Horsies and Horseas.

I've been trying to find cheap activities I can do with my daughters this summer. ON Saturday, we watched a few events at the BC Summer Games in Abbotsford. My daughters really wanted to see some of the equestrian events, so I watched some horses perform their para dressage. I took this photo using the 12x telephoto attachment on my phone, which creates these oddly saturated photos that are clear in the centre and highly skewed at the edges. Despite its limitations, it takes some unique, lomography-ish photos, like the one embedded below. I think it's interesting because the horse's face is crisp while the rider's face looks deliberately blurred, but that's just how the lens works. No "tilt shift" filter here.

Watching #paradressage at #bcsummergames in #abbotsford. #dressage #equestrian #horse #horses #yxx #goabbygames

A photo posted by Jeffrey Nordstrom (@jeffnords) on Jul 23, 2016 at 2:42pm PDT

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A few nights ago, I caught some Horseas in Pokémon GO. I don't understand anything about Pokémon, but I've been enjoying having it on my phone. I've been catching plenty of Pokemon around Chilliwack and enjoyed catching different ones in Vancouver yesterday. But the Horsea (to the right) looks pretty cool. 

I'm a little too old to care about Pokémon. They were part of a slightly younger generation. Card traders and players of my generation had already settled on Magic: The Gathering, so Pokémon seemed extremely childish. But I've been passing my phone to my daughters so they can catch Pokémon for the last few days and they've been enjoying it. It's also some fun company while I'm taking Rosita for a walk. I'm "catching" these digital figures and it's fun even though I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with them. And I'm even disappointed when I keep running into the same Pidgies, Weedles, and Rattatas and the like, as if the game owes me variety. Yay, latent entitlement to entertainment!

But back to horses.

Some Pokémon puns are unacceptable. pic.twitter.com/ekxHaoSizd

— Jeffrey Nordstrom (@jeffnords) July 24, 2016

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When I was in middle school, I had a crush on a French Immersion girl. She had this long, curly hair and clearly intelligent eyes and seemed to buck the norm a little. Somewhere along the way, I don't know how, I decided she liked horses. So I read horse books in the library in case I ever needed to know about horses in a conversation with her. I learned about Appaloosas and canters and bridles and whatnot, but the information never really came into use. The imagined horse conversation with her never came, but we became friends in high school based on other interests. And there I learned that we would be terrible for each other. But I held on to some of that horse knowledge anyhow, which has been useful for my daughters who seem to really like horses.

So the blog post begins from the top again.