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Maia's father annoys me. In little ways, and in big ways. One of the little ways, he doesn't communicate to anyone, except his wife, his mother, and; perhaps, his therapist.
There are a few other things going on in the relationship (after the better part of five years I don't think we've had one substantive conversation, but he tries to give me advice on how to live my life... and was apparently hurt that I, "shut him down," when he attempted this, "as a an older man to a younger." 1: Yes, he is about 20 years my senior... at 20 that might have mattered, at 34, not so much (which is when he, so I'm told... I don't recall the incident... which is probably for the best, tried this little feat)2: at those ages one needs a bit of simpatico, and bonhomie to try this sort of avuncular trick. Given that he was a senior management type, apparently quite successful with his underlings, one would think he knows this, but it seems the skills he has at the office don't carry over. But I digress.
So, back to the stories. A few weeks before they left he decided to host a birthday party for a friend of the family (said friend having survived 18 years). No problem. The house is well built for such things. We used to have a dozen or so at the table every Wednesday night.
But, with the girls going away, and Lorraine (Pat's mother) being deeper in her dementia; and so in a home, some 45 miles away, the weekly sessions of chamber music have withered, and the house is tad less tidy.
Which isn't that big a deal. I did some work while people were away, and with three days to get things done it seemed trivial.
Except that his sole contribution was to declare the house needed to be clean.
With foals due on the 8th August, people here were also being a tad like a 20 year old man with his 18 year old bride heading for labor.
So I did a lot of stuff, cleaned the patio (to include scrubbing the brickwork), started getting the kitchen tile ready for scrubbing, saw to breakfast.
He watered the dead lawn and bought office supplies at Staples. Moved some of the wood on the porch, all the stuff which really matters for an indoor party where the focus is going to be a marathon of Coen Bros. movies (the irony of a Coen Bros. film fest, hosted by Gary is precious... not quite a big bash in the Oval office to watch, for the sheer fun of it, everything Michael Moore has done [that would be a Taratino fest) but close).
If he'd had the gall to make any comment about things needing more work... I might have lost my temper... which I have managed to keep; to date.
So Maia and I are heading off to run an errand, because the driveway was blocked by the contractors building the block wall (for foalproofing the arena) we decided the extra mats needed for the stall (come the mares' lying in) would wait, and we took her car, not the truck.
When Sola, her sister, called to say that Sienna had shown a twelve hour time frame for delivery, based on the test kit (which was being used to make sure we knew how to do it).
Stall mats can no longer wait. I am amused that Maia, in her car, on her way away, is expected to call the vet. Seems silly to me... after all if the vet has questions, she can't go look at the mare... she'll have to say, Call (XXX).
We don't call the vet, we get the mats (A neat trick because they want to refuse to let us take them without a truck. Maia has no truck with that and we load them, and go).
Much running about... no one is acting like a headless chicken, but no one is paying much attention to the cleaning... so I carry on.
Maia and run some errands, get some dinner at our place, pick up a friend who wants to watch, and head back.
Still waiting. After 40 minutes of this I decide (at almost 2300) that breakfast is going to matter, so I go home to prep for that, and to take a nap until the water breaks. Until that happens, we're watching paint dry.
About midnight I hit the futon in the living room.
0106, the phone rings, and I trot down the block. A pale, yellowish, translucent bag is hanging from Sienna's vulva. It has a foot in it. Skinny and dark, with a pale lump on the end of the hoof (this is sort of a shock pad, it keeps the hoof from tearing tender bits of mother horse).
It would be nicer if the mare would lie down. She needs to, or the foal is likely to die, because they get some huge amount of blood, via the umbilicus, post-parturition. She wanders in circles. She grunts. She thinks of lieing down, and changes her mind.
She pushes; a second leg appears. She pushes some more. The legs go in and out. More pushing, more walking, more pushing. I am starting to push, sympathetically.
The nose appears. She pushes, it goes in an out. The poll (top of the forehead) seems to be the sticking point. It isn't as wide in a mule as it is in a donkey, but it ain't as skinny as a horse, and this is a horse doing the pushing.
She lies down.
Maia rips the caul open, and the nose is free. The nostrils flare. She pushes. Maia and Sola pull. Back and forth.
Pop!... the head clears and half a mule is flopped out into the straw. Like Christmas morning they rip into the caul and start to buff the baby (chestnut, which is wrong the genetics of color say that the baby isn't supposed to be that dark). A bit more pushing and the rest of the baby is out.
Time: 0117.
For the next fifty minutes the foal is kept on the ground. Both for its sake (which would happen without intervention) and to let all sort of things happen to it.
Paper bags on the head, tapping the hooves (as though a farrier were driving nails) fingers up the nose, in the mouth; the ears, around the anus, in the penile sheath [it's a jack] bending the neck... a host of things you will have to train the equine to handle, and all can be done right now... if one knows to do it.
He is strong. Takes a pair of strapping young women to keep him in place, not let him get away (which will have the opposite affect).
After a while the placenta starts to drop... about ten pounds of dark lavender meat... which the vet needs to see, and(the thinking is vague) is useful in the healing of horse wounds (stem cells is the current thesis... no matter, it is pretty solidly shown to work). This means it will be chopped up later, and used; as needed, for wounds.
A bit after that I notice that everyone is here, and, since someone has to be awake, with foal and dam, for the next twenty-four hours. I tell Maia we are going home, to get a shower (the process is natural, but sometimes nature stinks) and some sleep, so that when people crap out, one of us can take over.
In bed at 0415, awakened at 0630, and I left to sleep until 0830, so as to take our guest to her work.
Then back to cook breakfast, see the vet, and finish cleaning the kitchen.
So, I think I'll now be a bit more sociabble...
Oh, did I mention that this party is billed as, "Drug and alcohol free," so the beer I have in the fridge has to stay there until everyone leaves, sometime tomorrow.
Other people's fun, sucks.
There are a few other things going on in the relationship (after the better part of five years I don't think we've had one substantive conversation, but he tries to give me advice on how to live my life... and was apparently hurt that I, "shut him down," when he attempted this, "as a an older man to a younger." 1: Yes, he is about 20 years my senior... at 20 that might have mattered, at 34, not so much (which is when he, so I'm told... I don't recall the incident... which is probably for the best, tried this little feat)2: at those ages one needs a bit of simpatico, and bonhomie to try this sort of avuncular trick. Given that he was a senior management type, apparently quite successful with his underlings, one would think he knows this, but it seems the skills he has at the office don't carry over. But I digress.
So, back to the stories. A few weeks before they left he decided to host a birthday party for a friend of the family (said friend having survived 18 years). No problem. The house is well built for such things. We used to have a dozen or so at the table every Wednesday night.
But, with the girls going away, and Lorraine (Pat's mother) being deeper in her dementia; and so in a home, some 45 miles away, the weekly sessions of chamber music have withered, and the house is tad less tidy.
Which isn't that big a deal. I did some work while people were away, and with three days to get things done it seemed trivial.
Except that his sole contribution was to declare the house needed to be clean.
With foals due on the 8th August, people here were also being a tad like a 20 year old man with his 18 year old bride heading for labor.
So I did a lot of stuff, cleaned the patio (to include scrubbing the brickwork), started getting the kitchen tile ready for scrubbing, saw to breakfast.
He watered the dead lawn and bought office supplies at Staples. Moved some of the wood on the porch, all the stuff which really matters for an indoor party where the focus is going to be a marathon of Coen Bros. movies (the irony of a Coen Bros. film fest, hosted by Gary is precious... not quite a big bash in the Oval office to watch, for the sheer fun of it, everything Michael Moore has done [that would be a Taratino fest) but close).
If he'd had the gall to make any comment about things needing more work... I might have lost my temper... which I have managed to keep; to date.
So Maia and I are heading off to run an errand, because the driveway was blocked by the contractors building the block wall (for foalproofing the arena) we decided the extra mats needed for the stall (come the mares' lying in) would wait, and we took her car, not the truck.
When Sola, her sister, called to say that Sienna had shown a twelve hour time frame for delivery, based on the test kit (which was being used to make sure we knew how to do it).
Stall mats can no longer wait. I am amused that Maia, in her car, on her way away, is expected to call the vet. Seems silly to me... after all if the vet has questions, she can't go look at the mare... she'll have to say, Call (XXX).
We don't call the vet, we get the mats (A neat trick because they want to refuse to let us take them without a truck. Maia has no truck with that and we load them, and go).
Much running about... no one is acting like a headless chicken, but no one is paying much attention to the cleaning... so I carry on.
Maia and run some errands, get some dinner at our place, pick up a friend who wants to watch, and head back.
Still waiting. After 40 minutes of this I decide (at almost 2300) that breakfast is going to matter, so I go home to prep for that, and to take a nap until the water breaks. Until that happens, we're watching paint dry.
About midnight I hit the futon in the living room.
0106, the phone rings, and I trot down the block. A pale, yellowish, translucent bag is hanging from Sienna's vulva. It has a foot in it. Skinny and dark, with a pale lump on the end of the hoof (this is sort of a shock pad, it keeps the hoof from tearing tender bits of mother horse).
It would be nicer if the mare would lie down. She needs to, or the foal is likely to die, because they get some huge amount of blood, via the umbilicus, post-parturition. She wanders in circles. She grunts. She thinks of lieing down, and changes her mind.
She pushes; a second leg appears. She pushes some more. The legs go in and out. More pushing, more walking, more pushing. I am starting to push, sympathetically.
The nose appears. She pushes, it goes in an out. The poll (top of the forehead) seems to be the sticking point. It isn't as wide in a mule as it is in a donkey, but it ain't as skinny as a horse, and this is a horse doing the pushing.
She lies down.
Maia rips the caul open, and the nose is free. The nostrils flare. She pushes. Maia and Sola pull. Back and forth.
Pop!... the head clears and half a mule is flopped out into the straw. Like Christmas morning they rip into the caul and start to buff the baby (chestnut, which is wrong the genetics of color say that the baby isn't supposed to be that dark). A bit more pushing and the rest of the baby is out.
Time: 0117.
For the next fifty minutes the foal is kept on the ground. Both for its sake (which would happen without intervention) and to let all sort of things happen to it.
Paper bags on the head, tapping the hooves (as though a farrier were driving nails) fingers up the nose, in the mouth; the ears, around the anus, in the penile sheath [it's a jack] bending the neck... a host of things you will have to train the equine to handle, and all can be done right now... if one knows to do it.
He is strong. Takes a pair of strapping young women to keep him in place, not let him get away (which will have the opposite affect).
After a while the placenta starts to drop... about ten pounds of dark lavender meat... which the vet needs to see, and(the thinking is vague) is useful in the healing of horse wounds (stem cells is the current thesis... no matter, it is pretty solidly shown to work). This means it will be chopped up later, and used; as needed, for wounds.
A bit after that I notice that everyone is here, and, since someone has to be awake, with foal and dam, for the next twenty-four hours. I tell Maia we are going home, to get a shower (the process is natural, but sometimes nature stinks) and some sleep, so that when people crap out, one of us can take over.
In bed at 0415, awakened at 0630, and I left to sleep until 0830, so as to take our guest to her work.
Then back to cook breakfast, see the vet, and finish cleaning the kitchen.
So, I think I'll now be a bit more sociabble...
Oh, did I mention that this party is billed as, "Drug and alcohol free," so the beer I have in the fridge has to stay there until everyone leaves, sometime tomorrow.
Other people's fun, sucks.
