a few of my favorite things

I love watching the animal cops shows on tv and watching Peli's reaction. When there are dogs howling or barking, she starts watching. She enjoys when I watch the show, not because of the sounds, but because I exponentially increase her snorgling time when I see how some people treat their dogs.

Last night, on a complete whim, I went over to our neighbor's house and asked if Peli could play with their bull terrier, Shadow. Shadow lives in a pen in their backyard, and I gave him some treats earlier yesterday. When he saw us get home from eating Thai, he got really excited, and I thought he could use some play time. Our neighbors, Edward and Myra, came out and we all talked for a long time. They're both from Mexico and have an adorable little girl, and after talking for a long time, we put the dogs away and they invited us in. Myra gave us a TON of Mexican food (some kind of soup) to take home with us, and I just ate some for lunch. Oh. My. Gosh. It is pretty much one of the tastiest things to ever enter my mouth.

Graduation is looming near, and the second I finish my last final, we're jumping into the car and driving to Texas for two and a half weeks. Financially, it may not be the greatest idea (not working for two and a half weeks? Yeesh!) but I could use a break like no one's business. I miss Bobby's dad and step-mom a ton, too, so that will be wonderful (not to mention the oodles of Kathleena time). We're also all going to ride a century together (a 100 mile bike race/ride... Bobby says it's not a race, it's a ride, but I'm not sure I would ever voluntarily ride 100 miles unless it was a "race"). But, Katie, you ask, How can you do a 100 mile road race without a road bike?

Ladies and gents, I present you with my almost bike: The Scott Pro Contessa.
At just barely over 17 pounds with nicer components than Bobby's road bike, I have a feeling I'm going to really like this bike. Just have to keep my chin off the pavement.

Peeling skin cancer.

Today is take your dog to work day. We're celebrating with Peli at the bike shop, because I don't want to have to lock her up for the entire afternoon while I'm at the Boys and Girls Club (apparently they want to avoid potential law suits).

Yesterday, I found the saddest web page ever created. Naturally, I have to share it with everyone in blog world. http://www.seviercountypetadoptions.com/memorialpage.html It's hard to think that Peli was a shelter dog, and that she could have been put down eventually. She's an amazing little girl, and so snuggly. The littlest things make her happy, and all I have to do is rub her belly every now and then, and she gives me everything she has in return.

My internship has been kind of a struggle lately. I'm not sure what the Lord is trying to teach me now, whether it's about the reality of office politics or how I should handle them or all of the above, but I wish I could figure it out quickly. In middle school, we got a talk about drugs and how reporting someone's drug use was not tattling. I'd learned that a friend of a friend was smoking pot, and told the counselor. The friend of a friend didn't seem to care that it was not "tattling," and informed me I'd be beat up after the weekend. Since then, if a peer is doing something that I don't necessarily agree with, I recognize that they are doing the best they can and we all have different ways of doing things. So when I work my tail off for one of the classes I'm teaching at my internship and the other teacher forgets the things I tell her, I deal with my frustration privately and move on. I was naive to assume she would do the same. Rather than remember I told her I would be missing the scheduled classes during June because of my job, and remember the rehearsals we had arranged for outside of class when I could be there, she went to my supervisor to tell him his intern wasn't showing up and the outside rehearsals conveniently fell off her schedule. To try to remedy the situation, I scheduled a short half hour rehearsal, from 12-12:30, and was then yelled at in front of coworkers and clients by the rec therapist because she had an activity at 12:30, and I was committing a "cardinal sin" (her words) and overstepping my bounds.

A good social worker would have asked the rec therapist to join her in her office so they could discuss the matter calmly and inform one another of the facts of the situation. Perhaps the rec therapist did not understand the rehearsal would end at 12:30, and that the social worker had no intentions of taking students away from her activity. Both would leave with respect for one another and the problem would be resolved.

So what did I do? I cancelled rehearsal, left work 1.5 hours earlier than I had planned, and cried while I counted down the days until I graduate. Now when I see the rec therapist, I avert my eyes and scurry out of her path. I know, I know, maybe I'll grow a spine some day. I did manage to take all of this to my supervisor, who explained to me that there were rivalries between the departments, and that I would have to do something really unethical for him to not write me a good letter to get into graduate school.

On a final note, the three kids in the basketball class for the morning program at the Boys and Girls Club were practicing their free throws with good form when two of the kids started digging into each other. "You need blind aids." "Yeah, well, you need hearing aids!" The smallest of the three, whom I call "Scrappy," stood up and said, "You two need RESPECT AIDS."

It made my heart smile.

It's my birthday, and I blog what I want!

First of all, the most exciting news in my life that I am officially allowed to "post on the internet" today is that my older brother and his fiancee are going to pop out a baby next February (February 21st, actually). I'm pretty proud that I was able to guess what it was as soon as my brother said, "Are you driving, or can I tell you something?" For the record, I was driving, and I still made it home without killing myself or anyone else. Take that, stereotype of female drivers. I'm pretty stoked about becoming an aunt (and I'll become an aunt again once they get married, because LeAnne has the most adorable daughter already). I'm already thinking about all the ways I can spoil a child that isn't mine.

We went camping again this weekend, except this time with Marty and Sarah. Sarah is pretty much one of the coolest human beings you could possibly meet, and that's mostly because she's a lot like me (ha!). We can sit and talk about dogs and how stupid breeders are, and also exchange books and book titles because we're both big reading nerds. I feel a lot less lonely when I'm around her (yeesh, thank goodness I wasn't out to find a date out here). The downfall of the camping trip is that my back is a very, very bright red from hiking by the beaver dam (yup, a beaver dam), and I was reminded of why I have usually gone tanning a couple times in the years past. A large sun burn means I'm down for the count for an entire day, because rather than feeling hot and uncomfortable, my body just shuts down. Weird. Bobby's pretty burned too, which is sad, but I'm pleased, because he doesn't really burn easily, and it makes me feel better about myself.

Speaking of feeling better about myself, today is my birthday, and it's the first time in years I'm actually going to have a birthday! My mom usually forgot my birthday, then my 18th birthday was in the middle of competition at nationals for forensics, then my 19th and 20th consisted of a significant other on a mission, and then my 21st was supposed to be it. It was supposed to be the birthday to redeem all birthdays. Bobby was going to take me to the zoo (see? I'm not hard to please), but then my mom called and informed me that she had scheduled my bouquet/cake planning for that day. Today has already been a fantastic day. At midnight, while we were at Marty's watching "The Office," Bobby wished me a happy birthday, and then gave me my present. "I Am America (And So Can You)" by Stephen Colbert, and a book light so I can read at night without waking him up. He's pretty much the most amazing husband on the face of the planet. This morning, we're going to have breakfast at Mimi's Cafe, and then frolic at the animal shelter to play with all the dogs that otherwise might not get the attention. There was also talk of confetti cake, so we shall see. Yay! Happy birthday, Me!

My feet stink.

Something that I have discovered about being an intern is that it's one of the most dreadful experiences of my life. In the few months that I have been labeled with such a (what I have discovered) demeaning title, I have found that such entails being treated as an intern when it comes to judgment of competence (which, let's face it, I agree with that most of the time) so few responsibilities are allotted and observation is expected, but the definition of "intern" disappears when it comes to scheduling expectations. August isn't far off, right?

I have yet to write about my race last Saturday. My brain kind of flies everywhere and I don't really get anything written down other than little tidbits of my cognition, but I'm okay with that. Saturday, we woke up in the wee hours of the morning, got dressed, and went outside to pack up our bikes and stuff. To our dismay, it was raining, cold, and showed no signs of stopping. Park City is a good 45 minute drive from our house, and it would be insanely disappointing to get there to find out the race was cancelled, and with gas prices as high as they are, I was reluctant. Fortunately, when we got there, it had stopped raining, so we weren't getting rained on, but we did have to deal with the results of the moisture on the trails. It was cold, very cold, and we found out it had snowed in Park City earlier that morning. I was pretty excited, still, and got ready behind the starting line for the race. I talked to the other girls in my category (all two of them) and learned a couple of important things. The first was that one girl had been mountain biking for at least 8 years ("It's been about eight years since my last official race") and lived down the street from the trail we were about to race on. The other girl was riding a Specialized Safire. Now, my bike is pretty good, but the Safire is uh MAY zing. I felt pretty confident, though. The race was 7 miles long, and I bike that regularly to work, so it won't be a big deal, right?

They sent us off, and my thoughts were, "I just don't want to be last." The race started with two very steep, very long climbs, and after the first one, my goal changed to, "I just don't want to have to get off my bike and walk." Well, the two climbs were divided by a flat area filled with switchbacks and lots of mud, and I fell down. A lot. When I got to the second insane climb, I got off my bike and thought, "That's okay. I just don't want to have to stop and rest." I made it to the top of the climb, walking my bike, and couldn't even see the next person in front of me. I actually kind of liked that, and resolved to just race against the mountain instead of against the other two people in my group.

The rest of the trail was absurd. I fell down more times than I can count, and one of those times resulted in me landing in a tree. I had no problem pulling off to the side and letting the pro riders lap me (they had to do two laps, while I "only" had to do one). Pretty soon, my goal to not have to stop was abolished, and I decided I just wanted to finish the race. About two and a half miles into it, though, I was actually praying to get a flat tire. If I had a flat, then I could not finish and no one would blame me. If I didn't get a flat, then I had to deal with falling and bruising and crying and screaming, "WHO THE DEVIL DECIDED THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?!" I had to climb a mountain. I had to climb an actual mountain. I got to the top of it, and saw that the rest of the trail was just going back down the mountain on the other side, and became very frustrated with the pointlessness of racing. Why did I climb the mountain if where I need to be is at the bottom? It seemed to me like a complete waste of time. So I made my way down the mountain, slowly and carefully. I had never experienced a switchback in my, oh, one month of mountain biking, and I learned that my lack of skills required me to either get off my bike and walk them, or to attempt the switchback and end up with my entire body on the ground (or in a tree, as an instance would have it). As I was making my way, I heard the announcer at the finish line say into the mic, "Rider, 426!" and I did a little victory dance on my bike for Bobby, who had apparently just finished his 11 mile race (which started 10 minutes before mine, was four miles longer, and here I was, still on the freakin mountain). Not long after, I heard a "click click click click" with every rotation of my tire. I got off my bike and saw a stick in my chain ring. Bobby has told me time and time again to trust my bike, trust my tires, blah blah blah, so if there's something in the trail, just run over it. It's not going to throw me off my bike and kill me. With that in mind, I ran over a stick (more like a branch) and it had tangled itself completely in my chain ring, pushing the chain off the ring. Going down the mountain, this would not be a big deal, but there is a gradual climb afterward to get to the finish line. Without a chain, I can't pedal, and I certainly was not going to walk to the finish line. I wrestled the stinking thing out and had to guess when it came to sticking the chain back on. The wrestling took a good several minutes, but with the finish line so close, I yelled at my bike. "NO! I AM ALMOST DONE! YOU WILL WORK, GOSH DARNIT!" When I got to the bottom, there were some volunteers working the race that were directing people where to go, and they looked kind of surprised to see me. I just laughed and said, "Guess what? I DIDN'T DIE!" and headed off on my way. When I got to the finish line, I saw Bobby run up and start hollering away. Apparently, in the twenty minutes since he had finished the race, he had convinced himself that I was lying dead somewhere on the trail. He gave every first aid person he saw the third degree, asking if they saw anyone in a full face go down. He told me he was proud of me, and yanno, I'm pretty proud of me too. I certainly didn't do well (the person that finished before me finished 37 minutes earlier), but I wanted to quit so badly, and I finished the race. And because I didn't quit, I still got last in my category, but that still meant third place!

After we checked the results to see how Bobby ranked, we went back to the car and Bobby started putting the bikes on the rack. When he got to mine, he paused for a second, and then checked the rear suspension lock. "Oops." When he was putting my bike on the rack that morning, he had to turn the lock on the back so the bike would fit on the rack better, and had forgotten to unlock it. So not only did I finish the race, I rode the entire thing hard tail (hence the many falls) with all of the weight of a full suspension bike. That pretty much makes me a super hero.

Peace in my heart.

I'm in my office at my internship, and Peli is sleeping on the floor on top of my soccer clothes. Hopefully, when I grow up, I can have a job that lets me bring my dog every day. All the times I get stressed out by clients and want to rip my hair out would be soothed by the presence of my adorable little dog. I brought her with me to Boys and Girls Club today for the soccer class, and she was our entertainment for the hour we were there, especially since no kids showed up. That's been the story all week with the Scera Park site, and it looks like we'll be cancelling the program. It's okay by me, because there aren't any kids showing up. What does bum me out is they aren't going to be able to fund the club for the site during the school year again, because they require 200 people to attend (which is at least a third of the school), and we got maybe 30. I'm about quality, not quantity, and there are so many kids in that 30 that will be devestated when there's no club. I do recognize, however, that with so many programs requiring funding, looking at numbers instead of stories is more pragmatic.

Tomorrow is our big race (well, my big race... it's not really a big thing for Bobby, but I'm excited!) and I'm a little worried about how I'm going to do. I'm not really competitive, but I have noticed that when I ride with Bobby, I feel bad about myself when he's ahead of me (which is absurd. He's been riding longer, and his thighs are the size of large tree trunks) and usually end up killing myself to try to keep up. It's not that I want to do better than him, it's that I don't want to be doing worse. Is that competitive? Maybe. I just hope I don't end up with some girls who have been doing this since birth and I end up finishing three hours after them. Then again, if it takes me three hours to complete ten miles on a mountain bike, perhaps I should consider feeling a little badly about myself.

During Peli's class this week, I finally gathered the courage to ask Stacie, her trainer, where she learned/got certified to be a dog trainer. My apprehension was that she might react with, "You? Want to be a dog trainer? Seriously?" but she got really excited and told me everything she had to do. I looked up the program she went through, and it's considerably cheaper (3.75 times cheaper, actually) than the program I was looking at. She told me about all the places that need trainers, and how she has a friend who would hire me right now if I was already in the program. I've decided that I definitely want to go graduate school (I'm also 99% sure I'm not going to change my mind again), but I want to go to KU, and it doesn't look like we'll be back in Kansas for another couple years. In the meantime, if I occupy myself with learning how to be a trainer and working with dogs, I may be more equipped to train therapy dogs, and since AAT is what I want to do with my life, it seems like a good use of time (and a means for not plucking out my eyeballs as a direct result of living in the bubble of Provo).

For those of you who were concerned (HA!), Chuck is recovering nicely. I'm not sure if I shared this, but I purchased a thermometer to see if Chuck was running a fever (if he was, a vet visit was necessary, but I didn't want to have to pay a ton of money if he didn't need to go), and was inspired to pay more for the nicer thermometer that only took ten seconds to do a reading. The others needed sixty seconds. Now, with cats, you can't put the thermometer under their tongues. It has to be a rectal reading. Can you imagine doing that to a cat with claws and holding it there for sixty seconds? It took a couple tries to get just ten seconds. He didn't have a fever, though, and with his quarantine from Kelso (his playmate), he's been able to get his sneezes down from about one every ten seconds to one every six hours. I'm relieved, because I wouldn't be able to handle losing another pet so soon, and Chuck is my buddy. Most of you know how I am about cats.

And for those of you who have read this far, I entered a short story contest. It's something I wrote a while ago, but I'm kind of proud of it. Enjoy!

It burned still. Glass after glass of water did not alleviate the pained, sore lining of my confused throat. A thorough examination in the mirror allowed for the assurance that none of the half digested bits of food had splashed into my hair, and a quick dab to the corners of my mouth removed the evidence of what had just occurred. A glossy sheen reflected the light off the dark, lifeless eyes that peered out of my head.

Pity, I thought. They were once my most admired feature.

Exiting the place of my porcelain salvation, I returned to thetable as the familiar friends and smiling faces were finishing their desserts. So much time had gone into that cobbler, an old family recipe, yet the only joy I could get from what I once freely indulged in came solely from the satisfaction that danced on the lips of those who had become my family. My dark, lifeless stones avoided glancing over at him, as what was once the source of my happiness suddenly became a fountain of inadequacy, a font from which I freely drank as of late. His smooth,calming voice seemed to echo above the others around the table, and his jokes were greeted quickly with a chorus of laughter. The lingering smells of a well cooked meal, a loyal wife, a beautiful, well-kept home, and surrounded by friends. His cup seemed full.

As the final guests took their coats and he showed them the door, I stood over the sink, planning the meal for the following day. Dinners became more meticulous in terms of their contents, as the act of relieving guilt following its consumption can become a trying task given the wrong ingredients. Intent, deliberate calculations were my focus as I absent-mindedly scrubbed the already clean platter, and my thoughts were brought to the present as he put a hand around my waist. Panic flushed over me as I tried to casually suck in my stomach, and my worry was almost louder than his gratitude for dinner. He walked out of the kitchen casually looking over his shoulder to tell me he needed to work on some things he brought home from the office.

Okay, I said through a forced smile. Don't work too hard.

The soft click of the door to the study closing matched the click of my jaw locking, and my eyes were fixed, burning a hole in the wall right above the sink. An eternity of no time passed, and the sound of blood pulsating through my defeated body blared through the empty tunnels to my brain.

Funny, I thought. Being hollow should mean there is nothing left to hurt.

The dishes cleared, the leftovers placed meticulously into a plastic container to take to work for his lunch the next day, I retreated to the space between the sheets. Exhaustion is a foreign term to those who have never attempted the chronic task of masking one's death of esteem.

Though every cell in my body craved it, sleep would not come. Instead, the frozen block inhabiting my torso chased off my sanctuary, so I laid there, lifeless in every sense.
What seemed like hours passed, until the bedroom door creaked softly. Lids clasped, my ears followed him from the doorway to the bed. He crawled into the blankets, and the safety that had originally enveloped me with their warmth soured, and instead was replaced with the space where guilt should have resided. In a matter of minutes, his breathing regulated, and the soft guttural sounds escaped his mouth, and again, I was alone.

The floor was cold against the soles of my feet. The glow of the sleeping computer lit the path into the deserted hallway, and the air was heavy with infidelity. The mouse sat there, teasing me with the betrayal it had helped perpetuate in the past. Its sudden movement under the palm of my hand woke up the darkened screen, and the selection of the web browser filled the pixilated square with a mocking display ofcolor. His briefcase leaned against the desk, its contents certainly residing safely inside as they had since he came home Friday evening. A few intended clicks of the mouse, and the recent history painted the left hand side of the brilliant piece of technology. My throat tightened at the recognition of the site names, and out of habit I clicked on each one. The screen was populated with the usual carnal, lustful figures, glittered with the broken pieces of my being.

Once the screen was black again, I looked down at my disheveled body in the dim light. With two fingers, I held the layer that rested across my midsection, pinching until I felt the bruising. Sobs of insufficiency threatened to escape, which were choked back with the determination to succeed.

Tomorrow, the cycle would continue.

Someday, I will be enough.

Three cheers for the donkeys!

Hip, hip, HOORAY!

I'm a lil excited about Obama. I am, however, very un-excited about working at the club house this afternoon. It turns out that all the crazies at the Scera Park site for Boys and Girls Club were actually saints in comparison. My original excitement for having the first and second graders has turned into dread and an increased desire to invest in a hysterectomy. That's not to say they were all bad, because even some of the ones that got into trouble were adorable and meant well. However, if I hear one more kid say, "Teacher! He hit me!" a parent is going to show up and find their in a blender.

I can't really blame them, though. These kids have busy parents and don't get a lot of the attention they crave, so naturally they become self harmers. At first, the kids would fall down and start crying because they'd hurt themselves and I'd tend to them and help them out. After about two minutes of that, though, I'd had it and started ignoring them when they fell down. My hypothesis was correct, and when they looked up to see me not looking, they just went on their merry way, looking for alternatives to falling down so they'd get "teacher" to pay attention to them individually. When I did make the mistake of making eye contact, I simply told them that we'd have to cut off whatever limb was injured. That made them stop crying pretty quickly.

As crazy as it was, though, it's probably been my best experience in a social work setting. The public non-profit may not pay as much, and the benefits might not be as great, but the employees are genuinely appreciative of one another. After about a half hour, I wanted to take a nap/cry in the corner as the kids attempted to kill one another, but if needed, the other employees were willing to help out when they weren't busy finding alternatives to using a taser on their own chitluns.

Can you tell I'm going to make a wonderful mother?

And in case you were wondering, blueberry pomegranate with dark chocolate chunk icecream is pretty much the most amazing thing to ever grace your tongue. Think about it.