PS Hates Squirrels...

And I've decided to become one...ish.

I'm home sick from work today.  Poor PS didn't get her walk.  Last night I had a sore throat. This morning I had a raging head cold. Because my mom isn't here to do it for me, I went to the store and got some supplies.  Cold meds, tissues (both plain and lotion), cough drops, and the crucial Sprite-like beverage.  I chose an organic look-alike but it is serving its purpose quite well.  For those of you who don't know, Sprite is the sick drink.  I can only drink it when I am sick.  I will pause to blame my Mom for this (always blame the mother).  She only gave us Sprite when we were sick and now if I try to drink it when I am well, it makes me feel sick.  

Whenever I stay home, I get these little glimpses into PS's life alone in the apartment.  Mostly I picture her sleeping and occasionally getting up to inspect the recycle bin or destuff a toy.  Today, I see that there is a battle going on.  I have determined that my upstairs neighbor feeds the squirrels who have nests in the trees across from my porch.  One day I saw one with a cookie in its mouth.  Now you all know that I love animals.  I always have and now I don't even eat them or anything that they produced, so this may seem strange.  I think wild animals should not be fed, especially things like cookies.  They need to feed themselves.  The person living above me may not be there next year and now the squirrels are conditioned to gobble cookies from her balcony.  Another problem, is that they squirrels are constantly on her balcony and my porch.  This is a problem because they torment my favorite doggie, PS.  She was inconsolable when they were running around above her head, those pesky squirrels!  I brought her in from the porch because I thought she might rip down the chicken wire, which is the only thing that is stopping her from running out into the trees.  As I sit here typing this, she is just sitting, behind the window glass, willing the squirrels to drop dead.  

I'm babbling on about illness and The Great Squirrel War of 2013 because I'm a little nervous to tell you the real news.  Here goes.  I am going to thru hike the Arizona Trail.  I'm putting it out there in the hopes that someone will actually hold me to it.  I feel confident in my determination, but also scared that I will chicken out and be called flaky.  I'm thinking the earliest I would do it is spring of 2015, but most likely it will be sometime in 2016.  I fully intend to guilt all my AZ friends into supporting my effort with resupply and hiking company on some passages. :)  I'm not above begging.  I feel like my greatest difficulty in just getting started will be my total dependence on PS.  Leaving her for any amount of time is stressful for me, but I have time to figure that out.  In the meantime, I am going to detail a fitness schedule and clean up my eating.  I need to drop some serious lbs for the health of my knees and, well, just health in general before I can take on such challenge.  

So, here's to squirrels and long trails.

Bonus: PS yawns

Road trips are boring for pups.