Limping toward Gomorrah

Did you know that horses are heavy? And that the hooves of them are hard? And that standing between a horse and her grain is not smart? If so, you're three points ahead of me and my big toe this morning. I've gotten so much better about not swearing in the barn, which since the place is full of moppets and their parents is for the best, but last night I backslid with a vengeance.

Last week, Heza and I had a horrible time, the kind that you get when the horse is in A Mood and you are in A Mood, and the two of you end up pissing one another off as though you were roommates and the infamous Who Cleans the Bathroom fight had reared its head again, but instead of maturely talking it out or just leaving it alone until you can be grown-ups, you stay in the same room and silently try to tweak one another's nerves. Like that. And my hip was acting up, so I couldn't press him forward without feeling the muscles on that side going numb in a way that portends an expensive visit to the Bulgarian masseuses, and Teacherwoman MkII was not sympathetic. I avoided writing about all this stuff at the time, because the whining, oh my God, the whining would've made all the dogs on the internet (oh yeah, like you don't know they're reading...what else is Sitemeter for?) apply for asylum in Brazil. So what with one thing and another, I was pleased that last night promised a new-to-me match, a short little chestnut QH mare named Molly. Her quirks are inconsistent speed, which I can handle, and not turning right, an issue that caused some of the aforementioned backsliding and swearing and eventually the use of stronger direct rein than I prefer. Sing it with me: Sommmmebody needs grounnnndworrrrk! She also wanted very much to be next to Sterling, which is a problem because he's a gelding and will never be the boy she wants; he knows it and therefore defends his space fiercely. But overall Molly and I handled things pretty well: She does downward transitions on a dime and responds well to soft steady leg, both things that I need to practice more, and I was happy by the end of the class.

But then, of course, back at her stall, I was stupid enough to leave my toes where she wanted her hoof to be, and instead of lifting her foot she tried to press through me as I yelled many loud bad words. The running I did later on doesn't seem to have hurt the toe any further, but if the nail ends up a casualty it's getting blamed on my hard-core fitness routine (*cough*) rather than on my equine idiocy, because after five-plus years I should know better.