palace of winds

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!)

Since I last wrote, it has stopped raining. The weather is glorious: high 70’s, mid 80’s, sun sun sun. I am welcomed home indeed.

Ft. Lauderdale had good weather too. It rained every day, but mostly briefly, in the afternoons or evenings, and every day there was enough sun to sit by the pool or on the beach, and most of the trip was spent sitting on sidewalks at cafes or bars drinking something slushy and enjoying the beautiful, beautiful scenery (I had no idea one place could have so very many pretty men). We fit in an airboat tour in the Everglades and a corporate REO Speedwagon concert too. In the course of four days I used an entire bottle of spray-on sunscreen, and had an unprecedented victory: I didn’t get burned. (I was religious with my sunscreen last summer at the lake and I burned anyway every time out.)

There was the unfortunate storm on Wednesday while we were waiting for our flight out of Miami, and we sat in the airport for an hour and on the runway for an hour and a half, and I was exhausted by the time I got home but glad to be there. Especially when I discovered my mom had left a basket of fruit on the counter, goodies from the Byerly’s deli in the fridge, and a note about how she thought I might not feel like grocery shopping right away. My family? Rocks.

Spring, dragging its heels all through April, kicking up snow, has finally arrived. It’s been a week of skirts and rainstorms and fresh fruit, and I’ve been loving every minute.

Bryce came for the weekend and brought me a box of the season’s first cherries. I love cherries even more than bananas, more than oatmeal, and I have been in raptures over these, have sat on the floor in the middle of my dim living room eating them by the bowlful and watching the latening twilight. They should soon be available here too, and I can’t wait.

On Saturday we did a little grocery shopping, and in the produce department were lured by a strange, fascinating melon, little bigger than my fist, bright orange and spikey, from New Zealand: the kiwano. (Not to be confused with kiwanis; this fruit didn’t strike me as particularly civic-minded.) I had a bit of a tickle in the back of my mind, like I’d read about it somewhere, but then couldn’t remember if it was this spiky melon or the starfruit, which I’d also never had, and further couldn’t remember if I’d read about it being delicious or disgusting. I’m glad I didn’t recall reading about Susan’s experience, though, because if I had I don’t think we would’ve spent the $2.99 on it, and after hours of entertainment we agreed it was well worth it, if only just the once.

Cutting into it, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I imagined it would be a little like a cantaloupe: the rind encasing a layer of fruit, with a center of seeds to be scooped out. What we found instead was a bright green mass of little gelatinous pockets, each containing a pale seed. I considered it for a moment, and then we turned to the internet (via Bryce’s Treo, since I don’t have the internet at home — and I know, I know, how do I survive? who tells me how to eat my fruit?). WikiHow to the rescue: you give the fruit a bit of a squeeze, pluck out one of the little fruit-globes (more appetizing than ’sac’, I think), trap it behind your lips but in front of your teeth, then suck it in through your teeth, getting the fruit but leaving the seed. Spit out the seed and repeat. And repeat. And repeat. Squeezing a kiwano is hilarious: it looks like an alien lifeform, all pulsing breathing little fruit-pods bulging and retreating. It will provide you as much entertainment as you want, because the thing takes forever to eat. Hours, literally. My jaw ached when I finally gave up on finishing my half. The taste? It reminded me faintly of a kiwi. If you like kiwi and are looking for that taste, don’t buy this fruit: buy a kiwi. This fruit is like a whisper of a kiwi, like a kiwi after a long intergalactic game of telephone tag; like a kiwi might be in a thousand years, just pre-apocalypse, when all sweet bright tart strong has gone from the world. It’s not bad — it’s just not particularly good. Fun, yes. Tasty, not so much. (We read some other reviews calling it bitter, which we didn’t find at all. It’s a little sweet, and it’s good at first, the okay taste bolstered by the novelty of eating it. That novelty, though, wears off after the first forty-five minutes.) I played with the flexible rind and the seed-goo for a good ten or fifteen minutes after I’d declared myself done eating. If you do get a kiwano, make sure you stay for that encore; we all have at least a bit of seven-year-old inside, so indulge.

Incidentally, any New Zealanders (or anyone, for that matter) have any insight on this fruit? Does anyone really eat these things?

Monday was gorgeous, and I stayed out at the stable for hours. After riding I tortured Ev with a very long bath, scrubbing all the little mud-dreds out of his feathers and picking the tangles from his tail. He was gorgeous when I left, silky-smooth and shining and smelling faintly of mint and rosemary (I’m using up the last of a bottle of my own shampoo on him). Tuesday afternoon it rained and rained, and when I got to the barn he was wet and gritty with mud. So much for the spa treatment.

When I got back to my apartment building I took a detour down the first floor hallway to fetch the mail, and along the way passed three young women sitting with a weensy newborn. (There seems to be a lot of loitering at my new apartment. In the afternoons there are always kids meandering around the parking lot or sitting in the stairwells or triking the sidewalks, off in their weird kid worlds. Yesterday I overheard one calling another her “homeskillet bighead biscuit.” I’ve never heard of such a thing before, and couldn’t quite figure out if it was name-calling or a term of endearment.) Anyhow, as I was just about to round the corner away from the little cluster, one of them looked up and said, “Oh! Do you race horses?!” And, I will admit, I love these little moments, these rare times when someone at the gas station or supermarket recognizes the boots, half-chaps, breeches, and strikes up a conversation. I do my patter about eventing, about Everett; and last night, yes, I pulled out the old cell phone and flipped it open to show off Himself. And explain that no, I don’t race him.

A few weeks ago S. and I, lamenting the weather, talked about moving somewhere warmer. Not seriously, but the thought crosses my mind from time to time. And today, Anjali posted about her scooter. Oh how I wish we had the weather to justify a scooter. Alas, summer isn’t even here yet and it already feels like it’s slipping out the door.

That thing, you know, where it’s four or five days before May, and where it snows almost all weekend? I don’t like that thing.

All Saturday my deck was covered in it and the whole yard was white. White white white. All the yards and trees, and the wind just howling down more. We spent the afternoon at the Horse Expo, shivering and circling through all the booths, muttering about the cold and the price of cheese curds and arguing about Appaloosas. (Well, not arguing really; just discussing differences of opinion. I find it hard to blanket dislike any breed, and I like the look of Appaloosas, all those crazy spots, and most especially I have a soft spot for them after all those years having my hands ripped apart by Apache, he of the appallingly hard mouth. S- says she has only ever known bad ones, psycho ones, ‘junk.’) That night we went to a sportsbar and had a shockingly good time.

Yesterday afternoon Everett and I argued and argued about maintaining right flexion on the left arena wall. He is crankier some days than others about rein contact and I kick myself constantly for listening to the vet’s advice and not having his wolf tooth out; it will have to wait for fall now. Though, honestly, it could as likely be his stubborn, lazy streak (much like mine). Or me. I worry about that last constantly; I wonder what fool thing my body might be doing, me all unaware of some leg-flailing or hand-twitching or weight imbalance.

We’ve had two more difficult rides in a row now, so we’re due for a good one. I am determined that it will be today, because today is Everett’s birthday. I’m bringing him a peanut butter & jelly sandwich, and apples, and molasses — though that last I’ll have to test before mixing up with all of his grain, because he’s picky. Results of yesterday’s taste-test: Sour skittles get the happy noddy face; bananas get spit out and become a globby mess in the aisle. (I really wanted him to like bananas too; I love them so much that I want nothing more than to share their deliciousness with everyone and everything in the world. I suppose this means I have no choice but to horde them all jealously for myself.)

I took this pic this morning while walking out to my car. Through snowfall. Snow.fall. It won’t stick, but enough already.

And, for good measure, a bit of that flocking I was talking about last week:

The weather on Saturday was beautiful, though — a lovely bright slice of spring. We took advantage with a little stroll down Lake Street; I stopped in Schatzlein to browse, and left with a new helmet and a few little things for Ev. One of these snowfalls must be the last of the season, and before we know it everything will be hot muggy perfect high summer and I can ride outside until I crisp. I’m supposed to wait until Wednesday to go to the barn (after Lasik you’re to avoid dusty environments for at least a week), but I need a horse hug like you wouldn’t believe. I just might have to sneak out there tomorrow.