Another Year

I passed irrevocably into another year of my life last weekend. To celebrate, I spent the day with my favorite Iowa City companions - Brian and Steen.

this photo was not actually taken on my birthday, and it's already on Steen's blog, but it cracks me up so I'm posting it here, too

We let Cal hang out with us as well, and we went for a nice ride, followed by tea and a quiet afternoon, with much talking on the phone to family and friends not in Iowa City. One exciting feature of the day was a video call with my brother and his fiance Susie, who are currently in England.

we had a nice chat, the two of them on one end of the camera, Brian and me on the other

they even lit a candle for me, though in the end Susie had to help me blow it out

In the evening, Brian and I headed downtown for a lovely dinner. It was a pleasant evening and we enjoyed the walk and the food.

So, really, my brithday was mostly just like any other typical weekend day in the life of Robin. I suppose it says good things about my life that I find it difficult to think of any other kind of day I could enjoy more.

Almost Frosty

Late last week a huge late-fall storm rolled in and blew all the pretty leaves off the maple in our neighbor's yard. This has done a lot to change the feel of the study. It's looking increasingly wintry out the window.

I find myself actually looking forward to the next season this year. I am anticipating skiing again, and even the glacial simplicity of winter rides at the barn hold a certain appeal. I kind of enjoy the change to fluffy horse-hair and bareback rides, and working on little, refined things that won't cause Steen to break a sweat.

A few weeks ago I went to the Orthoptics Clinic due to the eye-problems I was having, and when the doctor stepped out for a few moments I chatted with the resident. She told me she had just moved to Iowa City and was already certain the winter would be horrible. I gave her my advice - get out in the cold, do something in it to get your blood pumping, and you will adjust. She looked at me with great skepticism and said, "I'm an indoor girl."

What can you do for these people?

Finally

I generally like to think of myself as the sort of person who finishes what I start, but I must admit so far my track record for this summer's projects has not been so great. The blinds, for instance, hit a number of big snags after I got the first one up. Mainly, all of my attempts to cut the second piece of music wire I bought to weight the bottom of the blind failed miserably and ended, eventually, in the temporary maiming of both my hands. So I gave up and put it off and put if off and then nearly two months later we still had mismatched blinds in the study.

I nursed my wounds, healed and returned to the music wire with new gusto and failed and failed and had my very strong husband try where I had failed and he also failed. Finally I decided to just hang the blind without the weight and revisit the weight issue later. So, yesterday I otherwise finished constructing the second blind, which took rather longer than it should have for two reasons. One, I'd completely forgotten much of what I did when building the first one and two, I sewed all the ribs to the wrong side of the blind the first time around.

Ah, home improvement projects are so wonderful.


But, they are up, anyway! They look fine raised. Now I just have to find a way to conquer the music wire and we'll be finished.

And in case you are wondering about my lack of posts here, do keep in mind I have two (yes, two!) other blogs. Steen's blog and my newly created, 100% professional BWS blog.

to the point

The Love of Place

Yesterday, I believe I fell in love with Iowa.

This was an interesting experience for me, because, until yesterday, I kind of thought of myself as a one-geographical-love kind of girl. I love the desert. Period. I always have, I always will. I told my sister years ago that if I die suddenly I want her to take her horse, Jak, out on my favorite trail, my ashes in some sort of recyclable container, and tell him to do his favorite thing - run. When he's running, take the lid off the container, and let me blow away in the wind.

I've lived in Iowa for years now, and though I have learned to like it quite a bit here, I've never exactly felt my heart would break if I had to leave, forever.

But yesterday I took Steen out for a light ride. We walked along, just the two of us, between a corn-field and a pasture dotted with horses. The leaves are just starting to change and the light was soft and warm on everything. Steen was relaxed, I was relaxed. The breeze was cool on my face but my core warm inside by dirty orange barn-vest. And then it hit me - the thought, "I love this."

It is hard to imagine two more disparate tableau's than Arizona and Iowa, but as I rode and took in the scene yesterday, I found my adoration for white sand, barbed thorns, and crinkly underbrush moving over to make room for rolling hills, the rustle of wind in corn, and the soft thud of horse-hooves on grass.

Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day

It seems one of the great injustices of life that during our childhood, when we are most likely to be greatly impressed by what we are exposed to, we have precious little control over the sorts of things we come into contact with. I, myself, will never say anything but that I had a positively magical childhood through which my two siblings and I waltzed largely unscathed by the sorts of concerns that touch most of the world. We grew up in sand and rock and cactus, limited in both our contact to the wider world and in our exposure to media.

Mainstream media, I can't help but feel retrospectively, makes pernicious use of the impressionability of young minds. When I was a child, I harbored a genuine belief that all human children needed to drink lots and lots of milk from cows simply to stay healthy. This belief came directly from the "Does a body good," milk campaign of the 80's. I can still hear the end notes of the jingle that accompanied a sequences of dancing children and cows ( suddenly bipedal, udders bared to the world), and the way that slogan was spoken in a quiet, cool voice as if as an afterthought. These images and sounds remain in my brain with perfect clarity, often unearthing themselves, unbidden, just because I happen to think about milk. It seems unfair, to say the least, that I should have to carry this inane, inaccurate view of the world with me, always, but that I cannot, in all truth, actually recall specifically the first time I rode a horse. Probably because my mother didn't think to provide me with a theme song and slogan to associate with the event, not knowing the heft that experience would lend to the rest of my life.

But a less pernicious association I can't get rid of also came from media exposure. When I was a kid we read a lot, watched a little TV, and listened to a fair number of stories on tape. In one of these mediums (yes, bizarrely I can't remember which) I encountered the story of Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day. I loved this story solely because of that word. Blustery. And the way the blustery wind took over everything else simply by virtue of its blusteriness. It was a new word to me, the first time I encountered the story. And a word that has stuck with me, since.

Now, on days like today, when it is chilly and I hear huge gusts of wind battering the outside of the house, that is what I think. Better stay inside, Pooh Bear, it's blustery out there.

When It Rains

The month of September in Iowa came close to setting records, weather-wise. It went weeks without raining.

This, while a fairly common occurrence in, say, Arizona, is next to unheard-of in the Midwest.

I, desert rat that I am, prefer days that aren't rainy to ones that are, and the dry weather came at a particularly convenient time for me, being that my horse has been laid up with a gigantic leg-wound all month. To be able to get through the bandaging stage without sogginess and mud in the picture was a huge help.

But the weather is sort of the only thing that's been cooperating. I can't help but feel I've had my own personal little storm-cloud of metaphorical gloom hanging over my head for months now, and it makes me remember what I said to my sister after my wedding. We were talking about how great it was that I married Brian, and I said something along the lines of, "I can't help but feel a little precarious. Things have been going to so well. It's like I'm waltzing through my own private field of magical flowers. It just doesn't seem like this can last."

I was right. It didn't. While Brian and I are still happily immersed in marital bliss, lately we have been sharing our quarters with a nasty flu bug. The summer has been riddled with bad health news in our families as well.

It's funny, how one takes good health for granted. I have been sick the last few days in a way I haven't been sick in years, and I had completely forgotten what it is like. It makes basic tasks impossible. For instance, I went to the drug store to buy a thermometer, and in wandering the aisles trying to find the thermometer area, I found myself continually having to stop and think, "Now, what am I looking for again?" Like, five times. In just a few minutes. I eventually had to ask someone to show me where they were. It was alarming and humbling, to see how much what I consider my innate level of competence was so thoroughly impaired by simply running a fever.

So, here's to good health. I'll appreciate it more in the future, both in myself and in those I value.