Happy happy body finally got back on the mat tonight. It's definitely been too long. I got kind of dizzy and out of breath part way through --probably a combination of too much heat, too little food, and close to zero conditioning for the past two months. Anyway, just had to stop and breathe for a second, and then it was all good the rest of the time.

Something interesting came up regarding the state of Aikido in Portland, that Portland Aikido now is similar to what Bay Area Aikido was n years ago. If I were just passing through, all that would mean to me is fewer high ranking partners. But I'm staying. Aikido in Portland is young (in comparison to in the Bay Area), but it's good and getting stronger yearly. Staying here now means a chance to help it grow well, a chance to be a strong female role model in a place that doesn't already have the amazing density of high ranking women that the Bay Areas (that is SF bay and Monterey bay) have. Here every tough girl is more needed, every role model more valuable. Being here, and staying here, is a real opportunity for me to add to the "what have you done for Aikido?" list I was pondering¹ after my test.

It's easy to just show up and train, and in SF and SC there were so many people better able than I to do everything the dojo needed, I didn't have much reason to do more than that. Here I want to make a concerted effort, right from the beginning, to get involved in helping my dojo, and Portland Aikido in general, to thrive.

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1: zingkotori, you self-referential bastard.

I've posted several times about the overwhelming peace and contentment I feel in Santa Cruz, like nothing can possibly go wrong as long as I'm there.

Now I feel it in my back yard, too.

Yay.

I love my dog. I'm also pretty fond of my oak floors. My oak floors and my dog aren't likely to get along so well without an intermediary. Also, purple is a pretty color and Delta looks good in it.

Solution? Purple-toed puppy.


Not sure yet if it will work. They might all fall off too soon to be cost effective, or stay on too long to be healthy, but during the term of the experiment she's even more beautiful than usual and neither the floor nor my mother's arms will be damaged in the exuberance of the puppy.

In other news, Delta loves her tennis ball so much she won't drop it even for a nap, and keeping up with a five year old tires her out enough that she sleeps through blizzards of bubbles. ( photographic evidence )

Wow. It got hot. Hooray for summer! 100 yesterday, breaking the previous record for the date.

Yesterday Delta informed me that it was simply too hot to be a black dog, and promptly melted into an inky pool on the living room floor, rousing only at the promise of food or ice cubes. Just after bed time the breeze picked up, at which time Delta reminded me that she had had no exercise all day and suggested that we go play. She had to settle for a short walk and a Nylabone.

This morning we're making up for all the prey drive that was bottled up yesterday. We got up early, before the sun had a chance to melt the dog, and went on a vigorous octopus hunt. She LOVES to hunt the octopus. I need to get pictures. When the octopus was thoroughly dead, we went to the back yard to pick strawberries. My plan was that I would pick strawberries while Delta sniffed around and maybe dissected a stick or two, but that was not to be. She stayed right next to me and picked her own strawberries. Puppy picking strawberries = cutest thing ever. I only let her have a few, and then told her to leave them, and she obediently withdrew her head from the raised bed and went hunting for rogue strawberries that had escaped the patch. Then we came back inside and she killed her tennis ball. It was dead enough to be dangerous (big enough hole to give her a chance to rip off and eat chunks of it --and oh yes, given a chance she would), so I took it away from her (oh, the suffering! The betrayal!) and gave her a fresh one (oh, the joy!).

I had to drive to Portland yesterday for my follow up interview with with the Humane Society. The last portion of my training school is half mentoring and half volunteering, and I plan to do it all there. It'll be great once I'm in town, but yesterday was 3 hours driving for a 10 minute conversation that mostly consisted of signing up for a time and date to come back for the next one. I think they make the process a pain in the ass intentionally, so that the people who are likely to quit never get started.

Portland is such a beautiful city, and the views from the freeway are so good, it was all I could do to keep my eyes on the road. SF looks good by night, but by day what you see is an endless expanse of gray. On foggy days, this is to be expected. It's the times when the sky is bright and screaming blue love, and the city responds with endless gray roads, gray buildings, not a molecule between, the scattered trees dwarfed by skyscrapers and poisoned by hobo urine --yeah, it was time to get out.

Eight days to closing. Last night I dreamed simbubba called me to say he found another house he liked better, and he wanted to back out of this deal and start over with the other one. Good thing he's not up here yet; I might have strangled him in my sleep.

Hello, LJ. Been a while.

Damn. How in the hell did I ever have time to have a job? No wonder I was always so rushed and tired and stressed out. I'm unemployed and living rent free and I still never get the to do list finished. Of course, the list has things on it like "take care of the puppy" and "buy a house" that take up a lot more time now that they're real than they did when they were nebulous future goals. The catch is that they're cash intensive as well as time intensive, so I really do need to start working again so I can earn dog food and mortgage payments.

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It's been a full week now. ( The dog, the time, the place, the people. )