Today I got an email saying that it was my Twitterversary. Apparently I've had a Twitter account for exactly two years.
With two years of practice you think I'd be better at tweeting, but I'm not. My children refuse to--well, it's not friend me, that's Facebook--ah! follow me. My children refuse to follow me on Twitter. Despite this, I am up to a whopping sixty Twitter followers, which felt like a lot to me, until my son casually checked his phone and said, "Huh. I've got 278."
I did an online interview as promotion for TWTSML, and one of the questions was, "What's the funniest thing you've ever tweeted?" I could not think of a single funny thing I'd ever tweeted. Not one. So I wrote down the truth: "my children don't think it's funny that I tweet."
Meanwhile, looking at my Blog Year in Review, it's clear that if I want to be more popular I should write more about Lauren Kieffer: the two posts I wrote about her finished in the top 3 of my blog posts, ever, for readership, with "Nine Years To An Overnight Success," being my most-read blog post by a factor of four.
I tried to say it went "viral," but my children put a stop to that.
Meanwhile, 2014 turned out to be a pretty good year for young Lauren. After her triumph at Rolex, she had some sort of snafu at the final World Equestrian Games selection trial--she was vague as to the details, except that her horse tripped while warming up, and she fell off, and somehow they ended up not competing.
Horses trip surprisingly often, and people fall off in warmup pretty often too--ask me how I know--but, unlike falling off in competition, falling off in warmup doesn't disqualify you. So I figure Lauren landed on her head, or hard on her ass, or something that kept her out of the saddle, which stunk, but there you are. That's horses. So she didn't get named to the WEG team, but she did get a competition grant to travel to France in the fall, for Pau, a big four-star (like Rolex), where she and Veronica, her horse, absolutely killed it, finishing I can't remember, top ten somewhere and the best American.
She had a slew of other good results on other horses at other levels. At one show she won all four divisions of Preliminary (which, unlike how it sounds, is actually pretty damn difficult. I aspire to Preliminary.) on four different horses (duh), all four finishing on their dressage score, which is just insane.
Last year--2013--I went to the United States Eventing Association's annual meeting. I'd never been before. I ended up sitting at the same table as Lauren for the very long awards dinner. I was sitting next to some very earnest strangers, who weren't very fun, and I grew bored and therefore childish, and started texting Lauren from across the table during the presentation. She texted back, and we amused ourselves thereby, while also drinking some wine. So, this year, when I knew it was the night for the annual meeting awards dinner, I texted her: "Happily drinking wine with husband this year. Are you sitting at the big kids' table now?"
She texted back, "LOL just ordered more wine and was thinking about you." Note she didn't respond RE: the big kids' table. It wasn't until I tuned into social media the next morning that I realized Lauren had been named USEA Lady Rider of the Year, a great big whopping deal, and her horse Veronica Horse of the Year.
So she's doing pretty well, that kid named Lauren Kieffer. After her dressage ride at Rolex, I said to her, "Someday I'll be able to say I knew you back when--"
Forget that. I know her now.
With two years of practice you think I'd be better at tweeting, but I'm not. My children refuse to--well, it's not friend me, that's Facebook--ah! follow me. My children refuse to follow me on Twitter. Despite this, I am up to a whopping sixty Twitter followers, which felt like a lot to me, until my son casually checked his phone and said, "Huh. I've got 278."
I did an online interview as promotion for TWTSML, and one of the questions was, "What's the funniest thing you've ever tweeted?" I could not think of a single funny thing I'd ever tweeted. Not one. So I wrote down the truth: "my children don't think it's funny that I tweet."
Meanwhile, looking at my Blog Year in Review, it's clear that if I want to be more popular I should write more about Lauren Kieffer: the two posts I wrote about her finished in the top 3 of my blog posts, ever, for readership, with "Nine Years To An Overnight Success," being my most-read blog post by a factor of four.
I tried to say it went "viral," but my children put a stop to that.
Meanwhile, 2014 turned out to be a pretty good year for young Lauren. After her triumph at Rolex, she had some sort of snafu at the final World Equestrian Games selection trial--she was vague as to the details, except that her horse tripped while warming up, and she fell off, and somehow they ended up not competing.
Horses trip surprisingly often, and people fall off in warmup pretty often too--ask me how I know--but, unlike falling off in competition, falling off in warmup doesn't disqualify you. So I figure Lauren landed on her head, or hard on her ass, or something that kept her out of the saddle, which stunk, but there you are. That's horses. So she didn't get named to the WEG team, but she did get a competition grant to travel to France in the fall, for Pau, a big four-star (like Rolex), where she and Veronica, her horse, absolutely killed it, finishing I can't remember, top ten somewhere and the best American.
She had a slew of other good results on other horses at other levels. At one show she won all four divisions of Preliminary (which, unlike how it sounds, is actually pretty damn difficult. I aspire to Preliminary.) on four different horses (duh), all four finishing on their dressage score, which is just insane.
Last year--2013--I went to the United States Eventing Association's annual meeting. I'd never been before. I ended up sitting at the same table as Lauren for the very long awards dinner. I was sitting next to some very earnest strangers, who weren't very fun, and I grew bored and therefore childish, and started texting Lauren from across the table during the presentation. She texted back, and we amused ourselves thereby, while also drinking some wine. So, this year, when I knew it was the night for the annual meeting awards dinner, I texted her: "Happily drinking wine with husband this year. Are you sitting at the big kids' table now?"
She texted back, "LOL just ordered more wine and was thinking about you." Note she didn't respond RE: the big kids' table. It wasn't until I tuned into social media the next morning that I realized Lauren had been named USEA Lady Rider of the Year, a great big whopping deal, and her horse Veronica Horse of the Year.
So she's doing pretty well, that kid named Lauren Kieffer. After her dressage ride at Rolex, I said to her, "Someday I'll be able to say I knew you back when--"
Forget that. I know her now.
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