Where’s the peanut butter?!

In bloom, originally uploaded by Peru Tha Damaja.

I wish I’d read this guide on amaryllis care earlier. Mine was definitely not planted deeply enough in the soil and now I get the exciting news that after the blooms start to droop you might be able to get new blooms if you cut back the stems! I cut mine back this morning, but that was after it tipped out of the pot twice and after the stems had been drooping for probably a week and a half. Whatever happens, these are terrific flowers and my white one (pictured) has still done remarkably better than another red one I bought from Ikea.

Concrete, originally uploaded by Peru Tha Damaja.

Here lies the fruits of my efforts from last weekend. After Friday night’s pubcrawl and getting up at 6AM on Saturday for my last long run before the marathon, I got out the sledgehammer and shovel and went to work busting up the rest of the concrete between our house and the rental next door. There should be no mistake about where they can park their cars now since they’ll break an axle if they cross the line. Now I just need to dig a two or three foot trench for the bamboo barrier and get the bamboo and fencing in the ground. I’m not incredibly excited about that but it’ll be WAY better than smashing concrete which is really only worth doing for some slight macho factor of saying you’ve done it - otherwise it’s totally overrated.

The past couple days have been busy with a mix of interesting and just busy.

I felt great heading out to Saturday’s long run and asked Chuck what I should do.  He suggested 13 miles so that’s what I did.  Finally. I haven’t done a straightforward easy pace 13 miler on a Saturday in over a month and that time it was the longest run I’d ever done in my life.  And it felt hard a month ago. But Saturday it really didn’t feel like enough. We did the Shilshole route and back up Stone Way and I had to cruise up Stone Way to feel like I was getting my work in for the day. So I asked Chuck if I could run again Sunday, which is kind of dumb. I think I’m starting to finally get that the answer to “Hey, I’m feeling pretty good and want to work more, is that OK with you?” is always “Yes.”  So Sunday I went around the lake and did a 20 minute tempo run. And that’s totally, totally different now than it was a month ago, which was the last time I had a tempo run in my schedule and when I had way different expectations of my abilities. I’d done the Firecracker at about 6:50 minute miles so I was doing tempo runs at 7:10 minute miles. Now I don’t know what my 5K time should be but I know it’s way faster than I did the Firecracker so I aimed for 6:30 minute miles in the tempo and wound up doing it at 6:24. And THAT felt good.

Tegan and Sara came with me on the run - The Con is awesome.

I spent the rest of the weekend priming, painting, and hanging doors on the new shed on the back of our house.  It’s coming along nicely and almost done!  I just need to decide - blueish like the house, or yellow? My samples should be dry by the afternoon. Sunday was cookout and frisbee golf in the H-district.

Yesterday I started work again!  Very exciting and fun. The environment seems great and I’ve had a totally good vibe about all the guys each time I’ve been in. However I came home and found Io not adjusting to being left home that well. He left a monumental turd next to the computer and, I later discovered, wet the floor at the bottom of the stairs.  Thanks, buddy! But more importantly, I’ll say again that the Bissell SpotBot should come standard with every puppy.

This morning I took Io on a jog for the first time in well over a month, since I upped the mileage.  A short run in the park in the morning isn’t too much to add on to my schedule and it’s just right for him so I figured I’d go for it even though I’ve got track work later tonight. It was awesome. I really miss running with him and he totally loves it, too.

The rest of the morning I’ve spent consolidating my google accounts.  This is just a bunch of stupidness but basically I had my “home” account as a google account, but then I started using google domain hosting for psoul.com and re-created the “home” account there. This resulted in google knowing about two home’s at psoul.com, which confused it. It seems like it *should* be easy to say “take all the mojo from the old account and consolidate it into the new one” but it’s not. So I had to modify the old account so it looked distinct from the new account. Then from the old account change all of its sharing settings (calendar, documents, etc.) so that nothing was shared with “home” and then re-share with “home”.  Now I think it’s all basically moved over and I’m close to being able to retire the old account.

During this time, the new Weakerthans album and some Feist have accompanied me. I’m totally on a Canadian kick.

Good times!

Mounted tool cabinet, originally uploaded by Peru Tha Damaja.

New project is almost done! I love power tools. This one will replace an outdoor tool organizer we’ve used for years since tearing out our back shed. That organizer has gotten the job done but only barely and it’s really not that hot long-term.

It’s hard to believe it’s been this long but one year ago yesterday we brought you home. You so tiny we had to section off your crate so that you fit without too much space. You walked clumsily around the house - learning the boundaries of your growing body and its intersections with your new home. You threw yourself into the nooks, looking for what felt most comfortable. In front of the stove? The corner near the wine rack? Snuggled between the couch and ottoman?

The first week was a little traumatic for your big brother, Jupiter. He wasn’t happy at all to share the house or yard with your kind and you didn’t yet understand the pain his claws can inflict. I should have warned you about this. I’ve spent enough mornings engrossed in catching up on news on the computer when he would sneak up on me, too, issuing his brief, dorsal warning - “mgnraoooo!!!” - before sinking his sharp claws deep in my most fleshy parts. But you learned this lesson yourself and continue with remedial lessons every so often through to today.

You also took your first trips to the neighborhood park where you would cultivate a refined palate for sticks and where we explored the wreckage of the fall 2006 Seattle storms . You were quick to identify (and best ) your key adversaries at home. You also had your first taste of flesh and would never, ever allow me to keep the house meat-free from that day forward.

That fall we took our first trip out in the snow, bathed in the midnight wash of the streetlights . You expanded your wardrobe and came with me and Tanya to Twin Falls and leapt for treats on the KVI park beach, now fully grown . You and Jupiter have become famous friends - you, the only dog he comes to visit outdoors; he, the only cat whose ears you will groom. And sometimes you still act like the puppy you were when you first came home, still unsure of exactly where your body fits and where it does not.

So though your real birthday is some time in February, observing it now feels right.