Shakira*

I'm sitting here with a little kitten in my lap. She's purring, probably because we had shrimp for dinner and she got to eat one. She's currently got a big buddha belly. She's exceptionally friendly and happy to be near people at all times, and often when she's not near people, she cries. She's becoming more and more fun to play with. It's hard to keep from smiling when you look at her. We named her Shakira*. :)

Ozzie is less happy about our new addition. That's putting it mildly. He hisses and growls and often hides in the bedroom. He went on an eating strike but that only lasted ~24 hours and then he got hungry enough to start eating again. I try to give him love whenever I can and he still sleeps with me at night so he's gonna get over it.

Maia and Shakira are friends. They even play a little! Shakira is only mostly litter box trained at the moment which means she gets to hang out on the (closed in) lanai when I am away. Yesterday I went on a field trip with Moana's class which meant I was gone most of the day. Knowing how she doesn't like to be alone, and knowing how Maia has a tendency to chew stuff up if she's left alone for too long, I put them together on the lanai. Problem solved! And now they're bonded enough to watch each other eat.

The cuts on my face are healing up well enough I think. The local athlete community here is awesome. I posted a pic of the cuts on Facebook last week and two local athletes who I don't even really know very well reached out to offer help... One rode his bike over this way and brought me some scar healing cream that he had left over from his own facial scar, and the other came over with his photon light healing machine thing... Neither of them needed to do that at all but it really was nice. Makes me continue to believe that most people are really inherently good.

Rode my bike today for a couple of hours. Sustained winds 20-30mph felt cold b/c they were coming out of the north. Cold fronts from the north can suck it! That said, it dawned on me today that I have done enough riding in the wind recently to be able to not be pissy about it at all. So that felt like a nice step forward. If riding in strong wind makes you irritable, try doing it more. Works for me anyway. I found a hill mid-way through my ride and did a few impromptu hill reps, because that seemed like a good idea. Just a short set 5x3min uphill at a mod/strong effort. Didn't feel like HR went very high but legs were working well so that was good. There was an overweight dog at one of the houses I rode by who was super excited and sprinted the length of his yard every time I rode by. That dog needed some exercise. I should have done more reps!

*I know last week I posted about our new kitten that we named Mia. We ended up re-homing Mia with her brother because as cute as they are, I didn't want 3 kittens! Shakira stole my heart so she's the lucky one who got to stay and play with the dog and eat shrimp.