Hot Mama #1

I know, I said there weren't any photos of me from Dave's Christmas party last Friday but, I mean look at these, they're blurry and they're unfocussed and my eyes are shut so really, I don't.

Check out those feather earrings. Yes, they're earrings. In the bottom photo they kinda look like a Playboy bow tie. Uh, no. They're dangly black feather earrings I bought when I went shopping and forgot my brain in the parking lot. I wore them for a while but I noticed people were looking at me funny. I figured it was either telltale cheesecake crumbs stuck in my teeth, boogers hanging off my nose, my gargantuan arms or those damned feathers.

See? I told you. I've been eating so much chicken lately that I've been sprouting feathers. You should see the ones growing out of my ass.

Tonight is my office Christmas party. AND I HAVE ANOTHER DRESS. I know, there are starving children around the world and I have two party dresses. But it was on sale! 50% off! I had to do it!

I promise. More photos tomorrow. I'm going to take photos of all my workmates and post them, too. And I will make fun of them, profusely, because that is how I roll. You can tell me what dress you like better, OK?

Also? My colleague Sarah has promised to buy me a $5 raffle ticket for the bigscreen TV up for grabs at the par-tay if I hug the Big Boss. Well Sarah, these gargantuan arms are made for hugging, baby, and that's just what they'll do. One of these days these arms are gonna hug all over you... badda boom, badda boom, badda boom....

Are you ready, arms?

Start hugging...

Bettman is Wrong

I'm not a big hockey fan, not by any means, but something I heard on the news this morning pissed me off.

Just eight games into his return to the game following a severe concussion last January, Pittsburgh Penguins' star Sidney Crosby took a hit Monday night and has decided to sit out the next two games. It was an accidental hit, at the hands of his own team mate, but that's not what matters.

What matters is that one of the game's biggest talents might never get a chance to pursue his career because the "physicality" of hockey will threaten Crosby with brain injury at every turn.

Physicality is NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman's word.

"Our fans tell us that they like the level of physicality in our game, and for some people it's an issue but it's not as big an issue in terms of fans and people in the game to the extent that other people suggest it is," Bettman said, discussing fighting. "Maybe it is [dangerous] and maybe it's not. You don't know that for a fact and it's something we continue to monitor. The level of concussions from fighting is not rising, it's constant, so it's not an increasing problem. But, it is something we'll continue to monitor."

I don't agree. When I do watch hockey, I want to see goal scoring. I want to see the world's best talents dazzling us with their puck handling and their skating. I don't want to watch fighting or hitting. Especially when it means players will be severely hurt and put out of the game.

Bettman was talking to the New York Times about a recent analysis of the brain of NHL player Derek Boogaard that showed a link between head injuries and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Bettman said drawing a connection between fighting in hockey and CTE is "premature." Boogaard's brain was analyzed after his May 13 death, and the results showed Boogaard had CTE. It was the fourth brain of a former NHL player to be analyzed by researchers and confirmed to show signs of CTE.

"I think in this whole area there is probably entirely too much speculation and rumors and the like on something that is simply a tragedy," Bettman said, speaking at the conclusion of the NHL Board of Governors meeting. "With respect to what Boston University might find on CTE, they're still looking at a very limited database and in those particular cases there is no control element because you have to look at everything that went on in the person's life before you make a judgment on what a brain may show when you open it up.

"So, I think when you look at the fact that the medical community has only been dealing with the issue of concussions in the way that they have for probably the last few decades, and if you look at our history starting in 1997 and we've been across all fronts -- whether it's the study, the working groups, baseline testing, diagnosis and return-to-play protocols, rule changes, the creation of the Department of Player Safety -- we've been doing lots and lots and we'll continue to do lots and lots. But, there are no easy answers yet. And, I think it's unfortunate if people use tragedies to jump to conclusions that probably at this stage aren't supported."

How much study do you need to know that a conk on the head hurts the brain? Come on, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to know that! Read between the lines and you'll see all Bettman really cares about is money. He's afraid that ending fighting in hockey will mean the end of the money train. I think he's wrong. I think people would enjoy hockey more if there was no fighting. I love watching kids play, because they're playing – not fighting.

Boogaard's autopsy, Crosby's injury – these should be red letter flashing wake-up signs to Bettman and the NHL that it's time hockey violence came to an end. Now. Before players like Crosby wind up retired or dead.

Lollipop train derailment

Where did my mojo go?

Have you seen it?

I'm half-afraid I ate the fecking thing. I've been eating everything else in sight these days, why not the lollipop train that's been chugging stupidly along the losing-weight-writing-a-novel happy track?

Picture a zombie. Mindlessly trudging along, a song in its putrefecating pustule that once was a heart, locomoting one asphalt-sucking galosh at a time until it finds some cardio-challenged fattie it can chow down on. Right? Get it? That was me, the zombie. Finishing NaNo was finding the fattie. I chowed down and now I'm at a total fecking loss at what to do next. I feel like I'm adrift in a sea of goal-lessness.

Yesterday was bad. I woke up feeling like a bear with a sore ass and I went to bed feeling like an ass with a sore bear. I had no reason for it, but there it was.

Losing 50 pounds was also like finding the fattie. Tonight I went to Weight Watchers and I am not proud to announce I gained four pounds. In one week! Feck! I came home and bawled.

Oh, I KNEW I was going to gain weight this week. I'm not making up stupid excuses – I just ate too fecking much. I ate out four times (once at the dreaded all-you-can-eat Mandarin buffet, henceforth to be known as the Mandarin Factor); I ate a wedge of chocolate birthday cake, not a piece, a wedge – it was so big you could jack up your house with it. Worse, I suddenly remembered why I was going to Weight Watchers in the first place: I LOVE TO EAT. Even now, right now, I am craving something sweet. Like Mr. Christie's Fudgeo cookies, the ones with Double Stuf (wishing there was Triple Stuf), or homemade oatmeal candy. Or my mom's shortbread cookies, the ones with the sprinkles on top. I have a Santa bowl on my kitchen table and all I can think about is how good it would look with ju-jubes in it. The really fresh kind. The ones coated in sugar. I saw someone eat a bran muffin today and I wanted to take it from him, forcefully, and stuff it into my own great gaping maw.

I'm on dangerous ground here. I know, I've been here before. I am at a crossroads of getting back on the zombie track or jumping the rails and saying "feck it" and gaining every single pound I lost and then some. You skinnies are going, "why in hell would she gain 50 pounds back?" But you fatties and former fatties, you know what I'm saying – it's a mad desperation that can grab us by the balls and send us howling back to the great buffet of life as easy and as fast as a wink of the puffy eye.

I need to find my way again. I need to find that light switch in my head that's currently switched to OFF and turn it ON again.

If I don't, there are bad times ahead and Christmastime is no time for bad times.

Eighty-five words and blah, it's Sunday

My cousin Debi, gawd bless her, wrote this on Facebook:

Heeeelllloooooooo........
So you finished your NaNo, congratulations.
Now write something dammit, we have had nothing from you for days!!!

Which made me laugh. She does have a point, though. I haven't written anything since Tuesday, when I finished NaNoWriMo. In fact, I didn't even finish the chapter I was working on that night. I wrote enough words to complete the damned 50,000-words-in-a-month challenge, then turned off my computer and haven't touched it since. Oh, I've read a few blog posts and checked the weather, and took three seconds to wish my husband a happy birthday. I also saw a photo of my son with some blonde chick on FB, and sent him an e-mail demanding the 5 Ws of Mothers:

Who is that girl? 
Why is she blonde Don't you like brunettes, like your mother? Aren't they prettier and smarter? Like your mother? 
WTF is she doing standing so close to you? 
What the hell were you thinking, not telling your mother? 
And, the classic, 
She better not get pregnant or I'll kick your ass all the way to Kalabogie?


What? The last one isn't a question? Does it matter? Do mothers make sense?

But I digress.

The writing, the writing. This morning I opened up the chapter I was working on and read it. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was, so I added 75 words, then fretted some more about my son's GF, drank some coffee, made a dint in the laundry and came in the bedroom, my woman-cave writing space, obstensibly to write but more likely to contemplate the growing fuzz in my navel.

NaNo drained me. It took all my writing juice and then some. I needed a little break from it all. Also, I've been busy doing normal person stuff, like going to Christmas parties, going Christmas shopping, celebrating Dave's birthday, eating way too much food, all of that. I am sure to gain weight this Monday at Weight Watchers and no surprise if I do: Wednesday night, a big hunk of chocolate fudge birthday cake; Thursday night, chicken parmesan and pasta at East Side Mario's; Friday night, Christmas party buffet; Saturday afternoon, complete pig-out at Mandarin. Yup, I'm screwed, Weight Watchers-wise. Oh well.  I had a good time. I'll try harder next week.

My friend Paula also posted on Facebook:

And we want to see photos of you in your new Christmas party dress!

Ah yes, the dress. Friday was Dave's Christmas Party, a swanky fabulous do hosted by West End Motors at Hidden Valley Resort in Huntsville. The party was GREAT. I had the BEST time. I really did. I loved talking to Dave's co-workers – it's not something I get to do often and I'm always charmed by their intelligence, their grace and their wonderful humour. The buffet was outstanding and the candy cane cheesecake was to die for. Yes, I had cheesecake, but then I danced my ass off, literally, when the dance floor opened up in all its techno-disco-pop glory. That's the thing about losing 50 pounds and exercising all the time – I COULD DANCE! I shook my booty all over that floor, almost every song. I mean, you couldn't hear yourself talk so you might as well dance, and dance I did. The only time I didn't dance was when I slurped down a Diet Coke. I felt like a teenager again.

As soon as I got in the car to go home, though, everything seized up.

"Dave," I said, "I can't move my neck." He had to do an emergency neck rubbing just so I could drive. (He had rum with his Coke; thus I was driving. I had a stiff neck. He was just stiff.) When we got home, instead of getting romantic, he fed me Tylenol, slathered me with Deep Cold and used the Orbus Forme (or however you spell that) Thumper on my back. He was at it for 20 minutes. His arm was getting sore, so he stopped.

"Oh no," I begged. "More. More!" The neighbours must have thought something wild was going on. Until the hot white smell of Deep Cold wafted through the breezeway.

I'm digressing again. The dress.

You know what? I made the mistake of looking in the full length mirror in the women's washroom at Hidden Valley. There I was, thinking I was all hot. I looked really hot in the full length mirror at the fat ladies store. I looked really hot in the little low-lit bathroom mirror here at home. But in the cold hard light of Hidden Valley I was aghast at my reflection. Despite losing 50 pounds, my arms still look like the arms on the Michelin Man. All puffy and white and HUGE. Yes, they're smaller (I don't need the extra large blood pressure cuff anymore. I don't have to lift my arm flab just to shave my armpits.) But all I could see when I looked in the mirror were two freakishly fat arms. Feckitty, feck, feck.

There was my sparkly sequinned party dress. There were my high heels and my flouncy hair and dangly feather earrings. But all I could see was my fat, fat arms.

Not to worry, though. I have a high tolerance for mirrors and a strong ability to not dwell on body image. "Feck this," I said to my fat-armed reflection. "I am going to go back in there and dance my ass off and have a fantastic time, no matter what you think."

So I did. Why dwell on the negative? Feck the negative! I went out to that party and I danced like there was no tomorrow and I had the BEST time. It was probably the best Christmas party I was ever at. And when we got home, Dave leaned in to make his move and told me I looked gorgeous.

A happy warmth spread all through me and I snuggled in close to his amorous arms and sighed and kissed him and whispered in his ear, "Get out the Deep Cold and the Thumper, baby. I'll meet you in the bedroom wearing nothing but my flannelette nightgown and a grimace."

Anyway, Paula, there are no photos. I took the camera, hoping to ask someone to take a photo of me and Dave in all of our sartorial splendour, but then forgot all about it. The good news is, I have another Christmas party this coming Friday. I will make sure I get a photo then. And don't worry, I'll make sure my fat arms are on full display so you can see what I'm talking about.

One thing about me: I have equal opportunity fat. Some women look like apples, with skinny legs and skinny arms and a rotund apple-like middle. Me? I'm like a sausage casing, from top to bottom. It's like God had a pastry bag and squeezed all the fat into my entire self, from my chubby toes to my chubby ear lobes.

But I'm digressing again. I really did want to talk about NaNo. I think that will have to wait for another day, however. A day that's not Sunday. A day when it's not gray and rainy and slow. I would like to go to a movie today. Anonymous, that flick about who wrote William Shakespeare's plays, is showing at the local moviehouse. I could get down with a bucket of movie popcorn, a bag of Twizzlers and some of the Bard.

One more thing: I'm looking at e-readers and I've heard nothing but bad things about Canada's Kobo. Apparently they go wonky really quickly and the customer service is terrible. Does anybody have one? I have a Kindle and I love it, but a number of current bestsellers are unavailable to me because Canadian copyrights for e-books are held by Chapters and Indigo. Amazon can't sell them to Canadians and Chapters/Indigo e-books aren't formatted for Kindle. Bah. So much for Free Freaking Trade.

Happy Birthday, Dave!

This is why I love you.

Because you match the canoe 

and you carry it, too.

At Killarney Provincial Park, George Lake, last summer.