Due to popular demand in these trying times, I re-post Meemselle, in one of my most self-revelatory and deprecating blog posts.
https://meemselle.wordpress.com/2017/06/29/equestriennes-of-the-apocalypse/
Have I ever mentioned that I am terrified of horses? Well, I am. They’re just so…..big. However, in an attempt to leave my sorrows and losses in a deep ditch and to conquer my fears, I decided that I would at least once ride a horse. With my dear friend Karyn as my duenna, I have finally, Gentle Readers, accomplished this feat. And I have a Few Words to say about it.
Karyn had arranged a sunset riding tour along the beach in Puerto Plata through a wonderful company called Rancho Salvaje run by Sylvie Raes. Big shout out to Sylvie and her crew. They picked us up in front of my apartment in Sosúa, right on time, and we proceeded to Puerto Plata to pick up another group of people who were rounding out the tour. It was a very short hop over to Playa Dorada, where the tour was to commence.
Waiting for us there was a herd of thundering beasts and a very patient guide named Ramón. Everyone except me had had some previous equine experience. In true Dominican fashion, no waivers were signed.
This is only the beginning, and already I can see it’s going south fast. I was presented with my steed, and told to put one foot in the stirrup and swing the other one over. I looked at the height of the stirrup, the height of the horse, compared it with the length of my legs and my own height (which is rather negligible) and said, “I cannot do this.” But taking no for an answer is not what this gig is about, so Ramón stuck my foot in the stirrup, and suddenly there are hands all over my ass and I am being hoisted atop this massive animal.
Suddenly my legs are spread wider than they have been in a very, very long time and I am sitting on leather.
Sylvie tells me to pull what I believe are called “reins” to the left to make the creature turn left, and right to make the creature turn right, and to pull hard–but not too hard–to make it stop and to make clicking noises to make it go faster. I know that none of these things are going to apply to me, as I have opted to let Ramón just pull this massive beast along with a rope. I am clutching the knobby thing on the saddle, which I later learn is called the “horn.” More on that in a bit.
I am second in line, right behind Ramón, while my erstwhile friend Karyn is bringing up the rear and laughing at me so hard she can barely make a fist.
We are clopping along the beach and I am white-knuckling the horn. Within two minutes, my left knee (the one without any cartilage) begins to sing an aria of pain and suffering heretofore unknown in human history. Tears sprang to mine eyes, Gentle Readers, and you would have been hard-pressed to have found a more miserable redhead than I.
I tell myself to get over myself, which is pretty much my daily mantra anyway, but with a heightened degree of urgency. I try to imagine I am one of the brave settlers of the Sosúa Jewish colony and I am returning from Puerto Plata with much needed medicines for our community. I try channeling St. Meryl of Streep (something else I do on a fairly regular basis, as well) but this time riding a horse across Kenya in “Out of Africa.” I try looking down so I am not cognizant of how high up I am, but this makes me nauseous, and besides, I am seeing way too much good sea glass that I want to pick up for my friend who makes jewelry out of it, but I am mounted on this thundering behemoth and wild horses (haha) couldn’t drag me off it without help.
Suddenly, my fiery steed stops dead in his tracks. He’s circling around and I’m saying, “Don’t move. Don’t move. Please don’t move,” as the word “whoa” has failed me. Loyal Ramón slows his horse down and looks at me and says, “Horse make pee-pee.” Gives new meaning to peeing like a racehorse, I can tell you.
But if horses can poop while they walk, why do they have to stop to pee? Ridiculous animals.
Thus relieved, the blazing brute renews his rocking perambulation along this interminable stretch of sand. I remember that somebody told me you can have an orgasm riding a horse, which must explain “National Velvet,” so I decide this is perhaps the best distraction. Gingerly pressing closer to the horn, I concentrate with all my might on this.
Let me just say that it is impossible to fake an orgasm with yourself.
Finally, Faithful Ramón leads us off the beach and through tropical forest. One of the others in our group canters up to Ramón and asks when we’re going to be able to gallop. At these words, my heart drops down close to where my knee is still singing its aria of pain, and only upon hearing Ramón’s reply of “más tarde” does it resume its frenzied pounding back in my thoracic cavity.
We finally come upon our dinner destination, a shack on the beach called Restaurant Elvis. Many Dominicans are engaged in pretending to look busy or not, but since there is a fire and there are cooking smells, something must be going on.
This is the moment when I must dismount my equine torturer.
Ramón, who is nothing if not the kindest man on the face of the earth EVER, elects to remove me from my swift charger first. I must admit that getting down is easier than getting up, but isn’t that always the way.
The rest of the group dismounts in nearly synchronized precision, leaving only Karyn still astride, as she is laughing at me so hard it would be a mistake to move. Once she calms herself enough to sidle over to me, she looks me up and down and says, “You look like you just got off a horse,” as apparently I was standing there quite bowlegged, if you know what I mean. For my part, I was quietly reciting a Shehechiyanu for being back on terra firma, because the more firma, the less terra.
Things proceed apace and it turns out one is not required to gallop and for this I am supremely grateful. There was also a bit about taking the caballos into the water to cool them off after the gallop and then swimming bareback whilst clutching their manes, but even brave Karyn bailed on this. Plus, there was a lot of horse manure floating in the water……
SO: I can cross riding a horse off my list. I have done it. I will most likely never do it again.
Unless I can figure out that faking thing.
https://meemselle.wordpress.com/2017/06/29/equestriennes-of-the-apocalypse/
Have I ever mentioned that I am terrified of horses? Well, I am. They’re just so…..big. However, in an attempt to leave my sorrows and losses in a deep ditch and to conquer my fears, I decided that I would at least once ride a horse. With my dear friend Karyn as my duenna, I have finally, Gentle Readers, accomplished this feat. And I have a Few Words to say about it.
Karyn had arranged a sunset riding tour along the beach in Puerto Plata through a wonderful company called Rancho Salvaje run by Sylvie Raes. Big shout out to Sylvie and her crew. They picked us up in front of my apartment in Sosúa, right on time, and we proceeded to Puerto Plata to pick up another group of people who were rounding out the tour. It was a very short hop over to Playa Dorada, where the tour was to commence.
Waiting for us there was a herd of thundering beasts and a very patient guide named Ramón. Everyone except me had had some previous equine experience. In true Dominican fashion, no waivers were signed.
This is only the beginning, and already I can see it’s going south fast. I was presented with my steed, and told to put one foot in the stirrup and swing the other one over. I looked at the height of the stirrup, the height of the horse, compared it with the length of my legs and my own height (which is rather negligible) and said, “I cannot do this.” But taking no for an answer is not what this gig is about, so Ramón stuck my foot in the stirrup, and suddenly there are hands all over my ass and I am being hoisted atop this massive animal.
Suddenly my legs are spread wider than they have been in a very, very long time and I am sitting on leather.
Sylvie tells me to pull what I believe are called “reins” to the left to make the creature turn left, and right to make the creature turn right, and to pull hard–but not too hard–to make it stop and to make clicking noises to make it go faster. I know that none of these things are going to apply to me, as I have opted to let Ramón just pull this massive beast along with a rope. I am clutching the knobby thing on the saddle, which I later learn is called the “horn.” More on that in a bit.
I am second in line, right behind Ramón, while my erstwhile friend Karyn is bringing up the rear and laughing at me so hard she can barely make a fist.
We are clopping along the beach and I am white-knuckling the horn. Within two minutes, my left knee (the one without any cartilage) begins to sing an aria of pain and suffering heretofore unknown in human history. Tears sprang to mine eyes, Gentle Readers, and you would have been hard-pressed to have found a more miserable redhead than I.
I tell myself to get over myself, which is pretty much my daily mantra anyway, but with a heightened degree of urgency. I try to imagine I am one of the brave settlers of the Sosúa Jewish colony and I am returning from Puerto Plata with much needed medicines for our community. I try channeling St. Meryl of Streep (something else I do on a fairly regular basis, as well) but this time riding a horse across Kenya in “Out of Africa.” I try looking down so I am not cognizant of how high up I am, but this makes me nauseous, and besides, I am seeing way too much good sea glass that I want to pick up for my friend who makes jewelry out of it, but I am mounted on this thundering behemoth and wild horses (haha) couldn’t drag me off it without help.
Suddenly, my fiery steed stops dead in his tracks. He’s circling around and I’m saying, “Don’t move. Don’t move. Please don’t move,” as the word “whoa” has failed me. Loyal Ramón slows his horse down and looks at me and says, “Horse make pee-pee.” Gives new meaning to peeing like a racehorse, I can tell you.
But if horses can poop while they walk, why do they have to stop to pee? Ridiculous animals.
Thus relieved, the blazing brute renews his rocking perambulation along this interminable stretch of sand. I remember that somebody told me you can have an orgasm riding a horse, which must explain “National Velvet,” so I decide this is perhaps the best distraction. Gingerly pressing closer to the horn, I concentrate with all my might on this.
Let me just say that it is impossible to fake an orgasm with yourself.
Finally, Faithful Ramón leads us off the beach and through tropical forest. One of the others in our group canters up to Ramón and asks when we’re going to be able to gallop. At these words, my heart drops down close to where my knee is still singing its aria of pain, and only upon hearing Ramón’s reply of “más tarde” does it resume its frenzied pounding back in my thoracic cavity.
We finally come upon our dinner destination, a shack on the beach called Restaurant Elvis. Many Dominicans are engaged in pretending to look busy or not, but since there is a fire and there are cooking smells, something must be going on.
This is the moment when I must dismount my equine torturer.
Ramón, who is nothing if not the kindest man on the face of the earth EVER, elects to remove me from my swift charger first. I must admit that getting down is easier than getting up, but isn’t that always the way.
The rest of the group dismounts in nearly synchronized precision, leaving only Karyn still astride, as she is laughing at me so hard it would be a mistake to move. Once she calms herself enough to sidle over to me, she looks me up and down and says, “You look like you just got off a horse,” as apparently I was standing there quite bowlegged, if you know what I mean. For my part, I was quietly reciting a Shehechiyanu for being back on terra firma, because the more firma, the less terra.
Things proceed apace and it turns out one is not required to gallop and for this I am supremely grateful. There was also a bit about taking the caballos into the water to cool them off after the gallop and then swimming bareback whilst clutching their manes, but even brave Karyn bailed on this. Plus, there was a lot of horse manure floating in the water……
SO: I can cross riding a horse off my list. I have done it. I will most likely never do it again.
Unless I can figure out that faking thing.
