Coffee date

Oh, hey there.  I just opened up my browser window, not 100% sure what it is that I want to write here.  Something "interesting" is bound to happen whenever I do that, right???  Interesting or insane, I suppose.  Meh.  So let's call this a coffee date post of sorts, where I just throw a bunch of nonsense at you in rapid fire, and you all nod your heads wisely and pretend to care about the mundanities of my life.  Sounds good?  I thought so.

If we were having coffee today...

...I would splurge and take us to the absolutely adorable coffee shop down the road from my place.  We would walk there, because the weather has been unbelievably gorgeous the last few days.  I would encourage you to get something with the house-made chocolate hazelnut whipped cream, and to try one of the breakfast burritos.  And once I had you all carbed up and blissed out, then I'd get to the good stuff.

I would tell you how running has been a struggle lately.  Not because I don't want to be out there running, either.  For the first time in a long time, I WANT to go run.  No, I am struggling because my body is at that point where it's sore, and it's tired, and I'm afraid that it can't take too much more, but I know that it only has to hang in there for a few more weeks before it gets a well-deserved rest.   I would go on to talk about how, finally, after the last 2 years of agony with running, I have found a running strategy that makes sense to my body, and is helping me have real results.  There is a confidence factor now when I approach long runs that hasn't previously been there, and that is a huge relief.  At this point, I know the miles are there, and the base is there:  I just need to be mindful not to injure myself right now.

Along those lines, I would launch into a diatribe about this My Fitness Pal Challenge I'm a part of right now, and how it's sucking an awful lot of awesome out of running for me.  I run primarily so that I can eat whatever I want, and this challenge doesn't allow the room for that, per se.  We are allowed to set our calorie limits and whatnot, but eating treats causes you to lose points, and there is money on the line with this, so treats are a no-go around here right now.  Alyx is my accountability partner through all of this madness, and the poor girl has to suffer through my texts about just wanting a damn cupcake.  It's getting to feel a little bit like the Shining around here, except that I am totally allowing myself beer.  And coffee.  So really, it's just the lack of cupcakes and fro-yo that is tearing me up.

I'm sure by this point, you'd probably ask me about Ammon, because I would have spent 45 minutes going into exacting and excruciating detail about my workouts and food stuffs.  And I would tell you about how he is doing well.  He's back to working out at the gym, and he's making 30 look pretty fly, if you know what I mean.  Then I would drop the bomb that has weighed heavy on both of our hearts for a few months now:  His work runs out of funding at the end of May.  They have submitted a grant proposal, but we won't know the results until late June, and then the money won't be in until later in the summer.  We had hoped that he would be able to find something else, but there's been no movement on that front, so now we're settling in for a fiscally conservative summer while he works for no pay and we wait for the funding and a very happy back-pay check.  It's caused a lot of stress and anxiety for both of us, and we think we have it all figured out, but only time will tell.   I can say that, given every other financial crisis our relationship has survived, I have faith that we will weather this storm pretty well too, we'll just have to buckle down a little tighter.

For me, a conversation isn't complete anymore without bringing up Gunner at least twice.  He is pretty much one of the best things to ever happen to me.  So I'd probably share with you some of the training struggles we have had recently, and how I feel like I can't do anything right with him.  I imagine that everyone looks down their noses at the way we manage our dog, and I can't blame them for that.  I would judge me too.  We are trying so hard, though.  Every stinking day we try with him.  I am convinced that it has to stick, and he'll start to normalize soon.  

I mean, look into those eyes and tell my that they are the eyes of a vicious dog who likes to attack other dogs.  It isn't possible.  We just need to work through the trauma and the fear he's holding onto.

Around this time, you'd be shifting in your seat, giving me those subtle cues that you're ready to go.  So we'd walk back to my place, and in that 10 minute walk back, you would finally have your chance to fill me in on your life.  I'd realize that it's far more interesting than what I had to say, and feel bad for wasting so much of our precious time together on my petty concerns.

As we parted ways, I would be so thankful to have had a few moments with such a dear friend to catch up and caffeinate.  So thanks for reading, and being a part of this today.  It helped tremendously.