palace of winds

So yesterday I sent in my entry form for a cross-country jumping clinic that’s being held a week from Sunday. After I dropped it in the box I figured I should, you know, try my horse over a few fences before taking him.

Last night I put out two cavalletti to lunge him over. If you’re wondering, cavalletti look something like this. The barn has nice sturdy wooden ones, which is good because Ev is a bit of a pole killer. I started at the lowest height — just groundpoles — to get him warmed up. Then I bumped one up to the middle height. When he was comfortable with that, I switched the other to the highest. Even at their highest they’re quite low — he could easily walk over them. Perfect baby stuff.

He loved it. He was very engaged, ears up, and nicely forward. The last time around he got his striding perfect to the higher pole and gave just the cutest little jump over it. I’d originally planned to ride him after the lunge work, but it was beastly hot and I was just so happy with his effort that I stopped him right there and made a gigantic fuss over him. He looked very proud of himself.

Around lunchtime today I was hit with this total excitement to go back out there tonight. Six months ago that wouldn’t've been remarkable, but the change in atmosphere at the barn this summer has robbed me of a lot of my oomph. I’m relieved to feel that passion again.

Yesterday was my grandma’s birthday, and after my last Lasik follow-up (”You should continue to see better than 20/20,” said the doctor, and, “Your corneas couldn’t look better; really, they couldn’t look any better. Someone might not even know you’d had surgery.”) and a quick Ev visit, I went to her place to meet up with the rest of my fam for presents and pie.

Now, I am not the sort of girl who gets approached on the street, or gets much in the way of comments-on-physical-attributes at all. Down in Ft. Lauderdale we couldn’t go two blocks without my friend getting looked over, called to, offered drinks; a shabby guy roaming the sidewalks offering caricatures for a dollar gave us his patter and after being politely refused started to step away, did a double-take, and said to her, “God, you are beautiful!” My point being, that kind of stuff just doesn’t happen to me.

Last night I was waiting for the elevator and an older gentleman stepped over and said, “You know, I probably shouldn’t say this, but I’m 73 years old. I’ve been looking at women my whole life, and honey, you have great legs. I mean it.” And it wasn’t at all lecherous or anything, it was just very kind, a man who’d lived long enough to be able to say that sort of thing frankly. It totally made my day. (And, now that I think about it, the second time someone at my grandma’s has complimented me like that. The first time was almost four years ago to the day, and sixty-some pounds ago.)

My day was made over again a few hours later when I checked my voicemail, and discovered I’d missed a call from the owner of the stable I went to look at last month. A call saying they have a pasture spot opening up. I literally danced through the entire message. Ev and I are moving at the end of the month.

Y’all, life is good.

First, a few May pictures I promised, from when Alex got his ride on Everett. He was unbelievably thrilled, and since then I’ve beaten Grandma in a few preference contests. Grandma was the queen for a long time so I’m not above a little smug gloating, even if it’s all down to Ev. I’m sad more of the pictures didn’t turn out, but it’s tough to take them in that arena (and even tougher if the camera’s been accidentally flipped to the wildly inappropriate ‘tropical’ mode).

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!)

Everett and I went to his first show on Saturday, May 31. I’ve held off posting until I had pictures of Himself to share; I still don’t have any from the classes, but if I don’t post soon we all know I never will. (As I write this I glance at the list of the posts I have saved as drafts in WordPress — hello part 4 of my April 2006 Baton Rouge trip.)

Friday I skipped show practice to bathe and braid. It was my first time braiding, ever. A few months ago I splurged (hugely) on an instructional dvd called Lucky Braids (I sold a bunch of stuff [coughactionfiguresahemtotalgeek] before my move), and I’d watched it a handful of times and ‘practiced’ by doing four braids, getting frustrated beyond all reason with people bothering me, and giving up. So this was my first real go at it. I am a little embarrassed to admit how long I spent working on them, but afterwards everyone ooh’d and aah’d appropriately and said how great they looked. I kept adding ‘for a first braid job’ because in my head they should’ve been Lucky Braids. They were not. But they were good for a first try! (And I cut my fingers open tying the yarn. Injury equals effort, right? Next time I’ll tape them.)

I borrowed a lovely pale pink stretchy hood from another boarder (there was a whole debacle with the one I ordered from Fleet Farm) for him, so got him all PJ’d up and put to bed. Two other girls and myself were staying at the farm, so we got ourselves showered and put to bed too. (There was some merry-go-rounding trying to get all the cats out of the spare bedroom, which was actually kind of hilarious. Twice we thought we had them all out, had turned out the lights and were finally nearly asleep, only to have another start rustling around under the bed. With five cats in the house it shouldn’t be rocket science, but they are sneaky.)