Spectacle

*as M and I watch the closing ceremonies for the 2008 Beijing Olympics

M: Someone needs to come up with the next big thing after fireworks for events.
C: I'd say this thing is pretty big on fireworks.
M: That's not what I mean. Fireworks, everyone does fireworks. What's next? What's new?
C: Ritual sacrifice?
M: You can't see that from far away.

HRH

Lost it's flavour

I have eight gossip sites in my RSS reader that contribute close to 500 posts a day. A day. And for the last I don't even know how long, I have kept up with them, consuming them like some kind of scriptural addiction.

This weekend, I stepped away from my computer for awhile. Mostly because I've been enjoying my online experience through my iphone. While away, my RSS reader amassed more than 3000 articles. My obsessive nature usually dictates that I would have to scan through all 66 feeds that I subscribe to (the gossip people being amoung the most prolific) no matter how long the list of posts, but something in my head snapped when I saw almost 1500 gossip posts. I thought "is this really that interesting?" and hit "mark all as read."

I've wanted to be free of all the gossip for such a long time, but I kept going back time and time again, coming to hate it the more and more I read it yet needing to read as much as I could. I felt really liberated by this weekend and have continued to mark the gossip blogs as read today. I'm hoping it will stick all week so I can get up the conviction to delete the category entirely.

Given the mingling of fashion, beauty and celebrity, I know in my heart this emancipation will be short lived.

HRH

The joys of being sidelined

Summer weekends, when you have little to do, are a reminder of how therapeutic stillness can be. It works even better when there's little you can do because you started your weekend off in the emergency room with a torn open toe.

Yes. That was how Thursday started. After a lovely evening's walk on my own, I came home thinking of all the things I would clean and all the ways I would exercise on the long weekend. I had a few passive goals; fall asleep reading a book, watch an artsy DVD and get a bit of sun on my skin; but mostly I had walks, swims and dates with a mop and bucket in my four day plan.

Thankfully (?) I hurt my toe. it was a bloody mess that couldn't be stitched and may take awhile to heal, but the health care system did me proud getting me in and as treated as I could be in less than three hours. Pretty amazing for downtown Toronto on the Thursday before Caribana.

While this injury is really tender and annoying, I'm not feeling completely negative about it. It is going to make exercise, specifically dance classes something I'll have to assess on a case by case basis. And yes, that means that every morsel of food I eat will be under even more scrutiny since I can't just dance away my bad choices. But for the last four days, limited mobility has been just the intervention I needed.

On Friday, I just sat around with my foot elevated, watching art films. From time to time I would just doze off, listening to Jean Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg speak circles in French. M graciously did the errands for that day, made me an excellent steak dinner and I rested. Rested like I only rest on a Caribbean vacation. When I'm at home, if I can be doing something I will. But this was great because I really couldn't. The most high intensity work I did was reorganizing my toiletries shelf and finishing the ironing.

Saturday I hobbled to the car and met M's mother for lunch, had dinner with friends at Julie's Cuban and since I couldn't drive, I couldn't be the DD, even if I wanted to. I'm always happy to be the DD, but there was something pleasantly irresponsible about not doing it this time.

As my toe got getter and better, I ventured out for a walk on Sunday. Brunch and some pick up shopping on Roncy before a hard afternoon of napping. That night brought friends over for dinner, again with M doing most of the prep and cooking. I think we had at least a bottle of wine each, which meant that Monday was again spent horizontal.

I feel so rested. Sure my toe is still far form healed, as it started to bleed again on my way to work this morning, but I feel like I was really able to recuperate. Largely in thanks to my wonderful husband and less in thanks to my damaged toe.

HRH

The Kelly Clarkson scale

*As Kelly Clarkson's Miss Independent comes on the radio.\

M: I don't want to admit it, but I still like this song.
C: That's alright. There are some Kelly Clarkson songs that it's okay for a straight guy to like.
M: Really?
C: Oh yeah! It's totally acceptable for you to like Walk Away, Since You've Been Gone or Miss Independent.
M: Even Miss Independent? Isn't it all about female empowerment?
C: Not really. It's about how she's giving up being independent because she's fallen in love.
M: I should really listen to the words some times.
C: Admittedly, it's closer to the line than the other songs. You'd really get into trouble if you liked Because of You, Behind These Hazel Eyes or Breakaway. Breakaway would be bad.
M: That would be crossing the International Gay Line?
C: Pretty much.

HRH

Dare I hope?

Long time readers may recall back in 2002 in Prague, M and I saved up our crowns and bought bikes. They were made by a Czech company called Author. Mine was red, white and black. M's was orange, of course. We didn't ride them every day, but we rode them a lot, touring the parks and streets of Prague.

I lugged both of them back with me on the flight from Prague to Toronto in 2003 (with a cat!) and rode it all the time while I lived in Kingston that summer. Like so many people that we've been reading about since the first raid, I had a connection with my bike.

So when it was stolen in the winter of 2004 I was upset. Yes, I got a new bike and it's a good bike, but it's not as special to me as that first bike was.

All this recent news of the raids on Igor Kenk's astounding ring of bicycle thievery is giving me mixed emotions about my old bike. When the first few raids were made I had a glimmer of hope. Sure the police told me the day the bikes were stolen that they were most likely already on a container in a boat on its way to a black market somewhere overseas, but imagine if they were still here in Toronto. I knew the chances were slim, but it was hard not to think that my bike could be in there.

Even more remarkable that more than 250 bikes were uncovered yesterday two blocks from my house. I know, I know. It's so unlikely that the bikes will be there. That hasn't stopped me from pulling out whatever documents I have that prove that my bike was mine. I even have photos of me on my old bike, but who knows what the police will require in terms of evidence of ownership.

Even if our bikes aren't in that huge warehouse this weekend, I hope that some people are reunited with what was stolen from them. And like the poem on the front door of Igor's house of stolen property says "Bike thieves rot in hell."

HRH