Jump! Might as Well Jump!

Another day, another deep-water aerobics class where I find myself straddling a pool noodle while rocking back and forth, thinking: damn, some of those old ladies sure can grind it! When the closest you get to rockin' the sexy-cowboy position involves a pool noodle and the company of dozens of old ladies you are either a kinky, kinky mofo or else need to take out an E-harmony profile. (Which I will not do, because getting rejected from E-harmony would just be the last straw. If E-harmony declines to match me with singles on the deepest levels of compatibility--yes, I do watch too much tv, thank you for asking--you might as well drop off a shipment of 10 cats and a do-your-own-macrame kit because I would be down for the count in the boxing-ring of love).

I will say this about deep-water aerobics, though: I do like grooving to '80s music. In fact, I have been humming that "jump! Might as well jump!" song throughout my day, even though I couldn't jump if you put a lifetime supply for chai lattes a few inches above my reach. Still, if I could dance with 90% of my body hidden safely under water, my entire life would be like being in a musical because you could not stop my feet from flying.

Lately, my mom has taken to telling me about how she read that every minute you sit on your ass, you take a certain number of hours off your life. (Yeah, I should probably cash in my chips now). In this spirit, I decided to take Sashimi (my sister's dog) for a walk. I think I've mentioned that Sashimi is less a "dog" and more a "fur child." She is a little ball of fluff and her main motivation for going on walks is that random strangers lavish attention on her. The sidewalk is her runway! The park is her stage! The strip of grass outside our house is her fancy, fancy bathroom! (Now, granted, if someone would comment on my beauty every time I stepped out of the house, I would be walking more than the postman).

Walking a dog when you're using a cane is like living in an episode of Mr. Bean. The dog (complete with hot-pink leash) does not want to walk on the side of you without the cane. She wants to be on the cane-side, running circles around the cane, causing it to get tangled up and forcing you to do little twisting, half-pirouette movements to keep from reenacting that scene in "101 Dalmatians" where the two humans meet for the first time and wind up tied up in a compromising situation thanks to their dogs' leashes. Except, you know, instead of being tangled up with my future husband thanks to the wacky hijinxs of our dogs, I was tangled up in my cane with my feet sinking in water and mud.

It doesn't help that Sashimi dislikes going to the bathroom in the rain and lead me on a hunt for 30 minutes trying to find a place to drop a special princess present on the grass. She finally found the perfect spot (it looked remarkably like the other 8 million spots she rejected) and then pranced off like the pranciest prancer who ever pranced (while I struggled with being able to bend low enough to pick up after her)....and went back to tying me up with her leash. I don't know who did this "sitting on your ass makes you dead" study, but that person should go walking with a half-detached ass and a prancy, prancy dog.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Baking Bender

This holiday season, there will be a lot of things I can't do. Rockin' around the Christmas tree: out. Dashing through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh: the risk of ass-bruising is too great. Having myself a merry little Christmas: well, maybe, but in my experience I am more likely to have myself a merry little egg-nog bender and go to sleep at 8 p.m. There is, however, one area of Christmas where I can bring my A-game: Christmas baking. When it comes to cranking out the calories, I am like the wicked witch from Hansel and Gretel. You want to fatten someone up? Come to me.

In this spirit, my mom and I did some holiday baking. We made:

• Sugar cookies
• Rice Krispie treats with toffee bits
• Mars Bar square (like rice krispie treats, but with melted chocolate bars instead of marshamallows)
• Nanaimo bars (a.k.a "those tasty, highly fattening squares that Americans can never pronounce")
• an ice-cream cake

Later, we will also be making some weird cookie concoction that involves creating a sandwich out of gingerbread cookies and nutella and then dipping the whole thing in melted chocolate bars. Then we will make a down payment on a diabetic insulin reader because we are sure to lapse into a diabetic coma before Boxing Day (translation for Americans: the Canadian equivalent of Black Friday that occurs the day after Christmas. Traditionally, people would box up food to give to the poor. Now, they shank bitches who stand in their way of getting a good deal on a flat-screen TV).

Anyhow, today I was nothing if not highly efficient. I'm pretty sure that the latte-fueled baking spree probably averaged at least 2,000 calories an hour. Take that, sugar-plum fairy. Little kids should go to bed on Christmas Eve with visions of me dancing in their heads. Actually, I take that back. Me dancing in anyone's dreams would be highly traumatic.

The problem with baking, however, is that it's pretty difficult for me to stand for the amount of time required to complete a recipe. After a few hours of sitting and standing in the kitchen, my hip intervened to cut the party short. It probably remembered my surgeon saying that 1 pound of fat on the body is felt as 6 pounds on the hip and didn't want to lug around a lifetime's worth of sugar cookies well into 2010.

This reminds me: I have my big appointment with my surgeon on Monday. Would it be creepy to make him dark chocolate sugar cookies in the shape of X-rays with little hips piped in white icing on them? And then on one write "Have a Hip Christmas?" Your thoughts?

I'm Sorry, I Thought You Were a Traffic Cop, Not the Fashion Police

In the six months since my surgery, I've opened my mind and heart to the wonder of sweatpants. Because my hip flexors still don't work, it's impossible to get dressed without doing a Mr. Bean routine of spine-contorting ridiculousness, and if I put my jeans on without nearly falling on my face, I consider it a good day. When your hip flexion is so poor tht you haven't been able to wash your left foot in six months because you can't reach the stupid thing, you're willing to take anything that might make your life a little easier, even if you run the risk of committing a cardinal fashion sin. Sure, you may wind up on What Not to Wear, but at least you won't give yourself a concussion while trying to wriggle into skinny jeans. What I didn't realize, however, is that sweatpants can get you in trouble with the law.

This morning, I left my house earlier than normal (okay, the fact that I left my house is impressive in itself) so that I could pick Steph up at the auto mechanic's, since she had dropped her car off to get its brakes repaired. I dropped Steph off at her place, then headed to Starbucks to get a daily fix for myself and my mom. Because it was the ungodly hour of 10 a.m., (it's so hard to believe that this time last year I was getting up at 5:30 a.m. every morning), I was still dressed in my sweatpants and sweatshirt. And, ok, there may have been a small chance that my sweatshirt still had a bit of blue frosting on it from when I made Christmas cookies a few days ago. And I might have smelled faintly of garlic, due to the ungodly amount of tsatsiki I consumed last night at Steph's Greek night. And, yes, my glasses have been just a little bit crooked for the past 2 years because I sat on them and they can't be fixed because there's a hairline fracture where the....anyhow, it wasn't my most glamorous look.

I ordered the coffees without incident and left the Starbucks. Since I had one coffee in each hand, I had my cane slung over my arm instead of using it and was merrily gimping along, anticipating getting home and settling down to a delicious non-fat Americano misto (mmm....delicious American mist....), when I was passed by a police officer, who muttered something at me.

"Hm?" I said.

"What do those coffees cost?" he asked. "Like, 10 dollars a piece?"

"Uh....yeah....," I said, "It's highway robbery. You should investigate...."

The police officer gave me a weird little smirk and headed off to wherever he was going. I got into my car thinking, "Wow...that was weird." When I got home, I told my mom about the encounter and she was able to shed some light on the situation: Sherlock Holmes must have thought that I was a homeless person and disapproved of me spending my panhandling money on Starbucks instead of groceries...or meth. (I would say that it's better to have a Starbucks addiction than a meth addiction, but I suspect that meth is probably cheaper per hit).

See, this is the danger of sweatpants. If you walk like someone who injects heroin into their toes, you need to bring your fashion A-game or else apparently New Westminster's finest officers will mistake you for a homeless person. Sweatpants may be comfortable, but if you wear them without walking with the appropriate grace and charm, you just may be arrested for vagrancy.

And So This is Christmas And What Have You Done?

Everywhere I go, I feel like I hear the world's most depressing Christmas carol: the one that goes "and so this is Christmas and what have you done? Another year over and a new one just begun." They should give a free sample of Xanax out along with that CD because that song is basically designed to give you a full-blown anxiety attack with a side order of quarter-life crisis. Like, shut up, Christmas carol. Don't judge me just because I've spent literally half of this year in bed nursing a semi-detached ass and a failed hip replacement and I have no long-term job/life prospects and not even a clue as to where I'll be this time next year. (Is it a bad sign that since I've laid up, TLC has had the time to debut four different series about midgets/dwarves: The Little Couple! The Little Couple Who Just Had a Baby! The Little Couple Who Run a Chocolate Shop! A Dwarf Adoption Story! Ok, TLC, you clearly have an embarassment of little-people riches, so can you please wake me up when you're doing casting for "The Very Tall Girl Whose Ass Fell Off?")

Anyhow, what have I done this Christmas? Well, my little black stormcloud continues to wreak a special brand of holiday havoc. When I first returned home from the U.S., the first thing I did was have a shower....which promptly caused a little rain storm in the kitchen below the bathroom. (My mom accused me of "showering wrong" as if I had been flinging the hand-held shower around with wild and reckless abandon and for a week I had to shower in my parent's bathroom, which meant nearly killing myself trying to get my gimpy ass in and out of a huge clawfoot tub). That was flood #1. I guess my black magic has a special love of destroying waterworks because today, just as I was about to bake sugar cookies, the garbarator backed up and spewed sludgy water all over the floor. I think I need to consider a career as a dowser because I have become an expert at finding new and exciting sources of water (water on the floor....water from the ceiling....).

Here's hoping that my little storm cloud takes a break over Christmas. We do not need to be celebrating this holiday season by building an ark.

Out of My Way...Bitch!

Even though I am flying out to Champaign today, I got up early to get my exercises, a workout and walk in before my flight; (take that, Mr. "Are You Sure You're Working Hard Enough and Doing All Your Exercises?" Neurologist!). Since I had to get some American money out of my Canadian account, I took a stroll up to the local bank, figuring I could also hit up the nearby Starbucks for my pre-flight chai-latte fix. 

At first, the stroll seemed to be going well. I even out-paced a group of people on the street and had to pass them. Now, granted, this group of people were blitzed out of their trees and had actually slowed down to pass a joint and I suspect I got a contact high just from being in a one-mile radius. And, granted, they were morbidly obese and probably didn't do the whole "walking" thing too often and were complaining about being hung over from the night before...but still! I felt a little jolt of pride as I power-limped past them, my cane flashing brilliantly in the sun.

Alas, the moment of pride turned out to be short-lived. As I approached the bank, I found myself walking side by side with an elderly man--complete with sweater vest, hearing aid and droopy eye--using a walker. Every time I would try to speed up to pass him, he would speed up. I would speed up. He would speed up. It was like we were in the Olympics running the 100 meter dash...except very, very slowly and without spandex or bovine growth hormones. I've got to hand it to him: the old bugger had a lot of pep left in him. He was not going to be bested by some chick with a cane. I was just about to exert a final effort when he turned to me and said loudly, "Out of my way...bitch!"

Check. And. Mate. You don't mess around with old guys. They've got 80 years of resentment built up in them and unless you want to be on the receiving end of a shank made out of a back scratcher or a World War Two army rifle, you better step off. I slowed down (mostly out of shock) and the old guy jetted off across the street towards the Tim Horton's. Buddy was likely jonesing for some timbits and a double-double and I was standing between him and deep-fried, sugar-coated goodness. 

As he left, you could just see the gleam in his eye. He probably hasn't out-run anyone since the Reagan Administration and this would make a fine tale for his cronies back at The Elks Lodge or the care home. So, if you come across an old guy sitting on a park bench and trying to relate to you the story of how he put some young uppity girl in her place by showing her what true speed looks like, just nod and smile. Yes, that's me. Making old guys feel good about themselves since 1982. I'm kind of like the Mother Theresa of the Elderly Male Ego. It's just one of the many services I offer.

But What Happened to the Old Men With Their Small Dogs?

There's nothing better than autumn in British Columbia. Ok, "walking without looking like I'm drunk" would be better than autumn in British Columbia, but let's stick with attainable goals. When I was a kid, Fall was my favorite time of year, since it meant getting new school supplies (oh, the joy of selecting the perfect pencil box!) and returning to the classroom. I was one of those kids who sunk into a deep funk when school ended and I would blow off excess mental steam by becoming unhealthily competitive in the library's Summer Reading Competition pool. (No one could accumulate those book stickers like I did and I was determined to out-read anyone in the New Westminster area and win the Library book bag, even if it meant padding my stats by breezing through a dozens of plastic bath books geared towards toddlers). Now that I'm no longer in school, I still love crisp Fall days.

Today, since the weather was perfect, I decided to go for a walk along the New Westminster Quay. When I'm in Illinois, the closest I get to a major body of water is when the intersection of Main and Vine in Urbana floods and I sit in my car and watch whatever moron has driven his vehicle through a few feet of standing water and is now watching his roof disappear below the surface. I therefore will take any chance to get near the water, even the Fraser River, which is likely so polluted that coming into contact with it would help me in my goal of glowing in the dark.

In 2001, I used to do cross-training for wheelchair basketball by pushing my chair along the quay. As I'd push along with my discman wedged between my legs and skipping whenever I went over a bump, I'd pass dozens of very old men walking very small dogs. The older, fatter and more Ed-Asner-ish the man, the smaller the dog. Occasionally, both man and dog would be wearing bright-coloured sweaters. As I'd wheel by, the dogs would yap (and occasionally try to bite my tires, which caused me to nearly kill a rather zealous chihuahua one time) and the old men would say, "Better slow down there, young lady! Don't want to get a speeding ticket, eh!" or "Look out, here comes Speedy Gonzalas!" Sometimes they would stop me to discuss what kind of "fancy machine" I was using and whether or not it had brakes (it didn't) or a seatbelt (it didn't), which was a great source of concern for them. After I'd completed a lap around the Quay, I'd head over to the marketplace and buy a frozen yogurt or some fruit, and then eat out by the water.

Well, things have changed in 8 years. For one, no one's accusing me of going fast enough for a speeding ticket. For another, the marketplace has shut down, so there are no more frozen yogurt stands or bakeries or rubber-stamp shops or bizarre little stores that seemed to sell only T-shirts with sexual slogans relating to Canada on them (mountie jokes abounded), which I always suspected were drug fronts. I'm not sure what they're turning the marketplace into (probably condos), but the whole thing is empty and swarming with construction workers. (The loss of the marketplace, by the way, is more proof for my theory that New Westminster cannot support a business that is not either a waffle house or a Starbucks).

More surprisingly, however, is that all of the old men and their small dogs have disappeared and the boardwalk has been repopulated by elderly women with fancy digital cameras. I must have passed 18 or 20 of these women, all of whom had large fanny packs with camera gear, and most of whom were either loudly lamenting the fact that digital cameras do not have viewfinders ("you have to look at the bloody screen! Like watching a little TV! If I wanted to watch TV, I'd watch TV!") or else having intense discussions about whether a bird sitting on a log boom on the river was a seagull or an eagle (for the record: seagull).

Many of these women also walked with canes, so I blended in to the landscape perfectly. It was strange to go from being the center of attention (the fact that my wheelchair used to make a loud clacking noise as it wheeled over the slats on the boardwalk contributed to this) to the invisible woman. What was even stranger was that the only people who would return my friendly nod were the women with canes, as if we were cane buddies, as if they had taken a brief look at me, seen my cane, and wondered if they'd seen me last week at the Jiffy Wiffy Waffle House (seriously, that's its name) ordering the liver and onions.

If the whole "moving back to Illinois and leading some semblance of a normal life" thing doesn't work out for me, it's good to know that I can always move to the Quay and hang out with my cane friends. I think I would fit in perfectly amongst retirees. Gray hair: check. Cane: check. Love of pancake breakfasts: check. Ability to talk about my cat for extended periods of time: check. Now if only I was actually retired and had the cash to buy a condo by the water.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation Pt 2.

Thank God I didn't get my hip replacement done in winter. Putting aside the whole "how do you put on long underwear without having your grabber pack its bag and quit you?" issue, having a hip replacement in the winter would mean that you'd have to do your rehab walking indoors to avoid falling on slippery sidewalks/ snow. That would mean that you'd be logging major miles in your local mall. Since it was rainy today, I got a little taste of what most people who have hip replacements must experience: I went mall walking.

New Westminster is a mall graveyard. Various malls have tried to conquer the Royal City and every one has failed. Metrotown is but a Skytrain-ride away and Vancouver is not that much further, meaning that few people choose to shop in the city. Visiting Royal City Centre is therefore a unique shopping experience. It is filled with clothing stores that seem to simultaneously cater to old people and day-shift hookers. You will therefore see gold sequinned halter tops sharing rack space with floor-length floral mu-mus. There's something for everyone, from the "retiree heading down to Miami for the winter to hook herself a rich hottie" crowd to the "You know I am filled with rage because I wear sarcastic slogans on my T-shirt" set. Velour tracksuits with jeweled pockets abound, as do sweatshirts that proclaim that it's "Party time!" in sequinned letters. If you have spent sleepless night fretting that the Bedazzler does not get the respect it deserves in the fashion industry, then Royal City Center is the place for you.

As it turns out, many other people had the same goal as me. My mom and I did laps around the mall using various elderly people as pace cars. I am finally proud to report that I passed one or two of them and I hope to soon best some of the sportier old people at physio (dignity win!). My God, though. There's nothing worse than being in a decaying mall on a Monday afternoon. There's the lady selling adult bibs and tea-cozies patterned with roosters and kittens, the owner of "Sweater Collection" (a store that apparently sells the same style of sweater in various colours and somehow has managed to stay in business without being a front for a drug operation...I think) pacing around her store pretending to be a customer, the ancient couples sitting on benches not looking at one another for hours. It's enough to make you reach for the Prozac bottle.

So even though I've complained about watching summer go by through my window, you will not catch me complaining about the heat. And so, (since I'm still keeping up the pretense of trying to be useful), this is my suggestion of the day: schedule your surgery for a time when the weather will not force you to spend hours browsing through stores that apparently sell only fairy merchandise, trying to avoid the over-eager owner intent on selling you something --anything-- so she won't go bankrupt.