1. Time for another rapid fire, minimal transition post where I can brain and photo dump multiple things that have happened in my life the past couple months (we’ve had a lot of EMC posts lately.) This post will be cat heavy. Is that anything new though? I don’t think so.

Speaking of cats…has anyone been seeing the trend on social media where people are buying their cats a concrete slab? I try not to fall prey to these things, but I HAD TO TRY IT with Little. I bought a 16×16 concrete slab for just under $6 and hoped for the best. Naturally, my cat was beyond disinterested in this. It’s fun watching videos of other cats loving the slab, but mine barely even sniffed it. HA.

2. Duncan and I went to hike Mount Si recently, his first time. This hike is notorious for Canada Jay’s dive bombing hikers for their snacks. I’m not usually one to feed the wildlife, but look…us not feeding them won’t change a damn thing here. People will never stop. Instead, we can opt to feed them species appropriate snacks like bird seed.

Or, like in the photo below…we can pretend to feed them, only for them to see an empty hand. I call this photo: “disappointment.”

3. You won’t be able to tell from any of the photos in this post, but my hair is the longest it’s been since 2017. The downside of growing out a pixie cut is that it grows really wonky. I had a mullet/rat tail like section that was longer than the majority of my hair, and this week I’d had enough. I cut the mullet myself, only to ask my mom to help me. It’s not perfect, but at least most of my hair is “even.”

I will get a proper haircut eventually. LOL.

4. A while back I agreed to watch my friends kid so she and her sister could go to a concert. The time came, and I had a blast from the past evening. We started with perler beads, where I made the most beautiful creature known to man. Then I introduced her kid to the wonderful world of the N64 (I went easy on him.) And we ended the day with a jump on the trampoline. FULLY equipped with a net, just like the one I had as a kid.

Safety first.

5. My Garmin watch was acting a fool recently. The elevation gain on my hikes was constantly messed up, it was no longer accurately recording my distances for hikes or runs, and it was just all around spazzy. I contacted Garmin to see if there was anything I could do to help this, and they offered to send me a free exchange.

The watches they use for this are refurbished, but I figured anything was better than what I had.

The watch I received was as good as new initially. Unfortunately it had some pixelation issues, but they immediately fixed the problem and I’m getting another “new” to me watch. Black and Decker needs to take notes…(see number 9 in that post.)

6. Back in February Duncan bought tickets to see my favorite artist for my birthday. The time came, and we set off for the concert at the farm. While I LOVED seeing Gregory Alan Isakov, I don’t think the outdoor concert scene is for me. I was wildly distracted (and annoyed? even though it’s totally in their right?) by the people constantly walking around.

I was spoiled seeing Gregory for the first time with the Seattle Symphony (LOOK AT that baby child in that post, I wish I could go slap her and tell her to relax her freaking forehead in those photos. This is why my forehead is now wrinkled.) A background symphony is now my standard – inside, no one moves around, acoustics on POINT.

I still had a good time and I’m glad we went. Greg (we’ve met, so naturally we’re on a first name basis. We’re basically besties) was fantastic as always.

7. If you’ve been around here for a while you will remember this post from a year ago. The specific call out in that post is the hubcap story. I lost a hubcap, but it wasn’t the first time. Because this had happened before, when I saw a rogue Toyota Camry hubcap on the side of the road sometime around 2014 I picked it up and stored it for when I needed it.

I ended up needing it last year, and sadly I have since lost that replacement hubcap. I recently had to get a new tire (my third one this year wtf) and when they put the hubcap back on it must have been the final straw. When Duncan and I parked at the Gregory Alan Isakov concert I notice it was missing. That free hubcap lasted me a year, and I will call that a win.

I am back on the hunt for another rogue hubcap on the side of the road, wish me luck.

8. Recently at work we received a random one off Nalgene that we don’t typically carry. I already own a Nalgene, and I use it for hikes where a glass jar will not be a good idea (I exclusively drink and eat out of glass. Yes, I’m one of those.) Because of this I did not need another Nalgene. One is more than enough. However, this Nalgene was very cute and I made a comment about it to my coworker.

I expressed to him how much I liked it, but I didn’t need two Nalgene’s. He knew we likely wouldn’t be getting anymore of these and he decided to buy it for me. This made the Nalgene suddenly very special, and I am reminded of the magnitude of a small gesture. This made my day, and now I can just rotate between the two Nalgene’s I own. Or I can give my other one away. So many options.

9. I’m getting the itch again to sign up for a half marathon. I truly don’t know what is wrong with me. I swore after my last one I would not run another one for a WHILE. That one destroyed me not only physically, but mentally as well. Somehow after the summer season passes I tend to forget how much I abhor the last few weeks of training for a half.

I might try to start training earlier and run exclusively throughout the winter. Maybe that will help?

10. Last, but most certainly not least Duncan and I went on a triple date recently to Ziggy’s Cat Lounge. I went here once last year, and this time it was just the six of us in the room. We had a magical time, and I was reunited with two of their resident black cats. They recently got ANOTHER resident black cat (named Binx, how fitting), and they were all so sweet.

I managed to capture a photo of Duncan in his element…feeding wild animals (this is a call back to him being Snow White on Mt. Si with the bird.)

My favorite thing about this visit is that all of us own cats and are very happy with the cats we own. Sometimes cat owners just want to have coffee and socialize together in public…with other cats.

Q: What’s your confession?