Solitude, Tattoos, Beasts, Dinner & Calaveras

Yesterday and today Rob's been deep in the woods of Maine on a camping trip for work (along with his two female coworkers grumblegrumble), which leaves me and Cypress all alone.  One good thing about this is that Cypress keeps me on a nice exercise schedule--one-mile walk at 8, one-mile walk at 11, two-mile walk at 2, short walk at 4ish and then a few trips out to pee. 

Have I ever mentioned that Cypress is a ridiculously fortunate dog?

Anyway we had a morning and early afternoon filled with work (while watching 30 Rock, of course) and walks before I drove out to see Adam and my new tattoo design.  Get ready folks:

Isn't it amazing?!  Every time I look at it I fall in love with it a little more.  As usual, Adam took what I gave him and went in a totally different direction than what I expected and I couldn't be happier about it. I made an appointment for session #1 for next week because, let's face it, I have absolutely no patience at all. For those of you who haven't been following the journey of this particular tattoo, the phrase says "From Russia with Love." To see more of Adam's work, click here.

After stopping by Adam's, Cypress and I paid a visit to the good old beast-physician.  She got some shots (which she loved) and a mani/pedi (which she "loved" even more), and the vet tech and I discussed tattoos.  Apparently he has a whole host of them underneath his scrubs.  I've had other people in workplace situations conspiratorally pull up sleeves to show amazing, complex work hidden under long-sleeve sweaters and it always fascinates me. It makes me wonder how many people in daily life have hidden tattoos.

Finally, I took Cypress to a field in town to meet up with some of her beast-friends, Nigel and Jago.  We walked around the loop twice, went swimming, wrastled, and enjoyed other beastly pursuits.  Unfortunately the breeze wasn't strong enough to keep away the bugs and Cypress got a big nasty bump on her nose from a horsefly:

Poor beastie.

When we came home I left Cypress to sleep while I went to our favorite restaurant for some alone time.  I had Tuscan onion soup with gluten-free bread, caprese, and a pomegranate margarita:

I don't mind eating by myself, seeing as how it's a pretty common occurrence when I'm onsite for a project.  It still made me a little sad seeing an empty chair across from me, since we always eat at this restaurant together, but it was nice nonetheless.  I heard a little boy ask none-too-quietly, "Why is that lady here by herself?" which made me giggle a wee bit. Oh, the mouths of babes.

When I came home Cypress was out of her mind because apparently she had to pee more than she's ever had to pee in her life.  Poor beast...you'd think I'd be able to anticipate her needs better than this but honestly, Robbie is much more her "keeper" than I.  I think they know each other a lot better, which makes me a little guilty and thankful for days like this where I am the only one to care for her.

Finally, I did a little more work while watching 30 Rock, and Cypress and I turned in for the evening.

It was as lovely a day as it could have been considering I was all alone.  I do miss Rob, but it's nice to be alone sometimes as well.  I found that I wasn't nearly as stressed as last time we were apart, I think in part because writing about it made me more aware and subsequently more capable of dealing with those illogical thoughts and feelings.  Just makes me even more thankful for blogging and how it's helped me deal with my shite, so to speak.

Regardless, Rob comes back later this evening which makes me quite happy.

One final thing to share...Rob's early anniversary gift to me:

Aren't these lovely? I think it's funny that we both had the same "art" idea for our first anniversary gift...seems pretty perfect for the "Paper Anniversary" eh?  Rob bought these from this Etsy artist, if you'd like to see more of his work.

P.S. - This is totally lame, but I wanted to ask you to follow me on Google Friend Connect or Bloglovin' if you get a second. Just click the "Follow" button on the right-hand side above the rest of my followers or the "Bloglovin'" link, also on the right hand side.  When I get to 100 GFC followers I'm going to have a badass giveaway. :) /shameless blog follower plug