Friday, February 25, 2005
A much-needed update
Alright. I’ve been remiss, again. This week has been busy, but I have at least TWO exciting things to tell you about.
The first is that I went camping last weekend – the long weekend here in Alberta, because we get “Family Day” which we’re supposed to spend with our families, reflecting on what a nice thing it is that our Premier gave us this day to hang out with our loved ones. They don’t tell you, of course, that you’ll have to pay it back by missing a long weekend somewhere else down the line, but whatever. February sucks enough that people are willing to take whatever they can get.
This February hasn’t sucked all that much, really. I mean, yeah, we had a few pretty cold days, but we had a lot of much nicer days where it was above freezing, so we really can’t complain about February. January? Sure – January was crappy. But February has been pretty decent.
That being said, I thought it would be a good idea to go camping with Rob on the long weekend. He already had it all planned, of course, and I’m not really consulted about these sorts of things, so I kind of threw my lot in with him and went cheerfully. I think it was the optimism that jinxed the deal, because if I go expecting the worst, I’m usually pleasantly surprised. If I go, however, expecting to have a great time, I will probably be disappointed somehow, or my expectations are set too high. It will probably take some time figuring this balancing thing out, since I’m either aggravated about things on the way out just because I’m going, or I’m annoyed about things because I’m disappointed with something that happens when I’m out there.
However, I will say this about the camping: The skiing was fun. I took my cross-country skis and went skiing with the dogs. There were extra dogs there (Rob’s friends have dogs), so when I went skiing with our dogs (the NoodleDog didn’t have a choice – he was hooked up to a harness so I could get him to tow me around), the other dogs came along. Barking. All the way. At me. All the time. The first day I went out (on Saturday), the NoodleDog didn’t like the idea at all. He barked at my skis. He barked at me. He refused to run in front of me like a well-trained sled dog. He ran across my skis several times, and around my back a couple of times, so I had to try not to get tangled up in his lead by whipping it around my head whenever he did that. It was a difficult time, and I was probably more exhausted at the end of it than if I had just gone skiing without the idea of dog power.
I did not learn that lesson at all. The second day, I hooked the NoodleDog back up to the lead and away we went. I skied over to the little hill that went down to the river (which I had fallen down the day before, of course), and started my way down. The dogs barked. And barked. And barked. And barked. And continued barking as I yelled at them “I’m not freakin’ Yukon Cornelius, here! Mooooove!!” and then fell down the hill again. I extricated myself from the tangle of skis and leash and dogs, and away we went! It was great. There were tracks from where I had skied the day before, which made it easier to ski along. The NoodleDog was cooperating, and ran out to the end of his lead and kind of helped me along. So rather than dog-powered skiing, it was more like dog-assisted skiing - I still had to do a bunch of the work, but he was there to give me an extra boost of speed and power. Like a turbocharger. Heh.
We skied along, quite a ways up the river, and it was good fun. However, when we turned around, Baloo (a Burnese Mountain Dog belonging to Rob’s friends) noticed I was going far too quickly for a normal human, and that I was probably having some fun, and that absolutely had to stop, in his opinion. So he cut me off and barked at me, inciting the other dogs to bark at me. It was alright when they all got distracted again and we were able to ski back to the campsite, but Baloo definitely earns his title of “Fun Police” – he doesn’t like it when the other dogs play, either.
So that was the highlight of camping. We stayed up late at the fire on Saturday night, which was alright. I had a good time until bedtime, anyway. Friday night, I was too tired to really do much (I had overdone it Thursday evening, of course, because that was Rob’s birthday and we had people over until late), and Sunday I was too tired and aggravated (by a certain SOMEone’s incessant drunken snoring the night before as well as a certain heated conversation about how much fun camping can be by yourself when he got in) to really enjoy the evening at the campfire, so I just went to bed after dinner.
I was not at all cold throughout the weekend, as you’d think I would have been. I’m prone to being cold, but Rob had the camper pretty much figured out. We had an electric blanket and an extra heater in the camper, so really, at nighttime, it was almost too warm. Plus, the NoodleDog was being a huge suck, and wanted to sleep up on the bunk with us the entire time. So add two people into a little space like that, a furnace and an extra heater, a feather mattress and a feather duvet, and throw a dog on top of ‘em, and it’s gonna be a little warmer than average.
The next exciting thing to tell you about is that I’ve joined a gym. Yeah, yeah. A gym. One of THOSE gyms, with memberships and the whole sales-pitch and everything. I joined the gym because my friend T and I are working out. Really! I know. I never do ANYthing like that. But this is fun, and she did a Fitness For Life program thingy last year and is in phenomenal shape. She’s shepherding me through the weight program and we’re going to be workout buddies – we’re going every day! The first day we went was Tuesday, and we worked part of our arms and shoulders, and did some cardio on the elliptical trainers. Have any of you used an elliptical trainer before? Well, they’re great. I had never been on one in my life, and she just turned the machine on, and basically, you sort of walk with these little poles moving at your side – it’s really kind of like cross-country skiing. And the machine is flexible enough that it allowed me to proceed at my own pace, so I didn’t totally die!
T has a whole program set up so we can work our whole selves out. It’s very nice, actually, and I think maybe I even already have a little more energy than usual. Of course, I could be feeling so energized because Rob is sick and we haven’t been doing anything in the evenings, so I can watch most of my TV shows again this week, which has been nice. Poor Rob, sure, but it’s nice to see the shows! Even stupid Lost, which sucked this week, because no one got eaten by the fucking polar bear, although a raft did get burned. Yay!
Anyway, all, Rob is on the mend, and I feel good about the whole exercise thing. Rob’s roommate is supposed to move out this weekend (cross your fingers) and I can FINALLY unpack. I get my cats back this weekend, too! All’s well with the world.
The first is that I went camping last weekend – the long weekend here in Alberta, because we get “Family Day” which we’re supposed to spend with our families, reflecting on what a nice thing it is that our Premier gave us this day to hang out with our loved ones. They don’t tell you, of course, that you’ll have to pay it back by missing a long weekend somewhere else down the line, but whatever. February sucks enough that people are willing to take whatever they can get.
This February hasn’t sucked all that much, really. I mean, yeah, we had a few pretty cold days, but we had a lot of much nicer days where it was above freezing, so we really can’t complain about February. January? Sure – January was crappy. But February has been pretty decent.
That being said, I thought it would be a good idea to go camping with Rob on the long weekend. He already had it all planned, of course, and I’m not really consulted about these sorts of things, so I kind of threw my lot in with him and went cheerfully. I think it was the optimism that jinxed the deal, because if I go expecting the worst, I’m usually pleasantly surprised. If I go, however, expecting to have a great time, I will probably be disappointed somehow, or my expectations are set too high. It will probably take some time figuring this balancing thing out, since I’m either aggravated about things on the way out just because I’m going, or I’m annoyed about things because I’m disappointed with something that happens when I’m out there.
However, I will say this about the camping: The skiing was fun. I took my cross-country skis and went skiing with the dogs. There were extra dogs there (Rob’s friends have dogs), so when I went skiing with our dogs (the NoodleDog didn’t have a choice – he was hooked up to a harness so I could get him to tow me around), the other dogs came along. Barking. All the way. At me. All the time. The first day I went out (on Saturday), the NoodleDog didn’t like the idea at all. He barked at my skis. He barked at me. He refused to run in front of me like a well-trained sled dog. He ran across my skis several times, and around my back a couple of times, so I had to try not to get tangled up in his lead by whipping it around my head whenever he did that. It was a difficult time, and I was probably more exhausted at the end of it than if I had just gone skiing without the idea of dog power.
I did not learn that lesson at all. The second day, I hooked the NoodleDog back up to the lead and away we went. I skied over to the little hill that went down to the river (which I had fallen down the day before, of course), and started my way down. The dogs barked. And barked. And barked. And barked. And continued barking as I yelled at them “I’m not freakin’ Yukon Cornelius, here! Mooooove!!” and then fell down the hill again. I extricated myself from the tangle of skis and leash and dogs, and away we went! It was great. There were tracks from where I had skied the day before, which made it easier to ski along. The NoodleDog was cooperating, and ran out to the end of his lead and kind of helped me along. So rather than dog-powered skiing, it was more like dog-assisted skiing - I still had to do a bunch of the work, but he was there to give me an extra boost of speed and power. Like a turbocharger. Heh.
We skied along, quite a ways up the river, and it was good fun. However, when we turned around, Baloo (a Burnese Mountain Dog belonging to Rob’s friends) noticed I was going far too quickly for a normal human, and that I was probably having some fun, and that absolutely had to stop, in his opinion. So he cut me off and barked at me, inciting the other dogs to bark at me. It was alright when they all got distracted again and we were able to ski back to the campsite, but Baloo definitely earns his title of “Fun Police” – he doesn’t like it when the other dogs play, either.
So that was the highlight of camping. We stayed up late at the fire on Saturday night, which was alright. I had a good time until bedtime, anyway. Friday night, I was too tired to really do much (I had overdone it Thursday evening, of course, because that was Rob’s birthday and we had people over until late), and Sunday I was too tired and aggravated (by a certain SOMEone’s incessant drunken snoring the night before as well as a certain heated conversation about how much fun camping can be by yourself when he got in) to really enjoy the evening at the campfire, so I just went to bed after dinner.
I was not at all cold throughout the weekend, as you’d think I would have been. I’m prone to being cold, but Rob had the camper pretty much figured out. We had an electric blanket and an extra heater in the camper, so really, at nighttime, it was almost too warm. Plus, the NoodleDog was being a huge suck, and wanted to sleep up on the bunk with us the entire time. So add two people into a little space like that, a furnace and an extra heater, a feather mattress and a feather duvet, and throw a dog on top of ‘em, and it’s gonna be a little warmer than average.
The next exciting thing to tell you about is that I’ve joined a gym. Yeah, yeah. A gym. One of THOSE gyms, with memberships and the whole sales-pitch and everything. I joined the gym because my friend T and I are working out. Really! I know. I never do ANYthing like that. But this is fun, and she did a Fitness For Life program thingy last year and is in phenomenal shape. She’s shepherding me through the weight program and we’re going to be workout buddies – we’re going every day! The first day we went was Tuesday, and we worked part of our arms and shoulders, and did some cardio on the elliptical trainers. Have any of you used an elliptical trainer before? Well, they’re great. I had never been on one in my life, and she just turned the machine on, and basically, you sort of walk with these little poles moving at your side – it’s really kind of like cross-country skiing. And the machine is flexible enough that it allowed me to proceed at my own pace, so I didn’t totally die!
T has a whole program set up so we can work our whole selves out. It’s very nice, actually, and I think maybe I even already have a little more energy than usual. Of course, I could be feeling so energized because Rob is sick and we haven’t been doing anything in the evenings, so I can watch most of my TV shows again this week, which has been nice. Poor Rob, sure, but it’s nice to see the shows! Even stupid Lost, which sucked this week, because no one got eaten by the fucking polar bear, although a raft did get burned. Yay!
Anyway, all, Rob is on the mend, and I feel good about the whole exercise thing. Rob’s roommate is supposed to move out this weekend (cross your fingers) and I can FINALLY unpack. I get my cats back this weekend, too! All’s well with the world.
