MENKIND - I would like to submit my formal complaint

Dear Menkind,

While I am impressed with your general know-how when it comes to fixing and operating technical gadgets, electronics, motorized vehicles, and the BBQ grill; I am however, baffled by your lack of common sense when it comes to simple household tasks at times.

Exhibit A.                                                      Exhibit B.

It confounds me that you are able to navigate the 5 remotes that control the “Home Entertainment Center,” yet you seem incapable of steering your dirty dishes and clothes into anywhere but the kitchen sink or onto the bedroom floor. I am perplexed how you can operate the myriad of buttons on those TV remotes with ease and finesse, but you seem completely unable to figure out the 2 buttons it takes to operate the dishwasher & washing machine. A helpful hint, (in case you did not realize it) your clothes & dishes do not magically wash themselves.

And you are such a wiz when it comes to fixing things that are broken. So how come you have difficulty applying that same handiwork to fixing dinner?

Also, you know I love it when your face is clean shaven, but do you know what I find even sexier? You CLEANING anything (besides your bike or your car).


Lastly, your extensive knowledge of sports facts and statistics is astounding. You know everything! But how can you not know a simple/common fact like you cannot leave cooked food (especially meat) out overnight unrefrigerated because it will go bad? And also just for a random made up example (cough*maybe*cough); that having to throw away the abundance of leftover homemade chicken meatballs and sauce that your loving partner spent her whole evening preparing while you were out riding your bike would make her very upset?

Any steps that can be taken in order to improve any of the above grievances would be greatly appreciated. Moreover, training classes on the art of laundry, cleaning, food preparation & proper storage are happily offered from the School of Womenkind all year long free of charge!


Thank you for your time,
Womenkind (aka The Management)

*Disclaimer - this post may or may not be reflective of a certain to-remain-nameless future hubs, nor is it neccessarily directed at said person for certain acts they may or may not have committed recently.*

I am having a bit of an off week.

I have every intention of writing a humorous expose' on "How I Learned We Are NOT Cat People"; however, let's just say at the moment that post would turn out a bit more murderous than humorous.
Besides all the other not fun things going on this week; this morning right before we were leaving for work, the cat we are babysitting decided it would be a really awesome idea try to jump ontop of my bambo plant which is held in an enormous glass vase...

At the moment the vase came crashing down (water & glass EVERYWHERE) I felt myself growing into something like the Incredible Hulk and boomed, "CAT I AM GOING TO MURDER YOU!"  So, yeah...it might be a day or two before I find my sense of humor again on the subject of cats.

Anyhow, this satirical blog post a fellow cylcing friend sent me this morning gave me a good laugh and instantly I felt a little bit better.  If you are having a not so pleasant morning, perhaps it can cheer you up a bit too.

Tomorrow will be a better day,
KP

We cannot direct the wind

but we can adjust the sails...

I'm No Model

But here is my best attempt to show you all my latest Etsy purchase/obsession:

From The Pretty Little Pearl Shop

eat your heart out, martha.

(yes, I realize I look like a total dork holding that whisk, but work with me here people)

FAIL

4:30 AM, the alarm goes off. 

The future hubs has to go into work super early for a meeting.

Wearily, he drags his butt out of bed and resets the alarm an 1 hour later (5:30 AM) for me to get up.  We only have one car since circumstances do not necessitate the need for two, so I arranged to catch a ride at the normal time with a coworker.

Future hubs showers, gets ready, kisses me goodbye, and leaves for work.

Meanwhile, I am somewhere between blissfully dreaming and awake.

RING, RING, RING.

I wake up to the sound of my phone ringing and shoot out of bed.  I look at the clock and it says 7:50 AM. 

SHIT. (please excuse my french)

I answer the phone and it is my ride calling.  He is frantic.

"KP, are you ok? You don't sound good. Where are you?!"

I tell him that I just woke up and I realize that it is not really 7:50, but it is 6:50AM.  He has called me about 10 times and I've made him late for work. (Bummer)  I told him I am so sorry and to leave without me since there is no way I am walking out the door in less than 5 minutes.

Turns out the future hubs turned the whole clock forward an hour, instead of the alarm. 

Awesome. 

And now I am totally stranded. (Have I mentioned I live in an apartment complex with mostly coworkers? Which does me no good because they are all already at work).

I try to call the future hubs.

The call goes straight to random Arabic message. BAHH. (I hate when that happens)

I quickly get dressed and try calling again. I get the Arabic message.

Make my lunch. Call. Flipping Arabic message.

I throw my phone angrily (and magically in slow motion for effect) onto the bed.  I really hate that Arabic message.

I decide to call one last time before I start walking and trying catch a cab, but as you can imagine at 120 degrees F that is not a very good option.

I dial his number. 

AND. IT. RINGS. thankyoujesus. 

Long story short, I make him leave work to come and get me (hey it was his fault!) and I only manage to be an hour and a half late.

BIG FAT FAIL.  THE END.

A Change Of Perspective

Over vacation I re-read the book "Into Thin Air" by John Krakauer.  It is a personal account that chronicles a disastrous expedition to climb Mt. Everest in 1996.  I can remember being in Canada when this book was released and seeing an IMax film about a seperate expedition to climb Everest which happened to be on the mountain at the same time as John Krakauer.  Although the filming of the documentary was a seperate effort, the events that occurred during John's climb effected the IMax expedition and the tale ended up being weaved into the film as a consequence.  The documentary motivated me to read Krakauer's novel the first time back in 1998 when I was 13 years old.  Thereafter I became extremely fascinated with rock & ice climbing, and mountaineering, but had not had the opportunity to try the sport until much more recently.

Last year I learned how to rock climb (and also experienced real fear for one of the first times in my life).

I also learned how to ice climb while visiting Alaska.

Then finally, I completed my first summit attempt on Mt. Adams.  Nothing too spectacular, just a little 12,281 ft climb of limited technical difficulty, but it gave me a nice taste of what the sport of mountaineering is all about.

I was on such a high after that climb that I started to get all sorts of delusional thoughts about becoming a bad-ass, mountain climbing chick and conquering summits all over the world.  I came up with a plan: I would start training by gaining experience on the close by peaks of Mt. Hood,

Mt. Baker,

and lastly Mt. Rainier. 

Then I would go visit the fiance' up in Alaska and together we would tackle Denali (ignoring the fact that I am quite sure he has no interest in high-altitude climbing, but minor detail).

Hopefully we would even get to travel the world and climb Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa, and perhaps some other less challenging (and expensive) than Everest or K2, Himilayan Peaks.  And maybe, eventually one day we would get to visit Everest.

But before I could even initiate phase 1 of the plan (conquer local Washington peaks) we got reassigned to Qatar.  A country that is 100% flat, and sandy, and basically like a barren hell hole.  But, alas, I am a dreamer and I still harbored the hope that I could accomplish the impossible.  I started thinking, "Maybe I would try to climb some peaks in Europe and heck, Africa is even closer now, and so are Pakistan and Nepal!"  My skiing trip to Austria this past March only fueled the fire as the future hubs and I spent an entire week admiring the glory of the Alps.  So when I came home for vacation and spied the dusty "Into Thin Air" book sitting on the shelf in my old bedroom, I grabbed it and began reading with a renewed fervor.

AND THEN IT STRUCK ME.

I must have not "really" read this book when I was 13 or understood what I was reading at the time.  Seriously, did I miss the whole part where basically everyone on the expedition died a horrible death alone and lost on the mountain or from illnesses related to altitude, or at a minimum was left disfigured from frostbite??  Because if anything, "Into Thin Air" will turn you off of climbing and make you clearly understand the repercussions of doing anything at high altitude.  At about 24,000 ft your body starts to literally deteorate and eat itself just from the air and cold alone.  Not to mention the million other physical danagers of unstable glacial ice, avalanches, storms, etc. 

Um, WHAT WAS I THINKING!?! 

Yeah, I no longer have any desire to climb the Himilayan Greats (although I still would be interested in hiking up to Base Camp at Everest) and my thrist for Denali has also been somewhat quenched.  But I still have a bit of a lingering desire to climb some smaller, less dangerous summits and Mt. Kilimanjaro.  

It is shocking just how much your perspective can change with age.  Climbing Mt. Everest seems to be a whole lot of hassle and they say when you get to the top you are so tired and oxygen deprived that you cannot even really feel happiness or relief that you made it. Not worth it in my opinion.  (Note: I am still very much intrigued by the subject (aka a sick fascination) of high altitude climbing and have since bought a few more books on the subject.)  At any rate, the future hubs will be very excited that I just saved us over $130,000 (65K/person) by deciding that I do not want to climb Mt. Everest (yes, it costs THAT much just to try to climb it).  Maybe I can buy some shoes and a Kindle with all the money I just saved us!

UPGRADE

Hey Kids, remember our friend the cheetah??

Well, we have not seen him out during our bike rides for the past few weeks...

And now we know why.

It looks like he has upgraded his ride:

Only in Qatar.  Awesome.

Because I am Swamped At Work & Over Stressed....

I am going to cop out on writing an actual post and instead distract you with some pictures that I took over vacation of my two favorite beast-dogs:

THE END, for now.  I hope to be back with regular posting tomorrow & next week.

Back from the US

Coming back to the Middle East from the US my suitcases pretty much looked like this:

Add to that about 8 pairs of new shoes, 4 sticks of the future hubs Old Spice Endurance deodorant, a bottle of mineral oil, 6 Bath & Body Works liquid handsoaps, 1 temperpedic pillow, 1 isotonic memory foam mattress topper, 2 tubes of our favorite toothpaste, 4 boxes worth of Crystal Light Iced Tea mixes...and you get the picture.  But my suitcases were primarily loaded down with a library of heavy books that take up A LOT room.  Room that could have been occupied by new clothes (or more shoes, perhaps?).

This has lead me to make the following assessment; owning all these books and bringing them over here is not practical.  So what is a girl to do?  Here is what I am thinking:

I have about 2 months to decide (slash convince the future hubs that this is a worth-while purchase); since they do not ship to the Middle East and I will be going home for the wedding in September. 

Does anyone out there have one of these?  Is it worth the price-tag?  I read at minimum 4 out of 7 nights a week before bed...sometimes I go through books pretty quickly, other times not so much.  Is this only good for people who read ridiculous amounts?