Much ado about nothing

Not sure what we're going to be writing about today. We, meaning me! I have no thoughts whipping about my head, I thought I might have an opinion about that 16-year-old girl who attempted to sail around the world and then needed to be rescued -- but then decided I really didn't. She and her family claim that she has grown up on boats and it was her dream to break the record (whatever the record was, youngest?) and so she tried. The various comments I have come across are that the parents are irresponsible and that taxpayers shouldn't have to foot the bill for rescuing such people.

I took horseback riding lessons with this woman who had a very young child, probably two. That little kid would literally swing from the rafters and land on a horse's back. I was somewhat appalled, believing the child would get trampled to death or bucked or ... something awful. But the mother's parenting style was, umm, somewhat laid back, and this child (it took me several lessons to figure out that the little waif-like creature in the dirty clothes and messed up blonde hair was actually a girl) had managed to make it to the ripe old age of two in this situation, so who was I to judge?

While her mother taught the lesson, she wandered about, sometimes in the field with the horses and she would pull their tails and throw things at them, but they paid her no mind. I, at the tender age of like 10 was sure the kid was going to die all the time. But when I attempted to hold her she would squirm away and go off and do her own thing. She was more or less raised by horses, I guess. When she was a little older, like five, she could ride a horse like nobody's business. She was positively fearless (which I admired because I was always fearful that my horse was going to throw me or I would be hurled to my death when we went galloping through the woods at full bore) and everything she did was completely intuitive. We would be riding on trail and she would turn her entire body around and address whomever she wanted, then whip back and urge her horse on, then lean forward and lay her entire body upon the horse's neck and snuggle then sit back up and throw her head back and laugh with complete abandon.

It was really something to watch.

So I believe that a 16-year-old would have the confidence and the ability to do something that came to them second nature. I don't necessarily get WHY you'd want to do it alone! I mean, I don't even like to take a two-hour walk in the woods alone. Not because I am afraid, but because I just prefer to have company! If she had made it, she would have been heralded as a hero. Because she didn't -- she is a pain in the neck kid who should have stayed home.

Geesh.

And that's all I have to say! I have an empty mind.

I kind of like it!