Hallow e'en party

It was a tremendously stressful week at work this week. Not so much where I usually work as in my "inherited" collateral duty in Reston. So, we decided to blow off the traditional Hallow e'en party at the farm in Winchester and, instead, went to a Hallow e'en party thrown by the wife's coworkers. It was a good time with a couple of tequila shots, some blue shooters (tasted like citron vodka mixed with curacao) and mead. Yep, the mead horn went with my costume (the Green Man) so I was able to drink profligate amounts of mead from the mead horn. Never got a buzz, but the company was good and the drinks tasty.

Celtic New year starts on Samhain, the old name for Hallow e'en, or Halloween as it gets spelled nowadays, and there were a few Pagans at the party who liked the costumes; I went as the horned winter green man (Holly Man) and the wife went as the summer green man (Oak Man). Weird, archetypal and a little scary :-) but about what you'd expect from us. The other costumes ranged from very cool to pretty lame -- again, about what you'd expect.

On the horse front as an update, the gelding is looking GREAT and may be ridable soon. We have him tricked out in a black coat to keep him from shivering at night and straining his boo boos. The mare is looking better and continues to bulk up - she no longer looks like a candidate for the glue factory. Made her trot a bit in the ring and, as she used to, she looked maahhhvelous. The filly is so sweet, well trained (uh hem) and cute, that I have started to get offers for her. She should end up about 16 hands and is an excellent eventing prospect (so far). Hope their intentions are honorable as I may be tempted to sell her to a good home (I have one in mind). She is so fun to work with...I would miss her.

Well, time to set the clocks back. Tomorrow, Dogfather may exact some revenge for some minor pranks I did on his birthday. I may take some of the day off ;-)

Random stuff from October

Time for another post? Overdue you say? Get over it :-) How about that fog this morning!

In work related news, Dogfather has had some puppy issues lately as well as his own health issues. I am watching to see if his (dogfathah not pupster) immune system is suppressed because of the ragweed, "pneumonia weather", or because of the festival of pain that our job can become at times. He is wistfully contemplating leaving this thankless and stressful career and this area, to become a lower-stressed but happier person in a much less artificial and competitive place.

As for me, well...... Enough with the links? Hahahaha

Horsey update! My gelding's health is still in limbo. He looks great and sounds great (this, after a bout of pluerisy and abcessed hoofs) but still seems to have a sore back and/or a twisted pelvis. Either way, he is not yet ridable. My spousal unit says that California ordered horse autopsies for hundreds of horses put down from the track and found that many, if not most, had undiagnosed broken or cracked bones. Sheebus! We're watching him for that, but it is nearly impossible to diagnose. We just know he has some pain. The mare has started putting weight back on, finally. She lost hundreds of pounds after the filly was born. We assumed it might have been the wee vampire baby sucking the essence out of her, since the filly grew SO darn fast, but a sonogram shows some thickening in the small intestine. *sigh* So, the mare is getting HYOOGE amounts of food and is free fed hay and grass all day -- horse heaven! Pictures could be forthcoming at a later date.

As always, your milage may vary, batteries not included, any resemblance to persons living, dead or in-between is purely stupid and should be checked with your local doctor, tax and title may be extra, not valid in all states, Argon ST employees and their relatives are not eligible to win.

The Auld Shebeen

Restaurant review

Well, we were invited to go out with the dogfather and his da wife. They chose to meet us somewhere in Fairfax for an exchange of goods -- he was passing on a copy of Lost 3.1 and I had a bottle of mead of which I believe he had not tried. We are mead "aficianados" and perhaps the dogfather will post a mead review :-) This mead is not the best (that would be Lurgashall's Christmas Mead), but I don't think dogfather had tried this one, as I have said.

Anyway, as we had the choice of restaurant, we chose the Auld Shebeen. It is an Irish pub with a restaurant, bar (of course) and game watching room in the cellar. All in all, fairly pleasant although a tad loud. The selection of food was very good and I will be going back (MSG doesn't bother me much). The food was good but we suspect it may have had MSG in it. It turns out that doggie daddy is a bread pudding fan as well (just one of a million things we have in common) so we chose to skip the alcohol this trip and save the calories for bread pudding. I will say that the Auld Shebeen's pudding is sweet, lacks density and rum butter. Chutzpah and Blue Iguana still top this one. Next time, 20oz. Guinness *or* Irish coffee.

I think we might have gotten a tad more raucous with booze involvement :-) The restaurant music was better before the live music started but was mainly unobtrusive. Service was a trifle slow but bearable and cheerful. Over all, a pleasant dinner out with friends. Net time, we meet the dogfather and da wife out their way.

Ahhhhh October

Hooray! It's October; apples, cider, spiced mead, Hallow e'en/Samhain, several birthdays, and of course, crisp cool weather and maybe a misty, foggy day or two. I haven't even mentioned the trees yet.... I love this time of year :-)

The Dogfather and JamesF aka Spicelover, are waiting for the new season of Lost with baited breath..... hope it's a good season. In the meantime, Octooooooober.