Adventures in Paradise

Track Me!

All through last week I was feeling fine. The Army Tem-Miler was fun, especially since I took it easy. One good solid run to get rid of the chest cold followed by my last long run yesterday, which I did much faster than I'd intended.

I started with a group and dropped back around mile 2 because they were going faster than I like to start, and I needed to remove the fleece I'd started with. I caught up to a pair that had stopped to do the same around mile 4 and ran the last six with one of them. We actually stopped at mile 5 when the three of us met up with the two guys they'd been running with (turns out to be a husband and a friend of the pair I ran with) and we started up again after a short rest. That's not my preferred practice because I'm always afraid that I won't get started up again after I stop moving. Still, the guys left us behind around mile 6 and one of the women dropped back shortly after that. I kept trying to slow down to keep her with us because I felt like they'd have stayed together if I hadn't joined in, but the speedier runner just kept going, so I adjusted and kept up. I did NOT plan to be running 9 minute miles, but that's what we did. Mind you, the route we ran is five miles uphill and the five miles downhill. The profile looks sort of like the Little Prince's drawing of a snake eating an elephant.

Anyway, even though I was going much faster than I'd planned, I managed to have a full-on conversation the whole time. Turns out my partner grew up a Navy brat and she was living in the Bay Area for part of the time I was living there. Her dad worked at the Naval Station that shared space with the NASA installation where my mom worked. How funny is that?

But now I'm getting butterflies. Big butterflies. I worry that I've heaped my expectations too high. I ran last year in 5 hours and 15 minutes, which is SLOW, but beat all the max allowable times by more than an hour. I want to run this race in under 5 hours, which is a 15 minute reduction in time. I beat my half marathon record by 15 minutes in September at the Navy Air Force Half Marathon, so I know I can do it - but can I sustain it for a full 26.2 miles? Argh.

Anyway - track me via this link : Runner Broadcast Service

My bib number is 13970.

So that there's not a photo-less post, here's the dog I'm currently fostering, Leo. I said I wasn't going to foster until after the race, but I'm a sucker and it's getting cold in DC, so the boarding facility we use that only has outdoor kennels is closing in the next couple of weeks. So, we need to get pups into foster.

Leo is about 40 lbs, hound mix, and as my dog walker calls him a "gentle giant". As long as he gets along with Harvey, he gets to stay.

I Do Still Knit

Right now I have two projects, neither of which have been photographed recently. It's mostly because they're large expanses of a single stitch. In the case of the project I've been working on since February, it's a daisy stitch baby blanket.

I love the yarn, a green varigated sport weight Panda Silk, but it's all kinds of splitty and so between the stitch pattern and the yarn, it's not really brainless knitting. And I'm getting bored. It's large enough to be used as a car seat cover, so I may just finish it off and call it done.

The other is a plain garter stitch shawl made from some yarn I picked up at Jimmy Bean's wool on a recent trip to Oregon. It's called "Blurred Lines" and it's a gradient called "Sea to Sky" and is a gradient from white to deep blue. I started a sock with it, but the size 1 needles I had weren't cutting it and the white gradient sort of looked like it was going to last the entire foot, which wasn't really the look I was going for. So I started a triangular shawl, with the deepest blue at the neck. It's small enough, even at several hundred stitches, to be portable knitting, so I've been working on it on the Metro mostly. Sadly, I've reached the point where my brief Metro ride only gets me through a row at a time. At some point I'll run out of yarn...

I will leave you with a picture of my beasties, at 0130 this morning.

It was so darn cute that I couldn't send Niko back to his own bed.

Harvey the Two Faced Cat

Most of the time, my Harvey is a sweet, loving boy with a habit of lounging somewhere near me.

As he is here. Or is he really just lounging around? Austin would disagree, as seconds later, my sweet kitty boy looked more like this:

He's always thought dog tails make excellent toys. Poor pup had no idea what was happening. But Harv is such a scaredy-cat that he took off as soon as Austin turned around and stepped towards the chair. It was playful and not an attack, so I just let them work it out while I took pictures. That makes me a bad foster mom, probably.

Some really good news is that we got an adoption application on Austin this week and he'll be going to meet his prospective family on Saturday. Yay!

I don't know if everyone could see the link since I went through Facebook...here's a You Tube link to our Zorbing adventure that should work. My adventure on Sunday was a 14.8 mile run that took me around the National War College, Hain's Point, up the Mt. Vernon Trail towards Roosevelt Island, past the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Monument, WWI and WWII Memorials, and the Washington Monument. (And a bunch of gov't buildings including the backsides of a few Smithsonian buildings). I love it that this place is within a mile of the city center.

Pardon the Imposition

Guess who would like me to close the crate door after dinner has been served?

Mom arrived in town at an uncivilized hour last night/this morning thanks to a mechanical problem in San Francisco, followed by a weather delay based on the weather here in DC. Still, I hauled Tipper out to the airport at midnight to meet the flight. We walked through baggage claim and the parking lots - and she walked great the whole time. She even laid down in the office where Mom had to give her info to get the bag she left behind on the first flight. Then Tipper spent the night in Mom's bedroom, door closed so that my curious kitty wouldn't trigger Mom's allergies too much.

I left Tip with Mom twice and she apparently did pretty well in that no rugs were harmed. She did pace a lot though. Still, after an evening romp in the local playground and the above pictured dinner, she settled down pretty happily...

The picture is hard to see, but that's an incredibly relaxed Tipper snuggling on Mom's lap while we watch The Daily Show.

More Good Things

Tonight Tipper gets to meet mom. It's a little more complicated than intended since there were mechanical issues with one flight and while she got herself on another one, it's coming into a completely different airport. No big deal, just an adjustment in plans. And meeting in a busy parking lot is less than optimal, but still do-able. Since mom gets in late, I've already set up the air mattress, complete with loud mechanical inflating noises. The good news? Instead of peeing on my rug to express her discontent (I did take her for a walk immediately before for a reason...), she headed into her crate. Granted, she's still in there, I suppose waiting to be sure I'm not going to make even more loud noises first. Still, progress. And there's this:

Yes, there is actual physical contact there. I started snuggling with Tipper on the chaise and Harvey joined us after some thought. Tipper never even turned her head away and shortly after Harvey joined us, she relaxed and rested her head on my leg, as you can see here. A few second later, Harvey decided to shift positions and laid down with her head on her flank - and again, not a single doggie twitch. Yay! Although, they are getting along so well, I could be in trouble.

This is what happens when Tipper is at day care. Tim said Harv wandered around looking for Tipper for several minutes before he settled down in front of the crate.

And this pretty girl is Mercy. they think she's a Weimeraner/Catahoula Hound dog mix and to say she's timid is an understatement. The rescue asked a couple of us who live near the day care to take her for walks because she's not just timid, but a flight risk as well. I made a pre-move Goodwill run this morning and stopped by the day care to meet her on the way home (thankfully before the skies opened up AGAIN). I ended up just sitting with her in the store for a good five minutes before she relaxed enough that I felt like she's trust me enough to walk with her. Not food motivated, and not into toys, but since the dog park was empty, I let her run free and boy did she love that! I ran a bit with her and she'd be a great running partner for someone. I'm told that the temporary foster in North Carolina had done some agility work with her and she did really well.

Oh, and I do still do some stuff with fiber...

I took my cousin to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Fesitval this year, and as usual I walked away with a Bosworth drop spindle. (Doesn't matter what else I look at, including Goldings...I leave with a Bosworth.) I also got some pretty orange silk hankies and have been slowly playing with that in the evenings. I remain an uneven spinner, but I got enough that I can play. This is the second batch.

Bits

With Tipper living here for the last four weeks, I sometimes worry that my Harvey isn't getting enough attention. Our morning routine is completely changed, because I have to take the dog out before 6 instead of playing with Harvey first. And as I've said before, he doesn't understand why the dog gets to go when he doesn't - and why the Tipper won't play with him, despite his best efforts to be friendly. But this afternoon, I got in some great kitty snuggle time...

And this is because putting it up on Facebook seems too self-aggrandizing, but I worked really hard on the paper that won this, so I'm sharing here...

Not sure how I won an award from a counter-intelligence group, but I suspect it's just a sponsoring organization. I wrote about collective defense and a regional group's influence on China regarding the South China Sea. That probably doesn't mean anything to most people, but it's a thorny problem. I didn't solve it.

When Mom Cleans

The broom isn't nearly as scary as the vaccuum, so the process can be closely monitored (and when mom turns her back, Harvey can go lay down on the pile she swept into place). Even Tipper wanted to supervise - from slightly further away.

Tipper is mostly doing great, but as Jessica pointed out in my initial fostering post, it's going to take time. Every time I think we've made amazing strides I discover some new quirk that needs to be addressed. She is as scared of my umbrella as she was of the buses going down the street. So now I'm going to be the crazy lady walking the dog on sunny days with an umbrella in my hand. And she really doesn't like strangers in her house. I mean REALLY. She was truly unhappy when the Comcast guy walked into the house, I'd say scared unhappy because while she growled and woofed, she did so from the safety of the top flight of stairs. Eventually, she went into doggie jail - but not before she peed and pooped on one of my rugs. Sigh.

This is going to make the next few weeks a bit of a challenge. BrownShoe (the boyfried/significant other/whatever) has transfered to San Diego but is going to be in town over the weekend. My current plan is to meet him while we are on our evening walk (he doesn't arrive until late, so the timing works) and have him walk with us for the last 15 minutes or so - she's fine with strangers outside. There will be lots of treats, too. That way, by the time we get to the house, he's not a stranger any more. Does that make sense?

And on a positive note...how can you resist this cuteness?

 

 

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

What happens when mom needs to open both top and bottoms doors and the animals would like to explore?

Yeah. Animal jail. Neither of them were too excited, but for different reasons. Harvey resented being confined, and Tipper wanted to know how I could jam her in with a cat. I'd like to say it ended well, and it mostly did, until the very end. I think Tipper's excitement at my return freaked Harvey out and now that blanket is in the wash because cat pee isn't pleasant at all. But Harvey isn't the only one who had an accident today. It turns out that Miss Tip's reaction to the vaccuum is to pee on the rug. So...she'll be crated for that in the future. (I'd held off on vaccuuming until I knew she was comfortable with me and after three weeks, I think I picked up a full dog from my rugs.)

The reason the animals had to be jailed is that I'm going to be moving this summer, and I just got the keys on Saturday. Today I loaded up my vegetables and hauled them to the backyard. I brought Tipper and Harvey over with me to do some swatch painting and plant potting/placement. Tipper made herself comfortable on the middle floor - sometime in the next couple of months, there will be furniture.

These are the two candidates for the focus wall in the living room where Tipper is hanging out. It will be the long wall across from all the windows. This room gets an amazing amount of light thanks to eight floor to ceiling windows on the other three walls, (east, west and south exposures), so I'm thinking a deep color will be okay. The paint swatches are on pieces of what are essentially contact paper that will go up on the wall this week. The one on the right is called "Quixotic Plum" and has a lot of gray, while the next one is either "Dewberry" or "Majestic Purple". I'm inclined to think it's "Dewberry" because the third, not pictured, one (that I'm pretty sure is out of contention) is very purple.

The yellows I painted on the walls themselves - this is the inside of a set of built-in bookshelves on the ground floor, which houses a half bath, utility room, and open kitchen/living area. The colors look fairly close (and aggressive) in the picture but the one on the right is much less bright than the one on the right. I may go for another shade lighter, but the impact will be lessened by my books and other stuff, so maybe not.

Snuggles

When we come home from day care or a walk, Harvey greets Tipper and me at the door. At first, it was to dash out the door (into a stairwell, not outside) to see where I was taking a puppy. In the last few days though, it's become a true greeting, complete with rubs to both of us.

Tipper is relaxed, but she tolerates rather than enjoys it. Harvey is pretty persistent though - and he fits neatly under her belly.

Harvey moves too fast for me to get a good picture, but it really is a sweet greeting. This evening he came up and tried to groom her ears. If I'm not careful, these two just may become attached and then I'll really be in trouble!

Breakthroughs

This morning, as I walked past Tipper, I got this...

...her first ever request for belly rubs from me. She got lots of love, followed by a two mile run (because I wanted to exhaust her before I crated her in the morning...seemed to work, our afternoon walk was very slow). This evening, following another two mile walk and dinner in her crate (and after she spotted the blueberries I'm having for desert), this happened...

And Harvey has a new perch, which he clearly uses when Tipper is crated based on the wrinkles when I got back.

And since I really do live in a cool neighborhood, I'll give you an idea of the sights you see on your way about your business around here:

A V-22 Osprey, on short final, lands a few hundred feet from me, disgorges a bunch of apparently important people and then continues on it's business.