Giddyup
Channeling their inner pony
"How about you, Tinny?" Ann asks. "How's your purple harness coming along?"
"Fine. I'm also getting shoes shaped like hooves so I don't flare my fingers out. Master Michael smacks me for that," Tinny says.
"As he should," Ann says.
"I am interested in riding ponies," says a portly Japanese man.
Ann looks him over. "I don't think I can carry you. But you never know, there may be a big, buxom pony who comes along," she offers, consolingly.
"I understand," says the man. "Maybe I can lose weight by then."
When the weekend arrives, a dozen ponies chase the fox through a glen and over a creek. The fox is a lithe, redheaded 20-year-old woman in a bodysuit with a real foxtail knotted around her waist.
"Watch out. There's a bunch of costume weirdos out there," a park ranger says to anyone within earshot. Campers scratch their heads. Mountain bikers do double takes.
Pippa's trainer is an older woman named Raffi, who keeps her pony life secret. Whenever she meets her society friends for brunch, and they talk about their actual real-life ponies, Raffi is afraid she'll accidentally mention her own pony.
To earn Pippa's trust, Raffi "captured" Pippa in a big ceremony with other horses running around in a circle. "She is my pony," says Raffi in a protective way. "I own her. She is a real horse."
The human horses prance about and neigh and butt against each other in the sunshine. One trainer begins to brush her pony's hair, and another trainer pops pieces of carrot into his pony's mouth, at which point someone remarks that horsing around really is such a nice way to spend a spring day.
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