(no subject)

[which_chick]

Monday night is lj etiquette hint day. Also grocery night.

First, the etiquette hint. If the author (that'd be me) posts a picture of a pony about whom she is glowingly enthusiastic, the audience (that'd be you) will say something nice about the pony. You don't have to know anything about ponies. I don't need conversations like "That's an English bridle, but the noseband is missing. What happened to it?" or "You've got keepers on your full-cheek snaffle. How's that working out?" or even "That looks like a gen-u-ine Parelli bareback pad. Do you like it?" I have people that I can have those conversations with, though they are the same people who have conversations with me that go as follows: Look, we know you think the horse is wonderful, but your standards are too low. The horse has not killed you on three successive rides. We are no longer impressed with her not killing you on regular rides. If you want us to be impressed with her wonderfulness next time, she had better have carried your unconcious body safely out of a forest fire and then directed the helicopter search-and-rescue team to the location of the imperiled boy scout hikers through clever use of her body language and inspired barking. Er. Whinneying. *sigh* Anyway, here, I'm looking for comments like Omigod, that is the best pony 3V4R!!!11!!. You can say that the pony is exceedingly cute. (She is. This is like one's own baby being "cute". One's baby may have a face like a frog that's been run over and persons saying the baby is "cute" will probably not be corrected no matter how incorrect they are. Comparing someone's baby to a road-killed amphibian... well... just in case you weren't aware, that isn't something you are supposed to say NO MATTER how much the baby looks like one.) You can say that the pony is lovely and appears to be good-natured. You can say that the pony is a pretty color. Anything complimentary will do just fine and originality isn't important. So, then, gentle readers. Make a mental note for the next time there is a picture of a pony alongside glowingly happy discussion of same... if I do that, you're supposed to say nice things about the pony.

Old grocery budget: $1588.69
Amount spent: 25.11
New grocery budget: $1563.58

The green this week was bok choy because everything else looked like shit. The bananas were way, way, way too green so I didn't get any. There was no hint of yellow on these bananas. They were solidly green, the green of granny smith apples, all over. That's too green for me. Maybe next week there will be acceptable bananas. I bought yams (still very cheap) and mangoes (not cheap but I like 'em) and three red pears and some frozen mixed berries to put in the blender with yogurt.

Right now I'm trying very hard to avoid the fact that I have all the ingredients to make no bake cookies. electroweak, this is your fault.

Comments

[cassandramorgan.livejournal.com]

My compliment is:

I WANT THAT PONY!!! ^_^

[ornery-chick.livejournal.com]

Um...I like the names Nick and Meatly. Especially "Meatly."

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

She's still pretty green -- not a pony I'd feel very comfortable putting normal people on, even people with some riding experience. I think she'd be more okay in a ring, though.

Trys wants to go up to Sylvan Glen and run timed events this summer -- if she's hauling anyway, I might drag Nick along to run her around some barrels, poles, and goats. (In timed events, the idea is to do them faster than everyone else. I'm not kidding *ahem* about the goat. It's a real, live goat, tethered at the far end of the ring. You ride up to the goat, hop off your horse, throw the goat down, and tie it up. People really do this. If you can believe in curling or caber tossing, goat-tying should present no mental difficulties.)

It'd broaden our horizons, that's for sure. I don't think Nick has ever seen a goat and I'm certain that my life does not currently contain enough opportunities to look like an idiot. Speed events on my green horse should rectify that soon enough...

[cassandramorgan.livejournal.com]

I've heard about the goat thing but I've only seen them tie pigs and calves on TV. Most of the stuff around here is of the equestrian type. Some places do steeplechase...I just never got to do those.

My great-aunt owns a few horses and my cousin used to do show jumping. (I believe she rode in the Devon Horse Show. My memory is kinda foggy so that could have just been a rumor or something.) I keep telling myself that I need to get the kid and the husband on a horse.....but I need to wait for the kid to be older and the husband to be less of a kid ;) At least when the kid is older I can try to take her out riding somewhere.

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

The rest of my family doesn't really get the horse thing -- they don't do horses, any of them. My nephew likes horses and has sat on a real one (provided by me) twice. He was very impressed with the experience, but he's way too small to ride on his own. If he's still interested in a couple of years, I will see to it that there is a kid-friendly pony available for him to ride.

This will probably not be either of the ponies I ride because I do not ride kid-friendly ponies. Kid-unfriendly ponies and small horses (About 13.2 to 14.2 hands) are pretty cheap, even if they're really cute, because most adults like taller horses and because most parents resist buying vicious killer ponies. Parents are over around the kid safe, bomb proof, middle aged, sound, solid-citizen ponies, bidding them up to mid four-figures, higher if they go over jumps. Those ponies are worth their weight in gold, vicious killer ponies, not so much.

Incidentally, the cheapest way to get a sane, sound, capable, middle-aged kid-friendly pony is to buy something as a yearling or two-year-old that looks like it's got the mentality to do well (kind, forgiving, patient, and NOT STUPID), break it to ride, and ride the hell out of it for five or six years in all sorts of situations. Yes, that is a lot of work. That's why those ponies are so damned expensive.

[zhasper.livejournal.com]

So.. Umm.... The pony looked very.. equine..

I'd rather talk about mangoes though, they rock. I was lucky enough to grow up in a place where they literally fall from the trees and people cursed with a tree in their backyard are driven to distraction trying to give away the entire crop to friends/neighbours/family/random-people-walking-down-the-street before their tree gets overrun by possums/birds - or worse, before it all falls off the tree and starts rotting.

So. I love them, but I'm not a fan of paying more than $2/kilo for them.. which is unfortunate, as I no longer live there, and now I usually have to pay $2 each..

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

Mangoes are pretty expensive fruit for me. These were $1.49 each -- doing a quickie conversion, that's about 1.92 AUD per mango, so mine cost about what yours do. They're also nowhere ready to eat when I buy them and have to be let to ripen on the counter for a couple of days. *sigh* I have the same problems all around with avocados.

Our "give it away to people" locally-produced food item is zucchini. Somehow, this doesn't seem fair.

[electroweak.livejournal.com]

I take no responsibility for your cookie or non-cookie status. I also take no responsilibity for the Kennedy assassination, Pearl Harbor, the rise of Communism, or the existence of the Andromeda Galaxy. You got nothing on me, copper!