Category: Daily life

Hooray for good genes

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Visited my (hot) doctor yesterday. She’s very speedy — walks quickly, talks quickly, moves quickly — and my physical was over just as I was starting to process the idea of sitting around in a little paper gown. Turns out my bloodwork revealed that I’m in very good health…she sounded a tiny but surprised as she said it, but then I suppose I don’t really project the picture of peak physical fitness. Good genes, I explained. She agreed. Quickly.

She also commented, when taking my history last time, that it’s not often she encounters someone who has never smoked, and grew up in a house where no one else smoked either. Even in my extended family on both sides, there were no smokers except for the odd one here and there, and those quit by the time I was old enough to remember it. No heavy drinkers either. Two grandparents who lived into their 90s, another who lived into his 80s. That’s a pretty good starting point, and not being gassed in my childhood years helped.

So, uh…thanks ancestry. Good work.

"The people have a right to know. Toddy?"

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Nellie’s out for dinner with friends, so I’ve had a quiet night on my own. I watched the newly-released director’s cut of Zodiac, which I like more every time I watch. I’m just amazed at how perfectly Fincher (and his art director) made the film look like the early 70s.

I also find Zodiac much creepier than Seven. Granted, I’ve probably watched Seven more than any other movie that didn’t involve a lightsaber, but I don’t remember ever finding it creepy…just awesome. But Zodiac usually gives me the willies.

If you haven’t seen it, then for pity’s sake, invest the 150 minutes.

All your abs are belong to us

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A few weeks ago we bought the Wii Fit. Nellie really wanted one; I was curious but not very hopeful. I imagined a bunch of step exercises and yoga poses, and wasn’t all that interested.

Now, having used it every day except for one, I can say I was wrong. I kinda like this thing. For someone like me who’s never set foot in a gym to do gym-y things, it’s not a bad option. It provides enough strength and balance training to make me feel like I’m doing something. I’m sure I look like a drunk grizzly bear when doing the yoga poses, but it’s definitely helping my flexibility. The balance games, like skiing and snowboarding, are actually kind of fun and have sparked some competition between Nellie and I.

One of the criticisms people seem to have had about the Wii Fit was the tone of voice it uses with you, and that it seems scolding. I hope those people never get a personal trainer; if they can’t handle some passive-aggressive suggestions from a mumbling balance-board cartoon on their TV, a real live muscular type-A human barking orders will probably have them in tears. Anyway, I don’t mind it; I figure it’s just encouragement that gets a tiny bit lost in translation.

I won’t pretend this is real fitness training, but it’s certainly better than nothing, and nothing is what I was getting before. It’s also timely: being that it’s January, the month when resolution-makers still have some momentum, our gym downstairs is full every time I walk by on my way to or from work. When that fad wears off I’ll try to insert some proper running back into what exercise time I have.

For now, I’ll just keep getting scolded by the little white box under my TV.

Turns out I own clothes that I've never even worn

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Each weekend starts with the intention of seeing The Wrestler. Each weekend ends with us having failed.

Friday night would have been an ideal candidate but, well, being tired and wanting to watch BSG won out. Put another way: we are old. Yesterday Nellie and I were both busy, and we went to Mercatto for dinner on a lark…very tasty. I can see that becoming our regular Italian place. Anyway, long story short: it was cold as balls outside so we didn’t stray far from home. Plus, we don’t relish the idea of the Scotiabank theatre on a Saturday night, chock full of middling teenagers ambling into screenings of Paul Blart: Mall Cop.

Today the timing just didn’t work, especially after Nellie undertook her ideal Sunday pastime of sleeping until noon. I used this alone time to destroy her best time in Wii Fit Advanced Snowboard and other similar accomplishments. Then we had breakfast, got groceries and went on a badass cleaning binge. I’m talking an almighty purge, people…stuff getting thrown out, recycled, put on Craigslist*…there’s a Goodwill pile here the size of a Shetland pony.

Time for the weekend summary. Pluses: relaxing, tasty, productive. Minuses: boring, lame. 3-2, w00t!!

* speaking of: anybody want a slightly used Roomba? Two wooden Ikea folding chairs? A crystal punch bowl?

At least it wasn't "Falling Slowly"

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There are few things as jarring as your elevator going wonky partway through your descent from a high floor. Yesterday Nellie and I — and no one else, thankfully — were heading downstairs in one of our building’s elevators when, just passed the fifth floor, we felt a wicked shimmy. Immediately the elevator ground to a halt and a loud buzzer went off. Alrighty then. I’ve been stuck in elevators before, and I understand enough about elevator safety features to know we weren’t going to plummet to our doom or anything, so after a few wary seconds of making sure we weren’t moving any further, I pressed the call button.

The person who answered told us she was notifying our security guard and calling the elevator company, who should be there in about ten minutes. Great. We chatted while we waited, wondering which floor we were on. Our security guard came up and yelled to us through the door to sit tight. Which we did. For thirty minutes. Security guy came back to check on us once in a while, and told us he’d been calling the elevator tech to get a move on, and he should be here soon. By this point I was getting kind of annoyed, and maybe a little hungry (I’d been on my way down for a croissant) so I hit the call button again. I explained that it’d been half an hour, and where the ass was this technician anyway, Hamilton? This guy put me on hold — I’ll get back to that in a second — and came back on to tell me the tech was fifteen minutes away, blah blah blah, whatever. I asked him if he could do anything to speed things up and he just gave me a party line scripted answer that no, wait for the tech, he’ll be there shortly, wank wank wank. He was being so dismissive that I think I called him a jerk-off.

After about ten minutes (not fifteen! under-promise/over-deliver works hurrah!) security guy yells through the door that the tech has arrived, he’s gone to fix something, all should be well soon. Moments later the elevator starts moving. Up. Goddammit, I just want a croissant! Whatever. It goes to the 22nd floor…kind of random, sez I, since this is neither our destination nor the floor we came from. We get off to find a crowd of people, not knowing this is an accursed elevator, about to get on. We warn them that this elevator might not really be in fighting trim right now, and to send it away. They do, and we walk home to have pancakes instead. All’s well, we call security guy to thank him, and burn a tiny effigy of ThyssenKrupp‘s headquarters. After all, it’s not as if this is the first problem we’ve had with our elevators…they’ve ranged from quirky (doors don’t open for 60 seconds sometimes) to completely inoperative (leading to massive lineups, delays and kvetching) ever since we moved in. It’s probably been the biggest common complaint I’ve heard from other owners, and it sounds as if we’re not the first people to be trapped like this…security guy knew the drill well enough to ask for our suite number because he figured the chairman of the condo board would probably want to give us a call.

Anyway, back to the hold music: this might have been the worst part. I should point out that I don’t think Thyssen-Krupp owns the call centre where my elevator call terminated…it sounded like a security company who then contacts the elevator tech, but the operators certainly know the calls are coming from people trapped in elevators. I know the ins and outs of call centre mechanics well enough to know that putting people on hold is unavoidable, so I don’t mind it like some people do, but here’s the thing: there are times when hold music doesn’t make sense. I wasn’t calling to ask about your store hours, I was calling because I was trapped in a steel box suspended 60 feet off the ground. In such a situation I do not need to hear — and I am not making this up — a tinkly Muzak version of “Love Lifts Us Up Where We Belong”. I would like to hear beeping, or an occasional voice telling me someone would be right with me, or something else that suggests urgency on the part of the people tasked with getting me out of said dangling box, not the instrumental dreck I’d expect if I called Sears to buy an ottoman.

Now, about that croissant…

Now then…can I use a lightsaber while I snowboard?

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The Queen (our home station) decal
Our home station

Four days since I last blogged. The hell is wrong with me lately?

A good four days it’s been though. Thursday night was spent partaking in one of my favourite pastimes: watching the Habs beat up on the Leafs. Friday we had dinner at Fieramosca, and came home to find our Wii Fit waiting for us. We considered setting it up that night, but the wine and limoncello we’d just consumed made us think twice. Ironically.

Yesterday was our get-crap-done day (capped off by an excellent meal and very nice 2004 Cab Sauv from New Zealand), freeing up today for brunch with our friend Cyndy and entertaining CBGBLB, who I think were just using us for our Wii. But they brought us chocolates* and convinced us to order pizza, so we didn’t mind. We also finally put up our TTC wall decals, courtesy of Walloper, which we think look pretty sharp.

I’ll be honest with you: the idea of staying home tomorrow to play Wii Fit and lightsaber duel kind of appeals to me more than the idea of going to work tomorrow.

* The chocolates were from Eat My Words. Very cool idea in support of the Steven Lewis Foundation, and a great gift idea. Check it out.

You guys hate animals, is that it?

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Those of you who got our Christmas ‘card’ this year knows that we did something a little different. Last year we opted not to send out a card, and donated the money we’d have spent on cards, stamps, etc. to a charity. This year we once again decided to make a donation, but we let the card recipients (it was a URL sent out by email) choose the charity. We left the poll open until a few days ago, and the results are in. You’ll have to imagine the drum roll for yourselves.

Christmas charity donation

As you can see, the Daily Bread food bank won with 35% of the vote, so they’ll be getting another donation from us to go along with the one we made for hohoto. Thanks to everyone who voted, and thanks to PollDaddy for the awesome free poll software.

Five years later…

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So…yesterday was our anniversary. Our fifth, thanks for asking. We celebrated (after our little shopping excursion to HMV and Duggers) by meeting up with my brother for some drinks at Seven Wine Bar, then enjoying a quiet, delicious dinner for two at Fid Cuisine. Fid’s been there since 2000 but we’d never tried it, and until recently I’d never even heard of it. Not surprising; it certainly wasn’t the sort of place a student would try. Here’s the lineup (some of it is from the website’s outdated menu, some is from memory):

  • Amuse-Bouches: green curry mussels. I don’t particularly care for mussels, so I tried one and donated the other to my lovely wife. Happy anniversary, darling.
  • Appetizers: Nellie had the caramelized scallops (which included some other bits of meat that I thought were quail) while I had the goat cheese.
  • Mains: Nellie had the beef tenderloin with kale (maybe?) & artichoke. I had the pork belly with choy sum and a pureed sweet potato that we both agreed was amazing. This was my first time having pork belly; it was tender and very tasty, but really fatty and rich. I’m glad I spaced it out with the rest of my food. We had this with a powerful New Zealand Pinot Noir (can’t remember which, but it was strong enough to keep up with Nellie’s beef while not overpowering my pork) and cleansed our palates with a tea-flavoured sorbet.
  • Dessert: ginger creme brulee for Nellie, outstanding molten moelleux au chocolat for me. Nellie had a ten-year-old port, I had a local Muscat dessert wine.

Sated, we stumbled out into the miserable night. The earlier snow had degenerated (as it so often does in Halifax) into freezing rain, made worse by biting wind and slippery sidewalks (and us in our fancy shoes!). We got all the way back to the hotel when Nellie realized she was missing an earring…one of the pair I’d given her for Christmas two days earlier. This wouldn’t do. We put on some shoes more befitting the Canadian winter and set back out, knowing it would be nearly impossible to spot a silver earring on the snow-and-ice-covered sidewalk, but we had to try. We retraced our steps all the way to the restaurant with no luck, double-checked the entryway, and left again for the hotel. Happily, I spotted the rogue earring about twenty steps from the restaurant’s entrance, and the evening was saved. We slid back to the hotel to warm up, dry off and digest in agony.

This morning we woke up early to have breakfast with our friend Karen and her new fiance, then made for the airport. Cab ride: no problem. Check-in: no problem. Security: bigger line than usual for Halifax, but no problem. Boarding: no problem. Flight: no problem, save some bumps at the end and a supremely annoying Newfoundland mother sitting right behind us. Luggage collection: no problem. Cab ride home: no problem. All in all, a pretty painless winter travel experience, and a far cry from last week’s fiasco.

Now we’re home, surrounded by presents, being abused by bitchy cats, completely lacking in the grocery department and overall a little wiped. But good. All’s well that ends well.

Can’t wait for the next five years.

Goin' back to Hali

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For the third time (or fourth, if you count flying into the airport for a family reunion) in four months, I’m back in Halifax. This is the traditional final phase of the Christmas vacation, where we end up for our anniversary and to chill a little bit before flying back to Toronto.

Christmas eve was a gentle mix of cleaning up, beating my dad at crib, wrapping gifts and lying about. Christmas day was lots of fun, hauling away lots of booty (many DVDs & Wii games, as well as some other cool stuff…IP-enabled camera, Star Wars trivia book, etc.), having a delicious extended-family dinner at my brother’s house across the yard, and finishing off the day playing the Wii with Nellie, the nephew, the nieces, the brother and the sister-in-law.

Boxing Day started off well — driving to my aunt’s house where just about all of the extended family on my father’s side gathered for yearly reunion & feast — but took a bad turn when I realized I’d left my bag (including my wallet, ID, Blackberry, Zen, camera, etc.) back on the farm. That discovery corresponded with one of the worst headaches I’ve ever had. So Nellie did some championship rally-driving back to the farm where I grabbed the bag, swallowed a bunch of advil and gassed up the car, then we hightailed it toward Halifax. Three extra hours in the car wasn’t how I wanted to spend the day, but there you go. We visited Nellie’s cousin and her family for a bit, then drove to our hotel in Halifax. A huge late-night dinner later, we retired to the comfy, quiet room. Ahhhhhhhh.

It’s been an awesome, relaxing morning…in-sleeping, breakfast-eating, paper-reading, price-checking. Now we’re heading out for a stroll and to see if we can locate any particular deals, and to feed Nellie’s craving for fish & chips at the Rogue’s Roost. Cheers, internet. Hope you’re feeling as groovy as we are.

Vacation = us

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Storm clouds acomin
Storm clouds a'comin

It was easy not to become part of yesterday’s mass hysteria, as “Snowmageddon” didn’t really affect me at all. It started snowing pretty much after I got to work, and ended before I left so I didn’t get snowed on. My commute home on the subway was the same as it always is, if a little more crowded. We spent our night indoors, eating filet mignon from Cumbrae’s, drinking a bottle of of 2003 Paolo Conterno Barolo and having chocolate from three different shops (Teuscher, Eitelbach andMoRoCo) for dessert.

Today we got up late and ran a couple of errands outside. It’s really quite nice out…bright, and pretty with all the snow, but a little windy. It was -23 with the windchill earlier but didn’t really feel it.

The only question now is how bad tonight’s snowstorm will be, and whether it’ll cancel our flight. We can see it coming up across the lake right now (see picture above) and it looks ugly. We’re not too fussed either way…if we have to wait until Monday to fly home it’s no big deal, we have lots of time and nothin’ to do.