, she is inches away from bone-breaking drops:

At the base of the cross:

On the way down we skipped the roads and took a footpath:

Our next stop was the Riverside Marketplace. We wandered through all the beautiful shops, and picked up some fun trinkets for the kids. Then to the Mission Inn, to admire the wonderful courtyards and all the incredible details.

Then we headed over to the Natural History Museum, which I’ve loved since I was a kid.

By then the kids were starting to get tired, so we called it a day and headed homeward. We stopped in Temec for a nice supper, and got home just as dusk was falling. In spite of all the personal drama going on right now, I think it was the nicest birthday I’ve had in years. It felt like…a new beginning.

Categories: Family, food, Gardening, kids, Life, Love, Marriage, Travel | 7 Comments

Happy Birthday Elizabeth!

Posted on March 15, 2008 by Debora

It’s the Big One-Oh!

XXXOOOXXXOOOXXXOOOXXXOOOXXXOOOXXXOOOXXXOOOXXXOOOXXXOOOXXXOOOXXX

You’ve come a long way, baby! 🙂

Categories: Birthdays, Family, kids, Life | 4 Comments

Insert Money Here –>

Posted on March 8, 2008 by Debora

I found this in Luke’s room today:

I’m not sure he’s entirely clear on how a reward poster works.

Categories: Family, Humor, kids, Life | 3 Comments

Luke’s Boot’s 15 Minutes Of Fame

Posted on March 5, 2008 by Debora

Had a mildly surreal experience today. I got a phone call from Golden Era Productions, asking if we had a young child who was in possession of a horse and a pair of cowboy boots. Seems they’re filming a documentary about some old Montana cowboy and they need some footage of a child’s boot in a stirrup. They were having trouble finding a workable child with workable boots (the shot was supposed to be set in the 1920’s, and the only other child they could find wore purple boots, so no good there), until a guy who knew Steve from the Ramona Pageant gave them our number. They just wanted a shot of Luke’s leg and boot, in a stirrup. They wanted to drive up from Hemet today, as soon as he got home from school, and take it. I couldn’t think of any good reason to tell them no, so I said that’d be fine.

They arrived as I was leaving to pick up the kids at the bus stop. Steve met them: two men and a woman, all with various exotic accents and dressed in black. They wanted a darkish horse in the pics, so Steve decided on Sam. They wanted an authentic ranch saddle, so Steve put his own roping saddle on him. When I got back and handed Luke over to them, they gave him an adorable little pair of roughspun brown trousers such a country lad might wear in the ’20’s. He went in the house and put on those and his boots. He put on his hat too, even though it wouldn’t show in the pics.

Even with the stirrups on Steve’s saddle adjusted all the way up to the shortest hole, Luke’s little seven-year-old legs couldn’t reach them. So to get the boot shot right, Luke had to lean way over and stick one foot in the stirrup on the camera side, with the other leg kind of dangling over the seat. He was a good sport about it, but he wasn’t crazy about being on Sam in the first place, and I could see him trembling a little sometimes.

The whole shoot was rather elaborate, with ladders and ginormous cameras involved. The woman, Debbie, gave me a pile of paperwork to fill out, waivers and such, during which I learned that Luke would be paid $100 for the filmographical use of his foot. He was pleased to hear it.

Then they packed up their equipment and left, and Luke’s stint in show biz was over. He didn’t look particularly sorry to see them go. He did ask me if I’d get him a pair of brown pants like that for his own though; I think he kind of dug the look. They did look awfully cute on him.

I’d love to get my hands on a copy of that documentary when it comes out. “LOOK! There’s Luke’s boot, there it is!!”

Maybe we can get it autographed by Tom Cruise. ;^)

Categories: Family, Horses, kids, Life | 2 Comments

Long Day

Posted on February 25, 2008 by Debora

My old mare Stormy will turn 21 years old in March. In April we will have been together for twenty years. We were bold adventurers and fearless explorers in our younger days, but she’s grown past the age where tearing up and down mountainsides or facing down calves in a cutting pen holds any appeal for her. I’m training a young filly for new adventures, and Stormy has become my daughter’s horse. The quiet life of a child’s trail mount suits her just fine these days.

She is precious to me beyond words, an indelible part of my internal landscape.

This morning as I was getting ready to drive the kids to the bus stop, I saw Stormy lying down in the corral. She loves to take naps on sunny afternoons. Not on cold mornings, on frozen mud. And there was something about the stiff-legged way she lay there that made my heart sink into my stomach.

I went out to her and she got up, but the second I walked away from her she lay back down and started to roll. Classic symptom of colic. Her silvery-white coat was heavily caked with mud and sweat, and by the looks of the ground in the corral she’d been rolling around for some time.

I had to get the kids to the bus, but I ran in, woke up Steve, and told him what Stormy was doing. He came out, got her up again, put a halter on her and started walking her around the pasture. She kept trying to lay down and roll; it was hard to keep her on her feet and moving.

When I got back, I took over walking her while Steve called the local vet. For once old Zaddick didn’t fuss and complain about making a ranch call; he said he’s been getting an unusually large number of colics lately and most of them haven’t ended well. He said he’d be right over, and he was.

He looked rather grim as he checked her out. Her heart rate was alarmingly high, her gums were pale, she was in excruciating pain, and there was deathly silence where the rumblings and gurglings of a healthy gut should be. He shook his head and said it didn’t look good and we shouldn’t get our hopes up for a happy ending. I could barely wrap my mind around the words.

He gave her a sedative and some painkiller, and then gave her the standard mineral oil treatment. If you’ve never seen this procedure, basically it involves running a plastic hose into the horse’s nostril, down her throat and into her stomach. Then a mixture of mineral oil and warm water is pumped in through the tube. If the colic is caused by a simple impaction, this usually gets things moving again. If it’s caused by an intestinal stone or a displacement (‘twisted gut’), then the only answer is surgery, and for a horse Stormy’s age the kindest thing is to just put them down.

Zaddick said the sedative should wear off in twenty minutes or so, and then she could be walked around some more. The painkillers would last longer, a couple hours maybe depending on the situation. By then she should have either had a decent poop or two and feel better, or she would go back to lying down and rolling, in which case we should call him back to give her a humane death.

That was about six hours ago. She’s obviously feeling much better; she hasn’t laid down or rolled since the meds wore off. She has drunk a lot of water, which is good, and she has nibbled halfheartedly at the bran mashes I made for her. She wants to go back in with the other horses. Best of all, when I press my ear to her belly I can hear things gurgling around in there. But…we’re still waiting for that one good poop that will tell us all is well. Until that happens there’s still the possibility of serious problems and a bad ending.

I think she’s going to be okay.

I hope she’s going to be okay.

This has been a very long day.

[Addendum: Right after I posted this, I went out and got her walking around again. And right after that, she made a perfectly lovely poop. HOORAY!!!]

Categories: Death, Family, Horses, Life | 5 Comments