Crunch-Time Friday

Yup, Lily and Lefty are, no doubt, crunching away on their morning hay in their new, temporary digs.  

Both behaved beautifully on their ride in to Spokane and during the first few minutes of their lives with the uptown horses. 

Lefty's friend did not exactly welcome him, but Lefty seemed unfazed by the nasty glances hurled his way.  After all, Lefty can give back if he wishes.

That's the only way he gets an edge on Lily----when he's standing in the safety of a stall or on the other side of the fence from Lily.  He'll fling those teeth at her and try to take a chunk as she's led away.  

So far, Lily has escaped the wrath of Lefty's teeth, but he enjoys those moments of superiority, which contrast sharply from when Lily's IN the same enclosure as he.  That's when Lefty spends a lot of time getting out of Lily's way. 

We enjoyed our visit to the equestrian center and lunch at Chaps Restaurant with Monty, who will be working with Lily and Lefty.  He thinks the horse up above would make a nice beau if Lily's looking for a husband. 

Lots of eye candy in that Arabian stallion, even if he's in his box-stall do.  I can only imagine how pretty he is when spiffed up for the show ring. 

The trip in to Spokane marks the last major undertaking before crunch time prior to our trip. Suitcases, passports and a bit of house tidying await, as well as another visit with our house/dog sitters. 

It's kinda nice to be to this point in the preparation because another full day of NCAA hoops, highlighted by the ZAGS-Cowboys game at 1:40 awaits.  

I do have to report this morning that we'll have to pay for our trip the old-fashioned way because I officially will NOT win the billion or one of the 20 hundred-thousand-dollar prizes from Warren Buffet. 

Besides, I didn't enter.  

I did enter the other pool, though, and am 75 percent correct with my predictions from the first day's match-ups, but others have higher percentages. I was slapping myself yesterday because of leaving the Dayton-Ohio State slot blank for quite some time before finally picking Ohio State.  

When I told Bill that the very first game on my brackets was a bust, he said, "You should know better than to go against a team that has beaten Gonzaga."

Dayton was Gonzaga's very first loss back at the Maui Tournament, and Dayton bumped high-ranked Ohio State out of the tournament yesterday.

Although it was another bust for my brackets, I thought it was pretty neat that North Dakota moved on after a thrilling game with Oklahoma yesterday. 

So, Dr. Cathy, if you're reading from Fargo-----good going for your hometown team. 

And, while I'm throwing out kudos, here's one for Kaitlin Glines-Barnhart, a Sandpoint High and Pacific Lutheran University grad who lives in Boise where her husband works as an electrician.

Kaitlin, a mother of three young children, wrote a piece about an experience when she escaped to her longtime passion for fly fishing one day on the Boise River rather than going Christmas shopping.  

The piece has appeared in an online magazine, complete with her photos. Kaitlin sent me the piece several weeks ago and asked me to look it over. Well, it turned out that both Bill and I looked it over and helped out with some editing.

This morning as I was going out the door with Foster for my first early-morning walk without chores to do, Bill had something to show me on his Kindle: Kaitlin's article. 

It looks pretty darned good too, so if you have the time and desire to read her story, you can find it at http://dunthemagazine.com/Spring2014.html#

Congratulations, Kaitlin.  Looks like you have a future as a writer and photographer!

And, Happy Friday to all.  GO ZAGS!  It's crunch time, and we hope to crunch some big numbers for your victory in San Diego today.