Category Archives: General

My Day With Baleigh

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On Thursday,  I spent the day with Baleigh, my cousin on my husbands side of the family.  She is 12 years old and she is quite the young lady.   I drove to her house and picked her up, and that is a 75 minute drive, and I am not a fan of driving.  I did make a wrong turn and went into the next town over, but I easily rectified the situation.   Driving back towards this end of town however, I did miss my exit and had to go another way.  The problem with that was that I didn’t know how to get to the zoo from there.  So I grab the GPS and make her look it up.  She read me the directions and I said “Is there any mention of Route 28?” she said “No” and I said that the directions were good enough for me.

I knew the first part of the directions and I had a different way of getting there than the GPS and so we laughed at the GPS saying “Recalculating”. Its really funny how I swear that voice is showing beligerence when it has to “recalculate”.    We eventually make it to the zoo.

It was a perfect day for the zoo.  Cloudy and not too hot, so the animals were active.  And boy did we hit a jackpot year with all the baby animals.  We didn’t see the young tigers, or if we did, we couldn’t tell.  They were born last year.  We did see the two baby elephants, both girls, who were born last year.  I was surprised at how small they still were, but considering how big they have to get, I guess its not surprising.

My favorites though were the water babies.  The sea otters were rollicking in the water.  Rolling around, jumping.  So cute.  I think we watched them for a LONG time.  The baby beavers were cute too.  And there was the little sea lion.  She was born in mid-June and was still being nursed.  She was walking really well and swam really well, but she couldn’t get on the rocks in the middle of the tank.  She tried really hard but she just couldn’t make it up there.  I hear that she was able to do it today though.

Petting the kangaroo was a nice highlight too.  Every time I go to the zoo, I hope they are close enough to the path for me to touch, but never until this year.  I expected them to have wiry fur, but they were soft.  Baleigh crawed through the stingray tank and into the meerkat habitat.  She laughed at me when I ran from the “Bat flight” display.  But she was just getting even with me for laughing when she ran from the Hornbill.

After the zoo, we headed back to my neighborhood because it was the day for me to pick up my weekly vegetable box from the local farm.  While we were at the host house, we saw two domestic kitties.  The black kitty was owned by the family and he was really friendly. There was also a stray who was a buff tabby with white paws.  He was a cutie … he had the extra toes on each front paw.  The stray was also very friendly, and we don’t know what happened to his owners. I was talking to the neighbor there and discussed getting him neutered.  Cross your fingers that she does it!

Now it was time for dinner!  We texted Matt and then headed to Station Square and ate at the Hard Rock Cafe, where I forgot to order fries, as my other cousin says that they are the best.  I ordered green beans instead.  But then we had dessert.  I had a rum cake, and it was really tasty … and really small.

We rode the Monongahela Incline to the top and took pictures of the City and walked all the way up Grandview Avenue, and down the Duquesne Incline.  Then walked to the Station Square parking lot and came home.  I got lost in the parking garage.  Really, I did.  :)

We were all exhausted, we uploaded the photos, Bay and Matt watched Hannah Montana.  Eventually we all went to bed.  Matt and I (surprisingly for me) were up at 9:00 and Baleigh slept to 10:30.  I must have worn her out!

Friday morning, we dropped some paper off at the shelter and took the quick 10 cent tour.  She was invited back to hang out in medical another time.  We drove back to her house (why does that trip seem so much shorter when there is someone with you) and I came back home and was glad to not have to drive again that day.

I really enjoyed myself.  Baleigh is so smart and pretty and she is a joy to hang out with.  She helped to make my birthday week one of the best I’ve ever had!

Fitness, Pain, and Other Stuff

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Last Thursday, May 28th, I went out for a run.  It was about 74 degrees outside, with an equally high humidity.  But, you know, I had to run.  That marathon is getting closer, I had no choice.   Naturally, this being Pittsburgh, we really haven’t had these temperatures stick around long enough to be acclimated to it yet, so that made it difficult.  I was doing reasonably well, though, making decent time, feeling pretty good and relatively pain free.  It was on the way back, about 4.5 miles into the 6.2 mile run that I suddenly had pain.  The pain was in my right leg … and I’ve been having trouble with the left one.  It started at the very top of the inside thigh, and then moved to the hamstring/glute area.  I could run a small amount, then needed to walk.  I pretty much walked only at the very end.  I thought this was odd, but wasn’t too worried at the time.

The next morning I got up and went to yoga.   Imagine my surprise when I couldn’t even do a forward bend without pain.  Not even downward dog.  This being vinyasa yoga with all its forward bends and down dogs meant that I was in real trouble here.  I could actually bend with a lot less pain if I kept my knee bent.  I muddled through the class.  The only pose I ended up sitting out, well, I actually stood, was “twisted triangle” which for some reason was the worst.  I nearly yelped when I tried it.  I left the class feeling better though and could straighten the leg in down dog by the end of class.

Saturday, I was signed up to do a level 2 yoga workshop.  My glute/hamstring whatever, was still bothering me, but the pain was about 50% of what it was on Friday.  So I went.  I learned so many cool things.  I still couldn’t do twisted triangle, but forward bends were permitted.  I learned a new way to take flight in crow, and I am so close to being able to stay in that pose, but still can’t, its pretty frustrating!

Sunday was our scheduled long run.  Um, yeah.  I gave up at around mile 3.5 (and I was crazily thinking I would be going 15 miles) and walked the rest of the way. I did manage to walk 10 miles, but it got really slow at the end.  :)   Hills are not my friends.

At this point, it is looking like the full marathon is out of the question, and that I am going to have to do the half.  The only good news there is that I am way ahead in training for that.  This really makes me sad, remembering how great it felt to complete the full 26.2 miles.  Maybe if I can learn to not be so hard on myself, I might allow myself to walk the second half of the marathon … I’ll have 7 hours to complete it.  We’ll see.  It will be a game day decision.

So this week, I took the week off from running to allow my leg to heal.  It’s been tough.  It’s funny how I fight with myself to get out there and run normally, but then when I “can’t” there is nothing I would rather do.   I just got back a few minutes ago from picking up my CSA farm box (all greens, I guess I’ll be eating lots of salads) and saw many people running.  It made me happy to see them, as running does make me happy but it made me want to come home and put on my running shoes.  But I know I can’t do it until Sunday … that is the smart thing to do.    A walk on Tuesday (in flip flops because my blisters would crack open in shoes) made it very clear that I am not quite ready to run.

I took off my coward hat and tried the South Side yoga studio this week and I loved it.  The noontime class is great as I don’t need to get up early, or rush in the morning and can even go if I run early.  I just don’t like the rest of the day starting at 2:00, by the time I get home, so I guess I’ll have to work on being productive before the class.  Let’s not kid ourselves, its not like I usually get started on things earlier than that most days! Four classes in six days whetted my appetite for more yoga.  So that is good I got the yoga bug back.

Today … I finally finished the seasonal wardrobe conversion.  I had time … waiting for a handyman to come by to give us estimates on some work we need done.  We thought he was coming by at 9:30 but it was after 4:00 before he got here.  Funny how much more time I have when I don’t have to workout.  It was frustrating to have no idea when he would be here and Matt gave up his run because of it.  The handyman didn’t act like I was crazy for having so many cats, he just asked if they all got along, just as Blossom decided to terrorize Fuzzy.

Cole did not sleep one minute all day.  I don’t think Fuzzy, Blossom, or Willie did either.  They were too interested in me.  Cole is very mischievous in general, and more so today.  He was getting on my nerves.  He should be glad that he is so sweet at other times!

And, finally, an update on Hallie.  She is doing fine.  No weird leg pop-outs and she is eating very well and neatly, at that.   If you stuck it out, thank you for reading this very post.

Hello world!

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Since I just signed up for this blog today, I felt I should write something, even though I really don’t have anything exceptional to say today.

Do I lead an extraordinary life?  I don’t know.  I like to think I do.  Some days are just extremely ordinary and sometimes dull.  However, I’ve been to China and 25% of the United States, so I am not entirely boring.

I will do my best not to bore you to tears, and I have no idea what direction this blog will take, if any.  So bear with me, and together we will see how the blog develops and grows.  I run a lot and do yoga.  You’ll hear about those adventures.  My family.  My animal rescue tales as a vet tech and feline behaviorist.  My travels.  And, of course, my cats.

Meanwhile, the most exciting thing to happen to me today was a positive interaction between my youngest cat, Cole, and Hallie the destroyer.  For those of you who don’t know Hallie, she is quite the interesting cat.  She is a gray tabby of slight stature.  But her temperament is another matter.  Most humans and all other cats annoy her.  And she is quite antagonistic about it.   She survives in this kitty den by living on the third floor all by herself.  She is happy up there.  She would probably like my company more often, but two hours a day, usually, she gets my divided attention.

Cole, who at 2.5 years old, still very much a kitten, is obsessed with her.  His favorite pastime is running past me on the stairs to get up there and explore.  His favorite thing to do once he gets up there is to eat her food.  As he doesn’t get dry food, he finds her food very exotic.   Usually, when he runs up there, Hallie will instantly attack him and hiss.  Over the years though, she has gotten a little mellower and after her initial attack, she’ll back off and watch.  However, if I try to interact with her, she will turn her frustration on to me.  This is called redirected aggression.

Today, however, while Cole was happily munching on Hallie’s food, I noticed that her water bowl was dirty, resulting in my having to dump the water and clean the bowl.  The remarkable thing was that Hallie came over to me while I was doing it and let me pet her.  Yep.  No aggressive behavior.  Then I scooped her litter boxes and she rubbed against me.  All while Cole was invading her space and eating her food.  I eventually picked up Cole, refilled her food bowl and came downstairs.   I was so proud of Hallie!

The rest of the day was actually productive for me, and I won’t bore you with the details.  But it is noteworthy that the Max & Erma’s restaurant in Robinson Township got my order right.

Till next time!