Training Log Archive: Yukon King

there are two recipes in the Potato Book for kofta (greek food? balls of lamb) so I've decided to make them both to taste-test against each other - one on the raisins-nuts-cinnamon axis, the other bulgur-veg-herbs, two different sauces (mint yogurt, & tomato-onion).

aaaa-aaahh!! got back from our walk (which was great, played w/ a puggle named Winsey, & Yolick from our bldg, & rescued several old rotting muffins from being buried in an avalanche) & got a msg from the credit card fraud squad - aaaahhh! someone harvested or synthesized my number, I think - classic gas-station trials, segue to Kmart, 7-11, pop clothing, on-line stuff... gah! But CIBC computers ID'ed the pattern pretty quick, & they've cancelled the card & they SAY they'll send me the transactions to sign off on & then I won't be charged....we'll see if that works out that nice... I hafta figure out if it was JUST this card, & it WAS just a number harvest/synthesis... how do I figure that out ? what else should I check? hmmmm.... time for some tea, definitely!

yay! its still snowing. G exhausted from AM walk. Cardamon-scented cafe au lait after watching Jagge's finnish runners on RG, very exciting! Have decided to celebrate our virtual Prius (NYTimes, Thx, R) by converting a beef recipe (onions, hoisin sauce etc, green peppers) to tofu, yum!

after donning Smartwools, Rockports, & Yaktrax (nothing like Branded Equipment to set an arthritic girl up for a trot in the snow!) we go out into the rain which is making for a serious slush-trudge, we both got pretty soggy. Down to parkway & across. terrorized two batches snow monkeys, barked at a snowman, played very nicely w/ tiny Casper the Yorkie puppy.
BENCHMARK - noticed yesterday & today that I came home tired, not hurting. track this. may be significant. Also, today was intensity two.
Time for tea.

C • Molasses??? 2

it's snowing !!! G's mom Shelly came over and visited last night... it was a whale of a success socially...

Gypsy: oooh!!!!! hi! yer a dog! I love dogs! welcome to my apartment!
Shelly: Grrrrrr....ggrrrrgrrr....this is MY apartment.
Gypsy: uh, OK.... wanna play?
Shelly: Grrrrrrr. grrrr...
Gypsy: uh, OK. I'll go over here. Lemme know if you wanna play.
Shelly: ggggrrrrrrr.....

G is such a nice, hopeful little dog...

out into the snow, about 8 inches out there, played w/ a white mop-dog w/ snowballs hanging off her all over, watched the attack mini-poodle brigade go by, then snorted & flailed our way down the bikepath, thru the woods to the midsection of stairmaster & back along parkway to bikepath to retrace our steps. Snow like lace on the forest, trunks of cedars looked like cinnamon sticks. ooh, it was nice!!!

C • Does G like the snow? 3

C • mmm, sometimes i find your ... 2

evening walk as well, snow still gorgeous, met Shelly who is even more disgusted than previously by her bouncey-hopeful progeny...

on the drive up Whidbey we stopped at Greenbank Farm for some nice quiches for lunch, a great latte, some OK cherry pie...then a fabulous dogwalk/gallop in their gigantic off-leash area; I peeled off presently & scouted the cheeses & the loganberry products (bought jelly & some wine, so fab retro to make wine out of BERRIES - if they had elderberry or dandelion I swear I'd have bought that too. It made me feel like a hobbit, all sort of turn-of-the-century british countryside...)

took G-dog out for afternoon walk along the super-pretty sea-side park below the bluff upon which Langley is situated - out, along the low-tide beach (rotting fish-heads, YUM!!!) , and back, along the very cute skinny grassy park. Then wandered the village for lunch & a bit of sightseeing. THEN... dinner at the Inn....
foie gras mousseline (reminded me of...butter, YUM!) in a wine-poached date crusted w/ lovely almond slivers for an amuse bouche, nice slightly
clove-scented butternut squash soup w/ bits of soft pear floating, slow-roasted salmon and local mussels on a bed of fennel, leek, & artichoke bits that had basically been softened in a broth/butter/cream mix... venison accompanied by shredded brussels spouts subjected to treatment similar to above vegies, & a pile of sweet potato fragments that had been finely chopped & then briefly roasted w/ some savory
yumminess on it, a cheese that was like a brie w/ candied ginger (this was the only teeny non-sequitur in my opinion, a bit too powerful, but I love ginger so I wolfed it down anyhow) & grapes that had been
very briefly roasted in butter (hmmm... Ok, says I, grapes? butter? yum!) and finally a nice vanilla pannacotta in a fab tart/sweet huckleberry compote, perfect contrast. Oh, & then locally made choc. truffles,
two of which apparently involved chile & curry (& gold foil) but to me they were just insanely perfect chocolate richnesses...
wow...

Gonna do 4th enbrel... can't yet tell if I have a cold, so screw it. Called Enliven, & they say "if the cold does not resolve, stop taking enbrel." I don't have a cold yet, so...what a sea-lawyer ;-) gotta get this expt done.

In other news, off to Inn at Langley to loll about in Gypsy-friendly luxury for two days AND eat a 6 course (or sumthin like that) ladidah dinner where the chef dude comes out before the dinner & explains his purchases & thoughts on the ingredients N stuff, is that gonna be FUN or what?! I am so psyched, I couldn't sleep!

Hey. It's still sunny. but snow is coming.

C • 'so psched I can't sleep' -... 1

around & about at a little park as soon as we got onto Whidbey at Clinton, G-dog very excited & unable to do her biznis for quite sometime. But she was a good little girl on the tedious ride down, so I don't grudge her the galloping-about-sniffing-time. Stopped at a PetCo and bought her a Really Nice Collar (inflatable) to keep her from chewing stitches when the time comes & tried it on her in the parking lot -
Me: here. try this on.
G: AAAhhhh! what is that thing!?
Me: hold still. There. ya look great.
G: AAAaaahhh!
Me: don't be silly. you look great. Stylish. It's like those airline neck pillows.
G: ?
Me: Yeah. like in First Class. You're in First Class.
G: First Class?
Me: yeah. First Class. Stylish.
G: hmmmmm...
For lunch had Firecracker Chicken Burger, York Mint Pattie Cream Pie & a big Coke at Burger King. This was almost unbelievably fun at the time but digestively somewhat challenging afterwards.
Later we walked thru Langley village for a a Nicer dinner....

hey, it's still sunny today !! nice... re white trash sweet potatoes, I have perfected my ancestors' efforts, I basically wanted to elope with those sweet potatoes last night, or at least take the dish to a quiet corner & roll around in it like a hound dog...
can't tell if I have The Cold yet, but I got a bad feeling.
BENCHMARK
At this point, I THINK I am seeing some improvement in joint endurance ie I think I can go further without the same amt of resulting pain (this kind of mushy statement is what I was feebly trying to avoid w/ Plan from a few days ago, oh well). Frustratingly, not really quantifiable except the marked improvement in the two behavioral indices ie socks on & sweaters off - assoc. w/ that I THINK the ongoing difficulty in L wrist is that I'm encountering the simple structural weakness inherent in the accrued deformities, NOT the usual inflammation pain. Which is actually an improvement if you can swim thru all the polysyllabics. Also, I've mostly forgotten about the existence of hand & ankle congestion, also small but good. Another few weeks will do it, IF I can keep the enbrel squirting in, in the face of this cold, grrrrr!

back to the film set, to sniff the introduced & native odors, mesmerizing. Played w/ Whistler & w/ Coby, met nameless black cocker & Casper, saw Buddy across the street. Throat sore a bit. Mexican-Asian for dinner, to wit, black-bean tamale casserole w/ avocado & yogurt followed by a pear-apple, & a pile of teensy honey mandarines & longans. yum. (visit to Kin's Produce Market w/ bro-in-law)

no cold, no cold, no cold...hey its still sunny today. Boiling sweet potatoes for triple cooked white trash classic w/ "fancy" addition of a touch of grated orange peel. To go w/ D's choice of "boughten" cabbage rolls, &...asparagus in a complete non sequitur cuz I can. Plus brioche & that bit of bleu goat crumbled into some cream cheese for dilution purposes. All Over The Map food...also started working on G's photo website which I shall presently foist upon selected victims who NEED to see many many pictures of Very Charming Small Yellow Dogs. I am pretty excited.

C • Thanks for the sponsorship! 3

train stn etc for teeth cleaning (mmm, nice), then dog walk under a high light haze doodling around in the woods by the creek, sniffing thru the Smallville post-filming site, apparently olfactorallly fascinating. Very nice walk, felt good, good energy, no cold!
wonder if some toasted walnuts would add to the white trash sweet potatoes...

R hip twinging, yikes... ice ice ice. Last day of sun & I am gonna enjoy it all.
Must focus cooking a bit, last night's oddity (thai onions & tofu. ooh yum-?!?-) was a sort of benchmark of absentmindedness. Today. First recipe out of potato cookbook, a lamb recipe.Also. Gardening planning. Am considering decimation of exotics, they are NOT houseplants north of 49 here & I am tired of cossetting them. Maybe keep one of each - plumeria, koa, tamarind, stephanotis, coffee, joshua tree....the latter two actually are behaving pretty well. Knock all the geraniums out of their pots & cut them back fiercely, repot them. Take tons of cuttings of the little gesneriad & the thing from Mikey's house. Gonna be busy, gotta buy maybe 50 or 80 litres of soil.... maybe buy one or two african violets...or something. Smallville going buggy, fun to watch. almost sunrise. Ice hip!!

corner groc for figs, cream cheese (didnt like how sour the fromage frais was last week so gonna try stuffed french toast w/ plain cream cheese) & yogurt. Dog-walk (met Yolick) to park, read W&P in sunshine, pg 147 or so & it rocks ! The count has died, his illegitimate son & his buddy have been kicked out of Petersburg for tying a cop to the back of a half-grown bear & throwing them both in the river (its OK, they survive), pregnant Maria has been dumped in the country & we've just joined her husband in Austria w/ the russian army ready to engage Napoleon. Picked up the last bits of discarded lattice for step-mom's sweet peas.

D back to work today. Reverse dawn ( off other glass towers) is reflecting back into our SW-facing apt. Read Julie & Julia last night, not sure what to think. Rather potato chip-type book maybe - fun but mild gah-feeling after... I don't swear so much when I cook. Stuff mostly does what I ask it to do, but then I usually ask it to do simpler things.
Still no cold, keeping fingers crossed!!!!

C • julie & julia 2

bridge, mountain half a tree, a teeny triangle, locust, inverted infant, supine twist, most RoM is good, except R hip is cranky so let it be. Was doing the trinity prayer sequence, opened my eyes, & saw three bald eagles circling over the creek to the NW, pretty cool!

C • Good karma!!! 2

over to the creek bikepath, down to the parkway, across & home. Sunshine. met Otis the golden-doodle, what an impressive dog!

evening walk, lotsa lighting vans etc over at the filmsite. But, No Dogs, wtf?! what kind of a dumb filmsite is that!?

midday & evening walks. Sat in sunshine & read for almost two hours down on the parkway, met TWO male bulldogs, (Otis & ...Buddy?) who had never met another bulldog in their (adult) lives) & scared the Cr*p out of each other, rolling their bulging eyes & making the huge schnorting horror-movie noises that bulldogs make when they're excited. They found each other quite horrific & both tried to get away. Funny but also a teeny bit sad to be so horrified by one's own appearance.
Big moon again for PM walk, tried going past the Smallville shoot but it was dark & spooky so we chickened out.

Dang, definitely not adhering to my Plan. Morning walk, pink morning sun, golden-crowned kinglets. Met Jack, Wilbur, Pongo (who has a fetching new anti-bite device - oops!), Tessa, saw Tischa in the distance. Over to the park on the other side of the creek. D very congested & groggy - asked him if he wanted blueberry pancakes, & he gathers his thoughts, & he says "....the dog is so cuddly..." (huh? OK, honey...;-) I guess we are not O-ing at Stanley Park this morning... I can read about it on AP tho. in any case, its time for a nice cup of coffee!

C • we missed you 2

evening walk. NO dogs. VERY sad. Very clear & crisp, big moon, nice to look in our common room windows & see all the people playing pool or pingpong, swimming, in the hot-tub, or working out on the various mysterious machines.
Have decided to try War & Peace as Muir & Audubon are a bit too factual by themselves & I need a bit fiction mixed in - it is set in Napoleonic times ! I didnt know that. I imagine it will be like Hornblower in terms of politics, and then like Curiousity Shoip or Vanity Fair in terms of gigantic social scope. Looks like 1400 pp of teeny print which will keep me nice & busy.
Doing very well on elevation & icing.

D says he has a cold. gah. No dimsum today. But, it is snowing, & so far, I DON'T have a cold. Yet.

down the bikepath to the parkway, east, & then up back home in soggy snow. Morning walk. Dumsum after all!!

evening walk. very foggy, G was freaked out by this big tall guy moving very slowly & messing w/ his iPod or whatever, stopping even in the middle of the road. He was kinda freaking me out too; G is actually pretty good at noticing odd people behaviors.

Now that G's schedule has been defined, we are planning '08 vacations like crazy. D could have as many as 27 days of O, 6 days of canoeing or more, 4 days of sailing, & about 3 or more days of biking. G & me are gazing down the throat of several weeks of AM sipping cafes au lait, & PM BBQ's, & we are not afraid. My favorites so far are sailing off of Bowen (staying not on the teeny boat - bro will do that I think) but on a floating house on the dock, and NW Frenzy in Cle Elem followed by 6 days on Lopez Island down in WA.
Bought an eight-pak of fun lil biotic yogurts to dietetically engage my immune system & augment the effect of afflito's Yowza Molasses, which I am starting to wonder if I could get the same effect by just eating 20 gingersnaps for breakfast. (dont try this at home kids, I'm a professional)

over to Cortina & thru & back - picked up some discarded chunks of ...i forgot the name, garden stuff for ivy to climb on, for my step mom. Also a huge branch for G cuz she REALLY REALLY wanted it, so carried it all the way back & she looks at it like its this utterly totally incomprehensible tree branch in the livingroom...oh well.

back seems stiff or sore, so I did a bit of rolling about plus anti-jelly-arm things, boat, locust, bridge.

strapping various joints, resting, filing papers, planning mama's canned salmon loaf, baked potatoes, baked delicata squash, & zucchini/broc stir fry. Still very concerned re TN's waffle iron on Sunday at Stanley Park - should I offer to bring maple syrup or some Swix Kick Yellow...
dutifully picked out a 1km puppy-route.
Eye was being a bit naughty last night, will give it til tomorrow morning to respond.

did not strictly adhere to route choice - an Apparent (But Misleading, as it turns out) Poo Scamper was involved in the deviation. Teeny tiny snowflakes falling, saw a slightly manky coyote within 25 ft, wanting to get to an apt behind us, I guess maybe they leave food out? G very interested but quite clear this was Not A Dog.
Timed myself - 8 min to dress, 15 items to put on. This s/b loggable activity IMHO...

C • Transition time.....I agree. 3

added one more layer for evening walk, to wit, The Goof Vest, G-dog wears her Matching Teeny Goof Vest so we are a pair of highly visible & reflective Goofs - usually D does this - for some reason I felt a bit self-conscious, usually I dont care. Met a pair of lovable labs, black & white, w/ matching red blinking LED devil collars, very striking to see these things running about in the dark. Also Leo, Yolick, & Tisha.

BENCHMARK
forgot behavioral benchmarks - socks on & sweaters etc off continue good, & I notice I am sleeping like a log most nights ie blocks of 3-4 hr w/o full waking. It's awesome, could THAT be counted as improvement? Broken sleep is classic A symptom. Knee seems OK but it still gets strapped.

around the block, knee strapped & feels good. icing. rest. arrggggghhh! gerbil-gerbil-gerbil !! the gerbils a bit restless, figure I can distract them w/ spinach ravioli project. so far the spinach puree into the pasta dough worked nice, made up some spinach mushroom breadcrumb mix, now I'll roll and form a test batch w the goat cheese crumbled into the mix. ahhhh, gerbils mesmerized by this prospect, add some tea, & they'll be chillin'!

Gerbils: yumyum!

to train stn, DT, visited Allan & Natalia & walked thru Mole Town in the frosty sunshine. Bank, post office blablabla. The dog walk basically fiddling around by the creek, up & down, back & forth.
POPPED L knee, wow!! right behind the kneecap, doesnt hurt now but...This lends itself to my plan of helping Enbrel a bit by NOT pushing everything til it hurts so much I hafta stop which is default approach to life - if you use that strategy ALL the time you mayn't be able to notice enbrel-assoc. improvements altho maybe you can go for longer which is... well, a type of improvement. (pushing IS useful strategy normally cuz without pushing & w/ arthritis, then you tend to become big inactive couch potato. but there are shortcomings as above) So, plan is... hmmm.
1) ice aggressively.
2) elevate aggressively.
3) strap L wrist (it is cranky). A few days. non-critical.
4) strap L knee during walks to rest it. Rest of week.
5) shorten walks to 1km DISCIPLINE. Prechoose route & stick to it. Rest of January.
6) no hiding behind Mr. Tylenol.
QUICK BENCHMARK
I noticed both times so far that hands lose congestion day after enbrel. Honestly, nuthin else for sure. R hip, R shoulder, L knee, L wrist variously minor complaints mostly ignorable except now knee did that pop this AM.

36.40
Monsoon continues. Started w/ Special Hat, SmartWool socks, layers, waterproof layers, gloves, muffler... ended up warm, dry, indifferent to external conditions. Looked like cross between Shackleton-did-make-it-to-the-Pole & a raid on a diveshop, not able to look in any other direction without turning whole body. Difficult to scratch. Rainwater accum. someplace on upper body & spewed out periodically. G initially rather annoyed she got to go out in usual cheap yellow fur coat. Looked for dogs, but even Stupid Dogs appear to have been drowned & swept away downstream. oh well. Off downtown for more rain & transfusion after tea is finished. Humidifying apt w/ raincoat (& Soggy Dog) in front of fire.

to train stn & back, downtown walk to hospital. This was too much. oops.

BUT, gave my delicious (untouched) Canadian Maple donut (w/ creamy goo inside! yum!) to a twitching junkie guy who was begging outside the Hyatt - sneaked a peek back a few steps later (sometimes they are annoyed by food & throw it away) but...he LOVED it! It was almost all gone! That donut went to a good home, yum!

so, I did honestly move around today, but not enuf to really log. Utility-pee in the Insane Midnight Monsoon Rain that happened at 8:30pm, Gypsy thought it was the most brilliant thing I'd ever done when I turned right around and headed back.
In Other News, Gypsy Dog did her year-old Reproductive Review out in Abbotsford at the breeder's. In a nutshell, she ain't gonna. I was always kinda intrigued yeah maybe she should have babies, some atavistic mammalian right-to-reproduce thing I suppose. But at the same time when I thought about the reality of her going away for 6 to 8 weeks to pop out the babies & nurse them, I wasn't crazy about that, esp. since just now she is starting to get kinda cuddly & a bit more affectionate. So my first hint that it might work right was the email from the breeder saying "it's gonna be so great to see Gypsy and have her meet her half-sister Tiger-Lily" hmmmm... so they have the genetics repeated... & sure enuf, Lily is gorgeous, calm, & EVEN more long-hair than G-dog. And sure enuf, they wanna breed Lily, who is THEIR dog, and not G. So G is gonna have her "operation", and then she will be a footloose and fancyfree traveller. (we already went nuts looking at the '08 O-schedule - picked out Ruckle Park & Cle Elum so far...)
(as a weird twist to the dog thing, we brought along one of our Burnaby neighbors who fell in love w/ G to see the dog-ranch, and SHE got an email from the breeder that night asking if Su-Jane would like to adopt... Gypsy's mom, Shelly !! Apparently Shelly is gonna "retire", having popped out two litters, & being a quiet girl would do better in a single-dog household than the shiba-inu whirlwind that is the dog-ranch. So G's mom might be moving in - when G is in the kitchen, she could be as little as 15 feet from her mom, since she'll be just downstairs and over one apt...)

basically down the creek bikepath & up stairmaster, Green is building their tire-washing station & apparently some catchment pools to process that water. Yay for environmental impact studies! provides employment & everything. Met a golden-doodle, Hendrix the Black Pug on his way to...Calgary (!?), & Sugar & Blue.
Hip still twinging but it is getting ice. Second injection. Noticed this AM hands were congested again, so we'll see if that goes away again... classic irish stew this PM, maybe some of that over-population of broccoli will bite the dust too.

OMG, what a manky disaster that stew was, how could a crockpot go so very wrong in so very many very nasty ways ?! Poor crockpot, poor Dennis ! - we've only thrown out two or three meals in our lives (mostly involving bleu cheeses) but that shoulda been thrown out...oh, well, courage, onwards we go...

C • It happens... 3

36.40
R hip smoothly shifted into action yesterday afternoon so I have icepaks reshaping in the freezer to ice it. haha. Thus no gerbilling today, rest, read, do some filing. When was the last hip episode? will look.
Concerned about a wee burn on my wrist, healing very slowly - delay enbrel one day? will get ovenmitts to protect wrists if this how burns are gonna heal, I know they are crummy...
Am about 40 pages into front section of Audubon guide I've been using as adjunct to Muir reading to see pictures of trees birds etc he is talking about - turns out it has this additional introductory Motherlode of 140 pp of TEENY type re ecotones etc, will keep me nicely busy for a while...

C • what are ecotones? 2

nice G-walk to the park & back just before the rain came. Met a Black Dog to play with, yay! But, one is not enough. Too bad, G-dog, one is what you got... Decided on red thai curry for dinner, broc, tofu, pretty colors of peppers. Made up a big loaf of brioche-like material (less butter, more whole wheat) for french toast this weekend - 2B stuffed w/ creme fraiche & organic blueberry compote from the summer. oooh...

36.65. there's a certain yowza factor on the molasses intake thang...

Gypsy: (looking out window) those raindrops are so big that it's gonna be like getting sand-bagged alongside the head five times a second. I'm not going out.
Me: what!!? HTFU, lil dog.
Gyspy: no way. make me some tea. I'm staying in today.
Me: huh?
Gypsy: and get that duck leg outa the fridge. And make the fireplace go.
Me: hmmmm.... there'll be dogs out there, Gypsy.
Gypsy: only Stupid Dogs.
Me: you love dogs.
Gypsy: I hate Stupid Dogs. Tea. Duck. Fireplace. Let's go.
Me: hmmmm, OK, how 'bout I put on my Special Hat, & we go get clobbered by raindrops? that'll be nice.
Gypsy: awwww, cr*p....
so we went for a walk & got clobbered & drenched. G tried walking on the yellow parts on the sidewalk to see if that keeps you drier, but it doesn't.

One Tablespoon organic molasses, :)

Finished re-reading & did some thinking re Future of Orienteering (on CarolsTeam)

(A) Orienteering could be stated (by me) to be OBVIOUSLY (1) yer compass (just a Compass, dude) (2) yer map (3) you & yer slinky O-pajamas & yer more-or-less spikey shoes(by the way, what about equipment advances? bigger & better shoe spikes? what about those fabulous swedish eye-protections enabling those swedes to go even more "straighter & faster" a la swede leaving us all to taste even more deeply their swedish dusts, mmm swedish dusts ;-) (4) possibly/probably a watch (just a Watch, dude) to know when to get off the course? (and as an aside, OK, it's probably way more complex for the O-organizations to actually write rules out to describe that, but really, that's basically it, items 1,2,3.)
(B) Once it is NOT Items 1,2,3, then, um, it's not orienteering. If you use a GPS, that's more like geo-caching or whatever. If you sneak in a GPS & cheat, well, then that's cheating, plus, hello, yer not orienteering. If you do that in a rec-O kinda sense, then it's annoying for other rec-O people; if you do it competitively, then it is super annoying & if you get caught then yer disqualified.
(C) Main point seems to be... lotsa techy stuff even cooler than GPS will be available in future, & will probably be incorporated into O. My point would be, OK, feel free to use it but then it's not O. Really, O is already sort of retro/pointless exercise - WHY DO you people insist on running madly about in the woods in order to...come back to where you started?! - well, cuz it's fun to do this thing using these little artificial bounds of compass-map-you. No-one NEEDS to be running around like that in the woods these days. I think that's my key point, it's already charmingly retro so keep it retro, ie Items 1,2,3. Or do some other hi-tech thing & call it sumthin else.
(D) As a specific example of irresistable hi-tech that was brought up, computer-generated virtual O is...well, its Catching Features (which is related to O but not O, it's, um, frankly its a Video Game with its own fun world and competitiveness, but it's demonstrably NOT items 1,2,3 in the woods. Certainly you can use it to maintain & hone O-related skills just like you can... go running every day to maintain muscle & cardio also useful for good O)
(E) I gotta think a bit on what cool stuff you COULD do with various nav/route choice techie-enhancements, kinda like Americas Cup style-O versus classic dinghy-O ? maybe this is what the main point of the CT op-ed is after all...
(F) Finally, I do have a sneaking feeling that if you are passionately competitive about O then the hi-tech stuff becomes more seductive & truly more problematic maybe cuz you are really, really looking for a bit more of an edge, but I have to think more about the possible connection there.

C • 5

two baked potatoes for lunch, G tried her best to eat the duck-roasting pan. Then we went to the park, saw a milk-chocolate-colored maserati (sp?), and met Bao the chow for some great playing. Some major loss of obedience, time for a discipline walk soon.

to train stn & DT to attend info session on project mgmt, then dinner on Robson, mushroom ham cheese crepes, & then a grand marnier walnut one which made us feel racey, also I felt racey cuz I have a new mean-lookin' (stick-on) tattoo which I'd found in a drawer earlier in the day & promptly stuck on my skinny lil chikin arm.
grrrr!

36.97
it snowed last night, so pretty as it fell, but already it is slushy & melting this AM. Sunday was Epiphany & thus also orthodox Christmas, so we enjoyed the tree one last night & I took it down yesterday & put it back in its box. (Yeah, we live in a condo so its fake) I was thinking that I love it, and its pretty decorations (yeah, they are plastic too, but I love them), & our teeny apt, and our teeny dog, & all. I have everything I need & want, I am pretty darn lucky. I am happy to be starting the new year from that frame of mind !!

two walks today w the G-dog, heavy rain in the evening. huge appetite continues, rissotto not enuf !!

hand-washing pillows in the tub - they are REALLY heavy, so this was good for my core & arm muscles actually. Approx. 10 sets of "manipulations". Was super careful of back, bending over like that is nuts.

36.79
BENCHMARK REF.
This is +2.5 days. first night +6hr, subjective sensation of a slightly "buzzy" warmth thuout body; most likely a stress rxn cuz we were both flipped by doing the injection (both shaking, we'll get better at it!!.)

First morning, hands essentially painless (they dont hurt much anyhow unless I really stress them) & had lost alot of congestion, same each following morning so far - two days in a row have been able to put socks on much easier, still hurts a little but I don't have to stop for each foot. Second morning, my ankles also (very) problematic previously, turned out not to be congested either when I started some remedial. Hips/knees basically silent w not much change. Shoulders seem to have changed some, by night 3 there is definitely only a twinge in R shoulder remaining, no referring pain down the muscle, able to take off sweater without help (& hardly any pain). Both feet still hurt substantially after rest, but the pain walks out as usual (at least over the last week or so's "as usual"). I think there may be a bit of qualitative change here but can't point to it. How to benchmark/quantify? gah.

re infections. temp is staying normal, skin looks fine so far, I do think my eye is gonna be a problem (it is topical, so harder to go systemic, but don't tempt gods), as it may already be acting up a bit - maybe this will stimulate the system to let me thru to an eye specialist, maybe ask immuno dude if he set up a referral. As to resp., my solitary lifestyle helps alot, also am reverting to rigorous no-face-touching regime after being out of apt. Must write up the checklist to post in bathroom, not just keep it in my head.

energy. felt good w/ normal energy levels, slept OK to pretty good for first two nights. Night 3, had a huge rush of euphoria for several hours (which D attributed to sangria), gigantic appetite, & wildly restless until 1AM.

This could be all attributed to a nice flare recovery.

C • so, hard to tell, yet? 2

slightly longer walk cuz G did shorter AM walk - down a bit of Stairmaster & then W thru woods cuz Stairmaster bottom is ugly, then between Ledgestone & Green to View the ugliness that is the Green construction site, then a few minutes sitting in sun in park/looking for voles, then dragging home cuz we want to live outside in the hail waiting for doggies. Met Whistler the Am. Eskimo on way home. G staring out window looking for doggies.
Gonna stuff two chicken legs w/ classic bread stuffing, along w twice-baked squash casserole & ...sumthin else vegetable-ish.

C • how do you stuff chicken le... 2

36.78

short gentle puppy walk since she went for HUGE adventure this morning. Little hails pummeled us on the way home, G was stomping along w/ globs of hail stuck in her fur, heading for the warm fire & a nice towelling off, which her staff gave her promptly, thank goodness.
went for dinner in New West, an Italian place where we sat outside & ate a huge family-style plate of griglia misto, chunks of chicken & salmon, grilled sausage, polenta, grilled vegies, & homemade rigatoni in a tomato sauce all alongside a huge salad. It was so good! Plus a glass of italian-style sangria, w a splash of campari, & then a chunk of St. Honore cake, basically a slice out of a pile of cream puffs. what could be nicer?

testing stuff out. seems good. core muscles.

36.96.
dreamed last night repeatedly that I was fighting infections as a result of enbrel. I never dreamed of stuff related to my daily life before.
Going to re-read Future of Orienteering to get the whole picture all at once, also gonna check on Clementine-the-RV's location...

high winds & dark - over to hide in the woods from the wind & sideways rain. it was peaceful in the woods, watched the huge trees swinging & swaying, thought about the enbrel and how it almost might be working already...
went for dimsum today, discovered green tea balls - black sesame sugar inside, & green-tea-dyed rice flour/mochi-like outside, yum. D helped to make a big dose of almost vegan (touch of fish-sauce) malaysian curry - potato, onion, carrot, broc & tofu in a hot turmeric-infused coconut milk sauce w/ a touch of cilantro & lemon peel, plus some spicey roasted squash on the side.

forgot walk to train stn & back for dimsum, & the evening walk to corner groc for maple syrup etc...

OK, ENBREL STARTS today. Gonna put my Cowboy Hat on for this. Heavy rain. Dog exhausted in front of fire after morning soggy-doggy walk.

mailbox & then around Cortina. G dug & rolled in stuff, & came home filthy but happy.

went for a walk w/ Oscar & Keith, down the creek & past Ledgestone to the park, & then along the parkway back home up the top of Stairmaster. G-dog increasingly annoyed by Oscar's amorousness, by the parkway she was snarling at him, which was encouraging as up til now she has had no concept of "too much dog". Now maybe she has an inkling. A tiny inkling...

pool is open again!

Oscar & Keith stayed over for a while to make passes at Gypsy & to eat baked potatoes. Oscar appears to be afflicted w/ some serious gas. It was fun playing w/ him, tho, he is a very cute dog. Gypsy decided to spend some quality time by herself in the bedroom after a while, revelling in her solitary virginity. oof.
tofu, cashews, snowpeas, zucchini, & fancy-dancy-cut carrot pinwheels in a thai reference, sweet-spicy. Big fruit salad.

Fave Five things 2007 - (1) getting G-dog Jan '07 (2) seeing bro get married (US Champs in CA) (3) everything about Vidette Lake Resort (Sage Stomp) (4) Canoeing Whistler (after N Island meet) (5) paying off mortgage and Jones Lake - like the Tetons. (OK I cheated there)
Gonna try some more Muir, First Summer in the Sierra.

oops, no wonder my feet are cranky. 1.5 km Into-The-Woods loop w/ bush-whacking & micro-poodle attacks. Plus the rest accumulated to train stn, Highgate, & airport ramblings to drop off Alfie for his 6 weeks in New Zealand. oops. less so tomorrow.

Happy new year!
OK, now, about this hydration thing, how often does one pee w/ "proper" hydration ?! I know I tend to be rather camel-like which is what I'm trying to counteract a bit w/ an additional two purely gratuitous glasses of water per day (start small), but this peeing thing also escalates (?!! :-), & in my opinion (being camel-like) it is verging on outa control. Oh well, it's good for me.
SW style organic beef stew - corn, peppers, tomatoes, black beans, spicey...then some cornbread, maybe a side of pretty green broccoli. HEY ! I'm gonna make that vegan chocolate cake, we didnt get around to it while the vegan was in town...

C • frosting? 2

C • drink offered: if pee is pl... 3

thought thru what I want to be doing & then regrouped & relabelled activities - w/ flare still on, I'm not so into stretches, so no yoga, just a little remedial attn to strength & to maintaining appropriate range of motion.

down stairmaster a bit, thru the woods to the ravine & back up thro more woods. Met Hendrix the black pug, the girl from the corner grocery, our neighbor & his weird kid from 1005 on bikes by the creek, Nina & Rocket the lunatic duck tollers, & watched Tessa & Cassie being micro-dogs across the street. tea, icepak, & disc drive on CBC, talked to parents.