What exactly *is* this?

Tonight, I came across the cats in this position.

Little Guy (the Siamese) originally was asleep with one leg on either side of Winter.

Hmmmmm.

Oh, and...

Following up on that last Peru post, an odd shower experience:

This morning, I finished off my shampoo. Because of this, I didn't much feel like using the normal conditioner I use.

No, that doesn't really make sense. It wasn't that I was out of shampoo and therefore was just wetting my hair... I had just enough shampoo for today's shower. However, non-matching levels of shampoo and conditioner apparently make me uncomfortable.

Anyway, I peeked out of the shower to see if I had any other options, and what I saw on the shelf was a nearly-empty bottle of conditioner (Back to Basics Blue Lavender). Suddenly happier and more comfortable, I grabbed that, and applied as directed.

I was immediately overcome with a scent association, and was a bit overwhelmed with it -- the last time I used this particular conditioner was at the end of our honeymoon, at which time I'd become sick to death of the Blue Lavender smell, and had shoved the remainder of the conditioner on the shelf for "emergencies." I had used it daily for 5 weeks, and several times the shampoo (same scent) had to double as body wash... I'd definitely overdosed on that scent.

This morning, I felt like I was standing in a shower stall in Paris, and it was the strangest damn feeling.

You all are probably going to have to put up with random photos from last year, starting in a couple weeks...

----

Random P.S. to comebacknikki: if you'd like to try the Mme. Moriarty perfume, I'd be happy to send you a bit! Just drop me an email - er, and remind me here to check that account! - and I'll send it out. The more BPALers in the universe, the better. :)

Way more fun.

We had plans to go to Ireland this summer, plans that were canceled due to both time and finances. I really want to travel, though, and as my parents are currently in Romania (growl!) it's on my mind.

What I decided on - and what Mr. Squirrel has agreed to in his "I doubt it will happen" way - is a trip to South America during winter break. Peru, specifically. December in Peru is summer, although it's also rainy season... I don't mind rainy season (at all) but it does rule out one major thing (more below).

Why Peru, you ask? To be blunt, it's the least expensive trip on my list of trips and we are pretty budget-challenged; the timing is fairly good, and... well, it's Peru. It couldn't be a long trip - 2 weeks, max - but we'd be able to go from Lima to Cuzco and see quite a bit in-between.

Also:
(that should serve as the majority of the explanation.) What rainy season rules out is the 4-day Inca Trail hike: although you can still do it, it's rainy, and muddy, and not much fun. We'll have to settle for the train.

As someone who likes food, Peru is also pretty damn cool. I won't go into details about some of the regional cuisine, but I would like to eat most of it.

Peru, anyone?

Having passed the one-month mark of my new exercise program, I'm both pleased and frustrated. I'm pleased because I've managed to keep it going -- almost always 1/2 hour of cardio in the morning, and then 1/2 hour of either strength training or cardio when I get home from work.

I'm frustrated because many of the results are very slow. On the very good side, I'm sleeping better and my blood pressure is in the super-healthy range (as opposed to the normally healthy range it's usually in). Oh, and my doctor is pleased with me. On the grrrr side, I'm not seeing much weight/size loss yet. I've scaled back my immediate summer goal to reflect the fact that I seem to be losing 1/2 pound a week... I'm trying to push that up to a full pound a week by (sigh) cutting out the beer and adding a bit more cardio when I want that extra glass of wine.

(Seriously: I have made allowances for two glasses of wine a night. Those are the silly little 4oz. glasses, not my usual lovely balloon goblets of wine. If I think I'll want more than that, I have to exercise extra beforehand.)

Sorry to blog about this so much, but I have to talk about it somewhere. Mr. Squirrel just nods and continues reading whenever the topic comes up.
Later: my silly plans for a trip to Peru.

Probably not a good morning to skip exercise.

I woke up this morning with a feeling of dread. Anyone who has had anxiety disorder can probably tell you: this sucks. It's rare for me to feel this anxious (for no reason) these days, which is the only semi-silver lining to the morning...

I should get on the exercise bike. I really should.

I think I've picked up a stomach bug.
This seems to happen without fail at the beginning of every semester, and I'm starting to think it's from being in the germ-filled college environment. I try to be careful, but damn it... every semester.

It's one of those things where I have no choice about cancelling class: if I didn't cancel, I'd be running out of the room every 10 minutes or so.

Have asked Mr. Squirrel to bring home Gatorade.

Since I've been stuck at home all morning, I've been thinking a lot about traveling. Seeing as I have this apparently touchy stomach, I was surprised when I made it through five weeks of travels with very few issues. (Okay, sure, there was one morning in Versailles that was iffy, but we'd been out drinking until the wee hours.) I was fairly adventurous, food-wise, meaning I tried as much "regional" food as possible and stayed away from the Americanized stuff... which means, obviously, some unpasteurized things, and some pretty raw stuff there and elsewhere, and all manner of dishes that I never quite figured out.*

No stomach issues.
Very few anxiety issues. (Er... one nasty day in Prague when I found a huge, bloody cut on my foot for no reason I could remember.)

So, I would obviously like to continue traveling. Lots. I would like to return to the following places, soon:
- Berlin
- Amsterdam
- Prague
- Sydney

I would also like to go to (in no particular order):
- Spain & Morocco
- Japan
- Egypt & Jordan

If I could pick any trip right now... I really have no idea what I'd choose.

Oh, few readers, where would you go?

There are times I wish this journal wasn't steeped in anonymity. Mind, that does not mean that any kind of fate should intervene and "out" me, simply that talking around issues is annoying at times.

I've been teaching summer intro. course, and while I'm unsure about how the students are liking it, I'm having some rather fascinating insights into my own relationship to the topic. Mainly, that I've taken the defensive stance both on the fact that I teach This Topic (er... I'm not your typical T-T-teacher) and on the topic itself. As in, I defend said topic, constantly.

I've also realized that I don't like the way TT is written about academically, at all. Now, there are vast numbers of books on TT that I haven't read, but I am at least vaguely familiar with a good percentage of the introductory books out there. There seems to be something seriously lacking in all of them, and I know what it is. This sudden realization has made the next two weeks of teaching a bit more approachable... since the textbooks are lacking this particular thing/connection, it gives me my "angle" for the rest of the term.

See? All that made no sense.

This is actually in response to Buzz's comment about WW, but since it ended up being too long for a comment I decided to make it a post.

I've been tracking food & exercise through another site (SparkPeople) and mostly it drives me crazy. You're supposed to make sure you're checking portions - which is fine - and noting everything... but how do people do this (there or on WW) and cook? Half the time I'm not following a recipe, so either I measure everything I use, check calories for each component, and then estimate servings for (what's still) a guess on calories per portion, or I guess from the start.

Is WW easier for this? Most of the time I'm just trying to eat sensibly, because I really can't be bothered/driven to assign calories. (Green salad + 6 cherry tomatoes + 1/2 T olive oil + vinegar + 1/2 t. soy sauce + dill = ???) I remember there's a "core" plan on WW that makes it much easier, but is it worth paying $25 a month?

Short rant: I'm already paying $24 a month for a membership at Bally's that is utterly useless as they closed my club. Apparently, even though I only signed up for one club knowing that I would never use the alternate (mall!) location, when my club closed I was required to switch my membership to the other (mall!) location. Really, that blows. If I was going to go somewhere to work out, it certainly wouldn't be THE MALL.
(/rant)

food, BPAL, and other assorted bits.

Last night I made Pad Thai for the first time, using this recipe at Chez Pim. It took awhile to find some of the ingredients (tamarind paste?) and I didn't have a proper wok, but it turned out really well. My noodles did not stick together at all, and it tasted like a proper Pad Thai.

I'll need to play around more with the sauce (more chili powder and a bit more sugar, I think, and less tamarind) and cut larger chunks of tofu, but I'm really pleased that it was far above the "edible" mark.

I also put in my largest order to date at BPAL. Large, for me, means four bottles and a pack of imps... large for some people means twenty+ bottles, I know. I wasn't going to order two of the bottles, but I couldn't resist Cancer (Wild lettuce, wild pear, chamomile, germanica orris, sweet pea, and mallow) or Mme. Moriarty (Red musk, vanilla bean, pomegranate, patchouli leaf and wild plum) this time around.

In less-positive news, I am at the two-week mark of my new exercise program and have managed to lose .4 pounds. Yes, that's less than 1/2 a pound in two weeks. Sigh. I assume part of this is my vastly increased intake of water, and part of it is a little bit of muscle-building, because I've been doing nearly an hour of good cardio every single day. I did set long-term goals for this - lose 15 pounds in about 12 weeks - but I would be happy with even 10 pounds in that time.

Still, it would be nice to see the scale move a bit, you know?