Time counts and keeps countin'

I came home from my week of ranchy self-indulgence (ah, the difference a single letter makes) to find a message from the barn letting me know that my lease with Doc is being suspended, effective immediately, for the foreseeable future on account of he needed more time off. Let's see, what's the word...peeved? miffed? ah yes: pissed. I was pissed.

But I took a couple of days and calmed down and didn't ask for details until I was sure that I could do it without flying off the handle, and now I've got an explanation that makes me sad but that I can't argue: Doc is getting old and stiff. Like most horses, he can't talk, so he expresses discomfort by misbehaving. The staff are readjusting his meds so that he'll be more comfortable, and he has a new pair of purple bell boots to help him not step on his own hooves (dignity be damned, though—he looks silly in sparkly violet), but I hope like hell that they're also looking for a comfortable retirement situation. Previous retirees have ended up with some pretty cushy billets; irascible but good-hearted Battle, f'rinstance, is living out his days as a practice pony for an equine massage therapist. We should all have it so good. In the meantime, Doc will have less work, and more of it will be slow. Fortunately, apples are not contraindicated.

At Western this week I got Heza, a cute but grouchy quarter horse who is infamous for ignoring any cues not filed exactly as per spec. Despite his pedantic tendencies, I like him; he's flexible and I've learned the hard way to respect his memory. A few months ago I tried him on a barrels course, doing a simple cloverleaf pattern. Sure, he's a former barrels pony, but how much would he really recall? Yes, the hominid, ostensibly the brains of the operation, somehow forgot that prey animals tend to have extremely precise long-term memories.

Teacherwoman sent us out to practice the pattern slowly at first. Heza's got a jackhammer trot, steady and a bit uncomfortable, so I was focusing mostly on my seat and looking for the line as he clopped steadily around the first barrel. Then the second. Then halfway around the third. And just as I was looking toward the gate, he dropped his inside shoulder almost far enough to pitch me sideways into the rusty oil barrel, bucked hard twice, and bolted for the imaginary chute. I got him back in hand (okay, so the fence did most of the work), swallowed my heart, and squeaked, "What was that? Did something bite him?"

"Ah," said Teacherwoman carefully. "He wants his head on the return, and you were still holding his mouth when he got around there, so he tried to ditch you. Try him again, still at the jog, but let him go on the third barrel. And, er, don't forget to pivot out your inside leg and grab that horn. Grabbing is fine in barrels." Which I did, and when we clopped steadily up to that third point he went around it like an oiled silk scarf and pelted home as I clung on and whooped. Arthritic and punctilious he may be, but he hasn't forgotten a damn thing.

He's good times. I vote we rent a cow and let him learn to cut.

State of the Union

The last official ovations-mandatory pompous gasbag speech from a man memorably described as looking tremendously pleased just to pronounce all the words in a given sentence correctly, tonight on every single channel! Because lord forbid we miss even a moment of the set-piece applause. At no other point in the year do I regret the lack of a back-bencher tradition so much as at this annual ritual of windbaggerie. In past years the Goo has rhapsodized about the fun to be had at SOTU watch parties, as well as her disappointment that the dangers posed by chimeras ("Walk on two legs, eat no flesh, drink black coffee, ARE WE NOT MEN?") aren't discussed every year.

In the interests of mental health, however, I will be spending my evening with my special four-footed feller instead of in front of a TV. Hello, me little Tick-Tock, shall we dance?

(Thanks to Iosif for the pic and for keeping Doc's interest with a handy bag of apples.)

[ETA: We did a lot of transition and backing work, with a break to watch giant QC get the vapors about our tiny new Shetland pony, then I put him on cross-ties, brushed him down, picked out his feet, buckled on his blanket, and turned him back into his stall. He looked at me expectantly as I gathered up the bridle and brushes, then he sighed and went into his grain bucket. When I came back a few minutes later, making the little "no alarm, just pay attention" clicking sound, his head came up and I would swear that he was thinking, "Ah, RIGHT." Granny Smiths this time. He likes what he is used to.]

So we meet again, my furry friend

Progress! Last night's work on Cappi was excellent, all things considered. We're getting to the point where he's stopped the major misbehaviours and I can notice subtler problems in him and in my cues, which is the first step toward fixing same. Man does it feel good to come out of a lesson without having ridden through a bolt. Pat was very chuffed; she says that Cappi's getting much more flexible through his back and neck ("Look, he's letting you compress him and stretch him out like an accordion!" For my next trick, I will play "Lady of Spain" at the trot). She also thinks that he's working harder to do well in this class than in others, although since I rarely see him in other work I can't tell. He still speeds up a lot given half a chance, especially if he's behind a horse he thinks he could beat in a race—which is to say, any horse at all—but he's listening to cues and responding more promptly when I tell him not to be Speed Racer. He even reaches for the bit, stretching down and forward as the reins loosen, rather than fighting the contact or trying to evade contact by going sideways. In other words, I'm feeling somewhat warmer toward him than I used to, and it may be mutual.

This time I was S-M-R-T about putting him away: I untacked him and groomed him one aisle away from his stall, so he wasn't constantly trying to duck out and check on his bucket. Like most of the schoolies, he knows enough about tailoring and human nature to recognize the potential of pockets, and I was loaded with candy cane frag. With that to distract him from his missing dinner, I got him cleaned up (and smellin' minty fresh, too) in record time. He's shaggy at this time of year, but with indoor riding and its lack of mud he isn't too hard to keep neat.

Doc got the rest of the candy cane. It may not be as high on his list as apples, but he knows enough to whicker when I reach into a pocket. Then when it was gone he tried to nip me on the hand and I decided it was time to go. At least he hadn't pinned me against a stall wall so that I knocked a water bucket onto my breeches, Grayson. (ETA: I wasn't the one who ended up wet. Grayson has tried that with me in the past, but I've been lucky or fast or both, and these days I bribe him to keep him facing the right way. Another student was not so fortunate.)

Poniez update

I have been slack on updating in re: horsey excitement over the last week or so. One reason is that I was good and followed Serbian Doctor Lady's instructions about not horsing for the week following my embarrassment with Doc. I did watch the dressage class, but that was it. This week, though, I got back to my usual solo work with himself, and it was without any negative event. In keeping with the philosophy that life should involve making new and different mistakes, I was extra careful about checking the cinch. Our canter work made me a bit nervous at first, but we managed and I relaxed. I'm starting to focus on a lot of bending and turning work with Doc; it's good for him to get work on his flexibility, and it's good for me to work on having my legs placed correctly during turns. Dressage also went smoothly. I was startled anew at how small Cappi is (I can swing up onto him from the ground, which means that the other English students tease me for my cowpoke ways as they line up for the mounting block), and we went through the usual dance of me trying to find his barrel with my lower legs, but we got our timing down almost perfectly at the walk and trot; the canter we will leave until...um, at least mid-December, which is when Pat and I will be in town at the same time. In other barn news, Iosif and I stopped by the barn last weekend, and I was tickled to hear Doc whicker at me when I opened his stall. Then I remembered the bag of apples Iosif was carrying. Oh well--cupboard love is better than none.

Weekend Update

In which I promise not to gloat about having Veterans Day off, because if I say anything else about how much I like the benefits at my job, my dear sweet kind loving friends will throttle me with their bare hands and then go drink bizarre nonalcoholic cocktails that make even a hardened waitress grimace.

Long story short, it was almost a perfect routine with a major flaw on the landing. Among other entertainments, I managed to get some yarn for a new project and get that under way, after a couple of false starts; I ate good food at (damn, wait: "come you back, you British soldier, come you back to ah") Mandalay and Hollywood East on the Boulevard; I caught "Blade Runner" on the big screen for the first time in...twelve?...years ("That's Olmos? Son of a gun"); and I did a lovely session on Doc.

Well, I say lovely: We were cantering beautifully, he had gotten the correct lead on his worse side, he wasn't just bowling along without listening, all was copacetic. But suddenly there was a lot of joggly sideways motion. I couldn't figure it out; had he suddenly switched to counter-cantering? A quick glance down, and oh fuck, the cinch is loose, the saddle is shifting, and I'm already 20 degrees off the vertical. Whoa, Doc, whoa, hands on the reins pull back. He is not listening; he is having too much fun running. Thirty degrees off and not slowing down. Things are going very slowly. Kick free of the stirrups. A stupid impulse to reach out toward the fence to make sure I don't smack my head on it. Instead I wrench my shoulder on it as the rest of me passes the point of no return. Aaand that's the ground under my right side. Put my head down in the sand for a minute and sigh. It's over. I'm okay. Doc, who stops as soon as I'm off, glances over in mild confusion, because a sideways saddle and a sudden dismount are not part of the usual routine. I sit up and then stand up, pleased that everything works and disgusted with myself for not adjusting the tack correctly in the first place, and start trying to loosen the cinch the rest of the way. It's tricky, because the saddle is now sticking out from his ribs and the cinch loop is right up on his spine, but I manage it and have all his tack off before Pat and Sassy, who are working in the next ring, even notice. I explain what happened. "We didn't even hear you yell!" says Sassy. I didn't. All that work on Cappi has paid off; I don't swear as much when things go wrong on horseback anymore. "Are you okay?" Yup. I get the blankets on, rearrange the saddle, swing back up. We walk for a while to relax, and then we go back in. I feel fine but plan to pop some anti-inflammatories and pull out a heat pack when I get home, just to deal with the inevitable stiffness.

And then I realize that somewhere in the deep, soft, poorly lit sand of the ring, I have lost my keys.

Update: The muscle soreness materialized as expected. More surprisingly, given that I didn't hit my head or have any abnormal neuro symptoms in the immediate aftermath, so did some nausea and a right bastard of a headache. I hied me to a doctor this morning and was told that things look fine but to take it easy the rest of the week. Can I ride tonight, I ask, thinking about Cappi. "I just told you to rest!" says Serbian doctor lady, exasperated. "No horsing. Just cold packs on the muscles and rest." [ETA: The barn has found my keys, oh sweet miracle, and I will watch tonight's lesson even if I can't ride. Technically that counts as not horsing.]

Frolic? Yes please

Colic? No thanks.

There is one thing that seems consistent with horse-based businesses, which is a certain flaky vagueness in the front offices. I showed up for my one-on-one time with Doc tonight only to be warned off riding him or giving him the usual apple: He colicked up hard yesterday and is still recovering. My irritation at the lack of notice is small next to my relief that he's okay.

It sounds odd that colic is such a serious disease in horses, when it's a byword for nothing worse than chronic fussiness in babies. Well, I say "nothing worse," but obviously it's hell for the sleep-deprived parents. Still, colic in humans isn't generally a fatal condition; in horses, the term refers to a variety of issues that sometimes do kill. Horses' digestive systems are one-way roads, so anything they take in has to go all the way through their GI tracts and out the back. Unfortunately, that long coil of innards isn't entirely anchored in place, and sometimes a bit of food gets stuck or a section of intestine kinks like a hose, and the pressure starts to build. If the obstruction isn't moved along or the twist unflipped, the tissue can lose circulation or gas can accumulate; death can come in a matter of hours, often sooner than the vet. Even the vet is hampered unless there's a surgery nearby; you can't really do a sterile operation in a working barn. Colic is more common in stalled horses, who cannot walk and graze all day the way the animals are designed to do, but it can appear in almost any horse.

Horses have not yet evolved to the point of being able to hold up a sign reading, "Hello, I am colicking," but the indications are usually clear: The horse seems dull or uninterested. It won't eat or drink and may begin to sweat heavily. It may turn to look or bite at its sides to try to find the source of the pain. It may exhibit stretches that look like the flehmen response. Given anything like enough space, it will roll and roll (most horses roll for a few moments to scratch their backs; a colicked horse will thrash around for much longer). Treatments depend on the cause of the colic, but walking the horse and letting it roll once or twice at a time is a basic start.

Somehow or other, with the help of a dose of a muscle relaxant called banamine, Doc got things back to where they should have been, but he's still on what Stephen Maturin would call a low diet. I gave his usual apple to QC, then spent some time in Doc's stall grooming him and disappointing him by not turning into a pile of hay. I had missed the barn's annual Halloween trick-or-treating extravaganza, going to a Last Train Home show instead (Eric Brace? Still one of my favorite singers. IOTA? Still my favorite DC-area club, and made untritely Halloweenly with webs of tiny lights and huge glowing orange paper lanterns hanging from the rafters over the stage. Guy wearing a fake furry spider and a Phantom/Harlequin mask, offering cigs to everyone in the club? Still...not sure what was going on there), but the giant bats, strings of novelty lights, and corn shocks showed that the barn staff did a great job with the decor for the trick-or-treating kids. Among the costumed (sorry, Expat, no dancing) horses, QC had been dressed as an Oreo and Sterling as a plumber. The photos cannot come soon enough.

Another one (not me) bites the dust

Schadenfreude? Moi? NEVAIRE. Okay maybe sometimes, like with this story: major GOP funder Richard Mellon Scaife, having cheated on his second wife and having (oops) forgotten to arrange a prenup, faces paying the equivalent of $24,000 per day in alimony. What's that Dorothy Parker line? Oh right, "And sweet's the air with curly smoke from all my burning bridges." Truly, the values party is an example to us all.

Slightly closer to home and much less acrimoniously, Doc and I worked more on downward transitions tonight, trying to go smoothly from the canter to the trot. It was only moderately successful, what with him wanting to run and run and run, and he tripped several times, at one point pulling me forward in such a way that something in my back went *plink.* Oofah. He could use another rider to work with him, preferably one with more training experience than I have, but that's true of lots of the schoolies and therefore seems unlikely. Kim came down as we were wrapping up and turned out her new mare in the paddock just next to the ring. The bay and Doc checked one another out quietly for a few moments, then suddenly she squealed and kicked and so we called an end to that particular session and left her to play with Kim. Doc made faces at his neighbor Princess (or, I like to think, at her pink Izod halter) while I rubbed him down, then he walked very decorously into his stall and stood still while I took off his halter. Half the time he lunges past me to get to his grain bucket (he's pretty well muscled for someone convinced he's starving to death), but we're getting him better at waiting politely. Little steps.

Finally I stop squeaking

Western again last night, this time with somewhat better results. We got the slower speeds more consistently, but Doc had some problems that are probably related to stiffness on one side of his body, so I will work with him in the next few weeks on getting more balanced. Nothing is as much fun or easy when you're all achy along one side, although he did his damnedest to assure everyone that he was perfectly happy running on the wrong lead, just let him run can we run now please to run fast run now? (I paraphrase.) The fox that has taken to strolling across the ring as though it is his private demesne did not show up, perhaps because on Monday, after he sauntered into the middle of the ring, Doc and I herded him right back out. He yawned at us from beyond the safety of the fence; Doc snorted and turned away.

Congrats to Rock Ninja, who is all be-shotted and ready to head out to Uganda for a cool new project ("You've done great work! Now go get some needles stuck in ya!"). I am jealous and can only hope that the meetings my group is mulling over hosting in Rio or Buenos Aires work out sooner rather than later. Texas and Washington state are nice enough, but I've made my feelings about Argentina clear; not all the breakfast tacos in Austin would woo me away from a pampas-lean steak. Should we sway slightly northward, well, a lonely pot of feijoada will alway have a home with me. Pass the cachaca?

Training pays off

Or so I am assured it eventually will, but after an hour of arguing with Doc about whether he was going to be allowed to run around like a mad thing or whether he should run at a more measured pace, I'm a bit disheartened. He's a sweet sweet horse, but he needs more speed work than the barn affords such a calm fellow, so he takes advantage of chances to run. Better he do it with me on his back than some terrified moppet, since I not-so-secretly get a kick out of how much he's helped improve my seat and ability to relax at faster gaits. But still, I was hoping to lay down some good foundations for the next western class, when we're supposed to run a pattern that tests your control of transitions from trot to canter. Our mutual taste for speedy work may have put paid to that idea for a while.

Here, however, is an example of what good training can do. Cutting is a rodeo sport derived from standard cowboy work, when you may need to cut individual cows out of a herd for doctoring or other herd maintenance. In competition, a rider cuts a cow out of the herd and is judged on how well the horse works on its own to keep the cow separated from its bovine fellows. A good rider with a well-trained partner will just sit calmly in the middle of the horse, letting it jink and dive to block the cow. In this video, the rider apparently fell off not long after pointing his horse at the cow he wanted. The horse clearly feels that that is just details, people, details. There's a cow to thwart! Yow.

Doctober

Mother Nature spent this week acting like someone who misplaced her appointment book and then had to scramble around catching up, all, "Oh, shit, it's supposed to be autumn, I totally overslept, damn damn damn." So the weather went from summery hot to crisply autumnal in about 20 minutes, without the benefit of rain (which, and oh God do I sound like my raised-in-an-epic-drought grandmother, we need). I love the crispy time of year, but did I mention being nervous about the horses when the mercury takes that kind of dive? I was nervous.

As if it weren't enough that we were facing frisky ponies, we also have a new teacher for the Western class, Teacherwoman Mk 1 having taken a job that will involve too much travel during the week for her to keep up a regular class schedule. Mk 2 is a very different woman, and her insistence that we use three-quarter rein rather than one-handed neck reining will take getting used to, but it sounds like she's going to be better about having plans for each class. God knows she made Thursday's hour a workout. We were down in the lower ring, where the wind and cold were making Doc see giant boogers in the woods (he had already dropped one rider that day, and a crashing sound in the trees sent him skittering, head high and nostrils flared, to the other side of the ring), and Mk 2 had us doing jog/lope transitions. The problem with that plan was that Doc, once he gets to speed up, doesn't always want to come back down right away. The idea was that we would do five strides of jog, three or four of lope, and back down, repeating it all for several turns around the ring and being sure not to cut corners, drift, get the wrong lead, jerk the reins, bounce in the saddle, or commit a multitude of other sins, any of which was quickly pointed out. By the end of my time on the rail, I was panting, but Doc was doing his transitions just as I'd asked rather than pitching headlong down the track. Quoth Mk 2, "Too many people at this barn think Western is about sitting back and looking cute. IT AIN'T." Yes ma'am. "Although it helps if you're cute to start off." Heh. The barn is planning an informal show in early November, so we're being urged to pull out our most cowboy clothes and make it look flashy. Maybe it's good thing that I haven't yet gotten the fringe trimmed off my chaps (me to Seesterperson on buying them: "Great, I'm the only person in the family with assless pants." Seesterperson: "That you know of").

There may finally be a new student joining our Western class, after years in which Sterling's mum and I were the only constants; one of the guys who works at the barn and has been riding English is interested in crossing disciplines. He's completely sweet and very good with the horses, which are points in his favor, but he's so young that I feel like a granny lady around him. It doesn't help that he's ridiculously polite to his elders, which is laudable in theory but turns out to be somewhat discomfiting in practice. I'll just have to make peace with that.

Same city, different day

How do I love thee, Manhattan? Well, to be frank I love thee a little less when it's warm and humid, because your perfume, she is not so fabulous. The fougere of hot dog water with a base of fermenting trash and exhaust, touched with pungent notes of exotic dried seafood...it's bold, don't get me wrong, but it's maybe a bit much, yes?

But olfactory issues aside, NYC remains my favorite place to meander around, finding things strange and wonderful (Munchies Paradise, Edge*nyNOHO), strange and disturbing (9/11 commemorative socks? bu yao), familiar and caloric (hail, Via Brasil, to your inky black beans and their symbiotic partner, a vicious caipirinha), and, of course, expensive and alluring. Oh, Tom SoHung's full-skirted black cashmere coat with the wicked vampy collar and zebra-print lining, ours is a forbidden love. We musn't, darling, it would be so wrong.

Perhaps the oddest thing we saw was a tour group being led into (and just as quickly out of) Rocco's Pastry. The place has been there since 1974, which you wouldn't think qualified it as a historical landmark, but it's evidently enough of a neighborhood institution to have made the bus lists. As La Mère, Seesterperson, and I were resting our tired feets and recharging with some of Rocco's finest on Sunday, we spotted a guide hectoring his ducklings just outside the door. He then brought them in, led them up and down the pastry counter, herded them away from the tables, handed each a miniature cannoli, and briskly fussed them out again. What the hell? What kind of fun is that? You take me into a famous bakery, just you git out the way and let me ogle the options before I pick summat my own self. Obviously not all of us can hack the tour.

Now that the temperature is dropping in DC, we're all breathing a sigh of relief. The speed with which it's falling makes me a little nervous, on account of Doc acts like a Sugar Smacked toddler when it gets cool, and while frisking around all colt-like is very fine in its place, he's a 1200-pound beast and his gambols carry some weight. We will have to talk about restraint, and, probably, will do some extra running around to let him feel his oats. It's nice to know what to expect, at least. Last night when I went in for dressage, he was being tacked up for a different lesson; his manners are too good for him to walk off while he's being groomed, but his head came up and his nostrils widened, so I patted him and promised him an apple after he got done. His affections can't necessarily be bought, but they can certainly be swayed.

Synchronicity

In our adolescence, in the brief five minutes between our death-or-glory sibling battles for Lebensraum, Seesterperson and I agreed on the genius of Margaret Cho. To this day, we quote her quoting her mother on heteronormativity Back Home versus in the Castro: "So many gay! Every country have the gay." Long pause. "But not in Korea!"

Or in Iran either. Hm, so the Axis of Evil (or at least their near neighbors) has achieved the stated goal of the GOP's xenophobic bottom-feeding base? For anyone in the reality-based community, that's 100% unsurprising. But hearing that news on the same day that a straight-faced "senior administration official" (gotta be Cheney, yeah? what with the rest scuttling for the hawsers) accuses Obama of insufficient intellectual rigor to be Prez, and I start to wonder who the hell is taking the piss here. (To all of you who reflexively said, "Larry Craig," shame on you; clearly "David Vitter" is the correct answer.)

But I didn't have to overload the weary indignation circuits, because Doc time is an automatic mood recharger, excellent for the mental health. At this time of year, every drive over to the barn is a race with sunset, and after this week I think the dark will win. We got out for a little trail time under a glowing gibbous moon, then came back in the hazy deer-infested twilight for ring work. According to barn scuttlebutt, a masseuse came in to work with some of the ponies this weekend, and Doc enjoyed some extra attention in his hamstrings. That might account for the fact that he was way, WAY up once we started working on trot and canter stuff in the ring. No bucking or other egregious misbehavior, but he was emphatic enough about fast go fast that I wished I had put a saddle on him after all. To quote the cartoon character, "C'mon, horsie, whoaaaa!" The webbing loop on the front of a bareback pad is pathetically insufficient for fine work. I forgive him for oh me achin' hip, but next time will definitely involve stirrups, because there are only so many times a body wants to go sliding sideways at speed. I think I will go lie down.

Tick tock, minions, TICK FRIGGIN TOCK

Don't mind me, we're just having a minor meltdown in the office and I'm trying to look as though it doesn't bother me at all, nope, just competently getting stuff done and it'll all be fine. Panic is contagious. It's disconcerting to realize that I have, at some undetermined point in the past, developed a reputation as the calm person, since inside my head it's the opposite. There's a Christopher Fry line I can't get quite right, about someday bursting the bud of sanity and blossoming into hysteria, that would be exquisitely appropriate if I could just remember it. Ah well.

Doc and I spent quality time on Monday, and now my entire lower back is a solid piece of pain. The erector spinae muscles are also not amused. Bareback work is fantastic for balance and communication, but it can be a workout and a half. A cantering horse, especially one like Doc, with his patented rocking lope, is moving around a lot, so you need to coordinate a bunch of body parts to stay in place; having no stirrups to help the endeavor makes it that much tricker. Perversely, riding's benefit as a workout declines as a rider improves, but clearly I have not reached that point. At dressage this evening, it will be a challenge not to grumble, "To hell with getting the horse supple; I need someone to supple me first."

Weebat, Seesterperson, and I are engaged in the delicate maneuvers involved in ensuring that multiple different groups can get to and from the bout this Friday. The rink is only a few blocks from a New Jersey subway stop, but packed into those blocks is a tremendous level of urban scary, plus there aren't many great dining options in the neighborhood (although I fell a little bit in love with the bar that hung a Mother's Day brunch sign next to its PBR neon), so we're working out the dance of the automobiles and other mass transit options. I am dreadful at this sort of thing and tend to get very dictatorial—"Everybody! Show up at X point at 0Whatever hours! Dissssss-MISS!"—which works only when there are sufficient transit options available to all parties. I am thrilled that so many people are planning to come out, though, and at hearing that the weather is supposed to be stupid gorgeous over the weekend. Strolling around Manhattan in glorious sunshine, absorbing UV rays and delicious high-calorie treats at roughly equal rates, is one of my favorite things to do ever. When I read the Idle Words line about Hong Kong—"I could easily imagine myself living there for good, puffing my way up and down the hills, slowly turning into a sphere of radius R, uniformly filled with dim sum"—I had to laugh, because that's exactly how I feel about New York.

1-800-ACME-LTD

The wonderful dry weather is, sad to say, accompanied by days that are getting noticeably shorter. After taking a hiatus from riding last week, due to ghastly sweaty heat even without a large horse in the equation, I took Doc out on the trails last night. The drought has left the paths very hard, so it's unkind to try for speed, but the woods are lovely dark and deep regardless of whether you're seeing them at a walk or a run. I should be working with him on cantering, but I selfishly want to take advantage of the park before it gets dark too early.

Doc remains suspicious of the deer, although his reactions to their spooks and gambols are more mild startles of irritation than complete rider-tossing freakouts. At this time of year, the stags are starting to notice the laydeez and have fits of boldness; the fawns, which have not outgrown their spots or adolescent skittishness, bounce around like ADD toddlers and further tweak his nerves. Fortunately for me, Doc is much calmer about dogs. We stopped and chatted with a passing hiker whose collie/Lab mix quivered with suppressed barks, but even when it burst into voice, Doc just flicked an ear.

I had cause to be very glad of his sang-froid, too, as we returned to the barn. The light was dimming and everything under the trees near the barn was leached of color, so when I saw a smallish creature moving I thought it was another one of the eedjit fawns. It was the wrong shape, though, and I peered harder. "Son of a bitch," I said, startled. Staring back at me, not 30 feet away, was a coyote. It stood for a moment and then walked further away, turned to look back, and then vanished into the trees. Doc sighed and gave me to understand that his dinner was waiting, so we clopped back to the barn. I couldn't stop grinning.

Unlovely thrush

Mixed news on the riding front.

Good news first: Teacherwoman is home and recovering well. She says she still gets some bad headaches and can't remember much of the accident, but she's improving steadily and hopes to be back in DC in a few weeks. Hurrah!

Bad news: Last night as I was cleaning out Doc's feet before tacking him up, the pick broke right through the hoof bed, exposing an area that's been badly damaged by thrush. He didn't seem to be in any discomfort, but if he were to lose a shoe--which he has done in the past, because he oversteps--it would be almost impossible to pare the nail down to a healthy area of the hoof bed. Thrush is a pernicious infection among stalled horses; standing in sawdust or hay that they've widdled in creates an ideal breeding ground for the equine equivalent of trench foot. In itself thrush isn't fatal, but left untreated it can cause a horse to go lame. No foot, no horse.

I got one of the barn staff to show me how to make up an Epsom salts bath, which Doc tolerated for a while before carefully stepping on the edge of the pan and sending the water sloshing everywhere. He put up with a second bath for another 10 minutes, then made it clear he was about to pull the same stunt, so I snapped a lead rope on him and took him out for a long grazing session. (Many trainers recommend spending nonriding time with horses as a matter of course, because you want the horse to associate you with good times as well as with work.) After Doc had denuded patches of the lawn to his own satisfaction, I put some dessicant solution in the damaged area of the hoof and left him to his feed bucket. The kids in the riding camp this week should get a chance to work on their mad vet skillz by repeating the treatment on him.

I just hope they've got a lot of apples and some spare pairs of boots.

For the win

Derby update: by two points in the last jam, the Fire Foxes took the title. The fire crews that showed up during the last 15 minutes were in ecstasies, shrieking, "Pull her hair! Take the bitch down! Yeah!" and generally yowling with glee as it came down to the wire. Some of their enthusiasm was due to the inherent fun of derby, but Jenna Von Fury's decision to wear a pair of plaid knickers rather than a skirt or shorts probably played the tiniest bit of a role. Oddly enough, some of the guys who had been so vocal during the bout got shy afterward, when it came time to pose en masse with the winners, and had to be gently shoved into the frame. Rushing into a burning building is apparently less frightening than getting close to sweaty rollerbabes (maybe they just need some practice, use making master and all that). Seesterperson did an even better job this time around, skating for most of the bout, often as the FF pivot. We took her out to a diner afterward and quizzed her on how pivots set the pace and other derbiana details, and she sent Teal home with her "I heart firefighters" shirt.

I love the town where Seesterperson lives (quoth Jeff, "Do you know what this town is? It's charming"), and I'm getting fond of the larger area, jokes about dead mobsters notwithstanding. We had a smashing meal in Secaucus, where the restaurant's owner divulged secrets about making the perfect Sicilian meatballs, and I remembered why it sucks that DC has no decent Italian restaurants. Fettucine bolognese trailing a haze of fennel from the sweet sausage crumbled up in the sauce? Mwah. Equally wonderful, though in a different way, was parking next to the infamous black Lincoln Continental with new plates, joking about posing next to its trunk, and shutting right the hell up when we saw it driven away by a guy who looked like he came from central casting (Mafia, subsp. Senior Made Guy).

Much as I love the roller derby and food porn and Sopranos jokes and undeniable architectural loveliness, though, one of my favorite things to do in that area is still to visit the local used bookstore. For one thing, and I cannot stress this enough, it is organized. Staff can actually find out whether they've got something in stock, and they'll even go and fetch it. For another, oh MAN is it stocked. There's a huge section of New Jersey history, a basement full of rare books (the complete Bobbsey Twins saga, some of which I read as a moppet), aisle after aisle of double-shelved trade books, all the theater and history books a reasonable person could ask, and generous lashings of books of the weird. The shelves of the main floor rise toward the pressed-tin ceiling like canyons, all sedimentary layers of spines, and the occasional soft "ook" is heard from the more distant stacks. Last time I scuttled out cackling over getting a first edition of "The Lady's Not for Burning," complete with dust jacket; this time, after a good 45 minutes, I staggered toward Teal, arms laden, and admitted that I needed to leave before I did real damage. Total haul: a book of horse stories, ideal for sampling; Death in Yellowstone (main gruesome lesson: hot springs? called that for a reason); A Fine and Private Place, which I read years ago and have forgotten; Goodbye to All That, to feed my perverse WWI fascination; 1421: The Year the Chinese Discovered America, because at $8 why not; a new copy of The Good Fairies of New York (thank you, Weebat, for the reminder); and, oh joy, a new copy of the abridged London Labour, London Poor, which I have been wanting badly. Really I want the full version, but for $300 I restrain the desire.

Tonight, back to spending time with El Doctor. He proved that it is possible, though unwise, to trot and eat simultaneously, and that a bareback pad makes a huge difference for a rider who does not want to slide precipitously backward on uphill slopes. We did a little ring work, but after a minor tiff over the wisdom of aiming for the jumps I called it a night. I will do a lot with Doc without a saddle, but landing on his razor-edged withers after a two-foot jump is not on the list of approved activities if I want to walk the next day. The women of the barn often wonder aloud how men ever managed before stirrups were invented.

Post-show wrap-up

The show this weekend was hella fun. Doc and I were in six events, which sounds like a lot, but only two (Western horsemanship and trail) were competitions; the other four were demonstrations. Not-so-secretly, they were also recruiting tools for the Western program, as we figured that if we got the crowd all psyched up, some of them might register for spots in the classes.

The first event was Western horsemanship, which is designed to rate both rider and performance. Doc always runs hot at first, and since he hadn't been ridden at more than a walk all morning, the lope shared certain qualities with the cavalry charge. We placed third, which was fine, and the judge gave me clear comments on why we had gotten that spot, so I was relatively satisfied with it. Doc did his best; I did mine; fiat.

The Powers That Be decided not to risk losing the crowd by running back to another ring for the trail competition, so we stayed in the big ring and did all the demo events first. Teacherwoman explained each event, but more to the point, she was firm with the crowd about the inadvisability of golf-clapping at Western events, and encouraged the crowd to do a lot of hooting and shrieking. (A small boy came up to Doc as we were waiting between events and said, "Do you know what I was yelling when he was going? 'What's up DOC!' Because like Bugs Bunny!" He was puzzled, though, when I hollered for Sterling, and asked his teacher, in a tone of some distress, "Why did that lady just say OW?") Doc and I basically blew it on the reining; he was so keyed up by the whooping and hollering and speed that all the bits that involved stopping ended up being washes. He did beautifully on the spins, though, and the crowd was enthusiastic. Part of the appeal was probably the novelty; Doc so rarely gets to show off his speed and power, and he's got a rep as a sweetheart, so seeing him all flashy and fast and obviously wired up tickled the regulars and the fan club.

Following the speedy deployment of the ring crew, it was time for pole-bending, an event in which the competitors run up a line of slalom poles, run back by weaving through the poles, spin, weave back up the line, and then bolt down the opposite side. It's a timed event, with penalties for missing or knocking over poles, and it favors small flexible horses. Doc...is not small or flexible. But we missed only one pole and managed not to slam me into any of them (I have a smokin' bruise on one arm from doing that in class), so again, I was happy enough. Teacherwoman took one of the barn's spookiest QH's through the course perfectly, to general delight: Okie looked shell-shocked, but by God he got his ass through the poles and back as though he had been doing it for years. Teacherwoman can ride.

The third event, cloverleaf barrels, is another one that favors the wee and bendy, but if I had done a better job setting up for the first barrel, we would've done perfectly. As it was, we nailed it for the second and third barrels, at least in the sense of getting around cleanly and fairly fast, and Doc flattened himself out for a flat bolt to the exit, as is the approved rodeo style. Our time was more than double the standard for professional competition. Yow.

The final demo event was versatility, a timed combination of pretty much everything that had gone before: a line of poles to slalom, two barrels for a figure-8, and a low jump. By that point Doc was so damn hot that it was a struggle to keep him on course, but we managed it fine and he did a perfect jump over the crossbars. I was impressed by the teenager who rode Okie through the course; he thought hard about shying from the jump, but she easily pressed him into it. Lots of hollering for that.

After all that excitement, the trail course was a bit of a comedown. Trail courses are combinations of obstacles designed to test how a horse will handle things you might encounter on the trail: flapping jackets, things to step over or through or around, stuff to pick up and carry. This one involved dismounting to pick up a purse, remounting with it in hand (at this point, the course discriminates against people with tall horses, oh me achin' hip), and riding over to put the purse down on the rail; crossing a curving array of poles decorated with fake greenery; grabbing a rain jacket off a pole and rubbing it over the horse before hanging it back up; riding through an L-shaped chute and then backing through it; and finally riding over a tarp. Doc didn't back too well (or I didn't cue him correctly), but he just sniffed at the tarp and sighed with boredom at the coat, so we got third.

Last year I went home with a first and a fourth, but I honestly feel happier with the results this year. The riders who beat us did a better job, but both Doc and I tried to do our best, and we enjoyed it; last year, Outlaw pretty nearly threw me on the trail course when he spooked at the tarp and the jacket, and he did switch into a flat gallop during the horsemanship event, eventually trying to fling himself at jumps that were still set up in the ring. Exciting? Yes. Fun? Less so.

This year, terrifying experiences in Argentina and lots of practice with El Doctor have made me a more confident rider, and part of the confidence is knowing that you can screw up and still come out happy. Nobody bleeding? Call it a win. Call it a blue ribbon. Call it a real good day.

Smoke 'em while you've got 'em

I've heard the jokes about Minneapolis having two seasons, road repair and snow removal (or is it road removal and snow repair?), and sometimes in despair I think the same thing about the DC area. Granted, our roads rarely seem to actually get better, but the weather does go from being raw and nasty to ghastly humid and hot, and the bits in between are easy to forget. But finally, FINALLY, May is getting it together.

I took advantage of the gorgeous weather last night to work Doc out on the trails. There not being much to do in Texas, I had watched a lot of RFD TV, which is great when it's showing horsemanship programs and either boring or actively irritating when it's showing tractor episodes or country music, respectively. (Anyone who ever wondered about the special hell? It's Branson, Missouri. Now straighten up and live right.) One of the horse guys, Clinton Anderson and His Teeth, did a special on using trail obstacles like trees and rocks to give your horse a chance to practice outside the ring, and what with the weather being gorgeous, Doc and I spent about 20 minutes doing slalom courses and figure eights around the beeches and working on side passes to get around pebbles. He remains very suspicious of the deer, which is a pity because they are surprisingly persistent for creatures that project such a sense that they might run off at any minute. "Aaaany minute now, just give us timorous beasties the excuse," they seem to say, and yet they're still there a minute later, chewing their cud and startling the horses. Doc wanted to keep an eye on them, but we moved farther into the woods and he relaxed. We stopped and backed and went forward and sideways and wound through the trees, and he handled all of it with his usual calm.

The thing is, Doc is what they call bombproof. He is unflappable; he is basically flap-free. This is great for the barn, which can put the therapeutic riding kids and the little beginner kindergarteners and terrified adults (he's a big lad) on him, and at most he will sigh and reach to rub his nose on a nearby post. That keeps him working, but it also means that he rarely gets to do anything interesting under saddle. Getting him into Western classes, though, we found that he loves to run, with a great leaping canter that's less rocking horse and a lot more ship in the high seas. Put another horse next to him at that speed, and by God you'd better be ready for the gallop. He also gets a kick out of jumping, pricking his ears up and stretching forward if you so much as point him at a crossbar. So we did both of those, kicking up great amounts of dust and flying over low jumps for a little while, and I probably had a big stupid grin on my face for most of it. We finished up with another stroll past the still-suspect deer and through the gloaming. I don't know what he thinks about our work together, but I can't get enough of it.

In other news, the Goo is now filled with gravitas, and I for one had the hangover to prove it.

You can yomp eet at de walk

I was extremely relieved when the barn where I ride started offering a Western option rather than English. The advantage of the Western saddle is that lovely come-to-Jesus, oh-damn-it-just-went-pear-shaped button at the front, more briefly known as the horn. Cowboys use it to hold a rope when they're otherwise occupied, but for the student rider, it's a lovely crutch when you're startled. Unfortunately, it also presents certain obstacles if your horse decides that it's time to jump over something. The English saddle, lacking the horn, feels less secure, but if you jolt forward, it also won't take advantage of your virtue. But sometimes, especially out on a trail where a tree has been inconsiderate enough to fall across the path, you just gotta jump no matter what the saddle.

I've jumped in classes, albeit over tiny poles, and occasionally on trails I've had to clear trees or ravine banks. I've yet to fall off, but grace hasn't been a hallmark of the experience. The worst was in Argentina, where the horses, mountain-bred and canny, refused to jump until they could see the other side of an obstacle. We came to a huge fallen tree that completely blocked our way, and my horse reared up, put both hooves on top of the trunk, peered at the footing, and finally lunged over in a giant convulsive leap. In my effort not to thunk down onto his back end, I ended up flying forward and wrapping myself around his neck like a spastic lemur; he wasn't hurt or particularly fussed (although I would have understood if he were exasperated), and I was able to scootch backward into the saddle, adjusting my sheepskin and silently thanking God that I wasn't born a guy. The guide was kind enough not to snicker audibly, but I wouldn't have blamed him either.

All of which is to say that when my teacher announced last night that we were going to go over jumps in Western tack, I was both pleased and nervous. As it turns out, my partner Doc loves to jump; he's been known to sidle toward jumps when he gets bored, and just seeing the poles made him pick up his pace. We kept things low, not more than a foot off the ground, and since I'm used to his enormous rocking canter, it was easy to stay in place when he reached up to jump. I wish I had started enjoying jumping sooner, because it was thrilling, but part of the fun came from the lack of pressure; I just wanted to be able to handle an emergency, not line up for the Grand National. Kudos and endless affection to Doc, of course, and gratitude to Teacherwoman, who made it seem easy and stressless. There's no guarantee I won't end up making a fool of myself next time I'm on a trail jump, but it's nice to know that I'll have some semblance of a clue of how to stay on.

In other news, spring finally appears to have arrived, and it's time to go glory in the feeling of not being in the office. Muahahaha.