The funeral has begun. You are all invited to attend the wake

[Beezer]

We need protection from the Canadians. Heidi has just wandered into our wake and thrown down one of those heavy leather glove thingies with a smelly wool lining … “Take that!” she said. “We will take down your star rating several pegs!!”

The evidence is there. She has detailed her evil ploy on “their” Nuked thread.

Beezer, being the most competitive of this wet, bedraggled and increasingly soused lot, cannot back away from such a challenge … neigh, INSULT. So she asks her fellow wake-sters … Keep our star rating up! Down with theirs!

[Beezer]

Sigh. Someone get Bill’s rug away from the JRTs. They are trying to bury it (now that they’ve killed it) in Merry’s discarded, SMELLY cashmere sweater.

While rusty’s out getting a new blender, tell her we need more ice. Coreene and Beezer are going to try to make their own ice sculpture of Clifford, rental horse extraordinaire. And then we’re gonna put a Mountie on him.

[Merry]

And now, a brief poetic interlude mourning our California climate…

My poppies bloomed,
The tulips riz,
I wonder where
The sunshine is.

I muck my pens,
I feed my koi
My trench-diggin’ hoe
Is my favorite toy.

My tan is gone,
My lip gloss froze
I’ve noticed frostbite
On my toes.

A sheen of moss
Grows on my ring
Will I ever hear
The blue jays sing?

Shows are cancelled
Due to storms.
Will I still recognize
Entry forms?

My boots reek of mud,
Muck and pizz.
I’m asking God
Where the sunshine is?

Composed in a state of utter madness, 3/3/01

[elizabeth]

Man, I must be having a bad week, because your joke made me sad, Beezer! Oh, hello, aunt flo is at the door. I totally forgot until I finished typing that the joke made me sad. (I generally cry my eyes out the day before she comes!!)

Back to the important stuff. . . . yes, Merriness (since we have grown close, I feel I should give you a pet name), we must agree on our solicitation uniform. How about we all wear our hair in the flat, sweaty helmet-head style? As to garb. . . . ahhhhh, let’s wear breeches and paddock boots!!! Wearing dress/field boots and breeches would be flashy - we cannot be flashy if we are a non-profit cult. However, if we just wear our paddock boots, then we will look kind of tacky and cult-y. Nobody will suspect that we are wealthy horse-owners!!

[B.G.M_heidi]

Thanks Babe! Is that better?

This from the girl who’s been known to call her hubby, “hey, you!”.

[Merry]

I hope no one minds that I hired someone local. It’s a friend of my husband, Mr. Merry Thread. Anyhoo, this guy plays the guitar and sings great songs… well, a few mediocre songs. About every third offering is “The House of the Rising Sun”. Oh, and he also knows “Flying Purple People Eater” and “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose its Flavor on the Bed Post Overnight”. Please disregard the fact that he envisions himself Jerry Garcia but he actually looks gratefully dead. Oh no, I can hear the strains of his first song already…

"There is … a house… in New Orleans…they caaalllll The Risin’ Sun… and it’s BEEN…a ruin… of many a poor boy… "

Oh geez, someone make some more adult beverages. If we’re out, run over to the Canadians’ thread and steal from them.

[Beezer]

And you should have SEEN the look on the dear librarian’s face when he … well … never mind. It was kinda ugly.

[Merry]

Yes, why is it, AAJumper, that I cannot simply click over to Microsoft Word and start writing? I must come here first? I can see it’ll be another night where I’m here, missing the opening of Saturday Night Live!

Merry guns the truck as the whole group caravans away from the cemetary. Heck, no one wanted to dwell here anyway. dublin and weeble suggest stopping by a tanning salon just so we can all remember what it’s like to feel some UV rays. But rusty and Pam instead lead the way to the local El Torrito. “Chips, guacamole and MORE margaritas, anyone?” rusty yells.

AAJumper decides that this may be one of her last meals before departing for Indio. She has now decided that HITS doesn’t stand for “horse shows in the sun” but rather “Howdy! It’s Thunder Storming!”

[Coreene]

Coreene crawls out from behind the sofa with the waiter and wipes smirk off her face. She staggers over to Filofax and writes SUAVE RENO all over Saturday and so that she’ll remember to arise at a civilized hour in order that they may meet. She is relieved that she does not own a PalmPilot as she is far too intoxicated to wave the little stick thing around.

[rusty]

There would have been a few more posts if I had been able to post yesterday. I think that the CANadians were holding this thread hostage. Or else it was the sunny weather and we were all out riding.
I think the Your so Vain Thread is about them. After all we stopped our original thread because they were complaining about it taking up server space. Maybe posting here is all they can do in the winter in the frozen north.

[elizabeth]

As best I can tell, MPD stands for “multiple personality disorders.” Of course, at Columbia (Law School), they taught us very little about medicine - funny how that goes - so I could be wrong.

No, I don’t suffer from that - I have one personality, and it is delightful in all its type-A, fiercely perceptive, academic glory.

Were you using MPD to mean something other than Multiple Personality Disorder?

[weeble]

Having just snapped (sort of) out of a rain-soaked stupor, Weeble orders another margarita and asks the obvious question…have you all been in the rain so long that El Torito now qualifies as a tropical locale? And how did Heidi get here, is the Canter thread too boring?

[Beezer]

Back, BACK you pesky Canadians! I’d used my lunge whip to chase you back across the border, but I hear you guys LIKE that kinda action!

[AAJumper]

Hmmmm…eating brains? Reminds me of Return of the Living Dead…“It hurts to be dead…I can feel my body rotting…brains make the pain go away…”

AAJumper jangles her curb chain, welcoming Rexford. After reading Merry’s questionaire, she wonders if she has been making a fashion faux pas at the shows wearing her Hobie sunglasses rather than Oakleys. But then again, she does the jumpers, so maybe it’s okay…after all, anything goes. Besides, at least she doesn’t make her horse wear a baseball cap on its head at shows, like some jumper riders she’s seen.

[Merry]

Merry raises up on one elbow. “You know, I just can’t reach my back with the sunscreen. Where are those cabana boys when you really need one? Or does coreene have them sequestered behind the lifeguard tower, giving them, ahem, ‘lotion lessons’?”

“Remember, ladies: if your sunburn lines are too out of place, you’ll be sore and irritated in your Taliored Sportsmans’.”

Cadbury Creme margaritas, eh? How about Peeps flavored? Or,as Beezer and Merry called them while growing up, “Chicky-pippies”. Every Easter QHSM would make us a chicky-pippy cake: a sheet cake with white icing, green-colored coconut, tiny jelly beans around the outside and chicky-pippies around the corners. Yummy! Talk about a sugar overload!

[elizabeth]

I meant to say “This wine tastes like what I would imagine wine in a box tastes like, if I drank wine in a box, which I don’t. Honest. I don’t.”

(Please, please take me under your magnanimous wing, Beezer. I’m struggling here, in my new environs on the west coast. . . . I go down to places like Lido Isle in Newport Beach, and, God as my witness, I have no idea how to converse with these people. I think it is just b/c it is a weird blend of people who have money with people who don’t have money, but I’m not sure. Either way, the social nuances are killing me.) (They aren’t actually killing me - I smile a lot and say “oh, yes. Uh huh, uh huh.” But I still believe I can learn from you, Beezer, the hierophant of social graces!)

[AAJumper]

The door flies open…AAJumper, just in from Mammoth, still clad in ski boots and powder suit, enters the room and whips off her goggles. She scans the room looking for The Merry Thread. Just then she smells a horrid stench and her eyes lock on the casket. She sees the thread, a chain around it’s neck to confirm it’s death. A tear forms and slowly drips down her cheek, mixing with the snow melting off her Turtle Fur hat.

I knew when I left that the thread was dying, but I just didn’t think it would go this soon…

A small sob escapes from AAJumper’s throat…her eyes glaze over as the reality of the thread’s death sinks in. Just then, she spots Rusty with a fresh batch of margaritas, and any thoughts of the thread quickly escape her mind…

[Tin]

I knew someone who like that

Now THAT ladies, is a Canadian!

[Merry]

“I’ve been wondering how our fellow scammer, I mean comrade, AAJumper is doing at Indio. Let’s all have a moment of silence for her… Okay, now let’s jingle those curb chains in unison!”

If we boot out David the Hoff, who will be the celebrity we pay off, I mean bribe, I mean hire to represent our Mud Masques? He must be recognizeable. He must have mass appeal. He must be able to at least SIT on a horse. And we must be able to afford him. Whom do you suggest?

[dublin]

Welcome to insomniacs un-anonymous, Merry!! Looks like the CA clique is getting an early start today.