palace of winds

I had to pull a tick off my toe this morning. NOT a good way to wake up. So now I’m all paranoid, wondering how long it was there, where I picked it up, if there are eighty-seven more lurking in my bed somewhere. I kind of want to crawl on out of my skin to somewhere safe and tick-free.

But then, driving into work this morning, I realized it’s Tuesday. Tuesday! What a great feeling.

I had a pretty fantastic long weekend. I missed having Bren up, but Beth and I had a blast in her honor. We had tons of good food, browsed Ikea & Patina & Dream Haven, visited the pony and Molly’s puppies, saw Prince of Persia (I liked it!), and went to a Saints game (complete with tailgating and fireworks). The weather was absolutely gorgeous, aside from some brief smatterings of rain during the ballgame (which worked as a nice excuse to smooch with my man under the umbrella, ha). Beth headed back for the wilds of Iowa mid-morning yesterday, and I spent the day with said man, enjoying the sunshine. We discovered swings across the street from my apartment. Swings! Swings are one of my absolute favorite things in the world. We also found a little walking path/alley/supposed park meandering through some of the neighborhoods just northeast of me, and spent a while walking through what could have been a movie set of suburbia: blue sky, singing birds, manicured lawns, laughing kids. The afternoon rounded out with a nap in the hammock, which is another of my favorite ways to spend a sunny day.

Before all that I had a pretty perfect Friday too, come to think of it. My trusty Friday night riding buddy and I took our horses out in the back field. All the baby jumps from the Pony Club rally a couple weeks ago are still there, so I jumped Poe out there for the first time. He found it all very very exciting, and charged boldly over everything (except that one run-out we had because he was charging TOO boldly pell-mell across the field — definitely need to bit him up a little before next time!). He even cantered into and through the water! After bopping over the three baby-baby fences we meandered over to the BN bank. He went up to the edge willingly enough, but was giving it the eye, trying to figure out what the heck it was all about. When Lennie walked her horse Ollie past him and Ollie popped off the bank, Poe’s expression was priceless: Oh! That’s how it works. Well, if he can do it, I certainly can! And he hopped right off after Ollie. This horse, he is going to be a cross-country maniac. I can’t wait.