Theme Thursday - (Wh)oops!


And I thought this would be easy. It turned out to be quite a challenge. The first thing I did was google Whoops! to see if anything inspiring came up. No. So I decided to take the liberty of checking the more commonly used Oops! - and even that wasn't particularly helpful. I did find a Britney Spears YouTube video called Oops!... I Did It Again. I watched it. I was surprised to note that I really had no idea what Britney Spears looked like, except that she was blonde. I could have passed this performer on the street and not recognized her. That was actually rather heartening. There's apparently one aspect of popular culture that hasn't permeated my brain.


It was a couple of hours later when suddenly I knew what I wanted to talk about. I was curled up on the sofa, reading Tender Graces. I came to a scene in which Virginia Kate learns to ride a horse. Bingo! I remembered a (Wh)oops! moment in my own life. It had to do with a horse named Bingo, in fact.

I was not yet 40 years old, and I had already managed to do some fairly nasty things to my back, so I was a little fragile. My son, whom I'll call Bumble (that being his baby nickname), decided he would like to take riding lessons, so we sought out a riding school. Every Tuesday night we would drive out to the riding school, and I would watch the class go through its routine. One night, I said to the teacher that it was like watching somebody shave or put lipstick on. My muscles wanted to move in synch with the riders. "If you want to ride," said the teacher, "I'll bring out a horse for you next week, and you can have a go." Cool. Really cool. I was so excited.

The following Tuesday, when we arrived for the class, I wasn't sure that the teacher would remember his offer. I wasn't going to say anything about it, but he came out to say hello, and he said "You can ride Bingo. He's very gentle."Bingo was also huge, but I had seen him in action, and I knew that he was perfect for me to ride. The challenge would be to get him moving.

So off we went, Bumble on his horse, I on mine, and we joined the group of kids. Soon we were all going around in a circle, walking slowly and gently.

Next came posting. For those not familiar with English riding: this is a technique whereby you clamp the saddle firmly between your knees and ride without actually sitting down right on the horse. "Posting trot!" called the teacher, and that's what we did. It was easy, and it was fun.

"Sitting trot!" came the next instruction, and we all sat down. Things are getting a little more jostly here, but I'm still okay.

"Feet out of the stirrups..." Out came my feet, and there I was, bouncing around on my tailbone, not having any fun at all, and meanwhile, the teacher was finishing his instruction - "...everybody except Bumble's mother." Oh. Right. Now He tells me. (Wh)oops!

The following day, I couldn't go to work, because I couldn't lift my foot far enough to climb into the commuter van. I could get into my car, barely, and I went straight to the chiropractor. His reaction was predictable. "You did WHAT?"