palace of winds

04/01 Sun: 50 min cardio
04/02 Mon: riding (x2!)
04/03 Tue: riding
04/04 Wed: rest (does furniture moving count?)
04/05 Thu: rest
04/06 Fri: riding (lesson)
04/07 Sat: scrapbooking!

That’s right, most of my riding is now x2, and probably will be through May 19 — which is my next show, where I’ll be riding Captain. So now I’m training with him and Saza, since Saza’s other rider is going to be working out at a dude ranch (in Colorado, I think?) for the summer (I’m a touch jealous, but honestly it’s hard to be very jealous of anyone when I think of the end of my summer and how I’ll be, you know, riding horses in the Andes and hiking to mysterious ancient Incan cities and all that).

The trouble, of course, with training someone else’s horse is how easy it is to fall in love. I’ve been trying to think of the right metaphor for it and I can’t, really. Like living in someone’s home while remodeling it for them, if you deliriously love remodeling and have access to their unlimited budget, and then when it’s over you have to move out — only you can’t rest your head on a house’s warm, soft neck, and it will never fall half asleep with its big velvety nose nudged up against your collarbone, or look happy to see you or sad when you leave. More like being a surrogate mother, then, maybe. Anyway, the whole thing is sometimes a little heartbreaking.

In other things-I-don’t-like news: It’s snowing. It’s April. It’s snowing kind of a lot, a lot more than I was given to expect, having dutifully watched the weather report Monday night (after getting back from the barn, where I spent the evening riding outside). It’s been going since at least 6:26 this morning. The ground isn’t frozen any more, yet the snow? She is accumulating. The trees and bushes are all white, branch to twig-tip, and it would all be lovely and charming if it were December. But it’s April. Not cute any more. I want spring!