Okay, funniest thing happened when I got to Boston last Thursday. (I might add, somehow making it to the airport alive on 3 hours of sleep at 5 in the morning… yes!) Kristine (my sis), Adam (her hubby), and I are walking through the T station at Logan airport. This weird guy is having an argument with the station manager, and the following conversation ensues:

Station manager lady: "Get outta heahre!"
Weird Guy: "MBTA are fascists! You screw us all!"
SML: "You're annoyhaying! You do this every day! Get outta my station!"
WG: "You're a fascist!"

And so on… of course, it was probably funnier being there, since SML had a really thick Boston accent and the WG kept screaming about fascism and how the MBTA sucks at life.

The next day, we get on the T near my sister's apartment and the quarter receptacle has jammed. We're standing by the door, waiting to get on, and the T operator is doing roundhouse kicks to the quarter machine while we're trying not to crack up. We get on, and he continues to kick the living s$#* out of the machine while I frantically dig my camera out to take a photo… alas, I wasn't able to get it out in time. Although at the next stop the door got jammed and he also nailed that thing with his foot a few times.

I can see it now:
"Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority 'T' operator manual, Appendix D.
If the change container jams, please perform the following:
1) Clear area of passengers.
2) Kick container.
3) Repeat step 2 until machine has unjammed or ripped out of the floor."

Gotta love public transportation.

I just have to say that Trinity's Daily Jolt now sucks big time. This year's Daily Jolt Big Scary Halloween Contest did not have ANY entries from Trinity because, well, no one sent any in! No promotion… nada. So once again, we are given -142 points for participation and -23,850 points for overall Jolt coolness. (Fortunately, I am no longer tied to the Jolt, so my website administration karma remains unchanged.)

This past Sunday, my horse Cody and I drove up to Damascus, MD to compete in our very first horse combined training event ever at Waredaca.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with combined training, aka eventing, here's a little blurb off the Western PA Combined Training Association's site:

Eventing or Combined Training, as it is also called, is a "combination of three riding disciplines that present the horse and rider with the ultimate riding challenge. In dressage, the first discipline, horse and rider work together on the flat to achieve balance, suppleness and relaxation while performing a series of prescribed movements at the walk, trot and canter.

The second discipline, cross-country, is considered the heart of combined training and has a much different approach than that of dressage. Speed and endurance play a crucial part in the ability of horse and rider to gallop "across country" jumping solid obstacles that vary in height and width (depending on the experience of horse and rider). The jumps in cross-country are mostly natural in design, such as logs, streams, and banks.

Finally, as the last phase of a combined training competition, show jumping tests horse and rider for accuracy and obedience. After challenging dressage and cross-country tests, a show jumping course will decide the final ribbon winners.

Yeah. Anyway, so since this was Cody's first time at an event and the first one I've done in about 4 years, we did the very lowest division possible - Elementary, which is a walk/trot dressage test and the jumping phases consist of teeny 18" high jumps.

Cody tends to get a little nervous and high strung when we're in an unfamiliar place, so I was just trying to get through the day without getting killed. Dressage was decent, although he whinnyed to the other horses the entire test. Dork. Show-jumping was next (they ran that before XC), and he jumped over everything in there. Finally, cross-country was good, except for the part where he slammed on the brakes when he saw the humongous lake next to the road we had to trot on. Cody has this fear of water, so when he sees this large body of water, he stops and tries to turn around:

Cody: "What the…? You KNOW I don't do water!"
Me: "We're not going in it, dummy… just trot past it."
Cody: "Um, no. Screw you, I'm going home!"

Anyway, after a brief argument, he trots right through the road, past the lake, and we finish with no problems or penalties.

Overall, we finished 11th out of 15, which wasn't too terrible, but considering it was our first time out… not too shabby. And I'm very proud of him for being a big brave horse and jumping over everything I asked him to.