I Love Trouble

This is Trouble!

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday (one day late!)

Good News, Bad News

I got good news and bad news today. I guess I will start with the bad news since that is what is weighing on my mind most. I found out from my mom that my 62 year old father is in the hospital. My first thought - and I found out my sister's as well - was "heart attack". My dad works on Wall Street and is probably the most stressed out, negative person I know (which is probably where I get it from). He should have retired 2 years ago, but obviously that is not the case, and he has just been miserable and constantly worried about his job these past several years.

I'm glad to report that he did not have a heart attack, but what he did suffer was a a cat bite. Yes, you read that right, a cat bite. A cat that my family took in three years ago escaped the other day and ran under the deck. My dad tried to pull him out and he bit him on the hand and gave him a nasty puncture wound that has gotten infected pretty badly. Apparently, cat bites are reallydangerous because they can be so deep. So word to the wise, beware of cat bites! What makes the story so strange is that this cat was the most docile, gentle thing ever. Elvis was an enormous cat, but he seriously wouldn't ever hurt a fly. My 8 1/2 pound ginger kitty chased him all around the house and he never once lifted a paw at him. I'm not sure what my family is going to do with Elvis. My mom has already said she's looked into a few no-kill shelters where she can surrender him. I'm not sure what my dad wants. He used to love Elvis, but I can't imagine he's too happy with him now after 4 days in the hospital. I called him this morning and he sounds pretty miserable. Apparently they don't get ESPN2 or the financial network on TV, which he is irate about. I hope the stronger antibiotics work and he is out of there soon! I hate thinking of my dad lying in the hospital.

The much happier news, which I was happy to share with my dad since he sounded so down, is that I finally got a bib/registration for the Ten Miler! I'm getting it from a milspouse down at Fort Hood, whose husband was MEDEVACed to the military hospital in San Antonio back in 2008. So when she found out that I wanted to run for Fisher House she jumped right on it. (Her husband is fine now, just set to deploy soon thus the selling of the registration). I'm SUPER excited to have this become official and cannot wait to officially join Team Fisher House, start raising money and increasing my mileage at the end of the month. Today is a strength training day so I think I'm going to bust out my EA Active and attempt to work with the resistance band a little. The boy has free weights, but they are a bit much for me as I'm just getting back into things. I'm thinking I might walk to the beach later since the sun is starting to come out. Really anything to avoid packing and facing the fact that I leave California in 5 days...

My Roomies

So I've been feeling a bit under the weather this week and the weather has been awful here in California so I've been having a lot of lazy time. I'm laying on the couch and watching Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmerman, one of my favorite Travel Channel shows, and thinking...what would make this lazy day even better? Then it came to me: my felines. I miss my cats! If I were home right now Hobbes would probably be stretched out across me right now and Journey would be curled on the blanket at the end of the couch. I can't believe it's been almost a year since I adopted them! I really only intended to get this little guy when I moved last August:



He was a cat marked "special needs" by the Humane Society 'cos he required a special and more expensive diet. He had been there for a couple months and they were starting to get doubtful he'd ever find a home. After visiting with him once I decided it was about time I had a ginger kitty in my life. As I was finalizing when I was going to pick him up, the woman from the Humane Society told me about another cat on the same diet. She was a black tuxedo, which made me hesitant as I had a tuxedo cat I loved dearly that I had put down the month before. I really only had plans to adopt a single cat, but then they went and told me that she had been at the Humane Society for over two years! I'm a huge animal lover and volunteered extensively while in grad school at the local SPCA. The adult cats and dogs who had been there for 6+ months always broke my heart and I always worked so hard to get the 'old-timers' adopted. Speaking of volunteering and helping out cats, a friend of mine has started up a blog for the strays in her area. Check it out! I don't know much about dealing with strays, but if you have any ideas for her (two of the cats are pregnant) definitely let her know.

Anyway, I went to their website and saw the picture of "Felicia" (I renamed her Journey) in her cage. This was her home for over 2 years:

Even though I said I wanted to meet her first, I knew I'd end up bringing her home and sure enough I did! She has plumped up extensively since that photo was taken a couple years ago and is quite the fat kitty now (though on her last visit she only weighed in at 12.5 lbs). They brought her and Hobbes (originally "Samson") to PetSmart and I just fell in love with both of them. And that's how my ginger kitty, Hobbes, and my big fat girl, Journey, came into my life. They can certainly drive me crazy (don't all roommates?), but they have been a wonderful addition in my life and I love coming home to them at the end of the day.

The Best Horse In the World

I found a couple places to horseback ride in the Monterey area and am hoping I can get onto a horse soon. JC and I were supposed to go to a San Francisco Giants-Mets game on my birthday next weekend, but I really want to go riding. We'll see. I miss being around horses so much. The horse that is in all those pictures in my last post is a horse that came to the ranch during my first winter out there. The ranch buys all its horses from auction and they often come to the ranch in less than perfect conditions. This horse, who I named Orangejello or Jello for short, was a real headcase. He clearly had suffered a pretty serious case of neglect, was pretty skinny and had the permanent mark of a halter on his head and was very head shy (did not like his head or ears touched at all). We think someone just put the halter on and left him out there. It kills me the way some people treat animals.

Anyway, when spring finally arrives at the Ranch there is sooo much stuff to do. We have to fix fence, clear trail, fix saddles, shoe and vaccinate the horses and all that. Well, I will never forget when Jello became my horse. On shoeing day, we have to tie all the horses up along the fenceline inside the corral. Jello untied himself about 4 times and was causing all kinds of trouble. By the end of the day they just had to turn him loose in the round pen. My boss pointed at him and just asked, “you want him?” Now how it works at the Ranch is the wranglers always end up with all the horses we can’t put guests on. Most of the “best of the worst” are already taken by the veteran wranglers. I wasn’t about to turn away what looked like a perfectly sound and athletic-looking horse.

See how athletic (if not always a little on the skinny side)?

So I took on Jello as my horse for the summer. He had a host of problems aside from his ability to untie himself and his issues with having his head and ears touched. He was a HUGE scaredy cat. He’d never seen buffalo or elk before (which we see ALL the time on rides). He’d never crossed water, never opened or closed a gate before, never been ridden bareback, never swam in the water. He was afraid of everything! Scary looking rocks, scary looking logs, scary looking holes in the ground. He was a serious head case. My kids (the teenagers I took out) took to calling him “Ronald” (like Ron Weasley from Harry Potter) ‘cos he was a redhead and a big scaredy cat. I just loved him to death though! I spent HOURS working with him on my lunch break, after work, on my day off. By the end of 2 years I turned him into a helluva trail horse and was so sad to leave him.

A sad, sad day...my last ever ride on him

I got to reunite with him briefly in 2008 on a drive cross-country and then again last year when I was out in Wyoming for my sister’s wedding. Unfortunately, that was the last time I ever saw him and, sadly, the last time I ever will. He had some issues with his new rider last summer and had a couple accidents and the Ranch deemed him a ‘dangerous horse’ and ‘liability’. So they sold him : ( . It makes me unbelievably sad. He taught me how to be a better rider and I’m so proud of what a great trail horse I turned him into. I know it’s silly, but I wanted to buy him one day. I hope he’s alive and happy wherever he is and has a new owner who is as patient with him as I was and appreciates what an awesome horse he is. He is a big scaredy cat, but if you build up a relationship with him he will do WHATEVER you ask him to. And believe me on the teen ride, I made him do some pretty crazy things! We race through the water, go swimming bareback, ride along cliffs like this, climb HUGE vertical mountains, go down crazy inclines. And if he trusts you, he’ll do it all and more. I know it’s stupid, but I feel like I let him down ‘cos I wasn’t there to vouch for him. If I were still there and continued to ride him I know they never would have gotten rid of him.

I miss you buddy! and hope you are fat and happy wherever you are!

Anti anti-Valentine's

As the inevitable Hallmark holiday draws nearer and every aisle from Kroger to K-Mart is filled with pink teddy bears and aisles full of heart-shaped candy boxes one would think I would be somehow sadder with JC on the other side of the country. I guess I should be more bummed out, but I'm not really. There's not really much to the holiday aside from delivering a Valentine and saying "Happy Valentine's Day". I have someone to say it to this year so I'm more than happy!

I didn't have anyone to spend Valentine's with for the longest time, but that never really bummed me out all that much. Holidays like Christmas and New Years - especially in recent years - were way worse to spend alone. I never hated Valentine's Day. I honestly don't really get people who rage about what an awful 'Hallmark holiday' is and how it makes single people feel miserable. I think it makes them sound bitter and very petty. Halloween and Christmas are just as commercialized as the 14th of February. My beef with Valentine's Day has more to do with the ridiculous things that stores sell than the holiday itself I just don't see the point in giving some of the things that are sold in stores. Does a fluffy pink gorilla holding a heart actually have any sentimental value? I really can't wrap my head around it. I don't think any of my silly high school students would buy half of the junk these stores sell. I suppose there must be demand for all the silly stuff or it wouldn't be in the stores, but man...I'm left scratching my head. If I got some of that stuff I don't think I could even feign excitement.

Back to my anti-anti-Valentine's rant. I don't love the holiday or anything, but I really don't think there's anything wrong with setting aside a special day (even if you do it every day) just to tell people you love them. Like I said, up until very recently I spent most of my Valentine's alone. It sounds lame, but I would just send Valentine's to my friends and family. In fact, my favorite Valentine's memory (aside from 10 minutes ago when I just opened JC's card) was my senior year of high school. I was in the goofiest ten-person AP bio class ever with a teacher who was the nicest/most laidback/clueless man ever. Quite spontaneously, we decided as a class the day before to have a Valentine's party. People brought in cupcakes, cookies and we exchanged those awesome Valentines you used to get in grade school. None of us were best friends, but we had a blast writing each other cards. Most said silly things like "you're the best at crossword puzzles!" or "thanks for dissecting the fetal pig for me!", but they all made us smile. I really think I might even still have one of the cards in between the pages of one of my yearbooks! Man, that was a great day. Good times...crazy to think it was almost a decade ago.

Anyway, when JC asked what I wanted for the big day this year, I made the decision that - since it was our first one together - we should set a precedent of 'low-keying it'. Then in the future there's no expectation for anything big. I do love sending care packages though so I did send him a housewarming box with a couple little things in it and he (unbeknownst to me) did the same. Kind of crazy that without telling each other we both did the same thing. His box was awesome and contained all kinds of deliciousness from Trader Joe's, which is a store Lynchburg will never see in a million years, but is on pretty much every street corner where he is. Oh, and reason 10,512 I love him? He included cat treats in the package for my two crazy cats. Fat little Journey gobbled them up, but crazy Hobbes could care less about the treats. He was way more excited about the box! See if you can find Hobbes in this picture. (Sorry about the poor photo quality and bad lighting. If I turned on the flash he had 'demon eyes' that the red eye couldn't fix.)

He seriously slept and played in that box for 2 hours. I wish I could be amused by a box for an hour! After the shortest work week ever (2 days and only 25 minute class periods), I am headed out tonight to go see a coworker and friend of mine play a show at a local restaurant. He is one of the first friends I made at my school and I love hanging out with him. He is a huge college football fan and loves to root on the Wahoos, which is a rarity here in Tech country! We were even thinking about driving up to Charlottesville this fall to go to a game together, but that fell through. The funny think about Mike being one of my best pals? He's 42, married and has 2 kids. It never even occurs to me that he's close to two decades older than me, which is pretty crazy to think about. He likes to get my input for what 'new' songs from the last 5 years he should include in his set. I told him he doesn't need any help, he already has a great set so I'm off to go hear him play some Keith Urban, Sister Hazel and Billy Joel (he plays a mean harmonica!)

I leave you with a question about Valentine's. Are you an anti-Valentine's day person, do you love it or are you just kind of 'meh' about it like I am (but completely confused by the ridiculous candy and toys!)