MPG

We haven't really talked a lot about mileage lately. Today, however, I finally got off my butt and went for a nice long(ish) bike ride, so I feel a bit better about broaching the subject.

For example, the pain of admitting that nearly the entire month of February was spent doing a whole lot of nothing is dulled a bit by being able to say that I rode for about 10 miles today. Of course, my total for the week is a paltry 15 miles or so, and admitting that is as though someone cut off my morphine.

I blame it on the dog. Bucket and I went for a nice long romp in the desert last Sunday. As much as I preach against it, there are times when I just want to see the boy run, so I let him off leash. He's quite good out there in the middle of nowhere, and as long as we never run into another dog, we should be just fine. He has chased many a lizard, what I presume to have been a rabbit, and this past Sunday found and tactfully avoided a rattlesnake (thank heavens he had the good sense to step away; I'm not sure what I'd have done if he'd decided it would make a fun chew toy). It's a real joy to see him exploring and occasionally looking over his shoulder to make sure I'm in sight. He comes when he's called (as long as there are no major distractions) and never gets too far away. If he can't hear my footsteps, he'll stand stock still and start looking fervently for me--I stop from time to time and "hide" just to make sure he's paying attention!

Anyway. The desert being what it is... I normally am the considerate parent and check his lil tootsies when we get home, but for some reason last Sunday I spaced it. I think I was just exhausted--5 miles of running through the desert on a toasty Spring afternoon will do that to a girl. I was laying on the bed, mustering up the energy to take a shower when Bucket walked up to the side of the bed and looked at me plaintively while lifting up one paw.

Sure enough, he had a GINORMOUS thorn in one of his pads. We had to get the needlenose pliers after it, and he shrieked like the little girl he is. Anyone would have thought we were poking a searing cattle prod in his eye or something. We cleaned it up and watched him limp around the house for the rest of the afternoon, clearly hoping that more attention would come his way.

The Monday morning walk of course had to be cancelled. We wanted to give him time to heal up properly, and taking Delilah and not him would have been paramount to asking for the animal kingdom's version of wailing and gnashing of teeth. Since he was no longer limping and showed no other signs of distress with the foot, I decided to take him for a short walk on Tuesday, which went just fine. Hooray.

Wednesday I'll have to blame on myself. I had decided to take my 24 allergy meds before bed, since they were making me a bit groggy during the morning, and when I tried to wake up at 6 am, I felt like I'd been beaten around the head with a sack of lead. Same result when I tried to wake up at 6:45, 7:15, and 7:45. I finally hauled my sorry self out of bed shortly after 8am, so no walkies Wednesday.

I have no idea why we didn't walk Thursday morning. I'm going to have to go with sheer laziness.

Friday? Well, lets just say that Bucket had a tummy ache on Thursday night and Friday morning and leave it there. I mean, I don't need to go into detail about what was going on with my boy's butt. It was gross. And it needed to be taken care of at 2am and again at 4am. And I'm pretty sure I didn't sleep at all really between those two times. So when 6am rolled around, I had long since re-set the alarm for a friendlier hour.

Wow, so it seems that I can really only blame the boy for 3 days of suckage this week. The rest of it was all me. But his days are the majority, so I'm going to stick with my previous assesment that it's all his fault.

And on an entirely different note, R took Bucket and Delilah with him to get coffee this afternoon. The rear windows in the xTerra were up, so the girl at the window couldn't see the dogs, but she could hear Bucket whining and chirping like he does. She honestly asked R if he had "a little chihuahua back there". I'm not sure how he stifled what surely must have been the world's loudest guffaw, but he simply rolled down the rear window and let Bucket stick his head out. The coffee girl was shocked, to say the least. A little chihuahua indeed!

So yeah. Lowish miles this week overall, but today was a good day. I'm hoping to make that a more regular ride, as it's fast, easy (totally non-technical so I can push the speed and get the heart rate up!), and variable enough to keep me from getting bored. The cupcake bites have really been a bane to any sort of "get skinny" plan; my only hope is to get more active! With summer fast approaching, my outdoor activity window grows slimmer and slimmer--unlike my belly!

I'll get some totals together soon; I'm not entirely sure where I stand overall and it would be good information to have. But now...sleep!

Buzz buzz buzz

I recently bought an air purifier for our bedroom, as my allergies--especially overnight, for some reason--have gotten more annoying. I can't tell if it's doing much at all really, but I've become accustomed to the humming of the fans; they create a lovely white noise in the room. However, they do keep me from thinking deeply. I could think of nothing else when trying to name tonight's post. Or perhaps there's really nothing else to call such ramblings.

Thank you to my dear Shanny, who has, through the miracle of technology, set herself up to receive an email whenever I update my blog. She is also one of the only folks who ever post comments on my blog (coughcoughpointedcough). I want to link to her blog, which is much more regularly updated than mine, although not as much as I'd like (coughcough)--but since I'm on the laptop, I don't have the faintest idea how to find her.*** What on earth would I ever do without my bookmarks?

Anyway.

No crazy bizaare dreams to report from the past two nights. Oh, don't doubt that I had them! I just can't recall the content at this point. We watched two episodes of Lost tonight, though, so I'm sure it will be a fun-filled venture into insanity when I drift of to sleep in a bit.

Holy Crap. Season Three of the Venture Brothers came out yesterday and I totally forgot about it. Not that I've even seen Season Two yet, but season one was really amazingly good. Clever and ridiculous and insidious and buzz buzz buzz.... Maybe it's time to go shopping.

See what I did there? The weird, invisible tangential leap between talking about the insanity of Lost to "zomg Venture Brothers!"? It's kind of hard to follow, even for me, but this is how it goes**:

We watched two episodes of Lost(which is a total trip).
In my head, but not written down: "I think it's better to wait until the DVDs come out--or at least until the end of the season so we can watch them all at once."
"You know", (still in my head) I need to clean out the DVD shelves downstairs."
Then, as I visualise the DVD shelves, I can see the Venture Brothers very near the LOST set(s) on the shelf (television collections are filed together, of course...duh!).
Then I remember hearing a blurb about the Venture Brothers Season Three set coming out on Tuesday. (On NPR, of all places! *THAT'S* how cool the Venture Brothers are.)

So now that you've had that tasty little peek inside my whacko brain, I'm going to leave you to chew on it a bit while I head off to what will surely be animated dreams of angry butterflies, smoke monsters, hippies, and assassins. Good times!

**OR...it may have had something to do with the fact that I'd just used the word "venture" in the line previous. Amazing what you find out when you re-read something you've just written. Although everything else is true, too.

***Wow. I really need to hang out around here more often. There is a link to Shanny's site, right over there << on the side bar.

I am the Optimist Doctor

The one who refuses to let the patient die. The one who never delivers the "I'm so sorry...." speech. The one who constantly has another trick up her sleeve.

I have let this blog fade so so many times, and yet I keep coming back. Small wonder no one reads along; I have a hard time following blogs that post 3-4 times a week, much less one that might post 3-4 times every 6 months! No, I can't blame my readers for my...lack of readers. I have only myself and my lackadaisical posting attitudes to fault for that.

My most recent excuse was, of course, the incoming parentals. The prep work for their visit, their visit, and the downtime afterward was my rationale for abandoning The Blog. But they left almost 2 months ago, for crying out loud! I guess I just find it hard to jump back on the bandwagon once I've fallen off. Those cart horses do go quickly, you know.

At any rate, I've this night found the laptop sitting on the bed. R was feelin crappy today (so I'm probably catching back my cooties even as I type), and had the computer in here so he could email in sick (aaaahhhh technology! don't even have to talk to the boss any more--just send him an email!).

It was calling to me and it makes sense--I've journaled since I was a teenager, and I always wrote before bed. Got my thoughts out of my brain and allowed me, usually, to get to sleep more easily. And it kept me from having wildly whacko dreams, like the one a couple weeks ago where I was being chased by a mountain lion that eventually grabbed the back of my hand with one of his ginormous claws, which stuck in like nature's own grappling hook. Or the one last night featuring a huge smooth quarry-like pit in the earth, strewn with the skeletons of the people who had fallen in and couldn't get out. Among other things.

Yeah, those things I can do without. So perhaps blogging about the mundanities of my days will keep me here, keep some of you here (Hi Mom! Hi Dad!), and get me some much needed sweet dreams!