Maria has a cough. She has laryngitis and the flu. She snores and hacks the whole night through, so that when I ask George how he slept he replies, “Ach, Maria keeps me up za whole night vis her coughing and snoring. She ran out of gas early zis morning, so I slept only a little zen.” The stalwart, staggeringly busy woman manages to get everything done regardless of her ill health, but has a terrible time making herself understood at markets and has an even worse time at her play practices (she lip-synced everything on Monday). She’s curing herself with honey and blackcurrant jam. While I have my reservations about the medicinal properties of honey and jam, I’m sure they taste marvelous.
This One has a cough. She huffs and wheezes and snorts for the first forty-five minutes of every ride; but like George, This One does not complain. If asked to pick up the pace, she’ll perk up, work through the cough, and do everything she can to keep less than a length behind Leetie. Not only does she not complain, she thoroughly enjoys every second spent in a nippy canter. I love how much she loves to run. This One is powerfully built, has boundless stamina, and has the time of her life whenever I move into two-point position and cue a canter. But the cough is bad enough that George has decided to let her rest and recoup for a few days. I’m dismayed by this turn of events because This One and I were finally starting to develop a mutual trust that made riding out brilliant fun. Alas, until the wheezing stops, I’ll have to ride Leetie. Whom I do not trust at all.
Leetie is a brat. A big, pushy, expensive, beautiful, well-bred brat who still aims her rear end at me when I go to take off her blanket, and nips me in the ass when I tighten her girth. I am not thrilled at the prospect of riding out Leetie alone. George is aware of my preference for This One and he agrees with me that This One is a bit more honest than Leetie. Whenever we turn the horses out to pasture, he says, “You take your darling, and I take za bitch.”
The ride on Sunday was lovely and just the right length. The ride on Monday was far too long (we went and got ourselves good and lost in the woods), and my knees and inner groin muscles are still griping from the excessive use. The ride today was far too short, as we had to stop early due to sad, coughing horses. After the ride, I cleaned the stables as quickly as I could, and then hopped in the car with Maria to follow along in another hunt. We arrived early enough to see all the riders coming together and the hounds released from their box.
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| Releasing the hounds |
Maria and I followed the Field in her jeep just like before, hopping out and running behind when the Field left the road. Once again, I was quite impressed with Maria’s stamina when it comes to racing through fields of soggy grass and mud. You can really tell just how much she enjoys the event. In George’s words, “She is mad about it.”
The fox managed to outwit the hounds and hunters yet again, leading them all on a merry chase through the mud. I don’t think the Field has managed to actually catch a fox yet – and there have been four or five Meets already. Fox hunting doesn’t really seem to be about killing the fox, though – thank goodness. It’s much more about the chase and the obstacle course that the fox cleverly designs.
I mentioned in a post a good while back that I was getting tired of the kitchen. I considered telling Maria that I was absolute crap so that she wouldn’t even let me touch a pan during the length of my stay here. That already timid resolve lasted until we got to the butcher’s shop on the way back from picking me up from the bus stop in Tipperary. Seeing all that lovely meat she was loading her bag with, I immediately, uncontrollably spurted, “I adore cooking, so if you ever need any help with anything in the kitchen, just let me know.”
And she did.
I’ve been able to cook the most scrumptious, meaty dishes during my stay here. I’ve made a lovely lamb casserole, lamb shanks with a mint/mascarpone sauce, a pork belly ragout, several zucchini boats, crispy chicken, stuffed peppers, jerusalem artichoke soup, frittatas, and many more random side dishes. It’s a curse. I see a kitchen and I feel an instantaneous longing to put something into the oven. A longing that will not diminish until the whole house smells like garlic and onions and there’s not a spare dollop more of crème fraiche to be found.
George and I talk a lot. I’m learning more from George than I’ve ever learned from one human being in such a short span of time. We seem to be establishing our own little routine on Maria’s market mornings -- which involves George waking up from his nap as soon as I finish cleaning the stables, checking his blood sugar, and telling me stories from his very full life. He’s a extraordinary storyteller, weaving in and out of his complicated past in the honest, simple, straightforward manner of a man who truly knows himself and is still happy with who he is in spite of this knowledge. I hear about his experience growing up in Austria during the Second World War – how despite America’s many shortcomings, he will always be grateful to them because they saved his family from starvation with their care packages. He says that he still remembers the taste of the pineapple rice in his care package. It was the first rice George had ever eaten, and he relishes the taste of rice to this day.
In the middle of one conversation, George pulled a piece of paper from his windowsill and began to doodle. He continued to talk about his life as he doodled, and I learned about his experience as a skiing instructor and a scuba diver.
At which point he turned the doodle toward me and said,
“Did I not tell you zat I also studied art in Vienna for sree years? Zen I discovered zat I had no talent. Zis is a self-portrait. Zis is George.”
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