Meat Trails and Annie Sullivan

Took the horse and the dog out on the trail, dog second time ever. I call these the Meat Trails, because for the dog to be good, one must carry a bag of meat and continually "fling" the meat whenever a potential hazard is coming up. (Like Other Guy with Dog, jogger, or neighbor with evil eye.) Once the dog knows you have a bag of meat and will be flinging it randomly, she is pretty darn happy to run right back when you call. Dewey was kind of bummed that the dog was getting all the treats, he kept looking back hopefully everytime, but of course I brought him nothing. Once we got out of the neighborhood, I didn't have to fling as much, since it was just me, the horse and the hill. Becky then likes to walk directly in front of the horse, in his blind spot, the leader of the pack but a short leader that is hard to see when horse's head is blocking her.


All in all, a good ride. The first rides are never that good, too much managing. Too much thinking "is this where I die," because the dog spooks the horse and then we tumble down the mountain. But the good thing is, the more firsts there are the less there are to do. Pretty soon Becky will just be trotting along happily, Dewey will be ambling along happily, and I can just relax for longer periods of time, letting things roll off me and down into the dusty trail. That's what trail is for, anyway. Absorbing anxiety and replacing it with beautiful flowers and water. That we look at. And Dewey's beautiful Barbie mane and quiet kind head. All these trail rides he's never said a word. Just takes me where I want to go.

The horse is a good antidote to the kindergarten subbing I did yesterday. I am built for teaching and yet not at all. Teaching jabs you right in the sore parenting pulp with a hot stick. The part where they run up to the fence yelling "Teacher!" that is pretty 1800s, and I like that they know me and trust me as that weird, solid thing. But sitting in the class trying to teach when someone has their hands bent all inside their shirt with the shirt rotated around so if there was a fire, she would be trapped in her shirt, that's the part I'm not good at. Also, the names are really stupid. You have to choke on the spelling of Maysin and the sheer amount of Isabellas. I keep forgetting that I don't have to have to Olympic SCORES when subbing. I'm not the actual teacher. But when I'm wearing retarded shoes and clothes I wouldn't normally touch, I'm such a good method actor that I AM the teacher. Except lost and skillless. So this is where my parenting skills kick in and I start just ordering people around. And Bingo with 20 five year olds is maybe a little like rappelling into a volcano. In fact, you may choose rappelling if you were offered both options. No one at five has ever played Bingo before. Looking at the letter and finding a number? Vexing. Figuring out when you had five in a row? Confounding. Me yelling "0 16" over loud kindergarten voices - ridiculous. Should have just let them build the bingo markers into towers like they wanted to. If I was parenting, I would have done that. But that is fun, and not learning. The key difference between school and home. Unless later they become builders.

Considering taking a bag of meat next time, and flinging it out to see if that has any effect. Next time will be my second time, which in Sub world is like two years of training. I'll remember that they are 5 and won't remember my day, so I can just enjoy it instead of trying to teach Helen how to spell water under the water pump every time.