The Mondays

Look Familiar?

It happens to the best of us. You wake up on a Monday excited to tackle the week ahead, jump out of bed and before your feet hit the floor it starts... Muckery.

I don't let days like this get me down, we all have them so I figure what's the point in letting it get me down. In my mind it's better to just plug away and eventually it will pass. Well last week I had one of those days. It was so bad in fact it ended up with one of my furkids at the emergency vet. Although it was quite annoying at the time, eventually it all worked out and looking back I even found some humor in the whole episode. So I thought I'd share it so the next time one of you is having a case of "The Monday's" you might think about Greek Girl and realize we all have them. You're not alone, just breathe and it will pass (a lot faster too if you try to find some humor in the situation).

It was Monday morning, I had a commercial audition in the city so I got ready and drove in like any other day. The audition was in a silly part of town where there is no meter parking for miles. The few meters that are available are either taken or too far away from my destination that by the time I walk to the audition; I will end up having to turn around to go feed the meter again because they are only one hour meters. So after driving around in circles I decided to bite the bullet and park. It would be $50 bucks for one hour. My audition appointment was at 12:10pm.

I think it's funny that casting directors give out appointments and have a cow if anyone shows up late. On the other hand they can make actors wait for hours as if it's no big deal at all. So I walk in and it is like a giant romper room. Toddlers and young kids everywhere literally bouncing off the walls, parents on iPads and cell phones totally oblivious to the fact that their kid are acting like animals. I sign in and ask the assistant who is doing the sign in's if she has any idea if they are running on time. She looks at me like I have six heads and says "Appointment times are out the window today, I can't give you a time just wait". I'm thinking oh gee nice, I'm glad I made it on time and am paying $50 to park.

I sat down and began to take it all in. We have a word in the Greek language for what was going on "χάος" it means Chaos! So after basking in the chaos for almost an hour they had seen a whopping one set of people for the role. It was for a family: a mom and two young kids for a food product. I could not wait any longer due to the $50/hr parking garage, so I asked if I could leave and come back - little miss sunshine aka the assistant said OK.

So I went back to the garage paid the $50 bucks, retrieved my car and drove around for about  half an hour to find some meter parking. Finally after what seemed like forever I found a spot on the corner of 30th street and 3rd avenue. I had to be extra careful to park not touching the white line (or the parking natzis will tow the car) yet far enough from the car behind me so my car would not get hit if they tried to leave. I maneuvered Jillian Jetta in the perfect spot which wasn't easy I might add as she is a 6 speed. I got out, fed the meter, got the receipt and walked back to the car. Put the ticket on the dash and was set to leave to walk back to the audition. No sooner do I lock the door does the guy behind me yell out the window he is leaving that I can have his spot.... UGG now I'm already on the meter clock. See you have to be back to the car by the time on the meter or guess what? You guessed it a ticket. So in cecil the turtle mode he leaves and I back up to his spot. I grab my stuff and run the four blocks back to the casting.

I go back upstairs (runnning four flights of stairs as the elevator is old fashioned and the operator is out to lunch) to find no movement in the casting order.  Apparently the software broke and in all the time I'd been gone they only saw one more group. Ov Vey! So I wait, and since I had to be back to my meter within an hour to avoid a ticket, guess what happened? Yup I had to leave again to go feed the meter. So I ran the four blocks back to the car, fed the meter, and returned. Finally after almost three hours of total Muckery I was able to be seen for the casting. I did a great job and kept my cool despite the circumstances. It didn't hurt that they paired me up with some adorable kids who did a great job.

I left and got over to the West Side Highway just in time to be stuck in afternoon rush hour with all the other people who live outside the city and commute in. I finally got home about five. At this point all I want to do is workout. So instead of feeding the furkids like normal, I decided to give them a treat to hold them over and feed them "after" my workout. I gave them all small pieces of the fruit from the smoothie I was making with my Nutribullet in addition to some doggie cookies.

Right about then the monsoon started complete with thunder and lightening and torrential rain. One of the furkids "Pepe" is horribly afraid of thunder so I had to stop and get his doggie drugs in him fast (all natural no worries a little melatonin and "Rescue Remedy" drops to calm him down). I changed into my workout clothes and was about to go down to the workout room when I heard a bunch of commotion from the doggie room.

I rush in and find "Punkin" turning blue and four piles of throw up. Her eyes are all bugged out and she doesn't even look like herself. I grabbed her put her in the car and rushed to the emergency vet in the pouring rain. It was raining so hard I couldn't see. Thank God I got there in time... she threw up a piece of apple at home but I didn't realize she had stolen one of the other furkids apples because we found out later this is what was stuck in her throat.

They X-Rayed her and found that in addition to swallowing an entire baby carrot whole she had a triangle shaped thing stuck in her throat. They did emergency surgery to push the item down with a tube. They were unable to get it into the stomach, only to the bottom of the esophagus. They had to wait overnight for the specialist to come to do the next step which would have been endoscopic surgery to push the item from the bottom of her esophagus where they got it the night before into her stomach.

Needless to say it was a long night. The 6am X-Ray showed the triangle in the same spot. Then at 11:30am the vet called me to tell me they would try one more thing before doing the endoscopy which would have been another $1,200 or more. They fed her a tiny amount of baby food with some powder dye on it. Then re X-Rayed her, this time they found the little triangle was in her tummy. They called me to tell me I could take her home. With medicine and no hard food for a week, as her little throat was all inflamed from the trauma.

"Punkin" being sprung from the emergency vet!

The moral of the story... Sometimes you can make a bad day worse by putting off something. Although it wasn't intentional and I consider myself to be a very responsible dog owner, I put off feeding them when I got home because I wanted to workout. Which I never got to do anyhow because I had to rush "Punkin" to the vet. I didn't want to wait for them to eat, then take them out in the rain to do their business. I figured it'd be faster to give them a snack and feed them after. Even though they have dry food down all day, they love their special mash I make them every day. Had I just done it when I got home I quite possibility might never had had to spend a long night and a ton of money at the emergency vet.

An expensive lesson, but never give your furkids anything that is not mashed up or soft enough to go down their throats. The vet said they see dogs with apples stuck in their throats a lot. So the next time the Mondays come creeping up on you just sit back, take a breath and smile. The rain will stop eventually and if you find some humor in the situation somewhere, it will make it go a lot faster.  Looking back on it I realized you just can't make this tuff up. Life, it happens to the best of us... enjoy it, it's the only one we have.

Blessings, Love & Music,
Ava xo
www.avaaston.com

The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow

It's always sunny day when the Greek Girl is working out :D I know rain is a good thing, in moderation that is. The last few days around NYC the rain has been anything but moderation, it's been more like a long slow drowning. Wahh Wahh (Que. the sad violins). According to the weather app on my iphone ~ the sun is not supposed to come out tomorrow... however it is possible that it "may" come out on Sunday.

Most of my blog friends know about my love of running outdoors, and this rain frankly is cramping my style, no pun intended. Yeah I know I could go to the gym and run on the treadmill, but it's just not the same for me. There is just something magical about lacing up my sneakers and spending some quality alone time with my ipod, the road & the outdoors. My favorite time to run is magic hour just when it's turning dusk or mid afternoon when the sun is beating down on me.... Yeah yeah, I stay hydrated, wear sunscreen, all the things a good doobie does.

With all this rain lately I have had no choice but to take my cardio workout indoors. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Well that depends on how one defines good or bad. When it is raining so much that I can't run outdoors on a cardio day, I usually do one of the gazillion DVD's in my fitness war chest. Yes I have a fitness war chest, doesn't everyone? ;D So since all this rain got me whining about not being able to run outside, it got me thinking today may be a good day to talk about what kind of workouts I do. As I receive a lot of emails asking about what do I like to do to stay in shape, etc. So here we go ~ sharing: :DD

Most of you know I have a few "fitness gurus" who are trainers I have a tremendous admiration for. You could say they are my heros, each one of them have amazing workouts on DVD & do so many things to help people become healthy: Jillian Michaels, Bob Harper, Jackie Warner, Billy Blanks, Tony Horton, Debbie Siebers, Saun T, Brett Hoebel & Chalene Johnson. Jillian, Bob & Jackie & Billy's Tae Bo's DVD's are easy to come by, they each have their own web sites & most retailers like Target also carry them. All my other fav's come from www.beachbody.com

So to date I have completed several programs from beachbody.com: Original P90, Slim in 6, Slim Series, P90X, Insanity, Rev Abs, Chalene Extreme, & last but not least I am currently checking out Turbo Fire before I start it full blast for 90 days. For me I just feel better when I workout it is that simple. Had I not been a little Greek Girl who at one time had a little extra baklava hanging around, and been born skinny like my sister's that may not have been the case. But alas, I have developed a serious addiction to endorphins (you know God's medicine, that makes you feel good) and end up working out 5-6 days a week. Hope you check out some of the workouts & find one that is right for you. Of course I just know your ipod will be loaded with Ava Aston Tunes to help push you through the hard workouts ;D just sayin.

Blessings ~
Ava :D xox

Apocalypse Now in New York

Why is our Doggie Mama building an Ark?

We're just like other packs of dogs.  We think a good belly scratch cures most ailments, peanut butter and rawhides are super foods, a good roll in the mud never hurt anyone and we don't mind a little rain here or there. However, today in New York the rain has been anything but there...it's been all here! Listen folks, we're not talking about a little sprinkle, it's been rainin' so flipping hard, little BoBo stepped in a poodle. Stepped in a poodle. Hello, can anyone hear us? hello, (tap, tap) is this thing on? We're using our "A' material here.

This wicked rainy weather normally wouldn't have even bothered us enough to get up from our naps to investigate, let alone worry about it. However something's not right here in the Aston house. Yes, that's not very easy to say when you have Ava Aston as your Doggie Mama, with her messed up Greek noggin and all. There is always some sort of muckery going on here. But for reals, this time something is really wrong.  And you know we are really good at predicting earthquakes and full moons. But not so good at predicting an upset stomach in time to get outside or which pair of sneakers we should chew on and not chew on. Our bad. So with our canine senses wound up as tightly as Ava's sinuses from her allergies, we feel that there is something going on. There has also been other several clues:

Clue #1

The other day when it started raining so hard our Doggie Mama was going around the house singing , "It's Hammer time, It's Hammer time." At first we just thought she was having a bad VH1 flashback or something. But Punkin said it was secret code for "It's time to build an Ark." Punkin is so smart.

Clue #2

On the calendar hanging in the kitchen Ava took a red felt pen and drew a giant red circle around May 21. She said it was for her concerts in Pennsylvania that day.  Oh really? What a convenient cover story. Those Greeks are so coy.

Clue #3

We were reading some of Ava's blogs from the past week and realized she had posted this:Judgement Day is May 21

Clue #4

We overheard Mr. Bricks tell our Doggie Mama that this rain was nothing, he was once in a really big flood when he was much younger.  We know Mr. Bricks is old because Ava calls him Old Man Bricks and were just trying to figure out if the flood he is talking about was about 7,000 years ago. Coincidence? We think not.

Hello, look at the calendar people it's almost May 21rst. Is there something Ava doesn't want to tell us? We're not stupid we're dogs, not cats! So, not only is it almost May 21rst, it's raining really bad and we think Ava singing "It's Hammer time" is all part of a secret plot for something more sinister, like perhaps the end of the world.

Here's our conundrum, we think the rules of an ark are that Ava will only be allowed to bring two of us on board. I guess it's written down like that in the "good book"or something. Can we just say that's messed up? We realize that even if our Doggie Mama's life depended on it she couldn't decide to choose between the four of us. There is no way she could decide as to which two of us would go on a boat ride with her.

See, part of the problem is that she tells each one of us that we are the #1 dog of the Aston pack.  She does this by secretly whispering into each of our mite-free little furry ears and says that we are her #1 doggie. It's the old Greek bait and switch routine. Between you and us, she's not as good of an actress as she thinks she is, because we know how she is playing one of us against the other.

We love each other and we want to stay together.  We're such a good little pack Cesar Millan would be proud of us.  We don't want the world to end. We don't want to be split up where two of us would go on the boat with Ava and the other two of us would be left behind.

Are we reading too much into these clues?

Woof  Woof,

Punkin, Itty Bitty, BoBo and Pookie
(left to right) :D 

xox