Crazy Cat Lady

Guys…The cat tumor is back.

Yup, that’s right. After months of joking around about it, we finally suited up and actually got a kitten. We also learned that this now makes us “pet parents,” as the term owner is apparently an antiquated faux-paw (HA!). 

Anyway, our kitten’s name is Hatch, and this is the story about how I fell in love.

I actually stumbled upon Hatch by accident. I was doing some research for one of the after-school groups I lead—as our students had been largely interested in working with animals. So, I scoured the net to find local shelters that might need some volunteers, and landed on a sort of matchmaking website for animals and their potential new human companions. I came across kitty dearest’s picture at that point, and noted how cute she was. But I carried forth, trying to keep myself zeroed in on the professional task at hand. It was difficult—like trying to resist mountains of cakes and pies in your periphery when you know you should focus on the plate of celery in front of your face. I mean, who can resist pages upon pages full of kittens?!?!

It wasn’t until I returned to the website for supplemental research a few weeks later that I came across this particular cat again. I couldn’t believe she was still available. I mean, don’t people have eyes?!?! She’s freaking adorable! I think it’s safe to say that my research quickly, though quietly, turned from professional to personal at that point. I know it sounds totally lame and too romantic for most, but I just knew in my gut that the cat on my screen was mycat. It’s weird to describe. I just knew it.

So I went home that night to show le boyfriend. In his defense—as I came home quite frequently pining for some animal—he didn’t take me too seriously at first. At least until two hours later, when I couldn’t stop talking about her or staring at her profile picture. Yes, she had a PROFILE on this website. So we agreed that the next day (Friday), I would contact the foster family to get more information.

Well, things move quickly when fate is at hand. By Saturday, le boyfriend and I were on our way to a local pet store to meet the kitty and see if our purrsonalities (HA!) worked well together. Within 5 minutes, we knew she was our girl. But that didn’t stop us from staying another hour to oogle over her and play around. In a heartbreaking twist of timing, we decided to not take Hatch that day—mainly because we would be gone the entire following weekend for our race and didn’t want to leave her alone so soon after bringing her home.

The race came and went—and was awesome—and the next day, we had a kitten staring up at us from our living room floor. Talk about a busy 24 hours! She’s been here for three weeks, now, and I think we are starting to get the hang of each other.

Notable things about Hatch: she’s approximately 6 months old, she is a Manx (no tail), and she also hops like a bunny. Additionally, Hatch is a rescue kitty. She was born on an Amish farm in Kentucky, as they breed Manx cats due to their affinity for hunting barn critters. Her litter was born with a “defect” of sorts—the technical term, due to my debatably creepyinternet sleuthing capabilities, is sacrococcygeal dysgensis. Basically, where “typical” cats have a space between their sacrum and tailbones, Hatch and her siblings do not. The result is a “hopping” effect, where both legs act in unison, rather than having individual range of motion. Alas, a batch of magical kitty bunnies!!!

Anyway, the Amish must not have found this ideal for resale to local farmers, so Hatch’s litter was turned over to a high-kill shelter in Kentucky. Thankfully, one of the numerous animal foster homes up here in CT rescued Hatch and her siblings from this shelter, and cared for them until their “forever homes” could be located. That’s our cue…

Another cool thing is that Hatch is learning how to fetch. Her favorite toy is now known as “Purple String,” and is actually a wedding favor from a friend’s nuptials. She loves to chase after it, catch it, and drag it back to a particular spot on the living room carpet. It’s pretty awesome. Now, we’re teaching her how to get Purple String out of boxes of various heights, enclosed spaces, and how to jump down with it from high places. She does so rather…um…uniquely. She doesn’t have great balance due to her legs, but she sure makes up for it in zeal. I would have put a video up of her sweet skills, but every time I got the camera out to record, she would just lie on the floor posing. Diva.

Anyway, I tell you all of this for two reasons:
1.            I have always been a crazy cat lady. Only now, I finally have the cat to legitimize it.

2.            It’s really shaking things up around here.

Life has been shifting in attempt of finding a new balance around these parts recently. Which means my typical “wake up, gym, rinse, work, sleep, repeat” routine is also in transition. While I love having Hatch here, and it feels like she’s been here the whole time, I’m finding it hard to find a “new normal.”  I didn’t realize how packed my days were with “selfish” stuff until she came around. The biggest shake up has been my gym schedule.

Getting the workouts in has been personally difficult. I feel guilty waking up and rushing out to the gym now, because I know that Hatch wants some love and some play time. Then, I feel bad going to the gym straight from work, because Hatch has been alone all day. Honestly, I don’t know how parents of humans do it, because I’ve found it difficult to leave her cute, smushy self for long during this adjustment period. And when I am gone, I wonder if it is for too long, if she is lonely, or if she has completely wrecked the house in protest. I don’t know, maybe these are hints that my deeply buried maternal instincts are actually alive and well…

It’s gotten slightly easier over the last week. Largely because I have come to my senses and realized that just as I am adjusting to Hatch’s schedule, she’s adjusting to mine. Also, no matter how much I personify the cat, I don’t think the extra hour I am gone for a gym trip is really eating her up inside. Hatch probably enjoys the extra nap time, relishing the quiet until her crazy ass human comes back wanting to cuddle and make up terribly constructed songs about her goings-on of the day. Poor creature—she must have done something horribly wrong in a previous life to be stuck with the likes of me.

Suffice it to say, things are changing over here. But it’s all good things. We still might be searching for our new normal, but there sure are some good views along the way…

Day Two: Hatch has yet to develop a healthy disdain of humans.

Day Twenty: Play dead and the humans will ignore you.

This is how Hatch lies down almost always. Wuddup, seal?

The day she learned there was a whole other world under the couches.

About to enjoy nap #3 of the day. It's only 1pm.

The Rugged Maniac Report

Well, it's come and gone just like that! My first running race over in a flash!

Three Sundays ago now, myself and four friends trekked to the middle of nowhere Massachusetts to try our hands in the Rugged Maniac. I can't believe it has taken me so long to write this up. Short version of the story: It. Was. Awesome!!!

The Rugged Maniac falls within in the "mud run" category. More specifically, it's a 5K on a motocross track, packed with 25 obstacles, lots of dirt and goo, and relentless hills to slow you down before you get your beer--we all know that's the main motivator here.

Now obviously, when you're a part of the team, you need a really kick ass name for yourselves. You will in no way understand why (inside joke), but we decided to call ourselves CatCorps. It was equal parts hilarious and ferocious. Furthermore, each of us had a name and duty to serve for the team. We had Captain Meow Meow: motivation; Colonel Scratch & Sniff: reconnaissance; Sabertooth: lightning speed; Sergeant Liger: brute strength; and Feral Stray: amoral survivalist. Due to some severe underplanning, we did not have costumes/team uniforms (next time), but we DID have two main objectives:

1. We are here for the fun and the experience. That being said, our time does not matter, let's just not kill ourselves or each other along the way. 
2. Beat "DogCorps" (a fellow racing team with dogs on their shirts who had no idea we had targeted them as our natural foe). A little friendly competition is healthy, no?

CatCorps Pre-Race: The Claws Are Out

Due to our hungry appetites and subsequent pre-race fueling, we got to the course with barely enough time to make our heat--a 12:30pm start time. When I say barely, I mean, once we were registered and checked our bag, we had to hurdle over the "prep wall" obstacle into the gate. Our last team member jumped the wall just as the start gun went off.  Fortunately, this means there wasn't really enough time for me to psych myself out or worry too much about what was about to come. It was game time! We left the gate at the back of the pack, and slowly made our way to the middle of the racers by the first obstacle--a set of two 4.5 feet walls. Let the bruises begin!

Part One: CatCorps Climbs
The first half of the race consisted of dry climbing, jumping, and crawling elements. There were a TON of walls we had to climb--most were about least two stories high and straight verticals, and a few of them required a leg-up from your teammates. So, for over a mile, we were scaling makeshift walls and pyramids, crawling through black-out tunnels, leaping over series of trenches, and balancing up/down diagonal beams and logs. All while running up and down hills. Luckily, CatCorps paced itself nicely, so we still had lots of gas in the tank for...

Part Two: CatCorps Swims
By mid-way through the race, everything changed, and we found ourselves in almost consistent water/mud obstacles. Most of the elements in this section involved trudging and/or crawling. There was a pool at the bottom of a hill we got to launch ourselves into then slosh out of. There were steep drops into mud pits. There were barbed wires with nothing but mud and rocks underneath that we had to army crawl through. There were uphill tunnels coated in mud that you needed to pull yourself up with a rope. There was even a giant slide leading down into a pool of dirty, dirty water. And then you got to jump over fire! Talk about epic! This part of the course felt like my wheelhouse. I've always been one for getting my hands dirty, and after all, you come to a mud run to get really disgusting. I was right at home.

Cats love water.

Barbed Wire Incline Crawl

Part Three: CatCorps Rehydrates
When we hit the finish line, we immediately got our team photo taken and hit the beer tent--priorities, people. That said, we totally forgot to look at the race clock to catch our finish time.  Our best guess was that we came in just around the 65 minute mark, but we weren't wearing timing chips (not "competing," remember?) so we'll never know for sure. I kind of like it better that way--your first race should be about the experience, right? Plus, we met our two objectives. We didn't kill ourselves or each other, and we totally burned "DogCorps" after the first obstacle.

CatCorps Post-Race: The Claws Are Still Out

So here I am, having earned a sweet t-shirt, a whole lot of bruises, and a bunch of great memories. After a few days/weeks to think about it, here's how I've processed my first running race:

• Favorite obstacles: army craw under barbed wire; mud tubes. To get through these obstacles quickly, you literally had to use your whole body. After so much running, it felt great to incorporate my arms, back, and abs into the mix. Not to mention, I felt pretty bad ass racing through the mud with all hands on deck in terms of muscle demand. I imagine this feeling is akin to being a really dirty, newborn gazelle.
• Surprise struggle: ANY balance obstacle. These varietals totally kicked my butt psychologically. Namely the incline/decline logs and narrow beam over a water pit. I learned I have a totally irrational fear of falling into things. I don't mind at all falling onto the ground--especially from a standing height. I do THAT all the time. However, falling to a 6-foot deep trench or pool of dirty water where I can't see the bottom=anxiety attack and an uncompleted obstacle. Due to this game-day surprise realization, I had to outright skip one obstacle (beam over water), and tried, but did not complete two (trench jump, incline/decline logs). Major bummer town. I think with a little bosu ball/balance beam work for stability and focus, I'll be able to own these elements next time!!!
• Surprise strength: running endurance, strength preparedness. Believe it or not, I had TONS of gas left in the tank after we crossed the finish line--and I felt like I could successfully do the whole course over again. My muscles weren't fatigued, and I felt like I had barely run at all. Yay for running/strength training plans AND distractions--like mud slides and barbed wire.

This race was such a blast, and I'd totally recommend it--or any mud race--to anyone for a few reasons: First, it's always awesome to be a part of a team and a participant in the race community/culture. Second, I learned a lot about myself as an individual athlete (and person). Third, it gave me a chance to appreciate my training efforts and progress. And last, but most importantly, we all need more opportunities to just let loose, not take ourselves too seriously, and play.

Mud for the win!

My Sweet T-Shirt.