Orange County: It's a Jungle Out There

One of the things I love about the area that we live in is that it has a slightly agricultural, undeveloped feel to it. We have beautiful hills just behind us, and fields full of orange trees and strawberries within walking distance. We also have a canyon a couple miles from our house that Andrew & I like to trail run in. The trail leads to a reservoir and you often see people riding their horses on the trail.

Yesterday, I went for a trail run in that same canyon with Stacey, a marathoner extraordinaire and longtime friend. As we approached the start of the trail, a couple passed us, having just come from the trail. The woman, in a very considerate way, mentioned to us, "Just to warn you, there is a rattlesnake up ahead about 50 yards. It was starting to rattle, so we moved it to the side of the road."

While we were grateful for her warning, we wondered who would move a rattling rattlesnake to the side of the road? How do you go about doing that? Why do you even get close? We walked along quickly, looking nervously at the side of the road, and I'm happy to report that we avoided a meeting with the rattlesnake.

As we continued along the trail, enjoying the beautiful scenery at dusk, we came along another sign: Warning - Mountain Lion Area. Hmmm. We wondered which is worse - getting bit by a rattlesnake or eaten by a mountain lion. We both agreed we'd rather face the rattlesnake than the lion.

Fortunately, we had a lovely trail run, and we lived to tell the tale...

Coco/Twyla, the Final Installment

Just to give you one final update on our furry friend, Coco/Twyla, I called the shelter last Friday (the day we were planning to go walk her) and her owners had just picked her up that day. While we were concerned that her owners had left her at the shelter for a week and a half, we're glad that Coco is back at home with her family. But this experience did put an affection for golden retrievers in our hearts (to be revisited another time)...

A Real Life 'Finding Nemo'

I don't know what it is with this month, but we have been having some odd animal interactions.

As I mentioned in a previous post, we have...well, had a fish named Red. We're so creative. A red fish named Red. But anyway, Andrew bought him while we were engaged, so we've had him for about a year and a half. Although he doesn't give the love and affection of a slobbery dog, he does wiggle his fins whenever he sees me approaching with Beta Bites.

So, earlier this week, I took a look in the fish bowl, which is situated next to the sink, and noticed that there was no Red. We moved around the rocks in the bowl. No Red hiding under the rocks. We looked on the ground, on the kitchen counter, in the sink. No Red. Andrew even reached into the garbage disposal (which we had not yet run that day). Unfortunately, no Red. I was suspicious of Andrew, that he had perhaps seen him belly up and had disposed of him before I found him. He assured me that he had not done this. His (joking) theory: A Elijah-like flaming chariot rapture of our beloved Red. The likely theory: A jumping fish that made it from his bowl into the sink and back to the ocean?

A couple thousand more yards. A couple thousand more freckles.

Before last weekend, the phrases 'psych sheets' and 'heat sheets' had never entered my vocabulary. But they became very real to me last weekend.

I have been swimming with a Master's swim team for almost 2 years, and this weekend marked my first Master's swim meet. For those of you that aren't familiar with Masters Swimming, it's basically an organized swim team for anyone 18 and older. There are a bunch of ex-high school and ex-college swimmers, as well as people like me, who joined without a big swimming background. I love the diversity of Masters swimmers - on our team, there are 25 year old jocks training for Olympic trials, as well as 80 year old lifetime swimmers that are still swimming strong at the hour-long workouts (which are pretty exhausting).

So, as I was saying, I've been swimming for about 2 years (Andrew's been doing it for 5, I would say). The exciting part is that recently, we've both been seeing a big improvement in our times and we've both 'moved up' into faster lanes. When Andrew suggested that we take our weekly exercise regimen to the next level and do the Master's Southwestern Championship Meet, my feelings were a blend of terrified and excited.

We signed up for various events that we are strongest in, got in some extra practices to improve our starts (off the blocks) and turns (to make them more efficient), and headed into the weekend ready to see how fast (or slow) we really were.

The meet organizers posted 'psych sheets' the week befor the meet. As suggested by the name, they do psych you out. Based on your previous meet results or estimated times from practice, they rank you in different events against all other swimmers, and you can get mentally prepared for your placement in this meet.

We braved the 90+ degree weather (thus, lots of new freckles for me) in a 2-day meet with 100+ swimmers on our team, and over 30 other regional teams. We were ready for some fast swims, some good, healthy competition, and of course, some fun. Being a newbie at this, I just wanted to drink it all in and set some benchmark times.

Andrew and I both participated in several different events (both individual and relay). We were even in 2 relays together, of which we ribboned (I think 2nd place) in 1! I enjoyed the comraderie of doing relays, but I also was excited to see some new, faster times in my individual events than I'd gotten in practice. I even medaled in 1 event, to my complete amazement. That's right, I medaled (3rd) in the 25-29 year old women's 100 yard backstroke.

Of all the events I swam, I found the 200 yard freestyle to be the hardest, mainly because it is too long to be an all-out sprint, but too short to swim as a distance event.

Here are some pictures that tell the story better than I do. If you're wondering, the number-pole that Andrew is holding in one of the pictures was to help me count my laps for the 500 yard freestyle event.

You know it's time to throw Fashion out the window when...

...the toe of your ultra-pointy high heels get caught not once, but twice in one day in the cuff of your pants and you almost eat it.

Her Name Is Coco?

Yeah, that's right. The dog. Her name is "Coco". Well, at least that's what her "owners" called her. The shelter named her Twyla, which is much nicer than Coco.

The neighbor who loaned us a leash found a sign left by the owners at the park nearby two days after we turned her over to animal control and our local "award winning" shelter. (It did win an award, but it's still a sad place to us.) We called them to let them know where the dog was the next day. They sounded not all that concerned or relieved to know this, which surprised us.

Anyway, we figured Coco's owners would pick her up right away. This is their pet -- a member of their family! But, as of the writing of this post -- eight days after she "ran away" -- Twyla is still at the shelter.

Our friends Danni and Greg, dog owners and multiple time shelter-dog adopters, thought that the owners didn't want to pay to get their dog back. How sad is that!

Well, we may go visit/walk her tomorrow if she's still there. But, we are not really in a place to adopt her. That's what we keep telling ourselves...

Now you can weigh in -- what say you about the fate of Twyla? Are you a golden retriever fan with space and a bigger heart than her "owners"?

Update by Andrew (C)2008, all rights reserved.

How Do You Spell 'National Champions'?

It just felt right to make this word last night in my Scrabble game with Andrew (although he smoked me!). Good luck to my Bruins today and Monday! This is our year, Bruins!

An Unexpected New Friend

Last night, after Andrew and I got home from work, we decided to go for a 45 minute jog-walk around our neighborhood, and then come home and make dinner. We only made it 1 block before our unexpected evening began. About a block from our house, we encountered a hyper, but beautiful young golden retriever. When I say ‘encountered’, what I really mean is ‘she started jumping on me’. My first thought was ‘Where is the negligent owner of this unruly beast?’. Upon closer look, we realized that the dog had a collar, but absolutely no tags. We looked around, hoping that somebody would be coming toward us to claim their wayward pet. Instead, we seemed to be a magnet, attracting all of our pet-owning neighbors, trying to help us. None of our neighbors seemed to recognize the dog. What were we to do? We couldn’t just let the dog wander and potentially get run over by a car. While our very kind neighbors offered us a bowl of dog food, a leash and some moral support, it was clear: This dog was our responsibility now. We brought the pooch back to our front steps, where Andrew gave her the much-needed dog food and 2 bowls of water, which she zealously gulped down. It seemed that she’d been wandering for awhile.

I went off to contact the animal shelter, the pound – whoever would take her – but everything was closed by this time. While I simply wanted to get this dog off our hands, by the time I returned to the front step, it was clear to me that Andrew had bonded with the pup: “Maybe she can stay with us tonight and I’ll take her to the shelter tomorrow. Do we have to take her tonight?” he asked in his most tender voice. She was probably 1-2 years old, and after eating and drinking, she mellowed out significantly and was a really sweet dog. We finally decided the right thing to do was to take her to the shelter. By now, it was almost 8pm, but we were told an attendant would at least help us when we got there.

We arrived at the shelter to find no attendant and a locked gate. Andrew sat with the dog, while I called the police and arranged for them to pick up the dog and take her inside the shelter. We waited about 45 minutes for the police to arrive, and all the while Andrew was falling for this dog. I was too. What would we name her, if we could keep her? Would we have a spot in our house where she could stay? Would she eat all of our shoes (my question, of course)? Wouldn’t she love going jogging with Andrew? And running around at the cabin with us? All the time, the pooch was affectionately sitting with us, snuggling up to us, and ‘shaking’ our hands.

When the police ‘animal unit’ arrived, I knew Andrew was head over heels: ‘Can we come visit her and take her for a walk?’ I have to admit that I was sad to let her go, too. We learned that the shelter waits about 1 week to try to locate an owner, and after that, the pet is put up for adoption. We do hope that her owners find her. But if they don't...While our lives are not set up for a pet (well, we have a fish named ‘Red’, but he’s ultra-low maintenance), we found ourselves wondering if it could work. We’ll see. It would be a lot of work, but a lot of fun, too.

Here are a couple pictures of Andrew with our lovable new friend. They’re not too clear because they were taken on my phone – it was all we had, and we wanted a couple pictures for memories.