preparing for the arrival

in a little more than 24 hours we will be welcoming our brand new baby car--a healthy, sturdy little 5 door 2010 Honda Fit. For someone who's not really a car person, I'm pretty excited about this. The Fit is highly rated for safety and fuel efficiency, and it seems pretty versatile as well.

It's coming to us all kitted out with various extras and warranties that'll keep us safe and sound (hopefully) for the next 7 years. This is comforting to me. The car that currently lives with us was born in 1998, and I haven't really trusted it since the day years ago when Byron (and the car) were cursed by a fellow motorist. Byron isn't the superstitious type, but the car might be; shortly after the curse was uttered the car refused to go and required some costly towing and repairs.

Looking forward to many happy years with our new baby! we're already starting to put together road trip ideas for next summer.

crabby letters that I'll never send

It's been a while since I've posted anything. Fall is here, with its blustery days and lovely colours, the nights are getting longer and chillier, and hitting the snooze button in the mornings and snuggling back down into that wonderful early morning sleep is all the more appealing.

Lately I've been reassessing my social interactions with people, and realizing that sometimes I'm not always the most delicate or diplomatic person-- especially when dealing with people who have a tendency to be emotional. I've been trying to watch what I say in an attempt to avoid being shrieked at, but really, it's hard to keep some of this stuff in.

So...here in the comfort of my own blog, I'm letting my deep inner opinions out on a couple of topics that have really rankled lately. Please feel free to not shriek at me or try to make me feel guilty or like a bad person, this is me thinking out loud.

#1) Dear someone I'm related to:

I'm sorry you are having a tummultuous time with your teenager. Teenagers do indeed lead very dramatic lives, and as I recall from my own youth, this drama often leaks out into the lives of those close to them.

I was looking forward to spending time with this youngster this weekend, as I have on a few weekends in the past. I like to think that she benefits from having an adult in her life who tries to treat her like an adult, and I have to admit that I enjoy the time we spend together, as she provides me with a unique perspective and appreciation of the world around us.

I understand that she has had a disappointing time at school this year, I'm as horrified as you are at the marks she's brought home. What I don't understand is this: she's not old enough to drink, or vote, or take driving lessons, she's not even permitted to select her own clothes or, in your own opinion, take the bus by herself. I don't think she's ever had to do any chores at home, or earn an allowance; everything she has has been provided for her by the well-meaning adults in her life. What in the world makes you think that she can be solely responsible for her own academic success?

You say that she should have asked her dad or someone at school for help if she's floundering. Do these resources make it easy for her to do so? Do you know how hard it can be to ask for help from someone who uses words like 'dummy' or 'idiot'? Do you ask her about school? If so, how could it be 8 weeks into the school year before you discover she's failing? Do you allow her to make mistakes without judging her? Do you help her to find solutions? And just FYI, I failed math a few times during my high school years; I acknowledge that I'm particularly dense sometimes, but I don't think that there are many teens who worry about what failing a class means for their future.

I know that you were surprised to hear that she helps out when she's here, and what I wish I could tell you (without you freaking out at one or both of us) is that I think she's cooperative because we do things *together*. I appreciate what she does and I'm not afraid to tell her when she does something well; she's almost grown up, but like pretty much every child, she responds to positive feedback. I'm also not afraid to disagree with her, which happened last time she was here, and our disagreements don't have to end in screaming or crying or someone being 'right'.

I can't even imagine what it's like to raise a kid in this crazy world that we live in. It must be scary. What I can tell you from my own experience as a kid is that shouting, guilting, threatening or belittling only serve to close doors. Please don't feel threatened by me, or punish your kid by denying her time spent with someone who cares and listens and speaks honestly to her, I can't see this doing any of us any good.

I'd love it if you could take the advice you've given her, and ask for help if you need it. I can't tell you this, though, because if you freak out I might be banished from your lives. If you could overcome your shame or pride or whatever it is that inhibits you from talking about this stuff, you'd find that other parents are in the same boat and things might seem a little more manageable.

#2) Dear clients and colleagues:

I do not "speak Chinese". Chinese isn't even a proper term for a spoken language, its' a nationality. People in China speak a number of languages, Mandarin and Cantonese are the most common. I am not even of Chinese descent. It doesn't matter if you thought I look Chinese, or if you've known me for a number of years and always thought I was Chinese. It doesn't matter how long you stand around my desk and ask, or what reason you give for asking, or how deeply you suspect I might secretly "speak Chinese", I regrettably do not, I'm Japanese, and cannot help you translate anything into or from Chinese (or Japanese, for that matter, so don't even ask). I do recommend you visit one of my colleagues for assistance in translating though, as I believe that some of them might speak African.

road trip day 2!

Day 2 of our road trip started out with a nice (and free) continental breakfast in the hotel, where we met one of our fellow guests, a lady from Ohio who was visiting Auburn with her husband. I tend to disagree with Americans collectively, but always seem to find individual American citizens amicable and polite; I think this is how my dad feels about Korean people. In fact, now that I think about it, this is how I feel about people in general. :)

From Auburn we continued along the small-town tour of upstate New York, making our way through Skeneatles (another quaint little town, reminiscent of the town of old Markham) and Lafayette, which was in the middle of some beautiful hilly farm country. Cazenovia had some beautiful and huge old colonial homes, I can picture Martha Stewart living in such a place.

The approach to Albany became little hairy, when we became aware of the deficiencies of the state's road signage around the same time we learned how imprecies our map is. Somewhere along the way, while still hurtling along at 55 mph, the navigator on our little expedition realized that she had never really looked at a US map from a driver's point of view and didn't really understand which little dots on the map corresponded with which town names, and which little numbers represented which exits on the highway. After a few detours and missing a couple of exits, we finally rolled into our hotel. A surprisingly good lunch at Panera Bakery got our day back on track, and after a nap and a dip in the pool we were feeling human once more.

Dinner at Chili's was interesting. Apparently all the big chain restaurants in NY state are now required to list the calorie content on their menus. It's an eye-opener, but I can see this being a good thing once people get used to it. With the help of the new menu, I chose a nice, relatively healthy (and tasty) margarita chicken (600 calories) instead of a burger (1400 calories). We decided to forgo the 500-700 calorie appetizers, figuring none of them were worth it. Knowledge is power! Unfortunately, having saved ourselves these unnecessary calories at dinner, we decided we were entitled to a few later, and have since discovered Nutter butter cookies. um...

road trip, day 1

we're finally on the road, en route to Windham NY where we will crawl through the mud and hopefully leap over a fire pit alongside several thousand of our American brould n';eetheren. It's going to be an exciting time for sure, but there are some adventures to be had before then...

we left home yesterday during an almost biblical downpour. the driving was...well, actually, I don't know, since I did absolutely none of it. Byron says our little rental Hyundai Accent is 'gutless' but I think if that's the worst he can say about it then it's not so bad. It's far better than being 'unsteerable' or 'difficult to bring to a stop', for example.

We tried to make good time, but the trip from Toronto to Auburn, NY somehow took almost 8 hours. We did spend quite a frustrating time trying to get out of Niagara Falls ("ooh, look, we can cross right at the falls! Won't that be nice!") and we wouldn't want to regret not getting wings for lunch in Buffalo, so we had to stop there for a while. We also passed through all sorts of tiny places that I'd never heard of: East Aurora with its surprising wind farms, Varysburg, a quaint little town, Attica (which has a gigantic walled-in jail in the middle of a suburb...unless the suburb grew up around the jail). Lima NY didn't seem to have a public washroom, and so found its soil amended ever so slightly...we also were stopped in Lima by a fellow in a car who offered to sell us meat out of the back of his truck. We eventually made our way to Auburn, where we slept like logs at the Inn at Finger Lakes. On to Albany in the morning!

summer happenings and visitations by nieces

whoooo, where's the summer gone at? here it is, the long weekend, and it's fall. I blame Annalise, Byron's niece from Regina who's visiting for a few days before starting first year university. They have had some damp and chilly weather out west, and I suspect she's brought it with her. Perfect sleeping weather (and I do love sleeping) but it's sad to see another summer come to an end...

The summer has been one of bike rides, camping, gym-going, and working weekends. Our garden has fallen apart a bit, due partly to my weekend overtime and partly to its being overrun with spiders and slugs. Bleah! We did manage to make some raised planter boxes and a trellis, on which we've grown 2 cucumbers and a load of raspberries, so I can't complain too much.

The volunteering has taken a different path, the bees and Foodshare are last year's news. I'll likely pick up with them again, but wanted to try something different this summer. I've joined forces with Not Far From The Tree, a super bunch of folks who go out and pick fruit, right here in the city. First time visitors to Toronto have been surprised at how much greenery the city has, and among all that foliage we have lots and lots of fruit trees. Until a couple of years ago much of that fruit was going to waste, but Laura Reinsborough decided that was a shame, and started organizing volunteers to harvest the bounty. Volunteers keep a portion, tree-owners get a portion, and the rest goes to foodbanks and community organizations. Win-win-win! After a few picks (about 5 hours work) I came home with 15 lbs of pears, 5 lbs of plums and 5 lbs of rather scary apples. The end result is that this winter we will all get fat on jam, delicious jam!

Another highlight of the summer has been quality time with nieces. My own dear niece Katie is now 15 big years old, and to me that's always seemed a good age to be confused and get into trouble. I am thrilled that I'm cool enough to be a facebook friend to her, and was really excited when she suggested we 'hang out' sometime over the summer. We spent a great day in Kensington Market, talking and listening and learning from and about each other... I'm hopeful that we can make this a regular event.

As mentioned earlier, Byron's niece is here visiting, she's 18 and a completely different species of teenager. It's great to spend some quality time with her. She's a young lady approaching a really exciting time of life. Freshly graduated from high school, with a huge range of interests and experiences in spite of her youth the world is her bivalve, and it's invigorating to share some time with someone so raring to explore the world.

Fall will bring the Warrior dash and the start of night school--Byron is taking an art metal class and I'm taking photography, and oh yes, maybe I'll file my taxes as well :0 and I'm sure that we'll find other adventures along the way, which will be chronicled here in my customary irregular intervals.

staring down a cigarette

The tinybook is in the shop, and I've got a quiet evening in. I'm officially Quitting Smoking. I finished my last pack on Monday, have since bummed one full cigarette, a half of a cigarette, a third of a different cigarette and a, most recently, a huff on a cigarette. At this moment, my one cigarette that I'm 'allowed' for the day is beckoning...

We went camping on the weekend to celebrate my birthday, at Earl Rowe Provincial Park just west of Alliston, it was a wonderful time. 3 meals a day cooked over a fire! and then there's lake swimming, bike riding, sky watching, cribbage playing, lots of peeing in the bushes and, as a grand finale, experiencing an epic lightning/thunderstorm from a not-quite waterproof tent. It was all such an adventure! My deepest appreciation to my beloved for a wonderful birthday weekend :)

On our drive up Byron suggested trying to quit smoking again. Our most serious attempt at this was a few years ago on a trip to Regina. I found it to be incredibly stressful, and recall being inappropriately crabby and unpleasant. Of course that's no reason not to try again, in fact it's a really good reason to try again. We should be horrified that we're so enslaved to nicotine that it has this kind of effect on us. So, we're trying again :)

I think I'm in better shape this time, mentally and physically. I've been doing lots of reading about learning to live smoke-free,and it all seems very practical. It's clear that quitting smoking isn't impossible, it just has to be done right, with 'right' being whatever works for an individual. I think it could take many years and many tries to discover the right way to quit, so I might as well get this go-round started, eh? There's tons of info on the internet about quitting smoking, but I've found a very thought provoking and informative website at http://whyquit.com/ and have been reading my way through it almost exclusively lately.

I'm finding the cravings interesting and am hoping to outsmart them this time, instead of just giving in. For example, I was being tempted by a cigarette when I sat down to start this post. Why? Because originally I was going to go out and sit on the porch, and I've always smoked on the porch. Silly, eh? Why not just go out and sit on the porch? 'cause then I'd be just sitting on the porch, not smoking but probably thinking of smoking.

I need to learn how to occupy myself during my regular smoke breaks, so that I'll be doing something else, and that's an interesting challenge. So far tonight I've weeded the back garden, collected seeds from my kale plant, talked to the contractor next door, made an awesome pendant that I'm going give as a gift, and begun crocheting a ninja doll for my niece. The days are more challenging, I find it boring to hang around in the lunchroom eating yogurt instead of standing outside in the sun....oh well. If the blogs I've been reading are any indication, it's a small price to pay for eventually being able to taste food and smell things and save a bunch of money and stop poisoning myself I suppose. :)

By the way, I'd posted weeks ago about starting to run, and I was pretty self satisfied. I ran every other day for a week, and since then haven't gone more than 5 minutes at a time. Last night I saw our friend Wanda's walking log, and she 'walks' as fast as I run. Hilarious! I will claim that this is partially due to her longer stride and greater inseam. Whatever, it's a good excuse to quit screwing around and get back on track!

the cigarette that was calling my name earlier has been dealt with; it's back in the box with its brethren, waiting for the next opportunity. In the meantime, I shall take the next 15 minute non-smoke break to play some violent video games!

a little vacation

the little netbook has been feeling under the weather lately, behaving badly and inexplicably. for months Byron has patiently watched me try to cajole the tinybook into cooperating, but with the warranty expiry date looming, I finally placed the much-dreaded call to Acer.

After repeating the tinybook's serial number and SNID over and over to a Stephen Hawking sound-alike named Roger, I was then passed on to a nice lady in India who had me repeat the same information over and over to her. She has kindly invited me to send the netbook on a vacation to the Acer repair centre, where they will apparently do their best to rehabilitate it and return it to me in a timely fashion.

This is a year of fresh starts, so I'm open to the idea of actually doing something productive with the hours per day that I would normally spend in front of my tinybook. I have fantasies of cleaning the house thoroughly and clearing out clutter, catching up on correspondence, or perhaps even just getting to bed at a reasonable hour more often. This means that my Huje Tower at Candystand won't get any Huje-r, and my Facebook Mafia Wars account may stagnate, but maybe it's time for that...it'll be interesting to see what the next couple of tinybookless weeks will bring; may we enjoy a much more satisfying relationship once we're reunited!

werewolf transformations

A few years ago, during a werewolf/vampire movie watching phase, I wondered what a transformed werewolf felt during the process. Most people I asked thought it would hurt, but for some reason I always figured it would feel good, the way I think a butterfly emerging from its cocoon would feel good.

I've been happily noticing changes in myself since we've started going to the gym regularly. I feel stronger, long difficult days don't feel as long and difficult, and surprise myself by being willing to take on more and more challenges (I can now run 1.5 miles in 21 minutes, woo!)

Now, as we sit here watching From Hell I'm stretching and being vain and checking out my muscles. I'm realizing just how much my body is reshaping itself under my skin and remaining pudge, and I'm feeling a little werewolfish. I now think I have a better idea of how the transformation feels, just over a much longer time frame. It's been painful, a fair bit of reluctant, difficult work, but it feels glorious. :)

running--not just for crazy people anymore!

or maybe I've gone crazy :) Byron and I have signed up to do the Warrior Dash in September, and it occurred to me that in our gym-going efforts it would be good for me to try running. The event is 3.23 miles long, with some rather challenging obstacles along the way. I think the obstacles look like fun, but the 3.23 miles -- eehh. I've never really run much, it just never really seemed very appealing.

I move slowly, and in fact I like moving slowly. I see way more interesting stuff if I'm moseying down the street...little cats hiding behind cars that will come to me if I make noises at them, bugs trundling along the sidewalk, birds singing in the trees. Unfortunately, if I mosey during the race I'll likely end up with a finish time of several hours; generally, during the course of several hours I need to use the toilet at least once, and spending several hours in soggy, muddy clothes and having to pee probably is *not* one of the keys to an optimally enjoyable Warrior Dash. So then..

After our workout we usually do 30 minutes of cardio. Lately Byron's been trying to teach me to play squash (lesson two this past Sunday: still trying to hit the ball) in lieu of the cross trainer. Tonight I decided to run til I couldn't anymore. With Patrick Swayze singing "she's like the wind" in my mind, I triumphantly managed 13 minutes on the treadmill. To be fair, it wasn't really running. I did intervals, one minute at 3 miles/hr, one minute at 4 miles/hr, so it was more like 'hurrying' interspersed with episodes of 'scooting'. I also managed about 30 seconds at 6 miles/hr at the end, which is really what made that the end. Hey, when you've got a 24 inch inseam, 6 miles is a lot of ground to cover in an hour :P

I'm hoping that with each attempt I can improve something; maybe speed up the hurrying intervals, or make the scooting intervals longer, or the overall time longer...the potential for improvement is vast!

Warrior dash

warrior dash--an obstacle course run (and crawled through and slid down and climbed) in costume!

I think this sounds like a fun and challenging time, and there is discussion in the monkeyhouse of taking a long weekend in September to participate in the northeast dash. anyone else out there interested?

gymwardbound (the work out til you grunt program)

I've had a membership at the YMCA for almost fourteen years. I love it, they make active living accessible to a huge number of people and kids. Unfortunately, I hardly ever go.

This winter, probably while we were in for an evening of quiet tube-watching, Byron suggested that since we've both been a little (or more) slack about going to our prospective gyms we should go to a gym together. We got him a month's trial membership at the Y, and have been making it a priority to actually get there on a semi regular basis.

I used to dread doing weights, mostly preferring to slack off and do cardio (and then saying to myself "at least I did some cardio...'') but in a few short weeks of doing set after set of weights, I'm already coming to admire the results. Y'see, Byron's introduced a whole work-til-you-grunt attitude to my gym experience, something I've seen but never really understood. I was more of a work-til-you-break-a-sweat type of girl.

Byron's method is more challenging, but has proven to be more rewarding as well. It's January, but my arms are looking as beefy as they do during the peak of kayaking season, and while preparing for a bath tonight I made the first conscious sighting of my latissimus dorsi!

I usually spend a day or two a week being sore, but I've also discovered the utter relaxation and rejuvination that epsom salt baths can offer.

Last night we made our first trip back to the Y as full members. We lifted weights and then tried out the bosu ball and Gravitron 2000 (I will master both, eventually. Right now I'd settle for mastering one). We worked hard, then ate sensibly and slept like babies. So simple! I like it.

Looking forward to the new gym challenges, and to being pleased to know that they won't kill me, they'll just hurt me a bit til I can master them :) I think I see the 1-minute plank looming on the horizon!