Sunday, November 8, 2009

The Polo Chronicles, Continued

Now that the temperatures have dropped from hellish to chilly, I've gone back to playing polo most weekends. My riding has improved enough over the last year that I've gone from beginner to intermediate status, which means that I can usually stay on the horse as long as it doesn't do anything stupid, like spin, leap forward, or run backwards.

However, the pool of available horses in Oakdale is constantly changing as Mike wheels and deals and tries to find homes for the horses of retirement age. This means that I can never figure out which horse is safe for me to ride, and I have to rely on people who know the string better.

Here is an actual conversation I had with Mike and Shauna yesterday. I had gone over to grab my helmet after tacking up the horse...

Shauna: Who are you riding this chukker?

Me: Starlight.

(Both Mike and Shauna stop moving for a moment.)

Shauna: Who told you to ride Starlight?

Me: Heeder.

Shauna: He told you to ride Starlight? Really?

Mike: What did you do to make him mad at you? Are you standing in the way of his promotion at work?

Me: So... you think I shouldn't ride Starlight?

Mike: Oh, no. You'll be fine.


With friends like these, who needs enemies? Anyhow, I rode Starlight and it all went well. Or, at least, I didn't fall off. I count that as a win.

8 comments:

jeff said...

You do realize that polo stories have an even more limited appeal than cat pictures?

More coral, more coral, more coral!

Theresa B (of Nebulopathy) said...

Get your own damn tank!

I'll give you mine if you buy me the replacement. I just found a 28 gallon tank with LED lighting. It would be really cool, but I'm not spending $800 for it...

JJ said...

I have noticed a decided lack of photos in the recent posts.

Theresa B (of Nebulopathy) said...

Sheesh, everyone is a critic.

Actually, if you look at the distribution of photos in previous posts, you'll notice that I usually put them in for a couple posts and then get lazy for the next few weeks.

However, your timing is good -- I just borrowed rvan's nice camera last night, so we will answer the age-old question soon: Is it me, or the camera?

jeff said...

once again, I can't stay up for the new pix. I tried [shift f5] and all that jazz.

Crap, no coral, no 'modern family'? What is this world coming to? Just a bunch of mouth-breathers sighing and high-fiving into the night? 'Yeah, we've solved some minor, delicate, yeah, subtle problems that no one knew existed.'

cheers,
j

Theresa B (of Nebulopathy) said...

Jeff, you were six minutes too early. And I even posted coral pictures.

Apropos of nothing yell of the evening: "What? There's no sequence number?!"

Get some subtle sleep.

Jacob said...

You play polo? That's kind of awesome. How does one end up playing polo recreationally?

Theresa B (of Nebulopathy) said...

I work with someone who played for Stanford in college and now helps train the UC Davis team.

And in my case, play should really be "play". I suck at it. Really. But that makes it more fun.