"So my neighbor comes out of his house in his underwear, carrying a chainsaw."
The first few minutes of dressage class are usually dedicated to girth adjustments, tweaks to stirrup length, and general checking-out of the horses' moods and stiffness. It's a good time for people to talk about changes to the schedule, injuries they're dealing with, fun things that happened over the weekend, and general gossip. This week, Pat won the prize, possibly unto the ages of ages amen, for her story about the gardening adventures of her next-door neighbor, a retired government employee with a florid and flourishing case of paranoid schizophrenia. His dominant fantasia involves elaborate government conspiracy, which is not an uncommon manifestation of mental illness in DC. (Someday, however, I write up my cross-town ride with the Craziest Cabbie in Washington, who both sincerely believed that he was the pharaoh and had the city's map and zone system down cold, a surreal combination that more than once made me wonder how much it would hurt to tuck-and-roll out of a moving vehicle.) One of his defenses is apparently to leave all his clothes inside the house, where the transmitters will be
fooled, and to wander the lawn in his smalls. This time he accessorized with a chainsaw and headed for the property line. What with the half-naked delusional man heading in her direction avec power tool, Pat called the cops, whose response was, "Well, ma'am, there's no law against carrying a chainsaw and wearing just underwear. He's not a danger to himself or others." Wouldn't that sound great in court? Wacky Neighbor proceeded to lop off all the branches on one side of the trees at the edgy of his lawn, bordering Pat's, and retreat indoors. Further updates as we et cetera.
Everything after that was anticlimactic. I had appealed to the horse list to add Cappi to the class, on the grounds that he hadn't been out and that my toes would leave furrows in the ring if I rode 12.2-hand Nutmeg (Laura having been taken by the shortest girl in our class, although Laura's so big in the girth that even I feel like I'm doing the splits on her—what the hell, small woman?). WIKTORY: Cappi was mine. We tried leg-yields while walking a diagonal, which was tricker for me than for him, because he doesn't overthink, and did some pretty canter work. We didn't do so well with turns on the forehand, but we made up for it by getting a nice long reach-for-the-bit extension at the walk and jog, and himself won points for giving me a very gentle nuzzle after I dismounted. Sure he is the great horse of the world.
Simon the Western Wondah has finally been put into a hackamore, to general relief. The dentist who checked him out said that because he'd apparently never had his teeth floated, he had worn ulcers into his mouth where the sharp edges of his molars cut into the membranes. Simon seems puzzled by the new arrangement; he knows that after saddling and de-haltering there's bridling, but now it happens without him having to open his mouth? What is this? We're hoping that the hackamore and remedial dentistry will help him relax and become more responsive. Unfortunately, the bad habits of evasion he learned from the past ouches have lasted, and he spent a lot of our solo work trying to duck over to join the other ponies. After I spent a few rounds of loping sideways and trying to get his head up (take the cursing as read), MkII advised us to try circles at the walk with a very short inside rein and a crop in the outside hand. That worked for the short term, but really what Simon needs now is long-term work with the softer bridle so that he learns not to anticipate pain that will not come.
And now, off to find a cell phone. If anyone ever finds the dimension of lost ball-point pens, take a detour on your way back and figure out where all my bloody phones end up, would you?
