If you saw a girl in a pink dress jumping around in the middle of the road today, wonder no more. That was me. And the black thing in my hand? That was my wallet. I was quite glad to be reunited with it again.

The fact that I was wearing a pink dress was important. Even more important was the fact that my pink dress does not have pockets. Neither does my jean jacket. So my wallet, which I usually keep in my pocket, didn’t have any pockets to go into. Naturally, that meant that after I scanned my credit card at the gas pump, I set my wallet down on my car. Then I got distracted by something shiny and/or the numbers flitting by on the gas pump’s meter and POOF. Wallet forgotten.

I didn’t figure out it was missing until 3 hours later, when I was trying to wash my car. Cousin Amy and her husband are coming into town this weekend to hang out, and they always have very, very clean cars. I feel peer pressure when I’m around them to also have a clean car. I was sitting at the car wash digging through my purse when I realized my dumb wallet wasn’t there. I fretted.

I called my friend to see if I’d left it at her house this afternoon. I went to her place after I got gas. She didn’t find it. So I called the gas station to see if someone had found it. No, he said. No one had turned it in. Then I went and grabbed friend-turned-neighbor Josh and had him search my car, in case I was just not seeing something, or not checking some obvious place. He didn’t find it either.

So then Josh, MP, Juliana (Josh and MP’s 6-year old) and I all piled into the car and we drove back to the gas station (a 30 minute trip) where I had last had the wallet. We pulled into the same pump, and it was nowhere to be found. Josh asked, “Where did you go after this?” I said, “To Josie’s house. I didn’t even go inside the gas station!”

We both turned our gaze to the street, and that’s when I noticed the black lump in the middle of the road. It looked like it could have been a blob of tar that had been formerly employed as a yellow reflector keeper-downer. I said, “WAIT A MINUTE! IS THAT?…. THAT’S IT!!!”

I have never, ever, not once in my life, wished more that I was a free runner. Absolutely nothing could have displayed my excitement more than turning a series of badass kick-flips and possibly bouncing (in a suave and awesome way) off the hood of a car or two. Alas, I am not a free runner. Instead, I just had to settle for bouncing up and down, and excitedly pointing to my wallet as each car that drove by, hoping that my smile + my bouncing + my wallet in my hand would effectively convey the above story to each of the car’s drivers as they passed.

I just discovered that the first three seasons of United States of Tara are on Netflix, so, uh, I’ll see you guys later.

We drove to Colorado today, and I was really tired. Then I went grocery shopping with Aimee and we saw (not one, but) THREE FOXES on the way. THREE! One of which was all sad and confused and totally froze on the side of the road and we just got to stop the car and stare at it for a while!

Foxes are perhaps the cutest animal alive. That’s all for tonight. We’re jumping on the snowboards tomorrow, so I’ve gotta get my beauty sleep.

I got my hands dirty this weekend.

I didn’t really have much of a choice. My plants were looking pretty ragged, and it’s already the time of year when I have to reign in the summer’s wild overgrowth. Before long, it’ll be too cold to have them outside, and they’ll all find their way into the house. I can’t believe it’s that time of the year already. How the hell is it November? Yesterday it was August and 100 degrees and now it’s Daylight Savings? My mind is boggled. My ivy might have been the teeniest bit root-bound. Oops. Note to self. Re-pot earlier next year.

Zack thinks ice cream is the best dessert ever, and I say the best dessert ever is actually Creme Brulee. Who’s right?

I was wondering if it was almost time for my period, and then I rented Bridesmaids and cried through the whole movie. So I’m glad that’s all cleared up.

Well, as it turns out, I can’t run or work out on a consistent basis unless I have a piece of paper or a trainer to tell me what to do and when to do it. I’ve tried to just be the kind of person who runs whatever distance they see fit, whenever they feel like it, but apparently, I’m the kind of person that sees it fit to run, oh, next to never. And that’s not often enough to make the Health Department or the American Heart Association happy.

So I’ve resorted back to my old-faithful. Where would my running be without Couch-to-5K? I’m still adjusting to the barefoot running, and now, since I’ve been not running for so long, I’m having to re-build my lost endurance, too. I had originally thought I’d just go back through the whole Couch-to-5K program with the toe shoes and ease into barefoot running that way, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. The first week didn’t challenge me (read: keep me entertained) or leave me sore, so I knew that I could step it up to the next week and be alright. I decided that I was going to jump a week every time I went on a run until I found the place where I needed to “start” the program.

The next run, I did the Week 2 intervals and when I got done I felt great. I felt awesome. I even called Zack and bragged about how good I felt. I allowed myself the caveat that it’s not how you feel directly after the run that’s usually the problem with the barefoot running. It’s the way your calves feel the next day that determines whether or not the run was within your proper ability range.

But the next day I still felt great. I told Zack that I still felt great. I told him the next run, I’d be moving up to Week 3′s intervals. He asked if we could perhaps do the Week 3 run that evening. I agreed! Not only did I still feel great from the day before, but also the weather had taken a steep drop that afternoon and cooled down about 25 degrees. Any time the summer heat takes a 25 degree nose-dive into “temperate” or “bearable,” it gives me a serious jones to get outside and do something active.

Trick is, I always run faster when Zack’s around. It’s not a conscious decision that I make, it just happens. I’m not sure if it’s because when he’s around I’m paying more attention to the way that I’m running (because I have someone watching me) which causes me to keep a more consistent cadence and pace, or if it’s some part of my ego that forces me to go faster because I know that he slows his runs WAY down when he goes out with me. Perhaps I speed up to meet him in the middle?

Are you guys doing the math, here? 1.) Jumping whole weeks of the training program at a time. 2.) Running two days in a row (which is something I haven’t done in over a year? At least?). 3.) Zack speed. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that Zack and I sprinted the last 90 second interval of the Week 2. Maybe not my brightest idea ever, but it was fun. Sprinting in the toe shoes is just like being 7 years old again.)

If we’re choosing to look at the bright side here, we can celebrate the fact that I have definitively located my starting point for Couch-to-5K: Barefoot Edition. And let’s just choose to look at the bright side. I mean, I’m sure my calves will feel better again eventually, right?

Kona is, according to many guidebooks, the best place in the world to dive with Manta Rays. In the 70s a hotel discovered the giant lights they were beaming into the ocean also happened to be attracting a load of plankton. And where there are plankton, there are things that eat plankton, e.g. manta rays.

After the sun went down, we tossed on our wetsuits and went out with lights to find the manta rays. Unfortunately, they didn’t get the memo that we were coming. None of them showed up. Zack and I weren’t too disappointed, though. We still got to be in the ocean at night time with a billion million fish swimming around us. The people in scuba gear at the bottom of the ocean were sending up giant columns of air bubbles. I swam above them so that the bubbles all fluttered up around me. Cognitively, I knew that it was just air from the scuba divers, but somehow, it still felt magical.

If for nothing else, the night was a success for having given me memories of my very own to associate with my favorite R.E.M. song, Nightswimming.

Zack showed me this video today and I’m totally in love with it. Anyone who loves Radiohead as much as I do will love it, too.