March 18, 2005 - From Ms. Mary to S:
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So Giddyup came home with me. He fit across the back seat and I used both seat belts (shoulder straps) to hold him in place so he wouldn't tip over and could see out the side window across the wide open spaces of the desert. (My sister had stored him in her garage with a blanket over him.) When we walked into the apartment, he looked up at the menagerie on the bookshelf and said, "Hi, I'm Giddyup. I used to be foot-loose and fancy-free. Now I'm just foot-free and fancy." I held up the part of his left hind leg that needed to be reattached. All the eyes on the bookshelf were round in wonder. And then I heard a deep rumbling sound that seemed to roll around the room. It was a happy sound, no doubt, but one I had not heard before. My eyes got round in wonder. It was Patriot Bear SIR -- it was a belly laugh -- he's never done that before -- it was wonderful!! Needless to say (but I'm saying it because I promised to make a short story long), Patriot Bear SIR and Giddyup have the same sense of humor and have appreciated each other tremendously.
Since this is the first horse to join the menagerie, he was an object of curiosity. Mr. Vegas looked at him and said, "He looks just like me but he doesn't have any purple stripes." To which Basha replied, "You look just like him but you have stripes." And Patriot Bear SIR said, "Vegas is a horse of another color," and he and Giddyup thoroughly enjoyed the humor in that! After which, Vegas made it clear that he is a little purple zebra, NOT a horse of whatever color.
I set up Giddyup and his pole in front of the bookshelf so everyone could get acquainted. During the day, the menagerie folks took turns going for rides on the rocking-horse-turned-carousel-horse, and they shared every horse saying in existence . . . and may have made up a few. "Horsing around" was the general favorite, and "I'm a little hoarse" was Patriot Bear SIR's personal contribution to the list.
Giddyup arrived here on a Sunday evening. The following Thursday evening, I removed the bows and the leaves and the flowers. I saved the little gold buckles from the bows and glued (cold Elmer's, not a hot-glue gun) them over the holes from his rocking horse experience. I bought some gold tassels to hang from the buckles. When the menagerie approved of Giddyup's new look, we moved him out into the fresh air on the patio. I had a gold tinsel rope from Christmas that we wrapped around his pole. He guards the gate and watches people go up and down the stairway on the other side of the gate. When I have coffee out on the patio, I bring someone out with me to sit on Giddyup for a little while so he doesn't get lonely. We have agreed that the medium-sized green ball on the top of Giddyup's pole needs to be replaced with a large gold ball, but we haven't quite figured out how to do it yet. I talked to my sister this morning and got a few ideas.
I am so glad this surprise wasn't a stupid storage unit that had to be left at the Phoenix thrift shop. We have really enjoyed getting to know our foot-free and not-so-fancy-any-more Giddyup.
So ... hello from my menagerie to yours.