Damn. Even though it WAS technically the 28th when I last posted, I nevertheless uploaded my last entry on what many would consider December 27th, thus ensuring I had not one but two entries for the day. Am I losing my mind? Probably. On the bright side, you, dear readers, get not one but two friends and family-related posts to skim or ignore. Enjoy!
Well, unlike my post-Tokyo weigh-in, I don’t think I’ll be losing any weight on this trip. Still, amidst the pasta and the pizza and the macarons, I have been trying to be “as good as possible”. For the life of me, I can’t figure out what the hell I was doing in Japan that not only allowed me to lose three pounds but strip 1% off my total body fat. Was it the long and involved multi-course chef’s menus? The quality of the ingredients? The occasional glass of wine with dinner? The fact that I did a little more walking than usual? The fact that I actually worked out about every second day rather than every day? Or was it the late dinners that had me finishing up my meals at around 10:00 – 10:30 p.m. every night? My cousin Matthew, the airline pilot who has spent plenty of time traveling, leans toward the latter. Apparently, he spend time in South America where people don’t sit down to dinner until 9:00 or 10:00 p.m. at the earliest. And the effect on his waistline? Like me, he actually lost weight. So, what gives? Is the advice being dispensed by North American nutritionists a bunch of bull? Is eating after 7:00 p.m. a dieting no-no or will it actually help you shed those extra pounds? I sense a potential 2010 experiment…
Thus far, this holiday visit has been fraught with delightfully awkward moments. Like, for instance, the one I experienced this afternoon when I went to visit my auntie Jeanette with mom. “Where’s Fondy?”she asked.
“Oh, she’s visiting her sister,”I replied.
“Uh oh, she’s running around,”joked my aunt. “You better keep an eye on her or you might lose her.”
I caught my mother’s surreptitious “tell her” look and thought, yeah, now would be a good time…
“We’re separated,”I broke the news.
A brief lull in the conversation, mere seconds during which my aunt processed the revelation. And then, her reaction. Sadness? Anger? Disbelief? No. Try laughter. “You’re kidding,”she chortled.
“Actually, no, I’m not. We’ve been separated since earlier in the year.”
“I don’t believe you,”she laughed, then launched into a story about some couple met in some sanitorium in northern Montreal (“They both had a touch of tuberculosis.”), experienced marital troubles, and had their relationship saved by their doctor who also happened to be a furrier. And then, from there, it was a greatest hits medley of her favorite interminable hospital tales and meandering religious anecdotes.
Such is the curse of the joker. Back at the office, for instance, fellow producer Carl Binder refuses to ask me even the most mundane of questions for fear that I will steer him into yet another embarrassing social faux pas like the infamous “Hey, Christine from accounting is moving to Fiji!” incident. If the building was ever on fire, I would have to run OUTSIDE and get someone to run back INSIDE to tell Carl because, if I were to run into his office yelling “Fire! Fire!” he would no doubt throw me a knowing smile, thank me for warning him, then resume working on his script as the smoke billowed in and the flames licked at his desk and chairs, convinced it was all part of some elaborate ruse.
So I noticed that mom and I weren’t the only one who watched that CBS movie of the week starring Tom Selleck as Sheriff Blue Pants. Question to those who did: Did you not find it kind of odd that the big reveal at movie’s end was the revelation that the young woman’s son was dead. And yet, halfway through the movie, the young woman’s neighbor is talking about the young boy, the suspicious birth, how the child changed the young woman’s life – yet didn’t bother mentioning that the kid was dead? Okay, maybe “kind of odd” is the wrong way to put it. Let’s go with “convenient”. No?
Yep, it’s been all CBS movies of the week and more figure skating than a grown man should be made to suffer through in a lifetime. Now, I’m off to watch Judge Judy.
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