Paddles Up!

Last summer, I did bootcamp. Five mornings a week for two months. Wait. Saying "mornings" puts it too mildly. I was up at 5am to be in Mission for 6 am. Rain or shine. After an hour of beating our chunky, lethargic, bodies into submission, I typically went for a 2 - 6 km walk. By September, I started running-- shocking, I know. Running was never optional for me. Run to the bus. Run away from the scary man with the knife. Run in my nylons. But for the first time in my life, I ENJOYED it. I had the pumping tunes on my ipod, new running shoes, bladder backpack... I was rolling. Running. Pounding that pavement. I lost about 15 inches during that season, and I felt and looked great! We all know the rest of the story.... Now, I DID lose about 10 lbs in the hospital, but I won't endorse that diet. Regardless, I had to find a new outlet for activity.

My physiotherapist was all about how biking would be great for me, and to that, I snort. How boring. I don't care much for biking. Besides, I need to expand my social horizon. The Orchid Society of Fort Langley sounded interesting, but I needed to sweat. My once svelte body was suffering from the lack of athletic beatings. I needed to challenge myself-- and quick! So my dear friend, Krista (who gets the credit for the photo above) suggested that I join dragon boating. Kudos to Krista! I am once again challenged but now in a non-impact, not-as-early, kind of way.

Twice a week, I congregate with my fellow teamates and we move some murky Fraser River water. We usually wear a lot of it by the time we head to the pub for burgers and brew after practice. On our last stretch, we collectively salivate and chant: ICE! COLD! BEER! Then we change out of our soggy clothes and drag our smelly waterlogged arses to the where the beers and meat pattys are.

Endurance has been the biggest challenge for me and when we do this brutal anaerobic excersise set, I have typically pulled my paddle out a few times near the end out of shear exhaustion. 20 reps at 100% strength, 20 at 75%, 20 at 50%, rinse, and repeat eight times. SO... last practice I did two of these endurance sets (one on each side of the boat) without pulling my paddle out even once. My coach congratulated me on my achievement-- I threw up over the side of the boat.

Chez Fehr

Table for three here Chez Fehr, as I visit my dear old friends Jim and Chrissy Fehr. They were married two months ago, and I experienced being an honoured bridesmaid for the first time.
Now as life settles for them, I get to visit as they whip up something that smells amazing in the kitchen. I am reminded of the many times that Dave and I would have Jim over for dinner and a game of Settlers, and of the crafty time that I brought Chrissy over to sample the brownies that Dave and Jim were burning. We have discussed how my old world and new world have yet to collide and perhaps that will come about in the near future. In the meantime, I am treasuring the moments that I share with my dear old friends, and I am enjoying also the memories that I will make with my new ones. At Chrissy's request, this has been composed in their humble and cozy love shack.

Have a heart?

I have always said that I would want to my organs to be donated if I passed away. Dave had even said the same. It just occured to me that my good intentions won't pave the way on their own. I can't say that I am prepared. So I am registering to be an organ donor, and I encourage everyone else to do it. Piece of cake. No sweat. 1, 2, 3. We fill out a form, and leave the rest to the professionals. So when you are done with them, pass them on to someone who isn't. SO DO IT. Have a heart. And a liver. And a lung or two. And don't even get me started on how you should be looking after those organs! Seriously. Be responsible for what you leave behind. For now, just make sure you are leaving something behind.

https://www.transplant.bc.ca/onlinereg/bcts.asp

A Little Whine Snobbery

I can't help but impart you with some great wine writing by my favourite oenophile and writer, Natalie McLean. This is a great article about wine snobbery that will make some of you laugh out loud. Her wit is unmatched. I am linking her website, simply because I fear the copyright powers that be. I will also pass on a strong recommendation to receive her newsletter. I get it, and it is infrequent enough that I don't feel inundated and I wait with bated breath to learn such new things as botrytis cineria, carbonic maceration, and how global warming has and will impact the vineyards and wine producers. It may not interest some, but it never hurts to attend a social function armed with some vinous fodder to impress.

http://www.nataliemaclean.com/articles/snobbery.asp

I would add my own personal note on wine snobbery, but I believe that Nat has already said it best. My encouragement is to simply venture out from the colour of wine, and the region in which you are most familiar, and explore wines that you wrote off. You may miss out on some liquid gold and an opportunity to learn about the nuances and history of a region.

Cheers to expanding your palate!

High school reunion or museum/zoo exhibition?

Marcella: You know, when you start getting invited to your ten year high school reunion, time is catching up.
Martin Q. Blank: Are you talking about a sense of my own mortality or a fear of death?
Marcella: Well, I never really thought about it quite like that.
Martin Q. Blank: Did you go to yours?
Marcella: Yes, I did. It was just as if everyone had swelled.

[Talking to his psychiatrist about going to his high school reunion] Marty: They all have husbands and wives and children and houses and dogs, and, you know, they've all made themselves a part of something and they can talk about what they do. What am I gonna say? "I killed the president of Paraguay with a fork. How've you been?"

(From Grosse Pointe Blank)

The reunion just crept up on me. I hated high school. I was a nerd. I had no intentions of going. Why would I want to relive the experience? I didn't stay in touch with anyone, nor do I remember them fondly. But, at the last minute, I decided to go. What the heck. I didn't have any other plans for Saturday night. I figured that I could pay the $40 and consider it as admission to a zoo or museum exhibit. A study on a cross section of people my age-- static or dynamic? Maybe I could get a sense of how refined I have become in comparison-- or not.

When I arrived, the hostess informed me that I might be the first one there. Not cool. I was just about to go walk around the block a few times when she returned with the news that there were 5 other awkward people standing around. At least we could be awkward together.
As others arrived, I felt like I was on display as much as they were on display. We sized each other up and down and squinted to find recognizable features. I was thinking that it might be an early night, if this what it would be like. The ice was broken when one guy whom I remember from elementary school walked in and started hugging us. We were all new at this at unsure of the proper reunion etiquette.

It was amazing how "down we forgot as up we grew". I feared the presuppositions based on who we were 10 years ago. I feared that after 10 years, all of my adolescent insecurities would come rushing back. But it wasn't so. If one held the belief that I hadn't changed, that would establish their own inability to change. I believe that I have become an emancipated nerd. Freed from the bondage of pubescent social oppression and metamorphosed into a social butterfly in my own right. I saw, through the thickening jowls and waists to the thinning hair and waists, a community in which we share our birth year and, for some, 5 years of our lives. At least we came together with a common ground to stand on, considering how we have moved on to such a variety of walks of life. And we all knew how to party like it was 1997.

I was most shocked to catch up with some classmates whom I hadn't seen since elementary school. Since I was only at this high school for 2 years, somehow I hadn't run into them during that epoch. I learned that a school yard bully had become an RCMP. I learned that although they grew out of their sweatpants, they would still chase the girls around the playground if given a chance. I learned (albeit, from an inebriated classmate) that I am hot. I learned that I did, in fact, have an old high school flame. Even though it is partly true that I didn't date anyone with whom I went to school. We hooked up on grad night, you see. He got his absolution for showing up on my front lawn drunk after we broke up.

At 1 am, we were kicked out of the restaurant, and the amnesty came to a close as we all formed cliques and went our separate ways to after-parties and clubs. In another 10 years, I wonder what will have transpired? I was the only widow this time around, but sadly, in another 10 years there will likely be another. There may be some more missing faces, and there may be some new ones that couldn't make it this time around. There will be wallets of more pictures, there will be more accomplished professionals, and probably some who haven't done much.

I went expecting nothing more than a study of observation. I left realising that I have become something. It is something intangible and gradual, but I have grown more into me. I can't say that the insecurities have completely dissolved, but they have evolved. As I overcome each one, I find that I am more of the hot person yet to be than the nerd that was.

Cheers to another ten years!

I Karened this blog

Blog. I just looked it up on dictionary.com, because I was curious about how many of these post-modern terms are recognised by the literary powers that be. Of course a web-based dictionary would have a suitable definition.

Blog (blŏg) Pronunciation Key n. A weblog. intr.v. blogged, blog·ging, blogs To write entries in, add material to, or maintain a weblog. [(we)blog.] blog·ger n.
1998, short for weblog (which is attested from 1994, though not in the sense 'online journal'), from (World Wide) Web + log. Joe Bloggs (c.1969) was British slang for "any hypothetical person" (cf. U.S. equivalent Joe Blow).

Even "Google" has a definition after infiltrating our common language with web-based terminology. It is a new day when proper names and nouns become abnormal verbs. An Ab-verb, if you will.

Goo·gle (gōō'gəl) Pronunciation Key A trademark used for an Internet search engine. This trademark often occurs in print as a verb, sometimes in lowercase: "A high school English teacher ... recently Googled a phrase in one student's paper and found it had been taken from a sample essay of an online editing service" (Chris Berdik).

Blog you! Kiss my blog! Yo momma is a blog. Could you pass the blog? This needs some more blog. You could use a really good blogging. My blog is broken. I like big blogs, and I cannot lie....

I am really impressed with this new uber-social tool. On a blog, people who SHOULD write are finally published, and people who SHOULDN'T can keep their day jobs. On a blog, peoples' creativity is released (some to the dogs, some to the grand masses) and one writes with the purest desire to share their thoughts out of their own free will (No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers...). On a blog, modesty, humility, and privacy is shed. I love this blog concept. At first, I saw it as a burden to find things of interest to write about, now, I lie awake thinking about all the things that I wish to impart to all you grasshoppers!

Now that I have joined the ranks of bloggers (look at that usage of a proper noun!), I am officially inducted into the world of web-expression. This new outlet of mine will house the thoughts that once were wasted on only a select few and now broadcast them to the WORLD! Muah-hahahahahaha. And THAT is what we are doing tonight, Pinky.