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Flying with a Cat

I’m here in Nashville! As I write this up, it’s Wednesday. I got here late Saturday night, so I’m still settling in!

How did Jackson do on the flight? Read on for more!

I’ll have a separate post up in a little bit with Nashville things, but this is enough for its own post!

Let me just start by saying that I was SO nervous for this. I was worried he would be super scared. He’s pretty scared of new people and new places. But I also sort of knew he would be just fine. He’s really good in the car, and rides 2 hours in the car fairly frequently. After some debate, I decided not to use any pharmacological intervention. I really didn’t want to because it just adds another variable, but I was worried he would be terrified. So how did it go? First, we flew Alaska Air. They had a pretty good pet policy: $100 for flying with the animal, and they don’t require any records or paperwork if he travelled in the cabin with me, which was something I DEFINITELY wanted to do anyways.

I was really nervous to go through security, because I wasn’t sure how that would work. They gave me the option of holding him as I walked through the metal detector and his carrier went through the machine, or taking him out in a private room for when the carrier went through the machine. I opted for the private room because I wasn’t sure if he would make a run for it. He was really good for this process. When I took him out he seemed scared but not terrified. As we walked around the airport, he meowed some. Not yowling, just reminding me he was there. The next few hours were a little bit of a nightmare, but he was a champ. We got onto the plane, and then immediately had to get off because there was something wrong with the plane. That led waiting an hour or so to get onto a new plane. Then, once on the new plane, we taxied for a while and then they brought us back to the gate because a warning light came on. THEN they had to change flight crews because due to the delays, the pilots had been working too many hours in a row. So MORE delays. I was a bundle of nerves at this point because it was 2pm, and he had been in the carrier since 8:30am, and we still had a 4 hour flight ahead of us. Meanwhile…he was fine. As soon as we started taxiing the first time (before we got called back to the gate), he curled up and fell asleep. And then was asleep through the whole delay and pretty much the entire rest of the flight. I was worried about the noise at takeoff, and that he would be terrified….nope, he was asleep. He didn’t make a single peep on the plane, and only meowed again when we were off the plane. I put my hand in the carrier a few times to check on him…he purred. So he was definitely not traumatized!

In terms of logistics, I brought a big tupperware container and a bag of litter (which 100% will get flagged at security if you do this), as well as some small paper bowls and a bag of his food. When we got to SFO, I took him out in a pet relief area by the gate and gave him an opportunity to use the litter, which he didn’t. I gave him the chance to drink water on the plane and I don’t think he did at all.

Due to the delays, we got to the house we’re staying at around 10pm…meaning he had been in the carrier for almost 12 hours. I had a letterbox and litter delivered to the place so it would be ready for when we arrived, but not only did he not urinate in his carrier, he didn’t use the litter for a little while.

I was also nervous for how he would be in a new place since he tends to be scared of new places. Nope. He was purring and flopped out on my bed pretty much right away.

He seemed very comfortable and was happy to explore a new place. He especially loves all the window sills! There are critters that he loves watching out the windows on the back deck.

And of course he has been loving hanging out in the sink. I don’t get it.

The one weird thing is that he didn’t eat really at all the first day. That’s really unusual for him. He’s usually constantly eating, and he loves his dry food! He didn’t seem stressed at all, and was behaving normally. And he ate a couple of treats. But then I was unpacking a can of his wet food, and he was instantly interested so I fed him that, and since then he has eaten normally! Kittens…

Overall, despite my own stress, we had a great flying experience. I’m so lucky that he’s so good about this kind of thing, and I think taking him in the car regularly from a young age was really helpful. It’s also SO nice to have him here with me!

Have you flown with a pet before?

DC Weekend: Wedding, Sweets, and Fitness

So. I finished my first year of vet school. A week and a half ago.

^officially 1/4 of a vet!

In the past week and a half I: went to a wedding in DC. Spent time at home in the Bay Area. Moved to Nashville. Whaaat? It’s been a crazy couple of weeks to say the least. So before I start with the Nashville posts, I wanted to recap my DC trip! It was a whirlwind for sure, but so fun!

I basically went straight from my final to the airport. I was traveling alone, but my friend had a flight out around the same time as I did so we got celebratory beers.

I didn’t get to DC until midnight thanks to the time change. I slept in Saturday morning (does it count as sleeping in if you’re on the wrong time zone?) and then headed out for a few of my favorite DC things: monument run and Sweetgreen. Can you believe it’s been 4 years already since I lived there?

I mostly stayed at a hotel nearish the airport, on the blue line of the metro (which was under construction all weekend so the delays were crazyyy). For my run, I took the metro to Arlington Cemetery, and then ran from there.

^ducklings!

It was really crowded so I definitely had to walk in some sections because of all the people.

It was also quite warm and humid! I definitely missed these sights though! I ended my run at the Sweetgreen in Foggy Bottom (the area I lived). I got a beet and goat cheese salad with chicken and wild rice, and balsamic dressing. SO good.

When I got back, I picked up a rental car to drive to Maryland for the wedding. It was held about 30 minutes outside of DC, and the drive was terrifying. Look, I’m a good driver. I’ve driven in Southern California. I’ve driven in San Francisco. But this drive….not fun. The roads were confusing and the drivers were so unpredictable! I had a terrifying moment when another car swerved into my lane, nearly into me, out of nowhere. Thankfully, I arrived at the hotel safe and sound, and got myself ready to go to the black tie wedding!

It was held at a beautiful mansion. It was supposed to be outside, but minutes before we were supposed to be seated, the skies fell and it started POURING. They had a wonderful back up indoor area, and it was a beautiful, intimate ceremony!

Congratulations Jenni! We went to undergrad together and I knew this couple from the very start!

Sunday morning, I packed everything into my backpack (yes, including my floor length dress), checked out of my hotel, and dropped off my car. I decided that Sunday afternoon would be my Georgetown time (read: cupcake time), so I took the metro into Rosslyn and had a quick lunch at The Little Beet. It’s similar to Sweetgreen, but different flavors. I got a bowl with chicken, brussels sprouts with cranberries,  pickled onions, avocado white bean spread, and chimichurri sauce. It was one of their suggested bowls, and while there were a lot of flavors going in, they worked together!

I then walked across the bridge into Georgetown, straight to Baked and Wired! The Georgetown Cupcake line wasn’t too long either, and I honestly probably should have stopped there too…

I got the one gluten free cupcake option, which was vanilla with chocolate chips!

So good!

Then, I walked along the waterfront and settled on some big steps to read my book for a little bit.

At this point, the sky was getting DARK and I thought for sure I would get poured on. Somehow though, it held out. I checked back into my original hotel and relaxed for a few hours before heading out into the drizzly weather to go to Alexandria. Old Town Alexandria is super cute, and wasn’t too long of a metro ride from where I was staying. I went to Le Pain Quotidien for dinner, another place on my “must gos” for my trip. I got a chicken and mozzarella tartine on their delicious seedy GF bread.

When i saw there was a Kilwin’s in Alexandria, I knew I needed to stop. I went to one in St Charles (near St. Louis) for ice cream and it left an impression! I got the salted caramel, which comes with chocolate covered pieces of caramel! I actually ate this outside in the rain because there wasn’t anywhere inside to sit. Worth it!

After dinner and dessert, I had a relaxing night in at the hotel. When planning this trip, it was tempting to try and fit in 101 things into the short 2.5 days, but I eventually decided that I was going to be exhausted post-finals so I decided to try and make it a little more relaxing.

Monday, my flight left in the afternoon so I didn’t have a ton of time to do things. Since it was Memorial Day and Murph is legitimately one of my favorite Crossfit workouts, I decided to drop back into Crossfit Foggy Bottom to do it. That was my box when I lived in DC, and although I don’t think any of the same people were there, it was good to be back! The interesting part of this Crossfit is that it’s in the basement of a fancy hotel! That made the running of Murph a little more interesting…we had to run through the locker room and then the hotel lobby, and up stairs to go outside! I wasn’t super concerned about my time, I just wanted to do the workout, so the time difference as a result was fine. This workout is a great reminder to remember those who have served and lost their lives.

The workout went well for me. it just doesn’t crush me in the same way it used to. Plus, my pull ups just get better every year. I maintained sets of 5 until the very last round. And my legs didn’t feel quite as heavy on the second run as they have in the past! I think one of the worst Murphs I had was when I did it with a semi-broken foot (the boot came off later that week)….I hadn’t squatted at all in a month or so, and 300 squats after all that time off….ouch.

Thanks to the humidity and 100 pull ups, I was a sweaty chalk monster at the end!

This Crossfit is part of a gym with fancy showers, so I was able to get cleaned up there before traveling!

I made a couple more stops before arriving at the airport. First off, Sweetgreen one more time! I got the Guacamole Greens and subbed sweet potatoes for the onions.

And the final stop? Shake Shack. Their frozen custard is SO good. When I was in Philadelphia in the middle of winter, I ventured into sub-freezing temperatures at night just to get some! I got the vanilla concrete with hot fudge.

Then, it was back home for 4 short days!

Nashville recap coming soon!

It’s the Last Week of School!

I can’t believe it’s the last week of my first year of vet school. Things are pretty crazy for me right now between studying for finals and getting ready for all kinds of travel. 2 hours after my final, I will be on a plane to DC for a wedding, and a week later I head to Nashville for the summer! I’m definitely a little worried about traveling with my little one.

He’s great in the car, but he gets scared of new people and new places.

I also just discovered he still has some residual baby teeth on his back molars and I need to have them taken out. I’m trying to figure out when and where I can get that taken care of.

For now, I thought I’d share a super fast full day of eating from today before I get back to studying!

Breakfast:

I got this super amazing apricot jam at a farmer’s market back home. It’s basically all apricot with minimal sugar. I’m trying to finish it up this week so it doesn’t go to waste! It’s super delicious with sunbutter and yogurt. Mango on the side.

Lunch:

Salad with grilled chicken, blueberries, honey goat cheese, and balsamic vinaigrette. GF cheddar crackers on the side. Plus a little something sweet.

I ended up doing my workout on my own this afternoon, since the Crossfit workout called for deadlifts and I’m not quite ready for that yet with my back. I figured I might as well share what I did!

5×5 back squat working up to 165ish# I say “ish” because I’m pretty sure I had a 2.5 plate on one side and a 5 on the other and kept feeling off balance. That explains it…

8 minute AMRAP: push ups and box jumps I like this little couplet and do it a lot because I work on my strict push ups from my toes, and the (padded) box is higher.

8 minutes: 20 seconds max effort on the assault bike/40 seconds rest

2×25 hip strength exercises My hips are still a little jacked up from squatting but they’re a lot better. I figure some focused strength + stretching couldn’t hurt.

Snack:

Bar+freeze dried grapes and then some real grapes.

Dinner:

Leftover cauliflower crust pizza and a kale salad massaged with poppyseed dressing and topped with parmesan.

Dessert:

I’m in the “eat things up” phase and I realized I had a mostly full box of this vanilla cereal left. I decided it would be good with chocolate chips, and then kicked it up a notch by heating up some gourmet marshmallows (seriously the best I’ve ever had) and making an impromptu rice crispie treat type of deal.

Snack #2:

Mid studying I had a brown rice cake with whipped chive cream cheese.

Back to it my friends. We’re almost at the finish line!

Full Day of Eating: Amazing Salads

I’ve been eating the same lunches and dinners each day this week so far, and they’ve just both been amazing (simple) meals, so I thought I would share!

Pre-Crossfit: Typical Berry Cheerios.

Crossfit crushed me this morning. It’s been crushing me in general these past couple of weeks. We did back squats which I was super excited about because they’re my favorite thing and I haven’t been able to do them much lately between my back and my jacked up hips. Both are getting better, so it was so nice to squat and have it feel good! The WOD was intervals of wall balls, rowing, and walking lunges with two 35 pound dumbbells. It was ALL quads today folks! I was pretty ready for breakfast when I returned!

Breakfast: Sunbutter Banana Smoothie

Back in the day, before my peanut allergy, I used to LOVE a super thick smoothie of frozen banana, a huge scoop of peanut butter, and a little milk. I actually looked back on my blog for the amounts. It’s not quite as good with sunbutter, and the half cup of milk made this a little thinner than I want next time, but this was delicious! Also now that the weather is warming up, I want warm food less!

Lunch:

I’ve blogged this salad before but it doesn’t change how amazing it is. My blueberry and burrata salad! I haven’t had a ton of luck finding burrata lately, but I found it and blueberries are just starting to be giant and sweet! Burrata is one of my favorite things. It’s SO creamy. I had rotisserie chicken, which made this all the better. I also had a bowl of Pirate’s Booty.

Snack:

Bar+grapes. I’m loving grapes right now!

This evening, I had my last soccer game of the year! We lost, but it was a close one! I’ve definitely improved a lot since the first game in the fall. Yeesh.

Dinner:

I like to think of this salad as vaguely Hawaiian, partly because we made it in Hawaii for the first time. I tossed greens in Poppyseed dressing, then topped it with papaya, rotisserie chicken warmed up with GF teriyaki sauce, and topped with mozzarella cheese. YUM.

After dinner, I went to a kitty birthday party, and brought Jackson! He was clearly thrilled.

He immediately crawled under the tiniest space. He didn’t seem too overly scared under there though. I’m trying to put him in some more social situations before we fly to Nashville in a few weeks!

At the party I had some custard from a cake and a small glass of wine while we celebrated the birthday girl!

And to finish the night, back home I had half a rice cake with cream cheese.

Lemon, Dill, and Chicken Salad+ Other Spring Salads

Guys. I created something amazing. I tried to make a Sweetgreen copycat one of their spring salads, and while it actually tasted nothing like it, it was SUPER delicious and insanely easy (thanks to Trader Joe’s.)

Ingredients:

Trader Joe’s Lemon Pepper Grilled Chicken

Steamed or Roasted Asparagus (I steamed mine, and then for my last salad of the week when I didn’t have any broccoli, I broiled it)

Roasted Broccoli (I roasted with Trader Joe’s Everything seasoning blend)

Feta

Fresh Dill

Mixed Greens

Trader Joe’s Tzatziki Sauce

This salad screamed “spring” to me. Also, I got that bowl specifically to house large salads.

Just basically mix everything together. The Tzatziki is the dressing.

I’ve also had some other delicious salads lately that I thought I would share.

Granted this isn’t the best picture. But right now, aged balsamic massaged onto kale is my jam. This also has dried cranberries, creamy goat cheese, and deli chicken. I actually think I prefer deli chicken to turkey at this point.

Same idea but with honey goat cheese. I don’t have a picture, but I’ve also been doing blueberries instead of pears in my lunch salads this week. Partly because they were actually really sour and not the best to just have plain.

Avocado toast, plus an amazing salad that doesn’t look like much. Amazing thanks to the aged TRUFFLE balsamic vinegar that I used. I think aged vinegars are my current favorite thing. The kale was massaged with a little olive oil, aged truffle balsamic, garlic powder, nutritional yeast, and salt and pepper.

And since I claim to be a vet student, here are some fun things from these past couple weeks:

Learning how to locate abdominal organs on ultrasound:

New bffs:

My first client simulation lab! My school puts a lot of emphasis on communication in our curriculum, starting in first year!