December 2009
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!
Our Sequoia
Buddy and Sequoia
Blue Aroo
Blue bounces
Blue outruns himself
Young Tiberius and his sister, Nyota
Changes at Home
Sequoia
Bear and I are still doing well at his place along Bear Creek in Boulder. Sadly, in May, we lost Bear's dog, Sequoia. Sequoia was 16 years old and had been with Bear for 15 years. As many of you know, it's heartbreaking to lose a dog. Sequoia was a bouncy, bubbly, happy dog who liked to play catch (he'd actually throw the ball back to us!) and destroy (gut) as many stuffed animals as possible. But he had a tumor on his spleen the size of a football that was pressing on his lungs, and he could barely breathe. Now he's up on rainbow bridge running as fast as he can!
Blue Aroo
Almost immediately after Sequoia left us, we felt the void and began searching for another dog. We looked at the Web sites for several shelters, including the MaxFund Shelter in Denver. MaxFund is a no-kill shelter. If you adopt a dog from there and sometime in the future find you can no longer take care of it, the shelter will take it back and place it in a new home, no matter how long it takes. That was the case for Blue Aroo. He was adopted from the shelter when he was one and returned at the age of 11. He was waiting in the shelter for two and a half months before we found him. I think he was waiting just for us! Blue's owners couldn't take care of him anymore, and I've come up with two explanations in my own mind to justify that - either they lost a job & could no longer house him, or he was just too afraid of thunder and fireworks and they couldn't handle it anymore. That was the big warning on his chart. But we built him a little cave in our house, and he goes there to feel safe.
I know what you're thinking - wow, an 11-yr-old dog; how much more life can it have? Blue Aroo is full to brimming over with life! He runs with Bear, bounces around the house, and when we take him to the dog park to play, he runs circles around the other dogs. He's so fast, I think he even runs circles around himself! He and Buddy get along "famously."
Tiberius
Tiberius is now almost 19 years old (his birthday is 7 April). He's been really healthy most of his life, but as he comes near the end of it, he's developed a couple of problems: intestinal lymphoma and blindness caused by spikes in blood pressure. But he's still getting around just fine, and still manages to find my alarm clock when he wants me to get up (one day, he took out the batteries - well, that strategy backfired, didn't it?). We're not expecting him to live much longer; I think his sister, Nyota, who died of complications from diabetes in 2006, is waiting for him!
In my office
Changes for Me and Bear **FLASH** We're Getting Married! More News to Come.
Wow! Who Knew?
I found out this year that not only am I hypersensitive to gluten (wheat products), I also have hypoglycemia. That is, any glucose intake causes my blood sugar level to crash immediately, rather that following the normal rise and fall of the sugar cycle.When I have sweets, I fall directly into the first level of insulin reaction, which includes irritability, confusion, and anxiety. That explains a lot! As soon as I found that out, I dropped my sugar consumption radically. No more cokes, ice cream, and candy. I feel so, so much better, more able to think clearly and keep my "center." I know, I sound like a convert, but I seriously recommend you have a look at your sugar intake — you'd be amazed at how much we consume in a typical day!
Cutting out wheat and gluten products brought about an incredible change in my health. The fibromyalgia I've been dealing with since 1996 seems to have disappeared! (Some research is now finding a connection between immune-related inflammatory diseases [including fibromyalgia] and gluten). After years of incredible, sometimes debilitating pain, I feel like I have "risen from the ashes"! With fibromyalgia gone or at least in remission, I've been able to get back to myself, to the "old me," physically strong and active. Learn more under "Places and Races" below.
Bear
In October, Bear was laid off. He'd been working for a company that contracted with the USDA, but no more contracts were coming in. It was a dismal time, but Bear worked with a couple of recruiters and had a two or three interviews. In November, Bear interviewed for a job on a Friday morning and received a job offer that afternoon. The following Monday, Bear accepted the offer, and now he is working as a senior developer/Java engineer down in the Denver Tech Center. It was nice to be able to go to Seattle for a race over Thanksgiving weekend (see below) with that burden off our backs!
Bear and Blue Aroo
View from the trail on the 5K@10K
Bear finishes the 5-mile Lyons Red Rock Scramble race (Colorado).
47-yo me running the 5K in Seattle, Nov. 2009
Places and Races
Steamboat Springs
So, Bear and I went to Steamboat Springs for the Labor Day weekend. Bear had signed up to run the "10K @ 10K" (the race was at 10,000 ft above sea level, near Rabbit Ears Pass), and I was along for the ride. Or so I thought. At the last minute, I decided to register for the 5K @ 10K. What the heck - I didn't have to finish, and I would have time to recuperate before returning to work. And besides, I'd been for hikes with Buddy that were just about as long.
Well, a monster was born! I enjoyed the race, finishing in a little over 43 minutes, and didn't have a fibromyalgia reaction as expected. In fact, I felt great! Back home, I re-joined the gym, hired a personal trainer, and started a workout regimen. It feels like I have my old self back again.
Lyons
So, the next race we could find was the Lyons Red Rock Scramble on 4 Oct. It's a 5-mile and 5K race, depending on how much you want to do. Lyons is a nice little town a few miles from Boulder, right at the foot of U.S. 36 on the way to Estes Park. The race is to raise money for Native American Bar Association Scholarships. Bear ran the 5-mile race, and I ran the 5K, finishing in a little under 43 minutes.
Seattle
Bear signed up for the Seattle Marathon several months ago. He made plans to fly to Seattle over the Thanksgiving weekend and had reservations at the race headquarters hotel in downtown Seattle. I was going to stay here and take care of the dogs. No big deal. Well, after the Lyons race, and having mentally adjusted to pay cuts earlier in the year, I decided I had the wherewithal to purchase a ticket and fly out with him. And what could it hurt to sign up for the 5K that was running the day before the marathon? I finished that race in 37:38 minutes (sea level is awesome!). Bear had been injured a couple of months before the race, but he still made a valient effort, completing the half-marathon level in a little over 3 hours. Now we're both looking for the next race. Any suggestions?
View from my window in Portland
Work
Changes at Work = New Skills!
This marks the second year GSA Today, the Geological Society of America's member news and science magazine, has been part of the Communications & Marketing department.
Now, in addition to serving as the managing editor of GSA Today and of GSA Connection, our e-news magazine, I'm back-up to the Webmaster, "Chief Tweeter" (on Twitter), and our main facebook page poster. I am really enjoying this foray into social media.
Portland
This year, I also got to go to our annual meeting in Portland, Oregon. This was the first annual meeting I'd gone to for more than one day, and the first time I'd traveled to one out of town. I worked in the newsroom each day, busy "tweeting" about the meeting and the science and following news coverage and related blogs. It was a fun, fascinating, and stimulating time. Along with working in the newsroom, I got to go a play, "The Great Tennessee Monkey Trial," starring Edward Asner and John Heard (based on the Scopes Trial). Fantastic! And to top it all off, the view from my hotel room was spectacular. I'm looking forward to next year's meeting (Denver) as well as any opportunity I might have to visit Portland again.
Signing off...
That's "all the news that's fit to print" for this year. Thanks for reading this; I hope you enjoyed it.
If you'd like to see more pictures, check out the rest of my Web site! If you want to see an ice-skating sauropod, click here.
I wish you all the best in the coming year. Merry Merry! —Love, Kristen