Sinuses suck. And blow.

One thing I learned not long after moving to Southern California from central Indiana: Santa Ana winds, those dry, hot, nasty fall gusts, guarantee my sinuses will be pounding my skull like ball peen hammers the next day (and the next, and then next...).  Gah, I can barely think straight now.  Yesterday, the throbbing was so excruciating I could barely read.  I'm not alone in this, so I'm sure many of you have been there, done that.  I have my Neti Pot, my pseudoephedrine (the real, meth-making kind--not that PE placebo crap), my heating pad, my ibuprofen, my sofa, and a three-day weekend that was supposed to include riding my horse. Dammit.

Instead, yesterday was nearly entirely consumed with attempting (and failing) to wrestle a sinus headache to the ground, and this morning was about waving the white flag and going to urgent care for antibiotics.  (I am NOT waiting until Tuesday and enduring two more days of this AUGH to do see my doc.)

But I reassure myself--Trilogy is a sane, well-broke gelding who has spent most of his life following the intense schedule of being an A-circuit showhorse.  His life before my purchasing him was a good one--he was well-fed, exercised, ridden, attended to--but he had not experienced being my horse, with all the intense personal care I throw at  my animals.

He hadn't been turned out in years.  He was never ridden outside an arena.  His life was stall, lunging, ride patterns in the ring, put back in stall.  The very first time I turned him out, he trotted circles around me in confusion; I realized, he was lunging himself.  But then I stepped out of the ring, and he looked at me in confusion before breaking out in galloping, bucking ecstasy.

Tril's first turnout in ?-years.  :)  

Right now, he is loving being turned out to graze on the small property, and then enjoying three different large arenas to turn out and play in ("Hey, what's this?  Someone left a mounting block in here?"  :::chomp::: :::drag::: :::push:::  *CRASH* "Who knocked that over?  Wasn't me.  I'm just over here turning on the sprinkler.  LA LA LA I saw nothing LA LA LA...")  He is bonding with me on the ground, and in the saddle, and I take a breath and realize...it's okay.  I want to ride, I have goals, I have things I want to do, but he is so well trained and so young, it's okay if he has some weeks of downtime.  He gets to enjoy being a horse, and I get to take drugs and lie on a couch and hope my sinuses stop trying to burst through my cheeks and eyebrows.

I'll be back with that chiro update sometime, I will, I swear.  It was really interesting.  Really!

But now, drugs and sofa and heating pad, please.