palace of winds

So, I’m posting this rather late, but plan to distract you from that by UTTER CUTENESS:

Reliant passed his vet check (and became officially mine) on December 28. He’s at this completely gangly big-headed no-necked phase, and though he’s already 16.2 (5′6″ at the withers [place above the shoulder, where the neck and back join] for you non-horse-people) the first thing everyone says about him is “He’s big!”, followed by “You know he’s going to get bigger…” Which, yeah, he will. He’s only 3, and has the ADD to go with it. And I LOFF him. He is wonderful.

I sold my horse.

It’s still weird, even now, three weeks later. It happened so abruptly.

I sold my horse.

One sunny Sunday I had a casual chat with my trainer, who knew a woman from the foxhunt looking for a new horse, and wouldn’t Everett be perfect? And there was no harm in talking to her, nothing to lose. I’ve known for a long time that he’d be happier hunting, that he hates the indoor arena, hates much flatwork in general. I’d been watching the days grow longer, the leaves turn, dreading the day we’d have to head back inside. Dreaming of a winter without ice, all bright fluffy snow, nothing but good footing so we could stay out. And two and a half weeks later he stepped onto a trailer and drove away to his new life.

It’s a good thing all around. I know that objectively. I’m good at living with my head; I like it. It’s comfortable there. The heart’s a messier matter. I miss him. I sold him on to a better home, and I’m happy for him, but I sold my best friend, and thinking of it that way — it’s a terrible feeling. Just gutting.

The last three weeks I’ve been horse shopping. A lot. And it’s been fun! I’ve ridden a lot of different horses — 18 at last count. From 15.1 to 17.2 (for you non horse people, that’s 5′1″ to 5′10″ measured to the withers — where the back and neck join), thoroughbreds just off the track to Novice event champs, wobbly babies to jumpers doing full courses with auto changes. And it’s frustrating, because it’s such a monumental decision. Last time I did this I had a very modest budget, which helped narrow the search quite a bit, and no one to really help me shop. This time I have the assistance of some excellent horse people, a bit more to spend, and a truly rotten economy driving down prices. There’s lots to choose from, and they’re all so different. And I just don’t know. I don’t know what’s going to be best, what’s the right choice for me.

I stand at this crossroads, and all I can think is that I sold my best friend.

I don’t regret it, and I don’t regret one moment we spent together over the last two years. I just don’t want to screw up this opportunity I have now, to make another good choice.

I need to sort out some pictures and more video, but in the mean time — here’s a little cross-country from Sunday. Everett was all kinds of awesome, and I am SO PROUD of him!

Today I wanted to make a little graph in paint showing the relationship between the stock market and my chocolate-consumption habits, which is: when the market crashes, I eat lots of chocolate. Largely because it is October, and October is a great excuse to put a gigantic plastic pumpkin full of candy on my desk. It was going to have funny axises (axes?) all ‘bury pennies in back yard and hide out in bunker’ and ‘buy second private Tahitian island’ and you know what? The phone, it will not stop ringing. So funny paint graphs are so out today.

I give you instead this totally unrelated but much funnier picture that Bryce sent over: click!.

I have a couple of really adorable videos of my nephew that I shot last weekend, when he was feeling particularly sugared-up and like dancing — including a rare few moments of the Pony Macaroni, something we’ve been trying to get him to show us for months. Alas, these vids are sadly stuck on my phone at the moment; they’re apparently too big to upload, so I have to wait ’till I’m home, where the cable is, and then hope that I can persuade them off the card where they’re saved. And then save them onto something else so that I can bring them back into work, where I can upload them, and — given the speed with which I’ve gathered and edited and uploaded my Maui photos and videos, I leave it to you to guess when this might actually happen.

In the course of trying to sweet-talk the vids onto the internet, however, I rediscovered a few pictures I snapped when I was in Cali in early August. Behold, then, the deliciousness of the sweet potato fries at The Counter, and the generous leg room in the bathroom stall at the drop zone.