Weekend Update

Jay en route to Boston. He takes his flying seriously.

Jay left today for a 3-day business trip to Boston and I miss him already because he's a great guy to have around. But I'm glad to have some Kristin time, too. I don't have very much time to myself since I work too much for The Man -- I mean, The Giraffe. And when I'm not working, Jay and I do lots of stuff together. I'm one of those people who enjoys being alone sometimes, and I can fill my time with a hundred and one fun projects. And I'm reminded now of a Cowboy Junkies song about "liking the extra two feet in my bed", with my bed partner being gone. Because when it's hot like this, I can be pretty cranky at night when I wake up sweating to death and I huff and I puff and I make my discomfort known and I throw the covers all around. Jay always asks me if I'm okay and puts up with it like a real trouper. I'm a very lucky girl.

Anyway, since Jay was leaving today, we made sure to get plenty of fun in the sun in yesterday. First, we went for our Saturday morning walk. We walk a few miles, and Jay runs at the track mid-way. Yesterday, I actually jogged a little too. I used to run mile after mile after mile down the California coast, not that long ago. Then all the running destroyed the IT bands in my legs, and that's all she wrote. Then I got a stress fracture in my foot. So from time to time I try to start jogging again, oh so slowly. I only jogged 1 mile yesterday, but man did it feel good!




Then we were off to the movies. We saw the new Narnia movie, whatever it's called. It's not even worth going and getting the name of the movie. Jay gave it one yawn and I gave it three. Later, realizing that I was going to report his feelings on the movie in my blog, Jay attempted to upgrade his rating to a 9 out of 10, rather than one yawn, but I didn't let him.

I fell asleep somewhere during the two hour sword fight. Really, two hours of bad sword fighting. Who thought that sounded like a great idea for a movie? Besides Michele. I'm assuming the book was more interesting and informative. Because at some point these kids had lived for 1300 years and I missed it in the movie.




After that two and a half hours that I'd really like back, we went to the Portland Rhododendron Gardens. I have to say that Oregon, and specifically Portland, is a really beautiful place. It's just endless green and flowers right now and Jay is probably sick to death of hearing me talk about it. It just couldn't be more beautiful right now and I'm very happy about that.




The Rhododendron Gardens are a massive park filled with rhododendrons, obviously, duck ponds, waterfalls, long paths, ducks and geese who fight a lot and who thus provide much entertainment, and a golf course next door.

Jay was a great blogger helper and took lots of pictures of me. I'm not terribly photogenic, AT ALL, and Jay is getting really good at working around that. He knows that I am going to critique and find something wrong with every picture taken of me, so he has learned to say, " stand up straight, close your eyes a little, stop looking bug-eyed, suck in your gut..., no, suck it in more, hold up your face so some of your chins go away, you're still bugging your eyes...", etc. I really appreciate that because it makes it possible for us to get a half way decent photo of me and move on.

Jay, on the other hand, is very photogenic. And handsome. And wearing long sleeves.

So we wandered around there for about an hour till we wore ourselves out and we were sporting lovely, glowing sheens.

Here's the shirt and me, after some fine photo direction from Jay

I caught an elusive shot of Jay doing some rock climbing

Jay resting after his big climb

Oh, one last thing. Jay found me some Smokers Toes Nicotine Patches. I wore them for two weeks, and my toes are once again beautiful. Just so ya know.