And I think it’s also a jinx trigger. Quick, someone give my a synonym for “plan” so that I can still discuss upcoming things I would like to do and have tentatively attached to my calendar.

“Things I would like to do” is a mouthful. “Commitments” is too “set in concrete” for something as changeable and unpredictable as horse activities. “Opportunity” is just that — a chance to do something, but it doesn’t mean you’re going to do it.

Or I just take up voodoo ritual and use all of the gremlins that keep targeting me and my calendar full of opportunities and things I would like to do.

no more. you are not cute. you are an annoying nuisance and I’m sick of you interfering with my life.

They’re PLANS, dammit, and I am not going to let myself get sucked into some mental superstition that says if I cross my fingers three times, trip over the backyard rock, walk backwards around a purple-flowering shrub, and hide a toenail under a mushroom that everything will be magically better.

The gremlins just need to find another target.

So I was supposed to head over to the local NATRC ride this weekend with Mimi and do the fun ride…which then got canceled due to lack of entries…so I arranged to drag ride part of the trail on Sunday, so we’d still get out and participate in an event (smart pony knows the difference between an event and a training ride).

And then one of the horses at the barn starting showing some suspicious, strangles-like symptoms. And since the potential to spread any contagious disease around a public venue tends to make one extremely unpopular, the barn owner decided it would be best to keep all horses on the property, even if we’re not actually sure if it’s strangles or not.

Better safe than sorry, I get that…especially having been at a couple of barns when strangles went through.

But why did it have to be the one weekend I had a chance to go do something with my pony?!?!

Theoretically I’m supposed to attend the Bumble Bee ride this weekend. Theoretically, there were several rides I was supposed to attend in a riding capacity last year, and those plans all got gremlinized. I was hoping 2016 would be different, but this is not the start I was hoping for.

I thought about doing a “getting ready for ride season” post, but that just seems like it would be waving the red flag in front of the already-pissed-off bull. So maybe I’ll just not do anything, and wait until I get a text from my horse-provider for Bumble Bee that they’re actually on the road — no, wait, make that at ridecamp, so I know their vehicle hasn’t broken down along the way — before throwing stuff in a car and driving there.

Seriously, gremlins. Just go the #*@% away.

“Yeah, what my mom said. Go away or I’ll pony-punt you across the pasture, and then drag you back to my stall and use you as kick-padding against the wall.”