Carnivals, cotton candy, and quarterhorses.

Oh god. I am visitor 1111 to MY very own blog. What could this mean? For years Dad and I used to joke about 11:11. When I rarely look at the clock, this is the time it always seems to be. Strange. Coincidental. Whatever. And now, on to the backposting. I will (try) to avoid doing this in the future, but too many good stories have come and gone for me to just breeze on past.

First, there was the carnival of June 17th. Growing up in a wee blink of a small Illinois town, the annual summer carnival by Skinner Amusements was about the best (and only, for that matter) thing this town had to offer. Sure, there were the daily trips to the pool on our summerlong passes, but nothing could beat the carnival. The tilt-a-whirl, the spider, the scrambler, the paratroopers... these were the best rides ever made. To this day, my dad still likes to tease about the children's immobile cars & motorcycles carousel-type ride, which would simply go around in a small circle and make a very unpleasant noise which went something like, "ratdatdatdatdatdatdatdat (brief pause, followed by) ratdatdatdatdatdatdatdat!!!" Then there were the games like the failproof pick-a-duck, the impossible toss-a-ping-pong-ball-into-a-fishbowl-and-win-the-fish-which-would-then
-die-the-next-day-and-make-you-cry, the whack-a-clown, and the infamous
"basketball" toss which infallibly always had the hoop about 1 inch smaller than the actual diameter of the basketball. And lest we forget! The glorious,I love you, Cotton Candy Lady

beautiful, fluffypuffy cotton candy which you could watch being made before your very eyes (nowadays, they add just a few more preservatives and just enough hydrogenated miscellanea and sell the cotton candy in bags--- then referred to as "fluffy stuff"--- which creates a shelf life of at least 75 years.) After not having been to this carnival in close to 20 years, I'm picturing that everything has changed, the rides would be different, there would be no "homemade" cotton candy, or old-fashioned games, or bingo, or fire department water fights or anything. But oh, how completely wrong I was! My sister and her husband and I decide to hit the parade first (which always signaled the last day of the carnival) and it was just as fun as we remembered it. We parked and walked down the driveway of the home we grew up in, reminiscing. And who do we see, in her usual position? Our next door neighbor! Haven't seen nor talked with her in at least 10 years. It was tons of fun chatting and catching up, and we laughed about old stories and she gave us a tour of the house. Pretty much exactly like I remembered it! The parade featured the same baton troupe which was led by the same ancient woman who has coached this all-girls team for years. There were the tractors, the summer softball teams. And the CANDY. Floats and parade participants thew candy and gum in tradition like they have for the past umpteen years. It was a lot of fun. After the parade, we made our way down Main Street to the parade thoroughfare, and bought a few tickets. Damn, those rides are expensive now! I remember the olden days when we'd simply buy a wristband which would be good for two nights of riding or something. Anyway, we picked out a few rides, and got in line. Soon, we learned that it was not a wise idea to 1) go on rides after just finishing a couple carnival corn dogs, and 2) to be the only adults on the rides, thereby having the weight advantage and thereby building enough momentum in whatever ride-car we were in to send us spinning uncontrollably like the Tazmanian Devil after 10 espressos. Yikes, there were a couple close calls there! We thought our last selected ride - the Paratroopers - would be calm enough. Sis and her husband and I piled into one of the little bucket seats (again, people, not made for THREE adults!) and Mr. Paratrooper Carny came along to fasten our bucket seat gate latch & lock us in. About 20 seconds later, we hear:
Mr. Paratrooper Carny: (shouting across the way to Earl, Mr. Other Ride Carny) "Earl, I can't get 'er goin'!!"
Earl: (shouting back) "You've gotta turn the generator up!"
We hear some grinding, something that sounds like a bicycle chain launching off a 1o-speed going 35 miles an hour, and then...
Mr. Paratrooper Carny: "Earl, I GOT NO CONTROL!!"
Earl: (shrugs his shoulders and holds his hands to each side without further response)
US: "Um, sir? We'd like to get off at this point!"
We get our tickets refunded and decided that death by Paratroopers was really fairly unnecessary on this particular date. Five minutes later, we notice The Paratroopers are up and running to full tilt. We threw caution to the wind and tried it again. We survived, and only felt slightly ill afterwards. We also noticed that part of the problem could have been that the Paratroopers were powered by a Troy-Bilt lawnmower motor. I guess when you try to keep the same rides going year after year for 50 years, you need to be creative. We got our cotton candy, some raffle tickets, a pizza to go, and, with our formerly pale skins baked to perfection, decided to call it a day. I also should mention that out of every five people there, I knew at least three of them. It was very, very bizarre. And lots of fun and laughs.

* * * * *

Rewind again, to earlier that very same morning. MY FIRST dressage riding lesson, in, oh, 6-1/2 years! It felt fantastic to be back in the saddle again. I have to admit, I felt a little too sure of myself getting back on again after not having ridden in so very long. Thought I'd just start right back in again with all my lateral work I had been working on previously... the leg yields, the shoulder-ins, the turning on the haunches and the whole bit. Uh, right. Former iron-like riding calf muscles? Gone. Riding stomach muscles? Fat chance. How about balance?? Nope! After almost seven solid years of riding lessons and not having ridden for another 6-1/2 years, I had to go back to the drawing board, at least temporarily. I rode Scotch, a cute little old quarterhorse of only about 15.2 hh. He was just about as wide as he was tall, which was good considering it's been so long. I was lucky enough to be able to track down my old trainer I had been riding with before, so it was neat reconnecting with her and getting back into the swing of things. She has a beautiful new riding, breeding, and stable facility with a fantastic domed indoor riding arena, fancy stalls, cross-country course, outdoor pens, and riding trails. Love it! Wasting no time, we started into the lesson and she immediately had me get rid of the stirrups and start in with the leg-strengthening exercises at the sitting trot. Hello, balance, welcome back! I would also like to add that anyone who thinks that horseback riding isn't exercise couldn't be more wrong. We also worked on trotting while standing and keeping my legs in the correct position. Even when I was regularly riding several times a week, this was always a "problem area" for me. A good saddle works wonders, but it's definitely not something you should rely on. As usual, I had set my expectations for myself unreasonably high for my first lesson, and felt a little frustrated-- yet elated ( ! ) to be doing one of my favorite activities of all time again.

I had another lesson this past Saturday, this time riding Dee, a 24 ( ! ) year old little QH mare. She's had a lot of training, so she was really neat and taught me a few things. I still have a long way to go before I'm able to get back to where I was, but I think I made some improvements since the last lesson. I really focused on "melting" into the saddle (you know what I mean, horsie readers!) and concentrated on maintaining my "jelly" ankles, posting from the bellybutton and not from the legs, and getting into the almost pedal-like motion at the sitting trot. No stirrups! Someday, you will be mine, oh beautiful dressage horsie!!!

And now you see why it takes me so very, very long to write. Fini, for now, sleepy readers!