the tale of the shrew and the suitcase

I have begun "the purge" on my apartment. I am sick of all the clutter and since I hope to move in a couple of months, the less stuff I have, the better. I am getting rid of crap that I don't need or use.

Yesterday, I recycled almost $15 worth of cans. Soda cans mostly. I can't help it. I have an addiction.

One thing that I cannot bring myself to get rid of are books. I have a lot of books - some here, some at my parents. I have more books than can fit on my bookshelf. In order to fight my losing battle with available shelf space, I have asked my parents Santa for a Kindle for Christmas. We shall see what happens..


this  little guy got recaptured so many times,
we named him Curly!





I have also asked my parents Santa for a suitcase and a ridiculous pair of Zoot recovery compression tights.

Why a suitcase? Shouldn't an almost-27 year old girl own a suitcase?

Well, I USED to have a nice suitcase. Then, a few summers ago, my then-graduate advisor told me he wanted me to take a week-long course in the Adirondacks called "Ecology of Adirondack Mammals." So I packed necessary stuff - hiking boots, raincoat, outdoors clothes, running clothes and left for a week in the mountains. During this week, we spent a lot of time in the field, setting and checking Sherman traps (live traps) in order to catch, tag, and release small animals. We caught mice, chipmunks, a squirrel, and a TON of shrews. (We also caught some little brown bats by mist netting).




this is me (4 years ago) holding a dead masked shrew



 There are a bunch of different types of shrews in the Adirondacks, and they all smell. They smell even worse when they are wet. And guess when they are wet? When they are stuck in a trap at 6:30 in the morning. Even if you handled them while wearing gloves, the stink still got all over you. So a whole bunch of my clothes smelled AWFUL because of those stupid shrews. And then I put all of the dirty clothes in my suitcase and drove the 6 hours home to Pennsylvania. And the suitcase was never the same. We febreezed it, we left it outside for days - didn't matter. That was the demise of that suitcase.

Fast forward 4 years later, it's time to get another suitcase because I have to bring a ton of crap with me to Idaho for IMCDA in June!

So hopefully on Christmas morning I will be lounging around in my overpriced Zoot compression tights, reading a book on my Kindle, and packing things in my new suitcase. :) In reality I will be trying to keep the dog out of everyone's way while my family opens presents and whining because after we open presents, there is absolutely nothing to do on Christmas. My goal this year is to watch, in its entirety, "The Christmas Story" because I have NEVER seen it the whole way through! Lofty, I know. Especially since it plays for 24 hours straight.

I am not asking for anything strictly triathlon related, but 2 of the 3 things are going to be quite useful for my 2 destination Ironmans in 2011! And since I can't ask for anything too ridiculous (say, a million bucks or a supermodel boyfriend) I figured these things would be useful items to own. What do you want for Christmas?