Sam’s Ministrations on Life

So, I was at the barn on Saturday night… just walking along, minding my own business when I hear thundering hooves behind me. I turn around and find about a 200 pound billy goat running straight at me. Uttering a swear, I throw myself against the wall and pray. Luckily apparently goats lose interest easily and it ran into the barn and began munching on hay, and then picking up tack, and various other items around the barn and crapping in the middle of the floor. Well I’ve still got to tack up so I make the ill-advised decision of taking regina out of her stall. So here I am, holding regina, just by the halter, facing this billy goat, who I now fear may feel cornered and is getting increasingly twitchy. Quickly I turn Regina around and put her back in the stall, with the door open, but with a chain across so she can hang her head out. So the goat at this point is between me and my tack… this is when I remember that someone once said if you ignore the goat it wont bother you… so I figure it’s somewhat like an angry dog and decide to walk down the isle refusing to make eye contact. The entire time I’m carrying on a running conversation with my horse… sounding somewhat like.
“What do you think I should do if the goat attacks me?”
“Do you lie down and play dead like when a bear attacks?
“Do you punch it in the nose like a shark?”
“Should I use a firm voice so it thinks I’m an alpha?”
The whole time I’m envisioning rams on the side of a mountain in the Himalayas, running and clashing horns. Of course Regina was no help… she just hung her head out of the stall enjoying watching my discomfort. Unwise decision on my part to let her do that because the next time I turn around I see the goat running at her, ramming speed, horned skull aimed to attack. At the last moment it rears up on its hind legs and kicks at the air. Regina reacted, much as I would have expected… she pins her ears and takes several angry steps forward, as far as the chain would allow, baring her teeth and stomping. The goat got this horrified look on its face, made some sort of low guttural noise and ran from the barn at full speed.
Moral of the story: If a goat attacks, gain a half ton, bare your teeth and stomp on the ground.

… or at least that is what the fine people of Alabama believe. I have just spent two days in the heart of the deep south… and I mean deep. Let’s just say I knew when I had gone past the point of no return… it would be around the time a mud-splashed, rust-stained pick-up with a gun rack and a stars and bars flag went flying past me. Let’s just say I crouched a little lower in my plastic Saturn and hoped that no one would realize where Wellesley was. I exit the highway and am driving down a rode hoping I don’t blow a flat, or break down because I would have sworn I just heard a banjo, and I’m sure some fella in overalls would come from the nearest double-wide, drag me into the wilderness to a shed where he would pet my hair like Lennie from of Mice and Men and then use me for breeding and making the family bigger cause they is thinkin the whole doin your sister was slowly making them stupider. On that subject the people we met with believed that their school system was not so bad… they had gotten a D on the quality of their school compared to other schools in the state… mind you bama has one of the worst school systems in the country… so let’s imagine just how bad this is. All they really wanted to make their lives complete and perfect was a fancy restaurant… like a TGIFridays, or a Red Lobster… you know some fancy place to bring a date where you can sit down and don’t get served via a tray. Their number one sport is “mudding”… and they have large areas where they go and race their trucks and ATVs. Apparently it is very difficult to keep a workforce because people just don’t show up. To even get people to come in on Monday you have to promise them gift cards and fruit baskets. Man, why am I even bothering coming into work? So then in several of our meetings the conversation turned to why it was that these people were so lazy. It was decided that it was generational and that all the people b/w 20 and 30 were inherently lazy. This would be the inevitable point when everyone would turn to me and ask me why it was that my generation was so lazy. How does one answer this? After explaining that I didn’t really group myself with the above I suggested that maybe it was b/c people my age know they have options for jobs, and there will always be another one, and that no one stays in a job longer than 4 years anymore. This then led into the typical walking to school barefoot, uphill anecdote… but I acutally believe them in this case. We next moved to the discussion of the “minorities”, or “those people”, or the “poor folks”. Apparently I can be happy though because although my age group might be lazy, “those spanish folks” are really hard workers b/c they are all immigrants and here illegally. If we weren’t referencing the hispanics we were talking about ‘the blacks’. I heard two things that I must pass on. One was a positive reference to what “good hard workers those ‘clean’ blacks are”… and then reference to a black ball player who shared a last name with one of the stakeholders… he mused whether or not his family might have owned the players family as slaves once. I am also fairly certain that a murder took place in my hotel room at the holiday inn express as there was a suspect large red stain on one of the boxsprings and fairly large drops on the other boxspring. Whoever it was bled a lot, and you would think they would want to clean it up a bit, at least bleach it so it wasn’t red… but no, why bother. So let’s just say I went out to my car to grab one of my barn sweatshirts to cover my pillow with… because I would choose sleeping with the smell of horses over the suspect pillows. Anyways, let’s just say that it was experience… one I hope not to repeat too soon, or all that often… as a simple girl from the Northeast I am not at all accustomed to the wild ways of the hinterlands.

… and next onto Kentucky for a week at Fort Campbell.

Well, as you may know I was in Spain. It was a lot more business than pleasure though. Long hours in a windowless room getting yelled at… or over… by the four guys I went with. I’m pretty sure I’m going straight to hell for the fact that the workshop outcome was changing over orange groves that have been passed down from generation to generation for hundreds of years to a vacation golf community for British tourists.

Well, I don’t feel like going back to it, so I will just move forward to what’s up with me now. They restructured the office and now I am almost solely in the City Planning department… and really the only one at my level. I had my first review and they decided I was a “highly effective” member of the team. Let’s just say they were highly amused when they saw that one of my “goals” was to become one of the youngest project managers, and youngest principal in the company. It seems like I will have to keep after people to make sure I get ahead. It’s funny Megan went to study City Planning and instead I’m the one who is thinking of getting my registration sooner. I also explained the fact that I wanted to do more international work, especially in Latin America… they are trying to pull some strings and get me connected to the right people for that. I’m also doing an appropriate amount of brown nosing by helping to plan our 25th Anniversary celebration.

On the personal front I am keeping busy. Regina takes up a good part of my free time. At the moment I am only going on the weekends, which seems to be fine as it takes me about half the week to walk straight afterwards. I like to go straight from the barn, dirty and smelling like horses to the local snazzy mall. I’m tellin you, it’s Prada, and rappers, and fur and Juicy Couture, and pimped out rides as far as the eye can see. To give you an example you get free valet parking with your Cadillac… unfortunately I can’t seem to fake them out with my Saturn. So anyway I purposely like to walk in and offend their sensibilities in my barn attire… perhaps even with some remaining horse snot and manure clinging to my shoes. I go and watch chic flicks that I wouldn’t be able to convince other people to go see. Oh wait, there are no other people. I really am making a valiant effort to make friends here. I’ve tried joining all sorts of damned clubs, from book clubs to alumni clubs. I did go to an “All Ivy” event that Penn was participating in. It was Martinis and IMAX. Here is a representative snippet of conversation.

“Oh dear, I can’t have more than one martini.”
“The martinis are excellent at the High Museum.”
“Oh I love that museum, but I am much more into the more contemporary works.”
“Ooo, there is a Yaley, I think from New York, and he has just started an Alumni Art Collector group”

Yeah… I collect art too, it usual just comes in the poster form that you find in a tube at the museum shop… or shit I plotted out for 1.25 a square foot. Another failed attempt at friend making was my attempt to find a good Book Club to join on Yahoo groups. I thought I found one, they went back and forth about wanting to accept me, I thought I was a good fit as they said they liked to read a variety of things… yeah, by variety what they failed to say was that they only read things having to deal with their homeland of India. Needless to say I had to let Samir down easy and lie, saying I had already found another book group. I mean people, I’m getting a bit desperate… I haven’t yet gotten to the point where I advertise on craigslist “girl seeking girl, or guy for a strictly platonic relationship” because what that means is “Please crazies apply and then drag me off into the wilderness, chop me up and me to Canadian geese.”

I’m also finally settling into the idea that my apartment isn’t so bad, but that it might look better if I finally unpacked those last few boxes, and finished decorating. I am also trying to be as Zen as possible and flush out a bunch of old stuff I don’t need anymore… some of you may know that I collect a lot of shit, tchochkis and the like, and I may have a slight tacky trail I like to follow. That means taking down the xmas lights and other theme lighting, putting away the shot glass collection, hiding a few of my frog sculptures, and using animal print strictly as an accent for moments I need to have pop. Spring has already reached the ATL, redbuds and pansies are blooming in my complex and as soon as it gets a little warmer I am going to make my porch into a lush exotic hideaway. This way I can just hide out on my porch, camouflaged by my plants, petting my cats and watching my neighbors… I will leave only at nightfall and a weird small will begin emanating from my apartment. Oh wait, that is what will happen to me if I don’t start making friends. I am open to suggestions. Lauren thinks I should just start going to happy hours by myself, and sit at the bar and try and latch onto groups around me… perhaps I will consider this option, but the plan is a bit flawed in the fact that I would have to by myself a drink to even be sitting at the bar, and if I did meet a new friend I would probably have a second drink… and I think we all know I wouldn’t be able to drive myself home, so I would then have to find a Starbucks to sit at until I sobered up. Maybe, I’ll just stand on the side of the road with a sign that says “Will work for friends”