AWOL

Okay, likely I am really for real taking a blogcation this week.  Over the weekend E. and I were at his parents’ house, and didn’t turn on the tv or the computer once. It was really, really nice.  And with vacation coming this Thursday night (!!) I have a lot to do and feel compelled to stick to the same policy.  I haven’t been home much at all* which makes the time at home that much more valuable. 
I may pop in here and there on other blogs to say hi as time permits, but for the most part I’ll be hiding out until next week.  Nothing personal. 
Thank for the tips on kitty, by the way.  I have some theories as to why she is acting the way she is…ranging from missing her wet food to *me hardly ever being home lately to possible senility.  Some of you may think I’m an awful person for this, but since I’ve seen her eat and her potty habits haven’t changed I feel like I can wait until after I get back from vacation to take her to the vet.  If she cries and I call out to her or pat the bed she comes running into my room which leads me to think it’s an attention issue more than anything. (I noticed she’s either parked outside my room or close to the food bowl when she’s crying, which furthers my theories…)

ETA:  Kitty got her wet food last night and some snuggle time before bed and there was no crying at all.  So…I definitely think I am on the right track.

Kitty Owners–Advice?

I feel like this situation happened once before but I can’t remember how it was resolved.
Over the weekend, of course, I was out of town.  My neighbor checked in on the kitties and everything was fine.  The first night I was home, my shy kitty Beatrice cried and mewed all throughout the night.  Well, sometimes she does this when I’ve been out of town so I ignored it.
Wednesday night it was horribly hot, and I didn’t have my AC installed, and she cried all night again.  I figured it was because she was hot–although usually when the kitties are hot they just lie on the floor sort of limp and lazy.  Nonetheless, I installed the AC in my bedroom last night hoping that would be the end of that.
Nope. 
Last night, again, she was crying throughout the night.  The litter box is clean…ish.  At least as clean as it generally is, and really neither of them has ever been bothered much by that.  She is eating, there is no lack of food or water.  When I pick her up or squeeze her she doesn’t cry or fuss so I really think she is feeling perfectly fine.  Nothing unusual in any of her normal day to day habits that I can tell, just…lots of crying at night.
Help.  I am already not sleeping well and this really isn’t helping matters at all.  Anyone get a randomly fussy pet and have a solution for getting things back to normal?  Especially a kitty cat?

Not On a Blog-cation, Just Planning a Vay-cation

This week has been NUTZ.  I am behind on laundry, grocery shopping, kitty time, blog reading, socializing…squeezing in exercise (successfully), sometimes at weird times.  (I fell asleep late at E.’s last night, took the 6:48 train to my house to get ready to go to work, getting my hair cut tonight after work and need to go grocery shopping but somehow plan to run for 30 minutes in there somewhere, preferably not at midnight)  Plus work is picking up…oh my god, yesterday was a zoo.  Job security is nice and all that, but I think my blood pressure was rising to dangerous proportions.  Plus, I’m still crying here and there randomly during the day (and at night, just ask E.).
Meanwhiles, E. and I have been scurrying to plan a last-minute 4th of July vacation.  The details of the hows and the whys are not important, but the WHERE is…
Nags Head, in the Outerbanks!!!!*
Yippee!
Peeking my head up when I can…more later…

*I cannot even begin to express my love and sentimental attachment to this place…my best friend’s family took me every summer  in JrHigh/High School and I CANNOT WAIT to return!  (with a license, and complete freedom to come and go as I please–tee hee!)

I Still Feel Sad

I got back from Ohio last night.  I’ve been thinking about what, if anything, I want to post here.  All I can come up with is that I feel sad, and I thought not to bother posting because who needs to hear that?  But it makes me feel better to just come here and say I’m sad.  Super duper sad. 
Saturday we spent about 5 hours cleaning out my grandpa’s apartment and it was weirdly good and cathartic as well as depressing and sad.  My grandpa will be buried in his World War II uniform which is both amazing and sad. 
I had a nice visit otherwise.  Took a 3 mile walk with my dad on Friday and ran 30 (difficult, very difficult) minutes yesterday.  Friday should have been a run but…yeah.  Under the circumstances, I think I did okay.  So far, since I decided to run another 5K, I’ve been totally on schedule with my training.  Unlike poor Kim, I don’t melt in the heat…I thrive in it.  And that’s partly because I am just about always cold with a few rare exceptions when it gets above 75 degrees.  So there’s that–I’m glad I came home to find summer had arrived in Chicago.   I was afraid it wasn’t coming. 
I need to install my air conditioner this week, though.
I made it to work on time and all that but feel like I’m just going through the motions.  But I think I’ll feel better as the week goes on.  I’m going through my usual post-family-visit funk but to the Nth degree this time, it seems.

You Guys Are the Best

Thank you all so much for the kind comments yesterday, even just to say, “It’s okay for that to happen.”  I can’t tell you how much it helped.  I have gotten through all of today without a tear…which is not to say I don’t care, just that I’m holding it together much better.   Plus today has been a good, productive busy day (with sunshine! yeah!!!) which also helps to keep me distracted.
I’m going to post some pictures when I get back in town, including ones with little me in them.
I don’t know how much I’ll be checking in, as there will be a lot of family time and family things to do. 
It’s nice to remember all kinds of quirky and fun things about my grandpa such as:

• He played guitar and banjo in a band.  And in fact, my grandma went to see his band and approached him after the show which is how they met.  Tee hee.
• He was a gunner in WWII, and served in the South Pacific.  All of my life I have heard stories from him on that experience–he was a great story teller.
• I’ve also heard  stories about growing up on the farm, his pet dogs and pet rats (ew), various relatives, and my dad being blue when he was first born (I forget why). 
• He kept a journal on his calendars.  So every day he would write a tiny diary entry in the day square on the calendar, whether it be an extensive list of errands and visits or something little like “My sweetheart came home today” (when my grandma came home from the hospital after open heart surgery)
• He loved to read and had a mountain of books.  Last time I saw him, he had pretty much given up on watching tv and preferred to finish his books in a day or two. I totally inherited that from both him and my mom.
• He loved pudding cups and popcorn shrimp, at least until he ate popcorn shrimp every day for like a month and finally got tired of it. 
• I probably have a picture somewhere, but he wore plaid pants all the time when I was younger and they had a plaid couch (that had been my parents’ couch in the 70’s) so visiting him was often an adventure in plaid.

Being an Emotional Mess at Work Is Kind of a Pain

Just to give you background, I knew over the weekend (obviously) that my grandpa was not doing well. Monday morning I got the call while I was getting ready for work so I just sort of accepted it and moved on, got time approved off of work and focused on booking a flight.  Done and done.  Then I went out with A. (and had a margarita) and didn’t really think much about anything.  I also got assigned what I think is a completely asinine report* at work in addition to all the other reporting I am working on which didn’t exactly do much to boost my spirits, so there was that.
For some reason, my grandpa’s passing is hitting me a lot harder than my grandma’s did.  I don’t know if it’s because I wasn’t there, or if it’s because I really for real have no grandparents left or naybe just because I saw a lot of the qualities I inherited from my grandpa more clearly than my grandma, but I am crying randomly all over the place.  It’s weird, and a bit inconvenient.  It’s not like I think about him or have a memory of him and just lose it.  Nope, I just…start crying.  Out of the blue.  No provocation.  Poof, tears.
So I kept having to get up and run into the bathroom at work and thank GOD no one was in there at the time.  Then I’d have to dab my eyes, compose myself, and head back to my desk to go back to whatever I was doing.  But the weird thing is, I’ve not told everyone at work what happened because…well, it’s awkward, you know?  I felt weird enough telling A. and she’s been my friend for over a decade.  I started by just telling my pro tempore supervisor that I had to go home this Friday for a family matter.  And she probed me a little and I said that yeah, we had a death in the family.  Well then you have the whole “Oh, I’m so sorry” and I never know how to react to that…and being me, (and probably like Tori) I then feel bad that I made someone feel bad and so I either say something trite like “Well he’s with my grandma now, so I know he’s happy” (which I do believe, by the way) or just shoe it away and change the subject.
So then I was mentioning in a meeting that I would be out on Friday and one of our Coordinators who I am not particularly close to (one of them I am, so I told her right away and felt more comfortable talking about it) asked where I was going.  We were in a meeting so I didn’t want to make a big scene–I just said I was going home.  And she went on about how, oh, that’s nice, you’ll have fun, it will be a relaxing weekend, etc etc.  Ugh.
Sometimes I think we should just wear black arm bands when something bad happens and if people want to ask they can and if not you don’t have to say anything, you can just be upset in peace.
I called my folks this evening and cried a lot and felt a little better.  I also requested a very specific picture of my grandpa for the memory board that my dad is making.  That helped a little.  I will be ready to go home Thursday.
*Since it is a report on our recruiting efforts, I think I am going to make a notation IN the report that I fell behind on recruiting for xx position because I was working on this report.**

**Not really, but man, that would be fun.

My Running Buddy is Back!

Last night, I went to dinner with my dear friend A…my 2x college roomate and the first real friend I made in college.  We went to Hamburger Mary’s for Drag Queen Bingo night at her suggestion, which is a fundraiser (different charity each week) on Monday nights that involves basically a large, flamboyant drag queen calling and providing commentary on Bingo.  There are prizes and everything! (we won nothing)
It seemed A. had pretty much given up on running and even discovered she was allergic to it*, but apparently she is getting back in the groove again and planning on running five 5K’s this year.  Because she is the one I ran my very first 5K with, because she runs at my pace**, and because she is awesome***, I am going to run a race with her in July!  How about that!  Time to lace up and train.  
It was so nice to talk to her…well, in general, especially yesterday when I needed a comforting ear and some distraction…but also specifically about the mixed feelings it seems we BOTH have about running. Like me, she WANTS to love running, and wishes she knew the magic secret that people who actively love running possess.  And like me, she has been pursuing other exercise options (specifically kayaking, which is just awesome) but isn’t ready to give up on running entirely. 
So it would seem I am not alone, and that is why I will run with her. 

*A. has an increasing number of food allergies, and if she runs too soon after consuming something that triggers a normally mild to barely-noticable reaction, she will break out in hives and her face will swell.  As she runs, the increased heart rate and blood pressure force the allergen through her system faster prompting the reaction.  So technically she is not allergic to running but she is having an awfully fun time saying she is.

**She said that if she finishes in less than 45 minutes, she considers it a good race.  Here, here!

***Part of the reason I feel very comfortable running with her (and probably part of the reason we run at a similar pace) is that we have been the same build, right down to  height and weight, since we first met. Which means yes, even over time and in her case one pregnancy (at which time we didn’t weigh the same, but as soon as she had the baby we did) our fluctuations have been similar and we’ve stayed at nearly the EXACT SAME weight.  Hilarious.

My Running Schizophrenia Continues

Today, I actually had a nice run (with my new Sony mp3 player–lurve it!!).  It was the kind of nice where…while maybe I wasn’t up for it, I could for a brief second understand why anyone would want to run for 4 hours straight outside (on a nice day, of course).  I had moments (albeit brief) where running didn’t HURT.  My abdomen didn’t hurt, my legs didn’t hurt, my back didn’t hurt, my shoulders didn’t hurt, and no combination of the above bothered me.  Those were quiet moments when I was just listening to my mp3 player and drifting off in my head.  I liked it.  I would like it if it felt like that MORE often vs. not, but oh well.  It’s a start.
Kim suggested an idea I decided to put into motion.  (ha)  She suggested I might enjoy running a lot more in a less congested area, maybe even a park or a forest preserve.  Parks tend to bore me with their loopy, overcrowded concrete trails and a forest preserve…well, the closest one would definitely require a ride on the bus, and it’s funny to me to think about taking public transit to go for a run.  I did, however, do something of a warm-up walk until I was far enough west to a less congested area near the north branch of the river that I’ve run before and always enjoy.  Part of that trek is my standard 2 – 3 mile loop (depending on where I turn to come back) so I usually only run it when I am running for distance.
I did my 30 minutes, and came upon a park I forgot had some trails.  Now, they were pretty short trails, but much better than the damn concrete loops and very quiet and nice.  I walked at this point as I was more in “investigation” mode but I liked what I saw.  Well, except for the fact there were signs everywhere that said, “Bird and butterfly sanctuary, NO DOGS ALLOWED” and of course there were dogs all over the place off the leash.  (I am sorry dog people, but the dog off the leash thing is really becoming a pain to me and clear violation of the sanctuary rules just PISSED ME OFF.  I mean really, I was looking for a nice quiet place to run and here was a place sanctioned for quiet activity and yet…still!! Argh!!)
Anyway, I spent about another 30 minutes walking through the park and home and all in all it was really enjoyable.  It got me thinking about some more nontraditional running paths I could try on the days I want to run.  I even mentioned to Kim that I would seriously consider running through Rosehill Cemetary because truly…what could be more quiet and peaceful than a cemetary? (and it is a big, gorgeous cemetary, by the way)  I still want to like running, I really do.  Because I always quit things that are hard for me.  And I am not going to quit this time because it’s hard.  No, this is a personal vendetta with…er, myself.  Myself and the people who let their dogs off the leash in the bird and butterfly sanctuary.
In other news, I really need your good thoughts for my family as my grandpa is in very poor shape.  This would be the one who was married to my grandma who passed last year and…well, to be honest, I didn’t expect him to make it long after she went.  He is 86 or 87 and so none of this is a surprise or out of the blue but…it still hurts my heart, and I imagine I will be flying home this weekend or next.  Thanks in advance, friends.

ETA:  Grandpa passed away last night, I’ll be heading to Ohio this weekend.

Bits

• This weekend, RIIIIIB FESSSSST!!! Woot!
• We have jeans day on Fridays now at work. I got a new pair of Levis that came in the mail last night and I LOVE THEM.
• I love them so much that I might have to buy a pair of peep-toe pumps to wear with them all. summer. long.
• My cold is better.  I still have a stuffy, slightly woozy head but I think by tomorrow I’ll be at 100%.
• TV officially switched to digital and I am non-compliant.  I really don’t feel compelled to do anything about this until LOST returns in January, so maybe I’ll surf the Christmas-time sales for a new telly. 
• Actually, it may be sooner, because my speakers are acting funky and there is a burnt out hole in the middle of the screen but I really only use the tv to play fitness videos and the occasional video game.
• Between the jeans, the mp3 player and the prospective shoes, perhaps I should hold off on buying a tv for now.
• I got an e-mail from the gym opening around the corner that pretty much states that it has everything I want (weights, cardio machines, cybex machines, and KICKBOXING classes) at a lower rate than my current gym but the opening date is still TBD.
• I haven’t exercised since Monday because I have felt like poo.
• I have 13 jobs assigned to me (’cause, you know, there’s just me)  now at work which is more what I’m used to.

ETA:  Apparently I SHOULD be looking for a tv right now according to this article…

Life is Not a Contest

Yesterday I was home sick yet again*, but this time instead of being in my head all day mopey and depressed, I was in my head all day waxing philosophical. 
Okay, actually I was sleeping most of the day but when I WAS awake I was philosophical.
A few things happened this week that sort of got me re-evaluating life (in a small way).  I was in touch with two people I haven’t spoken to in well over a year–one being my very precious best friend from childhood who I figured had all but written me off.   And when you haven’t spoken to someone in that long, you tend to spend most of the conversation catching up on the basics on what life looks like for both of you.  What you do for a living, how you spend your free time, your relationship status, how your pets are doing…etc.   The neat thing was each of the three of us was experiencing a completely different kind of life.   It was really cool to me that I obviously had some common ground with both of them (hence, the reason we ever talked in the first place) but for the most part our lives were utterly and completely unique. 
Now, here comes the really cool part…
Nothing about any of our lives made me feel “better than” or “less than”.  I didn’t think about who made more money or who seemed happier.  We’re all doing fine.  And I thought, if I can apply that to this small example, why can’t we all apply it to our lives at large? 
Kyra’s recent post sort of cemented it in my brain.  For all accounts, she and I have lived completely different lives.  But at the end of the day, we’re for the most part content, and isn’t that what it’s all about? 
I am more than content, I am happy.  I have been more stressed this first half of 2009 than I’ve felt in a long time, true, but overall there is very little I would change about my life.  I have it good.  There’s nothing to compete against.  Not that we shouldn’t ever strive to be better, of course we can.  But to compare my life and my choices against someone else’s is just completely absurd, especially when we all have different experiences and preferences and joys and hobbies and interests that we all bring to the table.
After all, at the end of the day we’re all going to end up in the same place (the ground) so isn’t it most important that you get to that point at least relatively happy?**

*Let me again state that I have had every test done on me known to man, and I am overall healthy.  I am just a person who is sick a lot.  And there’s a headcold going around, I know a few people who’ve had it…blame the 51 degree June temperatures and a general lack of people getting fresh air. :p

**I feel like this post would have been so much more coherent if I wasn’t on cold medicine right now.