Books, Stan, and the Copacabana

"That which you manifest is before you." —Enzo

From "The Art of Racing in the Rain" by Garth Stein.

I read the above book this week and highly recommend it. Forget "Marley and Me", read "The Art of Racing in the Rain", it's riveting.

Anyway, enough of Slave Driver's book review. I went to see my horse, Dreamer, on Tuesday, and smeared more Xxterra on Stan(for you Confessions of a Slave Driver Virgins, "Stan" is the name I've given to the Sarcoid tumor that is on my horse, Dreamer's, leg.) Here are the comparison pictures:

Stan, April 22



















Stan, May 5



















I was pleasantly surprised. I could see a marked reduction in Stan's size, and a lot of the chunky, ookie bumps have sloughed off. The large mass on the left (I think of it as Stan's head, and the rest is Stan's body. Kind of a Sarcoid "Jabba the Hut") has shrunken considerably, so yay!

Dreamer turned 20 this year, and is doing pretty well for an old man. He's maintained his weight and, althought not toned at all, (but who am I to judge...) he has no other health issues.

I dragged The Kid along with me because she needed a Marti Gras mask for English class. They're studying Shakespeare. It's best not to ask. I am, after all, the parent of a teenager, so my role in life is to drive, pay, smile, and nod. She shed him out while I ran over to Saddle Up! (no, I'm not overly excited about that store; that's the name, complete with "!") to buy a bag of Strategy. Eventually I'll switch him over to Purina senior feed but for now, since he is maintaining his weight, I'll leave well enough alone.

Today is our semi-annual barn employee meeting. We always have a new crop of drivers, so the meeting is to reinforce the safety rules and policies of the carriage barn. We are pretty much unsupervised out there, so the seasoned drivers end up policing the novices. And unlike our brethren on the east coast, we are fortunate not to have the Humane Society or PETA breathing down our necks every minute of the day.

Mostly, the long time employees just keep the newbies from doing stupid shit. But that's a blog for another day...

Two more things before I wrap this up:

First, I'm leaving you with an earworm, (an earworm is a song you just cannot get out of your head. Annoying, I know, but since I've had this one for 2 days I feel compelled to pass it along to you. Sorry.)

(Feel free to add your own lyrics, or, ignore the entire thing)


(Sung to the Copacabanna by Barry Manilow)

His name was Stanley, he was a sarcoid,
And though we froze him so he'd die he just wouldn’t say good-bye
But then Xxterra came to our rescue
and once applied to all that skin we knew that we were gonna win
Stan went from big to small, someday not there at all
I have science and a good vet,
Who could ask for more?

Get rid of Stanley, Stanley the sarcoid,
Tumor that lives on my Appy,
Get rid of Stanley, Stanley the sarcoid!
Get rid of Stanley and we can be happy
With Xterra! …We'll go for rides…



And second is a WTF picture I took in front of Target. Feel free to discuss. Better yet, make up a caption for it.