Missing summer food

Most of the time, I’m ok with my food allergies.

It means I don’t eat out very often, but I can usually find fun stuff to make at home. I don’t actively miss the stuff I can’t have — mostly.

But I think I am learning that summertime makes me miss food more, maybe because summer food is fun, and because it is great weather to eat things outside.

For example, right now, I am really missing ice cream, gelato, frozen yogurt, soft serve ice cream, etc. Now, if I’m home, or near a grocery store, I can usually find decent soy ice cream, but when I’m walking past a fresh ice cream store or see people licking ice cream meltings off their fingers as they eat their ice cream cones…not a whole lot of Kelly options in those scenarios.

And I’m really missing burgers. Good veggie burgers, on a good roll. Gluten-free rolls, when I can find them – not that good really. They tend to be really dry and crumbly. And finding good veggie burgers? Not an easy task, as most have wheat protein in them. Dr. Praeger’s makes a veggie burger I can eat, it’s not very good (and it is very, very GREEN), but I can eat it. I just can’t usually find them.

And pizza. Oh, how I miss pizza. Real pizza, and even nasty Domino’s pizza. And yes, I can make pizza at home without cheese, but sometimes, you walk by someone eating a piece of fresh cheese pizza and your mouth just starts to water. At least mine does.

Sigh. Of course, at the moment, this is all compounded because my oven at home blew up a few days ago and we are waiting for the landlord to fix it, so I can’t cook. And eating out isn’t really fun anymore, so I’m just missing what I can’t have even more.

I apologize for the whining. Your non-whining Flying Mermaid will return to her regularly scheduled programming shortly.

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I know my way home!

Brian and I were out hiking the other day, and when we reached the parking lot at the end of the trail, we saw a fat little black lab. She was very happy to see us, butt wagging, eager for head scratches. We stopped to say hello, and then spoke to this older couple sitting in the car next to where Little Miss Pup was sitting, telling them we saw something on her ear that they might want to check out. The woman in the car said the dog wasn’t theirs.

So we looked at her collar, and written in black sharpie was “I know my way home!”

Little Miss Pup must have lived at one of the houses near the trail head, and liked to take herself out for hikes, and to meet new people and possibly get treats if people were so inclined. She was exceptionally happy, and I loved knowing that she knows her way home and could go back home when she was ready.

A good way to live, don’t you think, always knowing your way back home, but able to go out on adventures when the mood strikes.

** Disclosure — normally I wouldn’t be happy to see a dog who could wander the streets freely due to concerns about the dog’s well-being, but this was a very unpopulated road with barely any traffic, so I think she was fairly safe.

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The squabble fish

Know when you look at something really quickly and you will read it the wrong way?

This happens to me a lot. It’s often very entertaining because what I think I see, so rarely relates to the context around it.

Take, for example, the squabble fish.

I had started typing in a web address and I could see others that started with the same letter in my drop-down menu.

And I saw what looked liked squabblefish.com

My thought process, “Squabble fish? That sounds cool. What’s squabble fish? Hm, I must have been to the web site, but I don’t remember it. Now I need to check that link again.”

Actually, it was for squishable.com — “They are giant, round, fuzzy stuffed animals. Hug them.”

Slightly different than squabble fish. But I love squishables, and can’t wait to have some of my own. I want the cow, the rooster, the duck, the bunny, the tiger, and the Giraffe for She Hangs Brightly. And I hope they bring the sheep back, because I love him. Check out the photo galleries, these are my kind of people! And then read the descriptions of the squishables. I think the whole company are my kindred spirits. I heart them.

Oh, for the record, I have decided that the Squabble Fish is the argumentative cousin of Babel Fish. Instead of just politely translating a phrase into the language of your choice, it argues with you when you say you know how something translates.

“I know what Je t’aime means! It means I love you.” — Me

“I’m sorry. You are incorrect. The correct translation is I desire a bicycle.” — The Squabble Fish

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Roller derby!

Dressed to go out to Roller Derby tonight 🙂

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Home life

Me, trying to get the WonderPup to pose with me, Loki in the corner

Me and Loki Dog

Getting love from Loki Dog

Mikki and the pups, Myra getting a belly rub

A girl and her dog

Silliness 🙂

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The entrance to the Unicorn’s Lair

The guards to the Unicorn’s Lair seem inattentive

The sign points the way toward the Unicorn’s lair, and at first glance, everything seems still and quiet. In fact, the only signs of life are the two small cats, one with her back steadfastly turned away, and one who appears to be asleep, curled into a ball, dreaming cat dreams.

But things are so rarely what they seem. The two cats? They have been assigned to guard the sacred entrance because of their sensitive hearing and beyond-natural reflexes. They could hear the slightest rustle or twig cracking from all across the glen, and they could appear at your side faster than the time it takes you to blink. And like most things in the Unicorn’s lair, they have an air of magic about them. They generally prefer the form of house cats, but they can grow to more than 20 times the size you see here, if the situation demands it.

But the cats are not the only guards protecting the Unicorn and her home.

The tree stump is actually a wood fairy, although he awakens only when there is a dire need for him, or if there is a celebration going on somewhere in the glen. Wood fairies do enjoy a good party. The trees that surround the glen can come to life to help defend their Unicorn mistress, although they usually prefer to let the cats handle most disturbances. But the trees have the added ability of looking past your heart, into your soul, and they see your true motivations and your true self. There is no deceiving your intentions when the trees gaze upon you, there is no pleading for a chance to explain or saying that there was a misunderstanding. They see to the core of things, and only the pure of the heart, those who are still open to the magic and light of the universe, only they are allowed into the Unicorn’s most sacred space.

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An ode to the shadow girl

She strides along in front of me

a tall, lean, string bean of a thing

her shadow hair in a fluffy triangle about her head

bouncing along with each jaunty step

with her monster-sized dog trotting beside

off to conquer worlds

off on shadow adventures

My shadow girl

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Happy tree

I am a tree

I need to feel the earth under my feet

the dirt on my hands

the rain on my face

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Sometimes, you just need to feel the rain

This morning, I was completely exhausted. Coffee didn’t help. I felt like I was moving at half-speed, at best. I figured by the time I got home, I would just fall over and go to bed for the night.

But a lot of water and some fresh-squeezed orange juice got me feeling like myself again, to the point where I wanted to run when I got home from work. But we were expecting thunder storms, the sky was darkening quickly and the muggy stickiness outside made it seem like a thunderstorm was indeed on the way. So, instead of a run in the neighborhood, I jumped on the treadmill and had a great workout.

I stepped outside, into the air that had cooled off just enough, with a light rain falling and smelling the clean smell of earth and rain. I began to stretch, to cool down, and the more I was out in the lightly falling rain, the more stress and anxiety and worries just seemed to wash away. I began to do sun salutations in the rain, getting my hands dirty and muddy, letting the rain wash me clean of everything except feeling alive and connected to the earth.

Sometimes, you just need to feel the rain on your face, feel the dirt on your hands and just breathe in the clean smell of grass and dirt and rain and evening, and just know that at that moment, everything is ok.

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Why I can’t look up my dreams in a dream dictionary

I’ve posted about my dreams before.

Sometimes, I get entire scenes from stories to write. Sometimes I get a really cool line or title for a story.

Sometimes, I have horrible, awful, violent nightmares.

And sometimes, my dreams are just so bizarre, that I have to think that the little creative people who live in my head have seriously warped senses of humor.

Allow me to introduce you to a dream from the latter category, one that involves the Fitness Shark.

What, pray tell, is a Fitness Shark, you ask?

A Fitness Shark is apparently an inflatable shark — wearing sunglasses, naturally — and once you inflate him, the fun begins. Once inflated, he will begin doing all of these weird, crazy moves (you might want to inflate him in an exercise room, or someplace that is pretty open with lots of space). Your challenge, should you choose to accept, and I hope you do (I wouldn’t want to mess with the Fitness Shark, personally), is to try and copy the Fitness Shark’s moves. Some of the moves involve something that looks like breakdancing, where you start in a one-armed push-up position and have to flip around and land on your other arm. (Note: The Fitness Shark is not for beginners). Other moves involve running around all crazy, as the Fitness Shark deflates and flies around the room, letting out air.

A workout with the Fitness Shark — guaranteed to get your heart rate moving and provide laughter at the same time. Well, possibly slightly terrified laughter, because he is a Shark after all, and you really can’t trust them.

I am pretty sure there would be nothing about an inflatable shark teaching exercise in any dream dictionary that exists. Although, if there is something about this topic, I would be delighted to know what it means.

And remember…always have fun, and watch out for sharks. Water sharks, inflatable sharks, or the “big white teeth of the Sharks that can swim on the land.”

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