Shorts and Snippets

[Insert random kitty picture here.]

I’ve wanted to write another blog post for a while. Tonight I forced myself to take a night off of school because I feel like my life has been really weird lately, and in order to cope with it I had to do what I do best: but my words to paper – er, screen.

Let’s just say, at my job (I manage Tierra Madre Horse Sanctuary), I deal with some pretty stubborn, ornery and crazy horses. Someday soon, I want to start documenting all the crazy stuff that happens at a daily basis at the ranch. But the people I have to deal with sometimes make my four-legged brothers and sisters look like flawless angels. As for parts of my life outside of work? Just weird.

Oh, just read what my brain spat out tonight……

OOO

-ranch phone rings at 1pm on a Thursday-

Me: -picks up the phone- “Thank you for calling Tierra Madre Horse Sanctuary, how can I help you?”

Woman: “Yes, hi, I was wondering what is your address? I wanted to come out and see the horses.”

Me: “Wonderful! I’m actually driving right now, so let me think really fast off the top of my head what day I can schedule you to come out—”

Woman: “Wait, you’re not open right now??”

Me: “No, we close at 11. Our office hours are 11 to 3 during the week, but they’re off site.”

Woman: “So there’s no one there right now?”

Me: “Well, the owner is, because it’s his property. But the ranch itself is closed.”

Woman: “So I can still come out?”

Me: -head desk-

~

Woman visiting the ranch with her kid: “So, you guys do riding lessons?”

Me: “Yep, we do!”

Woman: “How much are they?”

Me: “$50 per session.”

Woman: “That’s way too much. My son is only three. Don’t you guys do discounts for younger kids?”

Me: “Well, you can take it up with [the owner]. That’s the price he sets, and because we’re not really a riding facility, it’s a $50 donation since you’d be using our horses, our people, and our time.”

Woman: “Well, okay. But *I* know how to ride. If I wanted to just come over in the afternoons, there’s no fee for just coming and riding whenever, right?”

Me: “……………”

Woman: “……………..”

Me: “……..Yes, you still have to pay $50 if you want to ride one of our horses.”

Me internally: -screaming-

~

This conversation took place over email between a potential volunteer and me. We had been emailing for a few days about her being with us for six months as part of her government program.

Potential volunteer, at the very end of her email: “I will also need a place to park. I’d be willing to pay a small fee for my electricity and water.”

Me: “….Forgive me for not understanding. May I ask what you mean by ‘a place to park’?”

Potential volunteer: “Yes, as part of [popular government program], I am required to live just below the poverty line, so I currently live in a trailer. I will need a place on site to park and will gladly pay a fee for electricity and water.”

Me: “……………..”

Potential volunteer: “Just contact my case manager and she’ll give you all the details.”

I have so many problems with this. First of all, if someone wants to come volunteer for us as part of their program, I don’t contact anybody. It’s not my job to contact anybody. It is THEIR job to have their supervisor contact ME if they need to fill me in on details of their program. (On that brainwave, I once had a potential intern email me with her required list of goals for the semester, saying: “Yeah, my professor emailed me back and we need to revise my goals for my internship.” WE. Um, no. I ended up telling her the goals didn’t line up with what we did as an organization, and then called her professor and told her the same thing. I never heard from her again.)

Second of all, live on site??

Me: “I’m very glad you told me this. Unfortunately, we are unable to accommodate a trailer as Tierra Madre is on private property. Please have your case manager contact me if you still think this is a good choice for you.”

Needless to say, I never heard from her again, either.

~

My boyfriend recently watched this video of a giraffe giving birth. He wasn’t exactly inthralled with it.

Boyfriend: “WTF, IT’S POOPING OUT A GIRAFFE.”

Me: “….”

Boyfriend: “THERE’S A GIRAFFE COMING OUT OF ITS BUTT.”

Me: “…”

Boyfriend: “IT’S STILL POOPING.”

Me: “You mean it’s giving birth?”

Boyfriend: “LOOK IT POOPED OUT A GIRAFFE ON THE GROUND.”

Me: “….We are never having children.”

~

And this crazy amount of weird. This. This just happened yesterday, and I’m STILL pissed about it.

Some background: my boyfriend and I live in an apartment complex. While we’re allowed to have as many cars as we want (within reason), we are all assigned one covered parking spot per unit, and my boyfriend parks in our assigned spot. All along the different buildings, there are rows of uncovered parking that are fair game to all other residents that don’t have an assigned parking spot. Since my boyfriend parks in our spot, I always park right outside our building in one of the available spots. We live on the third floor, and I always have at least two heavy bags to carry (four or five if I have school that night), so I try to park as close to the building as possible.

Now, I leave my apartment at 6:30 am, six days a week. It’s winter, so it’s pitch black out when I leave.

As I stated above, I park in whatever spot is available when I happen to come home for the day, so it switches all the time. There are roughly eight or nine to choose from so they line all up and down our apartment building. Thursday night, I got the best spot – the one closest to the stairwell as possible.

So, Friday morning, I walk to my car, start it, start my wiper blades to get the frost off the windshield, turn on the heat, and turn on my lights. Like I said, it’s pitch black when I leave.

I was fumbling with my seat belt and had just put my car in reverse to leave when I looked up to see an older lady walking out of the apartment on the first floor, the one closest to my car. She was in her pajamas, and she was scowling.

I rolled down my window and said, “Hi!” cheerfully.

Her response? Without greeting, she said, “Okay, your car lights shine directly into my bedroom window all the time, and they wake me up!”

Me: “Oh my God. Really?”

Her: “Yes. That right there – ” she points across to the building at the window my car is close to – “is my bedroom window, and you wake me up when you turn your lights on!”

Me: “I am so sorry. I had no idea.”

Her: “I need my sleep! I can’t get up this early in the morning!”

Me: “I’m really sorry. But you know -”

Her: “So I’m going to have to go to the office and file a complaint, because you need to park over with visitors or something when you visit!”

Me: “…Um, I LIVE here.”

Her: “….what?”

Me: “Yeah, I’m so sorry, but I park here because I don’t have a choice. The office gives all of us one parking spot, and my boyfriend has it. So I have to pick one of these spots along this row. Yesterday I happened to pick this one.”

Her: “……..”

Me: “I have to drive to work at this time. I work at a horse ranch. I have to leave early, and it’s dark.”

Her: “….Oh. Well….”

Me: -humoring her- “So maybe we can go to the office and maybe ask for another spot for me? Because I don’t really have a choice here. There’s nowhere else for me to park.”

Her: -getting angry again– “Well, we’ll have to, because I can’t afford to be woken up like this. I’m sick, my doctor needs me to rest, they just found blood in my urine, I have cysts and-”

Me: “I’m really sorry. But I need a place to park. I’ll try to park away from your window, but sometimes that’s the only spot available.”

Her: “Well, I’m going to go to the office and just see. I’ll have my daughter come with me, that’s what I’ll do.”

Me: “Great. I’m Alexis, and I’m in 3076. We’ll figure out a solution, okay?”

Her: “I just need my sleep.” -she starts to walk back towards her apartment, still talking angrily – “This happens all the time. I’m really sick of it.”

Me: -calling after her– “Um, a word of advice though: people need to leave for work in the morning so it might not just be me turning lights on.”

Her: “It happens every now and then, so -”

Me: “Well, I can’t do anything about the lights that come on automatically when I start my car, but if I’m in front of your window again I’ll be sure to not turn my main lights on until I’m on the road, okay?”

Her: “I suppose that would help.”

Me: “Would it help if you got some curtains for your windows? Or-”

Her: “NO. Those blinds are what the apartment comes with! I can’t do anything about that.”

Me: -checks clock, and see that I’m late for work– “Okay, well, we’ll figure out a solution, okay? I’m really sorry. Go back to sleep.”

Her as she walks back into her apartment: “Well, I CAN’T now!”

I forced myself to roll up my window before I said something I’d regret.

The long story short after this was that I called my apartment office and they immediately sighed when I told them the lady’s name (I can’t remember when I asked for it during our exchange, but I did somewhere). Apparently, the woman is a bully and has given people problems before.

“She didn’t yell at you, did you?” the staff member asked me.

I laughed. “She did, but it’s fine.”

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry she did that! She tends to bully people, and-”

“Listen,” I said. I was in the tack room at the time, stirring up bran mashes and looking out at the four-leggeds I was feeding, “I get pushed around by 1,200 pound animals on a daily basis. I have to be tough. I don’t get bullied by nobody.”

The staff member laughed and told me not to change a thing about what I was doing.

I really can’t make any of this crap up.