Horses, Bean Salads and Best Friends

I've spent most of my spare time over the past few days studying, and I decided to take a break today and go groom Dave. Something about the smell of horses just calms me down, and Dave is great to talk to when stressed. He listens quite nicely, leans into the curry brush, and half closes his eyes and sighs when you start on him with the dandy brush. Best of all, once you're done, he turns around and just rests his nose against your chest and breathes. It makes me feel like all really could be right with the world.
Of course, spending time with horses usually leads me to thinking about my best friend back home.

Twitters (the nickname I saddled her with when I was about 12) and I have known each other for around 15 years now. We both went to the same school (though she was a grade behind me) and our little sisters had met and become friends. On one of their play-dates, we happened to start talking and realised that not only were we both horse crazy, we were both just a little bit crazy, period. I can't remember the first time we hung out together, and I can't remember when I first started thinking of Twitters as my best friend, but I do remember how much fun we've had.

There was the treefort incident, where we painted the inside and then leaned over the wet paint to do the outside (somewhere there's a really charming picture of us coated in brown paint), and the time I fell into the giant ditch in their front yard. There were the frantic mornings when I'd wake up to see snow outside, as well as a neat row of snowballs on our fencepost, signaling her already prepared ambush. After the ambush, we would sled down the hill at the end of the street, towed by her dog, BJ. There were the endless summers of swimming at the lake, eating salmonberries and dumping each other off the converted surfboard we'd paddle like a canoe. There was the time we figured out we could see each other from our kitchen windows if the trees weren't in bloom, the light was just right, and we jumped up and down waving like crazy.

Best of all though was the horse stuff. We took a riding camp together one summer, and we are still talking about that one week as if it were yesterday. On our third day at the camp my horse tried to take a jump without my consent and I fell off. When I managed to get back on my feet, Twitters was right there. "You went into a perfect three point position before you fell!" she cried. "Really?!" I said, "Cool!!"

We spent hours creating our dream stables using her extensive collection of toy horses. We would build miniature dioramas on her front lawn while having serious discussions over the amount of necessary shade, spacing and types of feed we would use. We'd grab all the free horse magazines from the tack shop and then pore through them and call all the ads for free stuff. Free leg wrap samples, complimentary product guides, more free horse magazines. We didn't really need any of it, just as I didn't really need the hoof pick she gave me as a present one year, but that didn't mean I loved any of it less. I still have the hoof pick.

When we were teenagers, we both got a job at the local petting zoo. The owner couldn't tell us apart, not because we looked similar, but because what one knew, the other knew too. Any job or task I was capable of, so was she, and as far as staffing was concerned, we were pretty well interchangeable. We were dubbed "Weiner" and "Turkey" (though who was which varied) and often simply referred to as "Double Trouble". We transferred our horse obsession (which was sorely lacking in real, live horses to feed it) to the goats at the farm, and soon became the goat goddesses. We could name any of the 30-odd goats, name their siblings, mothers, and how old they were at a glance. When the goats were stampeded up to their barn at night and needed to be separated back into their individual family units, we were the best. Goat sorting could take 20-30 minutes for most people, but we could do it in 10. We were (and still are, I think) quite proud of this.

A few months before I moved away Twitters invited me over for lunch. She's an amazing cook, so I was excited when she said she was making something special that she wanted to teach me. It turned out to be a fantastic bean salad that even I couldn't mess up, and I've made it at least every month since I've moved. I made it today, right after I got home from grooming the horse, and all of it has made me miss her a lot.
So, Thank you Twitters! For sharing my animal obsession, for the bean salad recipe, and most of all for being my best friend.


Twitters' Bean Salad
(I've slightly adjusted the original ingredients, but that's the magic of this salad...just add what you want, leave out what you don't!)
1 can wax beans
1 can green beans
1 can chick peas
1 can baby corncobs
1 can black beans
1 can kidney beans
1 tomato, chopped
1 red onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, coarsely chopped

mayo
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
pepper
cumin (lots!)
cilantro, coarsely chopped


Chop onion and place in a small container with some balsamic vinegar. Shake well and let sit for an hour or so to take some of the bitterness out of the onion.
Drain the canned ingredients and rinse well under cool water to remove excess canning water. Pour into large bowl and stir gently. Add onion.
In a smaller bowl, mix together mayo, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, pepper and cumin. This part is to taste, and you want to have enough to cover all of the beans without making it too sloppy.
Pour the dressing into the bean mixture, stirring til entirely covered. Add tomato and cilantro. Serve.