Lessons learned

It's been an educational weekend. Let's review:

There's very little in the world that rocks more than two steaks the size of baseballs for 12 dollars
I would be the world's worst vegetarian. Eating cow, like really, really good cow, is like a spiritual experience. And I have zip, zilch, nada spirituality. I'm not saying that a good steak would make me believe in a higher power, but if there were one, I would take a moment to thank them for creating the cow, fire and the bbq.

Try resting on your rest day
Sunday was supposed to be my loaf around, pig out and be slovenly day. However it also turned out that Sunday was a pretty gorgeous day. If you count running, biking and playing catch as loafing and eating cheese as a grievous diet infraction, then I did well.

Natasha is my new makeup shopping buddy
Doing anything with Natasha is a huge heap of fun, but I've recently discovered that makeup shopping with her is a complete and total blast. I can have an awful lot of fun in a Sephora store, but Saturday we tore the place up. Time stood still as we embraced wild colour after wild colour and pondered the merits of buying a makeup brush because it's practical or because it's made out of a type of hair that cracks you up. In the end, goat & squirrel lost out to good sense.

No matter how charismatic and persuasive the makeup artist is, don't buy foundation.
We were astonished at the Pout counter when the makeup artist, clearly desperate to move some product or to give me a tan, relentlessly pushed foundation on me. I know the stuff has its merits (coverage) and its place (formal events, photoshoots, bad face days), but I go out of my way to try and avoid having to wear the stuff. I don't unleash an arsenal of chemical weapons upon my face every night so that I can slather on a coating of goop each morning. I do it so that I can let my actual skin shine through, rather than fake it. As I get older and older faking it won't be an option for bad days, but actual necessity, but why push this on me now?

She kept going on and on about the tanned look, even after Tash and I informed her about the pact of pale solidarity between Dawn, Tash and I. Of the three of us, I react best to the sun, but I HATE tan lines and did you happen to catch my earlier rant about not wanting to have to wear foundation and taking care of my face? Avoiding sun damage is all part of that plan.

You can find a good bikini for under 30 dollars
Thank you H&M for your mix and match swimwear and your 30 per cent off sale. Our relationship is going well, very well indeed.

Bring a blanket to the park if you're planning on lying down
My plan of getting M out for a picnic is coming along nicely. I'm working him up to it in steps. Today's step was heading to the park to play catch for awhile and maybe fall asleep on the grass. This step would have been executed perfectly had I brought a blanket to nap on and not, in the blanket's absence, laid down on a red ant hill and a bunch of peanut shells in a tank top.

So itchy.

However the sight of another couple who had come to the park (with a blanket) to play chess and enjoy the summer weather has given the picnic plan further depth in M's eyes, so I am confident that I will succeed by the end of the summer.

My cat is damn cute



Today's sing-a-long song: "School's out" by Alice Cooper

HRH

What losing 30 pounds looks like

This could easily be a Munchies post, but I think it's momentous enough to get some play on the prime real estate. I've lost 30 pounds. No starving, no disordered eating, all healthy and supervised, with exercise. Lots and lots of exercise.

My dietician suggested that I take a photo from the heavy days and a photo from now and compare.



Bye, bye moon face.

And for my mother, the bespectacled me:



Today's sing-a-long song: "Carbon" by Tori Amos

HRH

You know it's true love when...

He will sit with you, week after week, when you watch "Dancing with the Stars," even though you know he hates it.

Today's sing-a-long song: " I Got Rhythm" by George Gershwin

HRH

Doesn't bode well

I will be the mother or wife who forgets names, birthdays and anniversaries. Why? Because my blog turned three last Friday and I totally missed it. Seriously. Look for a post on June 17, 2005. You won't find one.

Bad Chelsea.

Better late than never I guess. Happy Birthday Royal Word. Here's to many more years of neurotic rambling, spiteful ranting, shameless grammatical errors and unbridled enthusiasm for the things I love.

Her Highnessness

I don't remember having turned to the dark side...

Yet, I've woken up the last 4 days looking like Emperor Palpatine.

Sure, putting the hood up on my dark bathrobe did little to help, but it's true. I have come down with a bad case of "Emperor Eyes." All the appeal and glamour of a sith lord, disfigured in a force lightening battle without the all consuming powers. Nice deal.

Sure,I've been feeling a little under the weather the last few days, haven't been sleeping well and it's allergy season. These are all things that would normally accentuate the dark-like-my-soul circles under my eyes (I should really live in France, as that culture seems to think that the sleepless look is really sexy), however the circles are now red. Interesting.

I spent a good amount of time indulging in some self-diagnosis yesterday and determined that I don't have lupus, which is nice, but I still looked like hell. I tried every eye cream in my arsenal, which only made the redness worse and irritated the hell out of my eyes, turning them red to match. Hot.

I can only be thankful that I've been at the level of under-eye concealear Kung Fu master for quite some time so I'm not scaring random children and old ladies. The two pluses are, should this stick, I have part of my costume ready for Hallowe'en and if I feel really compelled to scare the crap out of M I can also don my dark bathrobe with the hood and sneak up on him in his sleep.

Today's sing-a-long song: "Old Red Eyes is Back" by The Beautiful South

HRH

I don't know how I got along without it

Why didn't I get a camera phone earlier? Sure you can capture all kinds of zany things with a device so portable and easy. Catch life as it's happening. It wasn't until today, as I waited for Natasha after work that I truly began to understand the utility of this device.

I had been working from home today and came downtown to do one of my favourite things, take a friend make-up shopping. I made the mistake of not setting the met up at TST (Tash Standard Time), so I had to spend some time waiting in front of The Bay on Queen Street. I quickly grew tired of watching the breakdancing buskers across the street and turned my attention to the store windows.

I've been on a quest for the perfect bikini for the summer. Much like the holy grail, one must travel far and wide, pass many tests and be wary of fakes to find the right one. I've been window shopping and taking notes for months now. As I stood there trying to commit this interesting orange suit to memory it dawned on me that I have a new tool at my finger tips. I took my phone out of my purse and snapped a photo.

And my world changed. I can take photos of all kinds of things that I want to buy one day. I can shoot the potential impulse buy and have a visual record of what I want to relfect on later. I know that this has been possible for awhile with cameras and all, but never so convenient. And what's better I can send these photos to a Web site, my e-mail or to other MMS enabled phones (no I didn't recently start working for Rogers). So wonderful!

Today's sing-a-long song: "Photograph" by Weezer

HRH

Flipping Fantastic

Hurray for the Rogers contact coming up and hurray for being able to be free of my dreadful clunker of a phone. Please join me in welcoming this sexy little thing into my life.



HRH

Looking the part

It's a new world. A world where everything is in sharp focus. Where, regardless of distance, I can read what needs to be read, see important details and not have to spend wasted seconds guessing what things are.

My vision is decent. I've been able to function without glasses for most of my life just fine. Sure I could only read street signs at the very last minute. Sure I had to memorize most of my music in the orchestra because my eyes didn't adjust for distance fast enough between looking at the music and looking at the conductor (and those damn tiny notes!!!). I came to whole heartedly embrace the soft focus blur that most things had. I yearn for a beautiful world, what better way to have it?

I was getting along just fine, knowing that my eyes aren't pefect, knowing that I had astigmasism, until one night this spring I was driving home from a friend's house at night, in the rain and in the eastern end of Toronto (which is the equivalent of an entirely different town that I have no knowledlge of) and I just couldn't see well enough to feel safe.

That, and the start of another benefit year at work, made me think that it was time to invest in a little security. I picked up my glasses today and have been wearing them on and off all day. I had moments where I couldn't see much of a change and other moments where I gasped in shock at what I hadn't been seeing. Going down the street I noted that I could read the signs so much sooner and felt more relaxed in the car than I have in awhile. Walking into the mall and looking down the wings of the mall and being able to see people in the distance as defined people and not people shaped blurs made me laugh out loud like I'd suddenly gotten a joke I'd been told years ago. It's all very interesting.

I don't have to wear my glasses all the time and odds are I won't. When I'm driving, at the movies (mental note: must see Episode III in DLP yet again) or when I need to appear less the cute and comforting PR girl and more the smart and must be taken seriously PR girl (that has less to do with vision and more with perception I admit) I'll don them.

My only worry is that seeing the world in sharp focus will smother the small, yet sturdy pillar of optism I have for the world. Then again, doing away with the blurry and confused aspects of life wouldn't be the worst thing to happen. We'll see...



Today's sing-a-long song: "Looking at the world through rose coloured glasses" by Frank Sinatra

HRH

How the mighty have fallen

I like to pretend like I'm cool. Like I have good taste, I prefer long-term quality to a flash-in-the-pan. I am a big freak of a faker it seems. Any pretentions of hipster I had going on were all washed away with one purchase today (I know that some would contend that my purchase and subsequent giddy enjoyment of the Grease 2 soundtrack is the greatest fall from grace one could imagine, but I've topped that).

Now I admit that there is a healthy sliver of irony in this purchase. I know the show I'm going to see is a silly, cheese-fest. I know I'm going to spend a good lot of the time alternately laughing at the act, the audience and myself. I'm certain that I will be entertained:

Pop-Tarts Presents American Idols Live
Air Canada Centre, Toronto, ON
Wednesday July 20, 2005 7:30 pm

I'm not going to out the person who is coming with me to the show. I leave it up to them cop to attending this saccharine variety show from hell. It's only fair since I called them at 5 p.m. and flatly informed them that we were going together. I can only hope to have the same kind of success when I inform Constantine that he's coming home with me.

(Kidding, of course, baby)

Today's sing-a-long song: "Darts of Pleasure" by Franz Ferdinand

HRH

Taking a flattering photo of your knee is really challenging

Seriously, when you're photographing your own knee... It's all bad.

Anyway, I'm in physiotherapy to finally get my knee sorted out. As my physiotherapist said there's no reason for someone who isn't still growing to have to deal with patella femoral... Of course then he assessed me and found out that I also have patella alta (translation, knee caps not only slide out of their grooves to the side, the go up too!).

So here is deal. We're teaching my knee how to go where it's meant to go, as opposed to where it's been going for the last 18 years. Ambitious no? Oh and I mislead you all, because instead of knee I mean knees.

Today we started the process by taping up the right knee for three days. It's the worst of the two by far so we were able to determine that the taping (see below) was having an effect because, for once, the left knee was audibly louder in it's crackling than the right.



How I'm going to keep this clean for three days I don't know. Knee gunk... eww. I guess reversing 18 years of damage is going to take more than enduring knee gunk.

Today's sing-a-long song: "Grind" by Alice in Chains

HRH

A fan of fans

Through so kind of architectural mishap I ended up with an office area at home with no air conditioning whatsoever. M, who has the ability to survive at temperatures over 30 degrees has air conditioning in his office and a lap top that he can freely carry into any air conditioned space in the house. Me, I like it cold like the blood in my veins, so I've been hiding in the coldest spaces I can find during this heat wave.

Now, with the purchase of a wonderful fan, I can do more than curl up under the air conditioning units. I can use my computer without fear of melting all over the keys. Which enables me to do important things like blog and listen to the CD I just picked up on Amazon.ca . Happily (or sadly, depending on how cool you are) I still remember all the words to this soundtrack, and I should, since I watched it on a daily basis as a child. Yup, my movie childhood consisted of Star Wars, Xanadu, The Pirate Movie and Grease 2. It's remarkable that I'm as well adjusted as I am.

Today's sing-a-long song: "Girl for all seasons" from Grease 2

HRH

Goodness abounds

You'll have to wait for M to blog about his wonderful news, cause I'm not letting the cat out of the bag. I will let him out on the balcony though:



Anyway, what I will say is that I'm so proud of him for getting what he wanted and getting is his way. The rest of the thunder I will leave to him, and stop stealing it.

The pot that wasn't ready for it's close up decided to show some signs of life today. There is still a lot more to bloom, so just consider this a teaser:



And look! The season's first pepper has made an appearance:



Wow. A photo of a cat and plants... somewhere out in the e-world, a blog snob is dying a little inside... good.

Today's sing-a-long song: "Sunny Afternoon" by Space and Tom Jones

HRH

Without music, life would be a mistake

Last night was an unexpected treat. A classmate of M's bought TSO tickets on a whim and generously invited M and I along. The TSO has this great program where people under the age of 29 can get decent seats for $10. It's cheaper than a movie and a great experience.

I love classical music and miss playing it desperately. We used to see a lot of classical in Prague in these incredible venues. I was really spoiled. We've been back in Canada almost two years now and it seems only fitting that the first classical show we see is called "Czech Voices."

The show was fantastic and has deepened my resolve to get my bass fixed up and get out there playing again.

If you're interested in hearing some Czech symphonic, choral and operatic music, tune into CBC 2 at 8 p.m. tonight, as it will be broadcast live. I know I'm interested in seeing, and hearing more of the TSO. I've been planning to go for my birthday in September as they'll be playing Symphonie fantastique by Berlioz on the very day I, ahem, celebrate getting older.

What I didn't know about, until Adrienne and M graciously pointed out, was this upcoming show. The Star Wars Concert is happening on the 28th and 29th! M proved again that he is the perfect man and scored us great seats. I cannot express in words how awesome this show is going to be. Sure I have all 6 soundtracks on my ipod (did I just admit that?) but this... Again, there are no words.

Today's sing-a-long song: "Yoda and the Force" by John Williams

HRH