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.

I am, sadly, back from Maui, and hoping to get some time this weekend to gather pictures and videos to share, so we can all mourn together that we aren’t ankle-deep in white sand, snorkeling with fishies and turtles, or cavorting after guava in the rainforest. I’m a bit of a maverick vacationer and without just these right circumstances (an unbelievable deal on the condo, thanks to Bryce; my mom’s life-long dream) I probably never would’ve made it to Hawaii, and I would have totally missed out. It was another dream trip, another once-in-a-lifetime, and I feel so blessed to have shared this time with my family (among whose number we all count you, Bryce, in case you haven’t realized).

While I was away, autumn evicted the last traces of summer here in Minnesota. It’s been a tough week to return to, all chilly and grey, early dark, and I’ve found myself feeling a little surly about a season I usually love. But last night I was seized by this sudden need to cook, to make something hearty, something spicy, and I pulled out a bag of dried beans and my favorite Indian cookbook. A little while later I stood over the sink plucking steamy kidney beans out of the colander, fresh from the pressure cooker, and I resolved once again to ban canned beans from my cupboard. If you’ve never made your own beans, you’re missing out! They are a different creature entirely, so creamy and delicious, so themselves; you don’t know it now but canned beans have this edge of can-taste, this cloying sweet chemically hint, and after having fresh(-from-dried) beans you will always be a little sad about the taste of canned. (Of course I’ve made this resolution a dozen times at least and I always end up using canned sometimes because, I know, it’s just so easy! Especially in dishes where they’re not the main component, or where they’re masked by delicious chili-taste. But if you like beans in your salads, and you should because mmm, take the extra time to treat yourself.)

Er — so I ended up making this curried kidney bean dish, with lots of spice (dried red pepper, cumin, coriander, etc) and ginger and tomato, and it was completely delicious, which is good because I have more, a lot more, in my fridge, along with the rice I made to go alongside it. I almost never make rice at home (I’m usually too lazy for rice) and dude, rice fresh out of the pan? So. Good. I kept snacking on bits of the cooling leftovers.

Anyway! When I started this post it was not to tease you about my vacation, or ramble on about dinner, but rather to share this funny and spot-on bit from an article about Johnny Depp’s newest film (it’s animated, to put it in context, though feel free to imagine it aaany way you like):

The movie will realize the dreams of thousands (nay, millions) of women worldwide as it casts Depp in the role of household pet. He’ll go on an adventure to discover his true self — which, I think, involves discovering he is Johnny Depp, commander of women.

A brief not-so-brief & awesome summary of my awesome weekend:

Get up unconscionably early on Saturday for an airport pick-up. Leave home a little earlier than usual, as the last three or four times the flight was early; halfway down the hall from my apartment think to go back for a book, since I’m surely jinxing things leaving at such an hour. Arrive and park by the curb’s absolutely-no-parking,-unloading-only! sign and read a bit. Read a bit more. Read a while longer. Finally get out the cell and spend a while puzzling over Sun Country’s website. Finally find the bit where it says the flight’s an hour late. Triumph over having brought the book at least; read some more.

Breakfast at Al’s, where the surly waitress is working the front grill again. When our supposed-to-be dry wally blues are up she sets the plate in front of us, steamy blue-y cakes with a big globe of melting butter on top; after double-checking our order slip she grabs a napkin and plucks the butter off. During my last two bites I realize there are sadly no walnuts in these wally blues. Still, I forgive Al’s this, as the previous eggshell incident, and the pancakes-tasting-like-bacon incident. I love Al’s.

Back at my apartment we pause for ginger carrot cake, then head out to Buffalo to watch the girls from my barn show. Friday they made a great hue and cry about the idea of us not coming, so here we are. The show is moving unbelievably fast, and we are there only long enough to share out half the remaining cake and watch three classes. We make the trek eastward once more.

After a stop for lunch (hummus wrap! cool-oretto!) we spend a delirious time in Target loading the cart with clearanced toys, then head to the rodeo, where we meet up with my parents, Alex, and Peyton. The rodeo is wonderful: bronc and bull riding, calf roping, barrel racing. Alex loves it and at intermission and after the show is over he spends an alternately serious and ecstatic while sitting in each of the five tractors on display, twisting the steering wheels and jiggling all the levers. We try to interest him in the wee adorable cowboy hats; he wants to try on a few of the pink ones but mostly wants to go back to the tractors for lever-jiggling.

We retire to my apartment to unpackage our toy-loot, then head to my parents’ for dinner and baby-holding. Afterwards we return home and play an endless game of Pirateology. We head to bed at a not-unconscionable hour and then stay up discussing improvements for the game’s rules.

* * *

I’ve been writing this since this past Monday (July 14). It’s waving it’s little ‘Send Help!’ flag — if I don’t post it now, I never will. So, actually brief this time: Sunday was equally awesome, and involved a trip to the Wienery (LOVED it) for veg hot dogs and fresh-cut fries and a root beer float, then a stop by Fast and Furless to get vegan marshmallows (they exist in Minneapolis!) and a vegan s’more-thing (Bryce contends that because it had chocolate around the outside instead of on the inside it doesn’t count as a s’more, so we didn’t actually eat three). Then over to the Walker for their outdoor exhibits: art mini golf and Design for the Other 90%; both received thumbs up from us. Back home we tested and approved our new Pirateology rules (so much better than the rules-as-written), and also set my smoke detector off roasting marshmallows over my stove. So worth it. And we only set it off a little, and quickly devised a fan scheme that’s been worked beautifully since then. Then failed to install 11th Hour on my computer and installed Omikron instead. I have no idea why I never made it past the first ten minutes the last three times I tried to play it, because it was really fun. Then again, maybe it’s all in the company.

Before I forget, favorites from June: Coldplay’s “Violet Hill” (and being really angry that YME doesn’t have the entire new Coldplay album up, but constantly forgetting to buy it in the store [or beg Bryce to do the torrent thing]) and Alanis Morissette’s new Flavors of Entanglement album, especially “Citizen of the Planet” and “Torch” and — really, thumbs-up for the album from me. I have been humming about my president being Guan Yin all month long.

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!)