Other Than That, My Winter Vacation Was Okay...

You know the old joke where someone says, ‘But Mrs. Lincoln, other than that, how did your enjoy the play?’ That was my winter vacation.

My elderly, handicapped mom lives in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts. Alone. This is obviously not the best idea during the winter.

Last fall I cooked up a brilliant plan.  Every year my stable goes to the desert to compete at the winter horse show circuit in Thermal, CA.  This year I’d compete for three weeks, and rent a house for four. Mom loves the desert and for reasons that escape me, the Salton Sea. The weather would be good for her arthritis and I’d get to show. Win, win.

I thought my biggest problem would be finding a handicapped accessible house that would allow four dogs (mom was bringing her Silky Terrier,

Monte).  But after a few phone calls, a huge hunk of money for the rent and a dog/cleaning deposit exchanged hands and we had a lovely place.

We didn’t exactly travel light. Among the stuff cramming my SUV were two enormous dog beds, two crates of dog food, a dog crate, mom’s walker, sundry other objects, the two males dogs and finally, mom.

It took some maneuvering to get mom into the vehicle-  it’s too tall for her to enter easily, which is why I actually rented a small SUV for her three months in California – but with some shoving and pushing, she was in and we were on our way.

The idea was for me to drop off mom and the stuff, and return to Los Angeles to exchange cars and pick up the girl dogs. Just a simple six hour round trip. And then three more hours back. I’ve done worse.

It went like clockwork. We arrived at the house by noon. I quickly unpacked and dropped off mom and the two dogs and left. I forgot to close the garage, but I’d get it when I returned for the night.

I’d forgotten that moving day was Friday and got stuck in traffic on the way back to the desert.  By 8pm the girls and I were hungry, cranky and we all had to pee, but I kept driving.

We were almost there when Mom called. Apparently the neighborhood security patrol spotted the open garage and sprang into action. They entered the unlocked house and found her happily watching tv with both dogs snoring at her feet. After the guards gave mom a stern warning about safety, they locked the gate, doors and windows and closed the garage before leaving. Lesson learned.

Sunday we packed up all the dogs into the little SUV, and looking like a canine clown car we drove to Joshua Tree National Park. It had rained a bit and was beautiful in the way that deserts are after a rain. Everything was on the verge of blooming and it was fresh and clean. This was going to be a great trip.

My horse, the fabulous Wes, had arrived and was, as always perfect. We’d been a bit worried because he’d gotten cast in his stall a week earlier and tweaked his back, but there didn’t seem to be any lasting effects. My trainer showed him on Wednesday and he was amazing. Thursday I had a brief lesson and he was awesome.

Friday was my first day showing. I was nervous because, well, I’m always nervous. Also, I hadn’t jumped in three weeks because of his back and I hadn’t showed since July when I’d broken my foot. Other than that, we were ready.

I was truly terrible in my first class, but we got around, which was the goal. When I came out of the ring my hand ached, but I ignored it. The second and third classes we rocked, but by the fourth my hand was really hurting.

After I finished and picked up a second place ribbon, I decided to stop by the paramedics and have them look at my now swollen hand. I figured that they’d laugh and send me on my way. They didn’t.

“I’ve broken my hand six times,” drawled one of them, which raised a lot of questions, none of them medical. “That’s broken.”

“How? I never left the horse? I just twisted my hand while we were jumping!” He just sadly nodded his head while his partner Googled the closest urgent care.

The doctor  confirmed that my hand was indeed broken. They thought it was insane when I begged them to splint it so I could ride, but they did it.

I was there to show, and I was going to show, damn it. Did I mention it was my left hand, and I'm left handed?

The next day I arrived at the show early enough to con one of the grooms into taping my hand so I could shove it in a riding glove. “It’s just like bandaging a horse,” I begged him. He finally gave in. 

I got on Wes and warmed up. He felt great and we were clicking. When we’re like that we are truly unbeatable; the pile of blue and championship ribbons in my office are proof.

We entered the ring and the first six jumps were great. We entered the last line and he looked into the stands, which is bizarre since Wes never did things like that. Then he spooked and ran to the right. 

 I couldn’t hold him straight. I turned him back to the jump and he was worse. There was nothing I could do, so I left the ring.

My trainer got on him and Wes pitched a fit: running out of jumps, leaping around and bolting. Totally un-Wes-like behavior. It only got worse.  She rode him for an hour before he calmed down.

Wes was the perfect amateur horse. Lazy to a fault, he was also predictable. Once every three months he’d be wild, Crystal would get on him and fifteen minutes later he’d get over it and be perfect again. This was definitely unusual.

After another week of him veering between perfection and insanity, I had two vets check him from head to hoof. They found nothing.

I decided to send him to a clinic that specializes in equine orthopedics and neurology in San Marcos.  The night before he left Crystal called me. Apparently one of the grooms had been handwalking Wes and he bolted and nearly ran into a tractor. For the first time ever, we were going to drug him to put him on the trailer. We didn’t want him to hurt himself.

I don’t know why, but I knew then that he wasn’t coming home.

Still, I kept hoping that the vets would find something that we could fix. Wes had all the standard neuro and soundness tests on Monday. The vets found nothing.  On Tuesday they did full body scan, looking to see if anything would light up. It didn’t. The doctors were perplexed.

The next morning, a world-famous neuro specialist, took another look. He repeated the test from Monday, but it was as if it was a completely different horse. Wes was wildly, dangerously neurological and it was terrifying him.

My vet called to break the news that night. I don’t remember much of the conversation. Mostly I heard the noise the adults make in the Peanuts cartoons: “Waaa waaa waaaa!”

I made the horrible decision to put him down.

But I had to say goodbye. I packed up mom and the dogs and drove from La Quinta to San Marcos.  It doesn’t look very far on the map, but believe me, it’s an eternity. The closer we got, the slower I drove.

Eventually, despite my efforts, we got to the clinic. I wandered around the barn calling him, but Wes didn’t reply; a bad sign. I found him, and entered the stall clutching ten pounds of carrots and a pocketful of peppermints. He spooked and cowered at the back of the stall. After a moment or two he recognized me and bustled over to give me a push and beg for a peppermint.

He had never looked better. He was glossy, fat and appeared to be the picture of health. I patted him, and said goodbye. He whinnied at me when I left. We drove back to La Quinta pretty quietly.

I wanted mom to have a little fun. Up till now it had been doctor and vet appointments almost every day. So few days later we drove (with all the dogs) to the Salton Sea. It is an inland, man-made ocean in the middle of the desert and it’s pretty spectacular. As long as you stay in the car.

Because of the drought, and some other issues, the Sea has near-constant, massive fish die-offs. The beaches are littered with dead fish. Naturally, it stinks. Badly.

But the dogs still needed to pee, I took them for a short walk. As I was loading them back in the car, Rocky made a break for it. He smelled the fish and had a plan. He’s an old dog, with a touch of dementia, but when he decides to move, he’s gone. With a glint in his eye, he bolted toward a pile of rotting fish. Just as he started to fling himself in down, I tackled him. I’m not proud of it, but it had to be done. I did carry him back to the car.

A few days before we were scheduled to leave La Quinta, at 4am, the smoke detector started going off. I stumbled around and found the faulty one, but with my broken hand, I couldn’t get the little battery out. For the next six hours, every 45 seconds or so - just long enough to think it had stopped – a loud metallic beep went off.

I called the rental firm and left a message, and then went back to sleep with a pillow over my head. At 7 I got a phone call.” Did I own an orange and white dog named Poppy?” I did. “Well, she was running up and down the street and had nearly been hit by a car.”

One of the selling points of this house was that it had a lovely front and back yard surrounded by an eight foot brick wall. Poppy is a medium sized dog.  I pondered that as I jumped into some clothing and went to fetch her.

As soon as we got back into the house and she heard the alarm, Poppy went berserk. She leaped on top of a grill beside the fence and nimbly hopped into the neighbor’s yard and ran down the street. After 45 minutes of chasing, l packed her and Dalai into the car in the quiet, cool garage and called the rental agent again.

It was time to go home.

That was how I spent my winter vacation.