Courtenay Brown

I am thinking that Kitty might actually be a sort of normal cat after all. It's been about six months since we brought him home from the shelter, over the course of this time I have bought him 7 cat toys and the only one he'd sort of done anything with is the fuzzy pink flipflop, which he'd occasionally bat around the bedroom in the middle of the night.Well.Lately, he's taken to rolling around on the catnip scratch pad (but only scratching on the ...

I have become one of those people with an obnoxious Starbucks order. Grande Soy Chai Latte with Three Pumps Chai and One Shot Espresso.Yikes.One problem with this perfect little concoction is that it's too freaking expensive for me to ever leave a tip for the poor folks who have to make it. I should switch back to a plain old soy latte and get back under the $4 mark, but it's not as good. Really I should stop drinking soy and stop indirectly supporting the destruction of the rainforests to make room for soybean fields and switch back to cow's milk, but there's another host of problems there. Maybe rice milk? Separate observation: ...

So now that I finally filed my taxes and stopped pestering 5 separate people about "HELP I don't have/never got/can't find my w-2/1099/K-1!! Please help!!", life is back to normal. I'll probably find something else to freak out about soon, but for now I am enjoying some couch time with Kitty in front of some stupid show on VH1. We are waiting for the season finale of Real Housewives of New York City to come on at 9.Anyhow, assuming I put everything into Turbo Tax correctly, for the first time in my life I am getting state and federal refunds! Yay! They are going directly into my newly-established "next visit to the dentist" fund. Every night when I ...

Woohoo first race of the season! Man I was nervous. But it was a good day, and even without my Greg Crutch, I survived!I won the Women's Under 34 race, but there was a woman in the 35 and over race who had a faster time than I did. So, I finished second overall by 40 seconds to the woman who finished second overall to Eileen last year. Ah well. At first I was really bummed - I had a feeling she probably beat me but since the older wave started 7 minutes later than mine and I didn't take note of my time when I crossed the line, I had to stand around and wait ...

From the birth of the thought of the idea of my multisport career, Greg has been at my side - teaching me to swim, stuffing me into my wetsuit, telling me how to get it off, explaining wacky rules (e.g. when you can get on your bike, when you can get off it, when you can take your helmet off, all the nonsense about the strap, why there is no neutral wheel support), cheering, helping, and telling me I am doing a good job.Also he makes all my swim workouts for me. If you ask me about my swimming all I can answer is "I just do what Greg tells me to do?" ANYWAYS, this weekend ...

In the top of the gym locker where they were last seen yesterday. Woohoo!!Now I can use my car to drive to an electronics store to buy a new iPod shuffle charger to replace the one I stepped on and broke while I was tearing the apartment apart looking for my keys.Thanks for all the good-luck wishes!

Last confirmed sighting in a gym locker last night... first noticed missing this morning when I was already 5 minutes late in leaving for work via Raley's to buy lunch. Thankfully my boss called me right around freakout time to say I should work from home since everyone is sick, so I didn't have to hitch-hike my way up the hill! (but I still managed to have a lame lunch)Anyhow 3 hours later and they still haven't turned up. I have called the gym twice. They think I am dumb. They are probably right. Especially since I previously lost the spare key to my car, this was nearly a year ago now (and I have moved since then) ...

I found THIS in Greg's gym bag today:HAHAHA! Axe Body Wash in "Snake Peel" flavor!! Apparently he likes to shower before his lifeguard shifts to make sure he smells all hip and cool for the many hot ladies cruising the pool and gym. At home I am lucky if he even uses bar soap. Although, I have no right to poke fun at him for falling for commercials on TV advertising how their awesome product will change your life or at least get you babes. My side of the sink (which even at home looks a bit like this) has ...

I'm still feeling a bit tired from all of last week's heroics - today's training consisted of like 20 minutes on the trainer. And that's it. I did realize about a half hour ago though that I was probably feeling tired because I was actually dehydrated, having had about 16 ounces of water total all day long.And no, boys, I am not jumping on the base water bandwagon. Nuun serves me just fine. I just have to remember to drink it.Separate topic, yesterday I met this guy at the gym, we have a mutual friend who does Xterras and this guy races them too and so mutual friend introduced us. He said ...

I am "watching" this NCAA basketball final the same way I "watched" the Superbowl... hands in front of squinted shut eyes, humming "lalalalala" to drown out the suspenseful scary sounds of Overtime.Incidentally and unsurprisingly, this is the same way I watch horror movies or terrible movies like No Country For Old Psychopaths.I don't even like basketball very much. Although I did like it when I was in fifth through seventh grades, my dad even got me a basketball hoop and installed it in the back yard so I could practice, but when I stopped growing and stopped improving with ease I lost interest. I felt incredibly guilty about it too. Anyhow up till now ...