August 2019: We Got a Cat

One event in August eclipsed everything else: we got a cat! But not just any cat. Let me tell you more about Lulu.

Lulu Joins the Family

I am a cat person, but I’m also a traveler—not a conducive lifestyle for a having a pet. We’d been toying with the idea of getting a pet, or maybe fostering one, but hadn’t committed to anything. Then an email came through at Jared’s work. Long story short, a woman had re-rescued a cat she’d previously fostered, but couldn’t keep her. Lulu was 18, recently blind, and dealing with arthritis and suspected kidney issues. Because her rescuer already had several pets, Lulu was living in the upstairs bathroom; just thinking about it makes my heart ache.

Basically, Lulu needed a good retirement home, preferably without other pets, where she could get some more attention. Jared forwarded that email to me, and I was done. How could I get an email like that and not do something?

So here she is. Lulu loves carpets, biting her brush, her catnip fish, a full food bowl, and being petted in the middle of the night. She does not like when you pet her too much, receiving her liquid medicine, or when she has to wait for food.

First Fourteener in the Books

At the beginning of August, we completed our first fourteener, Mount Quandary. The experience was satisfying but extremely challenging—you can read more about it here. Jared and I have done very few hikes since then, and have no plans to climb any more tall mountains in the near future.

The Neverending Cold

The day after Quandary, I started to feel a rawness in the back of my throat. I assumed I had swallowed too much pool water during a swim earlier in the week, and chalked it up to chlorine. (In retrospect this was a really weird explanation for what was obviously the beginning of a cold.)

Over the next couple of weeks, that raw feeling morphed into a runny nose; just when I thought it was going away it turned into bronchitis. I’ve now been low-key sick for five weeks now, which is awesome.

Spectating at the Boulder Sunset Triathlon

My sister and her friend trained all summer to participate in the Olympic-distance component of the Boulder Sunset Triathlon, and I joined their husbands to cheer them on. As Megan and Christie swam 1.5km, cycled 40km, and ran 10km, we lounged in the shade and talked about how scorching the heat was.

I did leave with a voice in my head saying, “Hmm, maybe I’ll do a triathlon next year,” but the voice is very quiet at this stage. Seeing how much time and energy they put into training reminded me that preparing for an event can be like having another job, and not something you do on a whim.

Silent Disco

I went to an event called Pints in the Park over Labor Day weekend, and they had a silent disco. That’s the thing where you put on headphones and jam to music that only you can hear, but around other people doing the same thing. I’ve always associated these with house music (not my scene) but the options were 80s, 90s, and 00s music, so my sister and I gave it a try.

Turns out it’s pretty fun listening to Jump Around with a bunch of strangers in headphones on a beautiful sunny day.

Coming Up in September

September is my #1 month of the year, mainly because it’s my birth month! This year I turn 38. Funny how the closer I get to 40, the less ‘old’ it seems.

This month I’m traveling to Washington D.C. and Billings, Montana in back-to-back weeks. Both are for work—I’m attending the Fincon & TBEX conferences—but I’m able to tag on a bit of fun over the weekends. Jared is joining me in Montana for two days in Yellowstone. A short trip, but it was hard to pass up when we’re so close.

Finally, this month is FIVE YEARS since we got married in Hawaii. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but where does the time go?