Fringe Kink

Fabulous expression. Try it, toss it around. For example:

Grey Cup half-time show butt cleavage, like OMG that's so fringe kink.

Don't get any funky ideas, the butt cleaveage was Lenny's not mine, and there were multiple glimpses into the cavernous depths of the BC. Gratuitous really. Not a big fan of the big C upfront, behind or down low in the toes (perhaps the most offensive.)

Getting back to the root of the expression, courtesy of the Globe and Mail http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071129.wlgenex29/EmailBNStory/lifeFamily/home:
"What men love is a "lack of embarrassment for any body you have," a fiftysomething Romeo explains. "If you're wearing a tent, it means you are ashamed." Instead, wear body-conscious clothes. Channel the European woman who is elegant and bien dans sa peau. It's a refined cougarishness, minus the claws."

Keep the claws, they're so fringe kink! But ditch the over-the-hill romance novel covergramp. He's killing your fringe kink vibe.

Here's the last word on the word of the week. I'm recently into football, the American kind, not footie, after going to a few Patriot's games. Seeing as I am casting my net northward, I thought I would reconnect with my compatriots and watch the CFL namely the Grey Cup. I tuned in to see, hundreds of women screaming for the "roughriders." Now that's fringe kink.

Renewing my web presence

It's been a while since my last post. Four months to be exact, but who's counting ;) I think I felt a little overexposed; like all my bits were on display. So, I fashioned a cyber blanket out of the accumulating spam, crawled underneath and hybernated away from the blogosphere. My hibernation isn't quite over yet. I've decided to lumber around with the blanket wrapped tightly around my shoulders for a little while before discarding it completely.

In the mean time, I have several happy little countdowns to help pass the time:
1. 5 days to the end of my rotation
2. 7 days to my last set of travel vaccines under the watchful eye of the UHS nurse
3. 8 days until I visit my family Thunder Bay
4. 19 days until I write Step 2
5. 20 days until I move out of Boston for good!

One third life crisis

I think this qualifies as a one third life crisis because I hope to live a least to ninety. My ultimate goal is to be a feisty old lady (some would say I'm already there) who pops wheelies down the hall of my nursing home in pursuit of the newest arrival to Shady Pines or Pine Crest or Cedar View (It seems old people have a desire to live in places that are named after coniferous trees, or at least young people who create these bastions for the elderly are under that impression. I can't imagine why.)

Anyway, back to my one third life crisis which involves hanging with the juvies at the mall. And not even a good mall. In fact it was half a mall because the other half was under construction. I went to visit a friend and her new baby in Toronto, two bus trips and a short walk away from where I was staying. Bus number 2 dropped me off at the aforementioned half mall where I went avidly in search of a pay phone to call my friend. Let's stop for a historical point: Pay phones are the phones that are attached to the wall and cost 25 cents to use for an unlimited time. I honestly don't think that this needs explaining, but I recieved more than a few quizzical looks. It turns out the half mall doesn't have payphones and if they did, as I was informed by the geriatric salesclerk at Sears, they would cost 50 cents. Yikes!

Passing through the linen section on my way to the nearest exit, I was swarmed by a group of shrieking girls and salivacious boys who had obviously been set free on a day pass. A policeman, their minder or a coincidental encounter, found me paralysed clinging to the display of gaudy cotton-blend beach towels as I waited for the crowd and their lingering body odour to pass. Maybe he would clear a path for me to escape. Oh wait . . . He's coming towards me. . . Oh NO! He almost slugged a kid . . . Woops! Pretend I didn't see that. He's closer. Now speaking to me. . . What was that, officer? I shouldn't be hanging out with kids like this at the mall? You've got to be kidding.

The only good that came of that horrific little encounter, the first of many passing through the half mall, was that I could pass for 15. On second thought, that's not such a great thing after all.

Liver heat and lower back dampness

Chinglish Chick and I had a zen weekend involving fasting, acupuncture and getting our Chi moving. Dr Dow, a veritable Chinese medicine doctor from Beijing, visits CC's mum's best friend for Buddhist purification rituals twice yearly. He treats practioners and from 7am to 7pm daily on four makeshift acupuncture tables ie the kitchen table covered with holly hobbit bedsheets and a pillow etc. For the fully initiated, the cleansing ceremony consists of five days of acupuncture along with a five-day fast involving drinking only hot water with honey and one red date per day. As novitiates, CC and I didn't quite make it that far.

For the curious here is the weekend in a nutshell:
One bowl of fishball soup from the local noodle joint for Nahawna

One mocha ice cream from JP Licks for Chinglish Chick (it tasted like soya sauce so technically it's still in keeping with the Zen weekend theme)

Two days of acupuncture where the only thing that was flowing faster than our Chi was the cash leaving our pocketbooks into the adept hands of Dr Dow.

Three diagnoses of blocked Chi between the two of us: A weak left side for Chinglish Chick and liver heat and lower back dampness for me.

Five translations required for a conversation between me and the acupuncture practitioner: Mandarin -> Cantonese -> English -> Cantonese -> Mandarin. Needless to say our exchanges were brief.

Eight a lucky number in China. Also the number of days of relentless rain in Boston and the temperature outside.

Thirteen hours of fasting. That's right we didn't last a full day. In fact we only made it down the steps and around the corner from our last treatment before scoffing down a mini hazelnut tart each.

One week til the next prime number

Last year was a tough year and I'm not sure what to make of it. Many times over the course of the year, in an attempt to boost my spirits, people have fished out the old adage "What ever doesn't kill you will make you stronger." I don't believe it for a minute. I think this year has killed a large part of my spirit and I don't feel any stronger for it. The only thing that I'm certain of is that next year has to be better because it can't possibly be any worse.

In spite of all the nastiness that has plagued me, I have much to be thankful for especially my friends who were angels. I'm also excessively thankful that this will be my last year of school. I always try to be upbeat about still being in school because the end was nowhere in site, but frankly I hate it and have felt that way for a long time. This last year, all family issues aside, personified everything detestable about formal education without even giving a glimmer of the good side of school. Now that I'm almost finished, I don't feel bad saying it out loud. In fact it feels quite good. Anyway here are my lists of the good and bad of the last year and year to come.

Some horrible things about last year . . .
1. Loss
2. Family politics
3. Still being a student

Some fabulous things about the past year . . .
1. A new addition to the family
2. Fabulous, supportive, beautiful friends

Things to look forward to next year . . .
1. Finishing school forever
2. Moving back to Canadia
3. Being able to choose how I spend my time (well only somewhat, but I'll take it)

Sleeping Giants, Rowdy Dwarves

Okay, so possibly my favourite radio station, CBC Radio 1, is having one of their regular summer competitions. This one is fabulous: selecting the seven wonders of Canada. http://www.cbc.ca/sevenwonders/

Top on my list is the Sleeping Giant, a peninsula that looks like a man lying down in Thunder Bay on Lake Superior. My bias is obvious but it has a good story too. Ojibwe legend has it that Nana Bijou (of no relation to me) lay down in Thunder Bay (the bay on Lake Superior after which the city was named) to protect the silver mines from being cleaned out by the Europeans (in its prime, Silver Islet, was the leading producer of silver.)


Here are my picks for the remaining six wonders, in no particular order:
The Bay of Fundy
The Igloo
Inukshuks
Haida Gwali, Queen Charlotte Islands
Old Quebec City
Singing Sands Beach, PEI

Quote of the month

This one courtesy of my surgery attending . . .

"Sympathy is between shit and syphilis in the dictionary."

I'm not sure exactly what it means, but OUCH! that hurts.