Category Archives: Cat

Cat, Food

Sunday Night thoughts (mainly about cats)

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Today was the first day I wasn’t filled with time and schedule panic.  I slept in and I have already practiced several hours, along with having watched last week’s two hour Downton Abbey and spending plenty of time chatting with my friends on twitter.  (I lead a full, rich life.)  And here I am, blogging.  CRAZY.

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I’m starting to feel like this guy.  Just a fat blob, resting on the couch.  It’s cool though.  She’s pretty freaking adorable, so if I’m half that cute, I’m still okay, I think.

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(checking out the lovely flower arrangement Chris brought home)

Oh, and Happy (belated) Valentine’s Day to everybody.  We wanted to go out to eat (I know, surprise, us, going out to eat, that’s CRAZY) but we wanted to go somewhere new, so we went to Harvest.  Valentine’s Day is never the best night to go out to dinner, because it’s so ROMANTIC and the service was slow and the menu was a required prix fix menu, but the food was pretty good.  Chris was sad because they ran out of the dessert he wanted (goat cheesecake) but overall we enjoyed our meal.  We’ll probably go back and try the regular menu sometime, so that’s a good recommendation. 

I left my blogging hat at home and didn’t take any food pictures, but I believe Chris had the short ribs and I had something called the “duck reuben” which was really tasty.  Everybody told us to try the bread pudding, that it was to die for, and it was very good, though…I don’t know that it was my favorite.  It was weird because it was obviously made with the same bread that they had served on the table so it felt like I had already had it.  Though the caramel sauce was delicious.

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(my true valentine)

Even though generally we will sit in the same house for hours without talking, I’m always pretty proud of our ability to carry on a good conversation in public 😉  Is that weird?  When we were in Paris, we ate (very early) at a restaurant with only one other couple there at the time, and they weren’t talking.  It was totally weird!  We felt STRANGE having a conversation when they were just sitting there all disgruntled and awkward.  To be fair, lots of people were talking at Harvest and there were lots of awkwardly dressed couples which made for excellent people watching. 

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  This week is going to be stress city, but I feel fantastic.  No matter what happens on Tuesday in the audition, I know that I sound really good, that I can play the HECK out of my excerpts, and as long as I don’t freak out, I should have a good audition.  The results are irrelevant and out of my hands, but I can control how well I play and how I feel, and that’s my main goal.  I’ve done the prep (and a bit more left to do, but I KNOW everything really well) and all that’s left is to perform.  I’m ready to get back to real life as well, but I’m trying not to think like that.

Oh, and Friday night at 7 pm I’m performing with Chamber Project St Louis at the St Louis Art Museum.  Come out and see me play!

Oh, and my sister Leslie and her husband got a new kitten.  I’m totally jealous and trying to lobby Chris to let me get a new kitten (or dozen).  So far he is pretty convinced that it’s not the greatest idea at this time, but I bet I can wear him down.

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Cats and Workouts

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Like I’ve said before, my two favourite things! (What.  I’ve been watching a lot of Downton Abbey, so favourite is correct, correct?)

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Cats: 

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably heard that the newest Monopoly token is the cat, and the iron is NO MORE.  My first thought was, who is buying Monopoly anymore?  Doesn’t everybody already have a set that needs one? 

I mean, we don’t own one because Chris and I are definitely not allowed to play Monopoly (there was an unfortunate incident in late 1999/early 2000 and since then we have banned ourselves)…but my parents have a game so if we siblings ever feel like we are getting along too well or starting to feel genuine affection for each other…we can always play a game. 

Pro tip:  try to be banker.  If not, just bully your sisters into a variety of ridiculous trades by playing on their emotional attachment to the pink, purple and blue properties.  (I’m looking at you, Jesse.  Plus I know you had to be stealing from the bank, right?  Surely we just weren’t that bad at the game?)

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Workouts: 

I’m BACK to the gym and it feels fantastic.  For instance, yesterday was pull ups, dead lifts, shoulder press, rows, push ups, and something else that I don’t know the name for. 

Running…I need to get my act together, but I can’t just yet.  I’m prioritizing and the audition comes first.  Everything else is secondary until after that.  Plus I’m mad at running because it did this to me.  I was thinking I was all hard core and awesome…but really I just feel pretty gross and I’m ashamed.

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Not too ashamed to share here…but still.  That belonged to a toe, you guys.  YOU GUYS.  I painted my toenails the day before I realized it needed to go.  Don’t worry, I’m not posting any pictures of my toe, sans nail.  If you really want one, ask, I’ll email you.

What else is new?  I’ve got some giveaways happening here on the blog:  slippers, a PDF book, and an entry for a Fitness event at Wash U.  I’d recommend entering, it costs nothing…

P.S. I’m ridiculously sore and having trouble walking from the deadlifts yesterday.  YES.

Cat, Random thoughts

Back to Work

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It occurred to me this afternoon that maybe I’ve had the flu this whole time.  I wanted to practice this afternoon, but after about ten minutes of struggling, I realized I was UTTERLY EXHAUSTED and was missing shifts and really the whole exercise was pointless.  So I listened to some recordings instead and lay on the couch and rested up for my Tuesday afternoon teaching.

I asked Chris if he thought I was just turning into a cat and he told me that despite how much he knows I want that, it was highly unlikely.

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Nonetheless.  I’m trying to convince myself that one week of not practicing is not going to entirely derail several previous great weeks of practicing, so this is just a minor setback.  Flu or not flu, this was a nasty bit of something, and I’ve still got a bad cough.  I’m hoping that tomorrow I’ll have a bit more energy…or failing that, Thursday!  It will be fine. 

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This is one of those blog posts where I just had a few things I wanted to say so I’m supplementing with cat pictures. 

Have you guys seen Homeland?  We’ve been watching it on-demand.  We’re on the second season and it’s really good!  I recommend you check it out if you haven’t seen it.  Very well done and thought provoking, and I really like the haircut of the character played by Claire Danes.  I think maybe I need more layers in my haircut next time?

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My last haircut…what do you guys think?

Not the blonde—or should I do that too?  It’d be very St. Louis 😉

Okay, really, not the blonde, but some more layers?  My hair feels boring all of a sudden.  This is how I think–we were watching some really intense scenes from Homeland and then I turned to Chris and said, Hey honey, how do you think I’d look with her haircut? 

My husband thinks I’m a crazy person.  I’m pretty sure of that.  He also said, sure, why not?

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Red pants, purple shoes? I wanted to wear purple shoes and I thought I saw somewhere that red and purple matched.  I think I need a “fashion” page on the blog, don’t I?

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We had some crazy “spring” storms today!  I was happy to make it home from work safely tonight.  There was a lot of rain and water on the ground, and various tornado watches and warnings all afternoon and evening.  I guess it’s supposed to be cold again tomorrow.  What a crazy winter we’ve had!

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Cat, Running

What to do now?

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I’m home!  It was a great “long weekend” in Phoenix and now it’s time to hit the ground running.  Ideally.  I’m trying to figure out how much work I can get done today before I teach (teaching work, mainly—there’s always stuff to be done outside of actual teaching and I was already behind) and I wanted to blog…and really I should just be practicing.

I got back to the gym this morning.  It was nice to do something other than running (ha, as if I’ve really done much lately other than the half…) and I almost enjoyed doing squats.  I was extra strong this morning though, which was awesome.  I did several sets with 115 pounds which is a lot for me!

Cat time:

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Nice to be home to this cat! Chris sent me that photo whilst I was gone.

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Even though this one is pretty sweet, especially now that he’s settled down—he was a VERY feisty kitten!

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The trick to instagramming a good cat picture is to figure out what setting is best.  Albergo looks good on “Lo-Fi”, we determined. 

The best part of marathon training:  even though I am tired of running now,(arguably that has been going on for awhile) I still need to run, and the plan has 12 miles this weekend. I hope it’s really cold, like it was the other weekend! (I’d use my sarcastic font so you were clear, but generally everything I say is sarcastic.)

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I like this picture from the race.  I’m WALKING and still have that expression of great pain.  Walking is hard, evidently. 

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Birthdays and Cats

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Yesterday was Chris’s birthday.  We went to the Schlafly Tap Room to meet up with some friends and have some beers. 

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I wanted to get a picture of Chris.

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Me, recreating his pose.  I think I succeeded and indeed, made it even creepier.  Anyway, it was a low key night and we enjoyed ourselves.

Before we left the house…

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This happened.

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The cat loves lying on her back and she looks completely ridiculous when she does so.

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This part of her personality hasn’t changed since she was a wee little kitty, though luckily my furniture has been slightly upgraded.

I was reading Runner’s World Magazine (I’m not sure why I am still a subscriber but it sometimes seems exceedingly difficult to stop getting magazines) and found this interesting tidbit:

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Mike (my trainer) and I often have discussions about my hearing.  He is a low-talker, we are often in a room with lots of ambient noise and I often have to ask him to repeat himself.  He claims none of his other clients have that problem.  I don’t know. 

Maybe I am a little hard of hearing, or maybe his other clients don’t want to make a big deal about the fact that he should talk louder.  When I showed him that, he thought it was one of the most ridiculous “facts” ever and asked where I get this stuff?  (Which implied that I am a constant fount of bad studies and incorrect information…?)

Sometimes it’s hard to know how to end a post.  I shouldn’t just end every post with a picture of my cat judging you or giving you a sad look, should I?  Did you know that “sad cat” is one of the number one searches for my blog?

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Cat, Running

Do you like to run when you are sick?

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Today’s post is about being sick, running, and my cat.

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Yesterday was my first day back to my gym this year.  I’d thought it might be busier but I think it was in fact, emptier than usual.  Then again it was 9 am on a Tuesday.  It was lower body workout day with Mike (my trainer), so we did front squats, rear squats, one legged squats (which I remember being a disaster in the past but worked just fine), and kettlebell swings.  It seems like that wasn’t that much stuff but we were doing a lot of sets of each thing. 

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(See that red mark—that’s from New Year’s Eve when I cut my foot on my own shoe!  Thanks to Leslie for the purple Toms, which are not slippers, they are actually shoes.)

Stuff we talked about at the gym yesterday:

He said, oh, you have that half marathon coming up, have you been doing any running?  I just looked at him. 

We also discussed getting food poisoning as a diet method.  He had food poisoning or a stomach bug (who knows, we are not doctors) the other week and lost ten pounds in one day (so he says).  He was proud that he hadn’t gained all of that back.  We decided that perhaps getting the stomach flu right after the holidays was the perfect timing, at least for him.  (He had said before that he lost ten pounds leading up to Christmas so he could overindulge.)  I can’t decide if I hate him for being able to lose ten pounds in the blink of an eye or if he’s my disordered fitness inspiration.

I told him I was excited that was going to live longer (according to the most recent study) because I was overweight.  He said, looking incredulous, who said you were overweight?  I said, um, BMI charts.  He got really angry then at BMI charts and starting muttering under his breath about this, and then said, well, I’m probably overweight too according to the BMI charts.  We high-fived for living longer.  (We do a fair amount of high-fiving at the gym.)

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(This is from a tote bag Leslie gave me for being her matron of honor.)

So when you are sick, do you like to work out?  I hate it.  It makes me feel like crap and I am of the opinion that when I’m sick I should take it easy and rest so I can get better as fast as possible.  But then the internet says if it’s in your head you can workout, in your chest, stay home (I often think of it as “in your head” aka you aren’t actually sick you just think you are).  My current cold is in my head (with perhaps some stomach issues as well which I won’t discuss here and have the potential to change the outcome of this discussion) so that means I should run. 

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(And foam roll. I got out of the habit whilst we were in Chicago and I can feel the difference.)

A friend suggested, if you are sick enough that you don’t feel guilty skipping your workout then it’s okay to skip. Otherwise, suck it up. 

All of this to say:  I canceled going to lunch with a friend so I could sleep a little longer and still get my run in before I go to teach.  I can’t figure out if that is dedication or really messed up priorities.

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