OMG more books

Have successfully raided the used bookstore and come home with loot. I'm slowly building up my Heyer collection, since buying the newly reprinted ones is a little spendy. So today I came home with Cotillion, Lady of Quality, Sylvester, and Pistols for Two.

I also came home with a few Gothics from the sixties, including one that claims "surpasses Mary Stewart and Victoria Holt." I highly doubt that this person, Anne Maybury, can outdo Mary Stewart, but I'm curious to read it anyway. It's called The Terracotta Palace and the back blurb reads, "Where is Vanessa Malimbrosa? Juliet Holdroyd wants to know...and nothign the very strange, very rich Malimbrosa family can do will keep her from the twisted truth hidden in a fabulous villa in Rome." Oooh, fabulous villas in Rome containing twisted truths are right up my alley.

The other two Gothics I got are Ride A White Dolphin, also by Anne Maybury, set in Venice (squee!) and Midsummer Masque by Jill Tattersall. Midsummer Masque involves a young orphaned and penniless woman working as a companion for an old lady living on a mysterious estate called Gryphons. Hurrah for Gothic conventions! Of course, there's a murder and secrets and shadows - all properly indicated on the back cover blurb.

Currently, I'm finishing up a very good book Bemo got me for Christmas - one I'd been hoping for and was tickled pink to get. It's titled Magnifico: The Brilliant Life and Violent Times of Lorenzo de' Medici by Miles J. Unger. I have quite a lot of Medici books around thanks to my Italy obsession, and any student of art history naturally gets to know the family quite a bit, but this is one of the better books I've read on the subject. For one, Unger is an art historian, and I appreciate the sensitivity with which he writes about the Medici relationships with art and artists. Secondly, he's neither a slavering Medici apologist (although he is, naturally, sensitive to his subject) nor a writer who judges Lorenzo from a modern, American standard. Rather, he does his best to show the reader the type of society Lorenzo lived in and moved through, as well as what his political aims and ambitions were. It's not as acholarly as it might be, and since there's probably an book to be written about each of Lorenzo's facets this book does have some topics which aren't gone into thorougly, but it's an engaging read about a man who, even after all these centuries, embodies his time period so perfectly.

Horses (and musings thereof)

This is Jake, the one and only horse I've ever owned.

I grew up a typical horse-crazy kid, fueled mostly by all the horse books I read - Black Beauty, all the Black Stallion books, everything Marguerite Henry ever wrote, and loads more besides. Since we were frequently living in Virginia in-between my dad's overseas assignments, I got to take riding lessons for various lengths of time, at stables that ranged from posh establishments to busy barns with cranky older horses that had seen it all and done it twice. When overseas, I frequently ended up taking lessons at the local Polo Club, like in Singapore, where I rode in my one and only gymkanah. And in Manila, I got to own Jake, largely because the costs of keeping a horse in the Philippines were managable. (His boarding costs included a groom, for example.)

Jake was a trail horse that belonged to the stable at Clark Air Force Base. After Mt. Pinatubo erupted, the base was closed and all the horses sold off. My dad bought Jake (then named Fred) and I stabled him among the generally far more swanky horses that were housed at the Polo Club. (I was told, although I have no memory by whom, that he had actually been a top-level show jumper at one time.) I had absolutely decided that when I met my new horse, I would rename him Gimmick, because that was the name I had been hoping to bestow on my very own horse for years now. But the moment I laid eyes on him, I knew his name was Jake. At the age of 21, he wasn't much interested in jumping anything anymore, although occasionally we'd pop over a low set of crossrails, just because it made me feel like I was doing something. And once, I took him out alongside the polo field - his ears popped forward and he took off into a gallop. I don't know how I managed to stay on, but I did, and eventually got him slowed up after a couple of heart-pounding seconds, but he pranced all the way back to the barn like he had just won the Grand National. Mostly we stayed in the covered arena, where I dragged up every half-assed bit of the stuff they teach you before they start teaching you dressage (half-circles and diagonals) and he pretended to listen to my cues. I also loved grooming and bathing him, much to the bemusement of the grooms, who were used to riders phoning ahead, having the horse saddled up and waiting for them, and then having the horse handed back as the rider hopped into their car (or into the club for a drink).

When we left the Philippines to come back home, I sold him to a wealthy Chinese girl who, like me, essentially wanted a big pet to lavish love on. By the time I said my goodbyes, she had already bought him a new leather halter with a brass name plate, and super-fancy bell boots.

I was never really a good rider. (It's one of the jack-of-all-trades skills that I'm always complaining about - I can still saddle and bridle a horse if needed, but I'm sure if I got on, I'd be wobbling all over the place.) I took lessons at intervals that were just too long; every time I restarted I found myself relearning things I had, once upon a time, already known. Northern Virginia at that point didn't really have much of a "will shovel poop for lessons" culture, although I did it once, briefly. Also, even when I was taking lessons regularly, I wasn't exactly a star pupil. I would get anxious if the instructor was a yelly type, and get all twitterpated about if I heard the instructions correctly, and was I doing it right at all, and I'm going to make an ass out of myself in front of all these other people. So aside from a trail ride here and there, and a stint as a volunteer at a therapy riding stable (where my sister currently is doing good work as a volunteer coordinator), I haven't been around horses in over a decade. And I miss it terribly. And now, at the weight I'm at, I'd need to find a good sturdy draft cross to tolerate my newbie flailings.

I miss it so much. On the occasions where the instructor and I clicked, and I found myself doing things well, and the horse and I were talking to each other and there we were, popping over those jumps - that connection felt so blissful. Or even Jake and me, bumming around with me talking to him and his ear flicking back to listen to me, just hanging out together. I miss that a lot, sometimes - the smells and the sights and the sounds. I want to go back.