today i said holly shart

i was wound up so tight this morning that i was pretty sure i was going to pop a blood vessel or something. now that i think about it, i did look in the mirror at one point at work and my left eye was so totally bloodshot for no apparent reason. i checked my calendar for the next few days and said - dude, i am taking a vacation. omg, that felt so good. the day went by ok but by the end i was so excited to set my out of office and gt outta there! whew!! i have the next 6 days as work free!
dudes, my ass has been killing me. the chiropractor guy, man i love him has been ARTing on me and i've been loving that and he's been cracking me all over the place and it has been delicious. the arse is better indeed, i just have to learn to sit correctly and sleep like a normal person. ok and maybe drink a bit more water too.
over the weekend we went to my friends wedding. we hired the swim coach's younger brother to watch the kids. they loooove him so they couldn't wait to get rid of us. i had so much fun at the wedding. i totally let loose, drank a ton, danced like a fool even getting a few zn4 intervals out there on the dance floor and looked totally awesome doing it. i wore my new awesome dress and shoes and my feet and legs didn't hurt at all. even with all the dancing!!
fuzy stripe is getting so big these days. he is actually quite often called fuzy kitty or just kitty. he's a chewer and he loooves nadj. he will follow her around the house. she will walk slowly allowing him to bat at her tail and get close but then she will turn and hiss at him every once in a while, i assume just for shits and giggles. she will sit all like a loaf of bread and then he will get so close that she'll make her skin crawl and then he will run away. then he will sneak up on her again, be getting ready to pounce and before he does, she'll turn and his and he will run away sideways! they aren't cuddling yet, but soon i imagine, soon i hope. seamus mccat on the other hand is not amuzed. she just hisses at him. she doesn't move or swat or anything, she just hisses the most horrible sounding hiss.
what else?? i am being punished with a rest week, although this rest week i really really am enjoying and actually feel like i am getting something out of it. normally i am a total mess while trying to rest but this week i am managing, at least so far a total i don't give a fark, i'll do whatever i want. AND my new tri shoes showed up!! oooooh! they are white and pearly! and pretty and i can't wait to get some cleats on those bad bears!!
and you know what? i know its june because i wore a skirt today. i also know its june because i wore my puffy coat with that skirt. we're all like, what the hell? it claims its like 70 out but its cold as balls. doesn't make sense.
at least the water is warmer these days.
gettin in some good training in the next few weeks and after mid july will start with the xterra training. i was thinking i'd like to go on a trail run tomorrow or mtn biking or something but gotta wait and see!!!
yay!!! going to watch some dexter now!!

Fuzzy Stripe

i think i love the little guy. i told him i didn't know him very well yet but that i think i might love him anyway. he is starting to explore the house and mix with the other cats, even having the kitty balls to go up to the cat tree, with nadj sitting right under it, and start scratching it.
i took today as a rest day. it was a rough week. re-org, reviews - giving and receiving, crappy and nice weather. you name it we had it. i wanted to lay on the floor in my office at around 3pm and take a nap. instead i came home after work and slept instead of running.
tomorrow is a tough long swim + a long, semi tough run. my calves hurt from some calf raises and possibly from running on the treadmill while watching Twilight: New Moon yesteday. so i needed the rest. i need to work better on my hydration and recovery, too.
kitty is on my shoulder! horray!
i got some spray tan stuff. i normally use this lotion stuff that smells pretty terrible but while standing in line at target to buy a wedding hat, OMG let me tell you about the HAT! they had the spray on stuff right there, so i bought it.
as a joke i totally sprayed on some abs. i can't wait to see if they show up at all - cannot wait!!
so we are going to a wedding tomorrow. sooo excited! while on jury duty i went to betsy johnson and got a new dress and finally some shoes!!! so i am going to wear the new dress and shoes and i figured i needed something fancy for my hair. so i got this feather and pearl and rinestone thing - like a hat, all royal wedding style and i am totally going to wear it. i cannot wait!! i am not going to wear it all victoria beckham pregnant style
or Eugennie style either,
but i am totally going to wear it, cannot wait. super excited. first i gotta git through that swim which i am somewhat looking forward to and then the run. hoping the leg is better by then.
hooray! TGIF.

5 mile lake women's triathlon

the week leading up to this race kind of blew. i had a bad tuesday and didn't get any of my workouts in. we had our mini tri tuesday night and traffic was horrible and i had high hopes of getting in the water to at least make up for some of the fact that i slept through all of my alarms in the morning, but i got there late and the ladies were already out there and pretty much on their way back in. i guess i was lucky to have gotten there late since the water was about 4 degrees and they were all frozen solid when they got out. i did get in a nice bike ride but could barely function when it was time to run, so i didn't. the rest of the week was ok, went to see the ART guy - love him!! rest day on thursday and then a good swim on friday morning! so excited to be feeling good and effective!! and i wore one of my new swim suits! i have finally figured out what size i am, too! i wont even mention work and then it was hot and sunny in the evening, so i got in run. everything hurt, a lot. i wondered how in the world i'd be able to race the next day! i was starving by the time i got home so i chowed down like 6 bbq chicken legs from the big green egg and a recovery smoothie then we headed out to meet some friends at the pine lake alehouse. i was looking good - one step up from the house uniform piled on top of all my sweat and filth - it was awesome. we didn't get home until late, i started packing up my stuff, tried to work on my hydration and then eventually got into bed around 10:30. oh i slept horribly. my left leg and ass were hurting so bad, every time i rolled and stretched it would cramp up and i was thinking the race would be terrible. and then of course i woke up before my alarm went off at 4:50 to the sound of rain. awesome.
i got up, ate my breakfast, finished the last bit of packing and out the door i went.
it was dumping so much rain and the car was hydroplaning on the freeway and there were times when i couldn't see out the windshield. awesome again.
i got to the race site super early and was happy to see one of the girls from our workouts and that made me instantly feel better. eventually i gathered up my towel and running stuff, put it in a garbage bag and set it in my spot in transition.
then i geared up in knee warmers, my tri kit, a long sleeve jersey and rain jacket to head out on a warm up. i was supposed to be out for a 1/2 hr and i wondered if i would be able to do a whole loop or not but after about 12 minutes or so i just turned around and came back. i was moving in and out of my big ring and then all of s sudden it stopped working! i stopped 3 times to try to fix it but couldn't. i started to panic, i got lost, got back on track and then booked it back to transition. i found all the girls, and jenny's husband fiddled with the bike, eventually we all decided it would be best if we just got it into the big ring and left it there. so that is what we did. then i ran my bike in to rack it and people put their bikes on my stuff. :( we had assigned racks and there were to be 8 bikes to a rack. i feel bad because i totally bit this one woman's head off about how there are supposed to be 8 to the rack when she said there wasn't any room, but i was totally running late and panicking and i should have just chilled out, so i appologize! but we got the bikes moved around and i set up my transition with my run stuff and took all my biking stuff off. then i ran to the car in my socks to put on my wetsuit. i decided to try something new on race day! i decided i was going to wear both my knee warmers and arm warmers under my wetsuit. i spent 5 minutes in transition at onionman fiddling with that stuff, so this time i decided i'd try it out and see how it went.
i was finally all set with wet suit, booties, two caps, goggles and ear plugs and headed down to the water. found jenny, kate and kristina and we stepped in the water and were all like - oooh! the water is really nice! so sad considering it was 63 degrees but totally warmer than anything else we had been in this year.
it was a 3 wave start where they blew this crazy horn thing, but the swim started out good. it was definitely crowded but i wouldn't say super aggressive. not a lot of pushing or kicking, just a lot of closeness. after the 1st buoy it spread out a bit and then the 2nd buoy in was totally fine. i was super happy with how i was swimming. i was able to decide pretty quickly that maybe i wouldn't do the arm warmers under the wet suit again since my arms were getting super tired but the knee warmers were feeling great. my swim time wasn't stellar but i was still really happy that i felt as good as i did.
t1 was so much better than my last race since i had everything on already pretty much and skipped the socks! i was in and out of there in just over a minute!
i was so happy to have those arm and knee warmers out on the bike! even though they were wet the were warm. my hands were frozen and when i tried to pull my clif shot off my top tube i could barely grasp it. i laughed a little. i was having fun, pushing hard and hoping i wouldn't need that smaller ring up front. the course is pretty much rolling so i was all set although there was one point i would have like to have been able to shift down. the first lap was done pretty quickly and the 2nd one went well, too. next thing ya know i was back at transition, trying to go in the run exit. :( i had to back it up and then go the correct way - better pay more attention to that stuff next time.
t2 was fast, the biggest issue was pulling off the knee warmers, especially with hands that couldn't move. i did discover that my hand was bleeding for some mysterious reason.
i took off on the run and wow, everything was super tight. i threw my arm warmers to jenny's husband and then took teeny weeny super fast steps. like tiny, like i swear my stride was microscopic and i am pretty sure i looked rediculous. but i did pass a few people with that funny stride and i kept going. i didn't have my garmin so i didn't know how fast i was going but i kept on keeping on. again, the course was rolling and i was able to lengthen it out a little on some of the downhills but the uphills and flats it was tiny stride again. the fun flew by and next thing i knew i was crossing the finish line.
i wound up being 11th overall, 3rd in my AG.
i was super happy with this race for a few reasons - this course was the 2nd triathlon i had ever done back in 2006 so it was fun to come back and do it again.
i felt good on the swim!
so excited to discover the knee warmers under the wetsuit trick - awesome!
and i think most of all i was so happy to have friends there, it definitely made the miserableness of the day much less miserable!

blowing

today blew. ok that is all i am going to say about that.
wow, the kitten is so cute!! i can hardly stand it. i went in to check on seamus when i got home tonight and she was still awake, the kitty had crawled under the blanket and was purring up a storm cuddled against her.
we took the kitty to the vet yesterday to make sure he is a-ok. he seemed a-ok, but still he should go to the vet to be sure.
the vet said that kitty is probably about 5 weeks old. although the kitty is super young i think we did the right thing bringing him home with us. the mama cat wasn't looking very good and i don't think she was able to feed those kittens very much. maybe that is why he practically dove into the food dish when he first got to our house. but now his belly is all round and full and he purrs non stop. he weighed 1.2 pounds! so tiny! the vet fussed over him and when she took him into the back to draw some blood and give him a shot she said they were all gushing over him. i told eric that i thought this was funny considering how many kittens they must see and all he could say is kittens are cute. everyone loves kittens. cats are another story. i'll take the opportunity to remind everyone how i had 3 cats when eric first met me. he jokes now that i was easy pickings, but really, he just liked cats, ha! ok i had just cut off all my hair and was wearing a monster truck rally t-shirt too. oh and it was at a mountain bike race too...
but i digress. i hadn't even thought about the possibility of the kitty having FIV or any of that stuff, but the vet said it was good that i hadn't introduced him yet to the others and then i was all in a panic. he turned out to be negative which is good. and what i thought was ear mites weren't, it was just dirt. and he looked flee less, but we gave him a flea treatment anyway.
seamus was super excited this morning that the kitty hadn't woken her up during the night so hoping that will continue and she is doing such a good job feeding him and getting him water and OMG wow!!! scooping kitty litter is so much fun, everyone wants to do it!!
there are so many cute things about this kitty! one being that at the vet the kitty was very scared, seamus said that maybe the mommy should comfort the kitty - the mommy being seamus. we got her settled and then i put the kitty on her lap and seamus held him and spoke to him in the cutest, softest, caring voice, oh kitty, its going to be ok, kitty, its alright. so cute! and then at some point i called the kitty Fuzzy Stripe and her face lit up! that is the kitty's name and she was so happy to hear it!
when we got home, since the vet said it was ok, i took the kitty in to visit nadj. this didn't go quite as i expected. nadj came over and sniffed him, hissed a little hiss then the kitty totally hissed!! he hissed and hissed and growled and oh he was not happy! i thought maybe he would be happy to see another cat but hmm, wondering how this will go. nadj really wasn't very interested in him. we'll have to introduce him again, but he is so tiny i'm not sure when we might want to let him out to explore the whole house.
and then!! eric told me about how he went in to check on the kitty during the day while the kids were at school, ya know, just to check. not because he thinks kittens are cute or anything, but when he went into seamus's room he couldn't find the kitty any where! he said it took about 3 minutes until he spotted him all curled up with the stuffed animals! so cute!! kittens are awesome!

new kitty

oh this week. what can i say about you.
we were supposed to go to chelan, eric was supposed to race some 60 mile mtn bike race, i was going to ride the chelanman tri course plus some exciting extra part with lots of climbing plus a tunnel where i would get to push a button to make a light flash, but alas, eric called around 330 on friday saying that seamus was sick, had a fever of 102 and how he was feeling quite terrible, considering he had been not feeling his best the previous few days and sirus was so full of snot it was coming out of his ears. we decided to bail on the trip.
sirus and i went out to dinner while eric and seamus went home to relax. we had a perfectly good date night, but they sat us at a table for 6, even though the place was crowded and there was a line. i told the waitress to let any other groups of 2 or 3 know that we would be willing to share but no one wanted to, although they did seem perfectly fine with hanging over the wall from the bar, leaning on our table staring at us.
on saturday i got up to go right the 45 mile route of the flywheels summer century. as i drove down to the start, i was getting more and more excited looking at all of the cyclist riding up the big hill and along the lake. i haven't done an organized ride like this since i did STP in like 2001 i think it was. there had to have been thousands of cyclists out there, it was nutty. i needed to register and found that unless you are able to pick up your packet early, you should register for this event day of. the packet pickup line had probably 150 or more people in line and it wasn't moving. the registration tent had 4 people in line and was super quick. janet, kristi and i found each other in line, then we stood in the potty line for ever, chatted with jenny and then finally headed out.
while it wasn't sunny, it wound up being somewhat warm. we each took a jacket with us in case of rain, but it never rained, although at one point we all tried to figure out if we should put them on anyway since it had gotten a little chilly. we opted out and continued on.
not too long after the start is the first big hill, up Inglewood hill Rd. ok, so i will totally out myself here, while i live kind of at the top of this hill, this was only the 3rd time i had ridden up it in the 3 years we have lived here. and the first time - i had to stop 3 times!! yes! 3 times!!! while the hill isn't too long, about 1/2 mile or so, it is about 12% grade and i had no idea how to get up it. now i have a better idea. eric and i laugh about how i stopped 3 times because the 3rd stop was like 20 ft from the top. no joke, but i didn't know and really, i wasn't sure i would have been able to get up those last 20ft anyway! we all made it up this time and it seemed like many more of the riders were making it up this year compared to years passed, not too many walking this time around.
a short while we rolled past our neighborhood and there was eric in his Plants vs Zombies shirt and leider hosen doing a little jig with the kids running around cheering.
we hit a round about and it was clear that we are not very euro because the mix of cars and cyclists was a complete mess. i'm surprised it wasn't worse. then down 244th which at the bottom is a totally steep, sketchy descent which is fine but i was totally amazed how despite the route turning right onto a very busy, totally small shouldered road, people were not slowing down or stopping and instead were flying right into traffic. it was so sketchy, i couldn't believe it. we later heard that there was a crash at the bottom of that hill. yeah, not surprised.
the rest of the ride was fun and even though i have ridden all of those roads before it was just way fun.
later when i got home, we started making some phone calls then we hopped into the car and headed to burien to check out some kittens! and OMG!! we brought one home!!! so cute!! big name discussions though. we got this kitten for seamus because even though we lost pawpi back in december, there are still some nights when after she has settled into bed for the night we can hear here in the crying. when we ask he why she is crying she always tells us how much she misses pawpi. she never asked for a new kitten and when we first asked her if she wanted to get one she wasn't sure she wanted one. but we decided to take the leap, lord help me if that cat poos and pees on the carpet!!! seamus picked out the orange one and i instantly started suggesting names for him (i haven't ever had an orange cat and haven' had a boy cat since the first family cat we had when i was little - snowie. he was a good cat!). but i suggested naming the cat Dan after my boyfriend Dan Hugo, then i suggested naming him Jason Jablonski, and i even suggested naming him Antoine after the baby sitter. all were no gos. we suggested Jean-Luc and Sedgewick and Seeley (Booth), all names we had lined up in case of more kids someday, but no gos there either. she considered Sunset, and Totorro and i really liked Honey Senpai, but she wasn't too into it. i have settled on calling him The Doctor from Dr Who, eric likes that one, too. sirus suggested the totally awesome name of grilled cheese but she was adamant no people names and no food names. it looks like the kitty's name is Fuzy Stripe - at least that is what was on the sign she made in her room.
seamus had did an amazing job of cleaning her room in anticipation of the kitty, so when we got home, we found a place for the tiny litter box, and a place for his food and water dishes. we let him walk around and he was HUNGRY! he practically jumped in his food dish and chomped away. when he was done i dipped his paw in his water dish so he would know it was in there and i'm not sure he had ever drank water because he just kept dipping his face in it and then licking it off. after a few dips he seemed to get a better hang of it.
the people we got him from said they weren't sure he was litter trained. i'm not sure what that was about but i was worried but remembered when we had kittens when i was little, they seemed to know what to do. so i put him in the litter box and then told seamus that whenever he woke up from naps and stuff that she should try to put him in there, too. and do you know what? he used it! hooray!
we gave him a bath and got him nice and clean and wrapped him up in a warm towel until he was dry. he slept in the bed with seamus, she said he even cuddled on her chest and walked on her face while she slept, or tried too.
this morning he was a totally different kitty! he was running around her room playing with everything! tumbling around and jumping and chasing and being cute cute cute!! he'll go to the vets this week and then next weekend we'll introduce him to the other cats. as of right now they are not interested in him. they have to be able to hear him meowing some, and even after i play with him i go pet them so they will get used to his smell, but they don't seem interested. hopefully the transition with go well!

one of those days

ever have one of those days that isn't too bad but isn't great? where kinda the best part of the day is when your new BFF the chiropractor cracks yer lower back and hips and stuff into a million pieces? where he sticks his elbow way into yer side ass, tweaks yer leg off to the side so that you are in so much pain you are paralyzed and then he cracks a few jokes and the only way you can respond is to whimper?
other stuff is kind of shitty and blah today too. its warm which is nice!

compliments that aren't compliments and can't be warped or twisted in any way to make them into compliments

DUDE, someone today asked me if i was pregnant. :(
and they yesterday, a certain husband who shall remain nameless told me that my new haircut makes my head look smaller. he said that he even tried to make that one not sound bad but he couldn't think of any way to do it.
just for that i won't tell all of the internets how that nameless husband accidentally wore my cycling shorts out for a ride on thursday. he said they felt funny and that they seemed pretty short when he put them on but assumed that it was because he had done a bunch of quad exercises earlier in the day. so there.

chop chop tupe top

today i had about 11-12 inches of my hairs cut off. all of it. not totally on a whim, but sorta, kinda. i also got my hairs colored. but before doing so, my absolute favorite hair cutter James Dean at the downtown GeneJuarez did some precutting. he put my hair in 4 ponytails, grabbed the clippers and chopped it all off. he put the ponies in a bag, and i filled out a form and the hairs are now on their way to locks of love. although i read a blog post poo-poohing the locks of love program for selling all the donated hair that they can't use to wig makers, all in all, even if that is true, that's fine. the hairs were getting cut off anywhere and if there is even a tiny chance they will make someone in need happy then no harm in trying.
i haven't colored my hair i don't think since before i was pregnant with seamus so like a million years and the color girl was super excited since i told her to do whatever she wanted. she picked darker! which i was excited about. she even mentioned that it would nicely take care of my sparkles. and i was like - did you just call my gray hairs sparkles? and she was like, i like to call them sparkles. i apparently had more sparkles than i knew about. scary thing - what if when all this awesome dark brown grows out its all gray underneath?
so i told mr dean who he himself is growing out is hair and is looking quite handsome these days that i was embarrassed to say that i kinda wanted a cut similar to ashlee simpson's new short do. he said, he asked if i might have a photo since he wasn't quite up to date on what was going on with her hair, and then was quite surprised when i went on to tell him about her recent divorce, since he didn't know she was married and a little shocked that she had a baby.
anyway, i walked out of there looking lovely, i even stopped in at betsey johnson and they all gushed over the lovely short hairs. i did not however buy anything in there this time, although i did go in there with the intent to purchase a belt and that they no longer had.
that was the big surprise or the something exciting that i mentioned for saturday.
and OMG it was sunny and warm! so sunny and warm that OMG i wore a tube top! whoa!!

compliments that aren't really, part deux

i am a big fan of compliments that aren't really compliments. like here and here.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
yesterday i thought i got a compliment that's not really but maybe it was an insult that wasn't really?
i went to a sports chiropractor for the first time. i had gone to a normal chiropractor a few years ago and she totally freaked me out. although she had used her little popper to pop a few joint in my chest which actually felt amazingly good, she had me lay on some crazy ass table that made horrible noises and jarred my noggin so hard i saw stars. that and she tried to get me to commit to some crazy treatment plan for the next year. i couldn't do that, plus she scared me so i never went back.
but after the race the other weekend when i had the ART done, it has been all i can think about. i called my insurance and it didn't seem like it was covered but then i called the place anyway and talked to them and we got it all figured out and it is covered after all! i made an appointment and i was so excited to go!
i already had a history with the guy since he worked on me at the race, but we talked some more and then we got to work. i told him about all my aches and pains. he asked some health history questions and i should have known that the compliments (insults?) would be coming when he said i was healthy as a horse.
so the obturator inturnus came up so of course, there i was all laying face down on the table when he said we were going to get all personal and yep, right up in there. not invasive by any means but yeah, maybe i will wear pants next time instead of shorts. he did some awesomely painful things to my hips, so awesomely painful that i could barely talk or move but it was totally awesome. he had me stand there and he looked at my back, he poked me a few times and was like, oh yeah, these muscles are hard as rock. then he hurt me again, but it was so good, i was sad when it was done. there was some strength testing in which he was giving me crap about being weak, not bad crap but joking crap and then wow, my right hip, to quote him, has got nothing. i could hardly push any resistance against him. then more hurting then on that crazy table that was weaving me back and forth. i flat out was just like, whoa! what is going on?? then he cracked my lover back which was awesome. loved it. then we talked some at which point he said i was a solid girl. ok, girl is good, solid, i am not so keen on. solid is right up there with sturdy or thick. but he followed it with , you know, not full of flab and all that other stuff. what other stuff??? anyway, when i had walked in there i was in quite a bit of pain, but when i walked out i felt 100%. it was awesome.
after work i did a track workout, hitting times between 5:58 and 7:20 for the various distances and wow, i didn't hurt at all! later that evening, yeah, i was a little out of sorts, but man, feeling quite helpful about this whole ART thing!!
something exciting is going to happen on saturday! whoowhoo!!