Two Gears

Damn. My scale is, like, totally broken. About two months ago I set a set a two month goal of losing ten pounds. Well, I stepped on my scale this morning to discover I've gained about five. Crap.



I think my problem is that I have no sense of moderation or self control. It's like I have two gears...All and None. I've had some success getting lean in the past and found that it requires discipline and consistency. I can do that when I'm in my 'All' gear. Unfortunately, 'All' is a difficult steady state to maintain. I eventually burn out and switch to my None gear. So, I've been trying to find the balance between All and None. It's not working. It's time to switch gears again. No more messing around. Two months. Ten pounds. Mark my words, it will happen. That means no more pizza, Chris. No more peppermint patties, Jason. No more gummy bears, Janet. From now on, its strictly business. Oh wait, I have a concert tonight, and a stag party friday, and a wedding saturday. This is going to be hard!

(If you've got 6 minutes, the long version of the SNL skit is hilarious.)

Root Canal

It's a long story, starting with some friends, some two stepping, some beer and some good times at a Stampede party, followed by some tears, broken teeth and a lot of time at the dentist over the last 18 months. After a series of dental work last year, I thought I was out of the woods. But then my dentist advised me a month ago that I would need a root canal on one of the teeth. I put it off, imagining that my tooth would magically regenerate and that I might avoid the proceedure altogether. This was a bad idea. After a mild but managable three day toothache during my trip to Kelowna, which turned into what I thought was a raging toothache, I finally called my dentist to schedule the root canal. Fortunately, they were able to fit me in the same day. I've always had a bit of a psychological issue with freezing but, for the first time, I was really happy to get some relief from the toothache as the dentist stuck a needle (actually, several) into my gums and the anesthetic went to work. I figured that was the end of the discomfort.

WRONG.

The pain was too intense to get any work done, so I called my dentist to beg for some stronger pain killers. They moved the extreme pain to a manageable level of discomfort, but made me stoned, nauseous and sleepy. That's not a good combo at work, especially when you are in nice restaurants for lunch meetings! And then there are the antibiotics, which my body was really really not interested in keeping inside. It's now been a few days since the procedure. I'm still in pain, but I think I've figured out how to balance the pain and side effects. What I'd like to know is how long this will last? Certainly not everyone goes through this? I hate Stampede.

Kelowna

I went to Kelowna for the family day long weekend. My sister is out there on a work rotation and Kelowna was a substantially more appealing destination to visit than Winnipeg. Plus, it was an opportunity to visit my friend, Dana, and her fiance, Brent, who are livin' the dream with two dogs, a boat, and a big house in Kelowna (isn't that what people work their whole lives for?).

Highlights of the weekend included:

• Luxury accomodation at chez Dana, which included a cookie and chocolate on my pillow and a trashy magazine on the bed side table, as well as delicious breakfast in the morning (donuts on day one, pancakes on day two) and wine and good company at night.
• A romantic couples massage that Dana booked for the two of us. I probably should have seen it coming after having seen the heart shaped cookie and chocolate on my pillow (poor girl, I hope I didn't break her heart).
• Snowshoeing with my sister, Todd and Rory. It was a beautiful, sunny day and it felt good to be outside. We even made a snowman.
• Cross country skiing with Todd; even the black diamond trail that he lured me onto (and which I ultimately wiped out on). He's such a thrill seeker. It's pretty cool to have a brother-in-law that I like enough to consider a real friend.
• Seeing how strong and healthy my nephew has become. He really likes to move those little legs of his. I have a feeling that he's going to be a great cyclist one day.
• Having dinner with all five of the people I came to visit in one room. Relaxing with great company and good food. That's what life's all about.

Valentine's Day

Erik has been taking Spanish lessons on Monday and Wednesday nights, with the last class scheduled for Valentine's day. We discussed it, and I agreed to let him off the hook for any kind of date. It's not like Valentine's Day has historically been an important date for us, but we've tried to do something nice around this time over the last few years. So, imagine my surprise when he says "we are going to a Spanish restaurant for dinner on Valentine's Day". Naturally, I'm excited by this news. It's a restaurant I haven't heard of, which adds to my excitement. I respond with interest, asking what kind of restaurant it is, where its located, and so on. He clarifies that, when he said "we", he did not mean "him and me"....he meant "him and his Spanish teacher/class". Ouch!

Observatori Goes International

Another super week comes to a close. This one was eventful in a different way than the last.

At french class this week, we got way off the curriculum and talked of current events. I learned new words like "Siens", "un coureur de jupons", "empoisoner", "navette spatiale" and "couche pour adulte" (you dont even want to know how that one came up!). It felt really good to get a conversation going; a bit like when you're playing tennis and you get a great rally going. A few easy lobs back and forth and then you start to gradually take it to the next level and test your limits; you hit the ball a little harder and to the farther regions of the court. I feel like my french is finally getting to a level that I can see results and it is feeding my ambition to take things forward. It will be a long road to become fluent, but I think it will be one of my greatest acheivements.

Another fun development for the week was finding out that people other than my mom and my aunt read my blog! Cool. Turns out I've got a global fan base. Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but I did recieve a comment from this chica, Emma, in the UK that plays the viola (I've always liked the viola - even, or maybe especially, in that Velvet Underground song Heroin). Okay, so she happens to be Chris's sister, but it was still cool because she's almost a celebrity - I've heard she's going to play at Glastonbury this year. (Mental note, I can increase my readership by writting about other people). I also got a note from Dallas, Erik's Transrockies partner. I'm not sure what to make of it, but he's probably lost interest by now anyway.

When Friday finally rolled around, it was party time. Erik is out of town this weekend for a stag party in Fernie, so I hung out with my friend Tamara and her son Declan and watched "An Inconvenient Truth". Pretty wild Friday night. It was really nice to catch up with a good friend and see another example of a healthy and well behaved baby (2,287 days until I get one of my own!). The icing on the cake was learning that Tamara reads my blog too! Official fan base: six.

Ballaholic

I have a bad habit of correcting people's spelling. Constantly (I can't help it). My friend Chris (featured in the photo to the left, enjoying a $24 taco) can attest to this as he is an easy, and frequent, target. I was joking with him yesterday about K-Fed. Chris said he thinks K-Fed is a "douchbag". I politely suggested that he probably meant to say "douchebag". This led him to google douchebag. A lot of "interesting" sites come up when you google "douchebag", but I don't recommend you check for yourself unless you're at home and have an empty stomach.

Among the "interesting" sites, Chris found a definition for this word on the Urban Dictionary. The Urban Dictionary is "a treasure trove of information about current slang and word usage". Simply, it is an online dictionary of slang terms, whose definitions are written and ranked by users. Pretty handy for an oldster like me. It's one of the hilariousest sites I've seen.

Check out the definition for Tori. Clearly, there are some very intelligent and well informed people contributing to this website.

"woah look at tori, shes more ballin then that kid in detroit son."

Unfortunately, the writers lack spelling skills. Kind of ironic, given that this is a dictionary. As I read about myself, I even learned some new words, like ballaholic. Other good ones include "wha" (definition #3) and "meh" (definition #5). Take a break and have some fun learning how to be cool.