Is it still a baker's dozen if there's no bread involved?

I kind of fell off the wagon last month.  After a month of low carb, and cravings, and deprivation.. yeah.  I hit the chocolate pretty hard.    Not the bread, surprisingly.  But hell yeah the chocolate.

The time has arrived to start being good again.  I've gone back on the straight and narrow, in the hopes of being a little more narrow myself.  I'm already as straight as I'm getting.

So, back to counting calories.  I'm not actually eating any differently, but I'm dutifully counting.  I wrote down all the easter candy, and the beer, and the shrimp - coconut milk - bok choy creation that JD made for dinner.  And my spinach salad for lunch.  It's all written down and accounted for.

Whose idea was it that writing it all down would work well?  Because it's kind of a pain in the ass.  I'm not a joiner, but Weight Watchers holds a certain appeal in that at least I'd not be typing all the time.  I guess you're still counting, but you're only counting up to 20 or something.  Not 1500.

Anyway, I'm doing that.  Counting.  And trying to eat lots of fruits and veggies.  Wait, let me count.. I had 14 different kinds of fruits and vegetables today.  Of course, many of them were in a salad.  But it still counts.  I'm claiming it.  I'm sure those 8 slices of radish have had some kind of huge nutritional impact, and soon I will be glowing.  Especially if they were farmed in southern MD, down near the nuclear plant.

I've been hitting the gym, too.  I need to tweak my timing.  The tail end of my routine keeps intersecting with the beginning of some class.  This means that I have to bug out of the nice, private, wood floored, mirrored room where I like to work out, and set myself up in the hallway next to the water fountain to finish my workout.  Not private.  Not serene.  You know?

I need to make more time in my day.  I've been giving myself 45 minutes at the gym, and that just isn't satisfying.  All the exercises take a finite amount of time.  I don't want to rush them, as I get less benefit from weights lifted quickly than weights lifted slowly. And some things just can't be rushed.  (Hold this 5 times for 10 seconds each can't really be reduced to less than 50 seconds.)  Perhaps I'll develop gumption and come in to work earlier.  Perhaps pigs will fly.

You have to try harder if you want a truly awesome sandwich

I felt sick last night and this morning so I've been sleeping a lot.  Lunch seems to have perked me up.  I hope the trend continues, as I have a ton of plans for tomorrow.  Hiking, an REI visit to spend my rebate mad money, and Easter dinner with the Cottinghams.  A full day, you must admit.

Lunch was at Five Guys.  I got their little hamburger and shared some fries with JD.  I also got a glass of real Coke, figuring that some sugar and caffeine would instill a little energy.  And indeed it did.  On my burger, I got pickles, grilled onions, tomato, lettuce, and A-1 sauce.  You may feel that I'm being unnecessarily detailed, but I have a point.  Why is Five Guys feeling so great about their toppings?  They're pretty much sitting back on their laurels because they have A-1 as an option, you know what I mean?

I feel that a sincere burger joint needs more options.  Like fried eggs.  And peanut butter.  Sriracha sauce.  Blue cheese.  Swiss cheese.  Brie.  Grilled zucchini.  Sliced apples.  Maple bacon.  Sharp cheddar. Tzatziki sauce.  Cucumber slices.  Buffalo sauce.  Bean sprouts.  Alfalfa sprouts.  Horseradish.  And so on.

I have strong feelings about sandwiches.

With the help of Coke (and refills where I used the drink machine in unintended ways to make a Hi-C seltzer and a lemonade seltzer) I have enough energy to do some stuff, so I reduced the height of the stack of paper on my desk.  And I started unpacking from my last trip so that I can be ready for my next trip (a dayhike tomorrow) and the one after that (an overnight next weekend.)  Hence my dining room looks as if a backpack has exploded in it.  An all too familiar sight, in this household.

Peeing: You know you do it, too

I sit before you today to talk about a very serious subject:  urination.

Everybody pees.  Humans are huge bags of water, constantly adjusting their fluid levels.  We are advised to drink at least two quarts of water a day.  Which means that unless you're planning to gain four pounds every day, you're going to be peeing OUT two quarts as well.  Exercise much?  You're probably drinking more, for multiple reasons.  Well hydrated muscles move more smoothly over each other.  Without more water, you cramp.  Without more water, toxins aren't smoothly moved out of your body.  So, more water!  But it's not sticking around.  You'll sweat some out, you'll cry some out (in lubricating tears if nothing else), you'll breathe some out.  But mostly?  You'll pee.

Okay, so I've pretty much established that peeing will be going on.  For everyone.  The men.  The women.  The children.  The puppies.  The frogs.  Everyone.

Why is peeing such a big deal?  We all breathe all the time, and that's okay.  There's no fine for breathing in public.  Even if you have bad breath.  Even if you have asthma and sound like a broken bellows.  Breathe as much as you want, pal, it's free.

But peeing?  Oh my goodness no!  That's private!  That's illegal, if anybody catches you!  Except that if you go in a public restroom, EVERYBODY knows what you're doing, can hear it, can smell it, can see you in the cracks around the stupid little door to your peeing cell.  You have to keep up the appearance of pretending to not know they know you're peeing, and they have to keep up the appearance of pretending not to know you're peeing.

You may wonder why this is on my mind.  Well, I'll tell you.

There is a class of people who, through the kindness of their hearts, will let hikers camp for free on their property.  For which, thank you.  We often need a place to stay, as we are a little bit or a lot homeless while hiking, depending.  But kind people, you forget that we are functional people!  You deny access to modern plumbing!  And then you get upset when people pee outdoors!

We are people just like you!  WE ALSO PEE!  It bugs me every time I hear that hikers are no longer welcome because one of them was spotted peeing somewhere.  What did people think would happen?  Did they think the hikers would somehow be able to hold it for the 36 hours they were spending in town?  For even 6 hours in town, if it involved a meal and adding a soda to that bag-of-liquids body?

Blind.  Or stupid.  But probably blind.

Anyway.  I gotta go.  For some reason I need to pee now.

All days should be nice like today

Love seeing the moon during the day

It was a super nice day today.  Started at 3 am with a migraine, but drugs took care of that.  Outside it was shirtsleeve weather.  The kind where the air feels good on your skin and the earth feels good under your feet.  A vendor bought me lunch and I walked back to the office from the restaurant, feeling like I could walk for hours given the opportunity.  And I would have.

My day was kind of busy.  I didn't feel like I got much done.  Mostly I went to meetings.  Good meetings, though.

This evening was yoga.  Yoga teacher was once again feeling too sick to teach, but she got us a sub.  If she hadn't, I was going to suggest that we just practice some basic poses as a group.  I missed it too much when we didn't have class last week.  But, sub was there.  She was very, very different, in a good way.  She made me mindful of parts of my body that I don't think of much.  I felt very bendy and happy by the time we were done.

The little monster here at the house is trying to fit in, and we're getting there gradually.  Maybe a month before everything is settled?  In the meantime, we watch her carefully, trying to intervene before she breaks housetraining.  And making sure that if Beauty won't stand up for herself, the Beast at least realizes that she'll get in big trouble if she abuses her housemates.  We think it's sinking in.

Things in my day

It's almost like fall, with the different colors of pollen in the treeline.  Fall:  the other time of year when my head hurts.

This little beauty was right outside the door to my office.  Just a tiny little flower in the grass.  It's about the size of my thumbnail.

Yes, you are seeing that correctly.  There are BROCCOLI BITS.  In the WATER FOUNTAIN.  I almost went passive-aggressive all over somebody's ass, but I was really busy.  Not too busy to snark and take a picture, of course.

The Beast, here, is finally starting to figure things out.  Like, you don't have to bark all night.  And skwirls are fun.  And if you do your bidness out in the yard, people are nicer to you.  Also, like every animal ever, she has fallen in love with my husband and accepts me only as a poor substitute.

My dog is having an unnatural relationship with a sheep

This evening we managed to keep the little terror from doing anything awful OR making horrible sounds, which is some kind of miracle.  Also, she was being cute:

There is very little as ridiculous as a dog with a sheep for a head

She decided this old cat bed was just perfect this evening.  Unfortunately, it is heavily imbued with cat hair.  She is getting hairballs from it, I'm pretty sure.  That should be fun to deal with.
We don't care if she tears up the surface of that bed, so we're letting her do whatever she wants to it.  At some point I should probably remove the heating pad from inside it.  It's not plugged in, so she won't get electrocuted, but I'd like to be able to use it next year.

More importantly, Olli would like to be able to use it next year.

She is currently curled up in the bed with her head pillowed on the sheep, kind of moaning.  And shnorking.  She's a weird one, that dog.

JD let her in the living room to watch tv with him this evening.  She made several trips to various locations in the room to secure her stuffed squirrels.  She felt that it was important for them to be on the same sofa as JD while they all watched Star Trek together.  Those are going to be some nerdy squirrels.

Less barking, more pooping, more Star Trek

My world is a much better place today.  It's sunny, I got to see a movie(1) with friends (one of whom I never get to see because she is one of the hardest working engineers at NASA), and we opened a bottle of Clos du Bois merlot for dinner.  That's one of my favorite wines.  And indeed the only bottle of wine we had left, in the red category.  (Mom Forinash, we have a bottle of white left with your name on it.)

Also, the Dogwai has been much less barky today.  Though equally poopy.  And, sadly, pee-ey.

I left a message with the dog training place where I took Paige(2), back when she was incorrigible.  They corriged her right proper.  I'm certain that they can set one little Shnorkie straight.

Also, the Shnorkie (aside from some excretions) has been much easier to get along with today.  Yes, she wants to be right next to either me or JD at all times.  But she has at least agreed to be next to us away from the sofa.  We were getting pretty tired of spending all our time in the living room.

Current ideas for replacement dog/mop names:  Dogwai, The Beast (to go with Beauty).

Dogwai over there has decided that, like all dogs, she is in love with JD.  She likes nothing better than to be three inches from his foot.  Or less.  The only way I'm going to get "my own" dog is if JD leaves town for a couple of months.  Which is an option.  Although probably not in the near future, as I don't see us with a third dog.  Two dogs, four cats, and a horse is sufficient.  We already have to get the county hoarder's license for the six housepets.  Seven would be insane.  More insane.

After several months in a cage at the vet's, I guess she'll deal okay with staying in her crate while we're at work.  Between the stitches and her inappropriate excretions, there is no way that we're leaving her out during the day.  Not for a while, anyway.  Also, the cats are still unsure that the asthmatic mop which has taken up residence on the first floor is safe to be around.  Andy was finally driven downstairs by hunger today, but he resents it.  Both he and Dori were thrilled when I went up to take a shower today so they could get petted and made much of (by JD - I was busy showering.)

Dogwai pleased to be the center of attention on the sofa.  Also pleased that Star Trek TNG is on.  We adopted a Trekkie.

This week will be the first in a long time with no physical therapy at all.  If the weather holds, I'll get out to see my horse.  I might even ride him.  He won't know what's going on.


(1) We went to see "The Hunger Games".  I was able to read the trilogy recently courtesy of my friend Renee, who lent them to me over Amazon.  The movie grossed some outrageous amount on its opening weekend.  I noted that it differed from the books in a couple of important respects, but the feel was much the same.  I don't understand why they chose to gift the pin as they did.  It's a key element.  And some things would have been very difficult / expensive to film.  But nevertheless I was captivated, except for the point about an hour in when I had to dash out to pee.  It's a very long film.

(2) I miss that dog all the time.  Just like Playboy was a once in a lifetime horse, Paige was a once in a lifetime dog.  It took me a year to establish full dominance over her, but after that she was the light of my life.  She shared my bed (sleeping tight by my spine), my mandatory nightly walks, my one sided conversation.. she was a smart dog, and after training she used her powers for good.  As much as I miss her, I'm grateful to have had the chance to know her.  To know just how great a dog can be.  And look, now I'm crying again.