Day Eleven - Saturday

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JESS!

First of all, HAPPIEST OF 21ST BIRTHDAYS, JESS!!!

Today's post will be incredibly short, because it's just a list of things that I did with Jess for her birthday:

~ Shopping and walking around the upper part of the inner city

~ Getting ice cream before lunch

~ Hanging out down by Rio Tormes and walking in icy-cold water (and loving it)

~ Going home for lunch and homework and preparing for...

~ Going out to El Javi, O'Hara's, and Adagia for more ice cream and complimentary beers for the birthday girl

Needless to say, she had a fun birthday :D I enjoyed being her completely-sober chaperone!

SO MAD I COULD SPIT & A SATISFYING KIND OF DIRTY

A quick anecdote that will totally make it into the novel that I am in the process of planning and will subsequently begin writing...

Sometime after Jess and I finished up at the rio, we crossed the bridge that we were next to and walked along the opposite river bank on this paved bike path. It was really nicely shaded and very pretty -

Suddenly, there were two horses in a field next to the highway.

Those of you that know me well know that my first response when I see horses is to squeal like a five year-old and shriek “HORSES!!!!!!!!”, and then to continue with, “do you think that we can touch them/hug them/take them home?” After scaring Jess half to death with my sudden and alarming declaration of love for all things equine, I started walking through the field towards them. Quick geography lesson: we were along the river, over which there are several bridges. We were in a field right next to a major road and, thus, a major bridge. This field was close but not quite right next to the river, so getting to the only water supply was not impossible. Also, there were no trees in this field, so no natural shade sources.

So I got over to the horses, that surprisingly had not bolted away from me... and then I figured out why. Their front feet were chained together with a bolt-and-loop chain about a foot across to give them the ability to walk, but not run. Ditto lie down. Ditto anything else.

Oh, you think that's bad? It gets so much better.

After sputtering with rage, I check their feet out: they had clearly not seen a farrier in what looked to be at least the better part of a year – their hooves were overgrown and horribly cracked, so walking was probably excruciating for them. The white male had pretty much no tail, because it had been hacked off to the point where it changed from hair to solid bone mass (which for those of you that don't know equine anatomy, is about a foot from the tail base on their rears). The brown/black mare looked like she needed to be properly seen by a doctor, because her stomach was hanging a bit low and I wondered if she was pregnant (though with their feet chained up, can he get up to mount her? Probably not.) or if she had some kind of stomach problem going on... AND she was tied via her halter to a rock in the middle of the field so that she only had a limited amount of room to walk, as if the chains didn't do their job on top of that. Oh, and they both needed serious grooming and some TLC.

I rubbed them down with my bare hands as best I could to knock off some of the dirt and filth, swearing like a sailor at whatever (rude and horrid language here) person had put these innocent animals into this terrible situation, with complete disregard of their well-being and expecting them to just exist without the necessities for life. As best I could, I raked my fingers through their manes and tails and talked to them, which the mare seemed to really love. She kept rubbing her nose against me and looking at me. I was trying not to get all anthropomorphic on her, because her “please take me home with you” eyes almost worked on me. I was absolutely covered in dirt and other field-related filth, but it the most satisfying kind of dirty that I had felt in a very long time.

Needless to say, the next few hours were spent enraged at those poor horses' state of life. Over lunch, Pepita told me that they most likely belonged to gypsies and to avoid them as much as possible, because they were not nice people that could do some serious damage to me. I agreed to avoid the gypsies, but I couldn't get the horses out of my mind. Especially that sweet, brown-eyed mare...