I'm such a fool for sacrifice

"You need not leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. You need not even listen, simply wait, just learn to become quiet, and still, and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice; it will roll in ecstasy at your feet."
~~Franz Kafka (from the Fourth Octavo Notebook, 1918)

Hey, after years now, I finally revisited the Elysium Suites and they're still there! I--



--oh.

No, that's okay, we're past that. I got the message.

you say we're just friends
but friends don't know the way you taste

Though I am still occasionally receiving hammer shots between the eyes from other areas. Well, part and parcel, I guess. And that is a part of it.

But, let's talk horses. I know, not my usual topic, but...since someone went out of their way to track down a certain horse coat...



May I present Absinthe?



So, for whatever reason, when I was given the horse, my naming conceit started with alcohols. The first horse I rigged out was Ardbeg (which I named for the color of the spirit, not the shade of the bottle), followed by Glenfiddich (which, at least in my experience, is lighter in tone), Mezcal (because I had a buff coat as well as a significant life event around Mezcal, which I am not going to talk about, other than to say, yes, apparently eating the worm does cause mild hallucinations)...and then...I had to think.

At some point I will find a suitable blue Paint that will be Bombay, because gin is my first true love, let's be honest, but...I still wanted an absinthe.

The only 'green' skin I could find on the grid--that wasn't an Aprille Fools' Day jest on a frog--was very, very pale. But I finally shrugged, figured it was the best I was going to get, and put together Sazerac (which, if you make it with rye, turns out slightly reddish, but if you substitute Glenfiddich and leave out the Angostura, does turn out to be a pale, lemonish-green.



So that sort of worked, but...still no dark green skin.

And then...I received a gift. This skin is called "Absinthe" of course, at least the version I have. Ms. Darkwinter Magic of The Celtique Stallion made it, and I was told it should be up on her Marketplace store in the next few days, if it's not up now.

He's wearing with it the Teeglepet Running Braid Mane, and the Teeglepet Lace Braided Tail, both from REIN for the Hanoverian, which is the base horse. (Though I did color-tint them from the White Shade tone, to an olive, to better match the coat.) Also the TEEGLE Kokiri eyes from Tutto è Vanità & SharkBox. And the tack's also from REIN, their TeeglePet Elegant Saddle and the TeeglePet English bridle, both for the Hanoverian.

I won't lie--this is just about the single most expensive hobby I've ever been involved with in SL, and that counts shopping for both evening gowns and period-accurate Viking attire at stores that routinely start at L$500 per gown, but...well, I'm having fun?

And let's be honest, really--I have a couple different saddles now, I have a couple bridles, I have a few coats for both realism and just pure fun, so--at least from this point, it's pretty much mix and match? Absinthe was the horse that was going to have the most customization, because it turned out to be a shade that did not exist on the grid...until now.



And this is his long-suffering look when I steer him off the path into the weeds. He gives me this look a lot. But I'll get better!

And of course, the sim is Teegle's Equestrian Acres, which is actually a set of three rideable, conjoined sims, steeplechases, roads and riding trails. It's not the easiest to get around if you're just going for the trails, because they are HEAVILY invested in switchbacks? But if you don't mind mixing it up between your horse on cobble and your horse on packed earth, you're gold here.