Horses and Me

Moving onto the other side of the bed, there is a large container mostly filled with old stuffed animals and doll clothes. Additionally, there is a shoebox, within which there are a few art projects from childhood, a few random frames and this horseshoe.

The horseshoe was given to me by my best friend from childhood, B. When I was three and B was two, our fathers met at a conference, and got to talking. They found they lived not too far from each other and that they had daughters of roughly the same age. The early years with B are kind of a blur. I do remember that when she started sleeping over at my house, she asked that her older brother stay at the house as well. I believe he slept in the living room. I had no such requests being older, and an only child.

She lived in a two (three?) story cabinish looking house in Saratoga. Her room was on the lowest level, you had to take stairs down from the living room. At one point, I think she fell down those stairs - I wasn't there at the time. One day, I remember, we saw a bug in the overhead light fixture in her room, so we decided the best thing to do was to get a broom and jump on the bed with the broomstick handle hitting the light cover until it broke. Why, I'll never know. Children do crazy things like that when they're young.

I do recall playing a lot of some sort of Sesame Street board game while having Disney's Pinocchio on in the background. Her backyard extending into the woods behind the house. It was altogether pretty rocking.

But when she was four, her parents got divorced. Her mom stayed in Saratoga, her dad moved to northern San Jose. At some point, B got really interested in horses, and her mom shared her interest.

So B started going to a stable a lot. And often times I would go with her. This formed pretty much my only encounter with horses.

My mom is not a fan of horses. Before I was born, she had been kicked by one. She was always wary of me visiting the stable. I had to promise to wear a helmet and such.

B eventually bought a horse, an Appaloosa. Often I would just watch her ride, and I definitely went to more than one of her shows. I was envious of her beautiful ribbons, but never actually had interest in doing anything horse related myself.

I'm almost finished reading "Animals in Translation" by Temple Grandin and it is so interesting. Lots of insight about horses and things. Stuff I wish I'd known when I had more contact with animals.

I still can't say horses particularly interest me. I love all animals, but horseback riding has always been right on the edge of scary for me (lack of total control), plus it always makes my butt hurt.