Day 38

Actually made Pinnacle this morning, wh-hoo! It was broken up a bit oddly; we put Mom's car at the base of the West summit and mine at the base of the East, then took the 1.5 mile portion of the base trail back to Mom's car. The reason for the weirdness is we brought Rafferty along, and although she still acts like a giddy puppy, 3.5 miles is too much for her. So, after a mile and a half, Mom and Raff jumped off and I got to hike on my own! 

It was so theraputic, just me and the woods and a family-size bottle of bug spray ... although after all Mom's worrying, every single rustle in the leaves made my brain go, "serial-killer hillbilly!" In spite of (or maybe because of) that, I managed the two miles up and downhill in about 35 minutes. It was HOT, though ... I walked out of the woods soaked from the crown of my head in a V down to my breastbone. I looked like I'd been competing in a wet t-shirt contest rather than exercising, and seeing as my white shirt is tissue-weight when dry? It was about as concealing as Saran wrap by that point. Thank god my sports bras cover so much ...

Even after my superfast serial-killer-evading hike, I still had to get three more workouts in! I managed it, though - yoga/stretch, free weights, and another cadenced bike ride. However, I opted for an upright bike ... and I forgot to bring my seat pad. Oops. The first 25 minutes? No problem. The last 5 minutes? I felt like my butt was going to fall off. I mean, I'm here to work my butt off, but only in a figurative sense. Let's stick to that.

A food challenge tonight: the Sterns wanted us to come to dinner with them before they go on vacation tomorrow, and they wanted to go to Buffalo Grill. Yeah. My FAVORITE place ... and I'd already cashed in my free meal for the week. Balls. So, I compromised - I ordered a half turkey sandwich rather than a hot dog, ordered chips instead of their amazing fries to avoid temptation then gave away the potato chips, and indulged myself with a *little* cheesedip. I swear, if I could only eat one thing forever, it'd be that cheesedip ... mm.

So I can now (finally) report some sad news. Last week, we had to put our old dog Tucker to sleep. He was an old guy, we'd had him since I was in middle school, and we named him for my favorite childhood stuffed animal - a brown dog, just like him. It was tough to do, but it was something we knew we needed to do and something we saw coming. It just finally reached the point where his discomfort outweighed his quality of life.  And that's why I was so down for part of last week, but I couldn't say why. I was waiting for Alex to get word of it; Mom wanted to be the one to tell him, and she wanted to be sure she was emotionally steady when she did so. Rest easy, Tucker ... the church can tell me that pets don't have souls all they want, but I know my dogs go to heaven no matter what anyone says.

Tomorrow should be pretty low-key; Mom and I unfortunately have a major wrench in our proposed Terminator marathon, however. The new movie's out of theaters now, damn everything; I only got to see it once! I vote Transformers 2 needs to gtfo and gimme back my fandom (and Anton Yelchin, for that matter ^^), please and thanks. Sunday weigh-in's coming up pretty fast, and I'm crossing my fingers for good news ... we'll know soon enough, I guess!