ED Reflections, no. 5

So--yo yo dieting. That's where I last left off in this "ED Reflections" series. Essentially, this is how I spent my teen years--gaining weight and losing it, gaining weight and losing it, etc., etc.

Not surprisingly, weight became the thing to which I attributed almost all negative and/or positive consequences? i.e., "Was Heather R. popular? Yes. Well, it must be because she's thin." "Did that boy at school seem annoyed that I was assigned to be his science partner? Yes. Well, it must be because I'm a fat and disgusting girl." "Did Jen want to be Rachel's best friend more than my best friend? Yes. Well, that's because Rachel is thin and I'm fat and ugly."

I still have irrational thoughts like these to this day, though at least now I'm (mostly) aware of them and able to consciously question them. At the time, however, I didn't have the tools to reach this awareness, and instead I just felt extremely socially awkward, uncomfortable in my "fat" body, and alone. 

It's not that I didn't have friends or even boyfriends, though I was never confident that my friends really liked me and my boyfriends were always few and far between. I still think that I might've turned out completely differently had I really bonded closely with a girlfriend or a group of girls; instead I had girlfriends here and there but none that remained constant in my life--through elementary, middle, and high schools, college, etc.

This sense of being alone, of feeling like I wasn't really close to anyone, culminated in high school, when I found myself going to prom with a boy who didn't like me. Though we had been dating for a month or two, I knew that he didn't really care about me. I knew it. His behavior let me know in a million ways (which I won't divulge) that he wasn't interested in understanding me, that he didn't respect me, and that he thought I wasn't worth his time. 

And yet, it was for this guy, and for the sake of looking "thin" at prom with him, that I first started purging food. Duh duh duhhhhhhhhhhhh! (The plot thickens) (Like your Mom's thighs) (Boo-yah).

I'm not going for a cliffhanger--since, let's face it, there's nothing I could say that would really constitute a cliffhanger--but I only have an hour and a half before David and I leave to go visit my parents ... and I'd really like to watch an episode of Gavin and Stacey!

*Have you ever stayed with someone when you knew you shouldn't--even though you might be a feminist?!!

Intro Intro

Why does Friday seem like such a relief even when you don't work a traditional Monday-Friday job? Sheesh I'm tired, and it's only eight p.m.

In my defense, the day did start slighter earlier than normal, at around 6:15 or so. I've been waking up "early" this week, and it has left me feeling a bit tired all day. Orrrrr, maybe it's the insane heat here in Colorado.

Instead of sweating it out in my sweltering Fit Camp class at the gym I decided to ride my road bike today. Her name is Flo. (More on that name at a later date. Yes, it has to do with menstruation.)

Flo and I rode down the (Sunshine) Canyon, and then back up. Needless to say, it takes a lot longer on the second half. But I did manage to spot a deer ... from about three feet away!! Eeek! Deer are, of course, not mean animals, but looking up from your handlebars to see one v.v. close to you is a smidge nerve wracking.

I was too chicken to take a picture of Bambi up close, but you can see her in the center of the photo if you have a magnifying glass.

After my ride I showered up (before 5 p.m. like a productive person!!) and headed to town--to Native Foods--for lunch. Despite being a supposed hotspot for veg-heads, hippies, and patchouli, Boulder has surprisingly few vegetarian restaurants. So I've been psyched to try the Native Foods that opened on the 29th Street Mall recently.

Native Foods serves all vegan-fare, including soups, salads, sandwiches, bowls, pizza, and cupcakes! Today I went for the Chimi Chop salad, which has romaine lettuce, grilled veggies, roasted corn, sweet peppers, garlic croutons, and peppered seitan. (I meant it when I said I love gluten!)

I used to eat salads exclusively at restaurants, though since making progress towards recovery I've ceased my salad-ordering and become somewhat averse to going out only to eat a "boring" salad.

This salad has me rethinking that policy...

After lunch, I went to Espressoria Jet's, a coffee shop on Pearl Street, to do work. I actually accomplished something, too! I wrote the first few sentences of my introduction!

As a reward for all my, errr, hard work, I went to movies! Yay! I saw Moonrise Kingdom--the new Wes Anderson movie. It was cute. More specifically, it was a Wes Anderson movie through and through, a good thing in my book, but perhaps not "up" everyone else's alley.

Now I'm at home, listening to Haruki bark (sigh), and contemplating an episode of Gavin and Stacey. If you haven't seen it, you must...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0908454/

*Umm, so have you seen Gavin and Stacey? Are there any exclusively vegetarian restaurants where you live?

Family Fun Day

Today has been a fun-filled day! In the a.m. I read the news, drank my coffee, and even fit in some work time!!! Afterwards I hit the gym for a 50 minute slooooooow run. My legs were tired from Body Pump and a bike ride yesterday, so I just needed to shake them out and stretch them.

On my way home from the gym I hit up Whole Foods for some foods that I never buy: popcorn chicken with bbq sauce, Whole Foods "Lunchables" that included cheese, turkey, and butter crackers, and Vitamin Water. Why? Because today we had visitors!!! Little itty bitty ones, to be precise!

These are my nieces, Morgan (on the left) and Riley! Ta-da! They are just the kind of girls that wear neon dresses for everyday occasions! Although today was no ordinary occasion, because not only was this their first visit to our new house, but we made cookies! These cookies, to be precise: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/dining/021frex.html?_r=1

Only we doctored them a bit by subtracting walnuts (didn't have any), subbing olive oil for canola oil, using honey instead of sugar, and subbing brown rice flour for regular flour. (I swear I love gluten--I was just too lazy to find the regular flour and the brown rice flour was easily located and tempting me.)

Here's an action shot of Morgan and Riley spooning batter onto the cookie sheet.

*Note 1: Kids like to lick their spoons and then just dip them back in the bowl like it's nothing. Like playing games with germs is FUN!!

*Note 2: They should give all Type-A peeps like me a prescription for Ativan before allowing us to procreate.  See note 1.

The cookies were a cross between oatmeal cookies and banana bread, and luckily they had just the right amount of chocolate chips to make the girls love them! Yay!

After the girls left around five I got showered up--really, who showers for the first time all day at five p.m.?!!! I barely recognize myself anymore!!--and made myself dinner. Ha! I "made" a toasted English muffin with olive oil and salt and pepper, along with a side of tofu that I had leftover from Whole Foods.

Balsamic Roasted Tofu

I am really close to not fearing olive oil. (As I noted yesterday, coconut oil and milk is going to take a lot longer.)

Who is going to cook for and feed my kids if I have them??!!

*If you are a parent, do you teach your children about germs? If you're not a parent, is it because you are a little uneasy (like me) about the prospect of always being touched and grabbed and tugged by someone who's hands are always a little sticky, dirty, and/or germy?

Slumpsday

It's time I made a confession. I'm in a slump. A work slump. My objective right now is to write the introduction to my dissertation. After writing all the body chapters, you'd think that's a small task, but nooooooo--I'm dragging my feet so badly that everyday that goes by with little progress means my confidence dips another notch. And let me tell you, it is hard to write an academic dissertation without the requisite amount of confidence.

The problem is two fold:

1) It is summer. I've commiserated with my adviser about this before, but there is just something about having all the free time in the world that makes getting anything done impossible. Like, seriously, my brain just feels fatigued when I sit in front of my computer for work, and this Colorado heat isn't helping.

2) I'm afraid I've become lazy. Three years ago, when I was deep in my ED and obsessive about everything, I was reading and writing and working all.the.time. I was literally like a machine, and the idea of wasting a weekday night doing something besides working was unheard of. Now, a gun to my head couldn't persuade me to work past five o'clock. (As if I've been working since nine a.m.?!! Yah right!)

Yesterday I tried to boost myself up by getting some research done at the library. So today's daily slump session consisted of me sleepily flipping through these:

It doesn't help that I've become accustomed to sleeping 8.5 hours a night and this morning I woke up too early.
(Note: What I now call "too early" used to be my regular wake up time. See no. 2 above.)

While thinking about this lovely little item that I impulse bought at Alfalfa's yesterday:

Yup--that would be So Delicious Almond Milk Ice Cream. From the same peeps who bring you that Coconut Milk Ice Cream. Only this isn't made out of coconut milk and therefore doesn't have half of your daily allotment of saturated fat. Am I the only ex-anorexic who finds that troubling about coconut milk ice cream? Yah, yah, good fat yadayada--but this Almond Milk Ice Cream is delicious and it has less sugar and fat that coconut milk ice cream. (If you're asking why I don't just eat regular ice cream then you've mistaken this blog for one written by a sane person.) And it has real cherries--just like Cherry Garcia!!! It's like cherries + almond extract + vanilla ice cream...yummmm...

*What is your work ethic like? Does it vary, i.e. do you go through "lazy" versus "active" phases?

Legally Living

Guess who passed their county home inspection today?!! That's right, our nueva casa! This doesn't really mean much, except that we are now legally allowed to be doing what we've been doing for two months. Woohoo! Now if the contractor would just finish the house...

Before the county inspection, I did what I always do in the morning: I made coffee, I walked Haruki, and I drank coffee. Yah--hot coffee. Hot decaf coffee, to be precise. Even when the temps are in the 100's, there is still just something about a cup of dark coffee with a blip of vanilla soy milk (aka sugar water).

Introducing my favorite mug! I will not drink my morning coffee out of any cup but this one. It has the perfect volume as well as the perfect lip/sipping thickness. (TWSS) 

After coffee and some internet, I went to do some running intervals at the gym, followed by Body Pump and some delicious lunch treats at WF. These included green curry and brown rice, cherries, and watermelon.

I also ran sixty two errands. I hate running errands, but today my big errand was going to formally adopt Haruki. Seeing her old kennel at the shelter and thinking about her life there was über sad. But I'm really happy that she is in our lives for good now!

Even though she's kinda slutty.

I also went to the Post Office, where I saw this:

And when I got home I had an even better view!

Even though David's house burned down less than two years ago, I still find it exciting to see a fire that close. I'm a small and petty primate person.

After a few dramatic hours and several more foreboding strikes of lightning, things started looking up though!

A freaking rainbow!!! So, the moral of the story is that even when your house burns down, God still shines colorful light down on you. But then he turns the flames back up, since David just informed me that with nightfall he can now see that there are still flames, and they are being spurred by gusty winds. I used to ride my bike in this area daily, and I just want to send out good thoughts to all the peeps with houses up there, and also to all the wild turkeys that gobble shit up around there. Seriously. There are lots of cute wild turkey herds up there. I hope they are safe.

*Do people keep wild turkeys as pets? Do you have any pets? 

Italian x2

Happy Monday, peeps. I hope it's not 102 degrees wherever you are...

The weekend went by so...slowly, didn't it!? Anybody? It was a good weekend, but it was slow in the sense all weekend I seemed to notice what day/time it was, thus allowing me to savor the time passing by rather than noticing it when it's gone.

In other breaking news, David and I dined out again this weekend--at another Italian-esque restaurant. This time we hit up Pasta Vino, a new place on Pearl Street (where Juanita's Mexican Restraurant used to be). Our friends Chris and Nicki treated us to dinner for David's birthday, and for that reason I won't post the picture of them that David surreptitiously took:-)

Dinner was another first for me, though not in the food department but in the beverage department. I ordered white wine!!! Instead of beer!!! It is really that hot here in Colorado!!! And it was refreshing and light and yummy!

Food wise, we ate a boatload of food. Unfortunately, I didn't remember to take pictures until I'd eaten most of my food.

I started with the Insalata Pasta Vino, which had romaine lettuce, cucumbers, apples, tomato, garbanzo beans, black olives, gruyere swiss cheese, sunflower seeds, and red wine vinegar dressing. It was yummy--especially the nice treat of having real cheese and the sunflower seeds.

Sidenote: Does anyone else feel a little out of place when ordering something "to start" at a moderately priced restaurant? I mean, I know we need our veggies and such, but it's essentially adding ~8-10 more dollars per person onto the check. When I was growing up my parents would've laughed at me if I'd ordered the equivalent of two things for dinner--veggies or not.

For my "main"--haha I'm so rich and famous-- I had a surprising entree of gnocchi, with mozzarella cheese and some tomato sauces.

This was so-so. Chris had warned me that it wasn't his favorite, but insisted because the potato pillows were calling my name. They were tasty, though a bit big and not quite as melty as I'd like. (Yah, melty means what you think it means.)

Overall, I liked Pasta Vino, and even more I enjoyed a night out with our friends and getting a chance to catch up!

Unfortunately, when we got home we found a rather large bug outside on our deck:

I wanted to let Haruki "play" with that beetle, but I'm a good person now and instead we let it free:-(

Good thing my Mom doesn't read my blog, else she'd force me to move because that beetle is horrifying. Like horror movie quality, right?

*What would you do if you found that bug near your house? Is it wrong that I enjoy watching Haruki "play" with the grasshoppers around our house? (Assuming that "play" is a euphemism for excitedly torture with flicks of the nose and tongue?)

Pizza + Kale = Does a Body Good

Why is it that during some weeks you end up spending almost every night of the week doing absolutely nothing, while during others you're busy every.single.night?

And, um, is it just me, or does extreme heat make you feel like a fat, worthless human being? Just me? Hmmm...might be time to duck back in to therapy... :-)

So last night we went out to dinner with our neighbors and our architect and his wife. We went to Pizzeria Locale, which is a fancy schmancy and relatively new pizza place here in Boulder. For a community of people who are afraid of gluten and animal products, Boulder sure has had a big crop up of pizza places in the last few years.

Here is a picture David took last night when I realized that I hadn't taken any pictures of dinner. Boo.

Two things of note occurred last night. The first is that I managed not to eat my entire pizza. Pizzeria Locale serves single-size pizzas that are just slightly too big to be for a single Nikki-size person. But I've still gone at it every time we've been there in the past. But not last night! Mwhahahaha! 

To compensate, I ate two cups of Puffins with peanut butter when I got home.

The second is that I tried an anchovy!!! It was on some kind of hummus-y bruschetta and I decided to give it a whirl in the name of Omega-3s. Unfortunately, the little baby fishes weren't diced up or pureed, but rather, just sitting on a previously yummy piece of hummus toast in all their shiny, slimy, and yes--hairy glory. I tried three bites but after that my gag reflex kicked in. I'm going to assume that my gag reflex was subtly letting me know that my Omega-3 levels are just fine sans anchovies.

Today, I went to my usual Fit Camp class, after which I went to Whole Foods to do a little work and enjoy some summer fruit:

 

And yes, that is kale in the background. I've been thinking recently about why I enjoy eating kale so much these days, and I think it's really some kind of displaced urge to eat an entire cake. I'm serious. When I eat kale, it's satisfying because it now tastes really good to me, but it's also satisfying because I know that it is good for me and I know that I can eat it all day and still (miraculously!) not plump up. It's the same type of satisfaction that I used to get when I would eat 654 pieces of Nutella toast before purging--only with kale I'm not anxious and sad and instead I feel like I'm literally eating vitamins.

*What about you? How does eating healthy food make you feel?

More fun stuff tonight--we have three friends coming over for dinner, so David is making Spicy Seitan Burritos again and I made Banana Almond Bread.

Please tell me that your laptop is in or just outside of all of your photos too!??

Girly Girl

Though these days I tend to spend most of my time in my workout gear, I have done two girly things the last two days.

Yesterday, I did this:

Okay, I didn't do it myself--but that's the point! I got a pedicure!!! I haven't had a pedicure in about seven years, and yesterday on a whim I just decided that it was time for one. (My Mom seemed relieved when I told her; she's always concerned that my toes and feet are suffering from my lax Boulder hippie attitude. Well, that and my unwaxed eyebrows.)

Pedicures are strange things. I mean, you pay someone to massage and buff your feet, all the while not really speaking to them and instead reading a trashy celebrity magazine. Except me. I accidentally dropped the trashy magazine into the soapy foot water. Oops. And I declined her very nice offer to use a razor on my foot calluses. Yikes!

I wasn't super excited with how orange the nail polish came out, but at least this time the nail technician didn't say "Oh, no, that's a grandma color." (I'll tell the rest of my prom story some other time.)

On a more yummy and girly note, David and I went for a wedding cake tasting today--hooray! Cake is, after all, part of the reason we decided to have any kind of wedding.

This is David being condescending about how cake has so much sugar and that's gross and all. I'm like freaking out because the cake hasn't been put in front of me yet. Where.Is.My.Sugar?!!

Ta-Da!!!

Raspberry Butter Cake, Cookies and Cream Cake, and Carrot Cake.

I guess I'm not sooooo lady-like after all, because this is the plate afterwards:

You can barely tell which side is up, and that's how I felt after working my magic on all those sugar cupcake balls.

But, it was good while it lasted, and I know which cake I'm looking forward to (over)eating on our wedding night...

*Any guesses on which two flavors we chose? Have you ever considered pretending to be engaged just so you could go to a wedding cake tasting?

Berfday Dinna

Yesterday was David's forty-second birthday. To celebrate, I treated him slightly nicer than I usually do.

Also, we went out to dinner in Denver with David's parents, Bob and Carolyn. We headed to The Kitchen Denver, which is the new sister restaurant of the original The Kitchen restaurant here in Boulder.

On the way, I sweated off whatever balls I have, because it was 100 degrees yesterday and the air conditioning in David's car is broken.

Luckily I wore a skirt, so I was able to better facilitate "air flow," if you know what I mean.

Most people I know really prefer Denver to Boulder or vice versa. Here are my thoughts:

Umm, yah--Boulder = the best, though it is very fun and nice to drive into Denver and feel a little bit less like a hippy for a change. 

For dinner, I had a relatively lame pasta dish. Here are some of my thoughts on that:

1) Restaurants that are deemed "good" ought to have more than a few pasta dishes and a lame quinoa/asparagus dish to appease their vegetarian patrons.

2) I don't even like pasta. Even when it's good it's still just pasta, which is never as good as a really satisfying (veggie) burger.

3) Why is it that veggie pasta dishes never include a sufficient amount of veggies? Seriously--one freaking stalk of asparagus? Sure, it looks like more because you cut it up into tiny fancy slanted pieces, but I'm a freaking veggie aficionado, I've literally eaten an entire bunch of asparagus by.myself., and I can tell when I'm eating a single stalk cut up into a ten little baby pieces.

As if that wasn't bad enough, we got a free dessert and it was mediocre too.

Lemony and buttery, but nothing better than I used to make when I wasn't afraid of butter, eggs, and sugar.

Here's me trying to avoid being in the picture.

Two things are of note here: 1) David definitely didn't get the message that I did not want to be in the photo, and 2) I don't think I'm particularly photogenic, so this whole blog thing has been somewhat difficult in the sense that I don't love most pictures of myself. But, blogging is about sharing, right? So maybe putting crap pictures of me online will make someone else feel less ugly:-)

*Do I make you feel less ugly? Are you a pasta lover or does pasta = "meh" to you?

Pink Marrow

In the last week I've realized that I really enjoy strength training. Not like body-builder style, but through my BodyPump class at the local Y(MCA). I call it weight-lifting for girls, because most of the people in the class are women (and are prolly thinking "Muscle burns more calories than fat. Muscle burns more calories than fat. Muscle burns more calories than fat.") David calls my fitness classes at the gym "Girls Camp," and often sends me on my way by saying, "Be the best girl at girl camp today!"

Um, anyway. I like strength training because it makes me feel stronger and more confident. I know this sounds like some fitness magazine nonsense--you know, an article in which someone avers that eating carrots for a snack and salads for lunch and dinner is really way more satisfying than a beer and something carb-y. But, seriously, lifting weights makes me feel like my body is just generally more capable, that is, able to do isht. ("isht" is not a typo.) Instead of feeling like a failure because I've gained weight in ED recovery, I feel great that I can squat more and do more pushups than I could before I started BodyPump-ing.*

*(Disclaimer: that doesn't mean that I do pushups like GI Jane. Actually, when I do pushups my back is usually sagging like an old mattress, my whole body is tense with suffering, and I'm thinking, "Noooo...whyyyyyy....whyyyyyy?")

In other news, today I made a lunch choice that was unexpected on two levels. Firstly, I didn't eat a muffin top at Whole Foods. Secondly, I ate soup even though it is literally a hundred degrees outside.

That would be more Emerald Sesame Kale, sweet potato black bean soup, and a whole-grain roll. Does anyone else feel like sweet potatoes get overrated in Blogland? I mean, I know they're good for you, I know they taste pretty good, but are they really so good that they deserve to appear on many many many blog plates? 

Haruki also had a big day of eating over here too:

Any environmental or ethical boon that results from my vegetarianism is now outweighed by the fact that my dog eats beef bones. And she has no shame. I mean really--she chews the marrow out!!! (blech)

She is distracting herself from the noise coming from our roof, since today we are getting solar panels!! 

 

My family is really going to razz me as a hippy for this one. 

*If you are a girl, can you do a "real" pushup? If you are a vegetarian, do you feed your dog meat products?

Boiler Room

Summer has definitely arrived here in Boulder--100 degrees today!!! That's a record, peeps!

It's so hot that Haruki wants to sleep on the cold floor rather than her special (overpriced) dog bed:

We didn't choose her because she matches our hardwood floors, but it's a definite plus!

As far as I'm concerned, this kind of heat makes certain things acceptable that would otherwise make me feel guilty or seem socially inappropriate for this repressed ex-Catholic girl.

These include:

1) Wearing a sundress around the house even though said dress has no liner (and is thus effectually transparent) and is juuuuuust short enough to show off my bizness when I sit down. As far as I can tell, being able to wear things like this around the house is one of the oft-forgotten bonuses of living with your life partner rather than a random roommate. (And also, living alone.)

2) Also, taking a walk by the creek since it is apparently too hot to go inside an air-conditioned coffee shop to work on your dissertation??!!

Boulder Creek is quite the event in the summer months: people sunbathing, playing with their dogs and kids (I know, I know, dogs ≠ kids), and floating down the creek in big floaty tubes. It's like a water park, only with polluted water and random homeless people wandering by.

Luckily I had my bikini in my bag so I could join in the fun!

***BAM!***

That was a test!!! If you believed that last full sentence then you should stop reading this blog asap--it's not for you. (Maybe you could recommend it to your Mom?)

*What do you wear around the house in the summer months? Do you wish they would change the name "bikini" to something else too? Like maybe...wateroos? Like water + underoos = wateroos?

Cujo! Ugh.

Yesterday was a very full day for me and Haruki. The day started out around 10:30, when she and I embarked on a ... girl's trip!!! (Cue excited screeching.) (If I could figure out the f-ing emoticons on my computer I'd insert about sixty zazzilian now.)

We drove from Boulder up to Estes Park, Colorado, where my brothers, sister in law Jennifer, and parents were staying for the night while doing Ride the Rockies.

Haruki and I got to town around 12:30 and had lunch with my Mom and Jennifer while we waited for my brothers and Dad to finish riding. Afterwards, we headed to my parents' hotel, where they showered and Haruki and I took a stroll around Lake Estes.

Um, not too shabby, right?

During our walk, Haruki played in the lake, sniffed out moving critters, and largely pulled my arm off. She was overexcited by all the new sights, smells, and sounds, and was not behaving like her usual self on the leash. 

After our solo walk, we met up with my (now showered) brothers and went with Jennifer and my mom to take a walk along the creek path that borders the town of Estes Park. 

We saw elk!

The path was actually closed off near the elk because recently a lady was f-ed up by an elk mom.
Dang, those elk are legit!

My twin brother, Brian, and his wife Jennifer recently welcomed their new baby girl into the world. She was indifferent to the elk:

But I posed with her anyway:-)

Is it obvious we are twins?

After our walk we hit up the Ride the Rockies beer garden, which is where yesterday's smidge of drama unfolded. Ruki was still pretty excited--unable to sit down for very long, in frantic sniffing mode, etc. I thought about putting her in the car, but decided that we wouldn't stay for too long--just long enough for me to have a (wonderful) beer and a (mediocre) veggie burger.

Not long after eating, we were all sitting around and laughing when all of a sudden Haruki jumped up and darted at a passing dog. She.flipped.her.lid. I mean, she looked like Cujo all of a sudden, barking and growling and snarling at this dog who to my eyes hadn't done anything aggressive or threatening. Luckily our friend James pulled Haruki away from the other dog, because all I could do in my panic mode was attempt to step on her leash while she was going for the other dog.

Sigh. This was not a tragedy. There were no bites or injuries, but the sudden and seeming random nature of Ruki's behavior really shook me up. I called David on the drive home totally upset and crying salty, sobby, cry-baby tears:-) Too bad he's a rational philosopher robot; he just said some reasonable things and I felt like a doofus for crying. 

Last night and this morning Ruki definitely kept her distance from me. I think she could tell I was really upset with her, though unfortunately not because I did anything to discipline her after the incident (I was too upset.) (This is why having a vagina and estrogen does not pay off in the long run, no matter how many times it gets me out of lifting heavy stuff on moving day.)

I guess I'll have to self-administer some more doses of The Dog Whisperer for my evening activity tonight...maybe Cesar Millan will teach me how to send Ruki into a trance with just a wink or wishful thinking...

On a more positive note, Haruki did manage to get this flower stuck in her collar while rooting around a flower pot yesterday. So there's that. 

*If you have a dog, how does it behave around other dogs? Is it shameful that part of my frustration with Ruki's behavior was that it really embarrassed me? Are all the other blog girls' dogs perfect angels?

Pseudo-Posto

Oh my I'm tired. It is only 9 p.m. here in Boulder, and I'm already dreaming about scha-mushing my face into my pillow.

Highlights from today: a trip to Estes Park to visit with my brothers, parents, sister-in-law and niece, beer!, homemade almond banana bread, and a brief emotional meltdown.

Pictures and details tomorrow!

Cemeteries of Sunshine

That's right, peeps. This evening me, the bf, and Haruki took a walk down to the Sunshine cemetery.

And yes, the bf is bald. And his name is David.

I never expected that I would end up with a bald man, but what can I say? I'm a sucker for someone who makes me laugh. As I was taking the picture above, David said, "Are you a Blood or a Crypt," to which I replied, "A Blood." David said, "Too bad, because I'm definitely a Crypt."

Who says that?!!

At the cemetery, we visited my favorite graves. Am I alone in thinking that cemeteries are often really beautiful and peaceful spots? They really put me in a good mood. Good in the sense that I regain some perspective--i.e. realize that it doesn't matter if people at the gym can see my cellulite through my workout pants.

We saw my favorite graves:

I love the baby lamb on top. This is a grave for two young boys and that lamb just seems like the saddest sweetest thing ever.

This reads, "Together Again and Forever." Sigh.

And Haruki visited her new favorite grave:

It was a really beautiful evening walk. 

*No graves were desecrated in the making of this post.