Catching up (without Depeche Mode)

No real significance to the subject line, just a play on the album title Catching Up With…

Nothing much to report – here’s Evan all dressed up on Sunday (much more so than his daddy, at any rate), complete with a little tie with a velcro dealie at the back. And I wonder…why aren’t all ties like that? What’s the great stigma of the clip-on tie? I could go further and ask why the hell we’re still bothering with this piece of cloth around our necks anyway, but staying for the moment within the bounds of the idea that the necktie just isn’t going to go anywhere anytime soon…why is there this unspoken demand that it has to be a real tie, tied in a real knot? Is this some arcane test of skill whose use has far outlived its shelf life? Dammit, I want ties that close at the back of the neck with velcro. Then again, I also love ties that look like a big multicolored fish. Formal menswear and I do not play nice together – just be glad I’m clothed at all, society. That’s all I gotta say.

Erm, anyway, for the 0.8 people who are still bothering to read on after that, just because Evan was dressed up didn’t mean that he doesn’t make the rounds as usual. Here he is blowing the cats’ hiding place (under the breakfast table) wide open over at the farm:

They may have been asleep when he found them…but they didn’t stay that way for long.

Also at the farm, we’ve had to bid farewell to two of the oldest horses in the herd this week…

Krista (above) and Midnight (below).

Midnight was nearly as old as I was, and at this point he was blind as a bat but still stomping around and bothering the mares like the four-legged dirty old man that he was. Midnight was always a sweet horse, but he and Krista both lost a lot of weight going into the summer, so I suppose it was inevitable that they didn’t make it. Still, they had dignified exits compared to Sultry (who had also lost most of her sight). To give an example of what I loved about Midnight: a couple of weeks ago, the very last time I fed him, I led him to the back of the barn by the sound of my voice and gave him his feed. The four younger pasture horses, who hadn’t shown up yet, appeared and started harrassing and crowding Midnight, trying to get him to leave his food (he got a larger helping of food than they did since we were trying to keep weight on him). He let himself get cornered, but he didn’t budge beyond that – he just ate and stared at them blankly. I grabbed the hose in the barn that we use to fill the barn horses’ water tubs, and I started to shower Midnight and his uncomfortably close circle of admirers. The younger horses took off like a shot, while Midnight did exactly what I expected him to – he sat still, ate, and enjoyed his shower. Midnight was a big horse, but about the most gentle horse I ever met.

Krista was around long enough to have a daughter and grandchildren at the farm; in fact, she outlived her daughter. She was the “alpha mare” of the herd, so it’s interesting to see the pasture horses try to figure out the command structure again; if this past Sunday was any indication (I almost got kicked in the face because evidently I wasn’t forking over the feed fast enough), they’re still figuring it out. It certainly isn’t the same without those two.

We’re going to an open house tonight for a new daycare opening up not too far from the house; how in the world we’re supposed to be able to afford to send Evan there anytime soon is the real mystery though.

I spent some time today reorganizing the game room a bit based on the premise that the boy can and will hang on to anything as he learns to walk by side-stepping his way around while hanging on to furniture. He can walk in a straight line if supported just a little, but he’s still gaining his confidence for walking solo. There were some things in the entrance to the game room that just had, if not “death trap” written all over them, then “really bad idea” at the very least, so I reworked things quite a bit. He spends quite a bit of time with me in here, so it’s important for it to be safe for him, not just fun for me. We’re running up on 11 months, and he just has so much personality already, it blows me away.