Category Archives: Get out of your comfort zone

27

Jul. ’10

High School Confidential

Christina Hendricks as Joan on Mad Men

Another High School Reunion looms my way.  They keep having them, I can’t keep up.  I’m too old, too tired, and too blind but!  I’m excited to go.  With a little bit of delusional thinking and some Spanx, I am Joan on Mad Men.  So I am going to my gym to whip up a bit, Mayfair Lakeshore Racquet Club (and I am linking  to their website with WARNING:  you have to promise to put the sound off on your computer because they have the most obnoxious song that will you scare half to death…turn it down now…okay…here is the link).  They have a lot of group fitness classes that are actually fun, morning classes alone:  Bootcamp on Monday with Jeff ( this class is gay dancing with dumb bells, or dumb dancing with gay bells, but it is highly entertaining, trust me) , Body Sculpt with Jen (slightly scarey but effective, ahe puts the F U into Fun)  on Wednesday which competes with Spinning with  Amy ( a big dilemma, Amy does freelance bootcamp classes all over Toronto and she is THE best, drop her a line and find out where and when: amy@quantumphysique.ca) , Spinning and Group Power with Tanya on Friday, Spinning with Sandy(brilliant and inspiring) and Yoga with David(my own personal guru)  on Thursdays.  And much more at different times so you can never really get bored.  And if the whole high school “ennui” sets in and if you need a proverbial cig break with the lunch ladies at recess, there is a spa with full services and in the regular change room: a hot tub with jets so powerful, Dwayne Johnson springs to mind:

yes, Dwayne Johnson…aka. The Rock!

Yes, an active imagination and high falutin`fantasy have been propelling me in my forties…oh, and wine also!

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21

Jul. ’10

Blood, Sweat, and Crabgrass

crabgrass, in case you were wondering

Last night my neighbours, The Chore Family, came back from a 10 day holiday.  Yes, I watered their plants on the front porch but I also watched their lawn go from perfectly evened shards of straight up grass (with a ratio of 5 to 1 clover) to something chaotic as though their lawn developed tumours with cowlicks on them.  “Sorry, sorry,” I said, ” I don’t know what happened!”  

“No worries, Peterson,”  they replied, “That’s crabgrass.  Thanks for watering our plants,  here’s a bottle of Tequila!”  And by the next morning, when I got up to walk  Betty, the “crap grass”  was already pulled up and a new day had begun.  I started pulling up some of it  in my garden but I had no gloves and the roots are so deep.  Maybe with the right tools?  Still, Chore Family seems to use their hands.  Or maybe weeding and whatnot is just not the nitpicking habit I have.  So far this summer, I have irrigated my ears twice, all that pool swimming causes blockage.  Also I booked an appointment to donate blood.  I like to do this regularly because it’s refreshing, I think it gets the system in gear, and therefore the mojo rumbling.  Although the last couple of times I was refused because hemoglobin levels were low which says a lot about my dating life.  Yes, it’s *iron* I am lacking.  Anyway, the Manulife Centre is where I went, thay have a permanent clinic and will validate your parking for two hours.  And!  Starbucks donates their apres-bleeding treats which, along with the usual Peakfreens biscuits, is worth the trip if you are a foode whore.  You know, it took less than half an hour, in and out, so there’s no excuse not to give, go here and find out how.

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04

Jun. ’10

My Own Personal Ashram

Day 4 of Beaches Bikram Yoga Challenge:  30 hot yoga classes in 30 days, 90 minutes per class, that’s 45 hours of moving meditation, folks.  I am only one tenth of the way there and I have already lost my sense of humour.  If anyone needs to hightail it over to an ashram, it’s me.  It’s all about my inwardness serving my outwardness.  I have to learn not to react so much:  stop fidgeting, breathe through the nose while ignoring the snot bubbles, stay still, be calm.  The lesson is what not to do is as important as what to do.  So, I have been thinking about what colour I’m going to paint my living room.  Last week I was at the new location of Le Papillon on Eastern at Coxwell, check out their website here.  The interior is really spectacular, in particular the yellow they use as accent walls.  I swear it is that mimosa colour was Pantone’s colour of the year 2009.    I am going to try to match this with some Benjamin Moore shade (sparkling sun).   Now the old me would have painted the entire room that colour but I have learned restraint in my yoga practise.  It is about finding the perfect off-white for the room that will set off the strip of yellow that I will paint above the fireplace.  It turns out there is some use for all the boring greige and taupe that exist in the interior design world in stodgy old Toronto (I’m looking at you, Brian Gluckstein). The calm of the neutral palette makes the colour have more impact, just like the savasana in yoga makes the postures stronger.  Just go along with me, there’s 26 more days left.  For more jolts of colour, I found a store in Little India called Rang, click here and look at all the pretty things:

Rang, 1413 Gerrard Street East    

Diana at Flohaus also visited a store full of colourful Indian decor accessories called Liloo at 734 Queen Street East, click here to see inside.  “Pink is the navy blue of India,” said Diana Vreeland in 1962.  I say bring more India to Taupe Town.  I’m going to add some fuschia pillows to the greige couch and some turquoise drapes, or vica versa…it will be my Ashram Room with a Nintendo and Wii, I’ll post the before and after photos!

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04

May. ’10

This Post is Brought to You by the Letter “P”

I told y’all I’d keep you updated on the hula hooping…am going to call it hula Pooping, it really does wonders for the colon! I’m still at it, and I love it! I could go for hours if my feet didn’t fall asleep. I’ve also added a Pilates class to my regime which I know I’ve been dissing for many years. Like those stupid Pictures that supposedly have three-dimensional images hidden in them, I could never see because I have astigmatism, Poor me. Pilates was also out of my grasp because it engages all these tiny core muscles that I don’t have because they got ripped apart by carrying two eight Pound babies! Yes, blah, blah, blah Heidi Klum Prancing down a runway in lingerie while her Placenta was still warm. But some women actually split their abdominal muscles during Pregnancy and don’t even know it. And it’s a bitch to fuse them together, let me tell you. It’s been like 14 years and I just figured out what happened. It’s the teeny muscles that count, not the big hulking ones that you heave when you do a conventional sit up. Anyway, I knew my efforts were working when I was watching Family Guy last night. Most People would have cringed during that episode: Stewie and Brian locked in a bank vault for a weekend with nothing to eat except what was in Stewie’s diaper. Toilet humour, my favourite! I laughed so hard, I a) could feel the abdominal muscles, big AND teeny strain and b) lost Partial control of my bladder. What else is new, so what? I’ve given birth twice. Which reminds me of the very first joke that I remember that my brother told me when I was four years old:

Teacher: Johnny, could you Please come up in front of the class and recite the alphabet?

Johnny (why are all hapless children named Johnny?): Yes, Miss Johnson. A B C D E F G H I J K …(Pause for effect)..LMNO (all in one breath)……………(back to rhythm) Q R S T U V W X Y and Z!

Teacher: Why, Johnny, where’s the “P?”

Johnny: It’s running down my leg!

Oh how I laughed, back then, not knowing the joke would be on me many years later. And so I smile whenever I walk by the children’s bookstore, Ella Minnow, because it reminds me of that joke….oh, for God’s sakes, if you’re not getting it say it quick in one breath: ellaminow!

Ella Minnow Children’s Bookstore 1915 Queen Street East, books for children of all ages

This book store is amazing. It has a community board and story telling. As a bonus, it’s attached to Dufflet pastry shop but most importantly, you don’t have to be a kid to shop here. I, for myself, picked up Al Gore’s book “An Inconvenient Truth” adapted for a new generation. Believe me, I need this because my 16-year-old daughter is full of righteous indignation about all things environmental and always says when I forget to bring my bags to the grocery store: “Why haven’t you seen “An Inconvenient Truth” yet, Mother?” and I feel stupid when the only reason is that I have no respect for Al Gore because he is married to Tipper Gore…and I hate her because of that kerfuffle between her and Jello Biafra on the Oprah Show more than twenty years ago, all about censorship in music! I still love my Punk bands and so does my daughter, thank God I raised her right! And I have always loved books and I also Passed that along. The thing about books is that they expand the mind…if I could read while I hula hooped, then I would be Perfect!

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