walking the wire

It's a strange time lately. I believed the end of the opera season would bring some much needed quiet and rest, but it's six weeks after the close of our last show and everything is as hectic as ever. There are a thousand reasons for this; here is a glimpse:

• softball
  
• horseback riding
  
  
  
  
• stall cleaning
  
• feeding horses
  
• apartment hunting
  
• packing
  
• or at least thinking about packing
  
• training for a marathon -- or at the very least, running
  
• work projects
  
• finally enjoying the nice weather
  
• tending daily to the garden
  

(I went to the garden this morning to plant a bunch of starts I bought last night. It was nice to begin my day there, in the early morning light; everything was quiet except for the rush of water through the hose. Now in the garden: radicchio, mesclun, radishes, basil, lavender, rosemary, fennel (2 types), catnip, sage, chives, cilantro, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale, butter lettuce, chard, bell peppers, tomatoes, watermelon, canteloupe, lemon cucumber.)

So here is my problem: I am totally overwhelmed by the amount of things I have to do on a daily basis, although nearly everything is exciting and good. It's a real conundrum. I would not want to give any of these things up, and in fact, would find it difficult -- each of them is a commitment I've made. I keep having the feeling that if only I could catch up, everything would settle back and I would be okay. I'm happy now -- sometimes radiantly so -- but also struggling.

Oh, blog. There is one more thing for that list. I've been coyly keeping it a secret from you, but I can't keep it forever.

• boyfriend

rodeo clown

the barn's annual horse show was this weekend. it was a great turnout -- we had over 100 people come to ride -- but it was a little disappointing otherwise, for most of us. for me: Cookie was very well behaved for the first half of my classes (the walk/trot classes), keeping herself in a pretty frame, steering well, standing (mostly) still while we waited during the breaks. but once we rode in our first canter class, she totally melted down, and I'm still not entirely sure what happened. the first time I asked for the canter, it was as if I had floored it, which was not surprising; she always wants to run and run and run. she picked up the canter incorrectly, "cross-firing," which is what we call it when a horse picks up the lead correctly in the front and incorrectly in the hind end. after that she was very difficult to collect, and each time I cued the canter it was as if a gun was going off. I sincerely could not tell if she was acting up because she was desperate to run, or because she was being naughty, or because she was tired, or because she was sore. after we went bucking down the rail in our equitation class, I hopped off of her to check my saddle and her legs, but nothing seemed particularly out of place. I had one more class to ride, and I hoped to end on a decent note. she had enough time to cool down beforehand, so the first part of the class went okay -- she managed to keep the walk (rather than bursting again and again into trot) and even picked up her canter without too much explosiveness. but in the reverse direction, I again went bucking down the rail. I heard the spectators in the bleachers gasp.

we won two ribbons in our halter classes -- a very exciting first place finish in the mare class (against a large number of horses), and a third place in the saddle type class. but no ribbons in the riding classes. it was no surprise during our meltdown classes, but I felt sincerely that I could not have ridden better in our first five or six classes, which was simultaneously frustrating and comforting. later on I found out that many competitors at the show were complaining about the inconsistency of the judge, and several people at different points throughout the day came up to compliment us on our riding; one person told me, "we thought you were going to win the class, and then you didn't even place!" the ribbons were not what I was there for (mostly), but given that my mare had such a breakdown, it would have been nice to have already walked away with a little something.

it was a typically exhausting horse show day -- I awoke at 5 to arrive at the show barn by 6, where I lunged and then rode Cookie in the arena prior to the main crowd's arrival; then I rode for five hours, untacked, repacked my car, and spent the rest of the afternoon watching the western classes. our kids didn't do as well as they usually do; the judge didn't seem to like any of us.

that mare sure is cute, though.



pay no attention to my chair seat. I could seriously use a saddle that fits us both better. I can't get my legs any farther underneath me in that thing.

now it is june 21. I have 19 days to find a new place to live. there's nothing more to say about my mental state than that.

growth

the last of the plants that have been kicking around the house are now in the ground at my garden. the current tally stands thusly: radicchio, mesclun, radishes; early girl tomatoes (my favorite), cherry tomatoes; sage, cilantro, chives, thyme, lavender, rosemary, basil; watermelon, canteloupe; lemon cucumbers. the plot is hardly 1/3 full.

I love it over there. the neighborhood is quiet; kids play basketball in the street. a few doors down, a mother calls out, "ashley! dinner!" when garden-neighbors come in through the gate, we water our plots quietly and nod hello. it feels like something out of a remote childhood. on sunday, the ice cream truck drove slowly by; I heard a boy of approximately nine or ten yell in that almost panicked way, "ICE CREAM TRUCK!!!! ICE CREAM TRUCK!!! GET YOUR MONEY!" followed by a flurry of activity. I very nearly got some ice cream myself.

tomorrow is the barn-run horse show. tonight I am headed down there to feed and clean stalls (thankfully with all the horses gone); I have to grab my tack and all my tools, and clean them up, and get snacks, and double-check my show clothes, and then head to the show grounds. I had a very good but very late night last night, and I'm running on maybe 2 hours of sleep. at this point my body is being fueled by sheer stubbornness. tomorrow I'll wake up at 5 and get to the arena by 6 to lunge Cookie, and shine her up, and put her in her show halter for the opening halter classes. I'd like to come home with one riding ribbon. otherwise, the joy in being there is feeling like a part of the barn family.

addendum

step 20: be so sore the next morning from 3 1/2 hours bent over in the garden, you have to walk like an old lady.

gardening 101

step 1: survey your domain.



step 2: apply sunscreen to face, arms, neck. attempt to reach middle of back; find all contortion efforts unsuccessful. settle on covering only reachable parts.

step 3: admire neighbor gardens.





step 4: pick up $2 spade; get working. turn dirt lovingly. pull out little stones, occasional weeds.



step 5: get legs real dirty.



step 6: get back to tilling. wipe brow. feel sunburned.

step 7: kick off shoes.



step 8: meet your neighbor, Warren. feel slightly naked in your skimpy tank top and shorts, since he's clad in a sweatshirt and jeans. feel like a hippie when he glances at your bare feet, which are buried in dirt.



step 9: become embarrassed when your cell phone goes off, because the ringer is all the way up and it's your mother; her ringtone is the theme song from The Price is Right.

step 9A: internally apologize to Warren.

step 10: realize you've been working on your garden for nearly an hour and you're less than a third of the way done. abandon loving, careful tilling of soil in favor of strenuous hoeing; begin using feet to mix up dry dirt clods.

step 11: wonder if that sunscreen is working.

step 12: admire your work so far.





step 13: try to ignore back pain.

step 14: finish turning bed with an exhausted flourish. flop down on the grass. call your mother.

step 15: realize you have no idea how to organize your garden. take a stroll past the neighbors' gardens for inspiration.

step 15A: copy become inspired.

step 16: become exasperated with how long you've been working; finally plant your first plant.



step 16A: plant subsequent plants. suspect they look inadequate. wonder silently if you should have thought more about spring plants versus summer plants.

step 17: try not to compare your greens



to your neighbors' greens.



step 18: realize you've hit the level beyond ravenously hungry and may have moved on to hypoglycemic; plant the other plants in a hurry.

step 19: eat a burger, fries, and a milkshake. feel sore. examine sunburn. wince at sunburn. take luxurious shower. feel hungry again. eat toast, fall asleep on the couch with the cat.

in other news, Cookie nearly made me eat the dirt today. the barn owner let two of the mares out to graze in the front pasture, and they ran up to the back arena gate, startling the crap out of both of us. for probably two straight minutes Cookie pranced, jigged, and spun; she wouldn't stand still and had pretty much forgotten about me altogether. it was like riding a tightly coiled spring. I couldn't dismount without fearing she'd bolt and take me with her. I'm pretty sure I had a look of holy terror on my face as I tried to calm her down, keep her from exploding, figure out what to do, and stay on.

I had to negotiate with her for about ten minutes. TEN. MINUTES. and then, slowly but surely, I got her brain back. we rode for over an hour. I did not dismount -- voluntarily or involuntarily. by the end of the ride she was ignoring the mares. I consider the whole episode a major success.

I awoke this morning half an hour before my alarm went off, not out of any sort of industriousness or bushy-tailed morning energy but because one of the cats (and I have no doubt which one) knocked something that sounded vaguely glass-like onto the floor. I darted out of bed so fast I was not quite awake yet, to discover both cats looking culpable but no obvious knocked-over thing in sight. I checked the living room and kitchen, the likeliest places, and then poked my head in the (dark) bathroom to check the items on the sink. When I didn't find anything, I went back to bed.

A half hour later I came back out, and when I flipped on the light in the bathroom I realized that they had managed to knock one of our bathroom shelves almost entirely off the wall. What I heard fall were two glass candle holders which luckily didn't break. The shelf won't stay up anymore.

I should also mention that I was already in a bad mood because I woke up with that Train song, "Hey Soul Sister," in my head.

When I went to put everything in my car, I realized I had parked next to a strip of grass that appears to have not been mowed since last summer. It was wet from rain and almost knee high. I was wearing canvas flats.

I got to work and had an email from the Arabian Horse Association, saying that my renewed membership card had been returned to them. "We sent it to the following address, could you please update us?" they said, and then listed my current address, no errors. "It was marked 'vacant return to sender,'" they said. This is the second item of mail in a week to be inappropriately returned to sender. I already hated my mail guy for consistently delivering the wrong mail to my mailbox, and now it's entered a whole new dimension.

An hour into my work day I received a confirmation from my landlord of my intent to vacate my apartment. Out of -- who knows? profound laziness, or maybe an inability to believe I'm moving -- I didn't declare my intent in writing until yesterday, which means my official move out date is July 10. I consoled myself about the extra 10 days' rent by telling myself that I at least have ten extra days to find a place, plus there's the possibility of an overlap of apartments, giving me extra time to move. The emailed confirmation states that NOPE! They seem to believe I owe full rent for July: $1100.

Grandmom, I know you're reading this so please forgive me for a second: They can go fuck themselves. I'm not paying $1100 in rent to live in my apartment for ten days.

It's noon; it was supposed to be sunny today but it's still oppressively overcast, cold, and raining. The office is freezing because they're installing new windows on one side of our building, and it smells like cigarette smoke because the window installers are smoking.

I was going to run on my lunch break but I'm writing this instead because I've decided I refuse to go out there. I'm giving you the stink-eye, Portland: it'll be sunny at 5, right?

tl;dr this is my day. pretty much exactly.

these days

these days:

one of the cats sits directly outside my bedroom door when I am inside it. directly outside. when I open the door, his nose is pressed to the corner of the frame, waiting. he slithers off nonchalantly when I walk out, or sometimes he stands in place, directly in my way, waiting to be shooed.

I wonder very honestly how it got to be june.

I continue to be too competitive in my recreational runs; today, just after the steel bridge platform came back down, the (male) runner just behind me huffed and huffed, waiting impatiently as all the cyclists and walkers in front of us gradually trickled across. there was no use in going around -- you would just make the traffic worse -- but he went by anyway. a quarter mile later I passed him, knowing full well I was going faster than I should, because he seemed like the kind of guy who didn't want to be passed, especially by a little bit of a girl. he never caught back up.

I'm trying to convince myself that I'm really moving out of my apartment; that I really have to do it in just a few weeks. I'm living in a state of very sincere disbelief. I like my neighborhood and my apartment; I hate apartment hunting. do I have to?

The most common comment about my hair is "wow! it's growing so fast!" which happens to be true.

I am, by some divine stroke of the universe, spending a good portion of my time consumed by radiant happiness.

vacating

This past week was the opera's third (and final) furlough week of the 2009-2010 season. I spent the first furlough riding my horse, cleaning the apartment, and generally enjoying a really wonderful week at home catching up on my loafing. The second furlough took place over the holidays; I was at home with my family.

I spent part of this final furlough with an old friend from high school, who came to town Tuesday for his first visit to the northwest, to be split between seeing Portland and backpacking.



We're in the middle of a seemingly endless wet spell, which is trying the patience of all but the most seasoned Portlanders. (Like some others, I am frankly about to lose my mind). We got lucky this week and the weather mostly cooperated.





We left for our trip on Wednesday, though much later than we had planned because we were both too tired Tuesday night to pack. In the end, it worked out swimmingly: it rained the entire drive but cleared up the moment I hit Olympic National Forest.



We hiked along the Duckabush River; it was fun to hear my friend's awed take on the intensely verdant old growth forest, a setting not uncommon around here, and one I've become surprisingly used to. We didn't start hiking until after 4 PM, but managed to make it to the five mile marker, set up, cook dinner, and hang our bear bag just before dusk, with impeccable timing.

I was really proud to remember a useful knot for the bear bag. Have I ever mentioned that I LOVE knots? I added about a dozen of them to my repertoire several years ago, while dating a boy scout troop leader. I even went so far as to create a knot board -- a display of the knots you've learned -- and was informally inducted into "the order of the knot." (I have the certificate to prove it). Sadly, though I have a sharp memory, it's impressively terrible at remembering how to tie cool knots. So it was a total kick to tie the hitch for our bear bag and have my friend sincerely admire it.



The next day we decided to leave everything set up and hike further into the park without our packs in order to cover more ground. It turned out to be a great plan; the weather started out nice but got progressively more ominous as the day wore on. We hiked about five miles before hitting a stream crossing that required too much effort and potential soaked-ness to cross. On our way back it was decided that we'd seen about as much as we could see on our current trail, which (although beautiful) did not intersect with any other trails for at least 15 miles. We concluded that neither of us wanted to sleep in the potentially pouring rain only to hike back out in the morning, so we came home a day early. It did in fact pour the entire next day, so I felt pretty good about the decision. Instead of backpacking on Friday, we met up with another old friend from school, drank coffee, and then played video games on my old Nintendo.

By the way, I gamed the system a little bit: backpacking in Olympic National Park has been on my to-do list for several years, but I did put it on the list intentionally this year knowing with certainty that it would get done less than a week later. The list's rules are always in flux, people.

My vacation was bookended by two deliciously lazy weekends spent in better company than I could hope to ask for. Today I have that wonderful, exhausted feeling of needing a vacation after your vacation. In this case it means the week was well spent. I'll take it.

29.

My birthday weekend was so wonderful, it almost defies description. I don't even know what to tell you about it, except to say that it was full of the things that make me happy. I actually don't much want to talk about it; it feels quietly sacred somehow. Suffice it to be said: I love twenty-nine so far.

I will tell you one of my weekend activities: I had a great jumping lesson with Cookie on Monday night. They've brought in a trainer originally from the UK to help the 4H kids with their jumping and dressage prior to their big show this summer, and have opened up those lessons to those of us who are interested. I haven't done much jumping in the last ten years, and Cookie has done hardly any, so I expected it to be sort of a disaster, especially given that her steering mechanism is not always so good. But she was a superstar. She jumped everything I pointed her towards, even if the approach was bad. And the physical memory of how to ride a jump remained in my body throughout all this time. What a gift. The last jump we cleared was probably over two feet, which doesn't sound like much until you're trying to get your horse over it. Cookie sort of sat back mid-stride as if she wasn't going to do it, and then surprised me by rounding up over it beautifully. Afterwards the trainer said, "Well, she surely is willing!" Sometimes she is so giving of herself that I feel wretched having ever been frustrated with her. That animal tries her heart out for me, and I am so grateful to her, and occasionally humbled.

Tomorrow I'm headed out to Olympic National Park with an old friend from high school, who came to town today so we could get our backpacking gear situated. We were going to enjoy a day doing PDX sight-seeing things, but he got up at 3:30 and promptly arrived at the WRONG AIRPORT for his flight; I haven't had more than 5-6 hours of sleep since last week. We stopped at Powell's for ten minutes, ate crepes and french fries at the food carts, and came back here to play on my old school Nintendo before I dragged him to the barn so I could feed. We shopped for our trip, and now we're fully stocked but were too tired to pack. When we got back here, we stuffed ourselves full of sushi and promptly went to bed. It's supposed to rain rather seriously throughout our 3-day trip. I'm pretty sure we're going to come back covered in moss.