A few weeks ago, I ordered a 50lb weight vest. I need it to start preparing for the CPAT, the firefighter physical fitness exam, which I am taking this fall. The CPAT looks like a bear, particularly for me. It consists of 10 activities on a timed obstacle course, while you wear a 50lb vest. There is also a 3-minute stair climb, where you have to wear a 75lb vest. The activities are mostly things like carrying heavy objects (in addition to the vest) and maneuvering other unwieldy things like hoses, dummies, and chainsaws. You can watch a (tediously long) video of everything you need to do during the test here. In addition to my first of all needing to get strong enough to wear the freaking vest, I’m thinking leg strength, arm strength, core strength and grip strength are all things I need to ramp up.

Now, it may come as no surprise to you but over the past few months I have been *much* more focused on EMT, school, and work than worrying about fitness. And, I have to admit, I’ve kind of enjoyed it, but known the whole time in the back of my head that sooner or later I’d have to ditch the junkfood and lazy lifestyle recommit myself to fitness. Sure, I’ve jogged with the dog and even gone on a few bike rides, but that’s about it. When I received this box on my doorstep yesterday:

It was a 50lb wake up call. Oof! I could barely carry it upstairs to our apartment. And, I’m supposed to run an obstacle course with this thing on?! Aye. I have a LOT of work to do. And a lot of strength to gain.
I’ve noticed that even at work, it could help me to gain some strength. Things like lifting the gurney and heavy patients- I think you’re almost safer if you are stronger, because then you aren’t straining to hurt yourself. Also, getting in and out and in and out of the rig- that is like doing repeated deep lunges! (Something I discovered on the day my FTO assigned me to restock a rig completely from scratch).
Sooo… it’s time to get back at it. I’m working with a few athletically-minded friends to put together a program and then BOOM- starting this Saturday, consider the hammer dropped.

My current goals:
1.) Overall fitness
2.) GAIN STRENGTH (needed for work as EMT and also for upcoming firefighter exam)
3.) Pass the CPAT
4.) Lose weight
5.) Signed up for this half-marathon at the end of October
6.) Be able to do 100 pushups, per this plan

Sooo…. The schedule I am fleshing out involves lifting three times a week, speedwork at the track 1x a week, a long run, a long bike, and a few other runs and bikes smattered in. Also, I’m going to start wearing the weight vest a few mornings when I walk/jog Linus and I’ll walk him up a bunch of hills and maybe do some stairs runs with it on. Maybe I can convince Linus and Earl to come cheerlead me again to the Vulcan Stairway every other week (or the stadium) for some stair repeats!

The weight vest is pretty neat. It’s a bunch of these weighted bags:

which you stuff into the pre-sewn pockets on the vest like so:

and then the final product looks like this:

You know what’s crazy? I am so weak right now, I don’t even think I can pick up the weight vest and put it safely on my head! I can barely pick it up, period! I wanted to try it on and take some modeling pictures of you (because I am sure it looks completely ridiculous on! ), however because I don’t feel strong enough lifting it over my head at this point… going to have to wait for assistance to get home tonight (Earl) and then I will.
You know what else I am doing tonight? I’m going to don just shorts and a sports bra and dun, dun, DUN have Earl take a “Before” pic, to document my fitness journey over the next few months as I embark on my strength training program.
I’m sure I’ll feel a tad self-conscious wearing this bad boy out on the streets of San Francisco to train, but hey… it’s something I’ll have to get over. And anyways, I’m the type of person who feels self-conscious a lot of the time just working out in public, period. So wearing a strange-looking thick black vest won’t really effect the “Hello, I am a huge doofus” factor much anyways! I’m thinking maybe I should take out half or 3/4 of the weights to start, and kind of work my way up over the next few weeks.
Totally exciting stuff! I’ve never *really* set out training specifically for sheer strength & fitness before, so I am eager to get started and see some results. Are you ready for a much more Bad Assery Courtney?!

While apartment hunting today, Linus attempted to navigate this staircase in a potential apartment. It was a failure… he got about halfway up and gave up! He wouldn’t even go up for a TREAT at the top- we needed to pick him up and carry him. Evidently, corgi legs do not work well on steep spiral staircases.

So much for that place! Kind of a bummer, too, because it was big (huge closets!) and affordable. However, if the dog can’t make it from the kitchen/living room to the bedroom (the bedroom & patio were down at the bottom of the staircase), that’s a dealbreaker.

For those of you who were asking what Buddy was at the vet for- he had been itching like crazy, and we couldn’t find any fleas on him. So we took him in and the vet thought he had fleas, so he was treated with Advantage. Then he was STILL itching two days later, so he was given a steroid shot. The vet said it’s probably allergies. The shot worked and thankfully Linus is back to his happy-go-lucky, non-itchy, non-spiral staircase navigating self.

The nice man at the vet gave me this!

Oh boy, oh boy!

Between the laptop getting fixed, the car breaking down, and the dog needing to go to the vet TWICE… it’s been one of “those” weeks…. hitting us hard in the psyche and the wallet. Plus raining or foggy here every single day this week! Blegh. Can I go back to bed now?

Do you know how nerve-wracking this is, mailing this thing out??

Like, are they going to fix it? Is it ever going to come back? How long is it going to take?
I love how HP just sends you the box with no other information, so you’re just sending it off into space… trusting them that it will be fixed and sent back to you. ::fret, fret::

Also, unrelated, but here was the highlight of my day taking the bus out to pick up the (newly radiated!) Jeep from the shop, a green-apple milk tea with tapiocas:

Whuttaday.

We embarked on an ambitious, mega apartment hunting mission this morning.  After only the second of eleven showings, our Jeep overheated and died. We were in the section of San Francisco called Portola.  The morning had been going smoothly- we had checked out a loft and explored the Portrero Hill neighborhood a bit- found a dog park, had coffee at a nice cafe and chatted up a few locals about how they liked living there.  Our itinerary had us seeing a bunch of different apartments while working our way down the Peninsula- next was Portola, then San Bruno, then Burlingame, San Mateo, and Belmont.  Finally, we had plans to head over to Half Moon Bay to meet up with our friends Don and Lianne, who were having a beachhouse BBQ that evening.

Well, showings were canceled as we found ourselves stranded and a funky smell coming out of the hood.  Fortunately, there was a service station right around the corner, so we got the Jeep over there to be worked on.

An hour into the diagnosis, we learn she needs a new radiator… which they told us they could do today, but would take a cool FOUR HOURS and cost $500.  Not having any other real option (Jeep was there, was dead, couldn’t be driven anywhere else!), we gave the go-ahead, called to cancel the rest of our day, and set in to wait it out.  Linus was with us; most landlords prefer to meet the pooch to ensure he’s under weight limits and well-behaved.  This seems to usually works in our favor as our friendly woofster tends to charm the socks off of ‘em.

First, we killed time with a leisurely brunch at Breakfast at Tiffany’s, a cute little greasy spoon with some sker-umptious hash browns.   Then we headed to McLaren Park for the bulk of the wait. We played around with Linus, who was overjoyed for so much playtime- from his perspective the day was going splendidly!  Earl and I both read the local rag of a paper to death (oh, what I would have done for a fresh off the press early edition of the Sunday Times), then whiled away the time rooting for different sides in a shirts v. skins volleyball game (go Team Skins!) and scheming various ways to blend in and crash an extended Asian family’s picnic/BBQ.

Earl became really grumpy because we accidentally sat in sap. The stump I selected looked so enticing for a sit, however we both ended up covered in a sticky mess of sap all over our thighs and butts.  Even Linus had sap all over his rear and belly, because he had cozied up to us on the stump!  I didn’t really care because I was wearing yoga pants- Earl, however was in a pair of nicer work pants.  Immediately post sap-butt incident, I inadvertently navigated us through a giant swampy field, so our feet and ankles became soaked and muddy.  This did nothing to help my cause.

We took ourselves on a mini walking tour of Portola (some pretty cute houses, then some MAJOR dumps!), then soothed our aggravated souls with some refreshing, delicious bubble teas from the Asian portion of San Bruno Ave.  I theorize that my timely suggestion of bubble teas absolved me a bit from the sapping and the swamping.

Back at the mechanics, the Jeep was *still* not ready.  Nerves frayed and totally bored, we sat on a bench outside the shop amusing ourselves snapping silly-face photos of Linus.

I submit the following photo essay titled, Dog Earns Keep Entertaining Stranded, Bored, Broke, Sappy and Swampy Family:

About fifty minutes later, we learn they CANNOT replace the radiator today because it turned out a certain part that connects the radiator was cracked- they don’t have a replacement part and can’t order it from the parts store because the parts shop closed an hour ago (@#E$#@#!!!). Sooo… after all that waiting, the car’s not ready anyway and won’t be until Monday. Huzzah, we hopped on a Muni bus and found our way back to the city. We actually had a take a few different buses to get all the way home; it was quite the adventure. Another exciting thing for Linus. He got lots of attention on the bus lines and lots of pets.

So all in all, pretty exhausting and unproductive day! Between being towed and now this debacle, it’s been an expensive month to own a Jeep.

Discovered this morning during acoustic sunrise on KFOG. What a sweet song! Sung from the perspective of a dashing dachshund, but I venture he boasts many corgish similarities. However, I imagine if Linus were to ever author a song, his sentiments would be far more excitable (a la Dug) and much less… distinguished than Sir Dixie here.

The lyrics are great, too:

I'm a tiny dog named Dixie
    I have small feet which pitter patter on the linoleum floor, you can hear my toenails in the middle of the night
    My tag says I belong to the Johnsons, but they don't own me, they just feed me, they just bought me one day
    No one owns me, I'm Dixie the tiny dog

And in the middle of the day I sit in the sun and I hear young children call me a weiner dog, perhaps that's what I am
    The Germanic term is dachshund, and I like that
    I'm thin and I'm proud and no one can make fun of me
    I can slip through the bars of a prison if I were ever incarcerated, but I don't know what I would do wrong
    My body yields no evil inclination, I'm a pure weiner dog

My name is Dixie, and I go dancing 'cross the floor in the evening of the Johnsons when everyone is sleeping
    Sometimes I look for a morsel of food, but they're so clean they're almost anal-retentive in their cleanliness habits and there's nothing for me
    But I don't despair

Because I know tomorrow my Gaines Burgers will be there, and they will unwrap the plastic from them and then feed me this succulent dish, and I will eat
    And oh, I've watched the German Shepherds with their long necks, their graceful necks, dipping into the toilet to drink whenever they want to have a drink of cool water in that well
    But I must plead, I must beg, I must whine for Mr. Johnson to put out my bowl, or one of the Johnson boys to refill it after I drink it, because I'm Dixie the dog and I like water

And in the middle of the night you can see me dancing a small Fred Astaire tap dance, with my little toenails
    They go click click click against the linoleum, and I run down the hall and I slide
    And the back of my goes in front of me...slowly
    I'm long and I'm thin, I'm Dixie the tiny dog and I like it. 

She’s comin along!  D’ya like how it’s actually Linus now up at the top?    That is one of my favorite photos of him ever taken, from the top of Bald Cap Mountain in New Hampshire, which Earl and I hiked with visiting my parent’s North Conway home.  You can see the whole photo (and TR) from that gorgeous trip here.

Real launch should be ready soon, and boy and I excited.  We are getting there!

Hey look!  My first paycheck from my new EMT job!  Whooo

Unfortunately, at $9 an hour, even though I worked 105 freaking hours, the total amount is a bit of a laughable.    It’s a bit of a stab in the heart to look at that and think it’s not even 1/4 of my old private equity paychecks!  But still- this is a very proud moment for me, signifying my hard work and career change is starting to pay off!  (heh, pun intended).

So, with my new lower-income bracket status, it was time for Earl and I to sit down this weekend and have a serious, Kitchen Table Talk (did you know all Serious Talks should happen at the kitchen table?  Preferably after a yummy homecooked meal).  So, on Sunday night,  after chowing some farmer’s market baked chicken with sauteed mushrooms and rosemary-olive oil roasted potatoes, that’s what we did.

We sat down and crunched out a comprehensive monthly and yearly budget.  We had sort of just been going with the flow, and I think we were a tad used to our former dual-income, high-fallutin style, Manhattan lives.  It even showed in our choice of apartments out here in San Francisco.  Right now we pay about $3000 a month to live in an absolutely gorgeous place, right on the park, in a ritzy neighborhood, gorgeous historic building with our own garage, storage spot, fireplace, yadda yadda.  The problem is, we shouldn’t!  We need to be saving money each month- it would be nice to have a few months of living expenses saved up and particularly have an emergency fund for things like freak vet appointments and when I am an idiot and get the car towed.  I also want to start putting money away for Christmas presents and travel to see family (living on the opposite side of the country as my family thing comes with it’s own financial cross).  Then we have massive school expenses in our future, as Earl hopes to start taking some PhD level math/statistics classes at either Stanford or Berkeley, and of course the USS Ceej is currently embarked on a neverending progression of school, which started when I registered for my EMT Course.  Quickly approaching on my horizon:  Phlebotomy Technician training —> Paramedic school —> ongoing post-bacc classes —> 4 years of med school.

Earl is also hoping to get ski passes this year and go in with some of our friends on a ski house in Tahoe.  Plus I’d like to be able to afford to register for some running races and perhaps even Ironman St. George for next year.  Oy.  All these things which, with the lifestyle we’re living now, just aren’t in the financial cards.

So, as much as it’s a tough lump to swallow, we’ve decided to move out of our cushy digs and into something more reasonable.  And get this- we might even move outside of the city to doso!  Can you believe it??!?!?  Crazy, I know.  Particularly for Earl, who regards the suburbs with sheer disdain.  But, we decided the sacrifice would be worth it as we re-build our bank accounts.  My biggest requirements for wherever we move to is that it has access to somewhere nice to walk Linus every day and… this is such an unnecessary perk but I am going to try and aim for it… I’d really like to find a place with a patio.  I miss our mega-NYC patio sooo much, primarily as a place to grow plants and herbs, and park it outside to read the paper and drink coffee.

With that said, the apartment hunt begins now.  Oh, what a rat-race, apartment hunting.    And foreseeing what a mega pain it is to move, we undertake this task without much enthusiasm, but do think we made the right decision.

I’ve pointed out some very fat rescue corgis on this blog before.  (Speaking of, Debbie… how is Princess doing?  Could you fill us in please?  Does she still need donations for water therapy?)

When helping out a reader who kindly posted yesterday looking for a rescue corgi, I came across yet another severely overweight corgi girl who looks like she could use some help, a diet overhaul, and LOTS of exercise and love.

Meet Puppy.  When Puppy was given up by her family to rescue, she was a massive 53.2 lbs!  That’s an insane amount of weight for a dog who should be under 30lbs!  Poor thing.  However, with the help and love of her rescue organization, she’s already down to 42.4 lbs.  I wonder if they have her on the infamous “green bean diet.”  Also, sounds like she’s been going for walks and has worked her way up to 60 yards per day.  Could you imagine your dog being so obese that he or she could ONLY walk 60 yards before exhaustion?!?

Yet again, I am appalled at how people can let their dogs get up to these weights.  Just demonstrates such massive negligence, and poor stewardship of their pooch’s health.  ::shakes head::

Fortunately, in Puppy’s case, it sounds like she is in loving hands for the time being, and is also looking for a wonderful Forever Home.  Could that be you?  Here are some photos of this sweetheart:

Look at that fantastic corgi smile!

I’ve emailed Puppy’s rescue family to see if she could use some donations to help with water therapy classes, like we did with Princess.  In the meantime, I encourage you to check out her ad on Petfinder, and also think if you know anyone willing to adopt this gorgeous (but chunky!) sweetie.  Will post any updates, if I get them, asap.

More airlines embracing pets!

Guess who might be coming to visit Grandma and Grandpa in North Carolina soon

In other news, we had some drama with San Francisco Animal Control today.  Earl and I were out walking Linus, having just come from the dog park and were headed to the marketplace to pick up some fresh ingredients for dinner.  We stopped to pet/let Linus sniff an English Bulldog Terrier (so cute!) and the owner told us about an injured dog he found down the street in front of a building.  Earl and I walked over and saw the dog, who had a big collar on and had stitches on his left hip sitting alone on the sidewalk outside of a nice home.  The dog was panting pretty hard and seemed sick/exhausted.  We asked some people walking out of one of the fancy Victorians if it was their dog, and they told us no, but they thought it might be one of their neighbor’s.  So I got on the phone and called Animal Control and waited with the dog while Earl walked to the market to get it some water.

Animal Control showed up extremely quickly (wow!) and the guy was amazingly friendly and helpful.  He told us he just came from Golden Gate Park where he helped a parakeet that was tied up in fishing wire.  Animal Control ran the dog’s tag license # and the report came back that this dog’s name was Charlie, and his tag had been run several times before for being loose and out on the streets and in traffic alone.  Poor guy!

They found out what house he belonged to, and brought him home.  Apparently the owner gave the Animal Control officer a bunch of sass (told him he knew his boss, was going to get him fired if he wrote him up, blah blah) and was very threatening, so when Earl and I were walking on our way back from groceries, he took a report from us and grabbed our contact information.

What a bummer the owners didn’t even seem that concerned their dog was out wandering the streets!  Hopefully since Animal Control is involved now, at least it’s been documented a bunch of times that the dog is loose.    We were talking to some other neighbors out walking their dogs at the time (a bit of a crowd had gathered when the dog owner was arguing with the Animal Control officer), and it turns out the dog’s owner is apparently a DOG WALKER!  Man.  I wouldn’t want anyone who neglects their own dog that much to have stewardship of my dog.  What a screwed up situation.