A Bad Influence or Why You Shouldn't Hang Out With Your Mother

I’m such a bad mother. When Kelly came home from school yesterday, even though she had a lot of homework, I made her come riding with me. Well, I really didn’t have to make her. I just said, “I’m going riding after we eat. You’re welcome to come with me if you want...” Knowing full well she couldn’t pass up riding. I rinsed out my coffee cup and watched her out of the corner of my eye, nonchalant. Of course she wanted to go riding! She’s horse crazy just like me. I brainwashed her good. See! I am bad. What kind of mother brainwashes her kid to do something? I’m about as bad as those stage mothers who put fake eyelashes and red lipstick on their daughters and would stuff toilet paper in their bras if they were big enough to wear them because they want to catch the judge’s eye. Or a pedophile’s. I don’t know.

But horseback riding is different. I don’t just think that because it’s my thing to do. It really is different. One time I combined the two. When I was sixteen, my mother talked me into entering a beauty contest—the Miss Middletown Pageant. I did it because I was flattered she wanted me to enter. But when I was already signed up, I realized there was a category called talent. And since I didn’t play the flute or tap dance, I didn’t have any. Oh why did she make me enter?!—I wailed. What was I going to do?! The girls in the contest took lessons and had voice coaches and one of them even entertained the governor by playing Chopin on the piano at the governor’s ball. All I did was write stories and ride my pony. Now I knew I was halfway pretty even though I didn’t know how to walk in high heels or fix my hair, being a tomboy. But how was I going to compete with rich girls (those were the ones who got the lessons and the voice coaches) crooning Somewhere Over the Rainbow and playing the violin and the piccolo in fancy ballroom gowns? (What is a piccolo anyway? Isn’t there a Jenny Piccolo on Happy Days?) I didn’t have any talent per se. I was freaking. So I did the only thing I knew how to do. I wrote a story about my pony.

“Does your motorcycle nicker to you in the morning? Do your roller skates run up to you at the pasture gate for a pat on the neck?” Never mind. Hopefully I’ve improved since then.

But I won it! I won the talent award! I couldn’t stop crying up there. (Interesting since the ones who won the contest, didn’t even shed a tear.)

Anyway, even though I didn’t place in the beauty part of the contest, I never felt bad about it because the irony of winning the talent award outshined anything else. I sure showed them! Ha! Turned out I’m pretty talented after all! Forget that trombone I was thinking about taking up! Who needs it? Plus, I had some fierce competition. The winner later went on to become first runner-up in the Miss America Pageant. Besides, I already knew at sixteen-years-old that talent and what was inside a person was more important than outer beauty. Otherwise I would have known how to walk in those high heels.

I would enter Kelly in a beauty contest in a minute, she’s so pretty.


But I’d much rather her come out riding with me. Even if it means she’s up late trying to get her homework done. At least I’m not making her wear false eyelashes and red lipstick. And I can always write the teacher a note…

My Favorite Horse and Spaghetti

The wind is whipping like a mother today; otherwise I was going to ride. That’s why I left Oklahoma. Because of the wind. It makes me feel uneasy. It makes me feel like a storm is coming, even when it’s not. Every time I feel sorry for myself for getting rid of my hundred-and-ten acres out there, a windy day happens and I feel better.

You’d think the horses wouldn’t mind the wind because they’re used to it, having spent time in Oklahoma. But they don’t like it either. I’m sure they feel uneasy as well, and perhaps they expect a storm. Or at least some branches to fall down and clonk them on the heads. The last time we had real bad wind, a storm did come and it knocked down three trees. They fell on the roof that goes around the tobacco shed, where I’d just thrown down some hay and where Bullet and Minnie had hurried over to get out of the rain and start eating. I walked into the barn and as quick as it took me to walk out the other side, the trees were down and the horses were all up by the barn looking in the same direction. They were staring at the tobacco shed, huddled together like crowds huddle on curbs and stare at accident scenes. The three trees were down, and the tobacco shed roof, two minutes ago above my head, was sprawled out beneath them like a bug beneath a shoe.

I could ride those horses out there if I really wanted to but it’s no fun in the wind. I’m a fair weather girl. I don’t like rain either. Or cold. Or snow after the first day. Any sort of precipitation or conditions that require me to put on anything more than a sweatshirt jacket. But it turns out I’m going to be riding in the cold this year whether I like it or not. Normally I take a break from riding from Thanksgiving until March and concentrate on family stuff. Do all the extras. Cook using actual recipes, play Scrabble, put up new curtains, go ice skating. Well, not really the ice skating since I tried that once when I was a kid and I’m not willing to try it again. I fell a hundred and twenty-three times. Of course I fell a hundred and twenty-three times when I was learning to ride too but that’s different. Anyway, you get the picture. In the winter, I do all those things that are fun or good to do but can’t shine riding’s shoes.

Not many things can. Kurt wants to get a boat someday and I agreed I would go out on it with him and in fact it sounds like a good time driving it across the lake and getting some lunch on the other side. But I’d really rather ride one of the horses up the mountain, even if I’d just done it yesterday, and look at the lake from up there. Because horses are like spaghetti. I can never get enough. I could eat it every day. I live for my spaghetti. I mean my horses.

One of my horses I can only ride in the winter. He has headshaking syndrome. Harley jerks his head up and down uncontrollably during exercise like he just got stung by a bee. It’s impossible to ride him. The first time he did it, while we were riding out in the field in Oklahoma, I thought bugs or seeds popping up from the grass were bothering him. I urged him on. He was so irritated that he tried to wipe his nose with his forefoot and he fell down with me on top of him! Luckily, he’s very athletic and he scrambled right back up before I even knew what happened. But it could have been bad.

Right away I knew what it was because I read a lot. I have a vast supply of bits and pieces of knowledge in my head, a little about everything, especially horse stuff. Though I never went to college. I’m a big reader. I like books about as much as horses and spaghetti. When I was a kid, I took out every single book in the library that they had about horses. Even if it was about English riding. I mean real English riding, from the actual England, where their horses wore rugs instead of blankets and I had to decipher the jargon before I could even understand the discipline. If there was a horse in it, I took it out.

They only let you take out a certain number of books on the same subject and I thought that was terribly unfair especially since nobody else was reading them. Back in those days, they stamped the card in the back of the book so I could tell that The Fundamentals of Horsemanship hadn’t been taken out in eight months. So I borrowed a couple of extras without checking them out and snuck them back in when I returned the others.

Some of this reading must have stuck because whenever there is something going on with a horse, nine times out of ten, I know what it is, and know what to do, though I usually call the vet because I don’t trust myself. Sometimes I get the vet out so I can diagnose it for him. But it makes me feel better to have someone out who actually went to school for this.

So right away I knew Harley had headshaking syndrome. And I called the vet anyway. He suggested a few different things. Nah, that doesn’t work. Yep, I did that. Nope, they tried that and studies show no improvement. No, I won’t give that drug because some horses colic on it. Etc.

Nothing works consistently or regularly with these horses. There is no cure and they don’t know what it’s from. It seems like all they know for sure is the trigeminal nerve in the nose gets triggered and your horse is basically shot. Not literally. Well, I guess sometimes, some mean owner would shoot his horse if he couldn’t ride him. But I was talking figuratively.

Some of these horses are seasonal and so I’ve been waiting for the right time, hoping and praying that Harley wouldn’t do it when summer was over and I could at least get some use out of him in the winter. Even though I am a fair weather girl, I would put on my ski mask, the kind that burglars wear, my thermal gloves and goose-down coat that you can’t move in and be happy that at least I can ride this horse sometime. I love to ride Harley. He’s my favorite. He thinks I’m his mommy and will jump off a bridge if I ask him to. He’s light and fast and he loves to run. It’s like flying, when you’re riding Harley. I would do anything to ride Harley. I would even ride him in the wind.

The Attack of the Spotted Donkey

Spot went on the warpath. Spot is the polka-dotted donkey next door who has long ears like the dishes for banana splits and round, pink-rimmed eyes like he’s been crying. He’s the one Eldon puts his grandniece on, the little girl who is his pride and joy and whose knees Pearl keeps padded, even when she’s not on her bike—that’s how careful they are with her.

One morning, very early, before I was quite awake, I saw Spot’s long, banana split ears bobbing past the deck. That wasn’t right. I blinked to clear my head like I blinked that time I reached up into the kitchen cabinet to get a mixing bowl and there inside, as casual as cake batter, coiled like a garden hose, was a snake. I screamed even though I’m not afraid of snakes. It was the shock of it.

The dog, AKA the Big Stupid, was as shocked as I was, and he started barking and running from window to window, jumping on the sills, threatening to crash through the glass, spittle flying every which way and then Kurt’s alarm started ringing. I grabbed the phone, slid into my flip-flops, and even though I was braless and still in my guinea tee, hair sticking out all over the place and teeth unbrushed, I ran outside while I dialed Pearl and Eldon.

By the time I got into the yard, Spot was trying to crash through the barnyard fence and the horses, who are unaccustomed to uninvited visitors of the equine kind and especially those who are attacking, crowded around on their side of the fence, the old guy, Doc, in the back, and the little one, Minnie, looking quite like me, with hair sticking out all over the place, behind him. Bullet and Harley were in front. Everyone was screaming—the horses were whinnying and Spot was hee-hawing. In between hee-haws, with his neck stretched out as far as it would go, his jugular quivering, his nostrils flaring, Spot clapped his teeth together and bit the air. Once or twice he made contact and grabbed a hold of the skin on Bullet’s neck. Bullet reared back, releasing himself. I looked for blood. Then they spun around and kicked at each other. Wham! Wham! Wham! Someone’s foot landed on a rail with a loud clunk. But the board stayed up.

“Get back!” I screamed. “Get back!” I waved one hand and dialed the phone with the other.

It rang. And rang.

Com’on, com’on.

I ran to the barn and grabbed a halter and lead rope and ran back out again. I broke a flip-flip. I discarded the good one. It went flying up by the pool and perhaps landed in the water—I don’t know—I never found it.

Finally Eldon answered the phone and I blurted out what was happening, “Spot’s loose! He’s attacking the horses!”

“What’s that you say?”

“Spot’s loose! He’s trying to crash through my fence!”

“Who is this?”

“It’s Debi! Spot’s loose!”

“Alright. We be right over.”

When I got back over to the horses, Spot was on the top rail and it was making a cracking sound like how a log sounds in a wood splitter. I don’t know how he got up that high. He’s only as big as a large pony. But to see him in action… It was pretty impressive. My horses hovered around him even though, fence and all between them, and he was sorely outnumbered, he was getting the better of them. If that rail broke, he’d get in there and he’d kill at least one of them, if not all. I didn’t know what to do! He wasn’t backing off because I was yelling. He was completely oblivious to me. So I took aim and whaled the halter and lead rope. It hit him dead on. Whump! He jumped down off the fence, surprised, and ran back a few feet. Then he turned around and faced me.

Now I had to catch him. He took a couple of steps toward us again, trying to figure out a way to get around me.

All this time I could hear Kurt’s alarm still ringing and the dog barking in the house. Eldon was probably still putting his shoes on. I was going to have to do this myself. But I was barefoot. And I was scared. Spot is a stallion. Now I knew why they say don’t keep stallions unless you’re a breeder. Who would have ever guessed Spot to be so violent? Spot, the one whose pink nose I tickle and who loves to get his neck scratched. Spot, who lives peacefully on the other side of the lilacs along my driveway and gallops clumsily to the fence when he sees me coming with an apple. This was not the Spot I knew. This was more like one of those stallions fighting to the death on a National Geographic documentary, ripping flesh and cracking skulls with flailing forefeet.

I’ve heard stories about stallions. I’ve heard that one will suddenly, for no apparent reason, maybe he smells a mare on you, or you made some sort of an error with your body language, grab a hold of your arm in his mouth and lift you off your feet and shake you like a rag doll. If you are lucky, he will dislocate your shoulder. If not, he will take the whole arm off. But I had no choice. I couldn’t let him get my horses.

I squatted down, and while keeping my eyes on him, I picked up the halter and lead rope. I stood back up. I took a few steps forward, reached out and talked to him in baby talk. But he stared at me, stock still. I didn’t know if he was suspicious because I’d just whaled him, or he was getting ready to attack me. I got closer and closer. Easy. Easy. I could feel his breath on my knuckles. The horses behind me were running back and forth along the fence, still whinnying, they were so shook up.

I slipped the halter over his head. Nothing.

Around that time, Pearl and Eldon appeared. They scratched their heads.

“How in the world did Spot get hisself out? Someone musta left them gates open.”

They were not fazed by what happened. They couldn’t picture it. I knew they didn’t get it because they were too calm, thinking about getting back to their coffee. Eldon slipped a piece of baling twine around Spot’s neck and handed me back the halter.

“Well, thanks a lot,” he said. “Com’on Boy.”

“Sure looks like it’s gonna be a pretty one,” Pearl said, looking up at the sky as they walked across the street.

“No harm done,” I called after them. “I didn’t see any blood!”

Perhaps they think I’m some hysterical Yankee who gets all riled up because of some loose livestock? Spot is as gentle as a lamb! Next thing you know I’ll be complaining about roosters cock-a-doodle-dooing or flies congregating. Maybe they thought I was mad at them and they felt funny? Which I was not. Because accidents happen. Especially concerning animals. My own horses got loose one time and ran down the middle of a highway causing traffic to be stopped in both directions for two hours and damage to the manicured lawns of brick McMansions newly built in the neighborhood. So I know shit can happen.

I just wanted someone to say, “Oh my God! That was close! I can’t believe he did that! You must have been scared to death!” Anything! But only the dog seemed concerned.

A couple of days later, Pearl brought us over a big mess of green beans and we brought them over some watermelon. That’s what you do in the country to make sure there are no hard feelings.

And put up good fences.

A Crisis

Kurt got fired. I might as well have said Kurt grew another arm, that’s how unbelievable it is. Especially because it wasn’t due to the economy. And certainly not because of Kurt’s performance. Turns out the boss was using him to get his store up and running and then when he thought it was stable, he fired Kurt and hired some hayseed who doesn’t know half what Kurt knows for half the pay. We put our all into that store. I even worked there for free. Who does that?

We all worked there--Kelly came into the store to help me clean

It was a major shock. Kurt has never gotten fired in his life. There was no warning. We had no idea. If anything, we were getting pats on the back. So we weren’t prepared. And we were hurt. How could this guy do this to us after how hard we worked? How could he do this to us after we did exactly what we said we were going to do and ran that store like it was our own? Knowing, knowing his store was our only income (don’t forget, I worked there for free) and we had a child to take care of? He didn’t even have the decency to give us any notice, not a single day’s notice, causing us to be in dire straits. In fact, the day before this happened, we spent Kurt’s entire paycheck, part on work clothes for that place. And I couldn’t even return them because I removed all the tags and washed them.

Everybody got sick from it—there was so much stress. This happened right around the time my mother took a turn for the worse so if you want to look on the bright side, if this hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have been able to go up there for as long as I did because I was working at the store.

Even so, bright side, dark side, I couldn’t even talk about it on here until now.

The Chinese character for “crisis,” when translated into English, means “opportunity.” Maybe this was the kick in the pants we needed. In Jersey, we had our own company. But when we moved here, Kurt got wooed by a flooring store who heard abut his background and experience. A company van was dangled in front of our faces. There was a 401K plan, health insurance, vacations, raises. Still, we had to really think about it. We’d always been our own boss. But we were scared. Virginia is not New Jersey. Maybe we wouldn’t be successful around here? There just aren’t as many people down here to even buy flooring. And there’s that Yankee thing going on—will they trust me to do a good job for them? It sure would be nice to have a steady paycheck and not always have to worry and maybe even take a vacation like normal people do… And so we took the job.

Does anyone see the irony here? Couple works for themselves and does fine. Couple moves to a new area, feels insecure, and so works for someone else for the security. Ha! The first guy, though not intentionally bad, ended up giving us bounced paychecks because he was a poor businessman. He didn’t mean it. He was actually very good to us. But he put us in a hole. The second guy, who bought out the first guy’s store, had it all planned. He was the bad one. But that’s okay. If there’s one thing I believe in, it’s what goes around comes around. Anyone who has ever hurt me over the years has always gotten bad luck of some kind. I’ve sat back and waited and watched and something bad always happens to them. I don’t have to lift a finger. It’s nature. It’s karma. It’s even in the Bible. Whatever. The point being is if you are a bad person and you hurt people, your time will come. I’m sorry but somehow that makes me feel a little better.

My other consolation is that I know we are now going to be successful doing what we should have done from the get-go—being in our own flooring business—and the guy who screwed us is going to be crying when our company kicks his company’s ass and he realizes he blew it because he had two of the best people in the industry putting their hearts and their souls into his business.

Now we are putting our hearts and souls into our own business. It’s called Shop-At-Home Floors. I admit, it’s going to be tricky. We’re doing this on a shoestring because we’ve had no time to prepare and the economy is really bad, but that’s okay—if anybody can do it, we can.

And so now comes an exciting journey in our lives. The opportunity.

My Farm Girl

Turns out, I have a real farm girl on my hands. Kelly has been itching to drive the tractor. We just started letting her drive the riding lawnmower this past year and that was out of desperation because the grass grows like it’s on steroids around here and the weed-whacker, a weapon of mass destruction even with goggles on and long pants, was out of the question. But the tractor? The tractor is big. It’s a vehicle on steroids. I don’t even drive the tractor! And I probably would have kept saying no but it happened while I was taking a nap and the father was in charge. I heard it running when I woke up and looked out the window. Kurt was raking the riding arena. Maybe he’d do the trails next. He’s so sweet. I sat down at this computer to do some work and the next thing you know I saw a shadow behind me as someone stepped up to the back door and came inside. I turned around. It was Kurt. Odd, since I could still hear the tractor.

“Is that our tractor?” I asked.

“Yep. Kelly’s driving it.”

“Kelly who?”

“Com’on, com’on, come and see,” he waved at me to get up. “Now don’t get mad,” he warned as we hurried across the yard.

What could I say? She probably wouldn’t be riding a bike either, if it wasn’t for Kurt telling me to stop being a big worry-wart. Or feeding the horses because they’re rude and obnoxious at feeding time so she might get stepped on, or even baking the cake like she’s doing right now in the kitchen because what if she gets her fingers caught in the mixer? I know, the tractor is a little bit different. But farm kids have been helping on the farm by driving tractors for as long as tractors have existed. Plus it’s much better than sitting in front of the TV watching reruns of iCarly or playing Farmville on the computer. This is the real farm.

Hay Day

Hay day is the worst day of the year. Actually, it’s two or three days, depending on how much I can get from one hay supplier. I like to get as much as I can so it’s off my mind. That’s one of my big worries—feeding these horses. I always worry about the availability of hay. You’d think I wouldn’t have to give it a second thought in hay land. But I have a harder time finding hay down here where it grows right next door than I did in Jersey where people don’t even know what hay is.

For one thing, I don’t know if they take care of their horses different down here or what but no one seems to care about feeding their horses dusty or moldy hay. Whenever I warn that I won’t feed dusty or moldy hay, the farmers act like I’m one of those pain-in-the-ass Yankees who nitpicks about silly things and doesn’t know his head from a hole in the wall about raising farm critters. They eye me suspiciously and accuse me of putting blankets on my horses and talking baby talk to them, which I don’t do. Well, maybe the baby talk. Like Minnie. She’s just so cute you’ve got to.

I have to come up with reasons I won’t feed crap hay or else they’ll ignore me and sneak it in with the good stuff. Not because they’re necessarily trying to screw me, but because they think I am wrong. I should stop treating them horses like namby-pambies because them jokers are lucky they’re eating at all. Period. So I tell them I have an old guy who colics if he even looks at moldy hay. He’s allergic to it. Or he has heaves and can’t have any dust. And I have show horses, expensive show horses, and no they won’t eat around the mold—I have no grass here—they’ll eat every wisp of hay I put out there they’re so dumb. I’m still paying the vet bills from the last time… Not really but that’s what I say.

That usually stops the good guys but I’ve gotten hay from bad guys who’ve unloaded entire moldy, weedy loads on me that looked perfectly fine from the outside but was rotten and smelled like a grandmother’s basement on the inside and full of trash to boot. Very odd since the one we opened up to inspect was clean and green. I throw this hay over the fence for Eldon’s cows and he throws me back good bales even though I keep telling him don’t do it, I’m just glad to get rid of the stuff.

Forget bringing it back. After you get a bad load of hay, the supplier conveniently stops answering his phone and if you catch the wife, she has no idea what you’re talking about. She didn’t even know her husband was making hay for goodness sake. You might as well have the dog on the phone. You can take a chance and reload the whole thing and hope the supplier is there when you arrive or just drop it off whether he’s there or not, but either way, he’s not going to cough up your dough now or when he comes home because he’s already spent it on four NASCAR tickets, the light bill, not the electric bill, the light bill, and if it was a really big order, new tractor tires. Plus that hay was fine.

I never have the strength to bring it back. I’m lucky I go get it. In Jersey, I had it delivered. Every month I’d get a delivery of forty bales and they were always clean and green. Of course they were also double the price but you have to wonder how my hay man in Jersey could acquire good bales and in small quantities, when I have a hard time here where they make the stuff and when I do find it, I have to take all they’ve got and squeeze it in every nook and cranny, sometimes even filling up stalls to the ceilings, because there won’t be any more till the next cutting which is eight months away in May. They don’t store it for you down here. And they don’t deliver it.

So I take what I can and act real nice to Kurt when we have to go get it because he’s about ready to kill these horses for all the trouble they put us through including producing tons of manure and making us call the vet and then mysteriously getting better right before the vet arrives and stuff like eating the barn walls and breaking the electric fence, that kind of thing.

We got two hundred bales the other day. They were about forty pounds each. The hay guy, his wife, and the old father, all in straw hats and leather gloves, helped us load it into the horse trailer and pickup truck. I kept trying to make small talk so we could take a rest but they were in pretty good shape and kept on going, even the old guy who had white eyebrows and knotty legs. In fact, the old guy wasn’t even breathing heavy. It was kind of embarrassing since we were about ready to die.

They got us loaded up pretty quick. But when we got home, we had to do it by ourselves. Kelly and Motley got in the trailer and pushed the bales down. They came tumbling out onto the grass right in front of the hay shed and Kurt and I picked them up and stacked them inside. After a hundred, we had to go back and get the second load. By number one-hundred and eighty, I didn’t think I could go on. We were exhausted and we were starving. You really work up an appetite moving hay. The horses hung their heads over the fence and watched us like they had nothing better to do.

Now is the time that you would call and order a pizza for lunch but there’s no delivery of any kind out in the country. Now and then you might get lucky and the firehouse is having some kind of a fundraiser and you can go down there and buy a quart of Brunswick stew or barbecue, but in general, the best you can expect when you are exhausted and starving is putting some Pizza Bites in the oven. Times like this, you are too tired to even drive to town to get some Dairy Queen.

But the horses have hay.

Cleaning Up

The farm was still standing when I got home. It was even straightened up. But it was dirty. This is how bad it was: It stunk. It took me two days to clean up the clutter that was thrown into the pantry. When I finally got inside, I found a plastic gallon with sour milk inside and the shelf was stained where the potatoes rotted and melted through the bag. The hot dogs in the refrigerator were green-molded. Hot dogs are full of preservatives—they last forever. I don’t think I can get the stains out of the toilet. Kurt said that’s okay; we need a new one anyway. It was dark. I replaced two light bulbs in the chandelier in the kitchen. I soaked the kitchen sink and the coffee pot in bleach. I Windexed, polished or scrubbed every horizontal surface in the house causing my sponge to disintegrate and my mop to fall apart leaving wet yarns all over the floor. The weeds were growing up through the deck and the deck is high. I’m sorry, it’s a cliché, but it was a jungle out there. The barn smelled like a cellar. Saddle pads were speckled with mold. Mud daubers built nests on the pommels of saddles and there was cat poop or puke, I couldn’t tell which, on the floor. No one picked up manure in weeks.

I’ve been cleaning non-stop. I’m glad to be home and get my place back in order. Even more glad to be with my husband and daughter again. (Even though those two were the culprits in this mess.) But I feel guilty about going on with my life, sweeping the porch, riding a horse, while my mother is suffering up there. I haven’t been able to talk to her since I got home. She’s been too incoherent. They have her on a heavy-duty pain drug that is knocking her out. I couldn’t help thinking, this is what it will be like if I lose her. I won’t be able to tell her about the stains in the sink or the weeds in the yard. I won’t be able to say, “Do you believe this Ma?”

And yet…I am distracted by the dust.