The story of Breckyn

As everyone knows, I have a six-month-old puppy, Arabella, and a two-year-old cat, Trixie. They generally live with me in the apartment I share with Eliesa in Kansas City. Though I tried to avoid it, I’m still split in half, with part of me in KC and part of me in my hometown. Therefore when I go home, Arabella (and Trixie if I’m staying long enough) come with me.

Eliesa’s friend has a Siamese cat who was having kittens. Loving Siamese cats and being lonely when I take my pets home for the weekend, Eliesa had planned on taking one of the kittens if the cat gave birth to a Siamese one. Well, apparently they all took after their dad, so Eliesa headed down to one of our local animal shelters while I was at the rink to find the perfect kitten.

I got a call pretty soon after I got off the ice that day:
Eliesa: “Sooo… I’m at Animal Haven…”
Me: “Yeah…”
Eliesa: “Weeelll, how would you feel if I got a husky?”
*note my shock here*
Me: “A husky? As in the DOG BREED husky??”
Eliesa: “Ya, I totally just fell in love with her.”
Me: “A husky, a puppy and a cat in an 800 square foot apartment. LET’S DO IT.”

The shelter knew I had Arabella, and they wanted to see how she reacted with the husky (whose name I can’t remember now.) Right off the bat, the husky’s prey drive went NUTS. Arabella only weighs three pounds, so that’s understandable- but we obviously couldn’t adopt her when we have both Arabella and Trixie.

Eliesa and I (and Arabella) went through the shelter looking for a new dog, since Eliesa had basically decided at this point that she wanted a dog that she could take running. One of the adoption counselors pointed us to a dog named… Esme. That was the name they had given her. She’s a black lab mix, about a year of age. The only thing she wanted to do to Arabella was to play with her. No issues there, so Eliesa filled out some paperwork and brought her home.

Oh yeah, and renamed her Breckyn.

4 Comments

Katie, August 28th 2009 | Posted in friends, pets, photos

Bright lights

The coolest thing I’ve seen in awhile happened Wednesday night. Hillary and I went to my old elementary school super late at night to swing, and our time there just happened to coincide with a meteor shower. Eventually we stopped swinging to actually search for meteors in the sky, and BY GOD THERE WERE LOTS OF THEM.

I used to watch the sky before I finally fell asleep each night. At least once a week I’d see a shooting star, which is totally cool given that people complain all the time about never having seen a shooting star. But this meteor shower? Those meteors left big, long streaks of light after them.

It was tight.

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Will officially started high school yesterday. He says it’s just school, lame, sucks, whatever (that scarily sounds like me), but he’s finding the fact that he can leave campus for lunch quite liberating. They only have 25 minutes for lunch, and the only places near the school are fast food, so I’m fully expecting him to gain 24,290 pounds by the end of the year.

Anyway, I’m the one that gets to pick him up after school until my mother hires someone else to, and the two times I’ve gone remind me just how much I loathed seeing that school every day. I can’t believe kids deal with that for three years. Sometimes I wonder what it would’ve been like if I had stayed, and then these haha-yeah-right moments come along where I laugh at myself for even contemplating that possibility. I really am happy with the choice I made.

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My two best friends moved into the dorms today, a full two days ahead of the normal incoming freshmen due to rush. I haven’t seen either; I figure they need time to settle and get adjusted. I feel weird that I’m not sharing this time with them, not getting used to freedom and flexibility and living on your own (well, with another person), since I already went through all that.

However, I am ECSTATIC that my (term used loosely) graduating class is finally in college. And I could not be happier that both Len and Erin decided on KU, even if it will take some adjusting to have all three of us together permanently again.

4 Comments

Katie, August 14th 2009 | Posted in family, friends, photos, rambling, school

The effects of no cable or internet

Eliesa and I don’t have cable or internet in our apartment. There are finally huge coils of bright orange cable wires outside of the complex, for which I assume are to install Time Warner. I never realized how much I missed TV until I didn’t have it!!

Thanks to not being able to watch shows online or on TV, we’ve begun to hoarde DVDs like they’re going out of style. I’m totally thankful for the shitty economy right now, since it means places like Blockbuster and WalMart are practically giving away DVDs. I’ve already bought seven, just in the past two weeks. Because hello, I NEED ENTERTAINMENT!

I’m posting this using the wireless internet our apartment’s clubhouse provides. It took me a good twenty minutes to actually connect, as for some reason, my dear old MacBook refuses to properly use AirPort. WTF? And now it just kicked me off again. I KNOW IT WORKS, because Eliesa is sitting right across from me on her laptop! HER LAPTOP THAT IS CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET! I’m pretty sure this is a sign I need a new MacBook.

My appointment with the geniuses at the Genius Bar has been scheduled.

The original intent of this post is gone, forgive me! I think my point was that I’m way too reliant on technology. Obviously.

1 Comment

Katie, June 18th 2009 | Posted in friends, rambling, rants

Keep the drama in Canada, fool.

This new Canadian coach, whom I am dubbing CC (acronym explanation publicly coming never, so ask if you want to know), has waltzed into our rink like she’s the fucking best thing since sliced bread just because she may/may not have had a student or two go to Nationals. (American Nationals? Canadian Nationals? WHO KNOWS.)

Why she chose our rink to coach at and not the supercompetitive rink across town IF SHE’S SO GOOD is beyond me. I will be the first to admit that I am always somewhat suspicious of new people, but I generally have a pretty damn good feel for who is good and who is bad. And let me tell you, my radar is going BIZERK with red lights and noise and caution tape.

So she waltzes on in here, right, gets a few students literally handed to her because we have nice coaches who feel bad for her having no students of her own down here. Then she grabs a couple of our good skaters who kinda were looking for new coaches. Our nice coaches notice this, as do the rest of us, but hey, they were kinda in the market for a new coach, so whatever.

THEN, she goes and helps my friend M with one of her jumps. Now, this wouldn’t be a HUGE faux pas at our rink, because generally all the coaches know/like each other. However, I certainly wouldn’t go as far as to say this is a common occurrence. Actually, come to think of it, this almost never happens. Skaters giving other skaters advice, sure… but coaches giving other coaches’ students advice? No. Mistake of CC #1: Giving tips to another coach’s student when no one is quite sure what to make of the coach herself yet. I honestly don’t know what was going through her head. Maybe she’s never heard of morals? Unwritten code of conduct??

THEN, she tells M to not tell anyone. Mistake of CC #2: There are no secrets in an ice rink!!!! Everyone, eventually, will know EVERYTHING. Plus, this request is so unusual that of course M forgets. M’s coach asks her if CC helped her. M says yes. Hockey player who is close to CC asks M if CC helped her. M says yes, again. All coaches suspicious. Hockey player tells CC that M told him how CC helped her.

THEN, CC HAS THE NERVE to go up to M today and question her. “Why did you tell people I helped you?” She tells M that her reputation is now ruined. M obviously now feels like this is her fault. Mistake of CC #3: She makes MY FRIEND M CRY!!!!!!!!

Oh look, three strikes. You’re out.

And all I have to say is this: If you’re idiotic enough to go around helping other coaches’ students when you are still trying to find your place around our rink, then you deserve the consequence of having a bad reputation. And guess what? THAT’S YOUR OWN DAMN FAULT.

5 Comments

Katie, May 28th 2009 | Posted in friends, rants, skating

Bits and Pieces

My feelings of anger that my blog was hacked on Thursday have been minimized by the fact that also on Thursday, I finally accomplished something huge (for me) in figure skating. I quit skating last Spring because I could not, for the life of me, get this one jump. I had this mental block; I knew I could do it, but yet I just couldn’t. I’ve been somewhat trying it recently, but on Thursday I FINALLY GOT IT. And I got it CONSISTENTLY! It still needs more height and better rotation, but hell, I couldn’t even get off the ice before. HUGE accomplishment.

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One of my best friends, Erin, came into town randomly Thursday. She decided at noon to get on a 3pm flight from St. Louis to Kansas City, then to leave the next morning. I picked her up from the airport, and we went shopping down on the Plaza and all around had a good time! I can’t waaaait till she moves back this fall!

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My poor Arabella was sick yesterday. =( I gave her one of Jack The Dog’s big food-bone thingys the day before yesterday, because I ran out of her little rawhide bones. She wolfed it down in like ten seconds flat. I’m guessing that’s why she puked everywhere. She seems to be okay now, though!

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All of my Tulsa cousins have arrived and are settling in here with us in Lawrence. My thirteen-year-old cousin Erin made a blog, click here to see! They all go home on Monday, except for Amy who’s staying here a week longer. We’ll probably be hanging around the lake, the rink, the pool, the gymnastics place, etc etc…

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Aaand, I’ve been contemplating legally changing my name. I’ve always gone by Katie, a nickname of my middle name (Katherine) and have never used my given first name. So I might just go legally change my first name to Katherine and stick a version of my first name as my middle name. Make sense?

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P.S. MANY, MANY, MANY!! thanks to Mary for the new custom header!!!

2 Comments

Katie, May 23rd 2009 | Posted in family, friends, pets, photos, rambling, skating
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