This That and The Other Thing

A Jedi sleeping with his light saber.

We love living in Southern California, I am noticing, however, that since Temecula is a “planned” city, it is clean, sterile almost. It’s trying. The Old Town attempts to give some quaintness to the area. It has shops worth browsing, some restaurants that are reasonable. There is a hotel for sale in Old Town that is 150 years old.

Daughter Darling and I were quite attracted to that hotel and spent hours cleaning it up—in fantasy. We tore out everything but the external shell—I like the exterior—reminded me of a New Orleans hotel, the entrance right off the street, upper deck, back patio. It would make a great “Wedding Place” with its 100 year old Wisteria arbor in the back yard—brought over by covered wagon we were told. That’s a must keep, the antiques that abound in the house, in my opinion, have to go. It is on an acre of land, and has river frontage. I imagined keeping a Belgian draft horse there in a stable—it has to be magnificent, of course, along with a carriage for the Wedding couple if they are into that sort of thing. Wouldn’t visiting children love petting one of those big magnificent horses? We just need a financier.

I just read Honey, Rock, Dawn, a blog by Shreve Stockton, The Daily Coyote girl, that girl is a marvel, takes photos like an angel, writes like a dream. She is spending the summer in the mountains of Wyoming, off the grid, taking her animal family with her—Charlie, the coyote, and others. People resonate with her for claiming wilderness and freedom for herself—imagine being in awe every moment.

When I read of her boyfriend’s horse passing away I became sad again, hoping “my” horses are doing well and are being well taken care of. When she told of riding her horse Ranger in the snow, and the different gait he used, and the snowflakes hitting her flushed cheeks on the way home and closing her eyes and letting Ranger fly. I thought once again of Boots my childhood horse. One morning long ago—I wrote of it in It’s Hard to Stay on A Horse While You’re Unconscious, so if you read it forgive me—it was one of those times out of childhood emblazoned in memory. A foot or more of snow had fallen during the night. My dad couldn’t deliver the newspapers—he did that for his Mom on Sunday mornings—to the last couple of people on the hill above our house. He asked me to deliver them on Boots.

The morning brisk air, the horse excited and prancing beneath me, me sitting bareback and feeling his warmth, the footsteps giving that muffled scrunch scrunch as his hooves compacted in the snow, the air sparkling with frozen droplets—Boot’s dance, his breath in exhaled clouds, tiny ice crystals brushing my face, us being the only creatures out that morning, and our footsteps being the only ones marking the new fallen show.

Wow, that cooled me from the 100 degree heat we’ve been having.