An Unexpected Visitor; A Tough Decision Is Made

Hello everyone!

It's been a weird week.  I felt like I made a big dent in my sleep deficit last weekend with the holiday and all, then slept poorly all week.  Some of it was from a couple of late nights but most were from hitting that point of exhaustion where you end up too wired to sleep.

One of the late nights was from the latest in the Broadway Across Portland series:  Rock of Ages!  What a blast.  If you get the chance to see it, do.  Particularly if you are like me and was in high school in the '80s.  Extremely cheesy and fairly raunchy, it was a fabulous show.  Even though it seems like I'm always feeling off physically whenever a show rolls around, I am so glad I became a season subscriber.  For the upcoming arts season my calendar is pretty full between season tickets for the opera, ballet, and the Broadway series.  Plus there are a few other theatre companies in town that have shows I'd like to catch. 

Friday started early because of a work thing and I was already running on fumes since despite going to bed by around nine the prior evening I could not sleep.  I had some time to burn off at the office so I left a little before four and that night took an extra hit of sleep meds.  Finally got a good night's sleep and even woke up by nine -- very early for me on a weekend.  Part of why I was up so early was the Kitty Crazies; after an hour of being the launching pad and/or wrestling arena as I tried to sleep I gave up and got up and let them go out on the deck to get the rest of their ya yas out.  Was surfing the net and just generally lounging around when girl kitty came in, all spooked.  Like, I couldn't even get her to make eye contact spooked.  It was clear it was something from outside. 

I followed her into the den and picked her up to soothe her, just generally humoring her because what could be so scary from the wetlands?  A really big duck?  I'm cuddling her as I head towards the window and saying just that, "What's the matter kitty, did the big bad birds -- holy crap!"

We had a visitor.

This?  Is a big fucking turtle.

I knew of course that there were lots of birds and frogs in the wetlands and I've even seen one of the resident beavers, but it never occurred to me that there were turtles.  Particularly big ass turtles. 

It's a big fucking turtle mommy!

Pretty sure it's a snapping turtle, which are not native to Oregon.  I've posted my sighting to the Oregon Turtles website.  I think it may have laid eggs down there. 

This looks like a good spot to deposit a family...

It'd be cool if they contacted me.

What is everybody looking at?

So, in other news, I've made a tough decision.  I've decided not to run MCM this year.  There is just no way I could go from zero to under a 14 minute mile marathon in five months, even if I was motivated to try.  And that's the crux of it, the lack of motivation.  I feel like I'm making my way back to it, very very slowly, definitely not fast enough to not get swept even if I did decide to just go for broke and try it. 

I've got a list of what I need to do to run MCM in 2015 and ideally I'll follow that list.  I really want to run this race. 

Cheers,
the CilleyGirl