The Red-Headed Diva Saves Christmas
Do not get drunk the day before you’re going to cook the family holiday dinner. Cooking spicy tacos while hungover is Not Cool. Ask me how I know.
Because I’d hate to accept responsibility and spoil a perfectly good pity party, I should point out that the hangover was my brother’s fault. See, Lil Bro and I agree that gift cards are evil. They’re the “I don’t know you well enough to get you a personal gift, but I think cash is crass, so I’m going to give you plastic-cash that you can only use in one location. And it’ll be a different location than everyone else will pick. So while you’ll have enough gift money to buy, say, a really nice pair of show breeches, what you’ll actually end up buying will be some bubble bath from Wally World and a book from B&N and a pair of socks from Freddies. None of which are as nice as a pair of show breeches or as useful as, say, four quarts of oil and a filter, which you could have actually used, as the car is overdue for a change.” Ahem. At any rate, my younger brother and I hate gift cards. Cash or loot, please. No plastic.
Unfortunately, he’s one of those guys with impeccable gift sense. He buys you things you never knew you wanted. I once bought him a plastic cup and some bubble gum. He has never leg me live that down, and so on top of all my other holiday issues I have Lil Bro Gift Angst.
Which is how I ended up sitting on the couch last night, staring at his gift, and freaking out that it was, once again, All Wrong. And one cider led to another.
This morning I woke up hungover and had to face the Skillet of Spiciness which… oh my. Not when you’re hungover. And then, despite two weeks of planning… actually, allow me to clarify that. I mean “two weeks of waffling about date and time,” not “two weeks of solidifying details and preparing for the event”… despite two weeks of discussion on what we were doing as a family and when and where, my older brother heard “Christmas Lunch,” not “Christmas Eve Lunch.” So he never showed.
Which was a bummer, because Older Brother shares my despair at finding anyone the perfect gift, so we could have huddled in a corner and commiserated and plotted ways to undermine Younger Brother’s perfect gift giving skills.
And, of course, without Older Brother there, we delayed the present exchange until tomorrow. Which means I have 24 more hours of Lil Bro Gift Angst to get through, and he left an interestingly shaped and probably perfect gift under the tree for me. Argh.
All in all, by the time the afternoon wrapped up, I was exhausted and wrung out. Not really for the reasons in this post, but not everything in one’s life needs to be blogged. More than anything else, I wanted to go to bed for two weeks and ignore the world, but it was out to the barn instead.
Where the Diva (formerly “Her Highness,” but this nick suits her better) uncharacteristically hung her head over my shoulder and let me stand with my arms around her neck and let everything else go for a few minutes.
Maybe Lil Bro’s gift will be a disaster, but that’s why they invented gift receipts. (Don’t tell me about “it’s the thought that counts”–you’d only have to see my brother’s face after some of my gifts to realize he’s trying to figure out what the hell I was thinking.) And if Older Bro missed today’s get-together, well, we just do it all over again tomorrow. With pizza. And for everything else that’s going on… well… it goes on. But there are always ways forward, even if they aren’t clear yet.
Aren’t horses remarkable? Not only because they can help put everything back into perspective by just standing there and letting us lean on them… but because Miss Standoffish Diva, of all the horses in the barn, was the one who knew what I needed.
Merry Christmas, indeed.
Those Chestnut TB Mares
I love ‘em.
For example, Her Highness. Her Highness is one of the mares I walk a couple times a week. She and I get along great, because we both want attention on our terms and none of that lovey-dovey huggy stuff.
Over the past year, we’ve come to certain understandings, mostly revolving around who is the Alpha Mare (me, natch). Other understandings: Thou Shalt Not Step on the Alpha Mare’s Foot While She Is Grooming You. Thou Shalt Not Turn Your Butt Towards the Alpha Mare When She Is In The Stall With You. Thou Still Art Not the Alpha Mare, and if You Keep Pretending To Be the Alpha Mare, the Alpha Mare Will Do Something Unspeakable To You, Like Clean Your Udder, So Un-pin Those Ears Right Now, Missy.
And so on. She’s a TB with personality, and I loff her.
So, Sunday, we were walking in the arena. There’s scaffolding in the corner (blocked off so the horses wouldn’t get caught up in it, but clearly visible). It’s been there for a few weeks. But as we walked past it Sunday, she decided to spook. Decided, yes. This was calculated.
She crouched down, preparing to jump forwards or sideways, and then looked at me. She immediately got an “oh, crap” look on her face. We were just heading into the corner, she was on the rail, and I was to the inside.
I’ve never seen her pull backwards during a spook, so I guess that’s not an option for her. She also knows better than to run over the top of people–so even when she spooks, given half a second to think she picks the space without a person standing in it over the space with a person standing in it. Which meant that, having seen me, she realized spooking sideways was… well, an option, but a very bad one. Her only other choice? To jump forward–in the direction of the scaffolding.
For ten or fifteen seconds she crouched, trying to figure out what to do. I talked to her, hoping she’d just step forward, but she had her dignity to think of, after all. Walking forward would be tantamount to admitting there was nothing worth spooking over in the first place.
She compromised by jumping forward and to the side just a little bit. Then stood there with her head hanging down and the most embarrassed expression on her face that I have ever seen.
Poor mare! All that setup, and nowhere to go!