My Vow

This will be the only day I blog without having much to say. I got up and ran 6 miles this morning. It is very pretty outside and not too hot. We ran in an older neighborhood that has a mixture of very old houses and ones that are brand new--their owners razed the old houses to build some very interesting ones. It made for nice scenery.

I am obviously not very good at writing when I have nothing to say. IT BEGS THE QUESTION... How do people do it?

Oh My Gato, Part Deux

A while back, I checked my mail to find a flyer of a missing cat from the neighborhood. There are always publications of this sort as I live in the Hill Country, rife with predators who enjoy feasting on felines. Any veteran cat owner in this area knows to never leave their cats out after dark or risk them getting eaten by a coyote or whatever else is hungry around here. Here is my version of the note, paraphrased so as to not risk plagiarism:

Hello. I am new to the neighborhood and my cat has been missing for 2 days. He refuses to wear a collar, so we don't make him. (Insert description of said cat here). He is very cute, and I know you have him, so give him back.

Say what? Here is my tip for whomever wrote that flyer. If you are missing your cat and pleading for the public's help in relocating him, it is probably not a good idea to accuse each and every neighbor in the area of stealing your pet. We all have our own pets and don't need your stupid cat, lady. I am so sure.

P.S. As I am writing this, my watch arrived!

Jog Blog!

I just ordered myself a new toy.

I got it at a discounted price and opted for next day delivery. It should be here tomorrow!

The Circle of Life

The other morning I had to arrive at work before the sun was up. When I pulled into my parking spot, something moving caught my eye. I thought it may be a possum or a raccoon, but it was the legend of the live armadillo, which in Texas is an oxymoron. In fact, I have lived in this state for 27 years and cannot remember ever seeing one. I scrambled for my phone to take a picture, but I was too late. Oh well.

This morning I was driving near my work and noticed something dead in the road. As you can probably guess, it was an armadillo, on its back with all four legs sticking straight up. I can't help but wonder if it is the same one I saw on Monday. I can only assume since armadillos are not the smartest of animals, there aren't very many of them left in the world. Whether the same or not, we can all mourn the loss of one less animal on our planet. RIP, Armie.

ACHOO!

The one downside of living in Austin is allergies. From about this time to mid-May there is much complaining of achy heads, clogged ears and runny noses. For the longest time, I was immune. The past year or so I have joined the masses in the perpetual nose run. This season started on Wednesday (can I blame the butterflies)?

It would only make sense to stay indoors where you are less susceptible to the allergens, but with the gorgeous weather and my commitment to run, I have found that near impossible. But I must admit that I feel horrible. Damn ragweed!

I have heard a tip that if you eat a tablespoon of local honey* a day, your allergies will be severely reduced. Apparently, since bees are pollinators, your body ingests the allergens therefore making you immune to them in the air. It seems far fetched, but if honey didn't make me want to wretch, I would totally try it.

*I heard a funny story about local honey: There is a co-op grocery store near the UT campus. One day sorority girls started shopping there for honey of all things--they are not the usual demographic for this store and the employees were curious as to why the sudden surge of bowheads. Once asked, one girl answered, "I heard this was the place to get lo-cal honey. I didn't realize it was so fattening." I guess they couldn't figure out why their local grocery store didn't sell the less fat option. Ha!

Butterflies

I went to San Antonio on Wednesday to see a middle school football game. It was hilarious! Driving in to the city, I started to see lots of monarch butterflies. They were distracting. I would look at one and think how beautiful it was until smack! I hit it with my windshield. This kept happening and it was making me uneasy. The further into the city I went, the more butterflies were around for me to accidentally murder.

It turns out that monarch butterflies are migratory. They spend the winters in Mexico and the summers in San Antonio (not really but you wouldn't know it by how many were flying around). I guess with the first sign of it cooling down they high tail it out of the country.

This is my teaching lesson to you. If you too love butterflies, then stay away from San Antonio for the next couple of days so you don't kill 100 like me. But maybe you should go because it is sort of magical to see them fly around, ready for winter vacation.

This Morning

I was up this morning for my 5:45 run. I have been doing this run for the past couple of weeks, but this one was different. It was chilly! I had to go back inside and put on a sweatshirt. It took a couple of laps to take it off.

Even better than the chill in the air was the sunrise. It was colorful and beautiful--full of purple, orange, red and blue. It is always so nice to feel accomplished before the sun is even up.

Today is Day #2 of my rest from work. I'm having lunch with a friend from Dallas and I may go to San Antonio to see Jeremy's nephew, Jacob's first middle school football game. He is almost 13 and cute as can be and probably very excited about tackling someone. Go Team!

Ahhhh...Contentment!

For the first time in a long time, I have nothing to do! I have many things that I can do, but today, I have nowhere to be. Anything I do today is my choice. That is a great feeling after the two weeks that I have gone through. It seems I have done nothing but work and run since my return from San Francisco. Even my "days off" have been spent in some meeting or another.

So what am I doing? Right now, I am sitting on the couch with the windows open. I am blogging while listening to birds and the distant hum of a leaf blower. I may or may not decide to take a cat nap. Who knows?

It's nice to have choices.

I got Iked

Okay. So it seems the only thing people are able to talk about lataely is Hurricane Ike. Granted, it was quite a storm, but the ability of people to overreact never ceases to amaze me. By Thursday most weather models had the track of Ike steering away from Austin, and by Friday morning, it became clear that we would not even see a drop of rain. Not even a drop! In fact, as far as Austin goes, it was named Hurricane Psych.

That didn't stop people around here from buying generators, stocking up on food, canceling work, and closing up shop all around town. I happen to work in a restaurant. The only time we shut down due to weather is when ice fell on the city, rendering it too slippery to drive. Many of my sister stores still opened their doors, but my particular shop resides at the corner where most ice-related incidents happen so no one in the neighborhood was out that day. It was not cost effective to open our doors.

Long story short, we were going to open regardless of Ike. I can't even begin to describe to you what thousands of electricity-less people visiting friends and family in the city does to business (my area didn't see as many buses of evacuees but people who wanted to get the heck out of dodge). We were ridiculously crazy and saw record sales all weekend. So, we got Iked!

I should say that my thoughts go out to all those affected by this monster storm. I know it is a little selfish to speak of my gain through million's hard times. Best to you and yours.

To Ike or not to Ike

Joolie and I are debating whether or not Ike will bring us rain. I am of the school that if some giant hurricane hits anywhere near our area it will bring rain, dry side or not. Joolie is cursing the hurricane for potentially allowing us to sustain our drought. Don't get me wrong...we don't want damange, just rain. We are thirsty. Gustav brought us not even a drop. I wish the best to those whose areas are affected by Ike, and I wish our area at least an inch of rain. Do you think we'll get a f-ing drop or not?

A Sign of the Times

Jeremy and I have a phone line at home that we rarely ever use. To me, it seems its sole purpose is to aid me when I cannot locate my cell phone. The only people who have the number are telemarketers. No, we don't want to save money on car insurance. Yes, Jeremy has already consolidated his student loans. The only success of our land line is to cost us $40 or so a month.

We had been tossing around the idea of getting rid of it. Recently, Jeremy came to me and told me he was just going to do it. What had he been waiting for? He sat down, dialed the 800 number, had a quick conversation, and hung up the phone.

I was not expecting to hear that he had been persuaded to keep the line. The operator asked him what he would do if he needed to call 911 but his cell phone battery was dead. Wouldn't that be the moment of ultimate regret? Was he really willing to put us in that situation? He answered no, cut our bill in half, and kept the line. I am quite certain the operator got some retention bonus.

It makes me wonder... If both of our cell phone batteries were dead, it is likely our cordless phones would be dead as well as I have a genetic deficiency that prohibits me from putting a cordless phone back on the cradle. But in all honesty, keeping the land line makes me happy. My cell phone often finds its way into couch crevices and under pillows, so it is worth $20 a month to save me about 30 minutes a week trying to locate that damn thing.

Hardee-har-har

Q: What do you do if attacked by a group of clowns?

A: Go for the juggler.

Treadmills=trouble

I am not trying to turn this into a jog-blog, but running every other day is really consuming my life. It's just new and I need to get used to the new lifestyle (I went to bed at 2am and was up at 6:30 to run 3 miles).

Last week I became aware of my lack of equipment--shoes especially. I had heard of this store on the up and coming East Downtown Austin that will basically custom fit shoes for you. Here is what happened when I went in:

The saleslady had me bend my knees and curl my toes to look at leg alignment. She then brought out 3 pair of shoes she thought would fit me. As I tried on each pair, I went to a treadmill where my feet were videotaped to make sure the shoes would support my stride. I then watched my duck-like stride in slo-mo.

The first pair fit just fine, but my feet didn't sing when I donned them. The second pair was super cute and fit fine and I was about to leave with them, but my nagging conscience told me to try the third pair. As the saleslady opened the box, I saw the shoes in their ugly splendor. I tried them on and they felt wonderful! But did I mention they were ugly? I let the treadmill make the decision.

Now, I don't go to gyms. I can tell you I can count on one hand the number of times I have been on a treadmill. Unfortunately, I fell off said treadmill, dodging injury by catching myself on the hand rails and kicking my feet out of danger's way. Even more unfortunate was the fact there was a line for the shoe thingy and my sister was there to chant, "Replay! Replay!"
The only thing that saved me was the saleslady had no sense of humor and therefore no desire to watch the replay of my near death.

So what else was there to do? Buy the UGLY shoes and try to save as much dignity as possible.

i am so sure

Note to self:

Make sure your ipod is charged before going jogging so you won't have to put silent earbuds on and pretend to rock out so no one knows you have no music to hear. It's just good sense.

I heart SF

I have been promising a blog about San Francisco....

We had a great time, of course--The weather was hot (lingering around 90) so I didn't get the benefit of cold weather. I was initially upset because after all the 100 degree days we've had here, I longed to wear a jacket. It turns out I was lucky.

We spent the first night in San Fran at a Giant's game. The park there is beautiful, sitting right on the water. They offer good food and good beer. It is more like an old-school park with dark red brick and the bullpen on the field. The game was good and the company was interesting (we went with one of Jeremy's office mates and the District Attorney for a small county in East Texas who had conservative views but was very nice). The night turned late and we were over served (my dad's favorite expression of being schnockered).

The following day I had a hard time getting out of the hotel room. I had one of the worst hangovers in the history of man and I couldn't figure out how I would see such a cool city with a pounding head. As I was contemplating the perfect plan to see everything with little to no physical effort, I looked across the street and saw a double decker tour bus. Perfect! I climbed aboard. The actual tour probably deserves a blog post of its own as its passengers heard all about the social reasons for homelessness and prostitution and the story line of the movie "The Pursuit of Happyness" 3! times. There was a time that I was laughing so hard I thought I would pee my pants, but all the sights were saw and I didn't have to walk a step to see them. It was sunny and clear and beautiful outside and when our bus drove across the Golden Gate Bridge, we had a breathtaking view of the city from the other side.

I took some amazing pictures, but unfortunately our main computer is feeling under the weather and I am unable to post them. When all was said and done, I gave San Francisco an A+ and hope to plan another jaunt there soon.

Don't swim in the kiddie pool

This morning I got up at the hour of 5:30 to go to a marathon train. It was a cool, breezy morning and I watched the sun rise while getting good exercise. I am up early drinking good coffee and I thought, what better time to blog?

I have decided that I really dislike the culture of children. Don't get me wrong, I love children but I abhor words like "sippie cup" and "ouchless." I equally dislike the idea that just because a person has decided to procreate, she (and sometimes even he) gets special treatment in the world. Take this story for instance:

Jeremy and I were at the airport, about to depart for San Francisco. We usually walk with purpose and try hard to not get in any one's way, but for some reason, we paused at the entrance to security (keep in mind that the Austin airport is seldom busy and has never taken more than 20 minutes to get through to the gate). There was a family with 2 small children right behind us and here was our exchange:

Father: BEEP BEEP! (in Jill's ear)
Jill: Say huh?
Father: Uh, we are trying to catch a flight and we are in a hurry.
(Jill gives an ugly look)
Jeremy (not hearing the beep beep part): Sure, man, go ahead. We actually planned our trip to get us to the airport a little early like responsible adults.
Father: Well, it's just that we have CHILDREN.

Jeremy is such a nicer person than I. Because I think if you have children, you should let people ahead of you. Seriously, we have IDs and 2 carry on bags. You have 2 strollers, breast milk that needs testing, etc. In Jeremy's defense, he did not hear the grown man beep in my ear but had he, he surely would have told the man where to shove his stroller. He was appalled once he found out what really had happened.

The zinger was that we were sitting at our gate before those people were even cleared for security. At least airports have multiple lines.

It makes me nervous that if I ever do have children, my peers will behave in such a manner and my vocabulary will no longer be adult, but suited for someone who can't even form sentences.

More about the San Fran trip later(and hopefully pictures, too!)