*Phew*  Friends, it has been a busy past few weeks.  I feel like I’ve had hardly any time to myself, let alone time to sit down and blog. Between work, dance, babysitting and  birthday plans I’ve been swamped.  I don’t have time to get fully caught up yet, but in the mean time, here are some pictures from the past few weeks.
Birthday Flowers
Birthday Fruit Snacks
Snuggly Peanut
Snuggly Bits
We have a balcony off the second floor bedrooms in our apartment. We have yet to put patio furniture up there, but we do have our grill there. So, the other night, when Travis was grilling chicken for dinner, the kittehs wanted to be outside too.
Peanut has an appropriate level of fear of the unknown and won’t attempt to jump off the balcony or even really jump onto the edge of the wall. She likes to walk around the edges really, and find a patch of sunlight and hang out there.
Bits, on the other hand, can not be trusted. She will jump and climb on anything. In fact, at one point, she tried to jump from the edge of the balcony onto the window sill of our neighbors apartment. So, in order to keep Bits from falling to her death, we put her on a leash.
It took some getting used to, but, after a while she seemed ok with the leash.
“Hey guys….what’s up here??”
Life is always an adventure when you have hairless cats 
Yesterday, Friday the 13th of May, I took Bits to the vet, where we bid adieu to her lady bits forever. Here we are taking off for the vet yesterday morning.
This was the first time I’d been to this particular vet (Travis took Bits back at the end of last year when her stomach was being funky,) and I couldn’t have been happier with the whole experience. The staff was super friendly. Although I have to admit, when they were asking if I wanted Bits to be microchipped while she was already under, I totally didn’t understand what they were talking about (I may have only been half listening,) and agreed. I wasn’t planning on microchipping her yesterday, but you know what, it’s for the best.
Bits had to have a pre-op visit with the vet before she could have the surgery. I was a little worried she might be freaked out, and while she was clearly uncomfortable having her temperature taken, while the vet was checking her out, she put her front paws on his shoulder, and rubbed her face on his face. Clearly, she was fine.
Then, I went to work, where I spent my entire shift organizing my boss’ closet. It was kind of the best Friday ever.
I called the vet’s office around 3 to check in and Bits was not only out of surgery, but was already up and charming the entire staff. I did have to wait a while when I picked her up, but when she came out she was ready to go! The vet tech let me know that she may be sore, but that she’d been really good and hadn’t been licking her spay site so she wouldn’t need a cone of shame, and she probably wouldn’t want to eat anything when we got home. When I let her out of the carrier, she was immediately wolfing down not only her smaller portion of food, but also Peanut’s food.
Peanut had fled the kitchen and has been acting weird since Bits got home. Travis is convinced it’s because of the microchip, and Peanut now thinks Bits is part robot. Have your pets ever acted strange when the other comes home from the vet?
Last night, Peanut kept her distance from Bits, and then when I tried to put her under the covers to snuggle, she hissed at me, twice. She slept on the other side of the bed by herself. It was very strange. This morning, Bits was sitting on my lap, and Peanut came over, sniffed at her and then hissed and growled. I’m hoping it’s because Bits smells like the vet, and probably a little different from her spay and it’ll just take a few days for Peanut to get used to.
This morning C, J and I were planning on running an 8 mile loop through Griffith Park. C had found this loop a few weeks back when we first started (I guess as of this week it would be 3 weeks ago), and we’ve been working up to doing the whole loop which we thought was about 8 miles. Our first week we ended up completing about 5.5 miles, last week we managed 6.5 and this week, after I mapped the course we took on daily mile, I discovered we went almost 9 miles! I think the actual mileage count from daily mile was: 8.95 miles so just .05 more of a mile and I would have been up to 9 
The loop is challenging for me, the first mile and a half is up hill, but then a good part of the run is downhill and flat, then downhill again. Once we got to the intersection where we normally take a left and head back, we took a right and went all the way down to Los Feliz before turning around.
On our way back is when things got a little tricky. I am last in the caravan anyway, but I had fallen a bit further behind on our loop back, and lost C and J at bit of a cross road. Instead of going back exactly the way we came, I started following a dirt trail I thought the girls had taken. I went on that for a while, and then when I couldn’t find them decided to cut across back to the road. Well, somewhere along there, we missed each other because they had gotten to the end of the dirt path and went back to find me, where I had gone off to the paved area to try and find them! I think they ended up doing an extra mile in their attempt to find me (Oops!) so they managed to make it almost 10 miles today!
We completed the loop in 2 hours, which gave us a pace of about 13:41 mile. I’m still slow, and still doing a lot of walking, but today I discovered what I think is the appropriate pace for me to be running. I finally found a place where, even though I was tired and struggling (I’m not a natural runner and keeping myself motivated to move forward is a challenge) a bit, I wasn’t out of breath which normally plagues me. I was also able to keep myself running consistently for longer than I had been. Maybe not by a lot, but I can see some progress, no matter how slow it is!
My new shoes were excellent help on this run. I did get a little bit of arch pain in my left foot but not until a few miles in, and after walking a bit, it went away and didn’t come back. The shoes did get a nice break in, and are quite dusty now from the trail running. I guess they can’t stay shiny forever.
I know I won’t be finishing this half marathon in any kind of record time, but knowing that I can finish it, and knowing I’m capable of maintaining a 13:41 minute mile makes me feel really accomplished.
When I got home, I made myself a bowl of pasta with Trader Joe’s Bolognase sauce which was delicious. Just the thought of eating the pasta was so good! I’d only had a bowl of Joe’s O’s before the run. Now, I’m just hanging out in the bedroom with the kitties while two handymen fix some things around the apartment.
I saw this little bit of news this morning while going through my google reader feed:
Japanese zookeepers have discovered why their attempts to mate the two polar bears at the Kushiro city zoo have failed: Both are female. When Tsuyoshi, a supposedly male 4-year-old polar bear was introduced to Kurumi, the zoo’s 11-year-old female, “he” failed to make any advances. “One day we realized that the two bears urinate in the same way, and we thought, is that how males do it?” said zookeeper Masako Inoue. The sex of polar bears is often difficult to determine because of their long hair. Despite the zoo’s breeding plan, it will keep Tsuyoshi, who has become immensely popular with zoo visitors. [source]
I just have to wonder, doesn’t knowing or finding out the sex of an animal that you’re trying to breed fall under the basic job description of a zookeeper? Â How do you go on for any period of time attempting to mate animals and NOT know they are both female? Â Really? You have to watch them both urinate?! I always thought there were basic procedures that occur when zoos get new animals. Â You know, like they animal arrives, probably sedated, the zookeepers and veterinarians on staff do a thorough examination of the animal to make sure he or she is healthy. Â Maybe, while doing this exam they could, I don’t know, take a little peek down there, figure out the sex of the animal? Â
I think maybe those zookeepers ride the shortbus to work.Â
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Even gangstas love their mom
In other animal related news, Auntie Kate gifted Peanut with a lovely hoodie last night that proudly proclaims her love for her mommy. Â Peanut is totally gangsta in her new hoodie. Look out world, she’ll probably be releasing her hard core gangsta rap album in the coming year.
Peanut has managed to tear a hole in the bottom of our boxspring and create a sort of clubhouse/hammock for herself. Â I’m pretty sure she hangs out there during the day while we’re not home, and I know for a fact that right before she’s ready for bed, she crawls under there and hides out. Â Trying to get her out from under the bed (inside the bed?) has become a nightly ritual/game for her. Â Basically all we can do, short of ripping the entire thing apart is shake the section of boxspring she is hiding in and hope we bug her enough to get her to come out. The problem with this method is that Peanut thinks it’s a game and will playfully poke her legs out at us from one of the smaller holes in the side, or her head, and nip at us. Â T is not bothered by her being essentially inside the boxspring. Clearly he is a horrible father.
