palace of winds

I’m trying to enjoy every littlest bit of summer I can, and y’all, for summer enjoyment? Hammocks all the way. Especially if you accessorize with lots of sun, a bit of a breeze, and a good book.

The past few days have been mostly really good, with a peppering of really — interesting.

The good: Friday I had a decent ride and later a nice little read and nap in the hammock. Saturday morning I spent an hour and fifteen minutes walking my neighborhood, getting myself lost in the tangle of suburban streets and Terry Pratchett’s Wee Free Men audiobook (love it); I also discovered a park and indulged in some swinging. More reading on the hammock, then off to the zoo with the fam to celebrate a late Father’s Day.

The zoo was a blast; I was Alex’s favorite for the day (ever since he rode Everett he’s mostly been more excited about me than Grandma, which is saying a lot), so I generally got to behave like an idiot swinging him around, walking with his feet on mine, skipping and hopping and fake-running, Yay!ing and making faces and all manner of things that you can get away with in the company of an almost-three-year-old. Peyton slept in her snuggli almost the entire time, which was also pretty awesome. She’s growing so fast! and pretty soon she’ll’ve outgrown the snuggli which is terrible because I love the thing. Babies are so cuddly and it’s like a strap-on cuddle contraption.

After our zoo adventure I went back to my parents’ for dinner, and while digging the tent out (I’m going camping with college buddies over the Fourth and I am So. Pumped.) my dad found our old Nintendo, and such classic games as Super Mario 3, Excitebike, and Paperboy. It’s scary how fast they all came back to me, especially Paperboy and its sound effects: crashing windows, crashing into lawnmowers and skateboarders and tornadoes, and that one tinkly noise when you take out those little globes or lanterns or whatever (I have no idea what they really are) on top of the little posts by the street. The tinkly noise was always my favorite.

Sunday I headed into Uptown to meet J–; I finally got to see her apartment, then we got Jamba Juice and went sampling at Whole Foods and walked around Lake Calhoun. I stopped by Dreamhaven (yay Buffy comics!), then we ran errands at Target and went to ride our horses. I had a decent ride. Everett’s right lead has gotten a lot worse in the last few weeks; I’m not sure if he’s on the verge of a balance breakthrough (which would be lovely — fingers crossed!) or if he needs some massage work or what. But we worked on that and bending and I think the whole moving-away-from-leg-pressure thing is finally starting to really click with him, which is a great feeling.

Yesterday after work J– and I carpooled out to the barn again. After warming Ev up I asked E– if she wanted to give him a try. It was so much fun to watch him being ridden — outside of Bryce and my sister walking around on him, and a brief lateral-movement school by S–, I haven’t seen anyone else ride him since before I bought him. He has such a soft, laid-back expression when he goes. I was thrilled that E– didn’t have any trouble getting him to canter. He’s the first horse I’ve trained and there’s always this lurking fear that I’m up there doing something totally bizarre, not training him correctly, and other people will get on him and nothing will translate. So it was a relief to see him perform for another rider. I was also relieved that she had a lot of trouble with that right lead too, so it’s not just me doing something bizarre or crooked. After she was done, J– and I swapped horses. I got to try her western pleasure mare, Tess, which was a blast. She moves so differently from Everett; when I started trotting her I asked J– if she was moving fast enough, except she didn’t hear me right and replied, “Yeah, you could slow her down a little.” She’s so much narrower than Ev, even with that big western saddle, but she was still so comfy to sit. Her canter was a trip too; she’s so round and underneath herself, and her strides are so much smaller than Ev’s. It was fun going around on such a broke horse — a great reminder of how sensitive I want to get Ev to leg and seat pressure.

And, the interesting: Friday night was drama-drama with S–. I wasn’t there or personally involved, and it’s not something that really needs to be hashed out here anyway. Suffice to say it was the culmination of something that’s been building for a long time. Yesterday I let her know that I’ll be looking for a new barn. It was such a huge relief to get it out in the open.

So, stay tuned for good news on that front. I have a place in mind, but I don’t think it’s going to happen in the next week. I need to give a month notice, so the soonest I’d move is the end of August. (Which is terrible timing, because August 29 I’m heading to Maui. Though: Yay Maui!)

I just got the best phone call from my little nephew, who’s two and a half. “I want to ride Everett!” he declares (and yes, a toddler handling ‘Everett’ is as impossibly cute as you’re imagining). I ask if he has a helmet; that’s the discussion we had last night, that he could come out and ride Everett as soon as he has a helmet. There’s a pause, and then, “I have helmet — I want to ride Everett!” I ask him when and he considers this, declares again he’d like to ride Everett, and upon further application, “Tuesday!” Incidentally, when he and my mom were making banana bread last night, it was going to be ready on Tuesday. So, I’m not sure when, but I should soon have pictures of my two guys.

I talked with Mel about riding him too, now that she can. It’s one of the many joys of horse-ownership, I think, being able to share them with other people. Well, a joy of owning a generally laid-back horse, anyway. I can think of a few I sat on while shopping that I don’t think I’d stick my non-horse-riding friends on.

So I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows shortly before 2 a.m. on Sunday. Jo and her sister and sister’s friend and I went to the party at the Calhoun Barnes & Noble, which I think was less fun in itself than the Minnetonka Border’s has been in the past. Probably down partly to the size of the store; much smaller than Border’s, and just not set up very well for mobs of people. Still, I had a blast with Jo & company — we got Thai at Thanh Do and ice cream at Ben & Jerry’s, then spent an interminably long time wandering around Barnes hunting for trivia questions and waiting impatiently for midnight.

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I am utterly in love with the ‘I am on the phone‘ness of this.

I just noticed I have 59 items out from the library. How did this happen? (Well, it’s really not much of a mystery. My latest must-studies, in addition to the usual assortment of miscellany and general cookbooks: Peru, upholstery, Japanese prints, sewing, pies, horse riding, and Mexican cuisine.)

My nephew is so beautiful. As Mel left for her meeting he plunked right down in my lap and we paged through stacks of books — he loves books, always has, and I’m unbelievably delighted by that, and I hope it never changes. Especially since I’ve been buying them for him from the library store for over a year now, and I already have one for when he’s a preteen, which is perhaps jumping the gun a little but it’s dragons! and wonderfully illustrated! But don’t worry — I don’t allow myself in the kid’s section much any more.

We played with stuffed animals (he was not at all sure about the dino puppet, though, so we put that one away) and shoes and my aerobics step and the rolling chairs and the big mirror in my hall and puzzled over a scrap of paper he found on the floor, and he helped me put away the dinner leftovers. Shortly before 7:30 he conked out in my lap, and I spent the next hour just hanging out on the couch with him, listening to his woefully rattley breathing (he’s all congested, poor boo) and watching his eyes flicker (they sometimes open just a little while he’s sleeping, like Mel’s do) and contemplating the reddishness of his eyebrows. Well, and listening to the radio and then watching House, because those things can be done while still marveling over the perfection that is Alex.

I highly recommend nephews to everyone.