palace of winds

Yesterday I got Rock Band 2, and Jo came over, and we had a blast. Even after the downstairs neighbor came up to complain about the drumming. The downstairs people, they are not scoring points with me lately. (I was, for the record, very nice and offered to switch to guitar even though it was only 8 and we hadn’t been playing that long [erm, at least not since they’d been home — we did start mid/late-afternoon and took a break to come to my office for internet connection to import the RB1 songs], and! offered to get some mats for under the drums to help the noise. She, though, practically walked away in the middle of me trying to discuss solutions. The pot-smokers are crazy if they think I’m going to stop drumming. Yeah, it’s loud, but I hear their videogames all the time. We live in a cheap, thin-walled apartment building — what do they expect?) I so want a house. Or a detached townhouse. Mmm lack of yard chores.

Saturday G and I took our horses team penning. And you know, I was going to sketch you out a little diagram to help explain it, but in the end it would mostly help explain why I gave up my dream of becoming an artist in middle school — this is why I have my words, people. The cows (calves, whatev) are at one end of the arena. Each of them has a number tied to its neck, in this case 1-8. The horses are in teams of four; when it’s your team’s turn you enter at the end of the arena opposite the cows. Down the middle of the arena is your “line” — a panel of fence stands perpendicular to the arena wall on both sides, leaving a big hole in the middle. It’s your job to get each cow through the hole to the other side of the arena in the correct order, making sure that the cows who aren’t supposed to go across yet don’t come across, and the cows you’ve already sent over the line don’t cross it again.

As the first person on the team crosses the line toward the cows, the announcer calls out a random number — say, 4. You have to cut the number 4 cow out and get it across the line, then the 5, etc, wrapping from 8 to 1, 2, and 3 to finish. The horses who aren’t cutting a cow stay on the line, blocking any cows who aren’t supposed to cross.

Everett did awesome. He was very interested in the cows (I brought him over to investigate before mounting), and he watched the first few teams intently, ears all pricked. When it was our turn I had him watch the first two — I don’t know the right lingo here, but the first two cows being sorted — and then followed Chip (G’s gelding) as he went for the third. Ev was a little hesitant to approach the herd at first (when he’s uncertain about anything he sucks back, gets slow), but once he really figured out he could move the cows he was all for it. By the next round he was chasing them all by himself. He’s such a fun horse. We still need a lot of fine-tuning on the steering and the go button, but he’s just a good guy to take anywhere.

I do have pictures, and video! But I haven’t had a chance to resize the pics or edit the video together yet, so — give it a week or two, I’d say.

Yesterday was vet day. (And for some reason some old lyrics just popped into my head, something about the cries of the carrots, something about Tomorrow is the harvest and to them it is the Holocaust. But it wasn’t as bad as all that.)

Everett had his wolf tooth out. It’s heartbreaking, this dental work. After they tranquilized him he was so wobbly, standing all contorted with such sleepy, distressed eyes. They rinsed out his mouth and when they hoisted his head one hoof slipped in the water and he lurched violently aside, and though the vet was nonchalant it looked to me like he very nearly went down.

I didn’t get a good look at the head of the instrument they used to chip out his tooth, but from the handle it looked for all the world like a screwdriver. The vet hit it with his fist, not quite a whack but not exactly a tap, until he was finally able to reach in and pull out the tooth, wreathed in blood.

I brought him back to a spare stall to doze off the tranq, the vet tech holding his tail to help him balance. I led him in and he stopped there with his head nearly touching the back corner. I slid off his halter and was going to leave him there for his own quiet time, but when I went to the door he lurched around, moving faster than I thought possible, and pressed his face into my chest. We stood like that I don’t know how long, maybe half an hour, me leaning in the doorway with his head buried against me. I stroked his cheek, his neck damp with nervous sweat, combed my fingers through his mane. His watering eye left a damp patch on my vest and every few minutes a bit of blood would fall from his mouth, leaving little patches of bright red in the shavings by my feet. When I went home it looked like I was early for Halloween, blood smeared down one sleeve, along the edge of my hood, one spot on my left boot.

I hope I never have to do that to him again.

Last week on the evening news there was a story about a dog who’d lost 32 pounds in 5 months. My first feeling was one of faint shame and inadequacy: if a dog can do it, why am I struggling with these 10 pounds? And then I thought further; if I had someone to apportion my food at specific times of day and to force me to exercise, I probably wouldn’t have any trouble either. It’s not like the dog woke up one day and said Okay, I’m going to get fit! and then started doing daily doggy calisthenics.

A confession: I’ve had this ‘Write Post’ tab open in Firefox for almost a week now, with just the lone prior paragraph. Which is to say that I am lazy, which circles exactly around to my original problem. Anyhow, this morning I got up early and exercised. It was hard, but less hard than I expected. Just one more advantage of not believing in the snooze button: you are exercising before you really wake up enough to catch onto what you’re doing to yourself, and by then it’s too late — you’re wearing the clothes so you might as well lift weights for the next 45 minutes.

Another thing I’ve been meaning to write about but keep not: I adore my new riding instructor. I read this article about Principals of Good Training a little while three weeks ago. The author is talking about how to evaluate instructors, and says:

I suggest to them that they observe a lesson AT ANY LEVEL and decide if, at the end, the horse is MORE:

1. willing
2. responsive
3. round
4. symmetrical
5. self-carrying
6. self-propelled (forward)
7. relaxed TO ANY DEGREE

I have, happily, been able to say YES to all of those questions after all of my lessons so far. I just really love riding with Jodi. I am so, so much better when I ride with her, and — on and on.

I’ve had a couple good rides lately, and a really great one yesterday. G and I trailered our ponies to Lake Maria State Park and spent two and a half or three hours (we forgot to check the time when we got there) wandering the trails. It’s a really gorgeous park, the trails winding through the woods with occasional glimpses of the few lakes scattered throughout. The colors are starting to turn, and the weather was just right — it was overcast all day, which was perfect for jackets, and which must’ve kept most people away from the park because we saw only one other horse and a handful of hikers the whole time we were out. Ev was awesome — he took turns leading, and while he’s slower and on alert out front he does it without much fuss. It was great to take turns, giving him opportunities to be brave and chances to relax. It’s a pretty hilly park, and Ev got his first experience with psuedo-stairs on a particularly steep downslope (we actually wondered if we’d somehow gotten off the horse trail, but we hadn’t); it didn’t phase him at all. He was a superstar all day, and I think (hope) it’s gone a long way in repairing some of my frayed nerves after our bucking incident in the back field, and our park bench incident this spring.

It was just a really great day, one that reminded me how lucky I am in this life. To have this Sunday in late September, these trees going all orange and red, these quiet winding trails; to be this girl with her horse in the woods in the fall. Watching the leaves drift down and thinking forward, imagining myself an old woman on a front porch watching leaves fall and thinking back.

Yesterday my office played hooky; we snuck out mid-morning to head up to my boss’s cabin. We spent the day on the lake, playing on the jetski and cruising in the pontoon, drinking and fishing, having a nice leisurely dinner, setting off fireworks. The weather was entirely perfect, sunny and 80’s. I could easily envision the rest of life in a sleepy little cabin on a forest-hugged lake. Just mix in some family, some horse, and I’m there.

Sunday Ev and I had a great time at our clinic. We accomplished Goal #1 (stay on the horse). There were actually no other formalized goals, but really I was going for a safe, positive experience, and we definitely had one. He was excited when we got there, and it’s a little hilarious for me watching the video back because he felt so up to me, all animated, looking at everything — and in the video he looks totally calm. So I think partly it’s that I’ve gotten used to riding him in total surfer-dude/half-asleep mode, and partly that our few previous crashes have left me a bit rattled and every time he takes a look at something I’m half expecting him to leap and take off in some unexpected direction (which is kind of unfair to him because while he is a baby, overall he’s a pretty laid-back guy). So mostly I was the more nervous of the two of us at the clinic.

We rocked it, though — we did our first: pile of poles, crossrail, little log, bigger little log, baby ditch(es), up-bank, up-bank to up-bank, down-bank, bridge crossing, water time, etc etc. My group was split up at the beginning — which worked really well, since there were two of us out for the very first time and two with more experience — but one of my new barn buddies caught a little video in the beginning and mid-way through when we were back in the same field. We shall speak not of my position (a nine year break from jumping does not, I can report, improve your form over fences), but look instead upon the Boo’s calm willingness, and imagine the eventers we will one day be:

Y’all, this last week has been a trial. I don’t want to talk about the bad stuff, though, because the world is full of people who are kind and generous and good at heart, and the rest of ‘em are just not worth it.

So, you ask, the good stuff? On Wednesday I had a mini spa visit and afterwards stopped in this home decor store on a whim, lured by many, many large SALE signs. They actually had a lot of stuff I liked (the influences often seemed to be Asian and a touch Victorian and somewhat fairytale, which is a really inadequate description), and surprisingly good prices (especially given they’re in a pretty expensive shopping center). After a little hemming and hawing I picked up some framed art from the clearance section (four carved wood panels, each about a foot square), thinking it might fit a blank space in my bedroom. I’ve been meaning to buy some colorful fabric to stretch & staple over frames for that area, but for the price (and knowing how much longer my original plan could take) I couldn’t really go wrong. (So much for budgeting this month.) When I got them home I — well, okay, I went immediately to bed because it was almost 11 — but the next morning I propped them up along the back of my couch, eyeballed it, and decided they’d look perfect in that space. Which is fabulous because I’ve been kicking around ideas for that big blank spot forever and hadn’t yet hit on one I was totally thrilled with.

Other good stuff: tomorrow is Alex’s birthday party; he’s turning three. It’s amazing how time flies. I’m making his cake (and really need to get a frosting recipe chosen). And Sunday is my jumping clinic and the big move.

A week or two ago my cherry tomatoes finally started to ripen, and most days I find a moment to stand out on my balcony, eating one or two straight off the vine and watching the weather. Two days ago there was afternoon light so warm and unbelievable I felt I could fall right over the railing into a painting. This morning the most delicate of rain, a whispering mist of summer grey.