palace of winds

I had yesterday off work, and had vague plans to clean — I have a few boxes to go through, and vacuuming, a little laundry, etc. But Sunday evening Jo came over and we had lots of pizza and played Spore and visited our Sims — and she brought over a few books to lend me: the first three Sookie Stackhouse books (Dead Until Dark, Living Dead in Dallas, and Club Dead, by Charlaine Harris), to be exact. I started browsing through the first one a bit during Brothers & Sisters commercials, and after Jo left around midnight began reading in earnest…

And yesterday around dinnertime, finished the third book. It was a glorious day off.

I even managed to drag myself to the grocery store after watching House! Though their entire produce section was in desperate condition: wrinkling apples, small hard nectarines, and bananas all spotted brown. I couldn’t find a single banana I trusted to be edible in the morning, and ended up coming home with no fresh fruit at all. Still, I got most of the other things I’d gone for. And there was a little snow falling so softly, as many flakes drifting up as down, the beautiful light swirl that charms you into thinking that this winter thing, in Minnesota? Not so bad after all.

Speaking of productivity, over the weekend I finally managed to edit the team sorting video I promised you in, what, November? And voila!:

It was shot on my digital camera (and I had to process it twice through Premiere, for one reason and another), so the quality is not great at all, but there you go. I’ve been kicking around the idea of getting an actual video camera lately, because it would be fun! and useful! Except I’m worried that I’d get one and then never remember to use it…

I’ve been meaning to write, for a long time now. I write all the time in my head, at all the wrong times: the shower, the car, the grocery store. I even started, last month, a 2008 music recap, even though I completely fell off the new-music bandwagon the last half of the year (and spent the whole of December listening to old holiday tunes).

I dragged my laptop into my bedroom tonight, intending to jot some quick thoughts before turning in at a totally reasonable hour (I have to work in the morning), only to discover: internet? internet!? So here I am, hours (hours?!) later, having wasted I don’t even want to tell you how much of that trying to find a Greek word I’m not even sure exists for those Homeric scenes of warriors arming for battle. I know when I read Iliad in college Dr. Thompson shared all sorts of fascinating terms with us, the words for things like a warrior’s rage, and when they get a long death scene, and I loved all that and wrote it all down and have now forgotten, utterly. Forgotten even which characters get the big arming scenes. Hector? Agamemnon? Achilles must.

There is, incidentally, a most excellent arming scene in one of the Lord of the Rings movies, and it’s one of my favorite scenes in the whole trilogy — at Helm’s Deep, when they think they’re making their last stand, the king (whose name I can’t remember now — ah, Theoden, right?) is getting suited up for battle, all buckling and fatal determination, and the light is coming in that huge hall door and he has that great little speech about the days going down — and anyway, watching that part I always think of that word I can’t remember any more, and how important this is, this suiting up for battle, and how Peter Jackson or someone (or Tolkien maybe) must have known their Greek mythology.

Which is all to say that there are times when, in the handicapped stall of the bathroom at my office, going through all the work of suiting up for the barn, most especially slipping on the half-chaps and zipping them up, I feel like that. Buckling on the armor of this chosen life. Well-greaved.

And some days are good, and I see we’re progressing and am happy, truly, all zen and rainbows and puppies. And there are days like going into battle, a little. Back into a long, grueling war of attrition. And those days are mostly why I don’t write any more.

So, for 2009, I resolve: less battle, more puppies.

And: more book reviews. Heartily recommended, the book I would thrust upon you immediately if you were here in the room: The Road. Not recommended at all, something that has been the bane of my commute for the last two weeks because by the time I decided yes, I really don’t like it, I was too far into the audiobook to quit: The Virgin Suicides.

And: goodnight.

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.