Week 3, Day 17

Sealed with a curse as sharp as a knife.
Doomed is your soul and damned is your life.

Today was a first for me. First time I couldn’t finish a run. I’m trying not to be disappointed in myself, especially since it was either stop running or stop breathing.

Got a late start today; lots of errands to run. Picked Meathead’s remains up from Dignified Pets and then went to REI where I bought me, my mom and my sister each a BPA-free water bottle.

Got out to the track (new water bottles in hand) at around 4:30 p.m. It was warm, but there was a good, strong wind blowing. I was okay for the first half of the run, but during the second 90 second run, I started struggling to breathe. I took a hit of albuterol during the 90 second walk, but two minutes into my (last) three minute run, I had to stop. I just couldn’t get enough air and I was panting like Chicken Lips...something that pants a lot.

I walked until my sister was done running, then we stretched and came back here. Sis thinks it might be the smoke from the California wildfires that’s fucking up my lungs. She might have something there, since I can’t think of a good reason why it’s been so hard for me to breathe lately.

It’s going to be pretty warm on Saturday, so I think I’m going to bite the bullet and run at the gym. It might be easier on my lungs?

Mehhh. Disappointed.

Speaking of which, that Hemp Shake stuff tasted like spiced asshole. I had such high hopes, too. I think if I’d added it to a smoothie it would have been good, but I was at my sister’s house without a blender or smoothie stuff, so I just mixed it in some soy milk. It was all clumpy and gritty and tasted awful, so I dumped it. I’ll give it a second chance sometime.

More fantastic news: last night my sister’s friends told us that they had to take Curly Joe back to the vet because he was having some swelling issues. Turns out he had an incisional hernia. I assisted quite a few hernia operations in my day as a vet tech. Hell, I was born with two inguinal hernias. So I knew it was no big deal, but I was still freaked out. Seems like our animals can’t catch a break these days. I’m happy to report that he’s doing fine today. Here’s a picture of him from a couple of days ago. I can't wait to snuggle the hell out of this dog:

Also, my sweet peas are blooming! Ovechkin the chipmunk ate two of the petals, but I consider that deadheading, so thanks for that! (Fecking chipmunk is the bane of my existence.)

Time to make my sister watch The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension. See you Saturday, Bigboote.

Game off

Just a quick post to let everyone (haha) know that I'm not running today. I'm pretty sure I've come down with a cold. After Tuesdays' run, I got really warm and then couldn't stop sneezing. I'm having a hard time breathing (asthma) and today I've got hot and cold flashes. I decided I should probably just take today (and possibly Saturday) off.

Today I'm just doing laundry and washing my sinuses out with the neti pot. Sis and I were going to take Mom to the Rose Gardens, but she had other plans. That's right. My 63-year old mother has a social life and I don't.

So I figure I'll just post some pictures instead. These are from our day at Sauvie Island on Monday. (Click for larger view.)

Meathead's favorite hobbies: sticks and water.

Tank has been terrified of water ever since he crashed through some ice and almost drowned when he was four months old. However, I discovered that if he can walk in and out of water by himself, he doesn't mind all that much. Sis threw a stick for Meathead who decided it was too far away to retrieve. To my surprise, Tank started going in after it. Incidentally, the beach is in Oregon. The trees in the background are in Washington.

Swimming back.


As I said, Meathead loves sticks.


The boys made a new friend! His name is Diesel.


PRAWNZILLA!!!!


We have the best dogs in the world.





Waiting for Curly Joe. We pick him up in one week!

And that's it for Sauvie Island. The next time we go, we'll have life preservers for all three dogs. It was really sad, going there this time. We haven't been back to the island in three years; the last time was right before Luke had his colectomy. All five dogs were still alive and well. It just felt empty, only having Meathead and Tank there. Bernie should have been there to cheer Meathead on as he swam out to retrieve sticks and Lady should have been patrolling the beach, keeping her boys in check. Luke would have been barking non-stop because he never could contain his excitement about everything, and Tank would have been sniffing sniffing sniffing sniffing. I miss them all so much.

Tuesday morning I woke up at 5 a.m. and went into the kitchen to get a glass of water. I looked out the window and saw the entire pasture covered in fog, so I grabbed the camera and went out to take pictures. The rest are up at my Flickr.

See you Saturday, maybe.

Booby track. I mean trap. No, I mean track.

Track
Originally uploaded by BlindTurtle.

Uploaded pictures of my track (click on the photo to see more). Anyone else wanna limp?

I'm off to clean out my car. The trunk, too. I'm sick of clutter.