Like and Do Not Like

Things I Do Not Like:
– Cats on the kitchen counter. I had to rearrange everything to (hopefully) keep Birdy off, which meant putting the microwave on the counter instead of its separate cart. I do not like that, either.
– Running shoes that are too small. It rained here on the morning of the 4th, which was when I ran my first official half-marathon. Wet feet + tight shoes = more friction = goodbye pointer toenail, for the second time in as many weeks. I didn’t knowingly buy shoes that were too small; I bought the same size Saucony Triumph7 as I wore in the Triumph6. They felt fine in the store, but running 10+ miles in them is another story.
– Exploding bike tires. I’d just put some air in the tires of my Continental, and the back one burst while it was still sitting in the driveway. I swear I didn’t go over the maximum psi, but I guess I’ve learned to not even get close. My morning bike ride was ruined. I put on horrible sunscreen for nothing.
– The Day Star (aka the sun). Also heat and humidity, more generally. I’ve haven’t really been bothered by these things since I moved back, but that’s because I never ran during the summer before. Now that I do, I just want a string of overcast days in the 60s. I’ve hit something of a wall when it comes to my running motivation, and I think that’s 85% because of the heat.
Things I Do Like:
– Growing gardens. Despite the heat, we’ve actually had pretty decent, regular-ish rainfall (which doesn’t help with the humidity), which has meant I’ve had to do very little fussing with the garden. I added a handful of new photos to my Garden 2010 flickr set, so you can see how things are doing. The cabbage plants are particularly impressive, as is the rhubarb. I’ve been picking and freezing raspberries, and I have almost enough for jam, now.
– Air conditioning. My house doesn’t have central air, and I don’t even have any window a/c units in place. I don’t really mind being warm. But my parents have been up at their cabin, so the cats and I went over to their house for a few hot days. I didn’t even have to turn the thermostat down from its ‘away’ temperature when I got there, because it was already such an improvement upon what I’m used to. The lower level, where I slept, stays really cold even without a/c, and there’s something about sleeping under two big duvets in the middle of summer that’s so wrong it’s right.
– Cuddly cats. Cuddly with each other, cuddly with people. Birdy was so glommed on to Chris the other evening that it was silly. They follow me around during the day. If I’m in a room, so are they. They aren’t allowed in the bedroom, but they sleep nearby, even when I was at my folks’ place. They have the best qualities of a dog without all that dogginess.
– Finding the perfect shoes on clearance. I spent much more time running in my too-tight shoes than I should have, because I didn’t really have the extra $100+ to just go out and buy yet ANOTHER pair of new running shoes. But I stopped into Running Room last weekend, because I was in the area, and they had a pair of my old shoes (the Triumph6) on clearance in the size I needed. I’ve been taking a break this week, but when I get back to training on Monday, I’ll no longer have pinched toes!