Here is something I haven't told you.

I love playing air hockey. I love air hockey. I become ravenously competitive when I play it. This doesn't in any way mean that I am warming up to the idea of ever watching ice hockey (ever)... but air hockey? Yuh-huh. The very idea of it makes my adrenaline bubble and boil inside of me. I giggle like a maniac, my eyes gloss over & my face droops on one side. AiR HOCkeY... *gluuuurgle*

So we went to the Kid Fun Zone Happy Climbing Adventure Pizza Palace yesterday and I had forgotten about my need to annihilate people at this game.. that is until I saw two old french ladies playing against each other. My brain picked up an old memory. My goodness, I hadn't played in a decade.. more. I had flashbacks of myself launching that floating little puck into my opponent's goal. OH THE SATISFACTION! THE VINDICATION OF MY SKILLS! I even have a natural maniacal laugh that escapes when I devastate my aggressor. Not even practiced. If you'd like to try duplicating it though, do this: Say "Hhhhhhhhhh-AW!" (scrunch up your nose during the 'aw' part and hold for 2 full seconds) and make a tight, shaking fist with your left hand right in front of your nose and bare your teeth. It might be more like a battle cry, or a seizure. Who even knows? Anyway, on with the story.

I wanted to push the ladies to the ground and forcibly remove their paddle thingers from them so that I could have a turn. I had an internal struggle, because I remembered what it is like to be a toddler:

MONGO WANT PLAY NOW. I told myself no. Wait.... just wait your turn. There is only one air hockey table. MONGO WANT PLAY! Hurrrrrrry ladies.... GIVE MONGO PADDLES! Wait, self... MONGO'S TURN!! *stomp stomp stomp*. This is actually kind of what really went on in my head, if you must know. I'm sure it wasn't too obvious when I was standing beside the table, tapping my feet at these uncommonly greedy-with-the-hockey women who were taking their sweet time.

We were just getting ready to leave and had, in fact, rounded up all the kids from the giant tube/slide/maze when this all occurred. However, my pupils were already dilated, so I dug into my pocket and felt around for a loonie†. My hand slipped around the gold coin and I sheepishly asked Neil to play a quick game with me.

"I thought we were leaving"
"Yeah... um... we are.. after a game (*mumble*or sixty)"
"What was that you said?",
"Hmm? Me? OH Nothing, let's play!"

I think he saw the urgency on my face so off we went.

Most of it is a blur of war cries and I remember Neil getting a goal which made me pretty dangerously angry and desperate for redemption- but by the time they dragged me away, I had won all of the games and Neil looked pretty disheveled. I even thought about body checking him a few times.

I probably need to buy an air hockey table. Where would we put it? Well.. we probably don't need the dining room table.

Hhhhhhhh-AW!
*scrunchyface*
*fist pump*

†In case you're not Canadian, loonie means a dollar coin. I can see how reading the phrase, "I felt around for a loonie" might be alarming to those of you who are not hip to our slick Canadian jargon.

Ultimate Fitness.

To hell with bootcamp and 'actual', 'balanced' workouts, try doing 300 rockette style can-can kicks in your living room. I thought this would a pretty easy challenge (Yes. I thought of the challenge myself. How could you tell that I didn't get it out of some kind of thick, fancy fitness book?). Well, it turns out that I can do 50 pretty seamlessly, then I have to go get a popsicle and drop onto the floor, heaving with drooly foam lathering and bubbling in the corners of my mouth and down my neck (What I mean by "I can do 50 pretty seamlessly" is that by kick number 30, my leg starts going perceptibly lower and I have to stop myself from bending forward to do full body, toddler-style soccer kicks). That's not good, right? I'm pretty sure that the key to ultimate fitness is to be able to do 300 of them without stopping.

Everyone needs to have goals. I like to do this with my living room curtains wide open in my fleecey Walmart lip-print pajamas so that I can really impress my neighbors. "This is a great neighborhood", they'll say to one another.

You know and I know that you're going to try it. I foresee a new olympic eveeeEeent!

20 seconds in the life of Michelle.

Ben and I went for a spin down the hill.

The take off... this is gonna be awesome!

WheeEeeEEE!

Oh, didn't see that giant ice lump there...

Here is a nice close up of the moment. If the Titanic was tobogganing with it's kid, it would be me.

Brought to you by: Robaxacet Max.

Not even duct tape could save the Titanic.

This is the root of it all, Nerdsquad. The very pedigree that begins the evolution of the sophisticated and steadfast rules of an officially recognized gaming event. The crude parent of Olympians. The Eden of Sports.

It's the kind of crux in history that gives way to the multinational events we all attend now. A primitive moment in time when people get together (I'm thinking men), likely get drunk and try to decide what to do with the leftover apple baskets, the frozen solid horse poop, the pig's bladder or unreasonably gigantic pumpkins they've grown. "Let's display them!" "Let's Decorate them!" "Let's travel in them!" "YES! LET'S TRAVEL IN THEM!" "LET'S RACE THEM!!!!!!" And the room goes silent while the brilliant plan is absorbed.

And so it begins. The careful planning and carving, measuring & reinforcing with duct tape, the perfect home-grown boat. A thing which requires the most delicate of balance and grace to outmaneuver the rival Pro-Squash Sailor, Popular TV personality or Member of Parliament. Kayaks be damned! The crowd waiting in baited anticipation, wondering whether the stinking, fetid pumpkin which was left to rot for 2 weeks before entering the water would indeed hold the two men struggling for victory and buoyancy until the very end, the trepidation and then relief when the Black Pearl of pumpkin boat racing truly makes it halfway before the men inside flip it and land, sinking into the shallow bog like a Titanic gourd meeting its watery fate.

Here lies the very beginnings of pro sport, and why I think modern organized pro sports are stupid and boring. For one thing, in monstrous pumpkin boat racing- I've learned that cheating is definitely allowed. I've also learned that there are no gender or age boundaries. It is perfectly acceptable to stuff two grown men in a pumpkin boat and race them against a lone, white haired lady whose boat has filled to the brim with swamp water before the race even begins. She can be stuck on the edge of the bog, where she's left with no help- just an ineffective plastic kayak paddle, sloshing around in circles and muttering to herself while the triumphant winners make several passes through the finish line to get the perfect victory photograph. None of that hardly ever happens in football.

This is my kind of competitive games. Give me rudimentary, disorganized sports any day.

PS. I got to meet Rick Mercer, Canadian Hero . Yay!

Nice picture, eh? SAY IT'S NICE.

I covet Dale's ricotta, okay?

I was going to take my camera to boot camp today, but at 5:30 am, I am satisfied that I even remembered to wear pants (this time). Not that anyone else there would notice. Most people arrive blinking with their hair still mashed to one side of their heads and really, the only thing anyone can focus on is Instructor Dale's breakfast smoothie. "What's in the smoothie, Dale?" 8 or 11 women ask, eyeballing it the way a bunch of out of shape Eves in the Garden of Eden would eyeball the forbidden fruit of knowledge- and Dale is the snake/devil tempting everyone. "Field berries and ricotta." Says Dale/Satan. "Ricotta, huh?" The women ask. "Yeah *smirk*. It's a long story."

I'll bet it is. I bet it's a very long, intriguing story about berries & lasagna cheese all blended together that we would all laugh heartily at and feel enlightened about thereafter. "Ohhhh..... I seeeee." We'd all say while nodding thoughtfully after Dale related the long, complicated story to us. Then we'd make mental notes to purchase ricotta and field berries (I also think that a couple/few ounces of Jamaican rum would be nice in it) for the next boot camp class.

The point is that I don't really care WHY there is ricotta in it (even though it's the cheese intended for lasagna). I would personally like to just steal Dale/The Devil's smoothie, sneak out to the hall and give it a try, but I just know there are stool-pigeons in that class. (They're the perky ones who already know why someone would put ricotta in their smoothie and also feel smug about this knowledge) I'd get busted and then what? Everyone would be watching me like vultures and I'd be looking behind my back for the rest of the boot camp sessions- possibly forever. They might even give me a nickname like- 'The Bootcamp Breakfast Bandito' or 'That crazy freak at bootcamp' or 'Shirley' (because why not?). Well I don't want to get caught up in that kind of criminal lifestyle anyway. My family is just too important to me.

All I know is that it sits on the counter and everyone's head does a wide eyed, owl-esque 180 as they run past it. Who's gonna be the first to steal the forbidden fruit? Huh? WHO?

Who? Who? WHO?

The Hills have I.

Today I ran up a big fat, steep grassy hill. I haven't done that since I was a kid. I was pretty exhilarated that I was so nimble vaguely capable. So once at the top, I enjoyed the view of Moonie's Bay while trying to will away my butt cramp and decided to run back down juuuust like my kids. Bad idea, Self. I forgot about that suspended moment in time that occurs when running down a steep hill. It's that mental purgatory made up of sheer panic when you realize that your legs are running faster under your body than time allows and they begin to take on a mind of their own, picking up speed faster and faster until you are a teeth chattering, jiggling, wailing mass just praying for God to make your feet heavier and screaming at small children to hit the deck because Heaven knows- there is NOTHING you can do about it.

"Wowee Mom. You can run REALLY fast! Was what you said a swear??"

"No, I said 'Rolling Ducks', didn't you see them? They were all kinds of tricky. Geez. You should pay more attention to nature, ungrateful kids." (there is a lesson in everything)

Well I was afraid that if I actually tried to stop, I might have launched myself into the picnic of the large, non-english speaking family who were happily chattering away over lunch at the bottom of the hill, or into an unsuspecting cyclist. Try explaining THAT while attempting to look like you meant it so that you might keep some small semblance of your dignity.

Yeah, who am I kidding? My dignity left the moment I made the critical decision to hurl myself off of a large, public hill.

Lemons. Gams. Lying to people. Stuff like that.

It's almost time for boot camp again, y'all. I never say y'all. Why did I type that? Oh well. No going back now. So I get to go back to the gym 3 times a week for 6:00am sharp starting on Monday to be brutalized with a pilates ball & kettle bells by Dale. Well his name's Andrew, but I prefer to degrade him by calling him Dale. Think of how tough I am, y'all. Not really, although I do have some power in my gams. You just can't tell unless I'm kicking you in the throat.

So ya. I'm pretty stoked about that.

Anyhow, here is the deal. I didn't start running, okay? Instead, I wrote lots of blogs and learned how to use twitter. I was supposed to really get down to business with becoming a runner last week but I crapped out bigtime. TV was pretty mediocre, so I watched a lot of that. Even though survivor wasn't on... or was it? Who can tell anymore? I spent my month off of boot camp reading running magazines & websites, internet shoe shopping, deciding if I should buy some lululemon pants so that I can at least FOOL everyone into thinking that I've been running. Y'know... throw on some blush and strategically spray water at the back of my shirt & arm pits, then pant and buy vitamin water while pretending not to hear anyone because my ipod is turned up pretty loud. "WHAT? THAT'S AN AWFUL LOT OF MONEY FOR STUPID VITAMIN WATER THAT ISN'T EVEN GOOD FOR YOU ACCORDING TO SEVERAL REPUTABLE STUDIES. SCREW THAT, I'LL QUENCH MYSELF WITH SWEAT BECAUSE I'M PRETTY HARDCORE AS YOU MAY BE ABLE TO SEE.."is what I'd say over my motivational running music, then throw the bottle at Bill who works around the corner at the Quikee Mart. But the joke is on them because I'd only have Neil's ipod headphones and no ipod at ALL. (Because I don't even have an ipod.. poor me, eh?) Then I'd say something like, "Gotta JET" and then bound around the corner to my car and go to Chapters for a pumpkin latte and some cookies. So I didn't get the pants.

The other option is to get some pants at Costco and tell everyone they're lululemon. As if they'd even know. I'm a pretty crafty person.

Did I even tell you guys how I KNOW about lululemon? WELL. I was on this airplane once, and strangers tend to feel like they should drop their entire sordid pasts on me during flights. I have that trustworthy face or something... or I always get stuck with the senile, talkative folks... or it could be all the torturing supplies that I bring with me on flights. Anyhow, I was sitting next to this 80something year old woman who told me her entire life history, including how she took a bus to Tijuana with some of her girlfriends when she was younger. Anyhow, they stayed drunk pretty much the whole time and she ran away with the bus driver who was her best friend's boyfriend. SO I told her how I kinda like Abba and that I was wearing men's underpants. Then she told me that I would LOVE Lululemon and I was all... "Hmmm..... she sounds like she knows what she's talking about". But I never did check it out or go in the store. I just noticed that other people are all about this stuff and kinda feel a little inadequate sometimes for not having any lululemon of my very own. But then my anarchist side kicks in and says, "FIGHT THE POWER" and I wouldn't be seen dead in it.

I'm going to write luluLIME on my Costco pants with a bleach pen now. I'm so punk, man.

I pledge my allegiance to Dale

I just want you all to know that I have not crapped out on boot camp. I am still going. Sure, I'm delirious by the end of the workout, and I seem to be the only one who thinks that I'm intensely funny... but I'm there, dammit. And what do they expect me to say if they're going to play dance-country music at 6 am while asking me to do 'the dirty dog'? Am I not supposed to heckle that?? How can that even be ignored? It's scientifically impossible for me. How can I not spell dyslexic swear words in the air with my weights instead of the alphabet? How?

I dunno, maybe I should stop putting rum in my breakfast smoothies.


I've noticed that the class size has diminished by appx half, too. Wieners.

Ski Ninjas.

Looking supafly on the chairlift. Sull and I had a theme for the day and it was Ski Fu, ninja ski masters and we only got in trouble one time for bombing down an intermediate run.

Note my awesome sunglasses/cheaper than goggles eye protection. I'm SURE I won't regret them as a fashionable choice when looking back on this photo in ten years.

Um.. this is the only other picture I took... I was pretty sure I'd gotten his entire body in the shot when I took it. Good job, self.