When Greg's Away, the Cat will Play

Kitty when Greg is not around:

Kitty when Greg is around:

So Kitty has never really been a big Greg fan. I don't know whether it's Greg's 6'5" height, his tendency to be loud when he does basically anything, or the fact that he thinks it's funny to hiss and/or growl at kitty, but the end result is that 7 months after we adopted him, kitty loves me more than ever and runs and hides as soon as he hears Greg. He's actually turned into a bit of a watch-cat, he knows Greg is coming home before I do.

More Barnyard Video Footage

Munchie gets to eat grass for an hour or two a day. The spring grass is really rich and ponies are prone to laminitis, a hoof disease, and nutrients in the grass are a direct cause. So Munchie's grass is rationed, and his feet are healthy.

Anyhow he gets pretty pumped for his couple hours of grass.

Home [from] Collage

I got home to my mom's house in Maryland last night. I feel like I have been here a week already, we did so much today! Put the bike together, visited with friends, visited with other friends, said hi to approx. 7 horses and ponies and the same amount of cats and dogs, swam, went to a bike shop, rode the bike, hung out with mom, watched Sarabi's flatwork, etc. Oh and had several conversations about where I am going in life. Thus even though it's been a good 7 years since I've come home from college, something about this trip is making me feel like I am a slightly aimless 22 year-old again. Anyhow here's a sampler of the day...

Here is Home, view from the bottom of the driveway.

Here is My Main Competition this weekend: Sarabi. Or in this case, Slobberabi. Again, I say to my mom that the choice is OBVIOUS!

No, they aren't twins! They actually aren't even related, although both are Thoroughbreds. On the left we have my perfect angel Sijui, who my mom got for me when I was 13 and she was 8. She is Sarabi's mom. On the right we have my mom's incorrigible monster Fox. Actually he is not a monster, I kind of like him, he and I spent 3 months together in Charlottesville before I moved to San Francisco and now he is my mom's and she lets him get away with murder because she thinks it's "cute".

Speaking of cute: Munchie goes for the good stuff.

My Blue checking out the scenery from the porch.

Munchie munching on more appropriate pony food: grass!

Also for those of you who are curious, my mom is still leaving notes all over the place especially in the laundry room.

One of the only reasons why I hate Maryland: developments are growing like weeds. The potentially funny thing about this site, which is about a mile from my mom's house, is that much of the 69 acres which was zoned as agriculture but somehow got to be sold for housing because of a state law that allows parcels of land exceeding 50 acres to be subdivided, anyway a lot of the land is very swampy and therefore has drainage issues, so there is debate as to how many cookiecutter plots of 4-car garage ugliness they will actually be able to put there.

Some Lessons

Today I learned two great lessons that I'd like to share.

1. Splish says that their white suits are not see-through, because they use a liner. So if I decide I want a white birthday suit to race in, I will not be indecent!

2. Pomeranians are vicious and apparently don't like bikes. They are also embarrassingly fast over short distances... one tried to eat me today on my ride and I only barely beat it to the top of the hill. (I was laughing while sprinting though, if that counts for anything).

In other news, I am basically just plugging along, getting ready to race again this weekend, and relatedly, getting ready to fly with my bike for the first time since Nature Valley last year (incidentally, I laughed as I just re-read that post... wow, the foreshadowing. I really didn't know it at the time that I'd be sitting here nearly a year later with exactly one bike race on my calendar). I got myself a spiffy new Akona Biospeed Bike Case and this will be its maiden voyage. I predict that I will be quite pleased with it, with my bike inside it will weigh less than my old case did when it was empty! I am crossing my fingers that this slim little case will help me shirk the bike fee. We'll see. I think it's totally bogus that they charge for bikes but not for golf clubs, so I have no moral dilemma here about whether or not to lie at the checkin counter. I doubt I can convince anyone that my bike is golf equipment but I might be able to say "massage table" or "paintings and art supplies" and get away with it. I will let you all know.

Additionally, I just realized that mathematically speaking, even in the *totally unlikely* event that I swim as un-stellarly at Columbia as I did at Wildflower, I will still get in under 30 minutes, which was one of my early-season goals: olympic swim in 30 mins or less. Because 39:39 for 1.2 miles is the same as 29:46 for 0.9 miles right? Yes I did take Calc BC... God if my teachers could only see me now, the 1996 GFS Top Scholar (girly version of Valedictorian), twelve years later she's pursuing an athletic dream and occasionally thinking on the side.

Maybe I should volunteer to visit the school and give a school talk about Your Future After Boarding School, I wonder if the administration would take me up on it ;)

Happy Mother's Day!

And that's all I have to say about that. Thankfully my mom sees Mother's Day for what it truly is, a marketing scam courtesy of Hallmark, Hyatt brunches, and 1-800-Flowers.

Today I swam short-course down at the Carson pool. I did a set that I last did about 3 weeks ago, and was pleased to note that the intervals seemed easier and I finished the set way stronger. That was a nice way to start the day, especially considering I was up for two hours in the middle of the night with some weird chest pain that made me afraid to go back to sleep in case if I was having a heart attack (I wasn't). Then I went to Target to return some of the clothes I bought Greg and to buy a bunch of stuff for myself. I got two new hoodies! Naturally I forgot a lot of the stuff I wanted, I got bogged down in the creams and moisturizers section for a good half an hour and started seriously running out of steam so I busted out of there, forgetting blank CD's, dish soap, razor blades, and toilet paper.

Then I went to Trader Joe's and again I regret my newfound aversion to list-making because I got all the way home and realized I didn't get pasta or pasta sauce or sweet potatoes or eggs.

But I did get wine. Two bottles. Also at Target I got a fancy cat-scratch post for Kitty. As of now he is avoiding it but I hope hope hope he starts to like his present.

My Best Pillo

He is also my favourite let's-have-our-own-personal-speedracer-derby
-around-the-apartment-at-5 a.m. kitty... Good thing he is cute!

Neoprene and Birthdays

I realized today why I love my wetsuit so much. Not because it basically prevents me from drowning, although that is a nice perk. Nope, I love it because of its wondrous smell. Mmmm, neoprene! Even more specifically: many horse boots are made of neoprene. You put them on their legs for protection. When you take them off they are usually a little sweaty or perhaps a little wet and you really smell the neoprene. So my wetsuit reminds me of the barn and of PONIES!!!

Thusly I am very excited to don my wetsuit again in less than 2 weeks, at the Columbia Triathlon.

See, he is wearing boots on his legs!


I'm not sure how hot this look is.

A second thing I am very excited about is my upcoming 30th birthday, which is in almost exactly 4 months. I've just confirmed plans for the day and it's going to be awesome.

September 7, 2008 will start out with me racing the L.A. Triathlon. After the race I will be socializing with Greg, Jaffa, my aunt and uncle, Paula, and perhaps a few other lucky invitees (let me know if you will be at the race and want some celebratory swill). AND THEN, that evening, I am getting on a plane to HAWAII for a WHOLE WEEK!!! Wooohooo! Big family trip. My sister Scare is turning 21 this year so since it's a big year for more than half her kids, my mom convinced all of us to get together for a vacation. I just got my plane ticket.

Rob & Big

I have a new favourite show on TV, called Rob and Big. It's on MTV so I am sure I am like the last person under 36 years old to discover it, but it's awesome. Rob Dyrdek is a professional skateboarder, Chris "Big Black" Boykin is his best friend, roommate, and bodyguard, Meaty is their bulldog, and, GET THIS, Mini Horse is their Miniature Horse!!! As you may have guessed from my letter below, all you really need to get in with me is a pony. A bulldog certainly doesn't hurt either. But it's not just their 4-legged accessories that make Rob and Big awesome - they are very funny together and both seem to have more than an iota of intelligence.

Which is more than I can say for half the cast of The Real Housewives of New York City - unless either Ramona, Alex, or her pretentious husband Simon with the awful helmet hair get booted off the show, I am not watching Season 2.

On the Netflix side of mindless TV watching, I recently watched Inked: The Best of Season 1. Greg watched it too. I put it on the queue after a string of BAD CHOICES he made that demoted him from his "I Am In Charge Of Netflix" status. And "Inked" is fantastic! Even Greg really liked it, and he has no ink. I definitely recommend it.

And finally, for those of you who are wondering how and what I am actually doing during the countdown to Wildflower... Basically, I'm doing fine and I am starting to "taper", a somewhat foreign concept to me with my bike racing background, I guess I have sort of tapered in the past but there are so many more races on the schedule when you're bike racing that it's a much different concept. I seem to have strained my ankle during my last block of training, probably from hill sprints I am guessing, so I am taking it easy with the running now and icing in front of the TV. This has sort of been the week of the "bagged workout", as in I feel tired and crappy so screw swimming long course/doing a tempo run/doing another threshold interval. But my main goal right now is not to sabotage all the good training I have done over the past months, so I'm not stressing about a few missed workouts. I also seemed to have lost some weight since my last venture onto the scale about a month ago, so that's exciting too.

Anyhow:
I want one.

1983 and 1985

We have my dear aunt to thank for these...


Here are all the cousins, with my grandparents, in the garden of what is now my mom's house. My mom dressed me and my brother in coordinating stripes for the occasion, and cut our hair to match too. I am the second kid from the left in the first row, pouting because my shirt doesn't have a unicorn I guess? But the real gem here is my cousin John, sitting next to me with the awesome glasses.


I am still an excellent speller and counter, as I was then. (Sorry Uncle Tony for leaving you out of this list?). Dixie lived to the grand old age of 41, she actually outlived Flee who was her daughter, the product of an afternoon escape to the little stallion pony down the road in the early 1970's. Naughty Dixie! Both ponies are buried in the pasture. The fields are now filled with a new bunch of happy horses and ponies, the littlest of whom, Munchie, is teaching the next generation how to ride and how to deal with bucks and kicks and stolen carrots.

Wednesday Stuff

So I've had a successful run on eBay and Craigslist recently - some pedals, a disc wheel, a helmet, um, well I guess that's all but it was certainly enough to turn around and get some tires and a new bike case.

No Loren I am not special enough to get all my crap for free. I already used up my allotment of free tires and free nutrition, but I like our sponsors so I am ponying up my hard-earned eBay cash for more sponsor products.

SPEAKING of ponies, Ben this is for you:

My Kitty is the Cutest

I am thinking that Kitty might actually be a sort of normal cat after all. It's been about six months since we brought him home from the shelter, over the course of this time I have bought him 7 cat toys and the only one he'd sort of done anything with is the fuzzy pink flipflop, which he'd occasionally bat around the bedroom in the middle of the night.



Well.

Lately, he's taken to rolling around on the catnip scratch pad (but only scratching on the book case and the sofa), tossing around the cat ball toys and the catnip pouch toy, boxing against my hand, making beds for himself out of padded mailers and paper bags, expressing his agreement that elastic laces can be stupid, AND AND AND attentively watching wildlife out the screen door! Go kitty go! And he sleeps with me all night! What a perfect kitty!

He kind of tolerates Greg sometimes. Playfulness goes way down the tubes when Greg's around, but you know what it's Greg's own fault for thinking it's funny to growl and hiss at kitty "just to see what he'll do."

In other news, today was a typical sort of day... Hit snooze 3 times, at 9:00, 9:09, and 9:18, didn't tip on my $4.24 drink at Starbucks even though normally it's $4.67 and she forgot to charge me for the soy, went to work, broke the brand new heavy-duty stapler, went to the pool, made Greg watch me swim and agree that I have improved, did some core work while watching ESPN, came home, after much indecision settled on a microwaved sweet potato for dinner, made cookies for Greg, and watched an awesome movie!

Santa Monica - days 6&7

What a great trip! We just got back home to a semi-clean apartment, hungry fishies, and a warm purring kitty in Incline. Yesterday's training was long but good. My bike and I even got cheered and waved at by big limo filled with teenage girls in Malibu! At the end of it all we ate a bunch of pizza and watched UNC lose and went to bed too late after observing how 3 ten year old boys conduct themselves in a sleepover (the answer: moderately well, as long as video games are involved).

Today we woke up and said "bye" to our favourites:

I tried to talk Greg into kissing Arnold, but I was unsuccessful.

Then we hit the road.

And we made it! Greg even said at one point that I was driving well.

O.K., time to rest hard...

Piggy Video

My first-ever attempt at posting a video. The still shots just weren't doing Arnold (or Bob!)(so CUTE!) justice.

Santa Monica - Day 2

So I am still fully obsessed with Bob, my best little buddy ever. As evidenced by this collage:




(I snuck in a shot of someone who's not Bob... Boys apparently cannot Hula Hoop).

I would have photos from my grand excursion today, except I forgot the camera! After a nice recovery spin this morning, I headed to Helen's Cycles to enlist some help in getting my new Blue set up properly. What a great shop! Super nice and helpful staff, and I am heading back on Thursday evening to make sure the fit is right and to do any necessary fine tuning.

After that I drove to West Hollywood to meet up with Paula, my oldest best friend (meaning, we've known each other since 7th grade, NOT meaning she's 112 years old). We met up to get our hairs cut and to grab lunch. I got lost twice on the way, finally parked and set off on foot for 3 blocks looking for Paula and for Rudy's Barber Shop, thank god for cell phones, finally met up with her, determined that we would go get lunch prior to our appointments at Rudy's, walked over to this pizza place I forget the name of, gossipped and caught up over slices and salads in outdoor seating, watched Usher stroll by and get swarmed by a couple kids, a 20-something chick, and a squat couple in their late 60's, then we went to a coffeeshop for chai lattes and hung out inside the shop so Paula could sing along to Rihanna and Beyonce and other R&B songs I couldn't identify, walked back towards Rudy's, which I still had not seen or verified the existence of, then I finally saw that I had parked my car literally right in front of the entrance... Giving Paula teasing fodder (as if she needs any more!!). Oh and we got our hair cut too.

It was great!

OK now Greg and I are going to watch 'No Country for Old Men', I am hoping I don't not like it.


UPDATE: I CANNOT DEAL with this MOVIE!! god. Blood is EVERYWHERE. And just when I thought it had to be nearly over since pretty much everyone is dead, I hear that there are STILL another FORTY MINUTES to endure!

Of course it's night time here right now so I am too scared to go off by myself somewhere and let Greg watch it by himself. Fuck. This sucks.

Santa Monica - Day 1

So far I am pretty stoked on vacation Santa Monica Training Camp. Lots of play time with my best little buddy, and lots of play time with my best big buddy, too. This morning we rode along the Pacific Coast Highway through Malibu to Latigo Canyon Road, where we both did a nice long climbing interval.

During this time I realized I am exactly like my mom. I made Greg stop for photos several times, even though he's all serious about his training (and so am I)(totally)(all the time), but here we are in this beautiful place and with a cool new camera and the minor unclip-and-squint-into-the-sun inconvenience is a tiny price to pay for the photographic memories we'll have later! Plus I wanted to memorialize the first time in AGES that we have successfully ridden together for more than 35 seconds ;)

We got back and did a tempo run, which was mostly great. I am without any instrumentation here because I sent my Timex back to get warrantied, so without a heartrate monitor or even a watch I went too hard, but I need to develop my feel independent of gadgetry so it was probably a good thing. Right now though I am propping my feet up and guzzling PowerBar Recovery like it's going out of style, because we are headed to the Santa Monica Swim Center to swim Long Course Meters tonight! For some reason it's only set up long course from 7:30-8:30 p.m. on Mondays. Side note: I am so stoked to be sponsored by PowerBar, they have the most palatable recovery mix ever! I love it, which is a good thing because usually recovery drink works best if you actually drink it, instead of mixing a full bottle and forcing down only like 4 sips of it.

Arnold wolfs down some carrots, his favourite treat

Also, I forgot to mention that our hosts here in Santa Monica are pig-sitting! A friend's potbellied pig, Arnold, is staying here for a few weeks while the friend is out of town. Arnold is bristly and cutely talkative with his pig noises, and he loves veggies! Greg said something totally mean though. "I bet Arnold would taste delicious, he eats such a healthy diet." BOYS! Sheesh. I told Greg to shut his trap (not my exact words) and then gave Arnold another carrot. Bob the puppy likes Arnold because for some gross doggie reason he likes to eat pig poop. Gross. I still love Bob though, and thankfully there's a hose in the yard to rinse out his mouth in case he accidentally gets into Arnold's section of the yard.

Who's cuter, me or Arnold? (don't answer pls)

Poor Bob wants so badly to play with Arnold!

San Dimas Pt. 3: Cheerleading!

So I earned an A+ for effort in my attempt to debate my way into starting today's crit. Unfortunately I got an F for efficacy? Because I didn't start. Ah well, there will be other races... and of all types of bike racing, criteriums can be the hairiest. Unfortunately, our team was harshly reminded of this fact today when an inexperienced rider slammed into poor Sharon (a.k.a. Shaz), took her and 2 other riders out, and broke Sharon's wrist. She didn't even apologize.

So awful how hours and months of work can get wiped away in a second. This has happened to too many friends recently, it's really sad and I feel depressed and speechless about it. What do you tell your dear friend who's sitting torn, bloody, broken, crying, and asking "why me?"... All I can say is I don't know but we all love you and here's a hot chocolate? Coincidentally, this morning I was telling Shaz all about Marit's recent crash and phenomenal attitude.

Poor Shaz. Like Marit, she did not deserve this.

Anyhow, on to lighter and brighter news:


I am now in Santa Monica playing with my favourite-ever not birthday present!! He's even bigger and better and funner than he was last September! I love Bob!

San Dimas Pt. 1

Greg and I made it safely and happily down to San Dimas yesterday! All 450 (mostly) beautiful miles... Not a lick of traffic, either, which was totally nice. And we basically pretty much sort of left "first thing", as intended - 9:30 a.m. is pretty good for us actually.

But Kitty didn't want me to leave! He was holding my bike shorts hostage (Huntress I know these are last year's shorts, I only use them on the trainer I swear!)
I am sharing a room with my favourite roommate ever, Shaz, who is getting over a cold and her voice sounds like something out of the Godfather and she is currently on the phone with her dogsitter explaining why she didn't mean to insinuate that the dogsitter's ex was a ho, she was saying her dog was a ho, or something? I am not sure but it's hilarious, especially since she can't really talk.

Anyhow today was the first stage of the race, a 6k hillclimb time trial (this is the part where Greg laughs at how I thought I was a "climber" when I first started cycling, then I went to my first road race and realized my huge misclassification of myself). Mara Abbott won, followed by her High Road teammate Kim Anderson, and our very own Leah Goldstein finished third! Additionally, Godfather Shaz rode up the mountain in the 10th fastest overall time, pretty good for being at about 75% health-wise. It's all because of my simultaneously calming and invigorating roommate-influence of course. I had a good day too, finishing 37th out of 71 starters, about 3 minutes down on Mara, in a time that was over a minute and a half faster than my time on the same course in 2006!! Hooray for improvements! It was also marginally fun-ish to see my heartrate in the 180s for the first time in 6 months??

Tomorrow is the road race stage, an 8-loop circuit race totalling 56 miles. It's a bit rolling, and the race is always exciting because every lap has either a time-bonus sprint or a QOM sprint. I can't wait, bring on the sprints!

OK we are going out for dinner but first a glimpse of the San Bernadino mountains, indication of why I could never ever live in this megalopolis of cars and people and more cars that pollute to the point where you can barely see mountains that are just a few miles away:

Working from Home

see more crazy cat pics

ok for some reason i can't get it to look right on my screen... the full caption is "yup - i'm in hell"

Just Mention Ponies.

I am planning to see "Horton Hears a Who". Not because I used to read the Dr. Seuss book on which it's based as a kid, not because I love cartoons, and not even because of Jim Carrey.

No, what sold me was the little yellow fuzzball in the trailer.

"In my world, everyone's a pony, and they eat rainbows and poop butterflies!" (specifically I identify with the pony part).

----

Anyhow speaking of ponies I *finally* got my artistic butt back in gear today. Reinterpritations of previous sketches and final products at this point, I am working on a cut paper series to then redo as silkscreens. Here's one:

Another Charlie Update

So, kitty is hanging in there and getting a bit better. A urinary tract/bladder infection was actually not the problem (go Court for improper diagnosis yet again! There is a reason I didn't go to vet school!)- instead, he had and still has a buildup of crystallized minerals that his kidneys excreeted from his food. The crystals are called struvites and they can be really problematic for indoor male cats like Charlie. Left unattended, the struvites can build up to the point of blocking the urethra, and from that point it's a very quick descent for the cat - unable to eliminate toxins by urinating, his body is basically poisoned from within.

Thankfully I got my head on straight about Charlie's symptoms soon enough to get him to the vet before he got to the point of blockage. We switched him to a prescription diet that does not cause crystal buildup, and also put him on antibiotics (mostly for the sneezing side-effect he's experiencing, since the peeing thing isn't an infection I am guessing antibiotics won't affect that end of the cat?). Now it's a matter of waiting as his digestive system processes the rest of the struvites. He's still pretty uncomfortable and I feel awful for him, but the good news is it's getting better and he likes the new food.

Side note: I am once again incredibly grateful that he hates Out Side. Yesterday we got back from the vet and I wanted to lazy-man's-load my way up to the apartment. I.e. purse, new cat food, waterbottle, jacket, and cell phone held to ear in one hand, cat in cardboard cat carrier in the other hand... Bottom falls out of cardboard cat carrier, kitty is sitting stunned in the middle of the parking lot and DOESN'T MOVE, I manage to hang up on my friend and scoop up kitty and carry 1 wide-eyed scaredy-cat and all my other crap upstairs. Still all in one load!