laceblade

Day 1: In your own space, talk about your Happy Place—the things that give you joy, calms you or keeps you sane

I'm not quite sure I'm fulfilling the prompt correctly, but I am going with digital "spaces," which are either fandom-centric or fandom-adjacent.

The first is Tumblr - my account is ribbonknight, although my understanding is that my content is "dash-locked," meaning you need to be logged into your own account in order to see it. I do this because my current fandom is an RPF one, and we make every effort to keep our weirdo stuff AWAY from the people in question!!
Maybe it's because of the visual nature of the site, but I always find something to make me happy on tumblr. There are fandom-specific people and accounts that I follow, but I also enjoy the serendipitous nature of tumblr, where you get people talking about seasons or just funny comebacks, etc.

Another happy place is the Discord channel associated with my current RPF fandom. There had been a Slack, which then shuttered under semi-lolarious circumstances, and the Slack may or may not have secretly been replaced, idk! The Discord channel is populated by people who'd found each other through Tumblr, and it just facilitates a different way for us to talk to one another.
I'm technically also a member of the "oldschool fandom" one that had been linked around Dreamwidth, but it ultimately had too much activity for me to be able to keep up with it.

Lately, playing Animal Crossing: Wild World on my DS has been a happy place for me. The dreamy low-stakes nature of it reminds me of Glitch. I can also see that in addition to Stardew Valley having lifted a lot of its infrastructure from Harvest Moon games, it clearly took some things from Animal Crossing, too.
I'd played Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp in an app on my phone before coming to WW. I really liked the social nature of Pocket Camp, and being able to see how my friends decorated their spaces, etc. I honestly don't remember why I deleted the app - maybe just got too bored by the daily happenings? I'm not sure.
In WW, there are a few things I do every day - search for the rock that will dispense free coins, buy coffee from the pigeon named Brewster in the basement of the museum, search for fossils, collect and sell fruit, check the recycling bin in City Hall for cool shit, etc. The other townspeople and mail I receive provide some surrealist humor, and it's great all around.
Before starting Wild World, I had been playing Harvest Moon: The Tale of Two Towns on my DS. I liked that game, but it did move SO SLOWLY that I semi-abandoned it in favor of starting a Persona 5 game on my PS4.
Anyway! This game, & this genre, is my go-to "I just got home from work and need to forcibly chill the fuck out after a miserable bus ride" evening activity ;)

I love logging my reading on Goodreads, as well as tracking "books I want to read in the future." I also love looking at other people's updates to see what they're reading. I am ribbonknight over there; my profile is here.

Lately I have been watching Veep, and am in the middle of season 5. Every episode makes me laugh, it pulls me out of every bad mood; I love it so much. ty to brdgt for having suggested it.
Young Pope ended up being too dark for me at the moment. This has happened to me a lot in the past few years with live-action TV.

Physically, my "happy place" is when I go Up North to where my family has a trailer on a lake, or when I go horseback riding on Chief. Fresh air, trees, open sky, a lack of buildings. So nice. If I had my way, I'd live in the middle of nowhere.

Chief and I have been working on more precision stuff. We walk over brightly painted poles, most of which are on the ground, but some of which are a few inches off. Sometimes, we work in the indoor arena, and sometimes in the outdoor one. We also still go for trail rides once in a while.

When not going over poles, we switch between walk/trot/canter. Chief is a gaited horse, so his trot is very smooth.

Last night, I rode one of my instructor's other horses, a white horse named Jesse.
Jesse is 2 years older than Chief (so, Jesse = 20). The other person who rides Jesse is an 11-year-old girl, and as such he has six braids in his mane lol.

When we brought Jesse inside from his pasture, my instructor told me not to be surprised if he fell asleep in the cross-ties while I brushed him, and...THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED! I'm kind of shocked that he's able to fall asleep while I'm doing my thing with him, but I guess it's probably soothing. We had to wake him up a little aggressively so that he could cooperate with putting his bit/bridle on.

Jesse and I rode in a small circular gated thing that I'd never rode in before. With Jesse, I rode on an English style saddle, which so far I don't like at all. There's much less between you and the horse, and I feel less secure.
However, this didn't go as poorly as my previous attempts at English style riding, which was on a different horse (Jake).

We worked on posting, which is difficult for me. I have a hard time finding the rhythm unless I'm actually looking at Jesse's legs to see when the "outside" front leg is moving (aka, when I should stand up). This is super frustrating to me, because I'm used to having good rhythm musically.

We also worked on a position called two-point, which is sort of like the "standing" part of posting, but involves hovering over the saddle. This position is generally used for jumping. It takes a lot of muscles to do it!

Jesse's trot is MUCH more bouncy than Chief's. So far I really dislike English-style riding, I think. The bouncing makes me feel semi-out of control, although Jesse is a good horse & if he feels me losing balance, he'll slow back down to a walk right away.
Jesse is also a legit horse (remember that Chief is technically a pony), so when riding, I'm about seven inches higher off the ground, which feels like A LOT!

I guess one thing I do like about English-style is that the saddle is much less involved & therefore lighter, and I can carry it with no problem. (I struggle a lot with the Western saddle lol.)

I felt as though I had deeply betrayed Chief when I walked Jesse back to the pasture and gave him a cookie, but had none to offer Chief. I'M SORRY, CHIEF!! I AM A MONSTER!

Other points of amusement last night included the fucking cats. One cat would sit in the circular pen we were in, right in the path Jesse & I were walking, and even though we kept steadily approaching, the cat would get all, OH SHIT!! when we were right about to step on him, & then run off.

One cat also kept crouching in the weeds, & then when a few birds flew overhead (way overhead), he jumped into the air & swiped, as though he would get one - he must have really poor depth perception, idk.


I'm so grateful for this time, every week.

This Tuesday, I rode inside because it was raining.
Plenty was going on inside, though.

When I arrived, a younger girl was riding my instructor's white-ish horse, Jesse. I'm not sure how old the rider is, but in grade/middle school, for sure.
She was riding English style and doing jumps. I was very impressed! So was her dad, who watched from the gate with me.

After her lesson was finished, I asked my instructor whether the second baby horse had been born since my last lesson, and he had! So we went across the arena to the area in the back where the moms/babies are in their respective stalls, still next to one another.
Apparently even though they each have their own baby now, one of the moms keeps trying to bust into the stall of the other one.
The newest foal is a little less shy than the other one. His mom is a little more protective, though.

We got a wet Chief out of the field & let him drip-dry a little while we stood in the arena and watched the now 1.5-week old Sky run free for a little bit in the arena with his mom, Bayla. Bayla runs in pretty arcs around the arena, rippling muscles, etc. Sky is awkward as fuck, running & then stopping again, not really understanding how to use his legs and sometimes seeming about to trip over himself and wipe out.

Other people who board their horses at the stable are often around in the evenings, brushing/caring for their horses. On Tuesday, one of them stood with my instructor & I to watch Sky and Bayla run around. It's been 5-6 years since the last time this ranch had a baby horse, so everyone's pretty excited.


Of course, all the baby excitement has a consequence - I got out much later, & was super crabby when I got back home. Please pity The Boyfriend.


As for me & Chief, picking the mud out of his hooves is currently DISGUSTING. ugh.

As soon as I got on Chief, he almost decapitated me by booking it through the arena garage door, so I had to duck down so as not to clip my head :( :( :(
My instructor thinks Chief's thought process was, "We went outside last time! This girl is on me again! Let's go outside, yayyyy!"
Not so much.

In the arena, we did precision training. Two sets of 90-degree angled posts were lying flat on the ground, perpendicular to each other. So, like this:
__ | | __

We'd through the middle of each pole like this:
_>_ | > | _v_
^

Then, we'd halt between the two poles that were parallel to one another:
__ | x | __

Finally, they were spaced out more so that I would bring him to a trot between parallel poles:
__ | (trot) | __

For each sequence, I'd go one way & then reverse it.


The last thing we did was work in a giant ring of flat fluorescent cones. I worked to weave in an out, first every-other cone, then in patterns of two inside/one outside & then two outside/one inside. And finally, switching between in & out with every cone.

It was a lot of work! My instructor thinks I'm getting better.

Except for dismounting, :( This time, I didn't get my left foot unhooked after swinging my right over the horse & starting to sink down. My body weight was already too far down & I don't have the arm strength to haul myself back up on to the horse, so I ended in disgrace.

This past week, I didn't ride Chief during my lesson. Instead, I rode a horse named Jake.

Jake's owner had a lesson directly preceding mine, so I think it helps my instructor out from doing parts of our lessons at the same time. It also gave me more riding time, because Jake was already saddled up when I arrived.

However, Jake does English-style, which means that when I ride him, I'm doing English-style.
I really prefer Western style so far. I like being able to hold on to the pommel of the saddle when I want. I like the way one holds the reins Western-style than English-style. I feel much more in control.

Chief and I had been working on turning and stopping, trying to get me better precision.

With Jake, I worked on posting, which involves getting him to trot & then having me try to stand up in the stirrups every time his "outside" front leg hits the ground. So...basically rapid bouncing up & down. I really didn't like this, lol. When Jake is trotting, I feel like I have absolutely no control & I'm about to fall off, because there's nothing to hold on to. I can grasp part of his mane, but that doesn't really make me feel secure.
For whatever reason, I had much better rhythm going clockwise than counter-clockwise.

Later in the lesson, Jake spooked. Unlike Chief's spook, which feels like he just misses a step, Jake pinned his ears down & streaked after another horse who was in the arena. I shouted & almost fell off. Actually, I was positive I was going to fall off, but luckily I didn't!

The other women in the room (my instructor, another student of hers who has much more experience & who owns Jake, & a woman who boards her horses there & was riding them around) were very supportive, praising me for holding on & not falling off, & also bringing Jake to a halt.

STILL, it was pretty scary. I'll be excited to ride Chief again.

Currently, my dream is to someday ride outside. We need to wait for it stay lighter further into the evening before that happens. When I was leaving, a women who boards horses (whose name I can't remember & mentally refer to as "Glory's owner") & my instructor were talking about night rides. Glory's owner said that at the previous place she boarded, the owner-dude took her on a night ride. Glory's owner said she couldn't see her hand in front of her face, so the point is to trust your horse & just let them take you through the woods.

This sounds frightening, but in previous lessons my instructor had been having me take my hands off the reins & close my eyes while letting Chief walk wherever he wanted. This was to help me get a better idea of how Chief moves & to relax in the saddle. I think it'd be scarier to be holding on to the reins, but still unable to see anything, & having the horse be walking on uneven terrain next to branches/etc. ;_;
ANYWAY, this increased my esteem for the other riders, lol.