Translation

Firewall - it's English for "Sovernty association"!

August Invesiture 2005

So aside from my trip with K, what have I been up to? I've had a few little adventures.

Weight Watchers continues. The week before my vacation, I went to a meeting and discovered I weighted 239.0. That was in shorts and a t-shirt. The week after my vacation (in which I had candy bars, gelato, poutine and a seafood and cheese-stuffed avocado) I weighted - 239.0! And that was wearing a long-sleeved work shirt and long pants. thebrucie suggests this is because my metabolism is a notch higher than it was before. He attributes his own high metabolism to why he's never weighted more than 190. It could also be that I made a deliberate effort to not cut back immediately prior to the trip. The real test will be this week when I weight in on Thursday. I've been back on the plan for a full week and we'll see if I've gone down any. I'm cautiously optimistic.

I went to my doctor (checking my sperm count) last Friday and discovered that he is no longer in Marda Loop, but is now in Mayland Heights. Two neighborhoods that have similar ages and characters, but are on completely opposite sides of the city. Luckily neither are terribly difficult to get to from Dalhousie where I live. However it does eliminate the very last reason I had for going to the old neighborhood. There was a time when I'd have celebrated this. Now I'm just feeling kind of, I dunno, blah about it.

wendy_licious (W) offered to drive me out to the Avacal Investiture in return for being her sex slave the next day. I, of course, jumped at the chance.

Why would I want to go to a camping event near Brooks? Because I wanted to be the pricipality archery champion. After coming in second at DragonBlinder, I figured I would have a pretty good chance. Plus a couple of people I know were egging me on to do it. Pretty seemed to have a blast doing it this year, so what the hell.

Of course, the day before this I went to the range to practice and ran into a bunch of folks there (quite a bit more than I would have expected for a weekend with a nearby camping event). I mentioned my ambitions to MJ, who proceeded to point out how much hard work it would take, and how much travelling you would have to do and how if you didn't put 110% into it, you'd be thought poorly of. I don't think she was trying to discourage me exactly - more like she was trying to sure that I was prepared for it. DJ, who was listening in on this, sidled up to me afterwards and said "don't let any of that worry you - just go for it", and that's what I decided to do.

So W, and her roomie KC picked me up bright and early Saturday morning and we headed off to Brooks-ish, arriving around noon we proceeded to apply toxic chemicals (sunscreen and DEET) to ourselves and then dress in completely inappropriate clothing for the desert in August. Actually it wasn't too bad, it was in the 20-25 degree range, so warm but not sweltering. The only problem was that black flies ignore DEET.

There was a court, and I was getting annoyed at a large group of yahoos who were talking rather loudly through it - until I realized that the talking was part of the show. The old Prince and Princess left and then the new Prince and Princess assumed the throne. Court took a break while the tournaments were held.

The archery tournament was fun, and I did really really well. out of 28 competitors for the championship I came in fifth! Ironically the two finalists were Morrigan Clubfoot and (the eventual winner) Robert of Clan Gunn.

I was hamstrung a bit by my fear of success a bit, but I decided that I didn't care if Pretty's shoes were too big to fill - If I won I'd have as much fun as I could with the job. The SCA is just a game after all. So I shot really good, just not quite good enough.

Afterwards, I hung out with some fine fine SCAdians and that's when I made the following faux pas:

Cor: "So where's wackynephews?"
Me: "He's out of town for a few months while I try to get his wife knocked up."
W: "Shut up - nobodies supposed to know about that."
Me: "Oh, sorry."

Afterwards there was court. People were rewarded, proclamations were given, and a good time was had by all. There was a meeting for Da Union, and it went until dark. Later W, KC and I drove back to Airdrie, where I crashed for the night.

Next day, W had me fix a computer, as well as other, miscellaneous, chores. It was a pretty good weekend.

Run For Your Lives!

As I mentioned before, my lack of car has been unfortunately (but correctly) linked to my anxiety problems. My therapist has therefore made driving my homework before my next session. wendy_licious, who is a saint for putting up with way more of my bullshit than duty dictates, has loaned me her car for the weekend (she's seeing her boy wackynephews in Regina this weekend).

Here's what you need to know about my driving history:

Age 16: Sister tries to teach me how to drive Dad's truck. I tool around Glenmore park for a few hours collecting an interesting array of impressions on the front grill. One lesson because, hey, it's my sister.

Age 27: I take an AMA driver's ed. course. Take my driver's exam and fail. Promise myself to practice more and take the exam again. This doesn't happen.

Age 33: I take the AMA course again. Take the driver's exam and pass. Promise to practice more just because. This doesn't happen.

Age 37: wendy_licious loses the last shred of her sanity and loans me her car. It is the first time I've been behind the wheel of a car since my exam and the first time I've been behind the wheel of a car alone ever.

Naturally I find out that one of my coworkers (who races cars at Race City for fun) was in an accident and is currently wearing a neckbrace, and Dose (the local free daily newspaper) had, as it's question of the day, "Have you ever been in, or seen, a car accident". D'oh!

So there I am in Airdrie. I've got the keys, and I've reread the rules of the road. I start the car successfully and back out her driveway. W sits in her house alone and prays to all she holds holy.

Now the problem with W's house in Airdrie is that it's really close to the highway, so in less than five minutes I'm barreling down highway 2 at 110 KPM.

I have a question for all you drivers out there:

WHERE THE FUCK DID ALL THESE CARS COME FROM?

(They're never there when I'm a passenger)

I manage to get to my WW meeting without getting honked and/or sweared at, which I consider a plus. I lost 1.4 pound this week, possibly all in the 30 minutes it took me to get to the meeting. Afterwards I walked to Jimmy's A&A and bought a chicken shwarma and some bakalava (my treat for any week I lose weight). Then I had a slightly less terrifying ride home (Northland drive is nowhere near as bad as Deerfoot trail and Country Hills Blvd).

My back, shoulders and neck are stupidly tense. I could use a blow job right now.