Hello Reader Nation,
How's things? We've been busy over here for reasons that are mostly twofold: The Peachtree Road Race and Felix the dog. Let's start with the Peachtree!
Every year, people come from near and far to run in the largest 10k in the world, the Peachtree Road Race. It is held on the 4th of July, and as you may have seen previously, I set a big goal for myself this year. I was going to run it in under an hour. And I did some training, got ready, and then the month of June hit, and #teachersummer came out in full-force, and my brain started to contribute to conversations with myself like this:
Kerri: Hey, Brain, want to run?
Brain: Nah.
Kerri: Good idea.
So, E and I took off on July 4th, in the rain, and I have to say that it was one of the most enjoyable races in my experiences so far. I thought the rain was actually awesome (I never got hot!) and it was the most soothing sound to hear thousands of runners making squishing noises as their feet hit the road. People were out cheering in full force, in spite of the rain. AND I didn't throw up when I crossed the finish line. I suppose the other question is, did I meet the goal to run it in under an hour? Well, no, I didn't. But can we really put a price on all of the other little victories? No, we can't. And, is 1 hour, 1 minute, and 39 seconds an awful finish time? No, it's not. And there's always next year.
Post-race. Eric is sporting his very first tank top he's ever owned, and I am sporting the outfit I wore to school every day in the 4th grade.
Now, full disclosure, I was kind of a mess in the lead up to the road race for one major reason. This guy:
Perfection of the "who, me?" face.
This photo was just taken today, and as you can see, he is doing fine. Rewind to about two weeks ago, when he came in from the yard looking like this:
Yikes!
A 10am trip to the emergency vet later, Felix was diagnosed by a veterinary medical professional with bee sting to the eye. Treatment: ointment on the eyeball, Benadryl, and the cone of shame. We returned home, and I jetted back out to get to Buckhead for my wedding dress alterations appointment. Arriving hot, and about 2 hours late, you can imagine the distress that I was already feeling. Then the very kind lady informed me that the dress wouldn't quite zip all the way up. This was not in the alteration plans, you guys. So I looked her in the eye, laughed maniacally, and said, "Oh, it will fit. I promise you that, it will fit." Simultaneously, I had a moment where I was observing myself, sort-of objectively, and actually thought, "This is where she loses it." But instead, I just got really sweaty and sucked it in and let the nice lady get back to pinning up the hem. And I stood on the box, and she pinned from the ground, and offered up tidbits about how a woman's body changes and retains different amounts of water over the course of a month and she's sure that's what it is and I will be fine. I just did deep breathing exercises.
In that moment, I actually managed to hold it together and not embarrass myself in public. Here's something you might not know about me: In the camps of "crier" vs. "not crier," I am definitely a crier, and during any emotional extremes (sadness, happiness, embarrassment, hunger) it is not uncommon for me to burst into tears. I have found that this is a particularly hard thing to cope with in The South, where young girls are taught alternatives to tears that make them more serene and lady-like than I could ever hope to be. But I digress... I was just telling you how I held it together, and I did a great job. And I headed home and applied ointment to Felix's eyeball and everything was fine for about 9 hours. That's when Felix learned that if he tilted his head just so, and lowered it down to the floor, he could roll back the tip of his cone of shame and rub his itchy eye on the carpet. At least, that is what I assume happened, based on the sounds I heard coming from the front room followed by the immediate full freak-out that Felix had, involving sliding across the hardwood floors and pawing at his cone. So, E and I got back in the car with Felix, leaving a distressed and tearful Lana the other dog behind.
I asked her for a reenactment of her distress. She was happy to oblige.
So, in our 10:30pm trip to the emergency vet, Felix was diagnosed by a second veterinary medical professional with bee sting to the eye followed by application of carpet fibers. They removed all of the fibers from his eye quickly, sedated him a bit for the evening, and sent us off with a little container of white pills to help Felix relax. (Let's go ahead and recognize St. Francis. We've been there more than a couple of times, and each time they are amazing.) AND STILL, you guys, I managed to keep it together. Just a couple of tears in the patient room, like one or two, it could have even been a sneeze. Cool as a cucumber.
I kept Friday nice and methodical. Planning to go to my future-sister-in-law's birthday party the next day. Taking pasta salad, Whole Foods only has mayo-based salads, not oil-based ones, so that's wrong, but it's fine. Wake up in the morning, Felix won't go to the bathroom, have to take him on a special potty walk, making us late, it's fine, it's fine. Medicate eyeball, adjust cone, coax eating, but he won't eat, but it's fine. It's fine. We are late, E is trying to make up time, we come up over the crest of a hill, SQUIRREL! SQUIRREL! SQUIRREL! KA-CHUNG.
(*Silence*)
And oh, the tears. How they flow. Poor Eric. Because I'm pretty sure that I was babbling about the squirrel's family and how they'd never see him again and why didn't the squirrel move, why didn't he move? And it goes on...cue the tears in response to any inquiry about how I am, or how the dogs are, for the next 24-hours.
As you can likely guess, this is all bad news for E and the pollinators he plans to raise next summer. The good news is that Felix is doing just fine again, and we have all of the important things.
Until Next Time,
K
Felix and Lana
Tiny sunflowers
Pumpkin!
Beans!
The enemy to the dogs. That is a friend to the plants. Bee, you are officially a frenemy.