Lucy’s Day

The pug gala was a lot of fun!  There was a fashion show, a pug parade and a talent show! The event was put on by the Seattle Pug Rescue organization and was a really terrific celebration of PUGS and PUG people.   There were pugs in dinosaur costumes, pugs in tuxedoes, and our own girl Lucy, dressed for the day.

I’m not sure her dress is age appropriate, looks more like a toddler pug dress, not something for the mature pug!  Regardless, she tolerated our nonsense fairly well and we all had a great day celebrating our girl Lucy.

 

The Great Loop

I know many of you like to travel and LOVE a good adventure!  Well, I want to introduce you to my brother and his wife, Pete and Patty, and their blog “Our Great Loop.”   They put a lot of planning into this and are on their way in their tug!  Check it out and wish them well!

Here in the mountains the snow has finally cleared on most trails, but there was still enough to ride in May.

Mae always loves a good skin up the mountain and a fast run down!  she really has some adventures herself!

More news soon, we are heading out to go to the Pug Gala…..(yes, there will be photos)

 

“Whan that Aprile…”

With all apologies to Geoffrey, the April showers are leaving me a bit bummed out.  Pilgrimage?  The only place I want to go to is a warm beach, a sun bathed stretch of sand. That, my friends, is where I long to go on pilgrimage.  But anyway, lit references aside, how has YOUR April been?  Ours has been gray with a few sunny days sprinkled in just to keep our chins up.

Sunny days that make it all worth it

Mae had a birthday at the beginning of the month.  She’s 2!  That seems like a milestone because when I got her, the rancher who gave her to me said that she would really settle down and be a much easier dog by the time she’s 2.  Let’s all laugh at THAT!  Sure, she’s a bit easier and she’s really filled out and is a SUPER athlete.  But Mae, my beautiful Mae, will never be an easy dog.  She is a damned cute girl though hey?

Birthday girl

Have a lovely spring!  Entertain, experience, accomplish, be deliberate, ENJOY.

February, Season Extender

I haven’t posted much lately.  I have no idea why.  NO motivation to do so, honestly. Stuck in a snowdrift perhaps…

We’ve had a few breaks in the ice storms, freezing temps and mega snowfall (normal pass weather finally!) and have been out and about around the neighborhood.  Though last week we had over 3 feet of snow in about 4 days, another highway closure, and a small dose of cabin fever. Mae and I have been enjoying our outings.  It’s so pretty!! And it will extend the snowboard/ski season!  Hooray!

I finished the ’30 day Yoga Challenge with Adriene’…it did take me 43 days, but I did it and am now completely sold on yoga.  What about you??

Two songs on my mp3 player, on repeat:

I am a Rock  Give it a listen….”I have my books, and my poetry to protect me”
I never noticed what a dark song it really is.  But I LOVE it.

And the Jerry Douglas, Mumford & Sons cover of The Boxer .  It’s simply fabulous.

And your February??  How is it?  Possibly no one is enjoying it as much as Mae.

Mountain Life, A Snow Day

You would think, living in the mountains with an average annual snowfall of over 400 inches of snow, that we would get a lot of “snow days”, stuck at home, roads closed, no place to go.  Actually, it’s fairly rare! But yesterday we had freezing rain in the forecast so I, mentally checked out, spent the day in the house doing laundry, binged watched some Nicholas Cage movies on Netflix (don’t judge me man), baked brownies, played with Mae.

Unfortunately, today is a REAL “snow day”.  The freezing rain, which came down like a sand, accumulated to about 8 inches or more, and I-90 is closed in both directions for today AND tonight.   Slides and debris have covered parts of the highway and conditions are too dangerous for crews to be out clearing. Trees are across the road and more are falling. It’s going to be a long time before they get the highway cleaned up and open!  Locals are saying it’s the worst ice storm they can remember in over 40 years of pass living.

What to do?? Well, Netflix is out right?  I mean how many bad movies can you stand?  (A lot actually).  I’m not making any more brownies, cakes or pie.  Maybe I will make an apple crisp though.  I’ve already done yoga and a weight work out….I’ve been out walking Mae twice .  I think we should venture up the mountain, do a little skinning, take a few turns.

What does Mae think?  She might have the right idea….

2017, The Universe, Yoga I Can Stand

Hello and Happy New Year!  It’s 2017!  Can you believe it?  When I was a kid I used to calculate how old I would be in THE FUTURE…Well, I don’t think I ever went past the year 2000.  And here I am, in 2017.  No hover car, no personal robot, no trips to Mars….But it’s close, right?  I have the mars curiosity rover on instagram and that just blows me away!!  Pictures of Mars, the red planet, on my phone?  Way cool!

Ok enough of my ramblings….here’s the photo of Mae you’ve all been waiting for, waiting in the snow for snowballs.

I have a couple of things to share with you….remember the Altras?  The shoe to end all mountain running shoes?  Well sadly, I ended up returning them after about 3 months.  They were perfect, great shoe, scrambling around the mountain, running , hiking.  they kept me comfy and dry through October, the wettest October on record in Seattle.  They were warm and great into November.  And then, one day, my feet were WET!  They were leaking at the seams and also had really broken down after only about 100 miles of use. No cushion, dead shoes.   I spoke to a rep at Altra and he confirmed that because they are new shoes/boots for them they didn’t really know what to expect.  The “neoshell” is not actually neoprene but a gortex like material.  Anyway, they went back….I couldn’t justify the $160 retail price (I paid $140 thru Road Runner Sports and they have an excellent return policy).  I got a really ugly pair of Asics that are doing the job well enough for half the price.

Ok, The Universe….so I don’t mean this in a Carl Sagan way, though I LOVE Mr. Sagan.  I am talking about all that Karmic stuff, you know, things working out in the end?  squaring up the score. settling accounts…. My daughter was complaining about how she didn’t get a discount on her rent after a friend said she referred her AND a manager called and told her she would get $300 off rent….a different manager told her NO.  Because the friend didn’t fill out the referall form correctly.  What??  As my daughter was telling me the story, the Boston Irish in me came out and I wanted to call said manager and tell her what a *#@! she is, but then….and this is pretty amazing for me….but then I thought “no, the UNIVERSE can handle this”.  You know why?  Because the Universe can dole out some really nasty shit!  What can I do?  Swear into the phone?  Use my wit and language to come up with some mean, but to the point, derogatory insults?  sure…But the Universe….the Universe takes care of revenge and getting even in a BIG way. I have seen this first hand .  I have seen some terrible things happen to people that have not been very nice to me.  Really awful, life changing things.  And that’s sad.  So, I am letting go of anger (yeah right, at least this month ok?) letting go of righting wrongs.  I’m not using my life energy on that pursuit.  I’m gonna just let Good ol’ buddy Universe do it’s stuff.  I will stand up for my rights, take matters into my own hands when it’s logical.  Ask me how this is going in a few months though!

Yoga.  So I have always tried to do yoga and have literally hated it!  Hated the often false, mumbo jumbo breathing crap (all that breathing!) and the little outfits and mats and the stupidly presented calm.  Plus, physically it kills me!  And I am no slump when it comes to athletics.   But….I have this friend.  He is a really awesome person, the 70 side of 60.  I met him in grad school more than 25 years ago and, well, he’s one of my favorite people on the planet.  He’s an antsy one.  Always on the move, he runs, works out with weights, swims and DOES YOGA.  So, if your friend, a friend whom you love and trust, tells you something is good?  That’s right,  You gotta check it out.  I managed to find YOGA I CAN STAND!!  Yoga, I will admit, I actually LOVE!  It’s Yoga With Adriene, and I am 10 days into the 30 day yoga challenge.  She’s real!!  She’s like “yo, dude, we are gonna DO YOGA”.  Well, maybe not quite like that, but the presentation fits me, fits what I look for in any fitness instruction, honest, straight forward, no nonsense guidance.  Fabulous personality,Yoga with Adriene works for me.  If you are thinking of adding yoga to your life, check out her youtube channel .  There are a lot of sessions to choose from and they are short and so do-able!

Happy 2017!  Hope the year is filled with all good things for you!  We will be out playing in the snow, enjoying this beautiful mountain day~ ciao!

 

saturday dog love

Mae, Lucy, Harry and Max….

Mae was so excited to see snow this week that I couldn’t get a decent picture….beside herself!  Lucy….showing off her new winter coat.  And the little Harry with his big brother Max.  Saturday dog love!

 

Mountain Mae

I know you’ve been missing Mae.  Come on, of course you have!  She, as usual, has been having quite the life…running, hiking, swimming.   But last month she was stung by hornets three different times!  NOT fun.  The last time, we had been out hiking on the mountain and about half an hour after we got home I looked at her and her entire face was swelling!  Luckily a benadryl tablet brought it under control.  But she hid in the closet for the next hour!

The bee-sting lip look?

I’ve been a bit more careful about avoiding places bees might be, but it’s not easy out in the woods.

Today she had her first Mountain Bike training ride, and she did great! Actually, this is the second try.  Last summer we took her out but she didn’t get over jumping at the bikes and I wiped out pretty good.  This time I went fast enough that she had to really run to keep up and while she was trying to herd me for the first mile or so, she finally figured out that she could just run ahead or along side and it was a blast!  At last , a way to tire her out that doesn’t wear me out first!

Does she look tired?

Tuesday Afternoon Fun

You know lately, all I want to do is wander around in the mountains with my dog.  Is that so wrong?   Here are a few shots from our Tuesday afternoon at the “lake”….

Someone pulled the plug….

 

It’s okay, there’s still MUD!

 

There’s not much of summer left.  How are you spending your final days of the season?  Heading back to school?  Sending off the kids?  Sneaking in some last vacation days?  I hope it’s all great!

Back Track

First, let’s get the photos of Mae out of the way….I realize I should possibly change the name of this blog to Mountain Mae instead of Me.  But if you own a dog, especially a young dog, you know that they completely take over your life!

the “I hear a Subaru” face

 

 

close up

 

Snowshoe trail , so perfect for Mae~

Ok, now that that is done…let’s back track a bit.

Remember the book list?  There were a couple I wanted to mention.  The most memorable book I read last year was “A Little Life” by Hanya Yanagihara.  Huge book, over 700 pages, and the Amazon description made it sound like a nice little romp through the lives of a group of college friends.  It was so much more!  And I won’t spoil anything for you but I will say the reason it stayed with me and was so memorable is that the story was not what I expected at all.  The other reason was that the writing was VERY good , and in places (little places) even reminded me of Whitman.  However, there were a couple of flaws in the book that really made it  tumble off the GREAT list. One is the fact that you had to read about 500 pages to find out what had happened in the main character’s life.  By then did I care??? No.   I pretty much skipped through that part of the book.  The other thing was that in places it started to feel like a script for Law & Order, SVU.

A nice surprise was James Robertson’s , “The Testament of Gideon Mack”.  Very enjoyable, fun read about a man, a man of the cloth, who meets the devil!

Biggest disappointment?  Donna Tartt’s , “The Goldfinch”.  I had heard and read so much about this book and it is a good story, I’ll give it that.  But I don’t know….again, very lengthy and in places I felt it was just d r a g g i n g.   It wasn’t completely satisfying for me. Was it for you?

The most unusual way to find a recommendation? Well it was word of mouth but I can’t follow the dots on this one.  Too much music, too much beer perhaps.  I was out one night to see a band and met a professor of biology who was sitting next to me .  We got talking about beer, as he ran a beer club at the college.  Somehow he ended up recommending The Unbearable Lightness of Being….Remember that movie?  Well, it was dreamy right and  it certainly made me have a little crush on Daniel Day-Lewis…. it  was 1988, of course I had a crush on him.  But I had never read the book and of course the book is TOTALLY DIFFERENT.   Author Milan Kundera said later that he would NEVER allow a film from one of his works. I can’t say that I blame him.

Running.  I will be honest I haven’t had a real run since October!  I felt great then but in early November I got hit by some nasty virus that had me out for 3 weeks and then bad weather bollowed by our current snowpack have made actual running a bit problematic.  That’s where snowshoes, xc skis and snowboards come in handy!

Coffee.  Yup, still drinking it.  In moderation mstly.  I think I have found a balance with the bean.

Not much else to report here.  I got a splitboard for Christmas and hope to get out and use it soon.  A splitboard is a snowboard that essentially has been cut in half!  You can then wear it like skis with “skins” on the bottom to make it sticky and walk up the mountain. When you get to the top you  put it back together to ride down!

“skinning” up

Happy trails!  Hope the new year has brought good fortune and good times!