I'm loving life right now, with the only drawback being that there is so much to love that it's hard to slow down and find the time to update this journal. Up above there is Leo, one of the SEVEN dogs I dogsat for a week. It was great, but the sleep deprivation reminded me a lot of grad school. All the dogs needed to be taken outside to run, and they did some playing and some of them like soccer and some of them destroy toys and most of all there were SEVEN bellies which needed rubbing every night.

The house was roughly 100 feet from the lake about 45 minutes north of Burlington, and was paradise, a winterized camp that was all golden wood and chirping birds and crazy summer insects making crazy summer insect noises. I got to test out commuting to work, I forgot to eat or drink and I got to brush up on my canine first-aid skills. Puppies and narcissus bulbs don't mix.

I miss them and their tiny crazy snorts and the fact that three of them (four if you count the bull mastiff) feel that their mission in life is to serve as warm, snoring pillows. Which is why you kind of have to tell the bull mastiff that although it breaks his heart he needs to get off the bed.

I had to take a whole week and not climb, which at this point nearly killed me. I was propped up by the supportive emails of my loving Crone Climbers group. And it really helped that not one but two body work practitioners commented on my hugely muscular shoulders, which is worth roughly ten thousand wolf whistles.

What? A tattoo artist is totally a bodywork practitioner.

Tonight was the first night of the advanced women's transition class and I was amazed at how well I held up, and more to the point, how much easier routes that used to bedevil me have become. I have to find a way to get my cameraphone in there. I'll talk to the Crones and get back to you.