Patience at the Monument

Inauguration Day approached DC like the standard blizzard warnings, with nobody really knowing what to expect and a general sense of festive bracing-for-the-apocalypse, we're-all-in-this-together, contingency-plans-ahoy.

My contingency plans were scuttled: AFI ran out of its tickets to watch the whole show for free at the huge Silver Theater before IE and I could get ours, and IE got a last-minute ticket to the Silver Zone and canceled the brunch/watch party she was planning. La Mère and I agreed to avoid the Metro and to bus it down 16th Street instead, although I attached a contractual rider that I was out of the party if more than three buses packed to the gills went by.

To its credit, though, WMATA did really well with the buses, and after waiting maaaybe four minutes we shared a merry ride downtown with the previously mentioned Canuck cutie and about 50 other people before being dumped at M Street, where holy shit it was the many people. The local bike group was valeting madly away, and the vendors were selling every possible bit of Obama swag that could be pinned to, wrapped around, yanked over, or otherwise donned by the masses in public. We joined the river of humanity flowing along L toward downtown, and at some point—maybe on 18th?—I turned to look back up the hill, prompting the first of many startled exclamations that there were, in fact, more people than I thought lived in DC following us. And we were late, having not gotten out of bed until 7 AM; the really dedicated people were already ensconced on the Mall.

We followed the crowds onto the Washington Monument grounds, which has enough of a hill that we could see most of the Mall and get a good view of a Jumbotron (the only way most of us saw or heard anything). Finding a place was a bit like being a fruit bit dropped into jello: We moved until we couldn't go forward any more, and shortly thereafter the crowd behind us solidified.

It was of course a very partisan group, with the "hey hey, goodbye"-ing to former President Bush and huge cheers for the Clintons and the Obamas. There was some quiet grumbling about Rick Warren (whose dreary presentation added little to the show and who should've been supplanted by Reverend Lowery), though the most eloquent reaction I saw came from the couple behind me, who silently raised a gauze rainbow scarf about their heads. And when the John Williams piece was played, my God. Who would have thought so many people could be so quiet?

The sound system was drastically out of sync with the visual, so there was some lag to our reactions relative to those further up the Mall. Cheers during Obama's speech were enthusiastic but short, since everyone wanted to hear as much as possible; the closed captioning was a nice gesture but not easy to read. Big cheers for the line about restoring science to American life (about damn time), huge cheers for the one about not sacrificing our values for security, and a murmur of surprise when "nonbelievers" were included in the list of citizens. Around this point I realized that my feet were slowly freezing solid—the morning's coffee was also a reality, but the prospect of portajons in 20-degree weather was sufficient to make me think of England—and as soon as the address was over we joined the throngs fleeing the inauguration poem. We were not alone.

The oddest part about this mobscene wasn't that it was ethnically heterogenous, or incredibly warmly dressed, or even that it didn't have any protesters; it was how gentle everyone was with their neighbors. People whose flags obscured the view of the monster screen were asked politely to put them down once the ceremonies began; they apologized promptly and did so; people who sat down to cram new heaters into their shoes didn't find their places usurped; when La Mère stumbled as we left, a stranger steadied her before moving on. Given the cold, the poor instructions for exiting, and the sheer masses of humanity, I'd expected at least some grousing, but no. "There's a look," said La Mère as we left. "Heavily dressed, tired but pleased, and doggedly trudging." The evening's dinner and pints at a local Irish bar went down very gratefully; being chilly and excited for that long takes it out of you.

I had teased La Mère that she was so bent on joining the throngs because she hadn't gotten to the Election Night parties. "No," she said firmly. "It's one thing I did and another I didn't. When the Iran hostages were released, they took them on buses from the airport to DC, and people lined the route to cheer for them. I was there for that, and I've always been glad I did. But when Pope JPII was in town, I didn't go, and I've always regretted it. So this is a case of not wanting to regret this, and if you don't want to join me, that's fine. But I live next to something that people are flying across the country to see, and I. Am. Going." And so we did.

Make time for what's important

Weebat and Herr Professor are in town, so DC is about a million times cuter thanks to their decision not to leave their 10-month-old daughter at home alone. The Wee Weebat is scoring very well in many of the preliminary rounds, dominating the Charming the Waiters, Grinning Gummily to Show Off Her Two Teeth, Not Crying, and Making Squeaky Amusing Noises rounds. She's enthusiastically trying to manipulate her immediate environment, so there's a steady brownian movement as everyone tries to keep cups of yogurt, full plates of dim sum, glasses of wine, and switchblades out of her reach without spoiling our own fun.

And boy, having savvy fressers in town is just the bestest thing. We started with Friday dinner at the sadly misnamed Hong Kong Palace ("More like Chengdu Closet," said Seesterperson), where the waiter remembered spilling nearly a full bottle of wine on Herr Professor and where Auntie A native patois-ed up a banquet of allium-enhanced deliciousness that we were forced, out of defensive politeness, to nearly finish. On Saturday, there were cupcakes and pizza and I lost my gaming cherry to a long round of Shadows Over Camelot (as Sir Tristan, adding Iseult to injury).

Herr Professor has a regrettable work ethic and didn't join us for dim sum (as in, I'll have some of dim, and some of dose, and def'nitely some of dese) at Hollywood East this morning. Weebat called him to lament that he was missing out on a table-straining variety of yummies, including chicken feet, shrimp-and-seaweed dumplings, two kinds of roast pork bao, and the best egg custard tarts outside of China. "We haven't eaten like this since Taiwan," moaned Auntie A. "They offer dim sum every day. We could come tomorrow!" For the sake of fitting into my pants on a regular basis, I cannot afford to know that this place is within three blocks of a Metro stop. But for this week, when Tuesday means patient standing in the chill, a few extra lipids aren't a bad idea. (It's warmed up, too; quoth La Mère, "After Friday, temps in the 30s make me want to run around naked outside." The neighbors are probably not prepared.) After that, if I were to take a few weeks off eating little more than carrots, it might be wise.

A little nostalgia for us all in the last few days before PEBO loses his E:
Someone quotes Cromwell, beautifully.
Mocean makes us a promise.
And Senator PEBO makes a few more.

The physics of frigid

The 'noguration is coming up, nobody's going to be able to drive or park or walk in unsanctioned areas but downtown businesses will try find housing for staff so that they can stay open to feed and shake down the crowds, of course today Metro is demonstrating its inability to handle even seasonal temperature variations so everyone's dooooomed come Tuesday, and it's so cold outside that the wires of my earrings conducted an icy burn straight through my earlobes as I shuffled toward work this morning. If it weren't for the fact that we're going to have Obama in office come Tuesday night, I'd pack it in, curl up under the duvet, moan about how returning to Pilates is making my bits hurt, and not come out until people have stopped talking about the new Battlestar Galactica while I'm only halfway through season 3 on and don't want to know who the twelfth Cylon is.

(Whew. The cold makes my sentences run together. And I did go to Pilates, a whole hour of it, at the Big Sexy Gym. Which has a plasma TV in the women's dressing room, because you might swoon if you missed an ort of CNN while you were pulling off your layers? I don't know. I do know that it was the same when I left as it was when I got there: "Plane still in river. Cause still birds. Still no terrorists involved. Still nobody dead. STAY TUNED FOR MORE DETAILS." Thanks, I'll...be over here, gasping my way through the Hundred.)

But no, it's gonna be fun: We're going to have Renegade, Renaissance, Radiance, and Rosebud, concrete evidence that the Secret Service bad-asses have secret marshmallow fluff compartments for hearts; an epic party or seven no matter where in town you are; and mebbe a few more Hello Cupcake! Very Berry Obama treats (multi-berry cakes of surprising tastiness, topped with cream cheese icing laced with real vanilla and bedecked with stars-and-bars sugar pellets and a little American flag). Worth getting up for.

The contrast with the previous inaugurations is stark. The Bush swearings-in and -at were a pretty bitter time for most DC locals, who vote Democratic in overwhelming numbers, and it felt like the revelers were a hostile occupying force, which in retrospect makes dark sense. This time around, the locals are basically expecting a logistical meltdown that not even the cheerily efficient Obama-style organizing crews can do more than mitigate, and yet most of us who are not in Virginia are doing our grumbling without real rancor. I'll be hosting La Mère, a NoVa refugee who wants to make an effort to get downtown on Tuesday, and we hope to avoid WMATA's planned failures by taking the bus into town. We've already agreed on a strategic retreat to my office, which isn't too far from the Mall, should we start feeling the need for heat, bathrooms, and keys-only access; should the weather be too parky or the crowds too horrible, we've got the option of crashing IE's watch party.

And if it turns out that Barack is the twelfth Cylon, frak it. I for one will welcome our new mechanical overlords.

Ye ballot if caft

I voted, of course. The polling place was run by a much larger—and younger—group of volunteers than in the past, and they were cheerfully efficient, but the sheer number of people meant that the line was an hour and a half long. The woman in front of me met up with her husband as he was leaving; apparently, turning up when the polls opened meant a two-hour wait. Ouch.

Although my district is about as liberal as it's possible to get, the feeling in the line was not really woohoo-party in spite of the promising numbers. People weren't talking about the candidates, or talking much at all; it was as though this was a lull before the nervous watching of the teebee returns. One pair of women, probably first-timers, stumbled out laughing and crying as they hugged, but most people emerged looking calm or smiling just a little. The poll workers checked the line occasionally to find anyone who might have trouble waiting without a seat; Voter Protection Act volunteers did a circuit to provide the numbers and URLs to use if there were problems; a single guy in an Obama shirt came by to offer Democratic sample ballots. That was the extent of the excitement. The rest of the time, you'd have thought we'd been taking queuing lessons from the British.

After I voted, the guy handing out stickers looked at me reproachfully. "Voting is a happy time; why you lookin' so down?" I hadn't realized I looked sad; I was just trying to process the mundanity of voting with the history involved in this election, and it was making me a little sniffly. "Aw," he said, "First time voting?" No, I said, but the first time I'd been so happy to vote for someone, naming no names. He smiled. "Good feeling, isn't it."

I walked past the line on the way out. It was down to an hour and a quarter.

A final word on one of my many crushes

Nate Silver is one of the wonkiest dudes ever to be claimed as everyone's internet boyfriend. I wasn't going to say anything else about him, but, well, there's another resolution down the pipes. Damn, way to quote appropriately.

For the organizers, the volunteers, every damn brave last one of you:

That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

-- William Shakespeare, Henry the DXXXVIII

One more dawn, one more day

Maryland my Maryland doesn't have early voting; even if it did, I'd hate to miss being at My Official Polling Site (a church hall that smells like the ghosts of casseroles and play-doh, as well-used halls tend to do) to see everyone come out. There's never been much of a line, at least not when I've gone in after work; this is the first year when I plan to go early, the better to flaunt a "Yo voté" sticker all day, and man, if there's ever going to be a crowd, it'll be tomorrow. Although we're not remotely a swing state, there has been huge volunteer turnout over the last few months, most of it focused on reaching people in Virginia and Pennsylvania. Tomorrow, the work will be closer to home, as people switch to helping out in their own districts: A computer-wiz neighbor is planning to serve as an election judge "because I know how to hack a Diebold machine and can tell when someone else is doing it" (yikes, thanks, and please keep the white hat secured in the morally upright position), while several of my coworkers will be out ferrying voters of all descriptions to the polls or working on site. And everybody is making plans to get to the voting sites, read our books in long lines if we must, get checked off the rosters, solemnly/joyfully fill in our choices, double- and triple-check our ballots, collect our stickers—which are redeemable for booze, coffee, doughnuts, and sex toys—and head back out past the lines with great big grins on our faces for reasons other than the aforementioned commercial blandishments.

In conclusion, also, and such as, this is just to say: VOTE. Or else your penis will fall off.

[ETA: Dammit, there is nothing to say about Obama's grandmother dying the day before the election, except that I am glad he took the time to see her. The family is asking that donations be given to any charity or organization dedicated to curing cancer. Do that, if it moves you, and be sure to hug your people, whoever they may be.]

Choices

For my continued mental health and perennial obsession, I will spend at least the first portion of tonight's debate at the barn, wrapping up from what I hope is a good session with His Long-Legged Skitteriness, and maybe taking a few photos of him if I remember how to use a camera.

So somebody else will have to play spot the buzzword and make a next-day YouTube response. (Not that I'm Mocean. But, you know. If I were.)

Hearts full of youth, hearts full of truth

I made a terrible mistake last night at the VP debate watch party: I ordered my first Negroni, figuring that I like Campari, gin is good, and how bad can sweet vermouth be? Oh merciful Lord. Apparently the drink is an aperitif, meant to stimulate the appetite. One can only assume that that's another way of saying that this decoction o' dismay will make you so desperate for anything to take the hidz medicinal taste out of your mouth that anything remotely edible is guaranteed to get a rave review. I shuddered but decided not to send it back; I'd just chalk it up to experience and move on.

G-Clef and I found a spot at the bar and busted out our Palin bingo cards, sharing an extra with a larger group (judging by the shouts later, everyone agreed that it was a pity that you could only check off "maverick" once). Our adorable bartender, between his sprints up and down the bar, peered at the cards and burst out laughing; a later arrival raised his eyebrows at us and sagely observed that this must not be a Republican stronghold. Well, no. We grow canvassers for export.

The crowd kept reasonably quiet for the debate, and the addition of the bingo cards kept people from heckling Palin quite as loudly as they might otherwise have done. G-Clef got well ahead in the early running, but for some reason Palin wouldn't say "Pakistan," despite his muttered beseeching, and I hit a streak of luck. Meanwhile, the acid in my drink was eating away at my tastebuds, reducing my ability to notice how vile it was, and I absentmindedly drank the entire thing as the show wore on. Off the bailout, through the tax breaks, into foreign policy...and then it happened. She said "National Guard."

I got bingo.

And the bartender, smiling, rewarded me with another Negroni.

A brief important question

Have you loved your internet lately?

I mean, have you reaaaaally loved it? Because baby, the internet just wants you to be happy. Really. That's all it wants.

See? Look what it's done for you.

And honey, that's not all.

And baby, that ain't even the best part. (H/T Pandagon)

The first rule of Ride Club

Grooming and tacking up last night, we were chatting about what's been on the teebee lately. This is, of course, politics, and we are, of course, leaning the way that you expect. El Bandito sighed and said, "Can't we make the barn the one political conversation–free zone in the city?"

He got a long level stare from the three of us. (Possibly also from the horses, who might've been wondering what kind of naif expects anywhere in DC to be such a peaceful oasis.) "No," said Pat carefully. "I don't think that you can expect that." Come on, buddy: a barn run by and mainly patronized by women, in a city so blue it practically fluoresces, with an insanely important election looming, and you want people who see each other once a week to step around your political fatigue? Good luck, man, but it isn't going to happen.

Although, to be fair, sometimes we may just skip the polysyllabic words and go straight for dolphin-like squeaks of glee. Would that be better?

Insightful commentary

I am all sleepy this morning on account of Denver being several unnecessary hours behind the East Coast, but last night was history in the making, so I stayed up. Everyone else has said the smart stuff already—emotion, smack, epic levels of win, the right combination of policy specifics and calls to the heart—but I do want to point out that one of the PBS commentators was pretty clearly ready for his own nap: He felt that America needed to notice that this was an especially unusual nomination acceptance, because there were no balloons dropped when Obama's speech concluded. This was, he explained (and follow the logic here, it's good stuff), because the stadium has no roof. His partner, perhaps trying to save him from further embarrassment on national TV, pointed out that there was already a lot going on, what with the fireworks going off, confetti cannons exploding all over, attendees going bazoo, the Obama girls being adorable while their parents waved to the crowd, viewers at home wiping their eyes and cheering, et cetera, which is when my new hero mumbled, "Well, I still don't know where the balloons would fall from."

So there we have it. An historic nomination, because there were NO BALLOONS. I look for this to be a serious talking point in future debates.

For this relief much thanks

I spent the last few days progressively getting more and more worked up over a commitment I made to join a friend at a photo shoot, so it was with glee that I read an e-mail from the photographer last night, canceling on account of rain (which has not materialized either, so yay!). Initially, goofing around all "I do want to be America's Next. Top. Model" sounded like a lot of fun, but then for some reason I started getting a little wrapped around the axle about the whole idea. Now officially off the hook (not da hook) about it, I can also luxuriate in the joy that is knowing it is not, in fact, necessary to get up before the sun on a Saturday. Sleep late and drink strong coffee and curse the acrostic! Rock.

The other glee has come from rewatching McCain get heckled at his Memphis speech earlier this week week. You could admire the man's chutzpah for showing up on the anniversary of MLK's death, given that in 1983 he voted against the institution of a federal MLK memorial day, that he backed AZ governor Mecham's 1987 decision to rescind the holiday at the state level, and that he didn't peep when Mecham defended the use of a fairly hateful word for minorities (cites, linked through a common page), but then it's probably not so much nerve as either blissful obliviousness or flat-out pandering. As such, the crowd's response is more polite than he deserves. Let's hope the people in the audience also politely vote his ass to the curb in November.

It has to be said

I love Jane Smiley in ways that cannot be textually rendered, even above and beyond her horse-world pieces (although if you haven't read Horse Heaven, you've got a treat in store). I mean, damn. "Bush and Cheney were hungry for war. Nothing they said could hide their eagerness. The story they put out, they had found out things, and they had explored all options, and now the invasion was a last resort, was evident bullshit. They never for one second had the demeanor of men who were thinking things over and weighing least bad options. They were hot to attack and impatient with anyone who stood in their way (the name Hans Blix springs to mind)."

The other bit of culture-conflict awesomeness, to which party I am fashionably late, is the flap about blogger/professor PZ Myers being banned from a free screening of a movie for which he had been interviewed and for which he was thanked in the credits. The topic of the movie? How intellectual dissent favoring intelligent design is—oh cruel!—being stifled on college campuses and how this is bad because it's important that everyone remember that belief in evolution leads to atheism and thence to the fall of civilization. And yes, the best way to demonstrate your commitment to free thought and open discussion of an issue is certainly to eject someone you know will disagree with you and whose interview you quotemined after getting it by misrepresenting your movie. But. BUT! While the movie's poobahs and their hired security did identify and bar Myers from the screening (for which he had registered under his own name, the foolish honest cephalopoidian creature), they let in Richard Dawkins. A grateful nation stands awestruck at this example of the difference between the fail simple and the fail EPIC.

Do you hear the people quote

Gaiman fans get animated for Obama.

Meet the Press

Oh Ralph. Teach the pony another trick. "Regarding the campaign: here are your laurels. Why don't you lie down on them and take a goddamn nap for once."

H/T The Goo, over at the Expat's.

Throw me something, mister!

Most years I get hellaciously tired of hearing political analysis around Super Tuesday, because geez, y'all, the election is months away. But this year I have been swept up in the pan-Washington conversation, to the desperate point of even watching coverage while I was in Seattle. The DC metro area is pretty solidly blue, and the people who live and work here resent the hell out of the current crop of venal incompetents and their toadies. They in turn cause us as much inconvenience as possible in making sure that they never have to meet our gazes. Good business for the strip clubs, a depressing pain in the ass for the rest of us. That's not even getting into their policies, because what do you want, for me to get all grimmed out and whiny?

But while I'm not going to do much trenchant political analysis here, I'll go ahead and share my fantasy, which is Obama Obama Obama, possibly with Edwards (who would've been my first choice, sniff) for veep or at least AG. But the Dems could nominate anyone over the age limit and I would vote for him or her, because a choice between anybody Democratic and the bizarrely inconsistent McCain or the just plain freaky Romney (ignoring Huckabee and Ron Paul, because HA HA HA HA HA, don't scare me like that again) is not what you might call difficult. But a lot of other people would come out to vote against Hillary, not to mention try to roadblock everything she does just because she's who she is, and I want this election and its results to be so decisive that it takes the GOP at least a decade to recover. God knows it'll take us longer to deal with the deficits, the effects of our idiocy in Iraq, the erosions in domestic civil freedom, the cutbacks in health care, the damage to women's rights in particular, and so on ad nauseam.

Of course all this is being said better on ML, as it so often is (grumble mutter, professional writers mumble): "So I’m supporting Obama and his train...just as a peasant might cheer for an aristocratic faction made up of reasonably decent individuals against other factions made up of out-and-out thugs. Not because the peasant doesn’t know the game is rigged, or doesn’t have the wit to imagine a better world. But because incremental change matters, and because the right incremental changes can lead, like water flowing downhill, to bigger and more profound ones. Also, while I am a radical in analysis, I am an incrementalist in practice, because life is short."

Vote, y'all.

State of the Union

The last official ovations-mandatory pompous gasbag speech from a man memorably described as looking tremendously pleased just to pronounce all the words in a given sentence correctly, tonight on every single channel! Because lord forbid we miss even a moment of the set-piece applause. At no other point in the year do I regret the lack of a back-bencher tradition so much as at this annual ritual of windbaggerie. In past years the Goo has rhapsodized about the fun to be had at SOTU watch parties, as well as her disappointment that the dangers posed by chimeras ("Walk on two legs, eat no flesh, drink black coffee, ARE WE NOT MEN?") aren't discussed every year.

In the interests of mental health, however, I will be spending my evening with my special four-footed feller instead of in front of a TV. Hello, me little Tick-Tock, shall we dance?

(Thanks to Iosif for the pic and for keeping Doc's interest with a handy bag of apples.)

[ETA: We did a lot of transition and backing work, with a break to watch giant QC get the vapors about our tiny new Shetland pony, then I put him on cross-ties, brushed him down, picked out his feet, buckled on his blanket, and turned him back into his stall. He looked at me expectantly as I gathered up the bridle and brushes, then he sighed and went into his grain bucket. When I came back a few minutes later, making the little "no alarm, just pay attention" clicking sound, his head came up and I would swear that he was thinking, "Ah, RIGHT." Granny Smiths this time. He likes what he is used to.]

No snark

Just a link to Wonkette's gallery of images surrounding the Benazir Bhutto assassination. Wonkette asks whether the uncensored photos of the immediate aftermath make it more real for viewers or whether it just desensitizes us to the violence. I tend to think the former and that we are too used to images of fireballs but not the human aftermath. I also notice that there are almost no women in the crowds at the rally or, later, at the funeral. Is that life as usual, that absence of 50% of the population? Bhutto was a polarizing figure partly because she was a woman in power, and I wish there were some discussion of why her countrywomen are not mourning her in public.

A break for brief seriousness

Dammit, here's a clue: Whenever a Bush appointee plays coy about expressing an opinion on a controversial issue, it means they're on the side of the bastards. First there was Gonzales' disingenuous demurral about the legality of hypothetical government surveillance, which it turned out he had already helped get going, and now we've got our probably-soon-to-be AG (the Dems on the Judiciary Committee can go to hell for this) just not quite sure if waterboarding is illegal. Here's a discussion of waterboarding from someone who knows what he's talking about, because he's both performed it and undergone it. It's an excellent article and very depressing, because it's going to do very little good under the current regime.

The only chance it's got is as a bit of circulating data. If you didn't think that voting in the last elections was important or you didn't bother to educate yourself about the candidates, it is time to wake up and take some responsibility. Read, listen, take a break if the sheer grimness gets to you, and then get back on the horse. Make the pilgrimage to the majdan knowing that you can make a difference by speaking up.

Another one (not me) bites the dust

Schadenfreude? Moi? NEVAIRE. Okay maybe sometimes, like with this story: major GOP funder Richard Mellon Scaife, having cheated on his second wife and having (oops) forgotten to arrange a prenup, faces paying the equivalent of $24,000 per day in alimony. What's that Dorothy Parker line? Oh right, "And sweet's the air with curly smoke from all my burning bridges." Truly, the values party is an example to us all.

Slightly closer to home and much less acrimoniously, Doc and I worked more on downward transitions tonight, trying to go smoothly from the canter to the trot. It was only moderately successful, what with him wanting to run and run and run, and he tripped several times, at one point pulling me forward in such a way that something in my back went *plink.* Oofah. He could use another rider to work with him, preferably one with more training experience than I have, but that's true of lots of the schoolies and therefore seems unlikely. Kim came down as we were wrapping up and turned out her new mare in the paddock just next to the ring. The bay and Doc checked one another out quietly for a few moments, then suddenly she squealed and kicked and so we called an end to that particular session and left her to play with Kim. Doc made faces at his neighbor Princess (or, I like to think, at her pink Izod halter) while I rubbed him down, then he walked very decorously into his stall and stood still while I took off his halter. Half the time he lunges past me to get to his grain bucket (he's pretty well muscled for someone convinced he's starving to death), but we're getting him better at waiting politely. Little steps.