Holy Crap - the Whole Body Vibration Machine might actually be working!!?!

Ok, so just over a week later, my measurements have definitely changed:

Upper Arms - 12 1/4 inches (down 3/4 inch)

Bust - 46 1/2 inches (down 1/2 inch)

Waist - 34 3/4 inches (down 1/4 inch)

Hips - 45 1/2 inches (down 1/2 inch)

Thighs - 23 1/2 inches (down 1/2 inch)

So, over all loss is ....drum roll.... 2 1/2 inches in one week. And I didn't exercise during the lost days in Edmonton with the Tricky Man.

Huh.

I am sooooo glad I am not a teenager

So one of the Tricky Offspring (the older of the two) is having some problems. He is sixteen and his girlfriend's parents hate him. His teenaged angst seethed through MSN messenger this morning.

He raged that he was sick of "agism" - that the adults of the world thought that all teenagers did was do drugs, have sex and get into trouble.

I pointed out that he did do drugs, he did have sex and that, for those two things, he was in trouble with his girlfriend's parents.

My advice was to suck it up, buttercup, apologize for his behavior at one of their family parties (I mean, really, who goes to their girlfriend's family function after having smoked weed??) and take his licks.

Because I am not a Jonas brother, I probably know nothing.

**These kids are probably high.

Saturday and I have to work (the death of downtime)

Court robes are not flattering. Word.

Sorry to have to dash off....

But I am doing a trial in Queen's Bench Court today. This is the fifth day out of a possible five days that I have been in court this week. This means all preparation happens at night, at noon and in my dreams (I hate to dream about work...why not sex instead??).

So off to work to put on the funny robes. Everyone looks ridiculous in these things, and having not received my QC yet, I am stuck in the polyester ones instead of the silk. They don't breathe.

It is official - Hell (Saskatchewan) has frozen over....

The temperature this morning here ....

effing minus 40 degrees celsius....

with the windchill

minus 52 degrees celsius

Counting one's blessings

There is a great song by a Canadian Artist named Jan Arden called "Good Mother" that sums up my philsophy today.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRI8DwUa6hQ&feature=related



For the most part, I think that most people have a reason to get up in the morning. Family, kids, dogs, jobs, or simply a craving for that first cup of coffee. Something keeps us going. As Bruce Springsteen sings "people find some reason to believe."



So why is it that some people feel so shorted, so angry, so entitled? People with roofs over their heads and money in their pockets taking the greatest delight in torturing their server in a restaurant to try to mitigate their own emptiness.



I've been up and I've been down. Sometimes I have been dealt what I think is a raw deal. But, as hard as I try, I can't supress the joy I feel each morning during my walk. No matter how cold it is (this morning -29 degrees celsius with the wind), I feel alive and energized and incredibly blessed.



Sometimes in the face of my job, of what I see, it's hard to understand how people can be so cruel to each other. I feel such sadness at the price that some people pay for other people's anger. But I will not surrender to cynicism and apathy.





The path by my house last fall.

Bob the Dog gets me through....

So, The Tricky Man has not phoned (or emailed or texted) since he stormed out of my back gate, and I don't expect he will. Am I sad? No, I don't think so. I have run all the system checks, and it seems like he was more trouble than he was worth.

So why did I wake up smiling? Because Bob the Dog curled up with me last night in bed and I woke up with a lick on the cheek.

Look at that face...how could anyone be sad??

Bob and I have had quite the ride. He was the world's worst puppy, demon spawn. He ate cellphones, shoes, underwear, photo albums, SUVs.... And he was not endearingly cute like Marley. He didn't like to be touched, hated to cuddle, and shat all over my house.

I shudder to think how evil he was.

We flunked out of 4 obedience schools.

I finally took my evil puppy to a ... behavioralist.

Through a lot of hard work, Bob and I have eased into detente. In this, his eighth year, he still sits in the middle of the floor and barks at me for no reason, he still ducks sometimes when I pet him and he definitely retains a LOT of personality. But I love him, and live in fear of the day that he goes over the "rainbow bridge" (barf, by the way. One of my facebook friends posted that it had been 1 year since her Sadie had gone over the Rainbow Bridge).

By the way, Bob hates the Vibrex 150, and pants, paces and barks at me while I am trying to exercise on it. Once, when I took him on a mountain trail ride, he decided he was disturbed by the idea of me on a horse, grabbed on to the back of my jeans as I attempted to mount "Salsa", and, as the horse bolted down the narrow mountain path, he held on for dear life. All three of us made it down the mountain, barely.

So, when he decides to be sweet, as he was this morning, it is more meaningful. In about 15 minutes, I will put on 16 layers of clothing, venture out in the still-dark morning, and watch him frolic in the snow for a while. While he does this, I look out at the river valley and breath in and out slowly and let peace wash over me.

Well....

The test I laid out for The Tricky Man was a good one. He failed.

We were on the road for about 40 minutes when his phone rang. It was his half-brother, who lives in Edmonton. From the conversation, it was clear that he had a) told his brother that we were coming and b) that there was an expectation that we would be meeting up with the brother and sister-in-law.

This was the first trip we had had alone together in 4 years.

We had just over two days to spend together.

I spent my whole ski vacation with his family in December.

So I got mad.

Not a good start.

When we got to our hotel room, he walked in and immediately turned on the t.v..

We did have a nice nap, eventually, and then went to a good East Indian restaurant on Whyte Avenue (Origin India gets a shout out here - fabulous). But the next day I got force-marched through IKEA for 6 hours, leaving little time for me to get to Whyte Avenue shops, or the Old Strathcona Famer's Market, or do anything else that was interesting.

That night he insisted on going to the Olive Garden, ate himself into oblivion and then fell asleep with mouth gaping in our romantic hotel room at 8:30 p.m.. This meant of course my desire to see some live music at Blues on Whyte or the Urban Lounge was left unaddressed. Never mind any, ahem, romance.

TheTricky Man in a Carbo Coma:

He slept through the night until 4:00 am, when he turned on the T.V.. Grr.

The next day we had a whole bunch of Tricky Man drama, because he refused to let me drop him off somewhere for 2 1/2 hours, and instead insisted on driving me out to Hobbema. And he was ....wait for it....3 hours late to pick me up. I sat in the waiting room at the Wetaskiwin RCMP detachment for 3 hours waiting for him. His excuse - he had gone back to IKEA and had lost track of time.

He did apologize, and treated me to supper at the Keg, but, as with everything on the trip, he found fault with the Keg and spent most of the meal complaining about the noise from the kitchen.

So, I may have lost it on him as we drove through the storm to come home. He stopped in my town to drop me off, after about 2 1/2 hours of silence in the car. I offered him my spare bed in light of the time. He refused, asked for a hug goodbye, and said "See ya" and stormed off to his truck.

I spent a mostly sleepless night, tossing and turning. As much as I am happier on my own, away from him, and I know that a one-way relationship is soul-destroying, I have to admit I am scared of dying alone, of never having children, and of never having someone with whom I could share my life. And, despite my kvetching about The Tricky Man, well, he isn't COMPLETELY bad or horrible. He can be affectionate and funny and sometimes even tender. Is something better than nothing??

Sweet Dreams?!?!

Well, I wish that man would get outta my head.

Probably the single biggest reason I am single today is Mr. Sex on a Stick. He has ruined me for all other fellas.

Mr. Sex on a Stick and I met the very first day of law school in 1993. It was lust, or perhaps love, at first sight. He was married. I was engaged. We settled into a sexually charged friendship. It was no surprise to anyone aside from us when we crossed the threshhold of "Bad People" a few months later.

SS was smart, funny, sexy, tender and tortured. He had married rather young for all the wrong reasons. He wasn't happy, his wife wasn't happy. It was a mess. And I made it worse. We fell deeply in love, and tortured ourselves with how wrong it was.

I broke it off with my fiance, who I had been with since I was 18. SS and his wife broke up, got back together, broke up, got back together. In amidst all this, SS's social drinking became problem drinking. I tried moving away two provinces, he tried concentrating on his marriage. None of it worked.

Over ten years SS and I were friends, then lovers, then enemies, then lovers....Every guy I dated over those years paled in comparison. The connection between SS and I was strong and passionate. We struggled with being Bad People. He struggled with his alcoholism. It was a big mess. In admidst all this, he had a child with his wife during a reconciliation, I got engaged and disengaged, lived with another fellow.

We didn't speak for quite a while. I eventually moved back to my home province after SS had a terrible tragedy and got a divorce. We hadn't spoken for about a year at this point. Turns out that by the time I got back here, he had given up on the idea of me and moved in with a woman decades younger than him who had a daughter the same age as his.

In short, we had tremendously bad timing. Or the Bad Karma that resulted from us being Bad People caught up with us.

He helped me leave The Tricky Man when things were terrible - gave me the money to do so, and asked for nothing in return. He and I have been together a couple of times since I got back, most notably after his girlfriend cheated on him, but it simply wasn't the same. After 15 years, we had managed, to paraphrase Springsteen, to take what we had and rip it apart.

We don't really talk anymore, although we are in the same field, just on opposite sides. He very carefully works the northeastern part of the province, and I keep to the northwestern side of the province. He never fails to ask my colleagues from my town how I am doing, but he refrains from contact, other than birthday and Christmas wishes.

So why am I thinking about all this. For two reasons: a) the last time I stayed at the Union Bank, where I am staying tonight with The Tricky Man, I was with SS. We had the most incredible weekend there of my life. And I guess I need to delve into whether or not what TM and I have is enough for me. b) I keep having Sweet Dreams about SS, lo these many years later. I know I am dreaming about what he "represents" rather than him as a person. But it is disconcerting, because sometimes I will have these dreams whilst sleeping next to the Tricky Man. It is disloyal as all get out.

I have almost made peace with the fact that I will not settle for less than what I had with SS. And if that means being alone, I think I am ok with that. A part of me will always be in love with the idea of SS, who was perfectly flawed, but who loved me passionately and completely despite the circumstances, the odds and the situation.

The Whole Body Vibration Machine experiment.....eeek - my current measurements

Ok....the moment of truth. A couple of days late, but I am pretty sure it won't matter....

1. Upper Arms - 13 inches



2. Bust - 47 inches



3. Waist - 35 inches



4. Hips - 46 inches



5. Thighs - 24 inches (i.e. the same as Dita von Teese's waist...sigh)



6. Calves - 16 1/2 inches

So, we'll see if the Giant Vibrator works....

Speaking of Ms. von Teese, if I had to pick a look, I would pick hers.... I want to look like a woman, not a Hollywood Bobblehead....

ICK!!!!!

Day Two of Whole Body Vibration Experiment - Holy Hell I Am Sore!!!!

Ok, so day two and I am sore. I decided on 4 seperate 10-minute workouts spaced at least 20-minutes apart. I did an overall body workout, a core workout, a detox workout and a stretching session on the machine yesterday. Today I started the day with two sessions, one an overall body workout, one an upper body workout with light weights. And I am feelin' it sistas.


My friend Squirrel Dater came home from the Dominican after two weeks away looking way too relaxed and tanned. So I subjected her to the machine. As I cranked it up to 15, I yelled "doesn't it feel like your uterus is going to fall out??" and she hopped off, laughing hysterically. The consensus is that anything over 14 makes you feel REALLY funny. And not necessarily in the good way that I thought it might.


So The Tricky Man and I are going away for a couple of days. I have to go to a really scary place to interview witnesses, but we are going to try to seize some time together while we are gone and stay about 50 kilometers north of the scary place. No Tricky Offspring, No Hard C Ex-Wife, no dogs.... I consider this a last ditch attempt to determine whether there is enough between us. We, in the 4 years that we have known each other, have never gone away without The Tricky Offspring. Family Vacations not involving Chevy Chase are usually fraught with kid-related issues which are (a) not hilarious and (b) usually stinky, sticky, messy or just flat-out mystifying.


We are staying at the Union Bank Inn... http://www.unionbankinn.com/ , one of my favorite little boutique motels in Canada. Another favorite is the Wedgewood Hotel in Vancouver... http://www.wedgewoodhotel.com/ . While my life is quite simple, and my needs modest, I feel absolutely gleeful when I step foot in a nice hotel room or a quality spa.

First pic is the Wedgewood. Next pic, the Union Bank.



I am hoping that the Tricky One leaves his atrocious touque at home (it makes his face look like the moon), that he actually brings clean clothes, and that he can muster up some romantic moments. So far he is super-excited about the prospect of going to an IKEA (there is no IKEA in our area), but not a lot of "can't-wait-to-gaze-lovingly-into-your-eyes-over-a-candlelit-dinner" isms.

Whole Body Vibration Machine - Some @%^ing Assembly Required

It came in pieces. And it was really stinking heavy. Thankfully, my neighbour G-Meth brought it downstairs. It took me the better part of three hours to assemble.

It was broken when it arrived.

I ended up with an extra washers...are those important??? I think I have an extra 10 of them or so. It didn't seem like the absolutely terrible assembly directions called for many. Just some. Not all. I am a little afraid that the stupid thing will jiggle apart one day.

But, after having tested it out tonight, I can say it felt like it was seriously working things. So, the experiment will start tomorrow. I will take measurements, not change my eating habits over much, and will track whether this machine actually lives up to it's hype.

The best and the worst of human nature in one day....

So today at the ski hill was intense, lots of beginners on the hill, and lots of injuries for our skeleton staff.

One of my calls was a little girl who had fallen in the moguls. When I arrived on scene her little friend was crouched down beside her and was wiping her tears. This little 8-year-old girl refused to leave her friend's side until I asked her to go get my patient's mom. When these two little girls met again at the patrol hut, the patient's friend bent down and looked at her friend and asked "Allie, are you ok?" So sweet.

On the flipside, the hill had hired a new maintenance person. When we were eating lunch, this guy asked me how much the hill paid me to ski patrol. I replied "nothing, I do it to help people." And this guy said "you are such a sucker. I never do anything unless it is for money." Sad thing is, he was serious.

It brought to mind this question - is our society losing the idea of public service? Are we doing enough to impress upon our kids that helping others is an important part of being a citizen of the world? What is the future of our society if our children have lost their generosity of spirit?

Hoarfrost and the re-feminization of our culture!!

Hoarfrost yesterday on the hill. It looked like diamonds hanging off the trees. It was a clear, cold and sunny day here on the almost prairies. They keep telling me it is a dry cold, but when the wind comes up, does it really matter.

The Tricky Man came out yesterday, with the youngest Tricky Offspring in tow. I gave him my Valentine's Day gift (thoughtfully picked out) and a card, and he gave me...a card. D'oh. We are going to Edmonton next weekend for a weekend away, but seriously. No flowers. No candy.

He did, however, pay me back the $100 he owed me.

Yup Yup, he is a keeper.

However I am getting some significant flirt from a couple different sources - a cop (badges are a bad choice) and a criminal defence lawyer (even worse choice). All flirtations have been very innocent.

I truly believe that when women stop flirting, they die a little. I flirt with the guy who makes my coffee, the security guys at the courthouse, the gas station attendant, and in a small way, my 94 year old grandfather.

Little girls are flirts almost from birth, but society breeds it out of them. We are, in a large way, a shame-based gender. In order to survive in a man's world, we feel as though we should wear navy suits with our hair pulled back as tight as it will go.

Well, I refuse. When I started out in Vancouver, I rebelled. I wore open-toed shoes which showed off my fire-engine red toenails. I wore my hair long and flowing. I wore pink shirts to court. I can kick ass and make them eat their hearts out at the same time.

I am calling for the re-feminization of our society!!! Let this be the year that we embrace our curves, our lack of stank, our softness, and use those weapons and our intellect to kick ass! Let's go get them, tigresses.

Sometimes the best nights are the ones that you don't plan....

Well, the Tricky Man didn't come out to see me - he is coming out to the ski hill where I patrol today. I didn't get upset or angry. Instead I got dressed up, grabbed my new friend, M2, and hit the pub for some quality girl time. Before I left the Tricky Man a year ago, I would have been crying and arguing with him about how important VD was. Now, my recently empowered self waits for no man. Sister Goddesses rule.

So today I am ski patroling, which is no easy task today. It is 27 degrees celsius below zero (about -17F) with a wind from the west.

It's really really hard to get motivated this morning. I pulled my sorry bones out of bed, and am tentatively sipping a homemade non-fat caramel macchiato.

It's rewarding though. And so different than my day job. Not that putting people in jail isn't damn rewarding sometimes (some people sooooo deserve it) but, because I am not the advocate of the victim, but, rather of her Majesty the Queen, I don't necessarily have the ability to help the people harmed by the bad guys.

By the way, in case you are wondering, I make my caramel macchiatoes thusly:

10 pumps sugar free vanilla syrup

1 cup of steamed milk with a head on it

1 shot espresso

caramel drizzle (sundae syrup is what I use)

Start with the sugar free vanilla, add the steamed milk. Score (drizzle pour) the espresso over the steamed milk and then finish with the caramel - I tend to make a cross-hatch design for maximum coverage :)

The Whole Body Vibration Machine experiment.....

I have a small but absolutely wonderful cottage-style home. I live in a part of the world where we have winter for about 9 months of the year. So where to put a treadmill?

Now people don't tell me that I can get a fold-up treadmill. I have NO place to put it once it is folded up. So, instead, I purchased a whole body vibration machine.

It sounded kinda naughty....I must admit the thought of vibrating and oscillating made me....feel kinda...hopeful.

Will it work? Will I get results? Well, stay tuned people. It's gonna be a bumpy ride.

Is there a minimum time in which to say "Happy Valentine's Day?"

Unchain my heart, you dick!!!

Ok, so I texted the Tricky Man at 9:17 a.m. this morning to say "Happy Valentine's Day". Now before you judge me needy and a loser and such, you should know that he and I had a huge fight this week, I may have acted a bit poorly, and, while we resolved the issues, it was probably incumbent on me to text him first.

I have been keeping myself busy ever since. My brother and his band hit town on their tour, and I had coffee with them for an hour. By the way, for reasons unknown to me, my brother feels the need to look like a wookie. He has seventies-bush-beard. It is really, really disgusting. I watched food, drink, spittle and other assorted things drift into the beard, never to be seen again.

Anyhoo, I went to work for about three hours, came home, tidied and looked at the clock. 2:23 p.m.. No return text. None.

Now, he works shift work, and he has his kids this weekend, and I am sure that he had to spend at least an hour scratching his butt, balls, and other assorted body parts on rising this a.m.. But the question is: where in the name of Jennifer Anniston is he???

And do I have the right, at 2:27 p.m. on Valentine's Day to get pissed because he hasn't texted me back?

I think that he is just not that into me!!!

UPDATE: He texted at 3:37 p.m. to advise he wasn't coming out tonight. I am torn between wanting to go out and flirt my arse off and sitting at home and eating the fudge I purchased. He says it's just another day...I responded that so was his birthday, and that he should expect the same extravaganza for that too. He invited me in, but the more I thought about it, the more I felt like either...flirting my arse off or sitting at home eating fudge.

Ok, it's 736 am on Valentine's Day Morning - where is my breakfast in bed with the single rose laid lovingly across my tray...?

Bah. Valentine's Day simultaneouly blows and sucks. When you are sort of single, that is. When you are part of a cuddley-wuddley twosome, wrapped up in the down duvet of love, well it is fantastic.

But I am not.

I am in a highly dysfunctional non-relationship with my ex. The second run at things started in October. I haven't told my mother yet. She is going to kill me when she finds out. I know I am 39 years old, BUT she had to watch me while I was torturously living with the Tricky Man, and then had to watch how hard it was for me to leave.

He came back about 5 months ago with promises to change while on bended knee. Yep I got sucked in, even dumped the fella I was dating (ok, he was a clingy little elf, so I was going to dump him anyways) for him.

So I took him back (giant smack to the forehead) because he was in counselling and such. Guess how long the counselling lasted.

I have a great job as a prosecutor - high stress, but interesting and challenging. And I think I look pretty hot most days. And if I can get my online shopping habit cured, I think I am in a pretty good financial position. I am smart and funny, and not really needy....

And yet here I am. Hating Valentine's Day like any rational person in my position, having woken up cuddling with my dog.

Gack.