The Good Stuff and the Hard Stuff--always best when we are connected.

The Good Stuff and the Hard Stuff—always best when we are connected.

Jess and Cathy share their highs and lows from the past weekend.  The “Best Weekend of the Year”—the Kentucky Three-Day Event was this past weekend.  It is a five star event—bringing the best riders from the world. Cathy is involved with her expertise in course design, helping repair any footing and jumps that might get compromised during the cross country phase.  She also did color commentating for the show jumping on Sunday for anyone that bought headsets to listen.  Jess had good friends in for it—her riding buddies from 55 years ago, whom she has remained close. The low was losing their little Boston Terrier, Tessa on Sunday morning.   They go on to say how important each of their dogs have been their whole lives, commemorating different chapters of their lives.  It is all so rich, this love we have for people and for our animals, and so the grief is felt and it too, is rich and necessary.   

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Theme song and host introduction. Jess and Cathy welcome listeners to There You Are, introduce themselves, and share what the show is about and who it's for.

Theme song and closing words from Jess and Cathy, including a call to action to share the episode, leave a review, and tune in next week.

Cathy is a professional at training and teaching the sport of Three Day Eventing. Her website is: 

https://www.cwevent.com

Jess is a licenced clinical social worker.  She see's clients in her office in the back of the house here at the farm.   

Her website is:

https://www.jessicabollinger.com

Transcript

Jess and Cathy 1:40

There you are. Cath. There you are. Jess. Yeah. Wow. What a weekend. It was a weekend. It was a week. It's been a life. It's been 14 years. Yep. Big weekend, the Kentucky three day event. Yeah. And you're course builder, so you helped do stuff. During Saturdays Cross Country Day. Yeah. I'm a designer, but I also know how to do some building and so I, a few years ago I asked to be a volunteer on Cross Country Day as one of the course repair crew. So we go out and sit and we all get assigned our spaces. There's probably 20 guys that have, that are there, building and putting the course together. And then wherever there's a Frangible device and or just, there's two, two people probably monitoring the whole course as horses jump around in case any jumps need repair, a flag gets knocked over, a Ible device gets activated. So it's a really fun thing to do. 'cause I love to hang out with the quote guys. And I really have fun doing it. And then it's fun 'cause they really respect you. I stopped and talked to different, a few of those groups of the of the course builders. Yeah. Around, around the course when I was walking the course. Oh yeah. I said, where'd y'all stick, Cathy? Oh, they pulled up the little schedule where the, where you were. Yeah. So you could find me. Yeah. Yeah. Y'all that are listening. Cathy is a, is instructor professional here at the farm trains people in horses for the sport of three day eventing. Yeah. And so three day eventing is like a triathlon. Triathlon where the same horse and rider do dressage. Cross country and stadium jumping. And the Kentucky three day that we're talking about is one of the only one of two five stars here in the United States. Yeah. Yeah. There's one's in question right now, but yes. The Maryland five star isn't running this year, but, so it's this big. Thing that's been happening, and it's almost next in 2028, it'll be 50 years. Yeah. Yeah. That has been going on here since 1978. So it's the last weekend in the year. And they really have a of may. Yeah. The last In April. In April, last weekend in April. Yeah. And they really have a good catchphrase on it now. The best weekend of the year. Yeah. Best weekend all year. Yeah. The best weekend all year. Yeah. And so it's just a lot of fun. The last weekend in April? Yeah. Every single year. And it starts with the horses being presented on Wednesdays and then they have dressage Thursday and Friday. The cross country day is Saturday and then the final part of the event is Sunday with the stadium jumping. Yeah. And I get to do the color commentary for people that have purchased tickets and sit in the stands. You can buy headsets and listen to the commentary about how the writers are doing and what the course is like, and people can ask questions and I really love doing that. It's really fun. Yeah, so we have a pan and you do a great job. It's so fun. It's so fun. You did it with two other people. Yeah. Wayne Quarels this year and Amanda Miller. Amanda and I have done it for for a few years, but I first started doing it. It was one off Sally O'Connor, David O'Connor's mom. So David is a. Elite athlete three day event. Brian O'Connor, his brother does he, his name of his company is speakeasy and he does announcing and sets up a lot of sound systems for competitions. And so I happened to be in a tent and Sally O'Connor was in there. Bemoaning because her person that was supposed to do the color commentary with her couldn't make it or hurt herself or something. And so she said, Cathy, what are you doing? And I said nothing. So come sit with me and do the color commentary with me. Yeah. So we did it for several years together and that's how I got invited to be doing that. Yeah. So the, you get these. Headphones for $30. And there were three. I was there with my two friends. So we bought, we got two, two headsets. Just sit real close and then you can sit close and share earbuds. Yeah. And Melinda had her own pair and I split a pair. But it's so fun it listen to your comments. 'cause it makes it so much more enriching 'cause more detail. Exactly. You find out more. Yeah. And little snippets of our history and Wayne was really fun to be with. So Amanda is a an FEI judge. She's actually on her way to go overseas to judge at badminton, in a couple weeks, which I thought, oh wow. I knew you went and that is so cool. Wayne Quarles says, an FEI steward an FEI judge a technical delegate. So he's really knowledgeable on all the rules and so it, it was a really fun interaction between the three of us, I had to be reminded once or twice not to talk over people. But it was a little bit hard to hear 'cause we were sitting right underneath the announcers and i'd almost have to turn and look and see if Amanda's mouth was moving before I could start talking. Because you didn't. You had trouble hearing each other. Hearing each other. Yeah. Uhhuh. Exactly. Uhhuh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it was a good weather weekend. It was perfect. Oh, beautiful. Yeah, it's perfect. We got some rain Friday night. Friday night. Yeah. Just a little kind of get the dust down. It didn't affect the footing that much, but Yeah. They'd already prepared all the footing. About a 20th of an inch or so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it was good. And I had, I started riding and I tell, told you all that I got my first horse when I was 11, Jesse James, and that was at Rock Creek Riding Club and two girls that were there Melinda Baker and Ann Chu. They were four or five years older than I was and they were my mentors at the barn. And 55 years later, they're still good friends and. Melinda went off to college to IU and Anne went down to college at Loyola and so they, anyway, we're still friends and we still stay in contact. So they came in and, yeah. That was fun. And went to the competition together. Yeah. Yeah. They'd send me pictures of where they were out on the course. Yeah. This commonality of horses. Is just so rich. And it's just astounded me when big things happen in everybody's lives. Good things and hard things. Yeah. How the community comes together. Exactly. Yeah. And pitches in and does what people need and if people have a tragedy or death or, and they celebrate, break down on the highway or break down on the highway. Celebrate each other too. Yeah, it's so good. And I find that since I got the boat, the relationship, your trailer bull trawler. My trailer bull trawler. That the boating people are like that too. That community that I have people that have a boat just like mine the Ross Bro, 2 46, that we're all a good community. We have our little rendezvous and we all have each other's backs and help each other out. Yeah. And stay connected. And it's just staying connected. You all know that I'm a therapist, that it's our community, it's our connection. That really is what life's about. When people have addictions it's a disease of isolation and it's this. Where did you go with that? I didn't follow you. Just the community. Okay. The community of being with Ann and Melinda and this three day and your community. And my community. The horses and with the boat. Yeah. It was so fun. It's the opposite of. Being alone, it's the opposite of being alone. Okay. We need each other. We need each other. Yeah. When Beth Weisberg is a good friend of mine and she and her wife Kelly came to came and did not volunteer. They actually flew in and were spectators all weekend. And they got us tickets to. Go in the Horse Park Foundation tent for dinner on Thursday night and watch the Grand Prix and just by chance they were doing a dedication to Alston Kerr, who I've taught for forever. She's a force and organizing and keeping the horse park going and Horse Park Foundation and missing a lot of things, but it was so fun to be in that tent. And witness that, number one. But just to see the whole community of people that I've been around forever. Yeah. Steve and Jane Beshear and I know he was the governor, but Jane is, was my student. And that's where you, where it is. And if I would need something, they would show up. If I ever needed something from Alston, she would show up and all the, I can't even name all the people that were there. That was so fun to see them. And yeah, we were, they were part of my. My community and our community with the horse world. Yeah. It was just such a wonderful group of people honoring Austin Kerr and their, they're gonna build a pavilion, right? The Montgomery Kerr Pavilion there. By the arena? Yeah, by the outdoor arena. Real nice, beautiful building. And call it the Montgomery Kerr Pavilion. 'cause Montgomery's her maiden name. Yeah. Yeah. And her parents did a whole lot. Yeah. Too. George and Anne. Yep. Anyway and this is the weekend was really a weekend of life. Yeah. About life. Yeah. For us, my life growing up, I could count my decades of my life with the dogs that I had. Me too. Dogs were always important in my mom's life, in her childhood and growing up. She always had a dog. I was raised with dogs and we lost one of our dogs yesterday morning. Tessa, a little Boston terrier that was just such a little bright spot and such a great dog. She'd been through a lot health wise in the past year. And it accelerated the past month or so. And so we had to make the decision to let her cross the Rainbow Bridge yesterday morning and yeah. Our song that Carla wrote for us is it's things are always easier together and Right. Having you home yesterday and before you went to the horse park that when we thought Tessa had a little stroke. She was walking around the house. Anyway, Cathy, having you here and me being here too with you to so yeah. Easier together. Easier together. Yeah. Yeah. Easier together. And being with my friends was so helpful. I'm on the way home from the clinic yesterday morning at 8:00 AM. And I called Melinda 'cause she was staying here at the house because Melinda knew that, knew this concern about Tessa and we had been trying to call and report to some different people. And she didn't know that we had gone on to see Olivia. She said, I'm gonna go take a shower. And then we both left with, we'd finally gotten hold of Olivia and we went to the vet clinic and Yeah. And we both left without telling her we were leaving. Yeah. And on my way home. Go ahead and let Tyler out. Oh, Tyler, he has to go check the barn Yeah. Yeah. You tell him go check it out. On my way home, I called Melinda because I knew she was outta the shower and to tell her I was on my way home and what we had decided and done with Tessa, with Olivia there at the Bluegrass Clinic. And she was telling me about her dog that she got. She got this dog, Tootsie and the family, she said this would never happen in these times at all. Is. There was a raffle at the Holy Spirit Elementary School and church in Louisville, and her sister Vicki won the raffle with this dog, this little puppy. That's what the prize was. That's what the prize was. Tootsie. Tootsie and Melinda at the time was like a year old. Oh, okay. And the three older siblings the glow of Tootsie waned pretty quick, and Tootsie was with Melinda. Oh, okay. And died at eighteen. The Tootsie died when she was 18. Oh, wow. So Melinda grew up with Tootsie her whole life. Wow. And Tootsie was just so important to her and her childhood. Tootsie. Melinda would get the gift of every Christmas that if she bathed Tootsie on Christmas Eve, then Tootsie could spend the night with her in her bedroom and sleep on the bed with her. That's great. That night was a little cocker spaniel mix. Yeah. And that was her Christmas present. To sleep with Tootsie. And her dad took a picture of her with Tootsie when he came home from work. Did one day, 'cause Melinda was asleep with Tootsie. Out in the snow, all warm. Had winter clothes on. Yeah. And coat and stuff. And they were just curled up together and the snow was asleep. Oh my gosh. Our dogs are so important to us. And they just, each one is so special and they. And my friend Catherine, she said, do you know why dogs don't live a long time? They why They don't live as long as turtles or monkeys. Or elephants. Or elephants. And I said, no, why? And she said, so we can have more of them. Yeah. So they can each one, each individual dog. I could write down all of these things that Tessa gave me. This spunk and this presence. And I posted on Facebook yesterday, the photos that I have at. Of Tessa and she's always on the couch laying against laying next to somebody. Yeah, exactly. Or up in somebody's lap. Yeah. On the plane or in a chair. And yeah, we'd take her to The Bahamas with us. Yeah. And we took her this past Christmas was, yeah. Yeah. And she had just long walks on the beach. It was so nice. Yeah. So beautiful. Yeah. So little ery. Team Marie? Yeah, I have my office in the back of my house and very often. Tessa would be on the floor leaning up against one of my client's shoes or sitting on the couch with them. With them, yeah. Right next to them or, yeah, before they'd come in. She'd be out in the parking lot, just barking at 'em. And I'd say, don't take it personally. She barks at everybody. Yeah. That's what Cabi's starting to do now. I don't think she's, she, I have my, the shees in my life I've always had shees. My parents we got shelters when we lived in Ireland and we brought them back to Maine and then I think mom bred some, we had this one dog Clancy that we had for 14 years. And when my parents moved to Belgium I kept Clancy and brought him here to Kentucky with me, Uhhuh. And and he passed when he was about 14. Or so years old and then mom bred Kipper and brought me that puppy from England. You had Kipper when I met you. Yeah. Uhhuh. And she was the best dog. She was the best dog. You all, this is so funny is Cathy, this is a typical thing. Cathy is standing up straight. Standing outside and you're turning circles. Kipper, and Kipper is right behind your legs, and as you turn around, Kipper is behind you, turning behind you, and you just be calling Kipper. And then when you'd leave the farm, Kipper would lay where your car was and wait for you. Yeah. Uhhuh and just stare down the driveway. Yeah. She's the best dog. And when Cathy goes on these long road trips pulling a horse trailer, when Cathy would start to get tired, Kipper would come up and porch would be in the back seat and she'd start licking the back of Cathy's neck to wake her up, right? Yeah. Uhhuh. Yep. She's buried down by the creek. And we have a stone that says Kipper the best dog. Best dog. Yeah. We called her the best dog. Yeah. They all are the best dog. Yeah, they are. Yeah. And my mom talks about, we have my mom's dog, lemon, and my mom just says, she's the best dog. She's such a good dog. And she says all my dogs have been good dogs. And they are, yeah. And I have this, motto that I will never have a bad dog. And I guess it's my mission statement. I'll never have a bad dog and I never have a bad dog. I don't ever have a bad dog either. No. I don't think I have a mission statement and I think it's 'cause I say that. Yeah, that I don't ever have a bad dog. I also am really good at finding four leaf clovers and I say that and I can find four leaf clovers positively manifest. I think if you say that, yeah, that's what happens. You own it. Yep. Yeah. But it's just so beautiful how our dogs are just so important. They're, they like, tell us stuff. And Tessa was talking to us yesterday morning. Yeah. She was saying, I'm ready. I'm ready. And then people were recounting some of their dogs near the end of their life, they would go off to try to find someplace. To pass away. Yeah. We had a dog red, my, when my parents moved to 91 14 Darley Drive the house where I grew up my whole life. Yep. There was a dog there and the neighbors thought my parents had moved in with this dog, and my parents thought that it was the neighbor's dog, but. This dog just kept hanging around and then they discovered that it was a lost dog and they took red in, not anymore. And that's what happened to red is red went off to die. That's what happened to Clancy. I, he was getting a little bit too old to go to competitions with us and and so I went away and left him on the farm. And when I came back he was, he was gone. Gone off to die. But you didn't find him? Never. Yeah. No. That's what happened to Tootsie. Melinda got up and she went outside and Tootsie wasn't there. And so she went off to try to find Tootsie. Because it wasn't like Tootsie to wander off. And Tootsie had wandered far away and she was down underneath some brush. Oh. And she got Tootsie and took Tootsie to the vet. And the vet explained that's probably what Tootsie was doing. And Tootsie was ready. Yeah. Yeah. What's fascinating to me too is when we talk to Latifah, Mina and a psychic that can talk to the animals and we, gather information sometimes when our, my horses are not behaving or coming up with weird stuff like. All of a sudden I had a horse one time that was second at the Atlanta Cup. In preparation, they always do test events before. Olympic events. And so they always run a testament the year before and I'd gone down and did the test event for the Atlanta Cup and was second there, and then he came out the next spring and wouldn't jump anything. I was like, what? Okay, what's wrong with you? And I don't know if I had Latah talk to him, but I had a psychic talk to him and it might've been Latifa. And he said he had a headache. I'm like, seriously, dude, you were my Olympic hope. And you have a headache. Guess what? Try to get over it. He wouldn't, he just died. Yeah. It was not a good deal. But anyway. Back to dogs. Back to dogs. It's always interesting to talk to them because the dogs have a different perspective on. Animals do on life and death. They're not afraid of death. They're not afraid of death at all. No. No. And they're, this is where I am now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're gonna make an appointment and talk to Latifa with, to check in Tessa With Tessa. Yeah. Yeah. They just say, ah, I'm good. Yeah. I'm a hawk now, or I'm an eagle, or. Of course. And I'm watching over you guys. Yeah. Like with powder, we uhhuh we had a, we talked about with powder. I had the I bred my yellow lab and we kept a puppy. And we kept, we weren't going to give them all away. Or sell 'em all. We sold 'em. Yeah. Because that was the only time the farm made money was she says she had made a profit when she bred the dog and sold the puppies. Yeah. Anyway we Powder got returned. She said, if my husband doesn't want this dog, would y'all take 'em back? And we named the dogs after the color. Rick Rock Ribbon. They had the puppies. Yeah. 'cause there were nine of them. We couldn't keep track of them. Yeah. Yeah. And powder had a powder blue rick rack ribbon. So we kept powder. And powder was my therapy dog and was in my office all the time. And some of my clients that had been in a lot of trauma, they would just be sitting on the floor with powder. Yes. Just pet them. And when powder passed it was hard on my clients. I had to have a special session with a lot of clients. Just their grief after losing. This dog that had been there for them. So I told Cathy, I said, okay, I'm I'm not doing lab labradoodles anymore. And Cathy's like, what? I always have shelties and I never compare 'em, yeah. I didn't know, didn't expect, cuppa to be like Kiper or. Cabby to be like cuppa, but I like the breed. And we did have a Boston Terrier before Tessa, and her name was Rosie. And Rosie was a special little Boston that we got from a sweet family. They had bred their dog and we got Rosie. And Rosie. Rosie just loved people. And Eric Parson, Yvette would come and his little son will, he'd have his son Will with him sometimes when Will was like three or four years old. And Will would be in the backseat of Eric's truck. And there would be Rosie up in the backseat. Yeah. With Will snuggling watching videos, snuggling with little will when in anyway, Rosie went out the driveway, followed us out the driveway, and this the only time. Knock on wood that's ever happened. And she got hit by a car. And when Latifah was talking to Rosie, Rosie was like, what? What, what happened? I don't know what happened. Rosie was confused. And Latifah said, yeah. Yeah. You're, you've been impetuous your whole life, right? All in all the lives that you've been here. And now you gotta learn this lesson. Yeah. And Rosie's oh man, I really didn't wanna leave. Yeah. Yeah. She says, I want to come back. I wanna come back. Yeah. Yeah. Said yeah. Yeah. And it helped us. Yeah. And when we lose a pet to know more about Yeah. Yeah. How they're doing and Yeah. And what their perspectives were. And I just clearly remember Powder saying he was gonna, he'll keep an eye on everything here. Yeah. Yeah. So go. So then go back to Tyler. Oh yeah. Oh so Rosie left such a big hole calf. Yeah, that I thought. I just love these little box. I grew up with boxer dogs my whole life. My mom had a boxer dog when she married my dad. And we had boxer dogs and I had a client, I had this little boy come in the fruit market. He says, look at that boxer dog. There's a boxer dog. I always said Boxer dogs. So having a little Boston Terrier was like having a boxer puppy, we just loved him. So I said, there's this big hole. Yeah. And I saw this picture of Tessa on the internet and I said, ah, Cathy, look at this little, look at this dog. And she was in North Georgia. So then we got Tessa from North Georgia. So anyway, Tyler, I said, I don't want another Labradoodle. You said I always, and then you I, about a year later I said, okay, I think I'm ready. Yeah. And so I looked up on the internet and found Tyler at puppy spot and he was so cute and I was like, oh my gosh, that's Jess's new dog and he's the best dog. She saw this picture and knew he was the best dog. Yeah, he had a little bow towel. This is so cute. Yeah, and I had to go to the airport and pick him up at 11 o'clock at night. And I pick him up and bring him, and I carry him into the bedroom and I'm like, here, Jess, here's your Christmas present. She thought it was like a stuff to him. Yeah. And he knew he was mine. Yeah, he did. Yeah. Yeah, because we're both fun. We're both here on the farm, but our dogs know who we are. Yeah. Yeah. You also. I talked yesterday on something I do on Facebook. I talked about grief, that we gotta feel it. And be it, and Tessa's little collar is on my rear view mirror of the car. Every so often. It tinkles. And we gotta. The grief is as deep as that. Love and specialness was high. Absolutely. And we, yeah. We have to be able to be vulnerable and feel it, because we gotta take a risk. Like I said with powder, I said, I'm not ready. I'm not ready. I'm okay now. I'm ready. 'cause I had to be with the grief for long enough Yeah. To feel it. And be with it. And it's, it's not that we replace no. That animal or that person in our life they don't get replaced. No. But it's it's this new love that can happen and come into our life and bring their own specialness, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So we wanna commemorate little Tessa. Yeah. I just wanna say this is, so Tyler always sleeps at the end of the bed. And last night he slept right next to Jess, next to me. Yeah. Not in side, the bed side. My side, he's big. My but not, yeah, on her side of the bed. Right next on floor. On the floor. It was, I look and there he was. It was so wild. Yeah. Yeah. They just know. Yeah. I took him with me to the vet clinic yesterday morning when I got back in the car. He was laying, he was laying with his head up, just looking straight and blinking his eyes and he just like nodding his head. Okay, it's done. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We love you all. Thanks for listening to our story. It's it's good stuff and it's hard stuff and we're happy that you're here with all of it for us, and we're here for all of it with you all. Just a reminder, comment about anything that you have questions about or want us to talk about. And we'll do it. Yeah. Yeah. Peace and love and there you are. Be all of who you are because you're special and you got good stuff to add to this world. Amen. Yeah. Love you guys. Bye.