Saturday, December 22, 2012

Nice day, with a major disappointment

You know how everybody talks about trying to relax at Christmas, having some time with their families, getting away from the stress of work, and all that? Yeah, it's like the weather, everybody talks about it but nobody actually does anything about it.

Except me.

I slept in today. Yesterday too, for that matter. Cruised Facebook, Twitter, blogs while watching the sun come up. Talked to my neighbour while getting a newspaper. Enjoyed a wonderful cinnamon bun from La Boulanger in Kingsland with coffee. Read for a while (more on that later). Workout. A great meal, and now blogging. More novel later.

All in all an excellent, relaxing day. How many people in Calgary can say they had a relaxing day today. Come on, hands up, let me see you. Anybody? I thought not.

My one bitter disappointment is the book Age is just a Number, by Dara Torres and some hack ghost writer. I'm sorry, but it's incoherent. I think Torres is an amazing athlete who has helped redefine what "old" is, and makes people think differently about age. I think there is an amazing story in her life, but this book isn't it. I had to stop reading. I lost track of which comeback she was talking about, or which coach she was working with. The competition during training between her and and somebody, I can't remember her name, struck me as stupid and immature. She was a grown woman, I'd have expected her to be smarter about it, even if the kid wasn't.

The kiss of death for a book is when I realize I don't care about the characters, or the situation, or the story, or the topic, or whatever the book is about. It used to be I'd soldier on through, but not any more. Life is too short. I move onto the next one.

The minor disappointment is this bottle of commercial wine. I'm not sure how it ended up here, since I haven't bought commercial wine (by the glass in restaurants excepted) for a decade at least. It's ok, I guess, I'm drinking it after all, but it isn't as good as my wine.

A good thing was the workout. A bit of stretching got me on the bike for the hour feeling pretty good. My heart rate was a bit higher throughout than I would have liked, but it was nice to be biking with no low back pain. Afterward was a long stretch session, using the ball on my hips, butt, and back. It felt really good. Just lay there in a twist for a while. Did a long pigeon pose. Now my hips feel good, and my upper back is a bit cranky. Oh well.

Linda did up a simple little trout and wild rice dinner.

IMG_2447

Very nice. I keep telling her that she should teach people how to cook. Not to follow a recipe, but the real deal, how to actually cook, and have fun doing it. She doesn't think anyone would be interested.

Next, onto the novel. I probably won't talk much about it here; there doesn't seem to be much interest.




5 comments:

  1. I actually had a pretty relaxing day! Glad I wasn't out shopping that's for sure!

    I agree- my favourite wine is one that we made. I've still bought quite a bit of commercial wine though- mostly to bring to other people's houses.

    Not too many people can really cook these days (including me but I'm learning). I think there would be interest out there, just have to find the right people.

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  2. Nicole, I tried 3x to comment on this, and all went into never never land.

    At least you had a good reason for not learning, and an excellent teacher to learn from now, at least judging by the lunches I saw him bringing to work.

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  3. Linda seems to be an amazing cook. Keep those photos and descriptions coming. They're inspiring.

    As for the novel, there is to interest - in this quarter anyway. It's just been too damned busy over the past few weeks for me to take time to read carefully and try to come up wit something coherent to say. In any case, I hope you'll get back to working on it, and I hope you'll blog about it now and again. We aspiring novelists need to encourage one another.

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  4. Linda is an amazing cook. There is a reason I used to be way bigger than I am now, and that is part of it. I like doing the food photos.

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    1. Food photos... now, there's something I'd like to take pictures of with my new camera. ;-)

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Looking forward to reading your comment!