August 2006 Archives

I have a confession to make.

I miss Ironman desperately. I'm a bit lost without one of these races in my future. I don't exactly know what to do with myself.

Yeah I've talked about mountain bike racing and maybe cross and shorter triathlons and xterra, and I want to do all that, but I want to do it along with Ironman. I swore up and down no more Ironman for a while, but the truth is, its a large part of who I am. Yeah, I pretty much suck at it and yeah, I have had as much (actually more) "failure" as "success", but I miss it. I miss having that kind of structure. Sure, having the time to sit around and twiddle my thumbs has been great, but there's something missing.

When I was in the water at CDA getting pummelled I swore to myself "never again ... at least not until they lower the number of entrants at these events". I hated that swim, and I'm a strong swimmer. But now, looking back on it, I keep thinking ... it wasn't so bad ... was it? And I remember how my feet felt like they were absolutely on fire on the run at CDA and how, again, I said "never again ... this is stupid" ... and yet I miss that. I miss the intensity and feeling like, whatever happened, I was sticking my neck out and giving it everything I had.

CDA is sold out for next year. So is Placid. Arizona is too early in the year for me (long rides in winter just ain't gonna cut it). Canada isn't a possibility because of the crazy entry rules this year. Florida doesn't excite me. Wisconsin I love ... and I mean I REALLY love ... that race. But July and August are freakin' TERRIBLY hot months to be doign lont rides around here. BUT its a cheap trip from here, its a few months AFTER the BAR ....

Not that I'm really considering it.

Of course if I really wanted to avoid those crazy swims, I have two other options. One is to do one of the smaller "iron distance" races like Great Floridian, which doesn't really get my blood pumping (call me shallow, but I like the big glitzy races). The other option is of course a race that is at a perfect time of year, in a beautiful and exotic locale, still big and glitzy, but with a slightly less crowded swim. Of course that race would cost more than I'll make in my first year after graduation (ok, not really, but close!).

Not that I'm really considering any of these ...

I'm not an addict. I'm just having a hard time figuring out how to quit.

And in my less missing-what-I-used-to-do moments, I think that it would be really really cool to try something like this.

I woke up this morning to the most beautiful, glorious, welcome sound I could possibly hear. It was the sound of geese making goose noises as they flapped through the air. It signals that fall is on its way.

Unlike climberchica who dreads the end of summer, I long for it. Especially this year. This summer has been ridiculously hot. We had weeks where the daytime highs barely dipped below 100 degrees. It was nasty hot ... the kind of hot where you do anything to avoid leaving your house. And I hate living like that ... I LIKE leaving my house and going outside!

Oh, but fall is on its way! And with fall comes crisp cool air and PERFECT mountain biking weather!! I'm hoping that we will be rewarded for our unreasonably hot summer with an early fall. I really can't wait.

Last night we officially celebrated the end of my summer gig. The afternoon started in the office, eating cake and drinking soda. Then the other two interns and I and our supervisor and our boss headed out to a martini bar for cosmos and then it was to La Bodega for some tapas and sangria. By the end of the night I was very full and very sad to see my internship coming to a close.

I loved working there. I loved it way way more than I had expected to. I feel like I learned more during my 10 weeks there than I have learned thus far in my two years of law school.

And now the waiting game begins. I can't imagine working anywhere else. I loved the job, the work, the people, the hours ... its a PERFECT fit for me and I want very very badly to come back in a year and stay for good. I get the feeling that they would like to hire me, its just a matter of having a position available. So, we wait and hope that that comes true, and that if it does, I'm high enough up on the want-to-hire list that I get an offer. I would take it in a heartbeat. I think my chances are good but how nice would it be to KNOW so that I didn't have to worry so much about finding a job during my third year of law school?

The boyfriend and I have become frighteningly domestic in our old age (did I mention that I will reach the ripe old age of 27 next month?! holy crap!)!

Now that law school graduation is right around the corner (ok, its 9 months away) we're actually having to figure out what the hell we are going to do with ourselves once I am fully edumacated. I used to peruse Petfinder for hours on end, lately, I have started looking at houses online.

Its not just the excitement about potentially being a homeowner, its figuring out where in the big bad city to live. I realize I will likely end up in KC, and thats cool with me, because while its missing a good number of things I would like in a city (mainly, mountains, rushing rivers, etc.), it does have quite a few things that I dig (a great music scene, my family, ample mountain bike oppurtunities, low cost of living which would allow us to do the things we want to do without having to work ungodly hours to be able to afford it). The problem with KC though, is that there are a lot of neighborhoods where I would absolutely NOT want to live.

KC has some very cute areas, older neighborhoods with lots of characer, but it also has a whole lot of god awful sprawling suburbs with strip malls and Starshmucks on every corner. Its those areas that I feel quite literally suck the soul out of me. I hate it. Most of the cool areas in KC are closer to the city itself - which has its benefits and drawbacks. For us, the biggest drawback of this, is being a good distance from open country roads. So we need to figure out how to balance the desire to live someplace cool with wanting to live in a nice (by our standards) part of town.

The whole thing is fun and exciting and I love thinking about it and looking at houses and trying to imagine us living there. What woud it feel like? Would we be comfortable? Can we see Maddie and [unnamed yet to be adopted second dog] trotting through the house and wrestling in the yard?

I long for the day that I get a call saying "hey ... we have a job for you!" so that all these speculations can start to actually materialize. Until that happens, there seems to be little point in looking too seriously. But once I get that phone call, IT'S ON!

Have no fear, this newfound nesting instinct has nothing to do with wanting to procreate. Procreation is still the LAST thing on my mind (well, not the ACT that could lead to procreation ... eh ... nevermind ;)). A house with J and the dog is one thing. A house with J and the dog and KIDS is a WHOLE other story ... and I still shudder to even consider it ...

I also, for the first time in years, have a nice little pile of cash in the bank. Its not a lot by just about anyone else's standards, but I feel like I can finally set some of it aside for savings. Which is exciting. And since this is the first time I've really had any appreciable amount that I can set aside, I'm trying to figure out what the best way to do that would be. Do I want a regular savings account? Do I want to invest it in some way? What the hell is a CD anyway? I'm trying to wade through all these things and figure out what would be best.

I'm feeling frighteningly grown up at the moment. But its kind of nice.

Its hard to believe, considering my somewhat nomadic tendencies, but I have been a proud inhabitant of the People's Republic of Looneyville for the last 8 years (with the exception of two study abroad programs where I left for a few months at a time). This means that, since I was the ripe old age of 18, I have hung out in the same coffee shops, drank at the same bars, and eaten at the same restauraunts.

Last night, as the boyfriend and I were sitting in a downtown bar, I realized that in some ways this town is full of ghosts.

There are a finite number of bars here that I like to go to. Many of the downtown bars are way to "college" or too "frattastic" ... I didn't like them when I was in college, and I definitely don't like them now. I like to hang out at the places where the townies and older college/grad kids go ... which whittles the number of bars that I frequent down to about five or so. And at this point, every single one of those bars has a story for me.

In some ways its comforting. Its cool to be able to walk into a place and in a sense relive your past. But it makes me sad. Most of my memories from most of these bars involve people I'm either no longer in contact with or who don't live here anymore. Most of the memories involve romantic relationships of some sort, and as relationships go, there was usually some sort of emotional fallout, even from those that ended well. It makes me sad and nostalgic and overly pensive.

Don't get me wrong, I love where I am in my life right now. My life is so full of excitement and possibilities and the pieces just now finally seem to be falling into place. I honestly don't know when I've felt happier or more settled. But I sometimes miss the past.

I love this crazy mixed-up town with all my heart. I've always said that I would stay until they kicked me out, which in actuality would probably be the day I graduate from school for good, because jobs around here are hard to come by. I still think I could live here forever, but a part of me is ready to let all these ghosts go. Its a strange realization for someone who finally feels like she's "home".

On my way home from the drug store tonight I drove down the road where I found Doper yesterday and noticed there were a lot of people out in their yards, so I decided to go get the dogs and walk them down the street and see if anyone knew anything about Doper.

The search for the dog's parents was entirely unfruitful, but man was it fun.

As anyone knows, if you want to know about the pets and kids and comings and goings of a neighborhood, the best people to ask are the kids. A kid in a red shirt on a skateboard came by and I asked him if he had seen the dog, he thought for a minute and said "Yeah ... he lives in the cul-de-sac behind 1234 Whatever Street ... he's a police dog!". I was skeptical but decided this little tidbit was better than nothing. So the kid gave me directions to the house where he thought the dog lived and I was on my way.

When I got to the cul-de-sac in qusetion I found another group of kids out front playing. I asked if they knew anything about the dog. One said he thought maybe he had seen it somewhere sometime, he others didn't know anything about it. I pointed to the house the skateboarder kid sent me to and asked about it, one of the kids said that they used to have a dog that looked sort of like Doper, but that he died a year ago. I never got a clear answer on the police dog part, oh well. The kids were super helpful and I could see them racking their brains trying to place the dog. It was pretty sweet really.

Onward to the next person I saw. This woman was dragging a hose through her yard and I asked if she had ever seen the dog, she came over and loved all over Maddie and Doper and said no she hadn't. Then she told me all about her Boston Terrior and all the other Boston Terriors in the neighborhood. She tried to yell across the street to a guy sitting in a lawnchair in the front yard, but he was on the phone. Then she remembered that he hates dogs so he probably wouldn't know whose dog it was. She whispered "Its a good thing the sidewalk's on MY side of the street" as she scratched Maddie beind the ears.

Next up was a guy on the corner in a yellow shirt. Again he had no idea who owned the dog but he loved all over him. The general consensus is that this stray is an absolute sweetheart. The guy told me about his Airedale and how if anyone ever loses anything in the neighborhood they post a sign on this certain light post on the corner. He told me that if he heard anything about someone missing a dog he would post a sign for me on the post. Then he told me that I could let my dog poop in his yard any time, and not to worry about picking it up. Thanks dude.

I was on my way back towards home when I crossed a couple out for an evening stroll they told me thy had two dogs and three cats that were strays. They asked if I had named him yet. I said "No!" but I think they knew I was lieing.

Finally I passed a house on the corner back in my neighborhood where a guy I see pretty regularly walking his dog lives. I asked about the dog and he didn't know anything but said "Hang on! Let me go get my wife! She might know something!!!" His wife came out a few minutes later and announced that the dog is a shepherd/collie mix and probably about two years old. They were both stunned at how sweet and well cared for and chill the dog was, but they had no idea where he came from either. Then they told me how they were going to buy a house in the country with a lot of land. Cool! You want a sheperd/collie mix??

I must admit, I had a blast canvassing the neighborhood. Its amazing how personable people can be when there is a lost dog involved. I shoud do that more often ... wonder if Maddie would mind playing the part of the poor lost dog ...

I love it. I had forgotten how much I love it. I had forgotten how simply amazing it feels when your brain just completely shuts off and you zone out and all of a sudden you realize that your body has found its groove and its flying around corners and over logs and you're not even thinking about it.

In some ways I think mountain biking is the perfect sport. Don't get me wrong, there's definitely something to be said for the simplicity of the road. And I still love flying past farmland and pastures and waving at overall-sporting farm folk as I go. But ahhhhh mountain biking. It requires such a mixture of strength and endrance and finesse and coordination. And guts.

The guts part is what I'm working on. I'm pretty comfortable on trails but since I hadn't done it for a while prior to buying the new ride, its taking a while to get the feel and confidence back. Its coming though. Each ride is better than the last. Last time we were out a little too close to sunset for comfort and by the time we were on the last few miles of the trail, I could barely see, which I think was a good thing. I wasn't able to overthink things, I couldn't meticulously choose a line and I found myself feeling the trail drop out from below me more than a few times ... and each time I was fine.

Right now, when it comes to mountain biking, my mind is my limiter, not my body. And I think thats really cool. Overcoming the mental hurdles is usually so much harder, and so much more rewarding, than overcoming the physical ones.

Now if only it weren't 100 degrees out ...

I really wasn't looking for another dog.

BUT I am a total softy and can't turn a dog down. Especially when he's a sweet little shepherd mix and he follows me home for 20 minutes and then proceeds to curl up on my lap. So he spent the night last night. There were a few mishaps. A few accidents last night but so far so good today.

I'm not keeping him. I'm NOT. I'm trying to find his owners. I'm trying to find him new owners. But so far nothing has turned up. No tags, he's not microchipped, noone has responded to my fliers, no calls for missing shepherd mixes at the shelter.

If it gets to be too much, I will take him in. Fortunately our local shelter is pretty nice, as far as shelters go, and very very low kill. AND I'm going to start volunteering there as of Thursday, so if I have to drop him off, I wll get to see him quite a bit. I'm hoping it won't come to that. I hope we can find him a place to stay for good before I have to turn him in. The way he cuddled up next to me last night it breaks my heart to think of taking him to the shelter. But I know that if I have to, I will have done it for the right reasons.

He really is cute though.

UPDATE: My wonderful friend V who has been talking about getting a dog for a while now just came over to meet him and absolutely fell in love!! She needs to think and talk it over with her significant other ... keep your fingers crossed!