I have Nemo brain

I am so tired.  I think it's going to be another early to bed night.  But the reason why I'm tired is really good.  I woke up an hour early (yay time change!) and went in to work, and worked out at the gym! Boo ya!  In your face, Internet!  You thought it wouldn't happen, didn't you?  Well, it did!  And I have the sore muscles to prove it.

I had a fairly productive morning, but I hit a wall at 3:30.  I couldn't remember the name of the editor I normally use.  Two syllables.  Starts with an N.  Nemo?  No, no, that's a fish.  Um.. Oh, right, nano.  It should not have taken that long, as "nano" is a word I type many times a day.

That's when I knew I shouldn't be root anymore.

I caught a second wind just in time to leave work.  Whew!  You do not want me driving on Nemo brain.  I mean, true, my body can pretty much navigate the whole way home without any input from my higher level functions.  But what if something new happened?  I'd end up in DC with no idea of how I got there.  Which would be bad, because I can't navigate AT ALL in DC.  Despite having grown up within a few miles of the border.  DC = the other end of a train ride for me.  And even then, I need to check a compass when I get off the train.

Of course I have a compass with me.  Have you met me?

When I got home I was overjoyed to find that my new Zpacks Exo backpack has arrived.  Perhaps at some point I will find the energy to pack it.

In which I almost ride a horse

This was supposed to be the morning I got up and rode Pluto.  I woke up just before the alarm was set to go off, and thought: "Hey!  I never changed the clock!"  So I set it back an hour and went back to sleep.  You know how often forgetting to change the clock works out in my favor?  First time ever.

So the alarm clock went off an hour later, and I got all warmly dressed and headed out to the farm.  Pluto was *filthy*.  I knocked the worst of it off of him (several spots were still damp so brushing didn't help) and got him dressed in his saddle and blaze orange saddle pad.  In theory, we don't need the extra visibility on the main portion of the farm, but in practice I want anybody who has  gotten confused about how close they are to the farm to see me and not shoot in my direction.

Pluto started getting anxious on the way over to the arena.  The deer hide in the woods between the two sides of the farm, especially when they're being hunted elsewhere.  Pluto knows this.  We all know this.  But for some reason, even though he knows what deer are, and he knows they're back there, it freaks him out.

I lunged him for a while, and realized there was NO WAY I was getting on him.  The chance of sudden and drastic spooking was just too high.  He about yanked my arm out of its socket when the deer moved in the woods near us.  So instead I took him back to the barn.  I took a very careful look at his feet when I got him back, because he had been oddly reluctant to canter on the lunge.  Three of his four feet had gravel wedged up in the edges of his feet.  What the heck?  I have never seen this before.  I think it's a leftover problem from the week when his feet went to heck last trim cycle.    I'm just going to have to keep a closer eye on his feet.  I hope the weak area grows out and is trimmed out next time.  His next appointment is in three and a half weeks, so we'll see what it looks like then.  And I guess I'll be really careful where I walk him in the meantime - more grass, less rocks.  It took both Tara and I and finally a knife to get one of the rocks out this time.  Yikes.  Unfortunately, our arena is a stone dust arena.  I stuck a multitool with a hoofpick into my riding fanny pack, at least, so I can dig out stones while we're in the arena if necessary.

After not riding, I drove home and met a friend for lunch.  This evening I got my backpack together for this weekend, as the week will be a bit busy.  I'm taking extra cold weather gear, so the pack is full up to the tippy top.  I feel a little bad about leaving the sleeping bag compressed all week, but it's not compressed very much - I couldn't get it into a stuff sack.  Instead I lined the pack with a trash compactor bag and shoved the sleeping bag down into it as much as I could.  The backpack carries better when it's bulging at the seams, so it's all good.

If my new backpack shows up in time, I'll have to unpack and repack, but that won't take me long.  I'm a pro!

sig-beer = task accomplished

Back = ow. 

Today was the first time since early September that I went out to the park for my regular weekend hike. I stopped, of course, because I caught Lyme disease again. And then after I healed, I waited for it to get cold out. I don't want to frequent Tick Central during tick season anymore. 

So it had been a while. Normally, hiking doesn't bother my back. I don't know what I did differently today. Maybe nothing. Maybe it's just one of those days. Whatever the reason, my back is Cranky. Oy. So tired of juvenile angsty back. Stupid spine. 

After the walking and the back spasm, I had a delightful interval of Chinese food plus getting warm. Have you noticed that it's cold out? You may not have if you don't spend time outside. If you only go between your vehicle and your car, you probably don't know what I'm talking about. But if you spend several hours at a time outside doing pretty much anything, you must have noticed. It took me two hours of hot food and hot drinks and a hot shower and a nap under three blankets to feel good and warm again. 

Post-nap, JD and I metroed into the city for beer. This is something I've been doing for coming up on twenty years now. It's still the same bar, but the name has changed. And sadly the food has changed. Who ever heard of a bar that doesn't sell bar food? The closest appetizer to onion rings was risotto balls. Risotto. Balls. Seriously. I do not wear trendy hipster pants and I am not eating risotto with my beer down in the basement. Dammit. 

Anyway, we went to the now-hipster bar and saw the same old friends and had the same old great time. Pretty sure my weekend is meeting its fantastic but low key goal, back issues being neither here nor there. 

Planning for fantastic but low key

Huh.  It's only 6:30.  Got home, chatted with JD for a while, did some things on the computer, made dinner, washed dishes.  Normally by now it's 8 or later.

This is making up for last week, when I worked too many hours, had major grumpiness, and caught the stomach flu.

I'm planning one of those low key sorts of weekends that are so nice.  Get up, dress warmly, hike around park.  Meet hubby for lunch.  Take nap.  Metro out to sig-beer, see friends, drink a beer.  Next morning, get up, dress warmly, ride horse.  Meet hubby and friend for lunch.  Maybe take another nap.

Some times, my life is very easy.  :)

I am right this moment wearing my new blaze orange fleece cap.  I had one already, but it squeezed my head.  This is a big deal when you're wearing it at all times.  Headaches make for cranky hikers.  This one is much more friendly to my skull.  Although, at one point JD walked by and said "Orange really isn't your color" so it may not be my most attractive hat ever.  Judge for yourself:

Also, blaze orange doesn't particularly go with that shade of purple

I don't care, though.  It's comfy.  And it will keep me from getting my ass shot off by hunters.

My physical fitness is overpowered by my snoozons

I did my morning chores last night.  I packed my lunch.  I laid out a set of workout clothing, and I packed work clothes to change into later.

I had such good intentions.

I didn't get to sleep particularly late, but when the alarm went off in the dark this morning, there was just no way I was getting out of bed without a life threatening emergency.  Going to the gym to work out was so far down the list, it scrolled to another page.  I hit the snooze button for an hour.  When I finally did get up, I barely had time to get to the office on time, let alone go to the gym first.

However, I am undeterred.  I have a plan.  Somewhere I have this gadget that will slowly turn on your light at a predetermined time.  That way, when your alarm goes off, it's not dark!  It's like sunrise, only more so because it's right there in the bedroom.  I can defeat my own stupid inner caveman.  The inner caveman what says "Tiger  in dark.  Tiger bad.  Stay in cave."  That one.

Now all I have to do is find the gadget, and a lamp that will work with it, and I'm golden.  Or sweaty.  Pre-buffed.  Yup.  Just you wait and see.

planning a hike = happy

I'm feeling pretty high energy tonight.  Pretty happy, pretty excited. That may be the chocolate talking.  I took our excess chocolate in to work to get it out of the house, but that meant it was there at work with me.  I put the bag down at the coffee mess and it was soon emptied, but several other coworkers ALSO brought in their excess candy, and they put it much closer to me.

So, yeah, a lot of chocolate flowing through the old veins tonight.  I was not very tempted by the Skittles, the Starbursts, or anything nutty.  Tiny Peppermint Patties?  Crack in a shiny silver wrapper.

I'm also excited because I'm ramping up for a short hiking trip.  The prospect of getting out overnight makes me way more bouncy than is really called for.  Because 36 hours outside is really not that much.  Nevertheless, I am making plans and being smiley.  We're planning a sub-7-mile first day, which I hope puts us at a shelter in plenty of time to gather some wood and make a fire.  I'm bringing s'mores makings on the theory that we will have fire.  Mmmm, melty marshmallows.

I also have a new pot and stove to play with, which makes me absurdly happy.  I don't even like to cook!  All I'm going to do is boil water!  And yet, here I am, happy as a clam.  A clam with a new pot.

I'm even excited to revisit places where I've been before and didn't have a good time!  I'm sure it will be nicer now - less hot, fewer yahoos.  Last time we went through this particular area, we moved off the trail to watch a long line (at least 10?) of young men carrying gear in for their camp.  This included large coolers, tents STILL IN BOXES, and many items dangling off of backpacks.  Made me wonder what was inside the backpacks.  And how hungover they were going to be in the morning.

Which reminds me!  I should pack some booze in that fancy booze-packing thing I got last year.  What goes with s'mores?

I can't be an artist and stand still

I am a little bit sad that I am not an artist.  I have friends who do fantastic things with paint, chalk, and thread.  I've known the occasional person who could sing well or (more impressively, to me) write good music.  The ability to do any of these things is as far from me as the ability to walk on water.  I respect artists greatly.  I can't really imagine what it's like to have that creative impulse, to say to yourself "Today I will make something new" and then you just go and you do it.  Totally foreign.

The closest I ever got to producing something artistic was in the third grade.  I manufactured a particularly nice little snowman out of construction paper and paste.  In retrospect, the nice part of it was that it was all proportional.  Also, I did a nice job with regular shapes.  Round circles, square squares.  "I made a round circle once" is not the sort of thing you can really brag about in the art world.

I can't adequately visualize something that I would like to make, even with help.  I'm pretty much a failure in the creative vision department.  I was thinking today about my house, and how undecorated it is.  I have a few reproductions hanging on the walls.  Some of them are from Ikea.  Some are from one of the National Galleries.  I have a few small originals that friends and family have given me, but it's not as if I have anything arranged so that it's in a theme.  Or hung level.  Probably the nicest thing you could say about the interior of my house is that it's comfortable.  Which is less praise than one would normally give to the interior of a Victorian house.

I suppose I do feel a little bit artistic.  Sometimes I write things.  One time, in elementary school?  I wrote a story that somebody liked.  I was very proud.  I think it got into a literary magazine of some sort.  (An elementary level magazine.)  However, to me art seems like it should be more hands-on than sitting and thinking, and then typing.  (But then again I wouldn't say that Shakespeare didn't produce art.  Is it art before somebody voices the words?)

The other way I feel a tiny bit artistic is in movement.  Not your traditional ballet.  Not even your non-traditional getting down.  In dressage, I feel art.  Sometimes, when everything comes together and the horse and I move as one, I feel art.

I'm not sure if this counts as art, but when I'm out on a hike, and the weather is incredible, and I'm far from the sounds of civilization, and I am in the midst of natural beauty that cannot fairly be described, it feels like just existing and moving in the midst of that beauty is an expression of art.  I'm not sure why I feel that way.  It's not something that can be captured or displayed.  But it makes me feel the way a really heartfelt song, sung really well, can make me feel.  The chill on the neck, the flush of the ears, the buzzy feeling, the edge of tears. Art.