my hula hoops: the answer to core conditioning or potential dust collectors?  We shall see!

This story starts with a hula hoop and ends with pot stickers, just follow along.  You know how people always say “everything happens for a reason” as though there is some all knowing force with a hidden agenda maneuvering us along like some kid at a Nintendo console playing Pokemon Stadium?  It’s a frustrating concept, believe me I know, as though losing your job or getting dumped feels good knowing you’re going to have to come up with a resume or make up a profile on Plenty of Fish when all you want to do is take to the bed.  For me, I feel the gods of fate just seem just make their abitrary moves at commercial breaks so I don’t really take them all that seriously.  I do, however, notice signs.  You know how when you learn a new word and then you hear it all the time….it`s not like that word didn`t exist, it`s just that you weren`t paying attention. I learned the word `kiosk` in university and even though I had been going to the Orange Julep stand (aka. kiosk) all my life, I didn`t know what it was called. What a revelation!    Well the other day, I was at my gym, doing my usual meandering, fantasizing, sighing combo, when I noticed a hula hoop resting against the wall.  I love to hula hoop!  At least I used to, and I even won a hula contest in the Bahamas years ago on a stage, in the wind, in a bikini.  But I was too afraid to try it…I was in the gym afterall, where people go through great painstaking measures to ignore you, yet they are watching all side eyed so you better act normal.  But the next day, I was skimming through the Star and there was Marisa Tomei (she`s a LOCA, too…lady of a certain age) talking about how she looked so good naked in The Wrestler thanks to….the Hula Hoop!!  Well who doesn’t want to look good naked, if even just for the neighbours across the street?  So back at the gym, I picked up that hoop…and guess what?  Fish to water!  I shimmied for 15 minutes straight.  I knew I needed one for home because things at the gym come and go and there was only one of its kind there.  This one is rubberized and weighted, not light and plastic. The trainer who brought it in said he got it at T&T which is an Asian grocery store.  Wow, weird…but convenient. 

T&T Supermarket at 222 Cherry, just south of Commissioners

So Amy (another trainer) and I hightailed to T&T and sure enough, there were 2 hula hoops left.  Don’t get excited, we took the last ones and I also got another one that can be dismantled with with “massage balls” on the inside.  I have a ring of bruises around my midriff thanks to the massage balls but it is a heavy hoop (the heavier the better) and if I wear a sweatshirt, it might be okay.  But hoops aside, T&T is fantastic.  First of all, I love grocery stores and I go to my usual one  pretty much every day.  Even on vacation, I love to grocery shop.  As a kid when we went to Florida, we didn’t go to Disney World, we went to the Piggly Wiggly.  I love grocery stores the way Tiger loves the ladies…I might be married to Loblaws at Leslie and Eastern but I like to dip into others.  T&T has all things Asian: a whole display of Hello Kitty and Astro Boy and two aisles dedicated to the Ramen noodle alone.  And mulitiple flavoured Pockys, who knew there was caramel?  The best part was the ready made section where they have hot dumplings and pot stickers. How I love pot stickers especially when someone  makes them…I’ve been back twice since.

Anyway, the hula hoop:  I will keep you posted as to how my progress is going.  It seems to be doing something (other than bruising).  According to Marisa Tomei, it’s the tiny muscles that make all the difference, the little ones hold the guts in.  It’s definitely more fun than Pilates and I can feel a little pull in my pelvic region.  Maybe my mojo will wake up and roar again. Until then, I have pot stickers and a Hello Kitty tattoo.