Everything Is Better With Curds & Gravy



My two champions, fighting for gold
at the 2016 Canadian Nationals.

So I am here in beautiful Quebec City on a boxing expedition, and wishing I had paid better attention in French class.  As it turns out, the few phrases I remember learning are utterly useless, unless  I am looking for the library, the washroom, or have occasion to say “hello, my name is Suzanne” (which incidentally, is not very often).

Funny enough, I notice here that they do not require signs to be bilingual as we do in the rest of Canada; but that I suppose, is because Francophiles are just so over it, as in “non, merci… and don’t bother us again about it”.

You know what else is different about Quebec?  Get this… you can buy beer in the convenience store!  Not only that, but you can buy 10% beer in the convenience store.  You see! this is where they get “des balles” to tell us to stick our English labels where the sun don’t shine.

So here’s a 10% fortified cheers to Quebec, and one pertinent question …

” où est la salle de bain?”  

 

 

Most D.

This post is dedicated to the worst award I ever received. 

First a little backstory…

When I was a kid, I played pretty much every sport that existed; some I played well, others very poorly.  Like hockey for instance; the idea of dragging myself into a freezing arena every Monday night, spending an hour padding myself to ridiculous proportions, and then wrapping it all up in miles of sticky tape, was like the ultimate torture.  My disdain for hockey endures to this very day.

Then there was horseback riding; this I will need to devote an entire post to because it’s a doozy of a pathetic tale, and deserves suitable attention.  Stay tuned…

Baseball on the other hand was my strong point as a youth.  I played rep ball for many years, most notably for Streetsville, whom at the time was the best team in Ontario by a country mile.  In one season of 60+ games (we travelled A LOT) we allowed 1 single run scored against us.  So yeah, we were badass.

Anyway, during this time I spent a couple of consecutive years attending a baseball camp in the Muskokas.  It was a dedicated program with a regimented schedule of baseball training all day, every day, interspersed with bad meals and forced socializing…and this was roughly 27 years ago, so I was the only girl.

In my first year I excelled, and was a star of the camp; determined as I was to prove my worth as a girl who could be every bit as good as any stupid boy.

But then it sort of fell apart the second year.  I couldn’t seem to do anything right.  Confidence is a bitch at any age, and I’m sorry, but how would you deal as a 13 year old girl at boy camp?

The last day of camp was the annual awards ceremony, where the year before I had won “MVP”.  This year however, I had to hold back tears as they announced me “Most Dedicated”.

“Most Dedicated”

Wait, let me repeat that again… 

“Most Dedicated”.  Ouch.

The reason I am writing this post now is that I was going through some boxes of old stuff, as one does, and I found my award.  It’s a baseball, signed by the coaches, and oh yeah, several Blue Jay players that had rode onto the field in limos one day to surprise us, Tony Fernandez included!  (why did I leave this major detail out the story until now… because I didn’t want you to lose focus of what’s important here).

Anyhoo, so I found the baseball, and showed it to my parents.  My Dad laughed at me and my Mom debated the merits of “Most Dedicated” being a very important award that I should be proud of, blah, blah, blah (as Moms do).

Then I showed it to my teenage daughter; her reaction was simply this:  “Oh, poor you”

So this is where I’m supposed to wish for something, and I suppose I could wish that I had received a better award that year, that I had performed to my potential and left everyone in awe of my incredible talent.  But you know what I really wish… that I knew then what I know now… those teen boys must have been TERRIFIED of me.  Bwahahahahaha!!!



Most D



Me at 14

Let Your Backbone Slide

The people who know me well, know that there is only one item on my bucket list. 

When I am (God willing) a crinkly old lady in the clutches of death, on my last feeble breath, with only myself and the great unknown to reckon with, I will have but one regret.

I will not feel remorse at not having taken selfies on The Great Wall of China, I will not rage at my failure to scale Mt. Kilimanjaro, and I refuse to let the fact that my great grandchildren will not know my first name, get me down  (although this is an actual statistic which is pretty depressing). 

Nope, for me there is only breakdancing.  Yep, you read that right. 

The dream is this...

First:  I dance-slide out into a frustrated crowd of commuters in rush hour traffic, sitting in their vehicles with nothing to look forward to but laundry, dirty dishes, cranky spouses, and 5 hours of restless “sleep”. 

Then:  I stop in the now-cleared space between traffic lights and proceed to throw down fly moves, putting on a show that is both captivating, and supremely cool. 

As you can imagine, the people in their cars smile at each other in awe as they revel in the amazingness of this incredible moment. They are happy to be part of this experience, a welcomed interlude from the doldrums, and eager to tell all of their friends. 

And then:  I nonchalantly dust myself off and continue on my way as if that was the most natural thing in the world, leaving them all to wonder WTF just happened.

Then, and only then, will I have reached my potential in this life.

Now, if you recall, I did say this will be my one and only regret in life, and this is why… I come from a long line of terribly uncoordinated, devastatingly bad, anti-dancers.  Yep, never gonna happen.

But I keep right on wishing (and carrying my imaginary cardboard)

80's Breakdance.  www.tumblr.com

 

 

Run Forrest Run!

Forrest Gump did not famously say that life is like a box of chocolates;  in fact his mother did.  And she was on to something good; however she might better have informed her much beloved son that the boxes themselves, much like the metaphor that they represent, vary immensely. 

For example, your box may be filled with delectable, creamy fruit-filled delights, luxurious truffles, and crunchy buttery treats, whereas MY box contains boring caramels, chewy nougat (gross), and cheap maraschino cherries wrapped in sub-par “chocolate flavoured candy”.   And this is where it gets really cruel…  they throw one or two butter creams in there, forcing consumption of 22 sugar-laden, totally-not-worth-it, garbage, just to locate the gems. 

The moral of this story is that life is unfair Forrest, life is just damn unfair.  And for the majority of us - enjoy the butter creams, you work hard for em’.

Oh, and I wish you all a lovely, butter cream day. 

Because I can,
A Genie in Chucks.

Source: parade.com