My So-Called Blog

The last couple weeks I’ve been sitting on this because, just over 5yrs later, it still fucking hurts.

When I first moved to Seattle, I had the fortune of being introduced to some awesome people, such as our friends J & R. R used to be a techie, but turned to real estate and in 2007, was the fantabulous realtor who helped us purchase Casa de Bayou & Lachlan.

A few weeks ago she emailed a select group of friends to tell us she’d been diagnosed with invasive ductal carcinoma, a form of breast cancer.

Talk about being hit with a ton of bricks. Read more…

Well, life has been eventful the past month. Mostly good, but we’ve had some rockiness post-vacation. I’ll get to that later.

In the interim, since I’ve not gotten around to posting photos on Flickr, here’s something from our trip to Kauai that I hope will amaze you the way it amazed me when I filmed it.

This version EVERYONE can see. Sorry about that earlier mix-up. I’m irked I didn’t turn the camera the right way after he swam by but I was in shock, a bit.

I know everyone and their brother has one, but I’ve wanted to start one for awhile. So I guess I’ll get it moving and then add to it as time passes.

The Official Bucket List

• Visit the UK
• Do a 5/5 difficulty geocache
• Learn another language
• Go back to school… for something.
• Visit South America
• Learn to fly a plane
• Become SCUBA certified
• Learn to ride a motorcycle
• Get some of my writing published
• Take this local class on metalworking. I’m dying to do something creative like that.
• Do a long-distance hike somewhere. Doesn’t matter where. I just want to go many miles over several days and camp along the route.
• Visit Australia and New Zealand.
• Volunteer at a pet shelter
• Swim with dolphins. Doesn’t matter where.
• Take an Alaskan cruise
• Get married to Bayou.
• Be a parent with Bayou.
• See all of the Hawaiian islands. (Soon to be 2 down!)
• Learn how to correctly use a compass.
• Climb a mountain.
• White water raft.
• See the Grand Canyon.
• Become truly proficient at guitar and harmonica.

I’ll think of more later.

Initially I thought our trip to Kauai would be punctuated not by fun and rip-racing across the island, but by the gentle and relaxing sounds of the waves.

Not so. This trip is shaping up to be raucous, ya’ll. Read more…

This has been a week of weird, weird dreams.

Tuesday night I dreamed that I was at a Native American music recital- there were several kids and a few Native adults, all performing. My friends V & D were there. I had just seen them on Saturday so I am not surprised they were in my dream.

In real life I was discussing the merits of the iPod Touch with V, and this also made its way into dreamland. In my dream I had purchased a Touch as a surprise for V, but I had bought it from a third party seller on Amazon and there was a problem. I was getting agitated about it when I got a call telling me to look outside. Read more…

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly Edition:

The good: losing the cravings for processed crap, and staying pretty active over the weekend. Also, not ridiculously over-indulging with the 4th of July festivities we hosted Sunday.

The bad: the scale we bought broke. Which is probably a good thing, since the constant fluctuation was making Bayou crazy and depressed.

The ugly: Finding out the hard way Friday night that I can’t drink like I used to on this diet.

On a “Here’s To Good Service Note”, I emailed the manufacturer yesterday morning about the scale and its bizarre behavior and got a near-immediate reply saying it was defective and they’d be happy to replace it. So score for that.

I feel we’ve sort of plateaued since we began our changes, in terms of weight loss. But I feel stronger in other areas, especially the mental aspect of this process. It’s getting easier and easier to make choices that were once the bane of my existence- to drink Coke or not, chocolate or an apple, etc etc.

I don’t know if we’ll meet our 10lbs goal by the time we go to Kauai, but it’s ok. We’re on the right path. It’s still a challenge to incorporate daily exercise, but I hoping to get better in that area.

Thanks to everyone for their support. It means a lot to have such a great cheering section!

Well, it’s been a week since we committed ourselves to positive, lasting lifestyle changes. Christ, that sounds creepy and commercial-jingle like. Ewww.

Anyway, we’re making good changes. To recap:

• Bayou has lost 3.4lbs
• I’ve lost 5.7lbs
• We’ve reduced coffee consumption to 1-2 days a week with strict monitoring of milk, etc added
• Soda has been eliminated from my diet, and Bayou is drinking much less processed/calorie laden versions, such as Dry Soda
• We got our indoor trainer for the bike to make it a stationary bike, and got the tires inflated. Today I tested it out at various speeds for 10m. It felt good and will definitely be a workout
• We’ve begun splitting meals if we go out, but if at all possible we try to cook at home
• We’re positive and encouraging each other every step of the way
• I’m faithfully taking my Zocor as well as multivitamin, vitamin D, and Omega 3 supplements
• We’re doing a good job of avoiding processed foods

For the first time in a long time, I feel positive and good about what we’re doing. We’re not beholden to impossible-to-meet-and-maintain goals, we’re giving ourselves little treats here and there, and we definitely feel mentally better about it all.

Next up: researching more recipes and adding more exercise in. And prizes! 10lbs will be our first prize event. I really think both of us will be 10lbs lighter by the time we get to Kauai. Which is fanfuckingtastic.

Well, if the scales are to be believed, Bayou and I have lost a combined 8lbs this week. Cutting out the soda, alcohol, and sugary coffee has divested us of some serious water weight/bloat, I think.

We’ve also managed to add some walking into the mix, and I played drums on Rock Band for awhile last night. I was sweaty when it was over. Today, our indoor trainer arrives, too. (Oh how I love Amazon Prime!)

On tap for this weekend, gardening, geocaching, and buying fireworks!

It’s only day three but so far so good. I’m enjoying the stability and clarity of tracking our calories & meals at Lose It.

We still have to figure out a few more recipes that will make leftovers and won’t break the calorie bank. Time to hit the books, virtual and literal.

In order to help with the exercise part of this equation, we bought this:

This will be less of an impact (important for Bayou) than riding outside, and since we’re slated to have a totally craptastic summer weather-wise, it will help when the rain comes back.

We also broke down and bought a scale. We both felt that if we were going to be watching our calorie intake so much, then we ought to see what it is or isn’t doing. Bayou was disappointed to appear to have gained since her last doctor’s appointment. I seem to have lost some water weight since last week, stupid PMS. Meh.

But onward and upward! Here’s hoping I feel as good about all this in a few weeks as I do now.

I had my annual physical last week and got “The Lecture” I knew was coming.

“Your weight has increased every time I’ve seen you in the past three years. Your cholesterol is border-line high. It’s time to make some changes.”

None of this was news; but I needed to hear it as a counterpoint to all the well-meaning friends who’ve told me I look great, ignore the doctor, etc etc. I knew they were trying to make me feel better but in my heart I knew what was happening.

Grief and a punishing work schedule, along with my retirement from soccer, have really upped my weight. I’m just under 5’3′ and 160lbs. Too heavy. Read more…

Spied this over at Irk’s. Her answers inspired me.

1. What is your idea of perfect happiness? I used to think I knew the answer to this question, but now I’m not so sure. My answers are changing significantly. Part of that has to do with current concerns and just general evolution. But I do think that whatever vision I would have for “perfect” happiness would involve equal parts creativity, love, and professional fulfillment.

2. What is your greatest fear? I’m not sure which plagues me the most right now, but it’s a close race between financial fuck-up-edness and not finding my niche professionally.

3. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? Avoidance. If I don’t want to deal with something, I will do just about anything to get out of it. I do this less than I used to, but it pops up at annoying times. Second to this is the justifications that I conjure up to make the avoidance have the sheen of logic.

4. What is the trait you most deplore in others? I don’t know if there is one trait that I despise above all others, simply because different traits in different people in a variety of situations evoke different responses from me. I think it’s all correlated to how vulnerable I feel in a given situation. One thing I cannot stand in a professional setting is a holier-than-thou, condescending attitude. On the personal side, it’s people who haven’t a shred of self-insight. To me, that’s like living blind, deaf, and mute. Read more…

…I’ve gotten around to posting some photos from Bayou’s last-gasp-of-her-twenties recent birthday. The set’s on Flickr.

We have a good friend, Lesa, who’s starting her own party/event planning business. She’s excellent- I can’t tell you how awesome it was to have her buy the decorations, buy the food, COOK IT ALL, and get everything set up. Handing her some dough was extremely easy.

Everyone had a great time and remarked on how awesome the food was, so definitely a smashing success. Bayou also had a friend from art school who made her cake. It was to die for… and huge. But we made a significant dent in it, as you can see from the last picture in the set.

For Bayou’s 30th, we’re going overseas. She wants a stamp in her passport. Anyone have a suggestion?

Remember when you were a kid, and the ice cream truck come by on summer evenings?

If you had the pleasure of this experience, answer something for me. Did it sound like this? That’s how it sounded for me.

Well, not now. We live in such a cool little pocket of diversity that we are treated to the dulcet tones of what I fondly call Mariachi Ice Cream Music. A little bit Three Amigos, a lot techno, it sounds something like this.

That’s not exactly it- but close. I’m going to see if I can catch it on video the next time it rolls through.

And not the fulfilling, wow-I’ll-make-radical-life-changes kind, either.

About a month ago we decided to go see Tom Petty at the Gorge Amphitheater with our friends S&L. It is one of the most amazing outdoor venues -if not THE most amazing- I’ve ever seen. I’ve been there to see Dave Matthews, The White Stripes, the Jeep Tour back in 2002. Many good times have been had.

We truly expected nothing different this time around. Perhaps that was our first mistake. Read more…

I suppose that title is somewhat silly, since change is more often than not unexpected.

We had a disturbing letter arrive in the mail this week. It was a three page document from a local city/private developer informing us that about 1/3 of our street will be demolished in August to make way for 30 densely-packed units of low income housing.

For those of you who have not visited our abode, this is a massive, massive change. Read more…

There have been a few changes afoot here that if you see me on FB, you probably already know. Twitter, too. Yes, I’m a social media whore. Shut it.

After four tortuously long, heart-breaking years in Montana, Bayou’s Momma is moving to Washington State. She got a job as dean of students for one of the wealthier tribes in the area. It will be a thousand steps up from where she was- crazy, dangerous rez dogs, water that was un-potable, 160+ mile round trips just to get groceries…. not to mention all the insanity of the of the school itself.

It will be a welcome change. She’ll be thirty minutes away, which is reassuring. She starts school just in time to house-sit for us while we go to Kauai. Read more…

Usually when I hear that phrase, it means bad things. Not this time!

After much wrangling, pleading, begging, and finally some strategic moves, we have our trip to Kauai booked.

Yes, booked. As in tickets paid for and hotel confirmed. Holy cow, what a ride that was. Read more…

Jesus, it is TOO EARLY on a Saturday for me to go through what just happened. And no coffee yet, even!

This morning after I got up and let dogs out and back in, and fed everyone, I had taken some garbage out to the carport. I thought I had latched the door completely shut. I went back into the office and sat perusing the internets. It got quiet. I didn’t notice anything.

After a time, I got up to make said coffee… and the door in the kitchen to the big, evil, outside world was wide open. I raced out to the carport.

Gypsy and Pixel were cat-skulking around the car- I yelled and both flew into the house. But where were the dogs? And it hit me- Sumi didn’t have her collar on. Panic really began to set in.

I threw on shoes and grabbed my keys and wallet, belatedly realizing I should have grabbed my phone. I did a quick tour around the block, windows down, looking. Nothing, turn by turn by turn. I decided to head to the recently redone park/community area behind our house. I looked up on the ridge as I banked through the turn, and there they were- Sumi, smiling and gleefully leading Loki through a tour of the new area. Both were running and smiling and looking like life was just. So. AWESOME.

I parked the car and turned the hazards on, and ran up the stairs. They hadn’t seen me yet, but probably heard me calling. I don’t know the last time I ran up three extra-long flights of stairs like that. At the top, they were nosing around and smelling, and about 40 yards from me. I called Sumi first.

“Sumi! Hey, whatcha doin’?” She stopped and stared at me. I could see on her face she was planning at least two moves ahead.

“Let’s go for a ride! You ready? C’mon!” And I started back down the stairs. Shooting a glance behind me- they were both racing to catch up. The panic began to ease.

We got about a third of the way down when both were in grabbing distance. I snatched Loki up, muddy as a goat, then Sumi. But she’s 30lbs and I can’t carry 40lbs of struggling wet dogs. So I put her down but held onto her scruff. She obediently went into the car. Loki of course didn’t have much choice.

Once home I toweled them off -both were very muddy- and then hugged them long. Back in the house they went and I finally brewed that pot of coffee.

I think I’ve had enough excitement for one day.