Snowy Season

There are so many things that Ive been wanting to blog about lately, but today I just have to mention the beautiful first snowfall that we had today! Just a few minutes after I got to work the snow started coming down, and it was absolutely gorgeous. It went from fine powdery flakes to huge clumps of flakes to so many flakes you could hardly see! I tried to take pictures out my office window, but I only had my Palm camera and not my real camera, and the quality was so low that it just looked like a big mass of white through the glass. I opted to use this cool picture from the Lawrence Journal-World instead to help me remember the day. It snowed until almost 2:30, and we ended up with around 2 inches on the ground. I'm probably one of the few people in my office that was hoping for the snow to continue all day, since I don't mind driving in snowy weather at all!

While I do love the snow just for being snow, I also loved the weather today because for the first time this year it actually felt like the Christmas season! Hooray for my favorite holiday of the year!

Happy Birthday, Amber!!!

Today is my wonderful friend Amber's birthday, and I just have to say that she is just one of the greatest friends anyone could ever ask for! Amber and I first met 5 or 6 years ago when she worked for a short time at the KUMC office of KU Endowment. Her time there didn't last long (because she soon went back to graduate school), but thankfully our friendship did! I just feel so blessed that she is part of my life. Not only is she extremely fun to be with and amazingly hardworking and smart (she'll officially become a PhD this year), but Amber is also one of the most thoughtful and considerate people I know. She is forever going out of her way to do nice things for people, whether it's baking a cake, sending a card or just dropping a thoughtful email. She's a great organizer, decorator and party planner extraordinaire--my birthday was a prime example of her thoughtfulness and decorating talent! She frequently hosts festive parties for lots of friends and always makes the most amazing snacks, including her famous 3-2-1 dip (aka "crack dip"). No one every turns down Amber's snacks and baked goods!

In my second year of blogging, I haven't done nearly as good of a job recognizing the birthdays of my friends and family members, but there are a few good reasons I had to make sure the day didn't go by without talking about my fantastic friend. First, last year I failed to mention her birthday entirely! I actually blogged about doing something with her and failed to mention her birthday at all! I'm clearly not the considerate friend that she is. Secondly, Amber is not only a dedicated reader of my blog, but she's also a dedicated commenter, which I very much appreciate. Thirdly, Amber was my most loyal training partner this summer/fall, and I was so incredibly grateful for her companionship for all of those miles. Finally, I have to recognize this b-day because it may be the last time Amber and I live in the same town and can celebrate together! I will be so very sad when she and her husband Jake move to the DC area this summer. I miss them already. :( Happy birthday, my dear friend!

Slinkyness

It's probably pretty clear that I'm mildly insane, based on the fact that this is my second post about a dog who stayed with us for barely over 24 hours. I just can't help it--Slinky was such a doll! In that one short day, with just a few hours of loving human contact, she made such a huge amount of progress. She was almost like a normal house dog, as opposed to the terrified little runaway we'd captured the night before. She started following us all over the house, and while still skittish and nervous, she would allow us to pet her, give us lots of nose kisses and even come when she was called. She had no accidents in the house, although clearly she hadn't been a house dog before, since each and every piece of furniture, counter and tabletop became a climbing apparatus for her! It was hilarious to watch her explore the house, and I wish I'd captured pictures of her standing on the coffee table and climbing over the firewood rack! Of course, I quickly told her "no" in those situations, so there wasn't really time to grab the camera! I did, of course, take a few other pictures of her yesterday evening.






The neighbors who are going to train her and find her a permanent home came to pick her up last night, and she seemed very comfortable with them, as she laid right down in the middle of the living room while we all discussed her care. Tonight I saw Slinky and her foster family walk by the house, so I went out to say hi, and she walked right up to me without fear! I didn't get to talk to them much because I was on the phone (sorry, Kelly), but they said she is doing well! I'm so happy for Slinky!

Operation Save Slinky

A couple of weeks ago, I saw a cute little stray black and white dog running around a few blocks away from our house. A couple of days later, I saw her again. I stopped the car to see if she'd come to me, and she bolted in the other direction. A couple of days after that, she was in our front yard, but as soon as we went out the door, she went running. We went out to walk the dogs the next night, and we spotted her in a neighbor's front yard. She came right up to sniff Celtic, only to take off as soon as we tried to get near her. The entire walk we discussed how we might corral her, since we were so worried about her being hungry, being out in the elements, and being hit by a car. So many of the days we'd seen her, she was very near or even in the road. As we neared home, we were plotting how maybe we could get her to follow the dogs, since she seemed to like Celtic so much. Seconds later, Chad glanced over his shoulder and was startled to find that she was walking about 10 feet behind us! We stopped to see if she would come closer, but instead she quickly disappeared into the night. It was at that moment that we dubbed our little neighbor stray Slinky.

That was the first night we started leaving food out for Slinky. Each day, we saw her at least once, sometimes two or three times, often across north Iowa Street, which has lots of heavy truck traffic. Every time we came home we were so afraid we would find her lying on the side of the road after being hit, but every time we left the house we'd leave food out for her anyway. About the second day that I left a snack for her at lunch, I started getting nervous when I got nearer to home, since I hadn't spotted her on any of the blocks approaching our house. As I rounded the corner onto our street, I found Slinky standing in our driveway eating. She jumped when the garage door opened, but stood there cautiously and watched me as I pulled in. By the time I got out of the car, Slinky had disappeared. It was fascinating that she could always appear and disappear so quickly!

A couple of nights later the temperature was supposed to drop down below freezing. I was so worried that Slinky wouldn't survive the night. I left some dinner out for her, but she didn't come to get it before we went to bed. When I woke up, I ran to the door and her chicken scraps were gone, but I had no idea if she'd gotten them or if I'd lured a raccoon to our front steps. As I left for work, I scanned the neighborhood carefully and saw no sign of her, and then backed out of the driveway only to find her standing in our flower garden. I jumped out and grabbed the bread I'd just thrown down, threw her a piece, and watched frustratingly as she grabbed a bite and took off in the other direction. I jumped in the car and followed her, and made desperate hand signals to a neighbor who was out walking as Slinky approached her dog. Before she realized what I was saying, Slinky was gone again, halfway down the next block. I talked with the neighbor only to find that her family had been feeding and trying to capture Slinky as well. She said other people on her block had also made efforts to no avail. That night my next door neighbor also called to say she'd been trying to tame and capture this very smart, very wary little girl!

Yesterday morning, as Chad headed out of the neighborhood, he called and said Slinky was right in front of a building on the edge of the industrial area near our house. He's stopped and tried to lure her in, but of course she took off. He came back to the house to grab the dogs (our bait) and we drove back to the industrial area and started our search. We drove through several parking lots and saw nothing, and just as we were about to head for home we saw her walking out of the K-Mart distribution center lot. We parked and jumped out of the car with the dogs and some tasty ham, and tossed Slinky a few pieces as she approached her fellow canines. As soon as I moved, however, she took off into a lot where TWO semis were trying to back into their respective stalls. We watched in horror as she actually walked under one of the trucks while it was moving, thankfully very slowly!

We followed Slinky through this lot of parked trucks and watched her slip through a hole in a fence--she was clearly very familiar with the area. She marched over to an office building and laid down, cleaning her wet and muddy paws and rolling around in the grass trying to dry off from the recent sprinkles. We jumped back into the car and drove to this lot, where we parked at a safe distance, trying to figure out our next move. Finally, I got out and walked to one end of the lot while Chad drove the dogs to the other end. We were hoping to herd her in my direction so that I could catch her as she went by. Chad got out with Celtic (Hope gets much to crazy around new dogs) and they started walking near Slinky, but then quickly walked away from her, which definitely piqued her interest. She followed, then sniffed with Celtic for a moment, unfortunately just out of Chad's reach. As soon as he made a move near her, she started jogging away. At this point it was sprinkling again, so we decided to give up our chase for the day.

We left food out again overnight, this time not as worried about the weather since she'd made it through two freezing nights and one rainy night with no problem. Today as I left for the shelter at about 1:00, Slinky was sitting on the corner of Iowa and River Ridge right in front of the inconvenience store. She started rolling around in the grass like she didn't have a care in the world, apparently completely unaware that she was lost or in danger at all. I pulled into the parking lot, knowing that I hadn't a chance in the world of catching her, but as soon as I stopped the car in her vicinity she took off across the road, prancing along like she was just out for a morning romp. I had to laugh because she was just so adorable!

Later this evening, Chad and I were downstairs watching the Jayhawks game against USC (which we'd recorded since we weren't home to watch it earlier). Suddenly Hope jumped off the couch and tore up the stairs, because she heard Celtic barking at something outside. She was going crazy with her hysterical bawling, so I ran up to see a little black and white body slinking around the corner. Chad jumped into action (since I was wearing slippers) and got Celtic's leash on and walked out the door. As he left I suggested that he try and lure her into the backyard. Hope and I stood and watched out the front door, and a few minutes later Slinky came walking back into our view, stopped a moment, and then took off around the corner again. I stepped out to follow her, not knowing if Chad realized where she was. As I rounded the corner I saw her standing in our neighbor's backyard, so I started to slowly approach with some treats. Suddenly, Chad walks out of the back yard gate and takes a few steps towards her with Celtic, then turns around and runs right back in through the gate, and she followed! I started to run to close the gate behind him, but he was already on top of it. When I heard the gate slam behind him I literally started screaming, "I can't believe it!! You did it!" I was so thrilled!! My husband is my hero!

It took about another 2o minutes of chasing her around the backyard in the freezing cold darkness with flashlights until we finally cornered her and got a leash on. She was so terrified, but even in her scared state she never tried to bite, even with strange people grabbing at her. The weird thing was when we went to put the leash on her, we noticed she was wearing a collar, which we're almost sure she wasn't wearing when we chased her yesterday. It's almost as if someone else finally caught her today and then lost her again. Regardless, in the few hours she's been with us, she's already doing better with walking on a leash and even coming back to us when we let her off in the backyard. She is still very scared and will need a lot of work before being adoptable, which is why one of the other neighbors wants to keep and train/socialize her before finding her a permanent home.

So tonight we have a very timid little visitor sleeping with her own little blankets in the warmth of our garage. Operation Save Slinky has been a success!

The Breast Cancer 3-Day: Day 2

On Day 2 of the 3-Day in San Diego, Vikkie and I were unfortunately awakened by the chatter and clatter of the campers around us, who insisted on waking up at like 5 in the morning to prepare for the day. Ugh! Thank goodness we'd gone to bed early! We finally rolled out of bed at around 6 or so and headed to breakfast, where we had oatmeal, eggs, potatoes, yogurt, fruit and all sorts of things to start our day. Other than the soggy bacon (which neither of us actually tried), it was a very tasty breakfast!

We stopped off to wash our faces and brush our teeth along the way back to our tent, and then got dressed and packed up to head out onto the trail. We left camp at about 7:10, but the route had opened at 6:15, so we knew there were a lot of people who were way ahead of us! We walked right along the bay all morning, passing lots of beach front complexes and homes that were very nice (and passing lots of other walkers as well!). The weather was beautiful this day--a little warmer than day one and very sunny. Since it was such a gorgeous Saturday morning, the boardwalk along the beach was just packed with other bikers, walkers and joggers. We passed at least a couple of marinas as well as a couple of parks with pit stops, and all along the way there were amazing numbers of supporters, many of whom were the same people we'd seen cheering us on the previous day! I was so amazed that these dedicated people were giving up their entire weekend just to come out and clap, cheer and pass out treats--and pass out treats they did!! At some point before the walk started on day one, one of the returning walkers welcomed everyone to the "60 mile San Diego Buffet." I couldn't figure out what that meant at the time, but we realized very quickly that it was a reference to all of the walker stalkers, who were passing out huge amounts of candy around every corner! There would be entire Girl Scout troops and cheerleading squads with bowls full of chocolate and buckets of red vines, and you felt terrible refusing because you were so appreciative of them just being there! We were sick from too much candy by 9 in the morning!

We arrived at a section of Mission Bay Park on the south side of the bay for "lunch", which was just over 9.5 miles into the day. Even though it was before 9:30 a.m., we enjoyed a chicken wrap, a few chips and a fruit cup just so we wouldn't have to haul the food around with us to eat later. It was such a nice day and the park was so beautiful, it might have been nice to lounge around there all afternoon! The crew had decorated the area like a 50s diner, with oldies music playing and crew members in poodle skirts. It was really quite entertaining, but we only rested and stretched about a half hour before heading back out onto the route. We soon passed a dog park called "Dog Beach" on the northern end of Ocean Beach, and of course Vikkie and I both loved watching all the dogs romp and play in the sand and surf!

It was soon after this that the battery on my Garmin Forerunner went dead, which is unfortunate because I really had no idea where we were walking without looking at a map! I do know that we walked south for a little while longer before walking through a bunch of residential areas that had a ton of hills! These hills were killer--they were steep and there were lots of them! This was probably the only time during the 3 days of walking that we really got our heart rates up and worked up a sweat. We hauled up and down several hills before heading back north towards the Mission Bay area, where we walked past Sea World and around the park some more before heading back to our campsite, which was at Crown Point Shores in Mission Bay Park. We arrived about 1:30 p.m. and were the 112th/113th people to finish the 21.1 miles that day. While it might sound like we were slower than the day before because we came in behind more people, we actually felt better about our finish because we didn't have a single person pass us the entire day! All of those people finishing in front of us either started before us or took one of the "sweep" vans (vans that pick up injured/tired/wimpy walkers to transport them to the next pit stop or checkpoint) to get there!

In all seriousness, I was really surprised at how many people were eager to get on a sweep van and then weren't embarrassed at all about having done so. As Vikkie and I often discussed, after training for so many weeks we a) didn't ever feel the need to be rescued by a sweep van and b) wouldn't have been caught dead doing so because of our competitive natures. I mean how could we raise all that money based on the condition that we were going to walk 60 miles and then not actually walk 60 miles? It seems like false advertising, if you ask me. Call me callous, but I had a hard time feeling sorry for people who "couldn't" finish walking because of blisters. Vikkie and I made a lot of weekend sacrifices in order to put in hours and hours of training, and people who ended up with "hamburger feet" clearly didn't. That was their choice, so I have a hard time having any sympathy for them! That probably sounds cruel, but I'm just being honest!

So back to the review of our day, now that I've gotten off my soap box. :) After finishing on day 2 we did the same things we did the day before: foot massage, snacks, stretching, etc., and then we headed off to take showers, since our friend Tish (who used to work at KU Endowment before moving to LA), was going to come down to San Diego in the late afternoon to come hang out with us and go watch the KU/OSU football game! We skipped the dinner at camp since we planned to eat with Tish, who ended up getting to SD a lot later than expected, and then getting lost because we weren't able to give her good directions since we didn't really know exactly where we were! Finally, with the help of a creepy cab guy who talked Tish through getting there on the phone, she arrived at about 6 or so. Since the game had started just after 5, we were getting text message updates from Chad since we were missing the action!

Thankfully I had printed off directions at home to the local place which is famous for playing all the KU games, Kansas City Barbeque. They were listed on the KUAA website as the place to go for a watch party, but when we got there and glanced around the tiny restaurant the game wasn't even on! We asked the staff where the game was, only to receive some vague answer about them not being able to get it! ACK!!!! They suggested we walk down the street to a restaurant in a nearby hotel that was supposed to be able to get every game, which we did, only to sit around and wait forever for their staff to try to get the game on. What we eventually discovered was that somehow our game wasn't being shown in their area, even on satellite, because of some huge area rivalry that was superseding KU. We ate dinner and watched other Big 12 games, which provided us with updates of our own game to supplement the text messages Chad was sending us. Thankfully, our Jayhawks were victorious even though we didn't get to watch a single down!

We arrived back at camp right before 9:00, and since "lights out" was at 9 we made it back to our tent just in time for changing clothes, brushing teeth and crawling into out sleeping bags! Somehow, we weren't even quite as exhausted as we had been after day 1!