At 9 a.m. this morning, I did the hardest thing any pet owner has to do. I put my beloved Toula, my third “cat,” to sleep.

For the past two and a half years, Ratatouille Ratone, “Toula” for short, has been a part of my small but happy family. In October 2004, her and her roommate Berta joined me, my cat Stella, and our two birds Sunny and Dusty in my one-bedroom apartment in southeast Minneapolis. Before too long, baby kitty Sophie Jack joined the crew as well. Stella immediately took to motherhood and took Baby (Sophie Jack) as her own. It was the same day that Baby moved in that I introduced the rats to Stella, face to face. With Toula not much smaller than Baby at the time, Stella adopted Toula as well, probably thinking of her as another baby kitty in need of her nurturing.

Alberta, the other rat, was never social or affectionate like Toula. She was sick most of her life and bit you when you tried to give her love. In March of last year, Berta began to grow a mammary tumor in her armpit. It was in these days that she began to warm up and show affection like she never did before. Always suffering from various health problems, I decided the only option was to let the tumor grow and put her down when the time was right. A month later, the time was right. I just never thought I’d have to do the same with Toula.

Toula was always the strong one, the social one, the happy one. She was Stella’s adopted daughter and Baby’s best friend and sister. She never caught any of the respiratory illnesses that plagued Berta. I always thought Toula would die of old age. For this reason, finding a small tumor on Toula a few months ago hit me like a ton of bricks. This tumor grew at a much slower rate than Berta’s. I’d have had the tumor removed, but at nearly three years old, Toula was elderly, and removing it would probably cause even more pain. Even now, the tumor wasn’t too bad, she was still happy and lively, but I couldn’t keep putting it off. I couldn’t keep letting it grow until it got to the point where it was too painful. It had really started interfering with her mobility and when that happened, I knew it was time. Even when I let her run free, she primarily just curls up and sleeps now. Exploring is too hard for her these days, so even though she’s still got her spunk (and you can see it in her eyes), her body just can’t keep up with it anymore. Sadly, I suspect this is how it will be for all of us when the time comes.

I finally made the call last night to set up an appointment and just get it done. And I was shocked when the animal clinic said they wanted $50 to put her (a one-pound animal) down. I called another place and you’ll never believe how much they charge for the same service, with cremation included… nothing. Because rats are considered “pocket pets,” they do it at no charge. And it just kills me that some places will charge $50 for what others do for free. It just proves that people are always trying to get ahead at your expense, and when they do it in times of grief, that’s just something I can’t respect.

I knew it was going to be hard, but the trip to the vet was horrifying. As I handed Toula over to the vet tech, she knew something was wrong and started squirming and scratching, when she normally loves other people. It was an unbearable sight, and she was put back in the box I brought her in, but without the sheet that comforts her. It only made it worse. I couldn’t take seeing her so confused, so scared, so I grabbed her back, rubbed her neck, her ears, and got her comfortable again. I put her back in the box, but with the sheet to hide in. I told the vet to take the box and sheet and bring the sheet back to me afterward. The crying, which I had been holding back, broke through when the box went out of my sight. When the sheet came back to me, it was done.

And now there’s an empty space where her cage used to be. I moved the cats food and water into the vacant space, but I think it’s confused the cats more than anything… not because their food and water has moved, but because it’s where Toula’s supposed to be. No longer will Baby run up to the cage door as I open it and butt heads with Toula. No longer will Stella try to crawl into it. No longer will I have bits of rat bedding scattered across the floor (though this is actually a good thing). And no longer will I leave my room and return to find Toula snuggled up under the arms of her feline friends. I think Toula always thought of herself as a cat. And if she thinks she’s cat, who am I to say she’s not?

Rest in peace my dearest Toula, my third cat. We’ll miss you.

Right now it is 11:13 p.m. on May 28th, but it is also 12:13 a.m. on May 29th (Minnesota time)… and at this minute precisely, I turn 8,399 days old. If you really care how old I am you can divide that number by 365 and get my age in years, but you shouldn’t care how old I am. I figured in leap years, so simply dividing by 365 will not give you my exact age, but who cares about a hundredth of a decimal anyway? But again, you shouldn’t do that because you shouldn’t care how old I am. Or rather, I don’t want you to know how old I am (though by stating days, I have given this away). As far as I’m concerned, I have always been several years older than my birthday declares I am. Perhaps this explains why people have always thought I was older than I am, why I’ve never in my life been interested in anyone less than four years older than me, why I graduated college early, and why I never seem to make friends with people my own age (other than a select few who know who they are). My birthday lies… but if we’re going by scientific fact, then yes, I am sadly only 8,399 days old.

Though I don’t accept the year of my birth, I do the day. My birthday has been blessed with the awesomeness of nearly always falling over Memorial Day weekend. In my school days, this meant a long weekend off school to celebrate. In high school, the result of this was me being left alone at home while my parents took off to the ranch house they would eventually retire to. This allowed me and my (older) friends to wreak complete havoc upon my house with my parents never knowing. This year my birthday falls on a Tuesday, which is weird, but next year it will hop to a Thursday (leap year), and the year after will fall back into Memorial Day weekend status. This is something I anxiously await. I don’t have off school anymore, and no plans to wreak havoc, but I will gladly accept a long weekend off work for my birthday.

When my birthday does not fall on the holiday weekend, I tend to consider Memorial Day my birthday (a pseudo-birthday if you will). My pseudo-birthday was today (back in Utah time), and not terribly interesting this year (but quite pleasant no less). Unfortunately, I started work at 6:40 a.m., but it resulted in my boss making me pancakes at her house later in the morning. The rest of the day was spent napping, phone calling, sunbathing, reading, going back to work, coming back home, and trail running with the pup. No birthday cake was involved, but there was free Bajio that my roommate got on accident and delivered to my door. Perhaps there will be birthday cake (or ice cream at the very least) tomorrow when it is actually my birthday. But free pancakes and Bajio on a pseudo-birthday ain’t too shabby.

And now it’s time to get down to business… presents. Phone calls and free meals. That’s what I want. Sadly, all my friends are in other states so you’re off the hook on the meal part, but I expect phone calls. If you ask me, birthday phone calls are the best part of birthdays. They always make the day… and a lack of them breaks it (shatters it really). I wouldn’t care if I was confined to bed all day and had nothing to eat but stale bread and brusselsprouts if I got enough birthday phone calls from my friends.Text messages are also welcome, as are e-comments from all you lurkers who secretly read this and don’t want me to know that you do.

Since my last post spoke of graduations, I figured I’d keep it going, at least for this first paragraph. Nearly a decade ago exactly, Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich wrote a pretend graduation speech as a column. You’ve all heard it, though likely in the form of song. You remember it (yes, trust me, you do)… the one by Baz Luhrmann… where the guy talks the whole time… the sunscreen song. I told you you’ve heard it. Anyway, the column is beautiful, every last bit of it (what did I say about graduations being inspiring?), but the bit of advice I’ve started taking to heart this past year is when she says your body is “the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.” Be kind to it. Enjoy it. Unfortunately, for most of my life, I have done neither of these.

All that has changed this past year, and as each day goes by, I find myself loving my body more and more. And I can’t even begin to describe how good it feels to be able to say that… and actually mean it. It’s not perfect, but it does me good and I want to take care of it, nurse it, give it a long, healthy life. I thought I’ve been doing that quite well this past year, and in most ways I have, but yesterday it dawned on me, “Am I really as healthy as I think?”

It all started when a coworker of mine started bombarding me about being a vegetarian. “You don’t get vitamin B6, and you really need it. Make sure you eat lots of whole grains. Do you get protein? You’re a vegetarian, that’s why you’re sick right now!” I don’t know where it all came from… this is the person you would least expect to give you a lecture on nutrition. But then I started thinking about it, and realized although I eat better than most people, I probably am missing out on a lot of nutrients, because well, I don’t eat meat and I don’t cook too often (though I do enjoy home-cooked meals on a fairly regular basis courtesy of my roommate). I became curious as to what things I might be missing. After a few failed Google attempts at finding information (too much random information puked upon your computer screen), I figured my best bet was to head to the library and find a book on nutrition. I browsed the shelves, found quite a few, but settled on the one that sounded best for what I needed it for… Nutrition for Dummies.

When it comes to nutrition, I have been a dummy for most of my life. When I first became a vegetarian, I was 13 and I did it all wrong. I ate fake meat, bread, cheese, and pasta. I was never a fan of vegetables growing up (funny for a vegetarian), but I was a fan of animals and had absolutely no plans to eat them. My body suffered. In high school, I started eating better food when I played tennis and ran track, so as to get my body back on the right track. But the thing is, I didn’t eat enough. My body suffered. When I went to college, it was the opposite. I ate too much (and dorm food no less). Freshman fifteen? You bet… and then some! Again, my body suffered. And for years after that, that freshman “fifteen” remained. All that changed this past year when I moved to Jackson, my metabolism skyrocketed, and the weight just melted off without my even trying (and then some).

I’ve never been as healthy as I am now, but after delving into this new world of nutrition, I’ve realized it’s not just about having a six-pack that finally shows its face after years of hiding under flub. It’s not just about the fact that I can eat whatever I want, and don’t have to feel guilty about any of it because my daily work and play burns it off. It’s not just about getting protein and eating lots of vegetables. There’s so much more to it.

Did you know that a lack of riboflavin can cause a sore mouth? And cracked lips? Lack of biotin can make you lose your hair? Vitamin C and easy bruising? Low amounts of selenium in the body severely affects your heart? Copper prevents premature graying of the hair? You can’t metabolize fat without chromium? No one food has it all, and none of us eat it all. This is something I’m going to work on. I want all those essential vitamins and minerals flowing freely throughout my body. I want my liver to last me, my skin and teeth too. I want a healthy heart. I want it all… and there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to. Osteoporosis runs in the family and there’s a good chance I’ll get it, but there’s no reason why I shouldn’t put up a fight to the very end and try to get my fill of calcium.

Fearing there are too many vitamins and minerals to get what I need from my food alone, I got a multivitamin to last me until I really get a firm grasp of all this information that I’m learning. Nutrients are best coming from foods and not a pill, so ideally, you don’t want to take a supplement. And as I keep reading, I’m finding that it isn’t really that hard to get all those nutrients on a daily basis without a pill. Supplements aren’t all they’re cracked up to be anyway. So many of them are over-stuffed, full of useless or even dangerous amounts of a nutrient. If you have a bottle of vitamin C supplements at home, it’s probably chocked full of something like 833% of the recommended daily intake. But did you know that your body can only hold around 200% and the rest just gets pissed away because it can’t be absorbed? What’s the point? It’s not going to kill a cold any faster. Did you know that even meat can have a fair share of vitamin C in it? And tomatoes, and strawberries, green peppers, and so on! It’s not just oranges and grapefruit. With all those foods containing vitamin C, it’s not so hard to get your 100% on your own.

Anyway, I could go on forever with all this stuff I’m learning. I’m learning how each nutrient affects your body, what foods get stored where, how to figure out how many calories your specific body needs just to do nothing (I need 1300 just to lay in bed and do nothing all day!). Anyway, it’s all very interesting (did you know eating too many carrots is actually really bad for you?) and very important. And people (myself included until yesterday) don’t seem to take it too seriously. But it’s your body… and when it all comes down to it, it’s the only thing you have. Without it, you have nothing at all. Just don’t forget that the body still needs pizza and ice cream just as much as any of these vitamins and minerals (just make sure you’re full of the nutrients too).

It’s that time of year again. Summer is closing in and school’s everywhere are releasing the shackles on their students. Graduation ceremonies are now an every-day occurrence. I shot one last night (or well, a few hours ago really), and call me crazy, but I love shooting graduations. It may be because I’ve had good luck with them (won my first NPPA clip contest from a graduation photo story), but also because they are so inspirational. Graduations are full of cliches, but also of great quotes. And as stories are told by the senior class speakers and their teachers, it hits you how simple life really is. It’s not rocket science.

I’m three days away from my birthday and I feel it as a graduation of sorts. I’m another year older, and I’m looking back at everything I’ve learned since my last birthday (and oh boy, has it been a lot). Like a graduation, I’m flipping to the next chapter and embracing what’s to come (in the end, I hope my life reads like a Harry Potter novel). My graduation is full of its own words of wisdom. And right now, I’ve got something to say to myself, and it’s this: If I’ve learned anything these past few months (and few hours), it’s that we all make decisions, and after they are said and done, it’s not uncommon to wonder if we really did the right thing. Maybe we’ll regret it at first, think maybe we could have been wrong, and it might be a blow to the gut. But if you slow down and think back to why you did what you did, you’ll often find you had no other option. You did the only thing you could… and everything (everything) is gonna work out fine.

I woke up right now in the middle of the night (yes, I’m writing this at 3 a.m.), and thoughts (and coughs) have kept me awake. Laying in bed thinking about graduations made me think about yearbooks (yearbooks are great). I was the photographer for mine, years before I ever got into photography (funny how things work out). But anyway, I may be long done with school, but I still want a yearbook… so I’m going to make one. Drawing inspiration from yearbooks, scrapbooks, and Mike Terry’s beautiful hand-crafted journal, I’m going to make my own post-graduation yearbook - a year in the life of Sarah. And I’m starting with 2006 - to date the best year of my life (though no lies, 2007 is shaping up well). It was a beautiful year, and it’s going to be a beautiful yearbook.

Today is Wednesday, and that means I don’t have to be to work until later in the morning. Usually ’til around 10:15, but today more like 9:45. I love Wednesdays for this reason, but I am especially glad that today is a Wednesday. Because well, it’s not even 9 a.m. and I can’t go anywhere, because I guess you could say that I’m a little drunk. NOTE: This is not as bad as it sounds.

I am no lush, as anyone I know could tell you. I drink so rarely that people often mistake me for being Mormon. But well, that sore throat I mentioned the other day, it wasn’t exhaustion (though that might have played a part). Yesterday, I felt a cold coming down. Ugh! But rather than risk what happened last time (when I was sick for two months and couldn’t do any physical activity whatsoever), I bought some vodka last night and made “the concoction“… that gut-wrenching, taste-bud-killing, weak-in-the-knees, miserable concoction. Coupled with zinc and vitamin C tablets, I hope I can spare myself the misery of sickness and kill it soon. But well, I took a shot of it this morning (as directed by my parents, who by the way are not alcoholics), and as a light-weight, I’m feeling it a bit more than expected. Perhaps this is because it’s morning (it didn’t hit me like this at all last night). But yeah, I’m semi-drunk at 9 a.m. on a Wednesday. Now that’s something to be proud of!

I drive a ‘98 P.O.S. Within the next week or two, I hope this is a statement I will no longer be able to make. But car shopping, thanks to the wonderful world of car loans, is really nothing but a big fat pain in the arse.

After weeks of cruising parking lots, reading reviews, and sleeping on it a lot, I came to the conclusion that I’d end up with either a Toyota or a Subaru. But it got narrowed down yet again, and Subarus are officially out of the running. Thing is, even though Imprezas are one of my absolute favorite cars, everyone and their grandma has a Subaru here (and by everyone, I mean everyone). And I really don’t care much for the idea of wandering grocery store parking lots, sticking my key into the door of five cars that look exactly like mine before I actually find mine. Of course, putting something gaudy and tacky on the antenna is always an option, but I’d rather avoid it.

So that leaves us with the Toyotas. RAV4s are my numero uno car on the road, hands down. But well, they’re expensive and I’d rather not spend the money on one. I’d given up on the idea of cruising in my dream car, but then I discovered a good one at a good price. And so, if all goes well, I’ll be cruising in my sweet new RAV4 within the week. But in the likely scenario that all does not go well, I’ll hopefully be cruising in a Matrix within two.

I’M SO GLAD YOU’RE COMING BACK!

Now I just need Dangle, Chris, and Mike to do the same. Gibler, you should come too (but during Sundance, so you can propose to you-know-who).

If only it were fall already…

Apparently, school is a place these painters never went.

I think I might have a wisdom tooth coming in. I’m not sure about this, but the evidence is pointing toward this being the case. Seeing as I don’t have dental insurance and don’t know when I would be able to get them removed, I dug up my old retainer last night in hopes of maybe saving my teeth from getting pushed into a non-linear mess. I suffered the agony of having braces not once, but twice, and I’m not about to let it all go to waste. But well, I haven’t worn that retainer in years (and years… and years), and well, needless to say, it doesn’t really fit anymore. I slept in it, but had to take it out twice because it started hurting too much.

When I woke up this morning, I found myself with a horribly sore throat - the streppy kind where it hurts like hell to swallow and makes your neck ache. I blamed that blasted retainer, thinking it must have retained some kind of sickness over the years. But after dealing with the sore throat all day, I have come to realize it doesn’t seem like your typical viral infection. It feels a lot like something else I experienced when I first got to Jackson last year. I went to the doctor then and he said the sore throat was likely because of exhaustion, even though I didn’t feel very exhausted. I’d climbed Snow King for the first time and went on a massive bike ride right before the sore throat came. I think he was right, because it wasn’t contagious and it came and went many times over the next month. I think this might explain the sore throat this time because I have been ridiculously active this week, maybe even too active: a hike last Friday, two trail runs on the weekend, climbing and yoga on Monday, bushwhacking Tuesday, yoga Wednesday, climbing Thursday, trail running Friday. I’ve felt great and energetic throughout it all, but I’m guessing my body was probably more tired than it felt… because well, now it feels like crap (and we can say that again). I’ve sworn off all intense physical activity until yoga class Monday night and hopefully I’ll be back up and running by then, sans the sore throat. I ache, flat out. Pain killers and Coldstone help, but only for so long.

Sometimes, like any normal human being, I really dislike my job. And this week, this seems to have been the case. A lot of it is plain old work horsesh*t that you’ll get anywhere. It’s not good to talk about stuff like that, and so I’m not going to. But there are some things I can talk about… or at least I hope I can.

It all started in Saturday’s edition, when two photos ran on the front page, both taken by me, and both photos I was actually really proud of. Both had someone else’s name in the byline. I was mortified. Could it get any worse? Oh yes, it could. In the next edition, an absolutely atrocious photo ran on the bottom of the front page with my name on it… except I didn’t take it. ASLKFHDSLGK!!! Not only was I again mortified, but this time I was completely embarrassed. It honestly makes me afraid to show my face around town with a camera. I know it was an accident, and although I was upset about the names being wrong, I was never mad at the person responsible. It’s just something that needed to be sorted out immediately, and luckily I think now it has been.

But right after I discovered my name on the bad photo, we had our weekly meeting and it really sunk in how much I feel I’m taken for granted at work. And it just got worse and worse that day. After a few more sprinkles of work drama, everything got so bad that I had to grab my keys and get the hell out for few minutes. I hopped in my car, only planning to sit in it for five minutes, away from everyone else, but I stuck the keys in the ignition and drove off. I got a couple blocks away when I came across a feature that pulled my sorry ass out of the car and cheered me up. And since then, I’ve discovered that the best thing to do when you’re sick of everything is to go out and shoot, shoot, and shoot some more. I shot nine things that day, a new record for me (my previous one-day load was seven), five yesterday, and three today (but three’s a lot for a production day). I haven’t been overloaded or rushed with any of it, they haven’t been too bad of assignments, and they haven’t exhausted me. All they’ve done is continuously remind me how much I really do love my job. And right now, I really needed that.

Here are a few of the many photos I took during this time.

I got an unexpected call Monday from a Jackson friend in town for a few days. We met up Tuesday and went for a short, but pretty steep, hike in Big Cottonwood Canyon. The trail, if you could even call it that, seemed as if it were traveled more by animals than people - a thin, poo-covered path with sticks growing over it. We kept going up and up and up, and weren’t sure where the path was leading us, so we decided to ditch the path and bushwhack our way up a ridge to get this fairly nice view. Going up was simple enough, but getting back down was what I feared. 80-degree angles of nothing but slippery dirt and stabby sticks scare me. Made it down just fine, didn’t fall at all, but since I was wearing shorts, my legs were completely mutilated from the sticks. They looked as though they got into a fight with the Wolverine, and lost. Only a few scratches actually bled, but the total scratches were innumerable. I really wish I had a picture of my uber-sliced, uber-hardcore legs to show, but alas, I don’t. I do have a picture of my bushwhacking buddies though, who may be even more hardcore than myself since they did the whole thing in SANDALS.

I am a bad daughter. In 2005, I bought my mom a Mother’s Day card. I wrote in it, I addressed the envelope, but I forgot to send it. When I did realize it, it was too late to bother sending it, so I stashed it away ’til 2006. In 2006, I wrote another message in the same card, explaining how I forgot to send it before and that’s why there are two Mother’s Day messages inside of it. Now it’s 2007 and my mom was here last weekend. Fearing I would forget to send it again, I planned to just give it to her last week… but we went out of town, got busy, and no surprise here, I forgot. I was definitely going to mail it though. But well, now it’s Mother’s Day and it’s still sitting downstairs in last year’s day planner. I suppose I could send it off tomorrow, but since I managed to forget again, I don’t see why not keep it around for another year and give it to her in ‘08… with four years of Mother’s Day messages in it. Don’t worry mom, it’s coming… sometime.

Wednesday: propose, find photographer, buy rings
Thursday: order cake, buy dress
Friday: get hitched by the mayor in a 3-minute ceremony

This is my editor’s office, but that is not my editor. That is the owner of the best damn sandwich shop in Park City. And when he’s not making delicious sandwiches, he acts. When I got to work this morning, I found him and a film crew taking over my editor’s desk (I sure wish he brought sandwiches). In this scene he’s chatting with a woman who plays a photojournalist… a woman who, when getting her makeup done in our conference room, asks if she should do anything with her hair. Then she says, “What am I thinking?” and messes up her already very messy hair even more. “I’m a photojournalist.” I scrunch up my face and give her a dirty look. My hair looks quite nice thankyouverymuch.