Now Voyager is hurt.

Imagine your cat or dog with an ouchy paw. They kind of hop around and look sad.

Now multiply that times 100 and you’ll have an idea what I’m dealing with.

It’s hard for a horse to hop on three legs so mostly he pushes through the pain and just reflexively yanks his head up when bearing weight on his left front hoof.

Diagnosing horse injuries is really hard. They typically mask pain really well, especially when you’re actively looking for the hot spot. And because of the complexity of their movement you can think “ah, left front leg” and really what you’re dealing with is a sore right hind hip.

I’m kind of hoping this is an abscess. He had one last summer and while the treatment includes unusual use of baby diapers and a lot of time consuming soaking of the sore hoof in a pail of epsom salt-laced water at least it’s not a major injury.

It just breaks my heart to see Now Voyager limping around. It bums him out too. He becomes kind of depressed and cranky. How does a depressed, cranky horse act? Well, he gets uncharacteristically quiet when I’m grooming him. And he’s more likely to take a little nip in my general direction. Not really with ill-will, more just grouchy. Of course if you know how big horse teeth are, any sized nip is too big.

Thank goodness for my barn friends/support group of Anke, Paula and Denise! They keep an eye on him, fix his bandages when they get too tattered and call me with updates.

And yet I fret. My pony is unhappy and that makes me unhappy. Sigh.

Fingers crossed that he heals soon.

We’re having a bit of an Indian Summer just now.

I love to run at night when the air is still and warm. And since that happens, oh, maybe 8 times a year I headed out last night for a run.

The fun part of warm weather in San Francisco is an abundance of open windows. Windows that are usually shuttered against the cold fog howling through the streets.

And open windows are a visual paradise for a night-runner like me. Lots to look at.

Sometimes I’m nosy about what people are watching on TV. But since we’re getting ready to slap some new paint on our living rooms walls I was noticing the color of walls.

A lot of them were blue.

No soft pastel shade either.

More like this wall featured on Apartment Therapy:

I know! That’s really bright, no?

Not one, not two, not three…at least a dozen homes I ran by had this shade – or a close approximation – on their walls.

I painted my mom’s place many years ago and this was the shade that I painted the bathroom. A tiny little windowless room. And that was too much. I painted over it.

Well, to each his own and I think it works in the above photo and it looked nice in all the homes.

But we’re sticking with RED. Specifically the Ralph Lauren shade of Venetian Red in their Thoroughbred line of paints. How perfect is that?

Will let you know how it turns out.

This man is brilliant.

He’s also no longer with us.

His story reads like one of his books:

Stieg Larsson, who lived in Sweden, was the editor in chief of the magazine Expo and a leading expert on antidemocratic right-wing extremist and Nazi organizations. He died in 2004, shortly after delivering the manuscripts for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.

Stieg wrote these books in his spare time for fun.

Bert got this one out of of the library for us in 2008:

I was hooked from the first page. Wonderfully drawn characters full of life and flaws. A fast paced and complex mystery. Not for the feint of heart but I also didn’t consider any of the violence gratuitous.

Here’s the writeup from Amazon:

Mikael Blomkvist, a once-respected financial journalist, watches his professional life rapidly crumble around him. Prospects appear bleak until an unexpected (and unsettling) offer to resurrect his name is extended by an old-school titan of Swedish industry. The catch–and there’s always a catch–is that Blomkvist must first spend a year researching a mysterious disappearance that has remained unsolved for nearly four decades. With few other options, he accepts and enlists the help of investigator Lisbeth Salander, a misunderstood genius with a cache of authority issues. Little is as it seems in Larsson’s novel, but there is at least one constant: you really don’t want to mess with the girl with the dragon tattoo. –Dave Callanan

The moment I finished the book I looked around for more work by my new favorite author. And that’s when I discovered the sad truth.

Stieg wrote three manuscripts – took them to a publisher – and then died of a massive heart attack months later at the age of 50. Not fair.

When the second installment of the story of Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist hit the shelves I was thrilled!

It did not disappoint.

The third book was just released in the UK on October 3, 2009. It’s not slated to ship in the U.S. until next May. I just might be placing an order on Amazon UK!

It’s dark in the morning.

It’s dark in the evening.

Yes, I’m whining. Just a bit.

Daylight savings time doesn’t end for another week. And a couple of days.

November 1st is when I’ll get the benefit of not having to groom Now Voyager in the dark. Or run by the light of the streetlamps. A thing I don’t mind doing at night but somehow seems just plain wrong in the morning.

This man, William Willet, worked tirelessly to enact Daylight Savings Time back in the early 1900’s

Here’s his pamphlet which went through 19 editions. Apparently it was quite popular.

I discovered a fact that made me giggle while doing all this fascinating research.

William Willett is the great-great-grandfather of this famous – and handsome – Brit…

I just love Coldplay. My best stretch of running music on my shuffle is a mix of Coldplay, Snow Patrol and Frou Frou.

But I digress.

Daylight Savings finally was enacted in 1918 in the U.S. as commemorated by this funny little poster.

I guess with more daylight in the evening all the farmers and gardeners could stop being such slackers and get back to work. Ha!

Sadly, William Willetts died in 1915, the year before the bill was finally passed in Britain.

So I leave you with this slightly retouched public service announcement from 2001 as a friendly reminder.

Thank you Wikipedia for being such a fabulous source of useful info!

I was so looking forward to the Snow Patrol concert Friday night.

Bought tickets months in advance.

I’m a big big fan. Their music is melodic and ever so slightly rocking. I think the genre is officially called Indie Rock.

This first song – Make This Go On Forever – is a good example of what I mean. Plus, it’s set to scenes from my all-time fave show – X-Files!

So what went wrong? Well it was either a deaf sound guy, bad acoustics (at the Oakland Fox Theater) or the band thinking that the loud noise equals happy audience. Or a combination of all three.

In my humble opinion it did not work. I tried to get into the groove but my eardrums were on the verge of exploding. And that’s with the earplugs in.

Their sound was *distorted* and bad.

These Irish boys are so talented. Beautiful voices, lovely harmonies and songs with words that tell a story.

Here, I found a video on YouTube of an acoustic show they did in Nashville at a Grimey’s music store. The production quality is low but it gives you real sense of what they’re like.

Now this show would have been the one to see. Aren’t they adorable? That’s Gary Lightbody on the left (lead vocals, rhythm guitar, piano) and his pal Nathan Connolly on the right (lead guitar, backing vocals).

And these are two of my favorite songs: Chocolate and Crack the Shutters.

The song that gets cut off is called Olive Grove. It’s a keeper.

In fact, if you haven’t heard it their album A Hundred Million Suns is one of those rare recordings where every single song is great. IMHO.

So from now one I think I’ll search out acoustic shows at tiny venues. I’m open to suggestions! Any favorite Bay Area venues?

Bert and I had a lovely bike ride yesterday. Fog blanketed the city and much of the surrounding area. Driving to our starting point in Berkeley we were so high up that San Francisco looked like one of those magical cities floating on a cloud that you read about in fairy tales.

We started at Inspiration Point in Tilden Park in Berkeley. On that side of the mountains there was nothing but sunshine.

Our ride took us through the tree-lined streets of cute towns including Orinda and Moraga. The breath of Fall was in the air and the breeze was nudging leaves off of most of the trees.

It was fun to ride my bike through the fallen leaves and hear the crunch.

After such a lovely ride we rewarded ourselves with a Bakesale Betty fried chicken sandwich.

Yum!

This is what I was doing Saturday morning! Well, not this exact thing. More like the general idea of it.

Quadrille is a choreographed dressage ride, commonly performed to music, which is often compared to an equestrian ballet or to a drill team. A minimum of four horses are used, although many times more (always in pairs), which perform movements together.

Thank you Wikipedia for this description.

The women of my barn all work with the same amazing dressage trainer – Anke Herbert – and she invited her students to join her for our first attempt at riding a quadrille.

Now, what you simply must know is that while we can chat with the best of them when we’re on the ground, our actual saddle time is pretty solitary.

So when the five of us (one had to cancel last minute) gathered in the arena our horses were looking at each other with curiosity.

And then we started trotting around with only about 6 feet between each horse. That really got their attention. “Hey, what’s Peanut doing behind me,” I could hear Now Voyager asking. Like a kid, he kept trying to see what was going on behind him.

Now Voyager, race horse that he is, wanted to be in front. Then as soon as he was he slowed down. Sun, the mustang and former endurance horse, needed to be in front. NV thought that was a-ok with him.

Turns out its hard to keep an even distance between trotting horses. Every horse has a different length stride and my guy kept busting into canter he was so excited.

Of course there was a really big and loud tractor doing work on the hillside plus the gardener had arrived with this lawn mower. Just the things to add spice to a ride.

All challenges aside we did finally arrive at a point when things were relatively under control and Anke had us doing pretty patterns in sync.

Some people were at the farm next door checking out the dahlia crop and apparently we were entertaining enough to hold their attention for a bit.

The best part was feeling like a kid again. Riding in group lesson with your bestest barn friends. Having big fun.

Can’t wait to do it again.

Turns out the universe really is connected.

I love the rush of recognition when I come across a moment of connectedness.

Two such moments whacked me upside the head yesterday.

The first time was after I’d written my post about Being in the Moment and used the word noggin – a first for me.

I then wandered through the lush garden of my favorite blogs. Fat Cyclist used the word noggin in his post too and it gave me a such a giggle. In short, ride out of your noggin, but only to the extent that you remain upright. He’s talking about a 24 hour race he’s doing this weekend in Moab. Hardcore!

Then last night Bert and I went to hear Nick Hornby in conversation with Dave Eggers at the City Arts & Lectures program.

Fabulous. Wonderful. Like sitting in someone’s big living room and listening to a couple of nice, smart, funny guys have a chat. I loved it!

Nick has a new book out called Juliet, Naked and he read a passage:

“The cliche had it that kids were the future, but that wasn’t it: they were the unreflective, active present. They were not themselves nostalgic because they couldn’t be, and they retarded nostalgia in their parents. Even as they were getting sick and being bullied and becoming addicted to heroin and getting pregnant, they were in the moment, and she wanted to be in it with them. ”

I practically fell out of my seat I was nodding my head along in agreement so vehemently. And isn’t that just a kick-a$$ paragraph? Brilliant.

Of course, Nick also said he’s a bit worried about the trend in blogging because blog writing doesn’t encourage re-drafting and re-working the writing before publication.

Dave agreed and said that at his non-profit where they teach kids to write826 Valencia they have proofs on the walls of different draft versions of novels. For example they have draft #20 of Amy Tan’s The Bonesetter’s Daughter and he said it blows the minds of these kids to see that even accomplished writers work so hard on their books.

They have a good point but I’m enjoying this blog thing. It gets me to write something most days and for that I am thankful.

When I’m running down the street at night I better be in the moment. That or I may be squished.

Riding Now Voyager requires laser like focus on the moment. Because his moment can turn dangerous and I’d best be ready.

Bombing down a steep hill on my bike is a very *in the moment* thing to do.

Same with swimming. If my brain starts to wander too much I might miss the impending approach of the wall and rather than execute a lovely flip turn I’d be left with a banged up noggin.

I’ve decided that I’m an *in the moment* junkie.

Take my run last night, for example. It was late. I’d successfully procrastinated all day and my excuses (too hungry, too windy, too busy) had finally run out at 9:00 p.m.

So I laced up my shoes, turned on my iPod and headed out. It was one of those “oh, I’ll just do the 2 mile loop since it’s so late” kind of nights. But when I hit the turnaround I was enjoying having the roads to myself. So I kept going.

As I got further away from the perceived safety of Noe Valley (really, no place is super safe) and deeper into Glen Park territory I started getting a wee bit worried. There are some pockets of housing that are *project-like* and in the past I’ve had large, slow moving sedans with darkened windows and thumping bass pass me by at dangerously slow speeds.

I listened to myself and turned around earlier than usual. Sometimes it’s good to pay attention to that inner voice.

This morning I was riding Now Voyager and not being in the moment. He’s such a good horse that I got lazy.

But he is a horse. And a horse is a flight animal. And if something startles a flight animal they, you know, fly.

Not entirely sure what startled him this morning. Could be the new horse that came to visit.

Annamae unloaded her big white Thoroughbred, Pinot Grigio, from her trailer. That certainly got his attention. NV is not a fan of trailers and he worries when his brethren emerge from said scary thing.

But it wasn’t until she was leading Grigio by the arena that Now Voyager really took off.

Who knows what ghost of Christmas past a white horse represents for NV – but I could not settle him down. I was suddenly sitting on a geyser getting ready to blow. The power was amazing. His body was a tightly coiled spring dispersing mini-explosive bursts.

Prancing in place. Then jumping into a canter. Head held high in the air and hindquarters fully engaged.

Good reminder of how incredibly athletic my boy is and he’s entirely capable of doing these collected movements with great power if properly motivated.

Believe you me, I was in the moment then! What a blast!

I ran into a van the other morning on my run. Don’t worry, the van was stationary.

Some of the streets of San Francisco are quite narrow. This particular street is exceedingly so. And I run in the street.

So when a I saw a car approaching I did the sensible thing and stopped, stepped out of the street and let the car drive by.

There I was being all sensible when in the process of stepping back into the street I also stepped forward. Smack into the bumper of a rusted white van.

I must have had some good momentum going because it stung pretty good but being in the midst of my runners high I just kept going. Noting for future reference that I bet there would be a pretty good shiner later on.

I have a terrific proactive treatment for bruises and aches and pains. It’s called Arnica. It’s a plant related to the sunflower that has anti-inflammatory properties.

This particular container of arnica reminds me of good times with Bert, David and Allison in San Carlos, Mexico. I purchased it at the local health club after a deep tissue massage that left me in need of something to help with sore muscles.

So while I’m not super thrilled to have basically run into a parked vehicle, and I do have a lovely bruise on my knee I am thankful for this daily reminder of good times under the sun with good friends.