Caramel corn in the office

As a chilly-blooded member of our species, I spend a lot of the winter whining quietly about the fact that it has, again and completely unpredictably, gotten cold. Yes, yes, cold is relative; I have endless admiration for my friends in New York and Chicago and Minnesota and the plumbing-free outskirts of Fairbanks and other areas where man was clearly not meant to live. I pile on layers of tights and silk shirts and sweaters and scarves and insulating footwear, and sometimes I even reach for chemical assistance, either following my former choir director's very Slavic advice—"[3pennyjane]ochka, you need to do a shot before you come to church. Just one: It will warm you up and give you stronger voice"—or slipping heated insoles into my riding boots.

And yes, now that winter hath gone and descended on DC, riding has lost some appeal. Not only do I have to pile on the long tights, fleece-line breeches, wool socks, multiple tops, polarfleece jacket, down vest, and fingerless gloves under the thin riding gloves, the nippy weather tends to make the horses bouncy and more likely to misbehave. Add to that the challenge of trying to adjust cold stirrup leathers with stiff fingers, and I start to lose track of the fun.

But I rode last night. What with uncooperative weather, travel, personal distaste for riding in a windstorm, and one teacher's season tickets to the Terps, it had been about three weeks since I'd been on a horse. Three weeks! I wasn't sure I would still remember how to find the saddle. But it turned out well: Although the dressage class was full, at six people, for once Cappi and I were not the problem children. I even got him to correctly shoulder-in, walking diagonally with his body in a straight line, rather than bending until he looked like a parenthesis and oodling sideways withers-first. "Hm," said Pat, "That was good. He's getting too easy for you." I thought of his previous bolts and leaps and wondered how likely that was. Conclusion: Not very. But when he is good, he is very very good, and when he is bad I am coping.

Putting Cappi away after a class usually involves some dancing to keep him from bolting back to his stall to make sure that thieves don't make off with his precious bucket of grain. Last night he was particularly difficult, and at least three times I reached for the second cross-tie only to realize that he had gotten behind me by spinning to point back at his dinner. This is the creature who doesn't think he can turn on his forehand in class? Hah. I brushed him down, picked out his feet, and buckled his heavy blanket into place across his chest and under his belly, then I finally stopped being such a cruel bitch and led him back to his stall, ducking past his well-gnawed Bizzyball. He graciously stood still for the two seconds it took me to undo his halter before he dove into his grain bucket, and I got to go back inside where it was warm and there were treats.

...What do you mean, a resemblance?