Hold Your Horses

The gift of vacation is time. Time to call up all those old parts of yourself that have been sitting by the phone wondering when you’ll stop being so busy. The one willing to sit down to Chopin’s Impromptu and play a couple of measures for fifteen minutes to see if such a monster piece is within my reach. The one out riding a bike without an errand at the other end. The one who starts thinking about cooking something new for dinner. You get the idea.

Without a head full of class plans and a reduced to-do list, fun, quirky thoughts pop into my head and I have the leisure to follow them. Like while locking up my bicycle, I thought about people tying up their horses in the old West to go into the saloon. What would stop anyone from just taking off with their horse? Did they tie secret knots that only the initiated could untie? Use leather that knives couldn’t cut? Train their horse to kick and whinny? Pay some kids to watch their horses? (And just how would the kids fight off the bad bandit?). Is that where the phrase “hold your horses” comes from?

I called a kid “the cat’s pajamas” the other day and wondered, “Hmm. What’s the story behind that?” Apparently flappers (those hip young Charleston dancer-types) in the 1920’s were called cats and pajamas were the new, cool thing on the scene, so it made a little sense. But what about “the bees knees?” Even Wikipedia doesn’t know.

And so my summer begins, from the intricacies of Chopin to horse security to the knees of honey-gatherers. It’s gonna be a great few months!

PS I guess I betrayed my age above. People don't sit by their phone anymore since it's with them 24/7.