I’m not that superstitious. A little stitious, maybe, mostly when it comes to juju and karma and jinxing oneself or wearing socks with messaging that does not suit the occasion (will I ever wear my “welcome to the shitshow” socks to a horse show? absolutely friggin not.). But I’ve never had a problem with black cats or broken mirrors or things like… Friday the 13th. Indeed, historically Friday the 13th’s always tend to be pretty lucky and good days for me. I mean, they’re Fridays, how bad can they be by default? I guess I hadn’t yet learned my lesson about 2020’s particular brand of Friday the 13th’s though, the first one being in March when a national state of emergency was declared due to covid and things started to shut down. Still though, come on November, this one has to be better right?

It wasted no time either, being shitty right out the gate. I woke up to the smell of piss to see that Quinn had peed himself and then proceeded to drag himself through it, acting like a corgi mop as he coated both the floor and himself. I stepped over most of it (a few toes didn’t quite clear it, of course) snatched him up in a towel, and took him straight outside. I put him in his wheelchair so he could continue to potty (or… potty again?) and turned to go back inside to clean up the pee. However, I caught the toe of a sandal on a stair, causing me to smash my shin into the stair above it. It was the kind of smash where you break the skin and instantly have a huge lump. After some cursing I continued inside, cleaned up all the pee, then went back out to get the dog. I brought him in and starting bathing him in the sink, and he decided that was a great time to poop. In the sink.

That was all before 6am.

I started doing all the pee laundry, went and fed the horses, came back inside and was sending a work email when BOOM – the laundry detergent fell off the dryer, hit the floor, and exploded like a damn bomb. The new, very very full bottle of liquid laundry detergent. There was detergent on the appliances, the rugs, the walls, the bed… every fucking where. And in the two seconds it took me to jump up and grab the bottle, it spilled half of it’s contents underneath the washer. FML. I used an entire roll of paper towels cleaning that up.

You’d think that would be enough right? Oh no. We were just getting started.

At midday I went down to clean stalls, and since I was in a hurry I took my truck. And proceeded to back right over Quinn’s wheelchair (don’t worry, he wasn’t in it), bending one of the arms at an impossible angle. I came back to the house, took the dogs out again, made some lunch, and as I was taking my first bite of a sandwich, Stewie poops on the floor. He had just been out. So I cleaned that up, took him back out again, and tripped up the stairs AGAIN, although this time I didn’t bang my shin. Improvement. In the afternoon when I was done working I decided to body clip Henry, and he proceeded to break not one but two halters. Both in completely freak ways, not because he was being bad, but still. TWO HALTERS. Including his beautiful braided one that I love so much (I immediately ordered a new one bc I’m obsessed with it).

Needless to say, Friday was ridiculous. You’d think I’d have gotten all the bullshit out of the way after all that, right? Nah fam, nah. This is 2020, there are no rules.

Saturday the SO came out to help me do a couple things around the house, like move the washer so I could get the rest of the spilled laundry detergent, hang some lights on the back porch, etc. In the process of that we discovered a huge problem happening with the house (which we’ll talk about tomorrow) and then realized that the lights I had, which I’d found in a closet while I was cleaning my shit out of the other house, didn’t connect end to end. Who TF makes string lights that don’t connect end to end?

So off to Lowe’s we went to get some different lights. We decided to get the bigger bulb ones, got them home, and proceeded to drop them and break two bulbs. Then we realized our hanging method wasn’t going to work. At this point I just quit. I give up. Can’t even hang some damn lights on the damn porch. I was supposed to take Henry to a show in the afternoon to do a couple jumper classes, but by this point it was clear that I wasn’t going to make it, #1, and honestly with the way things were going did I really want to make it? Read the room, girl.

So instead I did barn chores, bathed Presto, sent some emails about the house problem, and stanned Presto’s doppelganger/brother-from-another-mother, Mama’s Magic Way (aka Mason), on the Tryon live stream. First 4*L and double clear XC to finish 10th, you gotta be impressed with that.

Would it be weird if I covered Presto’s stall walls in posters of Mason?

By Sunday I had learned my lesson, and aside from getting up and feeding everyone, I stayed hunkered down watching the Tryon showjumping for most of the morning. At least until Mason went.

Then I went up and did chores, rode Henry (which also was not without peril, but we’ll talk about THAT another day too), then bodyclipped Presto. I know, I’m a glutton for punishment, body clipping both horses when clearly I’m already having a shitluck weekend, but I wanted it done before he started really working again. I had every intent of starting him back to hacking this weekend but those plans got derailed. That got pushed to this week instead, and since we’ve got highs at/near 80, I really didn’t want to be working him with that massive thick coat he had. And he’s in the barn now, where he’s easier to blanket, so… why not.

He was both super good and super annoying. Good because he doesn’t care about the clippers at all, annoying because as with all things, his attention span is maybe a minute. Plus he wants to put everything in his mouth. I spent as much time trying to get him to stop doing whatever he was doing, or removing things from his mouth (at one point he tried to eat the CLIPPER CORD), as I did actually clipping. I do have to give him props though, he’s never had his face/head/ears clipped before and he had no problem with any of that. I kept the inside of his ears au naturel, but the backs of them are clipped. Honestly that was the only part he actually stood still for, because I finally had his interest.

He looked beautiful for all of 10 minutes before I turned him back out and he ruined it.

When he’s clipped you can easily see all the scars around his throat from the IV catheter he wore for the first few weeks of his life in the hospital. I admit that I paused a bit when I uncovered those, remembering how they got there and realizing he’ll have them forever. They tell a story though, and they’re a reminder of how tough that kiddo really is. He wears the scars well, I think.

And the bite marks. Aaaaaalll the Henry bite marks. He wears those well too. And considering that he keeps relentlessly trying to get Henry to play Bitey Face with him, he’ll probably just accumulate more of them.

Here’s to hoping this week goes a little bit easier than the weekend did…