Aragorn

Did you guys see the sky tonight?
It was so pirate outside.
There was the moon and some foggy clouds.
No skeletons, though. That would've been real.

I went on one of my nightly strolls around the neighborhood.
I like to play this game called Tar, Toad, or Turd.
It's when I'm walking on the road in the dark, and I see some blob ahead of me.
If it jumps out of my way, it's a toad. If I get nearer, and it seems to have sunk into the pavement a little, then it's a turd. We have a lot of geese around. They poop a lot. And if it's neither of the two, then it's tar, gravel, or a rock.
Fun times.

Speaking of poo though, I was mowing the lawn yesterday, and my manual lawn mower got stuck in a pile of dog poop.
This is mysterious on multiple levels.
First off, I don't have a dog. And if I did, I wouldn't let it poop in my front yard.
Secondly, it was right on the dividing line between my neighbor's yard and mine. They have two dogs, but I doubt that they would let them poop there or in my yard. In fact, the poop has been there a week and we have both mowed around it, neither of us claiming it.
Thirdly, when the poop got stuck, it didn't gum up the blades or anything. It was like trying to mow through a pile of rocks. Like a combination of tar and turd.

So, you see, this is a very mysterious situation. So mysterious that books should be written about it.
Nancy Drew and the Case of the Mysterious Dog Poop
Hardy Boys and the Terrestrial Turds
Or would they be extra-terrestrial? Maybe that explains where it came from.
SPACE POOP.

I apologize. I have talked about poop way too much in two consecutive posts. I will try my hardest not to turn this into a crappy blog. But I won't try so hard as to not get hemorrhoids.

Ok. That was the last one. I promise.

Anyway, I decided to go on a walk tonight instead of a run. I've been gearing up for my 10k training, which I've already kind of started. I'm back up to running 1.5-2 miles a night. I even got this spiffy little app to track it all, and it turns out that my "Two mile" loop is actually 2.1 miles, and 2.25 if I go all the way home (which I do).

My pace is a little better than what I thought it'd be, and there's still plenty of room for improvement. I have surprised myself by getting back into shape quickly and being able to power through the heat. Running in 77 degree weather is like running in 97 degree weather. If I could just find a way to keep my earbuds from falling out of my sweaty ears, it'd be greeeeeeeeeeeeeat.

Tonight I decided to just walk. That's what happens after a three course Mexican meal, where the courses are taco, taco and taco. I like to get out just to stay in the habit of getting out. Gotta keep these 24 year old bones and joints still working.

Can you believe that? 24 years old? I'm almost an antique.

I still feel like I sit too much during the day.
Bible Study - on chaise in the living room
Commute - car seat
Work - chair
Lunch - bench
Dinner - couch

I'm even sitting right now, but I'm on the floor, so I'm building character. I feel like I'm always building character. Like last night, I was mowing the lawn (this was after I got the dog poop out of the blades), and sometimes you have to man-handle the yard. It gets really thick in some parts, so you have to pretty much run through the patch of grass so that the blades will cut it.

Keep in mind, I have it on the lowest setting, so I could make it easier on myself. I decided to be an overachiever so that the yard looks extra-decent!

So I'm out there, sweating my eyeballs off (this was before my two mile run) thinking Why don't I just PAY someone to do this!?!? 
And then I thought that I'm saving myself that money. $20 a week. That's like twice my normal pay.
Plus, exercise benefits. SWEATY DIVIDENDS.
Character building. I have so much character now it's not even funny.
And then I decided that lawn service is another luxury that I shall save up and pay for when I don't have to work for money anymore.

Sometimes you get up and bake a cake or something,
TWS

Racing Like a Pro; The National

Spelling

We gave Sam a bath today.

Well, a half bath.

The Why
Although Sam is not a full-bred Maine Coon, he has the fur of one which hangs off his little kitty legs.
Natural processes happen sometimes and get caught in the fluff of his legs. Most of the time, he's able to clean out the matting himself.
But sometimes kitty gets diarrhea and things get really bad.
That's what happened.

The When
I was so convinced that Sam had died this morning. Usually, he's up on the bed staring at me at promptly 4:33 am to get fed. This morning, I had a full morning of nice, interrupted sleep.
It was extremely nice, but it also felt wrong.
I went downstairs after getting dressed for work to look for him. He was cowering under the chaise, which was weird because he never sits under the furniture- always on top.
As I got closer to inspect, a distinct odor reached my nostrils as I discovered that MY CAT SMELLED LIKE DOODOO.

I guess he felt so ashamed of what he had done that he didn't want to sit on the furniture or asked to be fed. To say he was "covered in it" is an exaggeration. However, his backside was such a thick turdy-hair disaster, that I knew something had to be done right then.

I got Mike out of bed to say that Kitty is not dead, but there is poo and it is bad. Real bad.

The How
I put on my disposable gloves used for cleaning out drains and some heavy duty scissors. Mike held the front end of the beast and I tried to carefully cut around his legs.
Then I discovered the poo was not all dry.
I gagged.
So then we took him to the sink and started rinsing off his bottom half.
BAD IDEA.
That made the smell so much worse. Mike and I were both gagging. The drain backed up. The water turned brown. Sam was yowling. Great way to start the day.

So then we moved him to the tub, which splashed poo water all up on the sides and made the bathroom smell a little more like death. Sam was so upset. Mike grabbed towels to soak up the water.
"I think we're done for now."
I threw the towels in the laundry and Sam laid down.

During the Day
Mike and I went to work, but we were traumatized. We knew it wasn't finished. We spent some time looking at cat groomers. I called all three PetsMarts in the area and not one of them groomed cats.
What the heck.
It's not like I asked you to do a sanitary trim on my iguana.
Then we looked into the pricey boutique grooming shops.All of them would be closed by the time we got there, assuming we could actually fit Sam into his cat carrier, and this had to be done today.
We came to the stomach-sinking realization that we would have to do this ourselves.

The Shopping List
Cat shampoo
A brush
Fancy Feast
Kitteh Drugzzzz (catnip toy)

After Dinner
I put on the gloves again, and we drew him a nice little bath. Mike held his arms as I tried to scrape the poo out of his fur as fast as I could. The water helped it form into cuttable pieces, so I was lopping it off like a hairdresser during the Saturday morning rush. At last, we began to see the pale pink skin and the poo was getting washed away.
We sprayed him down to get all the soap out, and his little kitty legs looked so pitiful. The fluffiness of his fur completely disappeared and he just had these spindly little wet chicken legs holding up his blimp-like belly. His fluffy tail turned into a spindly snake lookin' thing.
Wet Sam was NAGL.
And then he started to weep. I kid you not. He had these little kitty tears welled up in his little kitty eyes. It was heart-wrenching and adorable all at the same time.

When It Was Over
We gave him a good rubdown with the towel, gave him a big helping of the Fancy Feast purchased for this very occasion, and put the catnip hedgehog toy in his face. After a few minutes, he was purring again, though his back half looked like a sewer rat.
I shudder to think of what he'd look like if we'd given him a whole bath. He probably would've scratched a lot more.
During the bath, he seemed to work with us rather than against us. It's like he knew the poo had to come out this way. Though he was meowing pathetically and digging his claws into Mike, he didn't try to run or jump away. He knew that this cleaning was a necessary evil and that his parents were taking care of him.

And now he's sitting right in front of me on the recliner like nothing happened.

I think the Harshner family grew a little bit closer today.

<._______________.>

TWS

Durch den Wind

Some thoughts on Earl Grey tea:

Let's not make it harder than it has to be,
TWS