It’s Friday, it’s June, and it’s raining and winding like a raining and winding thing.
Tough Mudder is tomorrow, so as I may never see (write to?) you beauty cats ever again (due to my imminent death by hypothermia), so let me just say that it has been an absolute pleasure conversing with all of you.
For the (mayhaps final) Fry-Up, there are three things heating up docket, so let’s dive right in.
Number one:
Pretty pretties from the internets.
I’ve always been super weary of purchasing goods from the world wide interweb, however when I saw this dress there was little I could do to stop myself from taking out my credit card and buying it on the spot.
It was thirty-five dollars – which included shipping – a price so low I half expected the garment to dissolve into dust as soon as I opened the packaging.
However, as it is a non-structured dress (a slip, with a sheer overlay) that came with its ridiculously cute pink belt, I figured if I know my size pretty well, there was little chance that the fit was going to be completely off.
(I mean, for thirty-five clams there was no way I was going to go through the effort of returning the thing. If by bad luck it hadn’t fit, I would have bloody well made it fit.)
And it ended up being brilliant! On the whole, I am just so enamoured with its retro style that I half expect an American GI to walk up to me as I walk down the street and ask me if I would like to jitterbug with him as soon as the band returns from its break.
It’s also comfortable as all get out, both work and play appropriate, and as flattering as a grade school crush.
Now I just need to figure out how to curl my hair properly and heck – no one will be able to stop me!
Onwards!
Number two:
Fab books and belly laughs.
I am currently reading this book:
It is hilarious.
Today on skytrain I was busting a gut so hard the fellow sitting next to me leaned over and asked me what I was reading.
“A hilarious Canadian book about the absurdity of academia and our electoral and parliamentary systems!” I responded. “It won the Stephen Leacock medal!”
I don’t know whether to describe the look that flickered across his face as incredulous or withering, so let’s go with both.
If I had known that he would have greeted my description with such non-plussed scorn (hey, it’s a thing!) I probably would have said something different.
I should have just hollered, “MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS YOU ULTRA MAROON!” and then farted loudly.
(P.S. This is how you get a seat to yourself on transit at all hours of the day.)
Anywho, the book is blinkin funny as heck, so if you have a chance, ch-ch-check it out. This goes double for all my Canuck readers out there.
You won’t regret it, I promise you.
P.S. for my international readership, the Stephen Leacock award is for Canadian humour writing. People who win it often have genetically modified funny bones. I am currently in the process of saving up for an F.B. enlargement so I too may one day compete in this illustrious field.
Number three:
SHOWERS.
I am one of those people who LOVE to shower.
I love being clean.
I love the process of becoming clean.
Everything about the venture that is involved with standing inside an enclosed bathing vestibule – I BLOODY WELL LOVE.
And tomorrow, during Tough Mudder, I am going to get very, very dirty.
The dirtiest.
Perhaps (and by perhaps I mean it is certain) that I will reach levels of filth I cannot even begin to imagine, sitting here at my computer.
And while I don’t fear that mess, I very much look forward to that moment where upon completion of my race, I will step into a shower, feel that cascade of hot water on my skin, and scrub the absolute shit out of my dermis.
Take that as you will.
…
So there you have it dudes.
On one last T.M. note, I am so excited to start off tomorrow I can hardly sit still.
I have trained like a madwoman and now it is time to see what I can do. I promise to take lots of photos and let you know how both Mr. M and I fared throughout the sixteen kilometers and twenty-five obstacles.
I was in grade nine, on exchange in Dijon. As a French immersion student, I was one of the lucky few who, because of my fluency, was picked to spend a month oversees studying at the lycée.
The trip was a pilot programme – the school wanted to “try it out” and see if it was something they would consider implementing on a permanent, yearly basis.
Believe me when I say that my time in the city as a student was a total trip.
First off, my home-stay parents didn’t seem to grasp the concept that I was a vegetarian. Every day for lunch they would make me these amazing baguettes filled with salami, or rotisserie chicken, or roast beef – seriously, you name the viande and it was packed up for me every morning, between two slices of bread.
I felt so horrible the one and only time I binned my lunch, that from that day onwards I would gift them to one of the other Canadian students whose parents didn’t think to send them off to class with anything at all.
It was a pretty sweet trade off in the end, because in return, whomever I had gifted the sammie would give me a couple of francs, which I would then use to purchase a crepe from the creperie down the street.
A replica of one of the many crepes I ate in France.
Come to think of it, I pretty much ate my body weight in Nutella during my stay.
(Whoever owned stocks in that brilliant, hazelnut-chocolate nectar of the gods that month must have done very, very well.)
My classes were great, though some (re: computer science) were a complete write off because not only did I understand nothing of which was said (alas, I learned much as an immersion student, but the inner workings of PCs was never a topic included in our weekly dictées) but the boys in that class were so darn funny, I was too busy concentrating on keeping all my urine inside my body to really focus on anything else.
Other notes of mention: French schools have super long hours, way crazy math, and the multi-storied, multi-buildinged campus made our school back home look like a pre-kindergarten.
Okay, back to kisses.
It was Friday night, the end of our second week of study.
All of the Canadian students were invited to attend the school’s senior dance.
Point: high-school dances are complete gong shows, and a completely ridiculous explosion of drama, hormones, angst, and hilarity the world over.
Teenagers – doing it like it’s the most important thing in life, since time immemorial.
Anywho, so myself and my home-stay gal Charlotte showed up ready to get our tip-top grooves on with the rest of the senior grades.
As we walked into the gymnasium I couldn’t help remarking to myself, for what was probably the (rougly) two thousandth time since touching down in France: HOLY CRAP FRENCH BOYS WEAR TIGHT PANTS.
My immediate follow-up thought was (of course): I wonder if any of them think I’m pretty?
And so it went on.
We danced to Will Smith and Ricky Martin, and a TON of crazy French rap and R&B. At one point the DJ played a rap song that had bagpipes in it and everyone went completely batshit crazy, dancing like complete madmen and singing like banshees, which both cracked me up but also made me really happy.
It was at this point, as I moved off to the side, just to watch the carnage unfold – a slightly loopy smile flickering across my mostly shocked visage – that a boy about my height (pretty good for 14 years old, because at this point I had already reached five foot ten) came and stood beside me.
He had sandy brown hair, in the style of Chris Klein from American Pie. Freckles dotted the bridge of his nose, and his front teeth were crooked, but only slightly so.
Same hair. TOTALLY.
He was a bona fide hottie.
Bonjour, he said.
Bonjour, I said.
My heart nearly exploded out my chest right then and there. A boy!? Talking to ME!?
It was almost a real Alien moment.
Voulez-vous sortir avec moi? Juste pour quelques instants? He asked.
He wanted to go outside!? With ME!?
HELL YES I WILL ACCOMPANY YOU OUTSIDE I wanted to yell.
Instead, I remembered to smile coquettishly and simply nod. Also, the less I spoke, the less likely I was to barf all over my shoes.
We walked outside and sat on top of a picnic table in the middle of a covered courtyard. We talked about school, and Canada, and France, and good grief, I’m pretty sure we talked about Will Smith’s latest CD, and then – WHAM.
Julian, of the freckles and the tight jeans, was kissing me.
Kissing ME!?
Yes.
And honestly, it wasn’t good.
Dude was a smoker and as much as half of my brain was screaming THIS IS THE MOST ROMANTIC THING EVER!!!!1!!1!!, the other have was screaming THIS IS LIKE LICKING A BLOODY ASHTRAY MAKE IT STOP.
Like kissing one of these it was.
Also, French kissing may look glamorous and sexy as hell to all those young, impressionable kidlets at the movie theatre, (aka me) but in real life, for the first time – EGADS.
Do not want.
Especially with Monsieur Marlboro.
Anyways, the long and short of it is, we made out for a good hour (you think just because the guy tasted like a tobacco leaf I didn’t want to keep kissing him? DREAM ON!) before returning to the dance for one final slow jam.
We met up the next day, ate at McDonalds and walked around the old town.
On Monday, after spending about half an hour looking for him after class, Julian’s friend Tony came up to me and let me know that he was really sorry, but Julian had just been using me to get back at his girlfriend who had cheated on him the week before.
This was the second time in a very short period that I felt as though I was going to have a real alien moment.
Or barf on my shoes.
But I didn’t. I sucked it up and moved on.
But only until of course I arrived home, opened a jar of Nutella, listened to Everybody Hurts on repeat six hundred times, and wept like the silly, angsty teenager that I was.
So there you have it.
I had my first French kiss, with a French boy, in France.
Happy father’s day to all the beauty cat fathers out there!
Unfortunately, we seem to have re-descended into the bowels of winter out here, but never-the-less, our hearts are light, and today we are off to eat some scrumptious brunch with M’s father – D. Gruyere.
BRB…building a canoe.
My own vatter lives in Guelph Ontario, so I will be on the blower with him, just in case my carrier pigeons never reached him on time.
In honour of this day, I’ll eat some super duper healthy food, play some scrabble, and read some John Irving.
(It’s party all the time in that small Ontario town, let me tell ya! P.S. check out those hiking socks!)
Here are a few snaps of what has been coming down the pipe around these parts:
Graduation caps.
Rain soaked runs.
Scrumptious pasta.
Garden gate.
Epic treats.
In recognition of all the cool cat dad’s out there, let’s grab – if only in our imaginations – our baseball gloves, tie up our running shoes, and head down to the park to practice catching those pop flies.
So to continue the grand tradition of writing about all the amazing people in my life, today I am in the mood to celebrate my insane, bad-ass, genius of a husband.
You see folks, today Mr. M is graduating from Simon Fraser University with his Bachelor of Education.
Oh, and did I mention that he’s graduating at the top of his class?
Chocolate apple and a card with an graduation owl on it!
That’s right! Today he will be honoured as the top graduate out of all the newly minted secondary school teachers.
If this were a mid-90s teen comedy, as he crossed the stage to collect his degree and medal, myself and my pack of gelled-hair, frosted tipped, mini-backpack wearing friends would simultaneously jump up and start yelling, “He’s number one! He’s number one!”
(I might yell out something different though – perhaps along the lines of, “I love you baby!” Before clasping my hands together underneath my chin, and letting my tears flow freely down my face.)
At this point EVERYBODY would start cheering, and the slightly disheveled, but ultimately cool dean standing on the stage next to M would just shake their head good naturedly (maybe even roll their eyes and laugh), and M would point to me in the crowd, shouting out something like, “We did it!” before throwing his cap into the air.
And then Smash Mouth would come out of nowhere and play us into the credits.
The dance party to end all dance parties would ensue.
End Scene.
…
Okay, so that’s probably not how it’s going to go down. But the sentiment is the same none the less.
I cannot really begin to explain how insanely proud and happy I am for M.
He is a phenomenal student.
He is a tremendous teacher.
His students love him.
(In fact, some of then are even in love with him.)
And at the base of it all, he is an amazing, hilarious, driven, beautiful, bonkers, inspiring individual who makes my life, and all the lives of the people he touches better.
He makes life glow.
So please, let this serve as a brief introduction to his brilliant man.
Here are some other interesting facts about this Swiss-Indian man to whom I have pledge my troth:
1.) He completed his undergraduate degree in Classical and Medieval Studies. (Or simply put – he is one gigantic nerdo.)
2.) After graduating he earned his journeyman carpentry ticket, and helped build the Olympic ski-jump for the Vancouver/Whistler 2010 games.
3.) He has read more books that probably everybody I know, combined. Dude is well read.
4.) And boy is he ever ticklish.
5.) He has horrifyingly dextrous toes. And I fear them. You should too.
6.) One of the first things I noticed about him were his calf muscles. Ooer, mama.
7.) My heart practically melts out of my feet whenever I watch him concentrating like a mad man as he plays Dead Souls. It is adorable and a half.
8.) Sometimes when he is late getting ready and I am (desperately) trying to get him out of the house, he’ll sit on the bed with his underwear on his head, because he knows it drives me up the bloody wall (but also makes me laugh.)
9. The man doesn’t know a correct song lyric for the life of him.
10.) He will change the world. He’s already doing it.
So there you have it!
And now we are off to celebrate this tremendous achievement of his, in style, with grace, and of course – great humour.
Rant and Roll 