Day of sun and kvetching

I had two things planned for today…no, three things, no…I’ll come in again.

I met Peloquin for lunch today at Vishnu Villas – he likes to take me to the Indian buffet for my birthday.  We have done this pretty consistently over the last few years.  And then, I return the favor later on when I feel like Indian food again (which is frequently), and we trade back and forth.  It is a good arrangement.

Before leaving the house, I was in the process of changing into some clothes I could wear to the gym, and as I wandered past my TV I thought, oh, I should try that Jillian Michaels video – it is DUE soon.  So I did.  And then I had to change again, because I was disgusting after Jillian had at me.  THEN I went to the gym, read my book on the elliptical trainer, and had a good hour of me-time.  I think I should just buy an elliptical trainer so that I can do this comfortably at home, too.  I’d be less likely to get distracted with the computer (or, I could put my LAPTOP on it somehow, and MULTITASK – god, that would be nice) or Pocket Frogs.  I love Pocket Frogs.  I told Peloquin about my obsession with it (he can relate, because he also loves collect-y type games – I remember from when we used to play Kingdom of Loathing together).  Neither one of us has any patience for waiting, and one of the way the games keep you coming back is to draw things out – like, my frogs have to incubate in their little eggs for awhile until they hatch, and when I find treasures in the pond, it takes awhile for them to be delivered to me…and there’s only so much space in my habitats and mailbox, so I can only have so many items.  MANAGEMENT of THINGS.  I haz it.  Also, I want to breed ALL the frogs and fill up my froggydex.  Yeah.  There’s no point.  I am not going to get anything out of this except personal satisfaction.  Or maybe I’ll collapse in tears and despair because I’ve done it and there is no more (there will probably always be more – that’s how these things work), or because I’ve wasted so much time on it.  Oh well.

Peloquin bitched about work.  And then asked me how *my* work was going.  Yeah…I left early yesterday due to female issues.  Cramping ones.  Hello, uterus, how’s it going?  *RUMBLE!*  You know, though, I could have stuck it out (not the uterus, the DAY), and stayed, but I really just wanted to lay down and not be at work anymore.  So, that’s what I did.  That and Interval Training!  And errands.  I’ve known P. forever (or close enough to) – over 20 years now (ACK) – and it still sometimes throws me, because we don’t see each other *that* often, when he asks how I’m doing.  Where do I start?  What do you want to know?  He asked me follow up questions, so we were fine…but this came up the other night at Top Shelf, when the lovely and talented, but mysterious and enigmatic (mostly because I don’t know her very well) PT asked me how things were going.  What things?  I never know what to say.  Do you want to know about work things?  Thought things?  Writing things?  Which things?  And then there isn’t really enough time to get into ANY things, so my response is inevitably lame.  *eyeroll*  Why is socializing such a pain in the ass?  I guess part of it is that whenever I see her, I’ve already had A Day and I’m over my outgoing, bubbly, extroverted, reference personality and Done With People.  So, I don’t default to the whole ask a bunch of questions yourself to get/keep conversations going.  I am thinking about Rest.  And saying, “I’m exhausted, and So Done With Work” to someone every time you see them…well, it’s a little boring and repetitive – even if that’s exactly how you feel.

So, P. and I talked about cooking, weird flours, work, bosses that are clueless and hate conflict (I, also, do NOT thrive on conflict – but at least I am willing to address it), families, food, BEES!, research possibilities, and more).  And then I forgot to give him the coconut flour I’ve been carrying around in my car the last 2 weeks in anticipation of seeing him.  So after I went to Whole Foods for my hand lotion (I <3 Whole Foods), I drove back to his office (he’s in the process of moving offices to a HUGE space with a door that locks – lucky him), located him, got to SEE the new office (*jealous*), and dropped off the flour.  Bit of a detour.

I decided to go hike around Busse woods a bit.  I was hoping to get in by the water, so I could look for water birds, but the parking lot and trail I picked didn’t really take me to the place I thought it would.  And the trail got really icy, so I turned around early.  It was a beautiful day, though – for about 30 of the 60 minutes I was out and about.  I saw hawks and chickadees and some other tail-flicky birds (with red on their heads?  Not sure exactly what they were), and deers (and deer droppings – piles and piles), and a squirrel.  Got some good photos, too.

Returned home and played with the buns.  Powder doing better (drinking on his own!).  Oatmeal getting into mischief (and boxes).  I have taken some pictures and made a video of him squeezing himself into bun-possible places.  Windows Movie Maker is pretty easy to use, as it turns out.  I always put off using it (or anything else, for that matter), because it *seems* like a hassle.  Can’t say that it’s the best thing I have ever produced, but it worked for my purposes.

I mentioned my octopus in a previous entry, and realize that if you are not on FB, or diligently following my Flickr stream, you probably have no idea what I’m talking about.  Educate yourself, if you dare.