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Happy Birthday, "Cynnamon"
[Jan. 24]

Copyright Jim Willis 2003
http://www.crean.com/jimwillis

There isn't anyone who knows me who doesn't know that I am owned by a horse, an Egyptian Arabian mare I call "Cynnamon," who will be 15 years old tomorrow. It was a great surprise, and no surprise, when I discovered that her birthday is the day after mine. Cynnamon is still a teenager and I just think I am.

Cynnamon and I have now shared five years together, five busy, emotional, sometimes gut-wrenching years, when I didn't know where I was going, or where the next turn in the path would lead. Cynnamon just continues going wherever she likes. I remember being invited on a trail-ride with her by two would-be cowboys on their Quarter Horses. It had rained the day before and there were large mud puddles, and when we came to a long, flat stretch, they suggested we gallop. I learned several things that day. That Cynnamon hates puddles, so she jumps them; that I should've worn my contact lenses, because my eyeglasses were bouncing up and down on my nose to the point that I couldn't even see the tree branches coming at me; that a neoprene saddle girth expands with heat, so I was standing up in the saddle, throwing my weight from stirrup to stirrup in order to keep the saddle on the horse, and the horse between me and the ground. And that Cynnamon would rather kill me than to ever lose a race. It was the most embarrassing display of equestrianship you never saw, but we still arrived back at the barn ten minutes ahead of the rest of them.

Every year, I do something special and silly for her birthday. Two years ago, I decided - the man who can barely thread a needle - that I would use one of her storebought blankets as a pattern and handmake her a new blanket. I got some beautiful blanket fabric and hand-sewed for days. I even learned how to do a blanket-stitch with yarn around the edges. Damn, it's a pretty blanket...only problem was, when I put it on her it was several sizes too small. (Someday, I'll donate it to a little horse who needs a handmade blanket.) She just gave me that look and accepted a bunch of apples, carrots, and candy canes as the price for not making more of it than she should have.

A friend recently gave me a book of treat recipes for horses and other species. Tonight, I'm going to try the apple-bran-cinnamon muffin horse treats. Just in case I screw up, I have a large supply of apples, carrots, and candy canes on hand. Cynnamon will nuzzle me and smack her lips as she does over any treat she likes (and there's no such thing as a treat she doesn't like), and let me kiss her on her velvet muzzle, and she'll tolerate the tears in my eyes, because she was always and will always be more than a horse. She is the fulfillment of my boyhood dreams and my daily reminder that we are both still teenagers.

Happy Birthday, "Cynnamon."

Jim

Copyright Jim Willis 2003 - Used With Permission

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