brave new year
Jan. 4th, 2005 11:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
radfrac_archive_full Like the Ubiquitous Anne says, there are no mistakes in it (yet). She was speaking about days, but my scale is more ambitious.
Did you ever notice how in the Anne books there's a passionate defense of the idea that Redheads can Still Be Pretty, but fat girls are still ugly? (Gertie Pye, for example, whose fatness is, as always, also a signal of moral weakness.) Diana is an exception, being both chubby and pretty, but the older they get, the more the Ethereal Anne outstripes the earthly Diana.
If there's a better way to spend New Year's Day than on a horse, I know not what that would be. I had the honour of tagging along on a New Year's ride with grumpy bastard and a pair of his very good friends (at least they seemed awfully good to me.)
If you were anywhere near here, you know that it snowed on New Year's Eve (how perfect is that? Not that I set any store by this absurd calendar. Still. Well. Still.)
The trails, then, scribbled themselves past fields half-covered in snow, sometimes concealed and sometimes framed by branches loomed with bright green moss. The moss and the snow seemed like relatives, soft covering forces muting the forms of whatever they lay themselves over. Great drops of water fell picturesquely down the backs of our necks. We were cold but happy.
My horse was excellent, in that she was both responsive (she stopped banging my knees into the tree trunks when I suggested it) and capable of ignoring me when I did things that didn't make any sense. This is a rare and excellent balance for anyone, and I think I'd like to cultivate it in myself. I believe I had almost as much fun as Team Lucky Charms, the horse-and-rider pair who brought up the rear of the expedition. (We were all placed in order. Had we been riding in order of skill, I would have been asked to stay at the barn.)
When we'd break into a gentle trot on short stretches of road, I'd laugh maniacally, like a suicidal pilot aiming for the ocean at top speed. Dog only knows what I'd have done if we (gasp) cantered.
I lack a certain apparently near-universal flexibility in the hips, so there was a little bit of a crisis in the whole getting-off-the-horse department, but I only stepped on grumpy bastard's foot a Very Little Bit, and he was gallant about it.
* * *
Yesterday was the first Full Dress Code day at work, and I didn't get a reprimand from the hall monitor, so I assume I must have done all right. I like to think that my inevitable vest lends me a certain old-fashioned charm. And my secret stripy socks are a great comfort.
I must say we all look very smart with our tucked-in shirts and our clip-on ID tags. I like to pretend we all work in a secret research installation circa 1955.
We did a little bit of math in one section, which was good fun, but now we're on to -- well, actually, I can't remember what we're on to, because I was awake but unconscious for the last three hours of class, reduced to mumbling directly out of my subconscious when addressed by my classmates. I like the later schedule, but I'll be glad when I start on the Floor and it moves back a couple of hours.
* * *
Sunday was Tea and Poker. It was only going to be Tea, and then it struck me that we had nothing to do after tea, and I thought, well, poker, obviously.
I liked that quite a bit, although it was even more fun once we switched over to Tic(k), an elaborate game promoted by grumpy bastard. I made a cake; sour cherry tarts were brought; and frightening amounts of tea drunk. I think I will have another tea-and-gambling night soon. Tea and Games Named After Parasites: Sign Up Now. I can accomodate eight per seating, or more if we sit on the floor.
{rf}
Did you ever notice how in the Anne books there's a passionate defense of the idea that Redheads can Still Be Pretty, but fat girls are still ugly? (Gertie Pye, for example, whose fatness is, as always, also a signal of moral weakness.) Diana is an exception, being both chubby and pretty, but the older they get, the more the Ethereal Anne outstripes the earthly Diana.
If there's a better way to spend New Year's Day than on a horse, I know not what that would be. I had the honour of tagging along on a New Year's ride with grumpy bastard and a pair of his very good friends (at least they seemed awfully good to me.)
If you were anywhere near here, you know that it snowed on New Year's Eve (how perfect is that? Not that I set any store by this absurd calendar. Still. Well. Still.)
The trails, then, scribbled themselves past fields half-covered in snow, sometimes concealed and sometimes framed by branches loomed with bright green moss. The moss and the snow seemed like relatives, soft covering forces muting the forms of whatever they lay themselves over. Great drops of water fell picturesquely down the backs of our necks. We were cold but happy.
My horse was excellent, in that she was both responsive (she stopped banging my knees into the tree trunks when I suggested it) and capable of ignoring me when I did things that didn't make any sense. This is a rare and excellent balance for anyone, and I think I'd like to cultivate it in myself. I believe I had almost as much fun as Team Lucky Charms, the horse-and-rider pair who brought up the rear of the expedition. (We were all placed in order. Had we been riding in order of skill, I would have been asked to stay at the barn.)
When we'd break into a gentle trot on short stretches of road, I'd laugh maniacally, like a suicidal pilot aiming for the ocean at top speed. Dog only knows what I'd have done if we (gasp) cantered.
I lack a certain apparently near-universal flexibility in the hips, so there was a little bit of a crisis in the whole getting-off-the-horse department, but I only stepped on grumpy bastard's foot a Very Little Bit, and he was gallant about it.
* * *
Yesterday was the first Full Dress Code day at work, and I didn't get a reprimand from the hall monitor, so I assume I must have done all right. I like to think that my inevitable vest lends me a certain old-fashioned charm. And my secret stripy socks are a great comfort.
I must say we all look very smart with our tucked-in shirts and our clip-on ID tags. I like to pretend we all work in a secret research installation circa 1955.
We did a little bit of math in one section, which was good fun, but now we're on to -- well, actually, I can't remember what we're on to, because I was awake but unconscious for the last three hours of class, reduced to mumbling directly out of my subconscious when addressed by my classmates. I like the later schedule, but I'll be glad when I start on the Floor and it moves back a couple of hours.
* * *
Sunday was Tea and Poker. It was only going to be Tea, and then it struck me that we had nothing to do after tea, and I thought, well, poker, obviously.
I liked that quite a bit, although it was even more fun once we switched over to Tic(k), an elaborate game promoted by grumpy bastard. I made a cake; sour cherry tarts were brought; and frightening amounts of tea drunk. I think I will have another tea-and-gambling night soon. Tea and Games Named After Parasites: Sign Up Now. I can accomodate eight per seating, or more if we sit on the floor.
{rf}
