I think Arizona has given up any attempt at quarantining or staying at home. Our return to 'normal' is a mess, with nonsensical reopenings of stores and dining rooms, all well before our 'safer at home' policy ends. My eyes hurt from rolling them so much.
Whatever.
I start back to work on Sunday. To make our space a little safer and comply with social distancing, we're all working one fewer days a week, so it seems a little less intimidating than going back full time. My schedule for the first few weeks is rough, but I'm ready. My stuff has been cleaned, sharpened, and replaced as necessary.
I've really enjoyed my month off. I know lots of people struggled and were put in a bad place because of all this, but I am very lucky, and very fortunate to not have experienced hardship. I got to spend a lot of time with Truby, do some reading, and increased my home cardio and yoga practices.
I did happen to see a video on facebook that led to some fun. It was posted by The German Riding Instructor, and it was hilarious! (The Darth Vadar one.) So I decided to follow him, and a few days later saw that he was doing online horse shows.
Truby and I don't do jumping, or fancy dressage, so I ignored it. Then later I saw he also had a class called Living Room Classics - for those who couldn't see their horses. I definitely pretended to be a horse or riding a horse and jumping over sofa cushions and old tomato planters as a kid, so I thought that was a great idea.
But I didn't really want to enter, because I didn't think I could do anything better than what the video he posted did.
And then he mentioned he wanted to be creative. He wanted costumes. And I realized...
*I* have a costume
So I hatched a plan. At first I was going to do it in my apartment, as a Hunter Derby. I had a whole thing set up. I had a trot fence, I was going to go out on the balcony for a hand gallop, it was going to be great.
My husband was not as excited, and refused participate, which meant no one to film. So I went to plan B, which was to do it at the barn, with M, Cinco's owner, helping.
We. Had. A. BLAST!
After taking the horses for a 2 mile hike in the desert and doing barn chores at the end of a hot Tucson day, we gathered what things we could use for jumps and started putting ideas together. I thought it would be fun to have it by Truby's stall so she could be in the background but she noped out of that pretty quick.
Anyway, we laughed hysterically the entire time. At one point I asked M if, when she was risking her life working in a hospital, having a criminmal lack of PPE, and facing a pandemic...if she thought "thank god I'm doing this so people can stay home and make videos like this!"
She thought for a second, and just started laughing again. Making the video was a much needed stress relief for both of us, and it was totally worth the entry fee to have had so much fun during a scary time.
I sent it in, and didn't hear anything for awhile. Didn't see anything on the facebook page. Decided maybe it wasn't as funny as we thought, and let it go. We had such a good time, it was well worth it. Didn't really need anything else.
And then I got an email asking for my facebook and instagram names. I don't instagram, but I sent in my fb name. Got excited. Maybe I had won something- how cool would that be?!
And then I woke up and saw that I had won! Me! My silly video I did with my friend! Whooooo!
AND THEN I WATCHED IT
He mentioned he did some editing. He couldn't show it the way it was sent in. Hmmmm? I was so curious - what did he do???? I thought...maybe he added in like comic "wham" and "pows". Commentary?
What he did transformed it from a funny video me and my friend did into a masterpiece. I'm pretty sure this will be the coolest thing I will ever be a part of. My ultimate contribution to society. The height of my creative talent.
And I'm totally okay with that. This is a good way to peak. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
