second snip

tc's  hair has been growing nearly as much as he has.  it's been dangling in his eyes for a while now and it finally drove smsmh to schedule a haircut for him.  on saturday, we headed over to "a star is born" hair salon for kids.  tc was in good spirits and proceeded to charm all the stylists in the shop.

the stylist came out, draped him and put a program on the television to distract him.  i noticed it was teletubbies and immediately commented that, "oh, look, his brain is draining out of his ear!"  fortunately, tc IGNORED the television.  your non-existent beagle named mary catherine would have received more attention from him.  the stylist began snipping away and tc was having a blast with it.  he turned his head around a lot, but not so much that she couldn't make her cuts.

  the trimming continued and before too long, he was all done.  the stylist put some gel in, styled him up and took off his drape.  she spun him around in the car and presented us with the newly coifed tc, in all his handsome glory.

the rest of the photos from the haircut are up on my picasa.

and, since there IS decent training on on, but i continue to have dmitri present on my long runs, visit his site for a recap of sunday's pre-dawn run, complete with pretty pictures.

tidbits

so much to write about, so little time!  so, i'll just hit the highlights with a paragraph apiece.

first off, i ran some new trails last week.  i mapped out a decent 16 miler through laguna coast, starting from a new location in the hopes that i'd have a new route to take members of the socal trail headz on.  early into the run, though, one of the main trails had about a 2 mile section that was protected land.  i continued on through that section, simply because to turn around and skirt it meant adding double digit extra miles.  well, on the return back to my car, the fuzz found me.  fortunately i was able to talk my way out of it and didn't get fined or arrested.  that scratches a great possibility for a loop off of my list of routes, though.  this section, though, IS legal and some of the finest single track in so. orange county.  sorry about the quality (keep reading, it'll change soon!).

second, we were invited to have dinner over at dmitri place on sunday.  we were treated to a fantastic evening with great company (we were outnumbered by the russians present!), a plethora of AMAZING and healthy dishes, loads of stuffed animals and a new table game from switzerland.  the meal was phenominal...bean salad, pesto/caper/olive spread, broccoli salad and the main dish, jamacian chicken with sweet potatos accompanied by cantelope and pineapple.  dood.  yum.  thanks dmitri and irina!

thirdly, i was tagged by dmitri with one of those silly internet memes.  come up with a six word memoir?  okay, how about, "laughs at poop and always smiles".

finally, and this may take more than one paragraph, i was selected as part of a marketing/testing push by a prominent trail shoe company who is partnering with a prominent mobile phone company (the connection will make sense eventually).  part of the marketing angle is to have the participants select a challenge based on their fitness level and use the blog to tell stories about the training and the actual event. 

well, this presented the perfect opportunity for something i've been wanting to do for quite some time.  my challenge is to run mt. whitney.  the exact route is still a little up in the air, but i'm thinking of starting at the campground just before the road heads up to the whitney portal, run to the summit and then come down the mountaineer's route.  i've been up the main trail once and up the mountaineers route twice, so i'm familiar with the whole loop.  i think it'll be BLAST.  but, now i'm on the hook for it.  that means lots of training runs up and down san jacinto and san gorgonio.  weee!  stay tuned for an update on the challenge and on the products i'll be using.

herd it through the grapevine

stockton, oh stockton.  you never cease to bring adventure, intrigue and drama.  some cowboy should write a song about you.  let me get one thing off my chest and then i'll dive into the story about my trail adventure.

in the history of hotel management have the words, "hey, let's let a live band play in the atrium bar until 1:30am" ever resulted in happy guests?

okay.  the run.  21stcenturymom made a suggestion about mt. diablo or del valle regional park for a decent trail run.  checking the map and making note of the time i had available, del valle seemed the better choice.  so, after a lousy night's sleep (see above paragraph), i was up at 5 and on my way to the park.  i found the parking lot okay, but realized that the parking meter only took ones and instead of a parking fee of $6, i only had to pay $2.  i had a $5 and a $1.  oops.  back into town i drove, split my $5 and headed back to the parking lot. 

by this time, the sky had lightened a bit, and i could see hillside after hillside of vinyards.  ooh.  pretty!  i had no idea what the route would end up offering, but if i was going to run through vinyards, that was okay by me.  back at the parking lot, i discovered that the parking meter was actually broken and i didn't need to feed it cash after all.  i stuck my two $1's under the wind shield wiper and headed off.

from what i could see in the dim light and overcast sky, the route wound up a HUGE hill and off into rolling hills.  no vinyards, but beautiful, oak dotted, green hills.  i climbed the monster in the first mile and was greeted with a view of a long valley, flanked by steep rolling hills and filled with a serene, glassy lake.  i was kicking myself for not bringing the camera.

i cruised along the trail, following the shore line and climbing up and down the spurs that dropped down into the lake.  around mile four, i rounded a corner and was greeted by a couple cows.  ooh!  cows!  moo, cow, moo!  i slipped into thunderclap speak and began telling the cows things they already knew.  "you say moo!"  "you give milk!"  "you're a hamburger!"

i slowed to a walk so as not to disturb their early morning grazing.  what i didn't notice, though, was that on one side of the trail was a black calf happily munching on the grass and on the other side of the trail was her now agitated mother.  momma took a couple steps toward me and moo'ed loudly.  i stopped.  she took another step toward me and moo'ed again.  the other cows on the hillside were now all looking and began responding with their own moo's.  oh dear. 

i went off trail and tried to walk wide around the mom/baby combo, but she would have none of it and continued to take steps toward me and moo loudly every time i moved.  the other cows were now joining in with a cacophony of moo's and i thought for sure that at any moment the bull was going to show up and i'd be in real trouble.  now, i'm not afraid of cows, per se, but if it's me vs. a heifer, i think i'm going to loose just on basic physics.  so, i made the wise choice.

i slowly backed away up the trail and waited for a hiker i had passed on the last climb.  when he showed up, the two of us made a united front and walked bravely toward the momma.  fortunately, she trotted across the trail, gathered up her calf and moved up the hillside, letting us pass.

i continued on the run, and only ran into a couple more cows, none of which presented any issues.  the route wound through oak groves, up and down hills, down into coves and up onto bluffs overlooking the lake.  the morning, aside from the bovine adventure, was fantastic.  the legs were a little wiped, most likely because i was just plain tired, but the hills, the trees, the lake, the birds, yes, even the cows, made that a faint niggle in the back of my mind.

thanks for the suggestion, 21st!  i'm sure i'll be back if i'm ever subjected to stockton, oh stockton again.