I fired Mell

I'm kind of enjoying this time as a private blogger - it feels like when I started my first blog in 2001, I was just writing for a couple of friends and felt like I could say anything at all. Then again, I was bitchy and vented a lot about the absurdities of Germany, but also the noise level in America.

I forgot to mention that two weeks ago I finally had enough of Mell's unreliability. She is such a great trainer otherwise, and I really like her personality. She actually hangs out and talks to me after my lessons and that is not common around here.

But two weeks ago I had Mara saddled and waiting for her, and she never showed, and never called. I'd been in touch (four contacts within two days) and was expecting her at 11. Mara stood there for three hours. Nothing wrong with a horse wearing a saddle going nowhere for hours on end (and I really hate it when people say it's cruel to have a horse stand around in tack, heck, back home we trailer in tack sometimes), it just really really bothered me that she never even called. My last text message to her said, "Mara's been standing saddled waiting for you for three hours and counting." And I think it's beyond rude to not even answer that with some sort of made-up excuse (which she often uses when she needs to cancel).

I didn't actually fire her though,  I just never want to do business with her again. It's too disappointing to get my hopes up and then have her not show. I went through this last year, and now again, and I won't go through it three times. I'm not going to bother contacting her, and it's been two weeks so I doubt I'll hear from her.

It was a combination of her unreliability and my accumulated despair about my horse.  I wanted to give up.

I was so upset I called and ranted to S about it. S is who set me up with Mell. S invited me to her barn for coffee cuz she could tell I was sniffling and feeling terrible about everything to do with my horse. Then she pulled out her cell phone and showed me the cryptic texts she'd received from Mell that day as well. She never showed up at their barn either, and she let down at least three people there that day. I've been told they've had interventions with her to get her to be more reliable. Do they work?

I told S, it's like dealing with an infant. As far as an infant understands, when you are not within sight, you cease to exist. I do not exist for Mell.

Oh, and KT hasn't contacted me in the last two weeks either, but I'm not upset about that because she wasn't being a very effective "trail ride" instructor, she was out of her comfort zone and I'm tired of her excuses.

So I guess that means no more lessons for us for a while, and to be honest I'm not even riding lately. I'm tired of arguing with my horse out there, so I'm just playing with her, rubbing her coat out, and lunging her in our currently-dry field.

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At Aldi today I ran into Herr Steinhaus. So, not on vacation afterall? Hrm. I said Hello but that was it.