“So, we’re accepting the job offer with Portland?”

 “Yes, Becky, it looks like that’s the one we’ll go with.”

 “Awesome, Bean! This is great! I already have a lot of friends up there!”

 “Wait…friends? I thought you said you’d never been up there?”

 “I haven’t. Oh, Bean, this is going to be great! I already have tons of people we’re going to have to go visit and ride with…”

 “Are these friends you knew from before we met?”

“Nope.”

 “How do you know them?”

 “Oh, well, I haven’t really met them. They’re from my blog!

“From your blog?” Bean raised an eyebrow. 

“Don’t look at me like that.  Yes, from my blog.  They still count as friends.”

Whatever, Portland friends. Psssht. Bean doesn’t know what he’s talking about. You and me… we’re tight.

Although, in the interest of maintaining an honest friendship with you, I do have to be blunt.  I will not, ever, EVER wear hiking sandles with socks.  I can embrace the rain, the overcast skies, the mud, the hipsters, and everything else you throw at me, but a girl has to have standards.  I’ve got to draw the line somewhere.  

Anyways, in response to some of the comments my new friends (YES, Bean, they are my FRIENDS) wrote to me….

POA girl said:  “I’ve been told that Clackamas has more horses per capita then any other county in the country. I don’t know if it is true or not but oh boy do we have horses here. Wanna know another secret? There are a number of Canadian horses here (they look like foundation style Morgans). You prefer other types? We got it all.“

Is this true?  I don’t care if it is or not.  I’m going to say it’s true.  And even though I will be living in Colombia County, I’m just going to pretend that it’s Clackamas so I can brag.  I think it took me all of thirty seconds after receiving this comment to google “Canadian Horse”.  This is what I found:

 I immediately went to equine.com to see how much they are going for…  Drat.  Does anyone have about $10 to $20 thousand dollars I can borrow?  I can repay you in angry DragonMonkies and Squidgelet puke.  Let me know if you want to take me up on the offer – I have plenty of “currency” on hand.

Albigear said: ” One time I went there I got to see the naked bike ride (7,000 strong?…”

And then she went on to say some other stuff, but I have to be honest, I quit paying attention after that.  Because, seriously.  Wait a second.  Hold on there.

NAKED BIKE RIDE?  As in… naked people?  On bikes?  Riding?  7,000 of them, all at once?

But… but….but people have flibbly bits.  And dangly thangs.  And wobbly fat.  And…

Gross.

How do you even sit comfortably on your bike seat?  Wouldn’t it chafe after awhile?  What about when you have to stand up to pedal up a hill… what then?  Sure, it may not bug you… but what about the person behind you?  Do they really need that view?  Or worse…what if you have one of those comfortable gel bike seats— the kind that’s sorta made out of absorbent material?  How in the world could you get that thing clean enough to ever lend it out to a friend after riding around naked on it? 


“Oh, hey, Jack… Yeah, no problem.  You can borrow my bike.  Oh, and hey, here’s a paper towel.  You might want to give it a quick wipe before you sit down.  I just spent two sweaty hours with that skinny front portion jammed up against my….”

GROSS.  Bad, Portland.  Bad.  I’m giving you -2 coolness points.

Snipe asked if the house we’re moving to is horse-friendly.  Sadly, it isn’t.  We had to work within our budget, and unfortunately, we had to choose between “horse-friendly” and “land with an actual house on it”.  I tried convincing The Bean that it would be a really great adventure to spend the next few years squatting in a tent on some property while we saved up enough money to build on it, but he wasn’t buying it.

That said, the area I’m moving to is fairly horse friendly.  While I can’t have a horse on my property, I was able to find several reasonable-looking barns close by.   In fact, there are some downright gorgeous barns nearby. 

Check out this place:

For those of you too lazy to click through, check out this picture:

 I.  Want.  To.  Ride.  In.  That.  Covered.  Arena.  

Okay, what I really want is to one day have a covered arena like that on my property.  But unless I make it big as an author one day and just have stupid money to throw around, I don’t think that’s very likely.  So, instead, I will settle for lusting after other people’s arenas.

I also want to go check out this barn:

For the record, you guys are allowed to browse the sales page all you want, but I already have dibs on “Quik Like A Jackrabbit.”  No, I do not have $12,000 dollars.  And no, I have no idea what I’d do with a cow horse with that much fancy breeding— I expect I’d just fall off a lot.

Even so, it doesn’t matter.  I call “dibs”, and everyone knows that “dibs” is an all-powerful claim.  Even Urban  Dictionary recognizes it.

“Dibs:  The most powerful force in the universe, it is used to call possession of a certain object or idea. There are very few things that trump dibs.”

You can’t argue with a dibs.

While we’re on the subject of “dibs”ing, I’ve saved the best thing for last:

Holy crap.

I’m going to be living near a Morgan horse farm. Admit it.  You’re jealous.

I understand that it’s very greedy of me to call dibs on so many of their horses, but I’m afraid that’s what happens when you’re second to the table.  Besides…. finder’s keepers.

Now all I have to do is work on the email where I introduce myself to the farm owners and ask to visit.  I’ve been working on this stupid thing for weeks.  I swear, I put less time and effort into dating The Bean than I am into trying to hit just the right note with the owners of this farm.

Does anyone have any suggestions for how to word a “Hi, nice to meet you” note which will result in them saying, “Hi, Becky, we’ve been waiting for someone like you to write!  Why don’t you come on by and meet our herd?  You can basically pretend that they’re all yours and groom and ride them any time you want.  We’ll even provide free baby sitting and gas money for the drive!”

Shhhh.  Don’t interrupt my daydream with reality.  It could happen, right?