More Cute Horse Stories
We had a serious snow day in Santa Fe today. Naturally I had a doctor’s appointment and had to drive, and since I was in town anyway, and halfway to Vento I braved the snow to go and see him. He seemed pleased to see me, and the guys who work at the barn were laughing about him. The told me that while the snow was coming down he stood in his run, and tried to catch snow flakes on his tongue. Then he ate all the snow off the rails of his run. I love this horse.
As I was heading back into Santa Fe a small Toyota thing was sliding down a hill sideways, coming straight for me. There was no place to get out of his way, but I’ve played a lot of pool in my foolish youth, and I could see his trajectory was going to take him into a “Men Working” sign. Sure enough he hit it, and it spun him off to the side of the road so he missed me by a good ten feet. He was then stuck spinning his wheels. Finally he just waved me past, and I managed to make it into town.
When I got home I called my doctor friend, Sage Walker, and ranted about the weird lecture I got from the woman who performed my bone density test — so after telling me the benefits of exercise, (I exercise), and giving me a list of food that would improve bone density (I eat almost all of them), she then started telling me the things I’m supposed to avoid. Things that if I eat it even _once_ a year it will decay my skeletal structure. Are you ready for this? The list included anything with caffein. A cup of coffee, an ice tea. Anything that is carbonated including sparkling fruit juices, and any alcohol. Now tell me how you go through life never having coffee, tea or a glass of wine? This is an impossible standard, and I defy anyone to actually keep to this regime.
After listening to me for a few minutes Sage explained it all in two sentences. “Now she’s done her duty and if you break a bone you can’t sue them because you ate the wrong thing. This is all about malpractice.” And then she concluded. “The health care system is broken, totally broken.”
She’s right, and I’m spending thirteen thousand dollars a year to buy health insurance through my group. Bush’s bullshit five thousand dollar tax deduction for my medical savings account won’t go very far. And bear in mind I had to found a company to even be able to buy insurance. I’m an automatic deny because I have Crohn’s Disease.
Sorry, I’m back now. And tomorrow is the New Hampshire primary. I can’t wait to hear the results. We’re living in an exciting time.
Melinda
January 7th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
The list included anything with caffein. A cup of coffee, an ice tea. Anything that is carbonated including sparkling fruit juices, and any alcohol. Now tell me how you go through life never having coffee, tea or a glass of wine? This is an impossible standard, and I defy anyone to actually keep to this regime.
*ahem* Raises hand here… I was taken off caffeine about 25 years ago by my doctor, I’m not fond of wine, and I don’t drink carbonated bevs because they give me gas.
However, I totally agree that your doctor is being insane.
January 7th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Okay, Janice, you win. I could never have your self-control. I’m not all that fond of coffee and I drink very little, but once in a while I want a cup of coffee. Oh, I forgot to mention — she also said that decaf coffee was bad too.
And sometimes a margarita is just required.
January 8th, 2008 at 9:18 am
If you can’t have fun, what’s the point?
January 8th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Len came home from the doctor and said he’s been put on the “c” diet. If it starts with a “c,” he can’t eat it. Starting with cheese, one of his necessary food groups, it goes on to include cola, coffee, chocolate, and a bunch of other things. I asked about cereal, and apparently that’s an exception. I can’t remember what the ingredient is, possibly phosophorous, that he’s supposed to avoid because of his kidney problems. Len does not have Janice’s self-control either.
What a delightful story about Vento. After 5 days of lock-up from the rain, Ace is a little jumpy. (Mind you, it’s not like he’s living in a 10′ box stall: the stall is, I think, 12 x 16 and the run is about 24′ long, with the first 8 feet covered. It opens onto the arena, so when a horse is turned out, they can visit and touch noses or mutally groom all of the other horses in the stalls. Very friendly.) I moved his manger and he bounced his butt off the door before spinning and running outside where the arena being dragged in the dark spooked him again. He came back inside. I turned the hose on to fill his water bucket and you would have thought I turned the hose on him. He slammed his hip on the door on the way out to the run. I told Gayle to check it out when she goes to work with him today.
I did something to my hip over the holidays–probably moving all of Ace’s stuff to the new barn–and I’m back at the chiropractor 2 to 3 times a week on the days I’m supposed to be taking lessons. I truly feel that the gods are conspiring against me these days. At least they are making an effort to dry out the arena and harrow it a couple of times a week at the new place. I think the arena at the old place was harrowed only when I made a fuss and if it had been upkept, I wouldn’t have been hurt as badly as I was in August.
January 8th, 2008 at 10:26 am
A couple million Mormons are on the “No coffee, no tea, no wine” diet.
The only things I avoid in my diet are raw fish, and radioactive isotopes.
January 8th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Oh boy, I count my tea consume by litres (not ice tea, though, unsweetened Darjeeling, Assam or Yong Hysong) , I like me my cup of coffee in the afternoons, and I often have a glass of wine at night. And no doctor ever told me that was wrong.
Ok, I haven’t seen one for 20 years or so (except a dentist), so it may have changed, but I don’t think so. Drinking lots of tea has always counted as good thing here, and last time I looked the Chinese didn’t all run around with broken bones, either.
January 8th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Vento is wonderful!
I suddenly feel the need for a brownie and a coke! I agree we should eat in moderation and do our best not to eat junk but Melinda - from what I can tell you have a very healthy diet and a slim lovely figure. Sage is right - the Dr. was just giving the “don’t sue me” speech with no consideration to the person in front of her. The rules seem to change every week anyway. I thought a glass of red wine was good for us?!
Just spend time with Vento - he will keep you healthy.
Love, Patricia
January 8th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
As Ty has pointed out there are people who keep strict dietary rules. All I can say is I have no self-control.
The wine/alcohol issue is another reason Sage said this was CYA statement by the technician. (She wasn’t a doctor she just took the pictures.) Anyway, all the studies indicate that a single drink of alcohol is very, very good for the cardio/vascular system. But according to the talk I got yesterday it’s deadly for your bones. So, what’s a person to do? Pat is right, we eat sensibly, we get exercise, and we accept that something’s going to kill us in the end. It would suck to be miserable for your entire life.
Like that study that said if you lived right on the edge of starvation you could extend your life span by a number of years. Boy, that sounds fun. We spent a million years evolving, moving from hunter/gathers to agriculture so we wouldn’t have to live on the edge of starvation, and it’s a travesty and a tragedy that much of the world’s population is having to endure that right now.
Of course a little more global warming, and we may all be there. Sorry for that cheery little croaker. I’ve had a long, annoying day, and New Hampshire is making me a little bit crazy.
January 9th, 2008 at 2:10 am
Cute horse! I thought only cute _kids_ did the snowflake-on-the-tongue thing… 8-).
The NH results were indeed interesting. Obama did much, much worse than _every_ poll predicted, including the ones just a day before.
The public polls had him leading anywhere from 5% to 13%; his internal polls had him ahead by 14%; Clinton’s had him ahead by 11%. Zogby had him ahead 41% to 29%.
Those are cut-your-throat-it’s-all-over figures.
Instead, Clinton edged him by 3-4 points. That’s a swing of 15% in her favor, if you average the polls.
It’s unprecedented for the polls to _all_ be wrong, and _that_ wrong, and in the same direction.
Now, note that on the Republican side, McCain got about the votes that the polls predicted — polls run by the same people.
The chances of _all_ the polls being wrong by a margin greater than their usual margin of error — grossly in excess of the 10% Obama lead, when you averaged them — are miniscule.
The chances of a genuine 15% swing to Clinton in the last 24 hours are also miniscule. There were no spectacular gaffes from Obama’s campaign, and while Clinton’s was scrappy and well-organized, it was also discouraged by the specter of apparently inevitable defeat.
So the people were lying to the pollsters; large numbers didn’t vote the way they said they’d vote. Why?
Well, one reason is that in a largely white constitutency, black candidates almost always underperform their poll numbers.
You might call it a penalty for “campaigning while black”. Once they get into the privacy of the voting booth, where nobody can see, a lot of voters say “not going to vote for a black man” and hit the other button.
It doesn’t mean a black candidate can’t win, but it does mean he or she has a distinct handicap, which will be crucial in anything like a close race.
This is an unpleasant truth, but it’s true. I don’t really see any other explanation for the results in this case, unless Hillary hacked the machines!
Note also that in Iowa — where the caucus system means that votes are _not_ secret — there wasn’t much gap between the polling results and the votes on the day.
This huge discrepancy between polling numbers and votes was in New Hampshire — a deep-blue state — and among _Democratic_ voters.
Imagine the same effect in a general election campaign, where our structural problems mean we’ve got to win almost all the floating vote to have a prayer, and where we haven’t gotten to 51% since 1964. By definition, a national election in the modern-era US is _close_.
You’d have to write off 10% of Obama’s poll numbers, and a whole raft of states that are potentially within our grasp would be impossible. I don’t share the widespread feeling that the election will necessarily go our way; we’ve got a chance this time, but we can’t afford to sacrifice one single possible vote. In particular, we need more working-class/rural white voters.
(And to be completely blunt, pretty well all the black voters are going to punch the Democratic ticket anyway. So will all the people who’d vote for Obama because it was cool.)
I honestly don’t think Obama can win, particularly if the GOP continue to get a rush of sanity to the head and nominate McCain.
(President Huckabee… ye flipping Gods! I _hope_ the voters aren’t that strange, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.)
Race is the 700-pound gorilla in the room in this contest that nobody mentions. I understand the wish that the hairy, smelly, obnoxious beast just weren’t there, but it _is_ and there’s no point in pretending it isn’t.
It may not kill Obama immediately in the nomination fight. Nevada is a caucus state, IIRC, and in South Carolina it’s a closed primary where a good 50% of the Democratic voters are black, so the “underperforming” will be less. But at a guess, unless he’s the only real candidate by Feb 5, Super Tuesday will crush him.
Even if for the wrong reasons, this is probably good for the party. Eventually the US will elect a black President, but my bet is that it wouldn’t happen in 2008, failing some catastrophe in the interim like a bad recession or Iraq going totally south or something of that order, which God forbid.
(And in the long term it would be a very bad thing for the Democratic party to profit from the country’s loss; Vietnam and Watergate did us no good.)
Also Hillary would just make a better president, in my opinion. She’s the… _serious_ candidate.
NB: there’s no comparable “underperforming” factor for female candidates; the polls track their actual votes just as well as they do with male politicians. People who won’t vote for a woman are prepared to come right out and say so to a pollster; they won’t if it’s a matter of race rather than gender.