Confessions of a Blogophobe

'Tis the season

2011-12-17T16:53:00.003-05:00

At this rate, any P90X gains I made over the fall will be long gone by the time winter actually rolls around, probably, perhaps, some time in 2012. It has been mighty mild up here in these parts, which has caused the Christmas spirit to show itself a little later than we would like.

So instead of just letting the snow slowly tell us that Santa is on his way, we are relying instead on some good old fashioned Christmas cheer to make it happen--as in any excuse to have a beer, a goodie, a cookie, some junk, is a good one, because, well, you know, 'tis the season afterall!

So this P90Xer has been off the grid for the better part of the past few weeks, leaving the meal plan and the self-restraint somewhere in the cupboard, and using the season, and the somewhat stagnant Christmas spirit, to indulge and overindulge to my little heart's content.

Today, I am feeling it.

Feeling like Jolly Old St-Nick will soon be here.

Feeling festive and in the mood to roast some chestnuts on an open fire. To let Jack Frost do some nipping at my nose. And yes, Hot Wife, to do some kissing under the mistletoe.

Soon our friends will knock on our door, joining us tonight for an impromptu dinner, at my request, another shameless use of the season as good enough reason to raise a glass, stuff ourselves silly, and otherwise celebrate the good fortune that has befallen us, up here in the nowhere town we call home.

Christmas is coming. And I am in the mood.

In the mood to eat, drink and be merry.

To have a frolicking, rollicking good time, surrounded by friends and family.

To have that beer, that goodie, that cookie, that junk, without guilt, without regret, without a single, solitary worry that what's going down might, or will, counter the good work that came over the previous three months.

Because we have all of 2012 to make up for it.

And because, well, now within only a few days of Christmas, 'tis the season!

Take over my makeover

2011-11-24T14:49:00.001-05:00

Two years ago today I took to this page as if I was on stage, and proceeded to tap the microphone in a metaphorical way, wondering if anyone still bothered (or cared) to visit Confessions of a Blogophobe for a glimpse into my world.

Seems little has changed in the intervening 24 months, as negligence and delinquency have become hallmarks of this nearly four-year-old blog.

Seems every post I write begins the same way.

Been a long time...

Haven't written in awhile...

Bla, bla, bla...

Blah, blah, blah...

There is a distinction between the two. Bla, bla, bla is the French equivalent of yadda, yadda, yadda. We use it to denote the meaningless parts of the story that nobody really cares about.

Blah, blah, blah is what this page has become.

Blah.

There is a distinct lack of life in here. No purpose. No vision.

What is this place? And what should it be?

I ask the question because it has become painfully clear that whatever Confessions of a Blogophobe once was, it is that no longer.

I tried to re-ignite the blogging fire in September, with a sterling four-post month.

Then it took two months to produce two posts.

Hardly enough to keep the ones of you still reading coming back for more (as opposed to the hypothetical hundreds and thousands that once perused, or is that pursued, this page).

It is a bit of a lost cause.

Then again, so were the hometown Senators a mere month ago, and look at how that story is sorting itself out.

The sad-sack, basement-dwelling franchise has enjoyed a renaissance of sorts through the first quarter of the NHL season, surprising most everyone with a makeover that has made them the living embodiment of what it means to evolve and transform and become what you can be, not what you are perceived to be.

Perhaps the same can happen here.

Let me rephrase that.

Can the same happen here?

A question. A question for which I want an answer.

What could C-o-a-B be?

A place to pontificate?

An avenue to advise?

A home for humour?

An outlet for outbursts?

How can I rebirth a page whose lifespan seems to have long ago elapsed?

If anyone is reading this, I plead with you to pass on a thought, an idea, anything that could spark the re-emergence of Confessions of a Blogophobe as something far beyond what it has become, and much better than it ever was.

Take over my makeover.

Once upon a time

2011-10-18T22:03:00.001-04:00

Once upon a time, it was possible to tune in to hockey on any given night, on any night the hometown Senators were in action, and be entertained, enthused, enthralled by the boys in black, or red, or white. These days, they wear black, and red, and white, a retro jersey that harkens back to a time before my time, and boy do they look good in those snazzy new suits. A shame that their new duds can do little to mask the dud hockey team these Senators have become. There is no joy in Mudville, for Casey has struck out.

Once upon a time, I could never remember to carry a cell phone. Anywhere. It was an accessory I could do without. These days, I carry an iPhone. Everywhere. It is an accessory I could still probably do without, but one that has become my favourite gadget, toy, absurdly overpriced but thoroughly worth every penny piece of 21st century technology.

Once upon a time, my boy Kirby and I would banter back and forth in the blogsphere, united by a shared passion for the things that make us tick--our babes, our babies, the games we play, the game we love, the written word, the words that elicit smiles and frowns, and that prompt two dudes who have never met, whose two worlds are so drastically different yet so strikingly the same, to forge a friendship over a keyboard and a somewhat crappy blogging application. These days, I notice a month after the fact that my boy Kirby left me a comment a month ago that deserved a retort, but that got none, except here, now, where I am letting it be known, to Kirby (and to Michelle too), that I am still reading the comings-and-goings of the Kirby Krew, and appreciate that you reciprocate, despite my dodgy dalliances with what I do here.

Once upon a time, I would hit the couch running the minute dinner was done, and spend the evening watching Friends, Friends and more Friends, so tired I was from being a young, single, 20-something man-child. These days, I am up at five, work all day, pick up the kids, tend to them, bathe them, put them to bed, and just generally be the father I am supposed to be, before hitting the home gym running once the rugrats are in bed, so I can spend an hour, or more, night after night, powering through a P90X program that I never would have, or could have, survived when I was that tired, and young, and single, 20-something man-child.

Once upon a time, I feared not the implications of putting a disclocated shoulder back in its place with my own personal pull of the painful appendage. These days, I fear for the damage I may have done on the far-too-many occasions where machismo won out over everything else, and eagerly anticipate the day when that impossibly unreachable surgeon cuts me up to fix me.

Once upon a time, I blogged with some semblance of regularity, rarely going even a week without whipping up a post--even an itty, bitty, witty one--about the mundane or the meaningful, the funny or the fishy. These days, I try and I try and I try to find the fodder that could form the next, best, brilliantly put together piece that will keep me coming back with the stunning semblance of regularity that once upon a time was a fixture up in here.

It used to come easy, but now it feels hard. Forced. Perhaps the rigours of work, and working out, and fatherhood, and figuring myself out, have naturally caused C-o-a-B to come second, or is it third or fourth or fifth? Who knows? Who cares? For as I would proudly proclaim as a far from 'getting any' single, very single, 20-something man-child, 'I'll take quality over quantity any day of the week'.

It's a revisionist view that seemed entirely appropriate, once upon a time, but that seems entirely insufficient now.

For as I have learned, as a 'getting it with regularity' happily married near mid-thirties man, quality and quantity can co-exist, no matter the medium, the mechanism, the manner in which they come together.

Words to live by, for the next time the end begins with once upon a time.

Kindergarten kidder

2011-09-27T21:42:00.001-04:00

It was picture day at school today, for both The Eldest and The Middle One.

Hot Wife decked them out as pretty as can be, one in a sleeveless little number, the other in skirt and frilly blouse.

Tonight, just before dinner, The Eldest recounted her day, among other things telling us that a classmate told her that in her frilly blouse she looked like a boy.

Go figure. Frilly blouse, boy.

Whatever.

In any case, I sensed a teaching moment.

Eldest, I said, if you get teased again, all you have to do is say that you like your shirt and don't look like a boy. And walk away.

Then out of earshot I muttered 'or kick her in the face... or scratch her eyes out... or punch her lights out' because really, it's never too early to teach your children to not take shit off a playground punk.

Of course I kid.

I don't advocate violence as a solution to a schoolyard skirmish, though I do loathe bullies with a passion.

And while I know enough to not confuse a kindergartner's ribbing for bullying, I also hope it stops there.

Kids should be able to wear what they want, be who they are, without having to hear the catcalls from the peanut gallery. In kindergarten it's fine and forgotten quickly.

But let it fester, to first or fourth or fifth grade and beyond, well then I give my kid full right to let the claws come out.

Shopping -- A live blog

2011-09-17T12:44:00.001-04:00

Sitting in the waiting room area of a non-descript store in a non-descript mall, while Hot Wife tries on pants and shirts and skirts and anything else that might fit together to form an appropriate few outfits to wear to work.

This husband has taken his Mrs. shopping for the day, almost irrelevant of whatever the final tally will be.

Almost.

Hot Wife has waited quite awhile for this, so I have promised to make it through the day minus the bitching and moaning that usually comes with most husbands when they are dragged to the mall.

Thought I would live blog my way through the day to keep myself entertained.

12.30 -- first stop, H&M. I hate this store. Men's side is barely a step above thrift shop. Not my style. Spot Hot Wife. Her hands are full.

12.38 -- standing outside change room door. MILF walks by in completely inappropriate low slung dress showing off not just cleavage, but most of the goods too. Winning.

12.45 -- Hot Wife emerges, says everything too small. Depressed.

12.52 -- next stop, Jacob. Use Sound Hound App to decipher good tune playing on store sound system. Springsteen. Recent iPhone purchase finally justified.

12.55 -- Jackson Five on now. Tempted to bust a move.

1.03 -- sharing change room with Hot Wife. Naughty thoughts. Nothing happens. No letter to Penthouse.

1.12 -- early leader for quote of the day from Hot Wife: "these pants are better. Not as tight. More professional than skanky." Sadly, far too many in the workplace see it the other way.

1.20 -- wondering why we are shopping at Banana Republic. Might be able to afford one sock here, but definitely not two, let alone pants at $185. I buy those, we have no gas money to get home.

1.32 -- damn my wife is hot. Definitely married up. She is NHL, I am beer league. Winning.

2.20 -- hot wife has me try on skinny jeans. Fat chance.

2.48 -- back to sharing a change room. Dear Penthouse? Nope, that still ain't happening.

3.01 -- chaching.

3.29 -- man in men's room standing at urinal holding small baby in one hand, shaking dingaling with the other. An obvious multitasker.

3.32 -- more gratuitous boobs. Shopping is not so bad afterall.

4.48 -- dragging ass. To hell with the P90X meal plan. Ice. Cream. Time.

5.00 -- spent. Physically and financially spent.

5.50 -- home, without even a hint of buyer's remorse. Yet.

Hockey heartache

2011-09-07T15:25:00.001-04:00

As the calendar turns from August to September, we in these parts tend to eagerly anticipate the start of another hockey season and the eight month grind-it-out-at-all-costs pursuit of Lord Stanley's fabled mug.

We love the game.

We live the game.

And now, perhaps more than ever, we need the games to begin, if for no other reason than to escape the grips of tragedy that have thus far marred the 2011 off-season.

But for a tiny, tenuous tie, I am connected to the NHL, to the world of professional hockey, as no more than a follower. Still, as a hockey player, as a fan of the game and a lover and defender of the sport, as someone who lurks only on the outer fringes of a tight inner circle, I am like so many others lately, finding it increasingly difficult to contextualize the incomprehensible losses the hockey community has suffered in just four short months.

Derek Boogard of the New York Rangers in May.

Rick Rypien of the Winnipeg Jets in August.

The just-retired Wade Belak last week.

And now, an entire team out of Russia's Kontinental Hockey League, wiped out in a shocking plane crash just hours prior to puck drop on the opening day of the 2011-2012 KHL calendar.

Among the departed, the prolific Pavol Demitra, at one time property of the home-town Senators, ill-fatedly dispatched a season too soon for what amounted to a bag of pucks and a half-dozen water bottles.

He was an all-star.

Practically a point-per-game player in his post-Senators days.

He is gone.

Too soon.

Just like the rest of his teammates, including another former Senator, defenseman Karel Rachunek.

Unspectacular but dependable, he patrolled the Ottawa blueline for four-plus seasons.

Neither flashy nor formidable, Rachunek was best counted on to foil a rush coming at him one way and to relaunch the attack with gusto in the other.

Like Demitra, he is gone now too.

And like his teammate, gone too soon.

There is the coach, Canadian Brad McCrimmon, whose face and low-slung helmet I remember from the first hockey cards I ever collected -- Pro Set -- in the early days of 1990, but whose name I recall from even before then, from when I was just discovering the game and the professional players I hoped to one day emulate.

Josef Vasicek, the one-time Carolina Hurricane, easily identifiable for the odd-for-hockey number he wore -- 63 -- and easily recallable for the ear-to-ear grin we couldn't help but notice as Carolina celebrated its 2006 Stanley Cup championship.

Karlis Skrastins.

Ruslan Salei.

Alexander Karpovtsev.

Igor Korolev.

All names I know. Faces I can see. Players I can somehow tie to a memory of the game or to a second-hand tale I remember hearing or reading somewhere.

They, and the rest of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl hockey club, are tragic and senseless additions to the now long list of hockey's recently departed. Players, but also people, pilfered in their prime, taken before their time, in ways far too tragic to even seek to comprehend.

In sport, losing is unacceptable. But in life, losses are far more poignant and permanent.

So as the curtain soon rises on the 2011-2012 hockey season, in the NHL, in Europe, in the professional and amateur ranks everywhere, may the sun also set on the summer of 2011 and what will be remembered as the heartache era in our game's long and fabled history.

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We are the champions

2011-09-02T14:37:00.002-04:00

Winning.

The sweet taste of victory.

The delicious, delightful, intoxicatingly wonderful aroma that wafts only in the rarefied air that champions breathe.

Last night, our rag-tag bunch of middle-aged puck pushers did the unthinkable by claiming a summer hockey championship that nobody would have expected at season’s start.

From puck drop to final buzzer, it was a dominant performance from what turned out to be a dominant squad.

And best of all?

We prevailed over a pack of precocious young punks. A tempestuous team of little twerps that never for a second saw our grizzled graybeards coming.

We schooled them. Taught them a lesson.

We passed the puck. They didn’t.

We buried our chances. They didn’t.

We stayed out of the penalty box. They didn’t.

We kept our mouths shut. They didn’t.

We won the cup. They didn’t.

It was beautiful. And it was earned.

For eight years, we have toiled away in anonymity, unable to even come close to clinching a cup.

Eight years.

Summer hockey, seven seasons. Winter hockey, eight.

That’s fifteen combined seasons in which we have been unable to reap the rewards of victory, fighting to the finals twice prior, falling short on both occasions.

But not last night.

Last night, we put it all together.

We played like pros.

We prevailed.

We earned the right to linger on the ice longer than our opponents, and to pose for the pictures that will preserve our win forever in photograph.

Last night, we won the cup.

And today, we are the champions.

Back to the blog

2011-08-25T11:54:00.001-04:00

It has been a long time between posts here at Confessions of a Blogophobe, not at all unusual for this writer, though still a prolonged absence even by my own low standards.

The truth is that I have not felt compelled to jot down a single, solitary thought since last I unleashed myself into the blogosphere going on six weeks ago now, and even that post, and the few that preceded it, came more from my own guilty conscience than anywhere else.

It has even been on my radar to shut this shizzle down, almost convinced that my travels down this creative writing road have come to an end. I have been at it for nearly four years, during which time I have thoroughly enjoyed the back-and-forth banter that my posts have generated.

But at times it has felt forced. Like an obligation more than an interest.

And that’s not a good place to write from, especially for an invested writer whose sole purpose, aside from entertaining the readership, is to use the written word to translate human emotion into a confluence of A’s and B’s and C’s that somehow touches those of you who do me the honour of patronizing my page (in the ‘support’ sense, not the denigrate/condescend one).

A post without heart is barely more than a bunch of words packed together pell-mell. Might as well go read the dictionary; at least there the words are in alphabetical order.

From my vantage point, it is pointless to ponder the platitudes of life without backing it up with emotion. Whether my experiences have caused me to smile or shed a tear, moved me or left me indifferent, I want the readership to feel what I felt in every moment that gets shared here.

Because I have not been in that headspace for quite awhile now, I have let the page dangle precariously close to a premature demise.

Until now.

Time away from C-o-a-B has reminded me why I started this page in the first place. Above all else, it was designed as one giant exercise in creative writing. A means to an end, in a sense.

At the time, I wasn’t getting much out of the gig that actually pays the bills, so I thought I would branch out and prove to myself that I could write meaningfully about just about anything.

Fast-forward a few years, and here I am again, contemplating my place in the professional universe, wondering where I am going and how I am going to spend the next two-plus decades getting there. Oddly enough, that uncertainty, that lack of career purpose, has drawn me back to Confessions of a Blogophobe, a place where, if nothing else, I can keep proving myself to the one guy whose expectations I always strive to exceed – me.

So consider this my pledge to keep practicing the art of the written word, here on my own little piece of online real estate. But I do so with the same disclaimer I attached to my very first writings on C-o-a-B on January 29, 2008: “I make no promises to write every day, but I will endeavour to regularly dot this page with my commentary on issues that matter… maybe not to you, the reader, but at the very least the issues will, and should, matter to me.”

So keep seeking me out, friends of the blog, for the dormant giant that is Confessions of a Blogophobe is coming back to life.

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Editor’s Note: Bloggers live for the click of the comment link at the tail-end of every post. Our hearts pitter-patter every time our numbers go up. So leave a word from time to time, even if it is just to let me know you are reading.

I am needy that way.

A good time to be alive

2011-07-11T21:08:00.003-04:00

It has been a long time between posts here in my favourite sanctuary of the written word, Confessions of a Blogophobe.

Much is transpiring in the Chubbs and Hot Wife household to make it difficult to get to these parts with any kind of regularity.

And by much, I mean the simple day-to-day grind of raising kids and working for a living.

But just in case some out in the blogosphere are still tuning in from time to time, let me let you in on the latest and greatest developments here on the homefront.

Hot Wife is pregnant.

Again.

NOT.

Just wanted to grab your attention.

Now that I've got it, let me first make it clear -- absolutely, unequivocally, crystal clear -- that no new additions are materializing in this here household.

No way. No how. Not a chance.

Life is good just the way it is, with three beautiful, healthy rugrats to keep us properly occupied.

This weekend, The Final Addition turns two.

Two.

Two years since our little baby boy came along to add some much-needed testosterone to a household in which I was outnumbered by a three-to-one margin.

The family felt incomplete when we decided to go for a third child, but not once since then have we had that feeling again.

We are a full family of five, and would have it no other way, despite Hot Wife's protestations to the contrary every time we encounter a newborn child.

Easy to say you'd go for another when you know for certain that the weapon of mass production is firing only blanks.

Were my junk still serving a reproductive purpose, it's doubtful that Hot Wife would be singing the same tune.

Elsewhere on the homefront, I have just re-engaged in the home gym after a much-deserved two-week hiatus at the conclusion of my latest exercising endeavour, Insanity Asylum.

That bit of exercise mayhem is appropriately named, for the 30-day engagement came exactly as advertised. It was so crazy it was crazazy.

So after two-weeks of intense over-indulgence, which included an outstanding dash to the Las Vegan desert, it was back to the grind for yours truly this evening.

And I paid the price.

For every Bud Light I drank beneath the Fremont Street lights in Sin City.

For every Captain and Coke I sipped as I stacked my chips at the blackjack table.

For every chip, and cookie, and desert, and hamburger and all-around junk that I stuffed down the 'ol pie-hole during my two-week reprieve from the rigours of working out.

It was all so worth it, every last gulp, every last bite, every last bit of excess and decadence, because I earned it after a hard go at the home gym throughout last winter and spring.

So now it is back to a little bit of balance.

Equilibrium.

At the very least enough exercise to see me lose the extra LB's I put on while vacationing, but also just enough to allow me to indulge in what I want throughout the rest of the summer.

It's that time of the season, where the temptations of Friday night dinners at The Matriarch's make it impossible to not enjoy whatever is on the table and in the fridge.

Where the quiet tranquility of a sunny Saturday evening make it practically necessary to open a bottle of red and relax under the fading evening light with Hot Wife at my side.

Where the lure of an afternoon BBQ with friends calls for an extra helping of extra fattening whip cream.

It just is that time of the year.

To soak it all in. To soak it all up.

And to realize and remember that now is a good time to be alive.

Daddy's day

2011-06-19T20:35:00.003-04:00

Today, I am thankful for the three most precious babies in the world, though I confess that one is hardly even a baby at all, another is dangling precariously on the brink of becoming the big girl she so desperately wants to be, and the third, while barely a toddler, is doing everything he can to keep up.

It's a cliche, but it's true, my children are my life. And while this is a Father's Day post about how I relate that to my kids, I can also speak freely for Hot Wife by saying that without our babies, we would have a whole lot more time on our hands, but a whole lot less to be thankful for.

We often catch ourselves watching them, The Eldest, The Mini Middle One and The Final Addition, overwhelmed by our good fortune to have landed three heatlhy children that lack for nothing, least of all potential.

And they are some cute to boot.

And funny. And loving. And cuddly.

And frustrating. And stubborn.

And eager. And determined.

They are each their own little individual, but also a group of three.

Amigos. Siblings. Cohorts. Compatriots.

Partners in crime too.

They are too young to conspire against us, though I am sure some day they will learn that the sum will always be greater than the whole of its parts... that together they can overcome any challenge, any obstacle, anything that stands in their way, except of course for Hot Wife and I, whom I'm afraid will always hold the upper hand over the three little offspring we created.

But if the worst of their indiscretions is to cover for each other over broken curfews or broken windows, then we can also safely assume that they will turn to one another when the time comes to heal a broken ego or mend a broken heart.

And as that happens, as they grow up together, learn together, face and overcome the pitfalls that have at one time or another put all of us in our place, I will stand back and watch, as Hot Wife and I sometimes watch our children now, thankful that we have them, that they have us, and most of all, that they have each other.

So on Father's Day, let me turn the tables and be the one to give thanks, to The Eldest, The Mini Middle One and The Final Addition, for making my heart swell every time they call me daddy.

And to Hot Wife, for having carried my children and made me their dad.

Surviving the asylum

2011-06-16T20:54:00.005-04:00

I should be sore all over.

I should be so sore that I can't walk.

But I can walk. And I'm not too sore, either.

The pain of pumping out eight, nine or was it ten consecutive Insanity Asylum workouts over eight, nine or was it ten consecutive days, ought to be more than it is, but it's not. Probably because we have pumped out eight, nine or was it ten consecutive Insanity Asylum workouts without missing a beat.

We are getting into better shape, Hot Wife and I, half-way through our one-month commitment to the DVD madman trainer Shaun T.

Tonight, we engaged in our Game Day workout, the culmination of a week's worth of 'practice' routines designed to get us ready to make it through the hour-long session of sports-specific training that was this evening's workout. Then for good measure we tacked on Day 20's prescribed Overtime session, because as Shaun T tells us, when you're in the game, you never know when you'll be forced to push beyond your limits, but you have to be ready to do it.

I went through three ball hats between start and finish, so soaked I was from the punishment.

I could have jumped in the pool and not been as drenched as I was when I emerged from the basement gym. Game Day and Overtime are that intense. That insane. That downright crazy!

And we are loving it, Hot Wife and I, pushing each other beyond the limits of what we thought possible, melding, or is it melting, into the shape we deserve to be in for working so. damn. hard.

Plus, tonight I tack on an 11 p.m. hockey game for good measure, as if burning 1150 calories from 7 to 8.30 wasn't quite enough.

But it feels good, oh so good, to push. To sweat. To drip sweat. And to know that Hot Wife and I are delivering on the commitment we made to each other and to the program almost three weeks ago already.

Soon we wrap it up. Soon we reward ourselves the way we always reward ourselves at the conclusion of an exhaustive exercise program. With a small vacation. To the desert. To give back our great gains without even the slightest bit of guilt.

Because we deserve it.

Because we are insane.

Because we are in the Asylum and surviving it!

Party time

2011-06-11T11:33:00.002-04:00

Today, we party.

The man at the helm of these words, the guy who possesses this page, yours truly, turned 33 earlier this week, and what better way to celebrate the magnitude of that moment than by spending ourselves into debt to host a host of friends and family.

The beer is chilling.

The burgers thawing.

The kids are getting restless.

The lawn is mowed.

The house is clean.

The wife is off shopping for something to wear.

And the sky is blue. For now anyway.

Of course it stands to reason that the forecast would call for rain on a day when rain is far from welcome. Our spring and summer have gone that way so far.

So we tend to spend our time with fingers crossed up here in these parts, hoping beyond hope that whatever is supposed to fall from the sky falls from the sky at least one town over.

At least we hope it goes that way today.

Because today we party.

You’re going the wrong way

2011-05-24T20:18:00.006-04:00

We have come to discover, after five years of parenting The Eldest, that our little girl is less the little princess that we thought she was going to be, and more of the throwing, catching and kicking kind.

She is into the sports, that one.

For her 5th birthday two weeks ago, it was a bike not a Barbie.

It was hula hoops and t-ball stands and tennis balls and paddles.

The Eldest would rather swing a baseball bat than swing to the rhythm of the music, although successive seasons of dance lessons have made her adept in that department as well.

She is an athletic little girl, as prone to pick up a pitcher’s mitt as she is to put a puck in the net, and what she lacks in basic skill she more than makes up for with a persistence streak that would make Pele proud.

That’s an appropriate reference, because this summer The Eldest is foraying into organized team sport for the first time, giving the game of soccer a shot.

And so it is that we came to the pitch last night, wading into a sea of tiny little cleated creatures eager to learn the basic mechanics of kicking and passing and shooting and scoring.

After a half-hour practice spent bouncing the ball to-and-fro, kicking it back and forth and otherwise gaining just a slight understanding of ‘the beautiful game’, our little number nine came to the sidelines with her teammates, ready for a giant drink of water before game-time.

And there, barely 30 minutes into our first night on the field, I registered my second failing as a Soccer Dad.

I didn’t bring her any water.

My first failing came 30 minutes prior when I emerged from the car without a lawn chair, a must for the travelling soccer parent.

Luckily, a sideline acquaintance of mine took pity on my ineptitude and passed the bottle to The Eldest so she could re-hydrate before her first game.

And what a game it was.

Back and forth they went, this bunch of three-foot nothing five-year olds, following that soccer ball to every corner of the field, eager to be the one to score.

The Eldest was timid through most of the game, more inclined to let the opposition pass without a fight as she fiddled with the latest mosquito bite on her arm—or was it her leg, her elbow or her neck?

More than once, she came to the sidelines to tell me that she had five mosquito bites and was none too impressed about it.

My failure to bring bug spray would account for my third and final failing of the evening.

As the game progressed, The Eldest battled bouts of disinterest to show a spark here and there. She would run and kick and try her best, then quickly retreat to an already-chosen favorite teammate’s side, eager to hold her new friend’s hand as they leisurely strolled up the field together.

And then it happened.

Standing in front of the opposing goal, the ball sprouted from the crowd of nine young bodies battling for it desperately, and landed at The Eldest’s feet.

Instinct took over as she immediately came to life with the ball in her midst. She dribbled left and right, dipsy-doodled dramatically, dangled to her own surprise, and dashed up field hoping to score.

It was the fastest she had run all game. And she was all smiles too.

So was the crowd, by then cheering in unison.

You’re going the wrong way!

Yes, my budding little soccer player’s best rush of the night came when she took off in the wrong direction.

In the end it mattered little.

On the sidelines, she gave me an embarrassed hug after a quick Coles Notes explanation of the difference between north and south.

But that was forgotten in a flash when the post-game freezies came out.

Tomorrow, we take to the field again, hopefully first with some time spent teaching the finer points of going the right way!

Word to your mother

2011-05-08T19:26:00.007-04:00

Once upon a time, I was just a wee little lad. Curious and adventurous I was, enough to wander off into parts unknown, into parts forbidden too, the kind of tyke who went off the beaten path from time to time if for no other reason than because I was told not to.

I remember one spring day, living on a now defunct army base, trekking through a muddy backyard that I was specifically told to stear clear of.

About half-way through, and this I only assume because I can't quite remember, I went to put a foot forward when shockingly that foot would move no longer, so engulfed it was by the thick mud that extended, in the eyes of a frightened two, three or was it four-year old, as far as the eyes could see.

Quickly my one stuck foot became two, and before long I had no hope, no chance of ever getting out of that backyard alive.

I was mucked.

The details are fuzzy, but I am certain, CERTAIN, that vultures circled high over head, just waiting for an opportune time to swoop down and start gnawing at me.

I was at death's door, no doubt about it.

But just when I thought I was doomed, just when my time on earth was about to come to an ignominious end in the middle of that muddy army base backyard, just when those deadly vultures were about to sink their claws into my bony baby shoulders and carry me away to a cliff-side nest for feeding time, I was saved.

By an angel on my shoulder.

By my mom.

Little did I know, but that muddy moment would foreshadow many others in my life, times when The Matriarch would pull me from the proverbial mud when it seemed all hope was lost.

Because that's what moms do. At least it's what my mom did, and it's what she still does today.

So in honour of Mother's Day, in honour of my mom, a small message of thanks as I reflect on that day in that backyard, and on all the other times when an angel on my shoulder somehow materialized at just the right time to save me from another problematic predicament.

And what better way to express my gratitude than by saying this:

Mom, thank you for always pulling me from the mud.

Rebranded

2011-05-04T20:31:00.002-04:00

It is time.

Time to do away with what was once a fitting nickname for the second of our children. She began as The Latest Addition, but that was nearly four years ago.

Her time as a latest addition in fact came and went quickly, for 21 months after we added The Latest Addition came another latest addition, this one The Final Addition.

With the addition of The Final Addition, The Latest Addition became The Daughter Formerly Known as The Latest Addition.

With so much addition, I have no choice but to subtract.

For clarity's sake, let me point out that I am subtracting only the nickname. Not the actual addition.

So like a popular product that has been reborn new and improved (can something actually be new AND improved?), I reintroduce you to child number two, from this point forth referred to here as The Mini Middle One.

The night I met my Mrs.

2011-04-27T20:22:00.003-04:00

Eight years ago this evening, Hot Wife and I met for the first time, at the behest of a mutual friend who for weeks had implied implicitly that ours were two personalities that would probably mesh.

To me, our mutual friend described Hot Wife as blonde, funny and athletic yet feminine.

I still chuckle at that description, because it was so right.

Athletic yet feminine.

Far better than the alternative, I suppose, which probably would have had me declining a date had she been described to me as a couch potato with a penchant for burping like a man, which thankfully Hot Wife was, and still, is not.

Yes, I am that shallow, at least as far as first dates go.

In any case, athletic yet feminine sealed the deal for me, and I finally acquiesced when The Matchmaker kept insisting that I just had to meet this girl who, by the way, I was told, was also quite into karate.

That made it official, and let’s be honest about it: he who hears martial arts also hears flexibility.

If nothing else, I thought to myself, maybe I will get a good roll in the sheets out of it.

But frankly I didn’t expect even that. This was going to be a blind date afterall, and don’t those only ever pan out in the movies?

I don’t recall who blinked first, whether I emailed her or she emailed me, but I do recall that it all happened a day or two before I flew to Cuba for a week’s vacation with friends of the non-mutual variety.

Our written encounter was brief, with phone numbers exchanged and plans hatched to get in touch upon my return.

When I got back, Athletic yet Feminine did give me a call, which I had to end quickly because I was otherwise occupied and could not fully engage in any kind of meaningful conversation.

The next day, I sent a note to apologize, and to finally make a plan to meet.

Later I would learn that my note redeemed me in the eyes of the woman who would go on to be my wife. Seems she took my inability to talk the night prior as the ultimate brush off, and therefore was ready to do the same with me, until I sent her that note, that is.

So we made a date.

April 27, 2003, eight years ago tonight.

Almost immediately, I knew this one had a chance: Athletic yet Feminine’s only prerequisite for dinner was that we eat somewhere within view of the TV so we could watch the hometown Senators battle the Flyers from Philadelphia in second round Stanley Cup Playoff action.

The chick digs hockey. Before we even met, she already had a point scored in the pro column.

For my good fortune to continue, Athletic yet Feminine’s looks would have to score again upon our first encounter, which we decided would come at the front doors of the Chapters bookstore downtown—where we almost didn’t meet at all.

Seems our interpretations of front doors differed.

Whereas I properly stood and waited in the agreed upon place, Athletic yet Feminine did the same at the store’s back entrance.

So while six o’clock came and went, nobody matching my blind date’s description did the same.

After about ten minutes, I gave her a call.

“Where are you?”

“I’m waiting for you at the front doors.”

“Really, because I was at the front doors and didn’t see you. I’ll go back down again. What are you wearing?”

“Jeans. White shirt. Beige jacket.”

“Ok, I’ll see you in a minute.”

I went back down to the front doors, where still I waited, closely examining every girl that walked in my general vicinity, looking for one wearing jeans, a white shirt and beige jacket.

Nobody.

Nobody.

Nobody.

Then I spotted one. Jeans. White shirt. Beige jacket.

And sneakers.

SNEAKERS!

Who the hell wears sneakers on a blind date.

I hope that’s not her.

I hope that’s not her.

I hope that’s not her.

Ms. Sneakers walked by me as if I wasn’t even there.

It was not Athletic yet Feminine, thankfully, because if there is one fashion faux-pas that doesn’t sit well with me, it is sneakers and jeans on a girl, hot or not.

Yes, I am that shallow, at least as far as first dates go.

Having dodged that bullet, I was also still without a blind date. Had Athletic yet Feminine been as shallow as me, and sprinted the other way on account of what I was wearing?

Only one way to find out. I called her again.

“Where are you?”

“I’m still at the front doors.”

“Are you sure? I was just down there. How about we meet inside the store, at the foot of the escalator instead?”

“O.k. I’ll be there in a minute.”

I hung up the phone and made my way down the escalator. As I neared the bottom, she turned the corner and I knew it was her.

Athletic yet feminine.

Check.

A cursory glance at her feet revealed no running shoes, but swanky high-heel boots instead.

Double-check.

I gave her the obligatory once-over, inconspicuously of course.

Shiny long hair.

Beautiful smile.

Nice rack.

This one’s got potential.

Finally, we introduced ourselves and were on our way.

The rest of the details need not be repeated here, except to say that we went to The Keg Steakhouse for dinner, and inexplicably both had chicken.

Then it was drinks at the Hard Rock Cafe, after which we sealed our evening with the obligatory kiss under the stars.

Later on I would describe Athletic yet Feminine to my folks as the female version of me. Eventually I would learn that she used the exact words in her description of me to her parents.

We could not have been a better match.

We could not BE a better match.

Six months after our first encounter, we were living together.

Just over a year later we were engaged.

Within less than two and a half years Athletic yet Feminine became Hot Wife.

Three years later we had The Eldest.

Four and a half years later The Daughter Formerly Known as The Latest Addition.

And within just over six years of that starlit kiss in the pale moonlight, The Final Addition joined our ranks.

We have come a long way, Hot Wife and I, but are probably right where we imagined we would be by the time we went our separate ways on that first night, Sunday, April 27, 2003, the night I met my Mrs.

Robbed by blind mice dressed like zebras

2011-04-11T21:07:00.016-04:00

Last night, another chapter closed in the long, illustrious though slightly ignominious history of our beer league hockey club.

Our championship hopes were extinguished.

Again.

It has gone that way every year since our team of teachers and bankers and writers and public servants first came to life in the fall of 2003.

Counting the years we have taken to the ice in summer hockey, our team has now gone 14 straight seasons without sipping from the winner’s mug.

Not quite a Toronto Maple Leafs, no-Stanley-Cup-since-1967 drought, but another winless season nonetheless.

That we failed to move on again this year is really no surprise.

We struggled from the start, with an unknown goaltender manning our crease.

He advertised himself as a solid B+ when we recruited him.

He played like an E- at best.

Dude flat out sucked all year long, and we are none too disappointed that he will never mind our net again.

It’s not pro sports, but we all still like to win.

Especially on those cold winter nights when we hit the ice at 11 p.m.

A sieve in net runs counter to the mechanics of winning hockey games, thus the bulk of our struggles being attributed to the guy dodging pucks between our pipes.

Still, despite the mediocre season, we managed to hang in there right until the bitter end.

Last night’s tilt saw us face the number one team in the league.

A team that smoked us all year long.

October 26 – A 7-1 loss.

December 9 – A 4-1 loss.

January 27 – A 5-1 loss.

March 13 – A 3-0 loss.

Outscored 19-3 in four games. Sources say a record like that could not possibly bode well with all the marbles on the line, particularly with B+ but really E- in net.

Then the improbable happened.

We escaped the opening stanza tied at one, on the strength of a three-hop slap shot from the point that knotted the proceedings with but eight seconds left to play in the penultimate period.

We were still in it.

And despite allowing a goal on the first shot of the game, B+ but really E- was acquitting himself quite well in net, making himself large when necessary, and, to our complete and utter shock, actually stopping the puck instead of dodging it.

The final frame went back and forth, with both teams exchanging scoring chances but failing to capitalize.

It was a nail biter, but at least we still had a chance.

Then the inevitable happened.

Crossing the blueline on what looked to be a harmless rush, their leading scorer, later referred to by yours truly as a Fat F**k, unleashed what should have been a stoppable slapper from just inside the line.

An unobstructed shot from that far out has got to be stopped, especially with mere minutes remaining in a do-or-die game.

B+ went E- at the worst possible time.

But we rallied again, on a nifty bang-bang play from in close with our goalie sitting on the bench in favour of an extra attacker.

Only a half-minute left on the clock. A shootout loomed. Breakaways would surely settle this match.

We face-off a final time at centre ice. Moments later the puck is behind out net. A wild high-stick to the face of our defenceman goes uncalled by the veteran referee who chooses to look the other way.

We are incredulous.

Then a scramble in the corner.

A pass to the front.

A kick at the puck from the player in green.

A goal is signalled by the same referee who seconds prior let pass the high stick without calling the obvious penalty.

We protest with all our might, while above our heads the clock stops with only 9 ticks left on it.

Their captain stops beside me and calls it a good goal. His teammate got a stick on it, he would say, and to make himself sound legit he tells me there should have in fact been a penalty called on the high stick. If he speaks the truth on the penalty, surely he is the voice of reason on the goal.

Shut the f**k up.

I am riled up.

We disagree on the blown call.

He gets called a Fat F**k.

More than once.

He asks me if the highest level of hockey I have played is Pee Wee B, failing to note the irony.

We are in the 6th division of 12 in a senior men’s hockey league. A beer league. A garage league. It doesn’t say much about you that you have to play this far down, against all the Pee Wee B puck pushers, to score all your goals.

He doesn’t seem to get it.

So I call him a Fat F**k again.

He gets that.

Behind the net, the referees are still contemplating the final call. They call the captains in close to explain.

Didn’t see the kick...

Can’t reverse the call...

Good goal...

A stick goes twirling through the air like a doomed chopper’s lost propeller. It is not mine.

On this night I hurl only insults, though in retrospect the stick did make a compelling point.

The game is over.

We have lost.

Our championship hopes extinguished.

Robbed, we were.

By two blind mice dressed like zebras.

Daydream believer

2011-03-31T19:06:00.007-04:00

Weeks ago, I wrote at length about Hot Wife’s incessant prodding for a Vegas vacation.

She is persistent, that one, although I confess that when it comes to Sin City I don’t put up much of a fight.

So we made some reservations near the end of February, and have since stood back and watched the calendar days drift on by with all the speed of an Atlantic Ocean iceberg, which is to say slowly at best.

Early on, we had other getaways in the works, which drew our attention away from Las Vegas and onto the trips at hand. There was a weekend in Toronto, where we indulged in all things Maple Leaf, followed three weeks later by a whirlwind escape to our favourite resort in the woods, where our indulgences really only totalled two—drinking and hot tubbing.

Unbecoming of parents, I know, to call drinking an activity, but in this case, with not a child in our proximity, what else could we do but get drunk and silly without the burden of 6 a.m. wake-up calls and day-long Barney marathons on TV?

In any case, with those weekends now behind us, nothing of ‘calendarial’ consequence stands between us and our trip to Las Vegas. If we thought the calendar pages were turning slowly then, imagine how we feel now, with nothing else to look forward to but the day we hop our flight to the desert in just over two weeks time.

So I am daydreaming.

A lot.

While not quite Vegas veterans yet, our three previous trips to Sin City have prepared us well for the fourth. And as if that’s not enough, I have become a discussion board troll, reading relentlessly about what to do, where to do it, and otherwise about all else that relates to the town that Bugsy built.

Then I daydream even more.

About alcoholic milk shakes at The Mirage.

About steak dinners for $6.99 at Ellis Island.

About finally trekking to the old Las Vegas, and seeing what the fuss is all about downtown.

I daydream about recreating the winnings that made our last trip memorable, and this impromptu one possible.

I daydream about sitting in the sun at the foot of the faux-Eifel Tower, dipping my toe in the Paris Las Vegas pool while pretending to ignore the scantily-clad beach bodies all around me.

[Note to self, bring sunglasses.]

I daydream about the unplanned blackjack binge that goes on much longer than expected, only because all at the table are having such a good time, the rewards of which materialize before us in the form of stacks and stacks and stacks of chips in shades of red and green and black.

I daydream about having no schedule to keep.

About a Red Bull Vodka to start my day.

About a few Bud Lights to keep it going.

About eating what I want, when I want, where I want, without worrying about calorie counts, or belt notches, or the overall ill effects of what is sure to be over-indulgence to the max.

Because Vegas is all about being over the top.

About going big or going home.

Las Vegas is about extreme excess and extravagance.

At least it will be in two weeks time.

For now though, it’s all about daydreaming.

Burgled by a bedroom bandit

2011-03-24T20:48:00.004-04:00

Remember, for a moment, the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Coles Notes Version: Little girl burglarizes a home in the forest, eats some porridge, breaks a chair, falls asleep in baby bear’s comfortable bed and jumps from a window when she is found out.

In retrospect, not much of a fairy tale, with not much of a point either.

But Goldilocks and the Three Bears came immediately to mind a few nights ago when Hot Wife and I ambled on up from the basement after some exercise and some crap television indulgence.

But first, some backstory.

The Daughter Formerly Known as The Latest Addition has had a tough week, spending three days at home with dad while her little body worked to fight the symptoms of a stubborn ear infection and possible pneumonia.

On this night, two days into The DFKATLA’s recuperation, we nestled our children in their respective beds as always we do, then disappeared to the basement to go about our business.

Two hours later, just as I flicked on the light switch in our room, I noticed in the corner of my eye a faint shade of pink where I knew there had been no pink two hours prior.

We had been burgled by a bedroom bandit.

It was The Daughter Formerly Known as The Latest Addition, sleeping peacefully in her little pink nightie, propped up on Hot Wife’s pillows, tucked in as if we had put her there in the first place.

This had never happened before; we love our kids to pieces but they know that ours is a bed that accommodates only mom and dad.

The DFKATLA didn’t flinch when the lights came on, nor with Hot Wife and I perched over her like a pair of burglarized bears in a crappy fairy tale.

That’s about as close to Goldilocks and the Three Bears that our story came.

Thankfully, we did not wake The DFKATLA, nor did we spook her into jumping from our second story bedroom window.

Instead, I scooped her up in my arms and carried her back to bed, where just as she hit the mattress she came to life again, just long enough to roll over and say 'thanks dad'.

Burglarized? Yes, we were.

She snuck into our bed, The Daughter Formerly Known as The Latest Addition did, and the moment we saw her there, peacefully nestled among our pillows and blankets, she stole our hearts and took our breath away.

Anticipation

2011-03-17T20:31:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow we reconvene where last fall six great friends converged in the "wilderness", for rollicking, frolicking fun times, with the responsibilities of parenthood left behind at home, with a sweet five-star cabin, a hot tub, many bottles of adult libations and nothing but time on our side.

I am eager.

These weekend escapades tend to come few and far between for most parents. Hot Wife and I are lucky, the grateful beneficiaries of the greatest grand-parents our children could ever want to spend a weekend with.

So for the second time in three weeks, we leave our brood behind as we wander off to indulge, hiccup, I mean over-indulge, in all things food and drink, fun and laughter, again with the same cast of characters with whom we last shared a luxurious log cabin in the middle of not quite nowhere, but close.

I don't yet know what the weekend holds, because really, who can ever predict the predicaments that six, let's face it, drunk friends can find themselves in over 48 hours spent in each other's company.

But I will say this, by the time we return early Sunday afternoon, we will be water-logged from having logged far too much time in the hot tub.

Happy trails.

An update post

2011-03-07T20:43:00.003-05:00

G'd'evening, to any and all who may be passing through. Thought I should check in, rather than remain awol and risk losing the last few who still tune into the many ramblings of Confessions of a Blogophobe from time to time.

Not much to report, I'm afraid, so if you're reading this hoping for grand declarations, you will be sadly disappointed.

Just a bunch of meli-melo bits and bites.

The worst of winter seems to be finally behind us, though March is roaring in like a lion up here in these parts. Much snow has fallen in the last week, but at least the sunny days are taking care of it quickly.

Oh how we yearn for shorts and sandals, barbecues and bicycles, or a combination of any or all of the above. We are restless, from a long winter spent going nowhere but down to the basement and up to the bedroom. Seems that's how all our evenings go. And in the cold winter dark, to boot.

Is that what they call cabin fever?

I have been killing time much like I did last year, plugging into my P90X workouts with stunning regularity yet again.

I have sweat my ass off.

I should be pleased but it's the gut I want to lose, and that, for the time being at least, just doesn't seem to be happening.

For all my huffing and puffing, progress is delayed in the belly-off, six-pack fat-attack department.

Discouraging and disheartening, a little bit, but I keep reminding myself that good health doesn't necessarily have to materialize in the form of a washboard stomach. If the old ticker is ticking better because of the time I log in the gym, then I come out a winner no matter where I notch my belt.

But still, by now I thought for sure I would be lifting my shirt, Situation-style, to impress Hot Wife and all her girlfriends.

If you don't get the Situation reference, count yourself lucky.

The Sitch is but one of eight slimy scuzzballs sharing a pad down by the Jersey Shore, with all shenanigans chronicled weekly on MTV.

My name is Chubbs, and I am an addict.

[Brings hands to face and weeps uncontrollably.]

And like any good addict, I have done my best to bring my entourage down with me.

It began with Hot Wife, carried on with the Mother of Many, and now I think even my folks, The Moustache and The Banker, have gotten over the initial shock of Snooki to skim through their cable package searching for MTV.

What is this world coming to when six well-adjusted adults can sit in a hotel room for an entire afternoon, glued to the self-professed guidos on TV during a Jersey Shore marathon.

Because if the charge is watching self-indulgent wackos with far too much interest, for far too long a time, while sharing almost far too many drinks, we are all guilty, your honour.

But what a grand time we had during a weekend whirlwind in The Big Smoke, Hot Wife and I, the Mother and Father of Many, The Moustache and The Banker, stepping away from life as we know it to sample life in the fast lanes of professional sport.

A family tie made it possible for us to step behind enemy lines and into the lair of the Leaf, and we confess, the whole experience made an impression. With allegiances to the hometown Senators on reprieve for the weekend, we managed to reluctantly root for old Bluey to come out on top against the visiting Penguins.

There were no full-on Go Leafs Go chants from this guy, but still, it was as close as I probably will ever come to experiencing a Leaf game as a fan of what has been, for the past decade, the franchise we in these parts tend to salute with middle fingers up.

It helps that we got the royal treatment, and peaks into the private parts of the Maple Leafs rink.

Back home now, more than a week removed from our frolic to the big city, we wait impatiently for our next weekend away, this one to the backwoods with four dear friends, to repeat the clowning around and all 'round good time we had together in the same spot last fall.

Then, a month after that, we fly away to Sin City, because Hot Wife ultimately broke me down with her persistent pestering for a Vegas vacation.

Sure, P90X can help with strength, but no exercise program will ever deliver results that can counter a determined wife.

Babies in my boobies

2011-02-24T14:31:00.004-05:00

For nearly eight weeks now, I have devoted myself to another round of P90X, with push-ups and pull-ups and squats and lunges and curls and crunches and huffing and puffing dominating my every evening.

I have not yet missed a workout, and am on a similar progress track as I was a year ago.

Actually, I may be even further ahead, based on what The Daughter Formerly Known as The Latest Addition had to say the other day as I was getting dressed.

“Daddy,” she said. “You have big boobies.”

I thanked her, because what guy with a growing chest doesn’t want to be told he has big boobies, then proceeded to flex my pectoral muscles for her entertainment.

Amused, the DFKATLA watched my chest dance back and forth, one pec after the other, before exclaiming: “Daddy, you have babies in your boobies!”

I laughed, although of course I don’t.

But if I did, I think I know what the babies in my boobies would be up to in there:

Still with the DFKATLA, the other night Hot Wife and I engaged her in a group hug before bed, as we often do with her because she is still so tiny and squishable in between her mom and dad.

As we relinquished our grip, she looked over to me and said “daddy, you are the prince.”

I just about melted.

Not wanting to be left out, Hot Wife asked the DFKATLA what she was.

“Mommy, you’re the prin… No, I’m the princess, you’re Mrs. Mom.”

Time for a Vegas Vacation?

2011-02-16T17:13:00.005-05:00

Vacation desperation stubbornly clings to your fair blogger these days, like a sweat-soaked shirt to a sticky body on a smouldering summer’s day.

I want to get away.

To Las Vegas.

If you read Confessions of a Blogophobe with any kind of regularity, you know that Hot Wife and I are true Sin City aficionados.

Enthusiasts.

Fanatics.

Addicts.

We come by it honestly.

The in-laws are regulars to the desert, going often enough to be remembered in their hotel of choice, The Flamingo, whenever they return... often enough to have even lost count of how many times they have been.

They were our travelling companions when last we journeyed to Las Vegas at Easter 2010—that visit our third in under two years. Perhaps the fond memories of that trip, nearly a year ago now, are what have me longing for a return engagement at about the same time in 2011.

Or perhaps it is due to my own folks, who as of this writing are themselves vacationing in Vegas, for at least the eighth time in maybe seven years, up to no good no doubt, as they feed the slot machines, watch the people, and otherwise over-indulge on every wicked whim that can strike one’s fancy in a city that never sleeps.

We are jealous, Hot Wife and I, and dare I confess, tempted to do the same.

We know for certain that Sin City salvation will come this summer, when six of us will dash to the desert to celebrate The Matriarch’s 60th birthday.

But July can barely be found on the calendar when still there remains the rest of an endlessly frigid February to get through, followed by what we already know will be interminable months of March and April and May and June.

Four of them, between now—when we want to go to Vegas—and then—when we know for certain we will.

So we wonder, Hot Wife and I, if the bottom line might allow us to squeeze in a Sin City side-trip, to appease our shared cravings for cheap blackjack, and watered down drinks, and sunshine and pool-time, care-free irresponsibility, and really, the hope of at least breaking even to assuage the guilty conscience that could—could, I say—follow us home were we to return with pockets empty.

Responsibly speaking, the answer is no.

No, we can’t logically make it happen.

But then again, no will be the answer to most irrational questions when logic and responsible thinking are the only factors considered before a final verdict is rendered.

From where I sit, only one true consideration can possibly decide if fun and frivolity on famous Fremont are in the cards for us. That consideration—the almighty dollar.

Much of the past few days have thus been spent crunching numbers, counting Air Miles, and coming to the conclusion that yes, a Vegas vacation in eight weeks time could be engineered if all stars align the way we need them to.

It will take some serious creative accounting, some serious creative thinking even, but the flickering flame that so fiercely fuels our fire to travel is not yet ready to be extinguished.

We are close.

We are desperate.

We miss you, and hope to see you soon, Las Vegas.

A KD conversation

2011-02-15T17:38:00.002-05:00

When asked what she wants for lunch, for dinner, perhaps even for a snack, The Daughter Formerly Known as The Latest Addition typically has but one request: Kraft Dinner.

So it came as no surprise when recently she proclaimed KD her meal of choice for that night’s supper.

The surprising part came a few moments later, when she divulged her reasoning.

Hot Wife: DFKATLA, what do you want for supper tonight?
The DFKATLA: Kwaft Dinner.
The DFKATLA, a brief second later: It’s good for my heart.

Still with the Kraft Dinner, days later The DFKATLA made it known again that for lunch a plate of Kraft Dinner would suit her fancy.

I willingly obliged, considering that our bare pantry offered few alternatives.

As she stepped gingerly down the stairs in her pink ballet outfit (with a green skirt that she slipped into herself), I told my petulant but precious baby girl that it was macaroni and cheese for lunch.

A look of disgust materialized on her face.

The DFKATLA: I don’t like macaroni and cheese. I want Kwaft Dinner.
Me: But you’ll like mac and cheese, I promise.
The DFKATLA: No. I WANT KWAFT DINNER!

It was not until she peered onto her plate that she relented and gave the macaroni and cheese a chance, though I am certain she didn’t think it was as good as Kwaft Dinner.

Who am I not?

2011-02-10T20:45:00.002-05:00

I just Googled myself.

According to my search, I am:

- A freelance composer;
- A Canadian videogame composer and musician;
- A Vancouver resident, since 1989;
- The partner managing the TDV Global Inc. Security and Intelligence portfolio;
- On Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and Twitter;
- The VP of Sales and Marketing for Blue Sky Financial Group and the recent recipient of a 20-plus years of service award;
- The Instrumentation Engineer for Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope;
- A Canadian native currently serving as a Scientific Advisor for the Institut de Recherche Robert Sauvé en Santé et Sécurité du Travail;
- A user of Youtube and poster of videos;
- A hockey referee and member of the Sault Hockey Officials Association;
- A 1991 graduate of College Laval in Laval, Quebec; and
- The husband of a woman I married in 1997.

I am also none of the above. (Well, except maybe for the YouTube guy.)

Nice to know that even in this world of all-access freedom to information, there is still some anonymity to be found, of all places, on Google.

They touched the face of God

2011-01-28T16:32:00.011-05:00

“We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God."

-- Ronald Reagan, January 28, 1986

-------

A quarter century has passed since the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded in the sky, live on cable television, with potentially the entire world a witness to the unthinkable.

I was an oblivious little boy back then, all of seven years old, but still today I vividly recall learning of the tragedy from a classmate in school, I suppose in much the same way those before me would have learned of the assassinations of John Kennedy in ’63 and John Lennon in 1980.

La navette Challenger a explosé...

“Challenger exploded,” my friend announced, arms outstretched far left and right in a mimicked re-enactment of disaster which, in retrospect, only an innocently unaware child would dare attempt in explaining the flying-then-fallen rocket’s demise.

The magnitude of the tragedy failed to register with my seven year-old self, but still, that moment, the moment I learned of the catastrophe in the sky, has stayed with me forever.

I don’t remember much about my time in Grade Two at École de la Rabastalière, in the suburbs of the giant Montreal metropolis.

Not my teacher’s name.

Nor where I sat. What I learned. What we did.

I remember none of my classmates.

Except for one—Jean-Philippe Guillaume—the boy who told the story of the space shuttle’s unimaginable end.

A quarter century later, I felt compelled to revisit the moment, prompted by its place atop the page as the cnn.com news story of the day, pushed to do so on the bleak anniversary of what should have been a momentous occasion in American history.

The video is haunting, with images far more difficult to watch today than ever they were as a seven year-old child, when the repercussions of the tragedy failed to register beyond the ball of smoke and fire and debris that materialized out of nowhere to blacken the morning January sky.

We watch without a word, as the astronauts emerge from their quarters at the Kennedy Space Center—smiling, laughing, waving—seven souls eagerly anticipating a fateful voyage to a new frontier, seven souls we know are taking the final steps to an eternal rest.

Our hearts palpitate as Mission Control counts down—to those watching in 1986, the final seconds to lift-off—to us, 25 years later, the fading seconds of seven brilliantly bright lights extinguished far too soon.

T-Minus four... three... two... one... And liftoff, liftoff of the 25th space shuttle mission.

We silently anticipate the end, as the Space Shuttle Challenger roars into the sky, leaving in its wake the hopeful masses cheering its departure, never for a single, solitary second expecting its imminent disintegration into the sky.

But we know.

We know that in less than one minute, shock will cruelly find a startled nation, if not a startled world—from those watching on the ground in Cape Canaveral, to those tuning in on television in all corners of the country, to those across the border who will learn of the tragedy in a French-Canadian classroom, from the lips of a French-Canadian classmate.

We watch as the Space Shuttle Challenger ascends to the stars, still wondering how it is that a vessel so big could possibly pierce the clouds at the staggering speed of 2,257 feet per second.

Engines beginning throttling down now. At 94 percent.

We wait.

Engines at 65 percent. Three engines running normally.

We wait.

Then it happens.

A fireball engulfs the fuselage, in an instant erasing the Space Shuttle Challenger from view, replacing it instead with smoke, fire and debris, plus a million random questions from everyone wondering if what they think they just saw is really what they think just happened.

Flight controllers here looking very carefully at the situation. Obviously a major malfunction.

The cameras pan to the crowd, and that’s when the magnitude of the tragedy finally sinks in... the magnitude that escaped an oblivious seven year-old me a quarter century ago.

A mother and father, the parents of Christa MacAuliffe, a New Hamshire teacher who had earned her voyage to the stars as part of NASA’s Teacher in Space project, fall into each other's arms as the magnitude of the tragedy grips them in an instant.

Their daughter is on the Space Shuttle Challenger, and they have just watched her perish in the sky.

We have seen enough.

And as we pull ourselves from the images of the tragic fall of what was the Space Shuttle Challenger, we are haunted, even a quarter century later, by the last words Ronald Reagan spoke to a weeping nation on the night of January 28, 1986:

“We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God."

Teachers

2011-01-25T14:35:00.001-05:00

I would not have made a good teacher.

I lack the patience required to put up with the tempestuous personalities that disrupt classrooms, much less to let some snot-nosed, crater-faced punk tell me off without fear of reprisal.

Had I chosen to teach for a living, it’s doubtful that I would have survived my first week; driving a mouthy little sh!t through the wall is probably bad for business after all.

Some are far better equipped to teach than others, and I admire those who have made it their life’s profession to educate, influence and otherwise pull potential from what is arguably the world’s most precious resource—our children.

That sentiment really came to me last fall, when I learned that my high school English teacher, Mr. Murray, had passed away.

Mr. Murray was what all teachers should be.

Human.

Funny.

Accessible.

Inspiring.

He was a good man, the kind who could talk hockey one minute, jump into a profound explanation of fragments and figures of speech the next, then out of the blue admirably administer an explanation on alliteration at an inquisitive student’s behest.

Though it never felt like work, we always learned in Mr. Murray’s class. And that, perhaps, is the mark of a great teacher.

Without question, the ones from whom we learn without ever realizing we are listening are the ones we remember best.

Mr. Murray was one of those teachers, as is, I think, a music teacher in New York City whom I have only ever met on YouTube.

If the below video doesn’t bring a smile to your face, not much else will. The passion these kids exude as they sing is infectious.

And their inspiration, I can only assume, is largely drawn from the passion with which the teacher at the head of the class is leading them in song.

Even when he is not on screen, you can tell that dude is downright digging his class’s dazzlingly determined display.

That, if I’m not mistaken, is alliteration.

And I learned all about it in Mr. Murray's class, probably when I thought I wasn't even listening.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it.

2011-01-21T23:01:00.002-05:00

Years ago, a small piece of writing of mine was judged good enough to appear in the largest daily newspaper in Canada’s national capital.

As a struggling young writer seeking to improve, a writer-friend of mine had suggested months earlier that the best way to get better would be to just write for the sake of writing.

About anything.

So I did, writing the story of the Winter of 2003 when a collection of neighbours and friends in my hometown spent most of the season skating away their afternoons at the south end of our dead end street, on a frozen pond that had, up until then, been mostly ignored and forgotten.

The story turned into much more than I ever expected.

At more than 2,200 words, On Frozen Pond chronicled the rise and fall of the pond hockey season, from the first flooding of the frozen surface in late December, to the last skate on a slushy afternoon in March.

When I was done, the same writer-friend urged me to submit the story to the Ottawa Citizen, on the off chance it could be published in the weekend news-magazine section.

I did, and much to my surprise, it was.

And here is the kicker, they paid me for it.

Just a shade over $800.

With the money, Hot Wife and I took an unexpected winter vacation to Cuba, landing on an $1,100 discount deal that put us out of pocket for only the $300 difference, thanks to my earnings.

It should have been the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

For one thing, seeing my by-line, under my title, above my writing, in a major Canadian daily, should have been enough to build in me the confidence that I had, up until then, been lacking.

It should have motivated me, as well.

To keep writing.

To keep earning.

To keep getting better.

And to keep getting published.

It did none of the above.

Six years it has been, since last I saw my name in print. Six years during which I have failed to capitalize on the rush I got from having a full newspaper page dedicated to a story born between my own ears, or as I wrote in On Frozen Pond, in the arena of my mind.

The nagging self-doubt reappeared rather quickly, from an inner voice that kept repeating to me that while On Frozen Pond was indeed published, it was probably less due to the fact that I am a talented writer and more because I got lucky.

Just another one-hit wonder.

That, and I was lazy too.

I never did much to fight my own self-doubt, nor did I bother to bring myself back to the keyboard to write with a purpose either, perhaps thinking that it would be impossible to put together a piece of writing that could ever read any better than my first.

What a cop out.

And an astounding waste of time too.

I will say no more about it than that, for dwelling on missed opportunities does me no good now.

Instead, as we make the turn into 2011, I have settled on a New Year’s resolution that relates directly to my lack of action over the past six years.

My plan for the next 12 months is to get published again.

To see my name in print.

To write so compellingly that others will be moved to share my musings with a wider audience. And perhaps to even pay me for it too.

I am prepared to put in the work.

And to reap the rewards.

The financial rewards, for sure. But more importantly, just the plain satisfaction of knowing that I put in an honest effort to get my name and my writing out there.

I have already started, and had to look no further than Confessions of a Blogophobe for inspiration.

There is some quality writing here, if I may say so myself.

And as I skimmed through my archives, I settled on a post I wrote a few years ago, resurrected it, reworked it and have now submitted it for print.

It may quite possibly amount to nothing, but it could also turn into another On Frozen Pond, another piece for my portfolio, another confidence-building step in the ongoing evolution of Chubbs.

At least I hope so.

And if not, my 2011 pledge is to keep working at it all year until it finally happens.

Because it will.

And because I want it.

The evolution of Chubbs

2011-01-12T18:46:00.005-05:00

Never in my life would I have envisioned a scenario that would see me sitting at my desk, mid-afternoon, wondering how I would get in my four servings of vegetables for the day, as outlined in my P90X meal plan.

Although I had broccoli with lunch, and for dinner knew I would indulge in the assortment of green, red and hot peppers I put in my homemade chilli, I still felt like I would be falling short.

So I walked down to the deli and got one of these:

Yes, a V8.

No preservatives.

No artificial flavours or colours.

A source of fibre and of seven essential nutrients.

It was, dare I say, a delicious combination of tomato paste, white grape juice, green pepper juice, juice of carrots, and celery, beets, parsley, lettuce, spinach and seasoning.

With lunch and dinner, it probably brought me beyond my vegetable quota for the day, which once upon a time would have been a near-impossibility considering that vegetables barely crossed my plate four times a month, let alone four times daily.

But I am evolving.

Last winter, as Hot Wife and I navigated the waters of extreme fitness, P90X style, we carefully watched our consumptions, but didn’t quite do it by the book.

Still, the results were outstanding.

Minus 20 pounds for me. Nearly the same for Hot Wife.

This time around though, I am determined to make nutrition the main focus of my commitment so I can finally do away with the last bit of stubborn belly fat that still lingers around my mid-section.

With exercise on my daily to-do list for much of the past 10 years, working out has always come relatively easy.

Eating without cheating has always been harder.

And the benefit of some added fluff around the middle, gained in the latter months of 2010 while I tricked myself into thinking I could eat what I wanted so long as I kept exercising, leads me to believe that what I have read practically everywhere is probably true—80 percent of the effort required to maximize gains with P90X comes in the kitchen.

The other 20 percent comes on the floor, in the air, on the chin-bar, in plank position, and while otherwise engaging in every other exercise that makes P90X such a comprehensive, body-altering program.

So I am trying my best to adhere to the portions prescribed in the meal plan, even if it means downing a V8 from time to time to compensate for what could be some deficient vegetable consumption throughout the rest of my day.

The evolution of Chubbs continues.

Stay tuned...

Strawberry facial

2011-01-09T15:13:00.003-05:00

Hot Wife is under the weather these days, encumbered by ovarian issues that have kept her doubled over in pain for much of the last little while.

Seems painful.

As she sat in my vicinity early Saturday morning, she mused aloud that for breakfast she would make herself a strawberry smoothie, the choice-du-jour in our household since the P90X meal plan reappeared once again a few days ago.

Then she winced and wilted, doubled over in pain, hardly able to stand herself.

So I did what naturally a good husband should do, and offered to make breakfast for her.

In sickness and in health, right?

Into the blender the ingredients went.

Skim milk. Banana. Strawberry. Chocolate protein powder. Ice. All there, ready to be mixed into one giant glass of awesomeness.

Except for one thing.

About half way through the blending cycle, I could tell from the sound that nothing was blending, as if the totality of my ingredients were failing to fall to the bottom of my blender-jug-thingmajig.

Not unusual, considering that the ooey-gooey goodness of skim milk, banana, strawberry, chocolate protein powder and ice combined can at times take longer than expected to come together.

So I lifted the blender's lid, and with a spoon gave its contents a gentle swirl, as I have done many, many times before, just enough to move whatever was lodged at the top down into the spiralling knives below.

It worked. And in a hurry.

Almost as soon as my spoon hit the smoothie, the near-blended concoction of skim milk, banana, strawberry, chcolate protein powder and ice exploded into my face, and all over the counter, my shirt, and anything within a few feet.

Kablam.

A strawberry facial to start the day.

Guest Post -- From Across the Street

2010-12-31T22:59:00.006-05:00

It's nearing the end of another year and what a perfect time to guest post on the COAB's blog. Although ambushed into doing it, I must say that I am both very honoured and nervous. It's my first time.... blogging.

What a year it's been! Living in such proximity to the COAB has given me the priviledge of being witness to so many events in his life. From the funny ( we all remember Movember right?), to the sad, and even the daily musings that he always manages to transform into the memorable, I have had the priviledge of being a part of most of it. We, Father and Mother of Many, are always but a few steps away and love the bond that exists between both families. How many adult siblings, who don't live on a compound or share the same husband, can say that they see each other every day? Not too many! What a gift it is.

From across the street, I have been witness to many events throughout the past year. I have seen my nephew transform into a chubby toddler. He toddles after his sisters and is beginning to recognize me~ no better feeling in the world than to be the recipient of his slobbery kisses. The sisters both hold pieces of my heart. The Eldest was my first niece. She made me dream of princesses and rethink how to do braids. I wanted a daughter just like her. The daughter formely known as the latest addition, is the child who always cuddles with me. She makes everything all right. Who knew a child could make an adult feel that way ? I can't wait for my latest to beg to go and play with the sisters.

From across the street, I have seen my brother and Hot Wife transform into athletes. They inspired Father of Many and myself to take on the quest of fitness. They were the ones who encouraged us to become better version of ourselves. Who knew that one year later, the four of us would be discussing the next round, the foods that we would miss the most, the healthy foods that we craved the most and when we would be getting back on the wagon. It been quite the journey.

From across the street, I have seen the COAB at his best. He is this amazing father who adores each second spent with his kids (well most of them anyway). He's the father who spends the time showing the sisters how to ride bikes, runs after bubbles and let's his kids know every single day that they are loved.

From across the street, I have been the big sister. Every night, I peek over to make sure that everything is peaceful at the COAB house. I am still the sister who feels the need to keep an eye out for her brother. I am still the sister who would run through fields to unhook her brother from the top of a fence. I am still the sister who would go and find the Matriarch to fetch her brother who is stuck in the mud pit. I am still the sister who beams with pride at his every accomplishment. I am still the sister who gets so angry with her brother but who knows that it will blow over and that the peace will return. I am the sister who loves every second of living across the street.

And so as this year ends, I would like to wish the COAB family a happy and healthy 2011. All the best for this new year. I look forward to witnessing so many more event from across the street.

I love you.

Mother of Many

-----------------

Editor's Note: The urge to write tonight left me, appropriately enough, just as the Mother of Many happened to cross the room in my vicinity. Yes, I ambushed my sister, The Mother of Many, into writing COAB's final post of 2010.

By accident and on purpose all at once.

The year's last five months have been up and down for this fair blogger. And to look back on my last post of 2-oh-9 somehow amplified the difficulty of writing the last post of 2-oh-10.

So I copped out and left it to someone else, who quite frankly proved herself overwhelmingly capable of helming this page in my stead.

The truth is that there are times when I feel as though I am completely, wholeheartedly, all here. And other times when I feel completely, wholeheartedly, displaced from where I probably should be.

Not in the physical sense. It's just plain bigger than that.

It has been a rough and tumble time, at times, for the guy at the helm of this page. Tonight I am melcanch0lic for where I was a year ago. But also hopeful that the dawn of a new year will yield for me the just rewards that new beginnings always should bring.

I have many wishes for myself, my family, in 2011, none of which necessarily need to find thselves in writing here on this page.

Those will be for me, to hope for, and in some cases to deliver on, as we progress from Day One to Day 365 a year from now.

In the meantime, I leave you, dear readers, dear riends of COAB, with a heartfelt thank you for your patronage of this page.

And to the Mother of Many, a heartfelt thank you for gracing this page with your presence. You are now officially the second best blogger in the family!

Happy New Year to all. May 2011 bring you nothing but the best.

Three... Two... One...

Spreading the XXX-mas cheer

2010-12-22T21:39:00.005-05:00

The holiday season is finally upon us, that time of year when we overindulge in all things festive, when we eat, drink and be merry to the tune of Bing Crosby wanting for a White Christmas or of John Lennon wishing us a happy one.

It is time, as well, to exchange gifts in the tradition of the Three Wise Men, whose offerings of gold, myrrh and frankincense came hard on the heels of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ being born to His immaculately impregnated mother, the Virgin Mary.

(A side note: Is it sacrilegious to wonder if she was screaming Holy Christ as His head began to crown? And if not, to wonder if immaculate conceptions yield pain-free deliveries?)

In any case, this is the time of year when we present presents, as a sign of love, a signal of friendship and a celebration of the birth of Christ.

Our circle of friends engaged in the exercise last weekend, deciding on a gift card exchange between the bunch of us, with each participant expected to make a $25 contribution in the form of a gift card to the establishment of the purchaser’s choice.

Because rarely am I presented an opportunity to mosey on in to an establishment of ill-repute without having at least some semblance of guilt follow me on the way out, I chose to shell out my 25 sheckles at the Adult Fun Superstore, thinking that ‘the gift that keeps on giving’ could not apply any more beautifully than to a gift card that emanates from a store that specializes in edible underwear and blow-up dolls.

If only these were the worst of my findings as I perused the aisles before making my purchase (in the interest of ensuring that my gift’s recipient would be well-served with the plethora of product that such a place peddles, if you must know!)

I have said on this page before that I don’t fancy myself a prude, but even I had to blush as I came across some of the most absurd toys and titles one could possibly imagine, even for a place where the 18-and-under crowd can do no better than hold the door open for the rest of us.

First the toy—a giant butt plug that even Steven Tyler of Aerosmith fame would struggle to fit between his lips, let alone into the orifice it was designed for. Perhaps its size was not unusual for those in society who fear not travelling the wrong way down what I always thought to be a one-way road, and really, that’s not even what had me perplexed.

Instead, I was left puzzled by the long silky donkey tail hanging from one end of it.

That’s right: A DAMN DONKEY TAIL!

I couldn’t help but stifle a chuckle as I imagined the conversation, originating from either the male or female perspective, asking a partner if perhaps it might not be time to incorporate a little bareback horseplay into the bedroom.

Literally.

How does one respond to that?

Then, as I skimmed my way through the skin flick aisles (again to ensure quality for whomever would end up choosing my gift), I came across an absurdly absurd title that would have left me in stitches were it not for the folks on either side of me who were not, I suspect, in the Adult Fun Superstore’s skin flick section on fact-finding missions, as I was.

On the DVD’s cover, a generously plump (read obese) woman in the advanced stages of undress, staring back at me seductively(?), tongue wagging, giant bosom nearly fully revealed, just above the neatly arranged title written out in cursive font: Pigs in a Blanket!

First donkeys, now pigs.

It was enough to leave me wondering if perhaps I hadn’t taken a wrong turn into Old McDonald’s Farm.

I figured it could only go downhill from there, so I wrapped up my business and quickly made my exit, with neither pork products nor ass appendages to show for my time spent in the Adult Fun Superstore.

-------

The Christmas season in these parts has thus far yielded a fair share of Christmas cards, each wishing us, in one way or another, “the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny fucking Kaye”, as the lovable loser Clarke Griswold put it in Christmas Vacation.

One card, however, did provoke an interesting exchange between Hot Wife and I.

It came as I remarked that a full mop of hair finally appeared to be growing atop the head of the card sender’s up-until-now follically challenged 15-month old child, at least according to the family picture that doubled as a Christmas card.

Me: Will you look at that, he’s finally got some hair.
Hot Wife: Yeah, he’s gruesome.
Me, incredulous: He’s gruesome? That’s harsh.
Hot Wife: He. Grew. Some.
Me: Oh. Yeah. I guess that makes more sense.

------

And finally, you will notice that all throughout this post, I have purposefully referred to Christmas as Christmas.

Not as ‘The Holidays’.

Not as ‘The Festive Season’.

I have called it Christmas because that’s exactly what it is.

Political correctness in these parts, and most others I suspect, has made it de rigueur to abstain from using the word Christmas, for fear of offending those in society who share not our affinity for the holiday.

To them, I say ‘Christmas, Christmas, Christmas’.

Still, in the interest of poking some fun at political correctness run amok, a colleague passed along the following holiday greeting, which I could not help but repost here:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or explicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2011, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make Canada great. Not to imply that Canada is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere.

Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

(Also please consent to overlook the unfortunate fact that this greeting is currently available in English only as the style is so convoluted and tortuous that no self-respecting translator would touch it!!!)

Goodbye CNN

2010-12-16T19:49:00.004-05:00

Editor's Note:

In light of Larry King’s final show this evening, I perused the Internet researching the bespectacled and suspendered television host, and came across this bootleg version of what I can only assume will be Mr. King’s farewell address to the nation as his 25-year tenure at CNN comes to an end.

It sheds much light on the real Larry King, and gives the scoop on where he could have gone from here.

Very compelling, very revealing stuff.

(Just click the image to begin...)

---------

It's in the fine print

2010-12-07T19:50:00.008-05:00

Hot Wife has been saddled up at home in recent days, suffering from severe strep throat.

Rumours have circulated around the doctor's office that perhaps it was mono that ailed her.

While those tests have not yet revealed themselves to be true or false, it was comforting to learn today that her inability to swallow even a single sip of water is attributable to a specific cause.

Mercifully, she now has medication to tame that stubborn sore throat.

Before popping her first pill, she did as she always does with prescription medication, and read the accompanying document that describes in great detail some of the possible side effects.

Most were typical, but one stood out like a black hairy tongue.

That's because that one possible side effect to the medication is a black hairy tongue.

That's right, A BLACK HAIRY TONGUE!

Our conversation after that revelation went a little something like this:

Me: You know you're not sleeping in my bed if you get a black hairy tongue, right?

Hot Wife, pouty-lipped and puppy dog-eyed: But you're supposed to love me in sickness and in health, remember?

Me: You didn't read the fine print in the marriage accord. It clearly states in small italics that a husband is to love his Hot Wife in sickness and in health, unless she develops a black hairy tongue, in which case she is to sleep on the couch until any and all symptoms, i.e. the black hair on the tongue, go away!

Hot Wife: You're a jerk.

Obviously, she was unimpressed by what I thought to be a clever retort, but it will teach her a good lesson.

It is as important to be aware of your contractual obligations as per your marriage license as it is to keep yourself informed of the side effects of medication that could potentially cover your tongue in black hair.

Fine print is fine print, no matter how and where it applies!

Daddies and daughters

2010-12-04T22:33:00.004-05:00

Time has taught me to take full advantage of every spare moment I can get with my children.

Time has also taught me that when I see the 4898 digits on my call display at work, 4898 being the last four digits of my daycare's phone number, it is rarely with good reason.

Thursday afternoon, the numbers appeared unexpectedly, with a worrisome voice on the other end saying that The Daughter Formerly Known as The Latest Addition had lost her lunch all over the table and would need to be picked up, stat.

And so it is that I made my way to daycare, expecting to find a lethargic ball of a little girl when I got there, but instead picked up a little ball of energy whose petulance went beyond the boundaries of what we are normally accustomed to.

There was no sickness in that there little girl.

In any case, daycare rules stipulate that upchuckers are unwelcome for at least 24 hours after the upchucking has occurred, so unexpectedly I was treated to a surprise Friday reprieve from work, to spend in the company of my sometimes rambunctious, sometimes cantankerous, always marvellous baby girl.

It was outstanding.

We left the house bright and early, eager to get a headstart on some Christmas shopping, me and The DFKATLA, bound and determined to pack it all in, and then some, before the onslaught of moody, morose and some times malicious Christmas shoppers caught up to us.

So we bounced from store to store, way ahead of the crowds, her and I, daddy and daughter, sharing in innocent moments of fatherly-daughterly love, two people lost in a sea of shoppers, but completely, wholeheartedly, happy with their lot in life.

From here to there we went, me and The DFKATLA, sharing moments that meant nothing and everything all at once, culminating with a seat on a cliche shopping mall bench, both enjoying our respective cliche ice cream cones, each sharing a lick here and there with the other.

To script it any better would have been quasi-impossible, because really, I think, it could get no better than that.

Daddy and daughter, just the two of us, chilling, shopping, sharing in stolen moments that come few and far between when two other siblings typically vie for the spotlight that shone only in one direction that day -- brightly where it belonged, on The Daughter Formerly Known as The Latest Addition, who as the middle child tends to have to fight just a little bit harder than the rest to get the attention she so deserves.

She got it on our unplanned day together, The DFKATLA did. And I did too, for rarely is the attention all mine when toons and toys and brothers and sisters and mothers are my main competition.

Time has taught me to take full advantage of every spare moment I can get with my children.

Time has taught me well.

A Movember to Remember

2010-11-30T20:41:00.008-05:00

And a moustache to forget!

That's just about how I would sum up the last 30 days.

As friends of Confessions of a Blogophobe would know, I took up the Movember challenge on October 31, when I shaved my face clean to let my moustache -- and only my moustache -- grow all throughout November, in support of prostate cancer research.

The results are just about as I expected. An ugly-ass moustache.

There was no hiding from that thing. It followed me everywhere.

Like to work.

Every. Day.

Thankfully, most at the office understood that my unusual upper-lip growth came not because I thought it looked good. A good number of my colleagues understood the Movember movement, and appreciated my attempts to go on living despite the hideous addition to my face.

Most of them, anyway.

One colleague, whom I don't believe was even aware of the campaign, thought it would be funny to ask, about three weeks in, if that day I had driven to work in a van without windows.

I didn't get it at first, until I realized she was telling me I probably couldn't be trusted with kids.

She has been overwhelmingly polite and chatty since I failed to respond to her comment with the laughter she thought she was going to get.

Hey, even guys with moustaches can be sensitive to crappy peanut gallery commentary, though I know she meant no harm.

Made me want to go all gangster.

Like this:

But I didn't. Cause I can't pull that look off either.

I'm just a good guy. And as of tonight, a good guy with a clean shaven face.

My addition has left me, gone for another year. When it reappears, it will be with beard or goatee, but certainly not solo until next Movember, when I will probably go all out with handlebars and a bandana.

I'll keep driving the mini-van too, but just so there is no confusion, I'm keeping the windows.

Loss

2010-11-22T20:55:00.007-05:00

We know from experience that life can at times deliver harsh blows.

We have lived through some ourselves, though thankfully have been largely spared any sorrow that could follow us forever, and have thus far escaped the kind of hurt that fades with time but never really leaves you.

Still, on more than one occasion we have had to watch from a distance as others have been forced to overcome the difficulties of life and the realities of loss, twice in the past 10 days as a matter of fact.

It was with profound sadness that we read recently of the loss suffered in the family of the home-town professional hockey team. An assistant coach's daughter, all of 14 years old, succumbing to injuries imposed by her own hand, a young girl with an entire life ahead of her deciding that life, for her, was too much to take.

These stories always leave a mark in this corner. We know from experience of their devastating consequences.

In its aftermath, we have followed the story closely, reading every word, silently wishing the family some kind of solace in these dark and difficult days.

But save for a name we have only ever seen on scoresheets and Saturday night telecasts, we know them not a bit.

Though we pray for them and wish them at least some understanding of the circumstances that stole from them a daughter and a sister, we are mercifully spared the overwhelming grief that will follow that family forever.

Not so for another loss that came to our attention late last night.

For months, we have shared with friends the happy developments of a new addition to their family, due to arrive in four months time.

As recently as last week, all appeared to be proceeding as it should, with a Rememberence Day ultrasound announcing that theirs would be a baby boy addition to play little brother to a big sister.

For them, we were thrilled, until yesterday when heartbreak found us unexpectedly.

Within days of watching their child on screen, our friends learned that he would have to be delivered immediately.

At 20 weeks.

We know nothing of the details of his passing, nor of the consequences that forced such a premature arrival.

We know only that he had a name, and that our friends are overwhelmingly crushed to have lost their little boy.

We are too.

Our hearts ache for them. We sympathize.

We are privileged to not understand their grief, but no less shaken by their loss.

And while we wish we could somehow take away the pain, we know that life offers no such luxuries.

So we can offer only words, telling our friends that they are in our thoughts, in our prayers, and that the memory of their lost child will stay with us forever.

New additions

2010-11-15T20:46:00.002-05:00

The Chubbs and Hot Wife extended family has grown by one more, this one a pint-sized precious little princess, born to Hot Wife's Sis and The Major.

We wish them all the best as first they recover from a difficult labour, then as they adapt to life as a family of three.

It was only four years ago that Hot Wife and I experienced the same joy of welcoming our first baby into the world, yet it seems like it has already been a lifetime.

And while the sleepless nights and initial angst that accompanies first-time parenthood faded long ago, the pleasures of raising children have given even those memories of anguish and exhaustion a small bit of lustre, if for no other reason than because we can look back on the early struggles thinking that it wasn't so bad afterall.

That could also just be the vasectomy talking.

In any case, to Hot Wife's Sis and The Major, we say congratulations on the new addition, and wish you sleep in at least four hour blocks at a time.

And speaking of new additions, your fair blogger is sporting one of his own these days, in the form of a greasy, ugly, quasi-pornstache, as part of this year's Movember campaign of awareness for prostate cancer.

I have pledged my face to the cause, and for thirty days am shaving everything but my upper lip.

Two weeks in, I can say with certainly that I unequivocally hate it.

It's a look that I cannot pull-off. Also a look that was universally panned when I posed the question to the Confessions of a Blogophobe readership two years ago.

Not much has changed two years later. It is still U-G-L-Y.

But I am growing it anyway, to help raise money for prostate cancer research, and awareness of the cause.

I would almost rather have another baby.

Almost.

Of course that opinion will likely change when I start hearing stories of my new niece's sleepless nights, at which time I will probably think to myself that I would rather just grow an ugly moustache.

A Remembrance Day Repost

2010-11-11T20:39:00.011-05:00

Editor's Note: The following came to me quite some time ago, after I read a book that affected me profoundly. It reminded me of everyone I know who has proudly worn the uniform, in defense of the freedoms we are too often guilty of taking for granted.

On this Remembrance Day, I thought it appropriate to repost what I wrote in April 2009, as a nod to the men and women who have so selflessly given of themselves, many having paid the ultimate price, so the rest of us will never have to.

*********************

I just recently finished reading a book (I do that from time to time), called Blood Brothers, about the bonds that developed between a Time Magazine senior correspondent, Michael Weisskopf, and the soldiers of Ward 57, a wing of the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington, DC.

You wouldn’t think it necessarily possible that a pencil-pushing reporter and a bunch of rifle-toting soldiers could have much in common, and perhaps Weisskopf and the rest at Walter Reed really didn’t, except for one thing ― all returned from Iraq severely wounded, minus a foot here, missing a hand there, eyesight and arms gone for one, mental stability and a leg gone for another.

Ward 57 is amputee quarters at Walter Reed, where soldiers (and the odd civilian, evidently) are sent to rehabilitate in the traumatic aftermath of war-zone carnage.

Weisskopf was shadowing a late-night patrol of a seemingly ‘safe’ Iraqi neighbourhood when a grenade landed in his battalion’s armoured vehicle. As he instinctively picked it up to launch it back from whence it came, the grenade detonated, causing him to lose his right hand in the explosion.

The book chronicles Weisskopf’s recovery in excruciating detail, and recounts the physical and mental battles that he and his fellow ward-mates encountered as they sought to resume their lives with whatever pieces of themselves they were able to salvage from the battlefield.

I bring up the book, not so much because it left upon me a particularly indelible mark, but more because it reminded me of those I know who wear or have worn the uniform… and who sacrifice or have sacrificed in the name of the Stars and the Stripes on America’s Flag or in defence of the iconic Maple Leaf on Canada’s.

The Major is one of them.

The Major is a man of few words ― shy, quiet and reserved, some might say ― though he can cut a mean rug when he’s had just enough to drink.

He has seen the world, The Major has, though not through the eyes of a vacationing tourist; instead through those of a battle-hardened soldier.

Too often these days, our acknowledgement of those who, like The Major, have put themselves in peril’s way in the name of a cause that could be difficult to comprehend, comes only when it is too late.

The news of another Canadian soldier killed by an Improvised Explosive Device along one of Afghanistan’s barren dirt roads...

Images of another American coffin, draped in the Red, White and Blue, flash across the TV screen...

The sight of thousands of civilians lining our Highway of Heroes to salute one final time the repatriated body of one of our own.

Those are usually the moments where we think to ourselves that it’s a shame... that it’s truly awful how these soldiers, many of them barely out of high school, are cut down in the prime of their life, in the ongoing pursuit of the freedom and security that the rest of us at times far too easily take for granted.

But how often do we think to thank those who make it back, for the most part, unscathed?

How often do we actually say to our brothers, to our friends, to our aunts, to our acquaintances, that what they do matters, but more importantly than that even, that without understanding the danger they were in, we appreciate that they had it in them to face whatever was put before them, wherever they were sent to fight conflict?

Not often enough, your fair blogger says.

If you read C-o-a-B with any kind of regularity, you know that I ascribe pseudonyms to all who get mentioned in this Blog.

Not today.

Today, I eschew the silly nicknames that usually pepper these pages, and instead refer to the real names of the real people who make, or have made, real sacrifices so the rest of us can live the lives of our choosing.

To The Major, Dan, who saw Iraq from close proximity, and thankfully managed to return with limbs intact…

To Nancy, who defended the peace during the Bosnian War, and later weathered the long, hard months of at least a few Afghanistan tours…

To my Grandpa Staples, whose stories of the Korean War I’m sure would have fascinated me had illness not stolen him away before I had even been contemplated.

And even to Matt, who could some day be called to contribute in battle (though presently sits stationed in Cyprus, and according to Facebook status updates, is roasting his skinny arse on a beach along the Mediterranean Sea)…

To all of you and your fellow soldiers, who fight the good fight, who put the call of duty ahead of the call of home, who readily embark upon missions to parts unknown, and who do so without questioning the validity of their task... please accept a humble thank you from someone who is truly grateful that at worst, the only blood I might shed in a good day’s work will come at the hands of a stubborn paper’s edge that somehow slices skin.

My admiration for your courage knows no boundaries.

Friends, family, all who proudly wear the uniform in our defence, thank you for your service and your sacrifice, even amid the white noise that emanates from those who cannot distinguish between the cause and those whose call is simply to defend it.

The Insane Insanity of Insanity

2010-10-25T19:48:00.014-04:00

It’s over.

My nine weeks of blood, sweat and tears, minus the blood and tears, have come to an end.

What seemed like an interminable quest finally came to its conclusion over the weekend, without quite the same fanfare as last winter’s P90X, but still with just as much in the way of satisfaction.

Insanity is hard.

Crazy hard.

Insane hard.

But completely worth the effort when you consider the results.

In retrospect, the workout itself is not what I would say is the most difficult aspect of Insanity.

Instead, I would call the commitment Insanity’s greatest challenge, much like it was with P90X, much like it is with anything else that demands a boatload of discipline, desire and determination.

It’s not easy to bring it night after night after night after night… to keep pushing play… to jump, sprint, squat and lunge, and to do it all with rubber legs, and ever worse, within close proximity of a cozy, comfortable couch that wants nothing more than human companionship between the hours of seven and 10 p.m.

But I managed.

I managed to go hard for six days a week, over a nine-week period, without missing a single one of 54 scheduled workouts, save for one measly Fit Test along the way.

I managed to tone up where previously I wasn’t quite yet taut.

And I managed to improve in all areas of the Insanity Fit Test, as you can see by the numbers below:

1. Switch Kicks – 49 to 73
2. Power Jacks – 55 to 65
3. Power Knees – 80 to 103
4. Power Jumps – 22 to 52
5. Globe Jumps – 10 to 12
6. Suicide Jumps – 15 to 19
7. Push-up Jacks – 30 to 37
8. Low Plank Oblique – 44 to 63

Of course, nothing quite defines progress better than a few photographs, so here is proof that for the past two-plus months Shaun T and the Insanity crew have kicked my ass, but also gotten my ass into much better shape.

Day One Front

Day 63 Front

Day One Flex

Day 63 Flex

Day One Side

Day 63 Side

Day One Profile

Day 63 Profile

Admittedly not over-the-top outstanding, but progress nonetheless. Especially considering the physical shape I was in when the year 2010 began.

Up next, some rest, seven weeks of maintenance until Christmas, followed by 2011's fitness challenge: The Six-Pack Fat Attack.

The One With Six Great Friends

2010-10-14T20:29:00.005-04:00

Once upon a time, I used to kill time reading old Friends scripts online. It would crack me up as I visualized scenarios and scenes that, really, I could easily recite by heart.

On paper, every Friends episode has a title, each beginning with The One.

The One With the Christmas Armadillo.

The One With the Unagi.

The One With Chandler in a Box.

There are 233 more scripts in the vault, each with a title that begins with The One, each going on to describe the shenanigans of six late-twenties-early-thirties friends growing up together in mid-town Manhattan.

Friends was a Gen-X hit, mostly because all who tuned in could somehow relate to the storylines that came to us on those Must See TV Thursday nights.

Even if, really, our commonalities with the characters were far-fetched at best.

I don’t live in mid-town Manhattan.

I’ve never celebrated the holidays as a Christmas Armadillo, ‘practiced’ Unagi or lived in a box.

But I do have great friends.

And every now and then we will converge to have our own Friends moments, times when the banalities of life take a back seat to the realities of leisure… times when all responsibility is left behind with the kids at grandma’s place, or maybe on the pile of dirty laundry at home.

We did just that a weekend ago, three couples escaping to the deep(ish) woods—sans enfants—amazed by amenities that could easily make luxury look less-than-posh, for a two-day break from the grind we otherwise call real life.

Thus the title of this post—The One With Six Great Friends.

There’s a peculiar feeling that comes as you sit in silence in the car after you’ve just wished your children a pleasant weekend with their grandparents.

It’s not relief, because we love the little rugrats to death—oh, how much we do—and never could we envision life without them.

It’s more a feeling of reprieve, like the new recruit just granted a weekend furlough from boot camp, intent on making every last second count.

Parents with more than a month’s-worth of parenting under their belt will understand what I am saying.

Mine is not an indictment of my life as a dad, but instead an indication that from time to time, we yearn for the freedom that parenting ill-affords us—that small speck of time in which we can suspend ourselves from changing diapers, wiping spills, taming tantrums—and instead retreat to life as it was B.C.—Before Children—even if for just a fleeting day or two.

Because we need it.

We need those weekends where we come first, if only to remind ourselves of our relationship’s earliest roots, when it was only ever her and I, responsible only ever for ourselves, two souls that easily could adapt to every last one of our spontaneous whims.

We need those weekends where we can share parenting war stories among friends, the very people of our ilk, they who spend time in the trenches amidst the remnants of dirty diapers, dry puke and the odd three-week old sippy cup filled with fermenting milk.

We need those weekends, to be adults, to engage in conversations unfit for fragile ears, to recount dirty jokes and to muse aloud upon the true answer to one of life’s most perplexing questions—who’d you rather?—the smokin’ kindergarten teacher or the hot chick at the corner store.

And dammit, we need those weekends to so soak in the hot tub that we are reduced to six drunken giant human prunes by the time we emerge—two, three, or was it four hours later?

Because that’s what we did.

In a weekend that began with unnecessary detours, we took the circuitous route around our time alone.

We took the road less travelled. The one that saw us make every second count.

Six adults, six friends, indulging in the greatest indulgence parents of a combined eight kids could ask for—time off.

And as we did, we solidified the friendships that brought us there in the first place… and against the backdrop of much fun and frivolity created the storylines that would make for one truly epic Must See TV sitcom episode.

Its title?

The One With Six Great Friends.

State of Chubbs

2010-10-01T20:24:00.005-04:00

It's Friday night. The Mrs. is out for dinner and shopping with a friend. I am home alone with the brood and at this moment sitting in a pool of my own sweat.

I've just wrapped Day 40 of my Insanity workout program. Like my P90X progress over the winter, I've not yet missed a day.

I have a love-hate relationship with my trainer, Shaun T. Dude is insane, appropriately enough, but it's difficult to argue with the results. I'm melting away and growing bigger all at once. It feels good to feel good.

I'm evolving.

Today I enjoyed the leftover broccoli I had in my lunch.

Me, the guy who only ever indulged in PB&J as a child.

Me, the guy who once hid a bowl of veggie soup behind the canned goods in the pantry and left it there to grow old, and mould, until it was discovered one, two, three weeks later.

Me, the guy who even just last year would surreptitiously dump most of my greens in the trash while the kids weren't looking, because, well, how can I get them to eat their vegetables if I'm not eating them myself?

Hypocritical much?

But not anymore.

Last night's dinner and today's lunch -- lemon pepper haddock with broccoli and quinoa.

Quinoa for crying out loud.

Up until recently, I could not have told you what quinoa was, and now I clamour to have it on my plate with dinner and my leftover lunch.

What up with that?

If only the evolution could come as quickly between the ears as it has come from the shoulders down.

Been feeling antsy of late. Anxious to tell you the truth.

It's always been in my nature to have an active mind.

Check that. Overactive mind.

I hide it well but at times it chews me up inside.

I worry. About everything.

I'm learning to let it go and not sweat the past and the baggage and the things that can quite simply muck up a good day when a thought crosses my mind.

It's a tough haul, but not insurmountable.

Been through these days before. And survived and thrived each time.

Really not much to whine about these days anyway.

Got me a good woman, who sprouted me three absurdly adorable babies.

The Eldest is now in school and loving it.

The Daughter Formerly Known as The Latest Addition is transitioning from temperamental toddler to soon-to-be three year-old.

Slowly. But surely.

The Final Addition is catching up. Dude is a tank, and tonight, his first night without a soother to put him to sleep, squawked for barely 15 minutes before relenting and turning in for the night.

A record in the Chubbs and Hot Wife household.

It's all good. And really, would be all around awesome were the anxiety not quite so prevalent from time to time.

But at least it's manageable. And I'm alive to have Shaun T. kick my ass night after night after night.

Tomorrow I golf. Likely for the last time of the season.

Three weeks ago I thought I had the game figured out. Shot a sweet 88 and figured I was on a roll.

Followed that up with a beauty 103.

Barf.

Then a 102.

Barf, barf.

Tomorrow I'm seeking to go out in style, somewhere around 90 so I can remind myself all winter that I've got the game to compete with all the other wannabe hackers of my ilk.

I think I'll be wearing a toque though. And long johns. And maybe four layers up top. It's gonna be a cold Fall day up here in these parts.

But at least it's golf. With my old man, The Moustache, too.

Nothing like a father-son match on the links to bring out the competitive fire in each of us.

He's up 2-0 for the season, so already has me beat.

Gotta make a statement though. Gotta beat him. Gonna beat him.

And gonna beat away the anxious moments that sometimes leave me perplexed and vexed.

But I think I'll start by changing my shirt, because right now, I'm cold and I stink.

Goodbye my lover?

2010-09-22T21:18:00.002-04:00

For as long as he can remember, he has loved her, cherished her, wanted her in his life, longed for her when he could not have her, felt butterflies in his belly when he knew that soon a stolen moment they would share.

Theirs is a relationship that goes back at least a quarter century, to a time when he was but a timid little boy, insecure in his ability to master his muse, ignorant of the incomparable highs she was capable of producing.

He first approached her gently, cautiously, unsure she was even worth the effort of pursuit. Quickly though, she grew on him, no matter the early hour of her weekly call, no matter the gruelling effort required in order for him to even just keep up.

Indoors and out, theirs is a love that matured, under star and snowfall, or in the early morning light.

Of her, he simply could not get enough, spending every waking moment with the beauty that is she, in his mind and in reality, overcoming his deficiencies as he learned of her intricacies, ever the player she felt that he could be.

They grew up together.

Completed each other.

She brought overwhelming highs during a stunning passage of time that always he wishes could have gone on forever.

Even when she rebelled, delivering upon him injury of the worst kind, he could not be swayed to give her up completely.

Too much history.

Too many good times.

The lure of her unspoken temptations just too great to resist.

So he returned to her, naively perhaps, again and again and again, though just a fragile shell of what he used to be.

And for that, he paid the ultimate price—on more than one occasion the unfortunate recipient of her powerful, painful touch.

Each time he would rebound, going back at her with a vengeance, determined to not let her inherent dangers keep him from her absolute pleasures.

Until finally, she broke him.

Not so much physically—from those wounds always he can recover.

Mentally though, no longer is he so sure.

She cannot be courted in fear, yet he is fearful of the pain she still could cruelly unleash upon him.

She cannot be courted with apprehension, yet apprehensive he is of the outcome of their next encounter.

She has pushed him so far in the direction opposite from whence he wants to go that he is left with no other option now but to let her go—completely.

And so it is that as of this writing, he has given her up, severing ties that took a lifetime to build, ending a relationship that should have gone on forever.

He?

He is me.

And she?

She is hockey.

----------

Editor’s Note: The above came to me last winter, in the aftermath of what was then my 24th or 25th shoulder dislocation, the majority of which have occurred on the ice, playing a game that I love.

It was my intention to post this piece as my final season as a hockey player came to a close, following weeks of torturous trips to the rink during which the fear of injury sapped from me all enjoyment that our beautiful game, the game of hockey, can produce.

But I didn’t post it.

Partly procrastination, but mostly premonition.

Deep down I probably knew that I could never give her up. At least not yet.

And so it is that I prepare to embark on yet another season, one in which I hope I will be spared the writhing pain of another dislocation, instead rewarded with goal after goal after goal.

Damn you, beautiful game of hockey.

You are just too impossible to resist.

Zombie movie

2010-09-19T06:43:00.002-04:00

I had a very weird, but very real, dream about zombies last night.

It wasn't pretty.

Did you know that it takes a pick-axe to the upper body, if not the head, to take down a zombie?

I didn't.

Until I had a dream about it.

I hope to never encounter a zombie, especially since I don't have a pick-axe.

Sky rockets in flight

2010-09-09T20:46:00.003-04:00

Afternoon delight.

Or so we thought it would be when we packed up the family for a day away three weeks ago.

It was to be an afternoon and evening spent in the company of distant relatives... aunts, uncles, and cousins we see only sporadically, perhaps no more than once or twice a year.

For the most part, the afternoon proceeded as planned, with the kids enjoying the playground despite the drizzly day, and the adults doing what they tend to do on such occasions—converging around the food and drink to catch up on the comings-and-goings of one-and-all.

Mid-way through the day, an aunt invited us over for dinner—nothing fancy she would say, but just enough to fill us up before packing up the kids for the three-hour drive home.

We accepted, and were nearly on our way, when just then our day took an unexpected turn for the worse.

The day prior, our Daycare Provider let it be known to Hot Wife that we should keep an eye on our brood, since five or six of our kids’ playing partners had come down with something we most definitely would want to avoid.

Hard to do on that very day, since the kids were going directly from Daycare to The Matriarch’s for a quick overnight stay.

It wasn’t until late in the day on Saturday that we thought to follow-up on the previous day’s declaration that it would be wise to watch our children for the tell-tale signs of what was about to unfold.

And that’s what we did when Hot Wife tapped the Mother-of-Many—whose job as a teacher affords her much experience in the area—to check our children for lice.

Head lice.

Check that.

Motherfu**ing head lice.

Because from the moment it was discovered that The Daughter Formerly Known as The Latest Addition was hosting the dastardly devils, those little mofos consumed our every thought and action.

Every. Last. One.

The discovery of bugs in our daughter’s hair immediately put us in an odd predicament.

What to do about our dinner invitation?

Neither Hot Wife nor I would have begrudged my aunt and uncle for suddenly rescinding the invitation and proclaiming ‘no room at the Inn’.

Credit to them, they barely let it show that we were quite obviously persona non grata considering the infestation brewing in The DFKATLA’s beautiful blond locks.

Still, we quickly cancelled on them to avoid any of the awkwardness, then packed up the kids to go home and deal with it.

After a three-hour drive spent scratching our own scalps—convinced that we too were carrying—and a stop at the drugstore for some anti-lice treatment, we finally rolled in at 9 p.m. with three sleeping children in tow.

Normally they would have gone straight to bed, but not that night.

That night, linens had to be changed, and the children scrubbed clean, with The DFKATLA undergoing the most serious of the three cleanings followed by a careful comb-through shortly thereafter.

Want to experience the pleasure of petulance at its best?

Try pulling lice from a two-year old’s head three-and-a-half hours after she normally goes to bed.

Shriek meets scream meets total disregard for the words ‘don’t move’.

Finally, we got our insect-riddled daughter seemingly insect-free, and crawled into bed near midnight after Hot Wife, too, treated her hair just to be safe.

Three hours later, she still hadn’t slept a wink, choosing instead to scratch her head silly, more convinced now than earlier that she had head lice too.

I wasn’t worried.

I wasn’t worried the next day, when we spent about eight hours doing laundry and cleaning the house.

I wasn’t worried three days later, when not a sign of lice could be found on our baby girl, or anyone else in our household.

I wasn’t worried five days later when Hot Wife still was scratching, and again I checked her hair and found nothing.

I wasn’t even worried when Hot Wife did the same with me, just to be sure.

But then I remembered that a few days prior to finding the lice on The DFKATLA, I snuggled up to her in bed just as she was falling asleep.

I never do that, to avoid making it a habit.

Of course, on the one occasion that I did indulge my daughter and let her fall asleep against me, there was possibly a mother louse on the pillow birthing a small infantry of babies that would later attack with a vengeance.

Not The Eldest.

Not The Final Addition.

Not Hot Wife.

Only The Daughter Formerly Known as The Latest Addition.

And me.

That’s right.

Moments after Hot Wife began scouring my head for the scourge that is lice, she found a couple of nits.

Nothing creepy-crawling across my scalp, thankfully.

But enough to foist upon me an easy resolution.

The next day I was off to the barber to have my mane sheered down to the wood, but not before wondering aloud about the proper etiquette when it comes to getting a hair cut when lice are in the early stages of building a community on your head.

Is one supposed to fess up first, or simply zip it and hope nothing else comes of it?

I chose to fess up, mostly because I know my barber well.

As she motioned for me to take a seat, I had no choice but to spill the beans. So I did, but quickly, before anyone else could enter and overhear the conversation, which went a little something like this:

Me: Umm, I have a small issue. My daughter gave me lice.
Barber, perplexed: Oh.
Me: I know.
Barber: Well, don't you have clippers at home.
Me, internally: Of course I do. I just wanted to swing by here first and let you know, since secrets are always safe at the barber shop!
Me, externally: No, I don't have clippers.
Barber: Well, call me in a couple of hours. If there is nobody here, you can come back and I'll make sure you're my last client of the day. That way, I can sterilize everything when I'm done.
Me: O.k. thanks.

Two hours later, I was back, appreciative that I was not treated like a leper and sent on my way.

And although my barber broke out the near-broken clippers to shave my head, the ones that don't quite pull the hair out but almost do, I was still thankful that she took me in and helped to resolve my problem.

So gone is the hair that I had spent nearly 10 months growing, and back is the military crew cut that I sported as a youngster.

On the bright side, I like it.

On the brighter side, there ain't no lice on us.

For the dads

2010-08-30T21:05:00.005-04:00

A little video for all my pops peeps out there. This just about sums up our life as fathers to darling little girls and small tanks of little boys.

Editor's Note: Sometimes technology baffles the hell out of me. I posted the video and it took up the whole screen. No way to fix it. So instead of actually seeing the video here, and because blogspot and youtube sometimes do dumb things, click here instead.

The Life and Times of Chubbs --- Part II

2010-08-19T19:20:00.004-04:00

Editor's Note: Today, I bring you Part Two in a series I have called, appropriately enough, The Life and Times of Chubbs.

What follows are excerpts of my life, pulled together under the backdrop of the modern technological marvel that is Google Maps’ Street View.

Always I have known of the application, but never did I realize the full extent to which it could allow me to travel deep into the history of my life, practically right into the various living rooms in which I grew up.

So for you, friends of Confessions of a Blogophobe, I took a journey through time and chronicled the details.

The result?

A collection of posts about the old haunts of my youth, and the moments that came to mind in vivid detail when I returned, if only in the metaphorical sense, to the cities, the towns and even the houses that I have called home over the years.

Enjoy.

***************

When last we tuned in to the Life and Times of Chubbs, I was lamenting the loss of my earliest rememberable roots, those I established early on in life on the only Canadian Forces Base I remember ever calling home.

After staring for hours at the pictures of what remains of those parts, I moved next to where I moved next, when The Moustache’s posting pushed us from the creature comforts of our little military community into the unknown obscurity of what seemed, then, like a completely foreign world.

So from the Base, I clicked my way on to where I lived for a time in the mid-80’s—new city, new province, new language—back then just a wee lad starting out in life, a unilingual Anglophone enrolled by then in a unilingual Francophone school.

What a thrill to navigate the roads I remember walking as a child, miraculously transported back through time at the tap of a keyboard and the click of a mouse.

In that Montreal suburb, first I landed here:

Near as I can remember, we lived in that house from about 1985 to 1987.

If you look closely on the left, you might still see the imprint of my face on that tree’s trunk. So caught up I once was in a game of tag, that as I looked behind me to evade my pursuer I failed to notice the tree in front of me until I met it head-on with a thud.

I survived, though for a time I lay on the ground dazed and confused. Granted, the tree was much smaller then, but then again so was I, so that tree was as strong and sturdy as ever when I barrelled into it like Wile E. Coyote crashing into a mountain’s rocky face.

Oddly enough, that memory was the first to come to mind when I finally landed on our old house; many more came to me as I examined every one of this picture’s finest details.

It was in that driveway that I first began winning Stanley Cups, in my mind always The Great One, in my reality recreating the minute details of a sweet Gretzky-Kurri passing play that led to the winning goal. I probably bounced a million tennis balls of the side of that house, and still today I remember the awful crack that came when I shattered my vintage Gretzky Titan TPM 2020 hockey stick right where that car is parked. What a sad day that was, at least for eight year-old me.

At the risk of offending the home’s present proprietors, and perhaps breaking the odd privacy law or two, let me take you on a tour.

Beyond the front bay window (which I don’t think was a bay window when we were there), is the dining room, where I recall writing lines on a few occasions, as punishment for whatever mischief I had gotten myself into.

I will listen in school.
I will listen in school.
I will listen in school.

The basement window below the bay window... I could look out that window from my top bunk, when for a time I shared the room with a stepbrother. Beside the bed was a desk, and from that desk I recall writing lines on a few occasions, as punishment for more mischief that I had gotten myself into.

I will not let myself be influenced by my friends.
I will not let myself be influenced by my friends.
I will not let myself be influenced by my friends.

So prolific I became at this form of punishment that I developed a system to make it easier on me on the odd occasion where I would relapse into questionable behaviour.

After I would show my father, The Moustache, my 50-odd lines of a repeated sentence, rarely would he ever confiscate my sheet.

Instead, I would simply put it back in my top drawer.

If I re-offended along the same lines—not listen in school, or be influenced by my friends—the punishment would often go from 50 lines to 100. So I would just go to my room, pull out my sheet with 50 lines already done, and carry on from there.

Wily I was at even a young age!

It was also from the top bunk in that basement bedroom that I remember spending winter nights peaking through the blinds, waiting for the forecasted storm to move in, hopeful that by the time I would wake up in the morning our street would be impassable and my school closed for the day.

Upstairs, the two windows on the left are bedrooms (the far one the master bedroom, the other my bedroom before our step-siblings moved in). I remember once making a deal with The Moustache in that very room... something along the lines of “If I do all my homework without a fuss, then you have to let me wear sweat pants to school tomorrow instead of jeans.”

From the ages of five until at least nine, I wore nothing but sweat pants to school.

It was also in that house, in that kitchen, that I once made my dinner disappear, or so The Moustache thought.

I was a fussy eater as a child, and much to my chagrin one night’s meal was a bowl of vegetable soup, far from ideal for a kid who much preferred chowing down on peanut butter toast. When The Moustache disappeared to the basement while I ate, I seized the opportunity to hide my bowl in the pantry, behind a wall of canned preserves that I mounted four or five high.

When The Moustache returned, I happily exclaimed that I had finished my soup, and had even done my dishes. He looked sceptical, but fell for the ruse anyway, until a few weeks later when he pulled a can from the pantry and found a bowl of moulding soup hiding behind it.

It was also in that kitchen that The Moustache would dress me in my hockey gear long before dawn, getting me ready for that great Canadian hockey tradition—the 6 a.m. practice.

At the rink in our home-town, I remember taking my first real strides on the ice, as a wee little lad on a wee little hockey team, discovering for the first time—that I can remember at least—the beautiful game of hockey and the many maddening intricacies of team-play. It was also there that I decided that I could never cut it as a goalie, and all it took was a 12-0 shellacking to bring home the point.

Yes, friends of C-o-a-B, I led a hard-knock life back in the early years.

But that’s not to say there was no turmoil when we lived here, because there was.

It was while we lived in that house that my folks separated and later divorced.

The only screaming match I ever remember between The Moustache and The Matriarch came there. In a way I am lucky; too young I was when they split to have been severely scarred by the experience.

Instead, I grew up spending every second weekend with The Matriarch, and later on, when circumstances conspired to have the Mother-of-Many and I move in with her, every second weekend or so with The Moustache.

And while living with a single father could have been difficult, life under The Moustache’s roof was for the most part good, and in fact even had its perks.

There were many nights when we would move the dining table to the side of the room and play soccer in the kitchen with the oven as my net. On Saturday nights, it would be hockey, with me in goal—complete with pads and glove, though my pads were pillows that I would tape to my legs—as The Moustache would wing tennis balls at me trying to score.

Doubtful that we would have gotten away with such shenanigans had a motherly presence been around to watch over the proceedings, perhaps the only point of good fortune—then at least—that came in the wake of The Moustache's and Matriarch's split.

Looking back on it now, life in that house was pleasant, if not perfect, minus the fact that most of it came with the Mother of Many and I shuttling between two homes in two cities, learning to live life as children of divorce.

We were challenged in that house, to learn a new way of life. To count on each other in difficult times and to grow not as a single family unit but as a family of single parents.

Perhaps not ideal then. But looking back on it now, probably the ideal way for the Life and Times of Chubbs to continue.

Contraptions

2010-07-28T18:31:00.003-04:00

The Final Addition is not yet walking, but the little bruiser can still get around without much difficulty.

He is fast, even if his travels all come in four-legged form.

He has even taken to climbing the stairs, with reckless abandon too, often dangling perilously from a top step by the time we realize he is no longer sitting by the toy chest—where he sat just a second ago!!!—slobbering all over Topless Amputee Barbie™.

That he doesn’t discriminate against one-legged naked dolls is cause for celebration, I guess, but that he can so quickly disappear from sight is cause for concern.

To impede his climbing ability, I took to sliding a piece of plywood across the first step, as a sort-of stop-gap measure to keep him from stumbling all the way down to the hardwood floor if he missed a step.

I thought I had him beat, but within a day-or-two, he was pulling himself over that piece of plywood with all the grace of Police Academy’s Cadet Laverne Hooks when she finally scales the cumbersome wall in the Academy’s mandatory obstacle course.

Not pretty, but effective.

The first time I watched him do it, I half-expected him to turn around and give me the finger.

He is that determined.

So I outfoxed him, and upgraded the plywood to a more sturdy, more robust, and to him, far more challenging barrier, over which he has not yet managed to pull himself.

Sorry kid. You may as well learn now that life isn’t fair, and that in a battle of Dad versus Boy, your old man will win every time.

Kind of.

Because unbeknownst to him, The Final Addition got some retribution.

With the brood all tucked in comfortably for the night, Hot Wife and I took to the basement to indulge in some mindless reality television, only to be interrupted a half-hour later by a thunderous thud from two floors up, followed by screams and cries that made it clear that one of The Daughters had fallen out of bed.

Like any good father, I rushed up from the basement two-steps at a time, hoping to console what turned out to be a startled but hardly scarred Daughter Formerly Known as The Latest Addition, before she could wake her sleeping brother one room over.

Turning the corner on the main floor, I wrapped my hand around the banister and slingshot my way towards the upper stairs, intent on playing the hero for my little girl, when—DAMN-SH!T-F**K-SCREW—I drove my sprinting knee right into the wooden barrier that I forgot to remove after The Final Addition went to bed, and that I couldn’t see with all the lights turned out.

MOTHERF***ER!

Winded and wounded, I limped my way up to The Daughter Formerly Known as The Latest Addition, while behind me I could hear Hot Wife hooting and hollering at my misfortune.

She is all pity, that one.

In any case, I did take some solace from my scraped knee.

If my contraption is solid enough to bring a grown man to his knees, then surely we should have no more worries about The Final Addition climbing the stairs.

Smooth criminal?

2010-07-06T20:25:00.005-04:00

Twice in the past few days, I have come home to find a business card wedged in my front door.

Odd, to say the least, considering its source – the Municipal Bylaw Office.

On the first occasion, I barely gave the card a second thought and dispensed with it quickly.

The second time though, the words Please Call were scribbled on one side.

Please call the Bylaw Office.

Odd, I thought, before wracking my brain for whatever offense a Bylaw Officer could be tracking me down to discuss.

After talking it over with Hot Wife, we determined that perhaps I was finally being nabbed for building my deck without a permit.

But it has been two years.

Is the Bylaw Office really that hungry for dough that a clandestine agent would sneak into my backyard, two years later, to verify if the original deck structure has been modified in any way?

I guess so, because I didn’t recall committing any other punishable offenses that would require a visit from a Bylaw Officer.

So I dialed the number on the card, fully expecting to be told that I am guilty of building a deck without a permit.

But that is not what I was told, though I was indeed informed that I am guilty of breaking the law.

So guilty, in fact, that incriminating photos of me caught in the act are on file with the Bylaw Office, thus the visit from the Bylaw Officer who left a business card with the words call me scrawled across it.

My crime?

Watering my lawn during peak heat wave season when we are asked to conserve? No.

Burning an open air fire in the middle of my front lawn? No.

Pumping my stereo loud enough to wake the neighbours at all hours of the night? Not that either.

No folks, the crime I am guilty of… the crime that has me forever labeled a delinquent in the eyes of the municipal justice system, is to have dumped grass clippings from my lawnmower into a ditch on a side street that borders a corn field just around the corner from our house.

Biodegradable grass clippings!!! Into a ditch, for crying out loud.

My first question was to ask who the hell has time to take photographs of someone dumping clippings into a ditch of overgrown grass, much less to complain about it to the highest authority of municipal law.

My second question was to wonder aloud about the punishment for such a shameful strike against humanity.

It’s a fine, I was told.

A $125 fine.

Woah.

Enter the smooth-talking, apologetic, upstanding citizen named Chubbs.

After much back-and-forthing, yours truly managed to convince the Bylaw Officer that mine was an innocent offense, attributable to genuine ignorance of the irreversible, irrefutable, incontestable, harmful damage that grass clippings can cause a ditch of overgrown grass.

Or something along those lines.

In any case, rather than receiving that $125 fine, I was instead the recipient of a stern talking-to from, by the sound of her voice, a 20-something young lady bound by the duties of her office to come after miserly older misfits like me.

She even had me apologetically calling her ma'am throughout the duration of our conversation.

But if that's the price I have to pay to avoid paying the price, I will gladly bow all day long to the Bylaw Officer that wields all the power over a smooth criminal like me.

No words

2010-06-30T17:47:00.003-04:00

Words can sing. And words can sting.

And words can hurt. And words can blurt.

And sure as hell, words can console. And from time to time, can make you whole.

But what if there were no words?

Words are the currency we use to peddle thought, the fare we expend to make a point.

We use words to express love. To display hate. To humour. To communicate.

But what do you say when there are no words?

What do you say when you are overwhelmingly overcome with an inability to find the right words?

When not a single, solitary word can accurately express what’s in your head and in your heart?

When all words bow to the enormity of a situation that calls for words, even when no words can possibly appropriately apply?

In recent weeks, good friends of C-o-a-B have come face-to-face with the cruel reality of life, in the form of a cancer diagnosis for their daughter of just two-and-a-half years.

It is heartbreaking.

A beautiful, gregarious, precious baby girl, facing the fight of her life a mere 33 months in.

I have had to fight for very little in my 32 years on earth, yet this pint-sized little ball of marvelous is staring straight down the barrel of chemotherapy treatments and hospital visits and the constant pokes and prods of a medical community seeking to save her life… and she is doing it all with precious little life experience behind her, and so, so much ahead.

It is heartbreaking, yes, but heartwarming too.

Inspiring.

Uplifting.

Humbling.

A child, blessed with enough patience to endure that which she cannot possibly comprehend.

A child, so strong that she is holding her folks together, and not the other way around.

A child, whose resilience is so remarkably obvious, that she inspires, uplifts, and humbles all those who are lucky enough to spend even just a moment in her presence.

As parents, we watch from a distance as our friends are called to face, arguably, the nightmare we all hope to avoid.

We wish we could understand, yet we are thankful that we don’t.

We wish we could tell our friends that their travels down this road are but a short detour in the long, meandering journey that is, and will be, their life as a family of four, or maybe someday five or six.

We wish we had the right words, the real words, the words that could let our friends know how deeply and profoundly their daughter’s diagnosis has touched us.

Yet whatever we say, or want to say, seems to fall desperately short.

What do we say, when no words can adequately convey our feelings?

What do we say, when no words can properly express our desire to do whatever we can to alleviate whatever burdens fall in our friends' way as they pour every last ounce of their energy into fighting this dreadful disease at their precious daughter’s side?

What do we say, when there simply are no words?

Today was a good day

2010-06-13T21:17:00.004-04:00

All spring, Hot Wife and I tuned in without fail to our newest favourite show on TV, Parenthood.

It follows the shenanigans of four adult siblings, and chronicles their interactions as brother-sister, aunt-uncle, son-daughter, mother-father.

It's a great show that any and all with child will appreciate, if for no other reason than because we can so easily relate to most situations that make up every week's episode.

The child with a learning disorder.

The immature 20-something brother.

The heartbroken teenager.

The single mom angst.

But perhaps Parenthood's greatest quality is the way it portrays the family bond... that tight-knitedness that never quite goes away, regardless of age or location, social status or all-round lot in life.

Families that are close stay close, no matter which way the world around them spins.

It's enough to make viewers envious.

Except I'm not.

And I'm not, because the interactions I chuckle at and relate to on TV week after week are the interactions that exist within my own family.

Today, we gathered at The Matriarch and Grumpy Grampa's house, myself and Hot Wife, with The Eldest, The Daughter Formerly Known as The Latest Addition and The Final Addition, along with a sister, a brother-in-law, three nephews, a niece and an aunt from out of town.

It was a beautiful Sunday, with afternoon naps forsaken so the cousins could enjoy every ray of sunshine they could soak in, every blade of grass they could bounce through, every gummy worm they could gulp down, every Smartie they could steal.

Our children are fortunate enough to live within spitting distance of their cousins, just across the street in fact, yet they see more of each other, play more with each other, create more memories with each other, when they are at The Matriarch and Grumpy Grampa's house, building the family ties that will bond them forever.

And we, the adults, do the same too, playing and laughing and poking fun at each other, even now, into our thirties, and fifites and sixties, with our own lives and own issues to contend with.

We played Blackjack for Jelly Beans this afternoon, amidst much hooting and hollering from The Mother of Many and The Rock, both of whom gambled LARGE as they sought to learn the game just weeks before they jaunt to Vegas together for the very first time.

We played some ball with the kids, and much to the delight of my eight year-old nephew, he managed to smoke me with a line-drive to the mid-thigh, to which his only possible reaction was to hit the ground amid squeals of laughter.

We climbed the clothesline pole, The Rock and I did, if for no reason other than to perhaps prove to ourselves that we could keep up with the eight year-old monkey who had just done the same.

And of course, upon watching her old man add to the spectacle with some chin-ups from the top, The DFKATLA, at the height of her two-and-a-half years, was 'all-in' next, giggling her way up the pole, at times on her own even, much to the delight of her old man who, upon further review now, hopes that pole will be the only pole we ever see in The DFKATLA's repertoire.

We shared a BBQ dinner at the picnic table, of ribs and potatoes and salads and deserts, with the kids making like kids and fussing over every bite while the adults barely spoke a word as they shovelled in every last forkfull.

It was a cliche dinner, on a cliche summer's day, made oh so perfect by stolen family moments of little relevance but much magnitude.

The kind of moments that would make for good TV, but instead go no further than the table around which we gather, they yard in which we play, and the minds in which we create the memories that will last a lifetime.

Today was a good day.

Serenity now

2010-05-31T20:42:00.004-04:00

I've never much fancied myself to be of the granola type.

The whole 'one with nature' thing has never been, well, my thing. I enjoy being outside but don't necessarily seek out opportunities to be one with the earth.

But lately, I've tried to spend as much time as possible in the great outdoors, seeking to soak in every last bit of sunshine I can.

Perhaps it was an interminable winter spent doing little else but squats and lunges and push-ups and pull-ups in the cozy confines of my basement gym that has me avoiding the inside of the house as best as I can.

It's been nice, but it has posed somewhat of a problem for a guy who values his exercise and enjoys a good sweat at the hands of one Tony Horton and his merry band of crazy exercisers.

So I decided to merge the two -- exercise and fresh air -- by taking tonight's yoga workout to the backyard, where I downward dogged it for the better part of an hour as the cool evening breeze breathed through the gazebo to offer some much-needed relief as the sweat poured from every corner of my worked out body... and I mean every corner.

Never would I have imagined, five months ago, that I could ever look forward to doing yoga, but here I am, five months after first taking the P90X plunge, becoming a real yoga aficionado.

It's bizarre, and probably has much to do with the fact that I am growing up.

Yesterday I planted flower beds in the backyard, and enjoyed it, for crying out loud.

And although it was four years ago that I first became a parent, it's evident to me that I am just now becoming an adult.

I'm changing.

The things I used to ridicule my folks for enjoying are now the things I look forward to doing myself.

Like landscaping the yard and making our house a home.

But I think my urges to indulge in things like yoga in the backyard, or scouring the nursery for all the flowers and shrubs and bushes that will give our yard the allure it deserves, have less to do with the activities themselves as with the time it affords me to decompress and just enjoy life, actively and productively.

The last place I want to be these days is sprawled across the couch, just watching tv. And if there is some Must See TV on the tube, I am far less inclined to tune in from the start if the sun is still shining and there is anything better I can be doing outside.

That wasn't me two and three and five years ago.

But it's me now.

And I like it.

Satisfying the urge

2010-05-28T21:59:00.003-04:00

Well now. It's been awhile, has it not?

Me thinks my readership has probably dwindled down to ones and ones of you by now, and really, I can't say I'm surprised.

I have really been a bad blogger of late. And by 'of late', I mean in 2010.

I have simply rarely felt inspired to write. Few of my life's shenanigans have stricken me as 'bloggable', so I've let the page go dark, on purpose and by accident all at once.

But tonight I felt the urge. The urge to put a few words down to remind myself that stopping in to visit C-o-a-B once in awhile is not a bad thing to do -- especially as the owner of any and all words posted here.

The weather has turned up here near our fair nation's capital. Finally, we are set up for the summer.

And since writing, for me, is as much about location as inspiration, it felt à propos to not turn in quite yet, and instead remain behind, in the great, wide expanse that is my suburban backyard, to jot down a thought or two... to reconnect with this blog and those of you who do me the honour of reading it.

So let me set the scene.

I am sitting in my week-old gazebo, legs stretched comfortably on the coffee table, laptop perched exactly where you would expect it to be given it's name -- on my lap.

Above me, the red lights twinkle in a way that screams out relaxation, and calm, and serene, and penny-pincher, and confidence all at once; fading Christmas icicles are strung to the ceiling, letting it be known to one and to all that I am too cheap to buy a proper light, but also not too vain to fear being mocked for the way I've chosen to let myself see when it's darker than night outside.

It is charming, really... in a white trash kind of way.

Straight ahead, the fire crackles, with glowing embers on the last of the burning logs radiating just enough heat and smoke to scare away the bugs, and envelop me in a warm blanket of comfort... the kind you never can feel in a house, but always can feel at home.

In the corner, the radio sings the soft hits of the 80's and 90's... the kind of music that always ignites mental pictures of days and times gone by, in a sort of 'soundtrack-of-your-life' kind of way.

Were I paying close enough attention, I'm sure I could spend the next half hour reliving the high times of my youth to the beats of Jon Bon Jovi and George Michael and Cindi Lauper. Instead, I am content to just let the music roll in the background, then to turn it off altogether, as the sounds of a silent night seem far more fitting at a time like this, when location and inspiration cross paths in such an unexpected, yet entirely welcome way.

Crickets chirp, somewhere within a few feet of me.

A dog barks, way off in the distance.

A neighbour laughs, maybe at a lame joke or in a heartfelt moment that will be remembered forever.

And amidst it all, a keyboard clicks and clacks, in a rapid succession of A's and B's and C's that somehow find their proper order and conspire to make up my first post of the summer and likely my last post in May.

Time has not been kind to your fair blogger, between the demands of fatherhood, P90X Round Two, the Stanley Cup playoffs and a work week that still leads the weekend 5-2.

I have not been here much, and quite frankly, am thisclose to shutting this whole thing down.

Yet here I am, drawn back to the place where it all began, with a too-great-to-resist urge to write, and a too-perfect-for-words place to put it all down.

Thank you, hot summer night, and gazebo and fireplace, and patio sectional, and tacky Christmas lights, and convenient wireless technology, for affording me the perfect background against which to satisfy this evening's desire to write from the heart, but perhaps more importantly, for letting Confessions of a Blogophobe live to see another day.

A Mother's Day shout-out

2010-05-09T19:56:00.003-04:00

Today is Mother's Day, and in honour of that, let me first say thank you, Happy Mother's Day and much love to the mother of my children, Hot Wife, and to my mom, The Matriarch, and step-mom, The Banker.

All of you, in your own way, have obviously helped me to become the dude I am today. Any credit I get for being a fine, upstanding contributor to society, I defer it all to you.

Because I am a fan of mothers, I'm stopping the words here, and letting a couple of other guys take over with a little Mother's Day ditty that always brings a smile to my face.

Enjoy.

Editor's Note: Not 40 minutes after I posted this video, the phone rang in the Chubbs and Hot Wife household. It was The Matriarch, delivering some maternal advice. 'I think you should put the censored version of that song on your blog', she said. 'Some people might find this offensive.'

Since I cannot find the censored version--and find the profanity in this one mildly amusing--I am posting a Parental Advisory here instead. Be warned, the suggestive lyrics in the following tune leave little to nothing to the imagination.

Still, it cracks me up every time!

A twitter post

2010-05-06T20:48:00.005-04:00

First, let's get the important matters out of the way.

The spammers in my comments section are driving me fucking batshit.

There, I said it.

Now that we've dispensed with the profanity, let's move on to some of the more important matters in the life and times of Chubbs, and we'll do it in twitter format, as a series of disconnected, disjointed thoughts.

1) The Stanley Cup playoffs quickly lose their lustre when the teams we root for earn themselves an early exit.

2) Then again, it's hard not to keep a close eye on the underdogs, and maybe even secretly root for them, when they do what they've just done. (Habs just scored twice in the opening minutes of the 3rd to take a 3-2 lead on the defending champion Penguins.)

3) Matt Cooke is a weasel. Looks like a weasel. Acts like a weasel. Probably smells like a weasel.

4) Hot Wife and I are nearly four full weeks into P90X Round Two. Still not a workout missed. It is much tougher the second time around. Not convinced I'm seeing much in the way of progress (on me anyway), but will stick with it nonetheless.

5) Five weeks ago today we flew to Vegas. I miss Vegas.

6) We have since ventured to the Casino near home to quench our gambling desires. That trip did not go nearly as well as our time at the tables in Sin City. Still, we are becoming quite the Blackjack aficionados.

7) Last weekend was a memorable one in the Chubbs and Hot Wife world. The Eldest performed in her first ever dance recital and delivered a smash-up performance.

8) I will get around to posting some video here on C-o-a-B if I can ever figure out how to get the video from my video camera and into my blog.

9) I hate, check that, HATE, my video camera.

10) Next week, The Eldest turns four. The Daughter Formerly Known as The Latest Addition can hold a conversation with the all the aplomb of an Ellen Degeneres, probably the pre-eminent gabber on the talk show circuit. The Final Addition is crawling. My kids remind me every day that they are my life's true rewards, even if every little step is just an indication that we are growing older.

11) I once walked around an all-inclusive resort wearing nothing but a strategically place fisherman's hat that covered everything that nobody wanted to see.

12) I once climbed out of a classroom window while a friend held me by the ankles, so I could retrieve a baseball hat that I mistakenly threw outside.

13) As a kid, I would colour my fingernails with a green marker and pretend I was a lizard.

14) A girl at a bar once mistook me for someone else, but rather than set her straight I let her call me Sean all night because when she first approached me she put her hands up my shirt.

15) I almost shot my eye out with a BB gun.

16) I laughed out loud when I read that Kirby got the Digital Underground reference in my last post.

17) The Final Addition has been sleeping some crappy nights this week. Incidentally, it is Hot Wife's first week back at work after a third and final maternity leave. She is not appreciating the interrupted nights.

18) I'm wrapping this up. The boy is crying again.

Ten lies, five truths --- Volume I

2010-04-23T21:10:00.003-04:00

Each of the following groups contains two lies and one truth. Knowing what you know about me, from our personal interactions or simply from what you have read here, can you figure me out?

I.
a) I once walked around an all-inclusive resort wearing nothing but a strategically placed fisherman's hat that covered everything that nobody wanted to see.
b) I eat gummy bears by tearing them limb from limb and eating their heads last.
c) I have been injured by a ninja throwing star.

II.
a) I once sent a teacher into early retirement by pretending to be a cheetah and swiping at her from under a desk.
b) I once climbed out of a classroom window while a friend held me by the ankles, so I could retrieve a baseball hat that I mistakenly threw outside.
c) Two of my friends are under five feet tall and I have an intense fear of midgets.

III.
a) As a kid, I would tape my thumbs to my hands to see what it would have been like to be a dinosaur.
b) As a kid, I would colour my fingernails with a green marker and pretend I was a lizard.
c) As a kid, I pretended my bike was a horse named Satan.

IV.
a) I think it's frustrating the ChapStick tastes good when you put it on your lips and lick them, but if you just bite the ChapStick it tastes like poison.
b) A girl at a bar once mistook me for someone else, but rather than set her straight I let her call me Sean all night because when she first approached me she put her hands up my shirt.
c) I once got busy in a Burger King bathroom.

V.
a) I almost shot my eye out with a BB gun.
b) I'm kind of attracted to Bette Midler.
c) I earn extra money by running two highly popular and profitable fetish Web sites.

Answers welcome in the comments section...

A scary story

2010-04-12T20:44:00.002-04:00

You are a man of nearly 32 years.

A family man, you are, father to the three most precious babies in the world – The Eldest, The Daughter Formerly Known as The Latest Addition, and The Final Addition, all of whom conspire to make you infinitely thankful to have jumped into this whole parenting thing a whopping four years ago this spring.

After two children, you sit on the fence, hemming and hawing, wondering if perhaps it would be best to cap the family there or to give it one last shot, and add to it by one more.

You choose, with your Hot Wife, to go for it, and nine months later a real tank of a little boy emerges to join the brood, at which point he is immediately saddled with a nickname that lets it be known that after him, the family will grow by no more.

You call him The Final Addition, as a nod to the finality of his arrival, and because he is, quite literally, the last of the additions.

Of this, you are sure.

In the 21st century, three is the new two, and now that you have three children, you are certain beyond a doubt that you are happy to close up shop there.

So you do what naturally comes next, and make an appointment to have your nuts lopped off, or something along those lines.

You emerge relatively unscathed, save for the awkwardness of having the man-doctor tether your stick-shift to your shirt with an elastic band while he goes to work on your sack.

That is one picture that needs not be posted here.

In any case, 12-weeks later, you wake early one morning to tell your Hot Wife to keep the kids occupied while you get it on with a sterile plastic cup, needing to produce just enough man-juice for the lab to confirm that as far as the procreation game goes, your ass, from this point forth, can sit itself down on the disabled bench.

So you do your thing with that plastic cup, careful to be gentle on account of it being her first time, then pack the cup, by now tarnished by your DNA, in to the pre-provided courier envelope and proceed to drive her in to work.

You are too paranoid to just drop the package in the mailbox, fearful that it may be lost on the way, so you opt to go directly to the post office instead.

Only the post office that you thought was near your work is actually a good 15-minute walk away.

You make the walk anyway, with your sperm presumably splish-splashing away as you cradle the package, with as much care as you can muster, high and tight in the crook of your armpit.

Finally, you drop the package off, expecting to hear, within days, that those intimate moments spent with your sack splayed out on the doctor’s gurney will have paid dividends, as advertised.

One problem.

When the call comes in, you are told that the procedure appears to have worked, but that it would be best to resubmit a semen sample just to err on the side of caution. And by the way, this sample you must bring directly to the lab.

Within an hour of producing it.

Awesome, you think to yourself sarcastically, considering that you live a solid 45-minutes from the lab, barring traffic tie-ups or all other misadventures that could cause your ride to stretch itself even longer.

Now you have another problem.

You are without a sterile plastic cup.

A day later, at the clinic for an unrelated matter, you ask your family doctor if perhaps he could spare one, but take the Too Much Information route in the process of telling him what you need it for.

He gives you two. In case it overflows, he says.

You appreciate the humour, and realize that your very near future holds within it the very real possibility of a very real threesome.

Except it will be you and two plastic cups. Not D cups, just cups. And not quite how I imagined my first ménage-à-trois.

In any case, you wake early the next morning to tell your Hot Wife to keep the kids occupied while you get it on with those sterile plastic cups.

But before you get it on with the sterile plastic cups, you first run to the garage to start the car because you know that once the deed is done you will be in a mad rush to get that plastic cup, another one tarnished by your DNA, to the lab within the hour.

You do your thing and make it to the lab with mere minutes to spare.

Two days later, the call comes in. Congratulations, you are told. Your penis is now free to be used for pleasure purposes only, or something like that.

Contraceptives are now for suckers, and you proceed to go to town, like a glutton at a free roast beef buffet.

Baoumchickabaoumbaoum.

Then two months later your Hot Wife calls you at work on a Friday afternoon to tell you she is late.

Late for what, you reply, you are already home.

No, she says. Late, late.

Ooooooooooh.

She wants you to buy a pregnancy test.

You protest with all your might. You are fixed, afterall, and a pregnancy test would be a waste of money.

Some might call this denial. You call it fiscal responsibility.

By Saturday, you give in, so convinced your Hot Wife is that you do in fact have Super Sperm, as you have now taken to calling your seed.

So she pees on a stick, of the same variety as the one seen here.

One exception. Your stick comes up with a single line.

NOT PREGNANT!

You are much relieved, as is your Hot Wife.

Your family of three kids stays a family of three kids, and your vasectomy doctor and the lab that gave you the o.k. to shag without concern stay unsued!

At least until the next pregnancy scare!

P90X Round One – The Final Verdict

2010-04-01T08:18:00.019-04:00

What do 90 straight days of exercise look like?

On paper, it looks like this:

The blue squares are workouts that were completed over the 90-day cycle. White squares are the workouts missed.

This is my chart. Hot Wife’s looks the same.

In 90-days, we obviously managed to complete every workout, every day. Difficult, but well worth the effort.

If you are wondering how it is that we could be done with April 2-3 on April 1, it is because Hot Wife and I are rewarding ourselves (and celebrating our 5th anniversary and her parents' 35th) with a trip to Las Vegas, departing today. The past three days have therefore consisted of two-a-day workouts in order to wrap the workouts up without a single one missed.

By the numbers, 90 straight days of exercise looks like this:

CHEST
DAY 1 – 42”
DAY 90 – 39.5"

WAIST
DAY 1 – 38”
DAY 90 – 34"

HIPS
DAY 1 – 39”
DAY 90 – 35"

RIGHT THIGH
DAY 1 – 21.5”
DAY 90 – 20"

LEFT THIGH
DAY 1 – 21.75”
DAY 90 – 19.5"

RIGHT BICEP
DAY 1 – 14.25 “
DAY 90 – 14"

LEFT BICEP
DAY 1 – 14”
DAY 90 – 13.5"

WEIGHT
DAY 1 – 180.8 LBS
DAY 90 – 160.0 LBS

TOTAL INCHES LOST – 13.75

TOTAL WEIGHT LOST – 20.8 LBS

But the truest revelation of what 90 straight, solid and sweaty days of exercise looks like comes in pictures.

Editor’s Note: I take no responsibility for whatever emotional trauma the following photographs might induce, though I do apologize in advance for the tub of lard version of Chubbs, circa January 2010, that you are about to see.

Day 1 -- Front

Day 88 -- Front

Day 1 -- Front flex

Day 88 -- Front flex (Trace of abs too!)
Day 1 -- Profile

Day 88 -- Profile

Day 1 -- Front twist
Day 88 -- Front twist
Day 1 -- Back

Day 88 -- Back

Day 1 -- Back flex

Day 88 -- Back flex

Ten to five

2010-03-27T21:10:00.003-04:00

The Daughter Formerly Known as The Latest Addition is a precious, though sometimes petulant, little piece of work.

She is typically first to rise in our home, trotting in to the master bedroom to proclaim that, for her at least, dodotime is over.

This morning she rolled in at 4.50 a.m.

No effin' way, kiddo. Dodotime this morning was not over at 4.50 a.m.

But to simply tell The DFKATLA to go back to bed doesn't do it. She needs to be coaxed. Convinced. Told of the repercussions if she fails to get her sweet little self back to sleep, stat.

So I got up from bed this morning, at 4.50 a.m., scooped my obstinate offspring into my arms, and carried her back to her room, where I noticed that The DFKATLA was wearing sneakers.

At 4.50 a.m.

That was my bargaining chip.

No sleep, no shoes, kid. You choose.

She chose the shoes and the sleep, ultimately giving us another 90 minutes before barging in again, at least this time after sunrise.

And she was still wearing the shoes.

-----------

The Eldest is the opposite.

From time to time, she likes to extend her sleep by every available second.

It's not unusual, when it comes time to wake her in the morning, that she will plead, without even opening her eyes, for an extra five minutes.

She is not yet even four.

The contrast between the two is similar at night, too.

Whereas The DFKATLA will sometimes ask to go to bed, even well before her usual 7 p.m. bedtime, The Eldest tends to take her sweet time falling asleep.

Earlier this week, as Hot Wife and I were turning shortly after 10, I peaked into The Eldest's room, as I do every now and then, just to watch my daughter sleep.

As I stood in the doorway, in the dark and a good dozen feet or so from The Eldest's bed, I was shocked when she spoke out to me --- in a loud library/movie theatre whisper --- as if she had been awake all night.

The Eldest: Daddy, why are you looking at me?
Me, surprised: Um, uh, just because I love you, baby.
The Eldest: Oh, o.k., I love you too daddy.

Speaking of conversations, Hot Wife and I had a short one as we tuned in last week to George Clooney's latest film, Up in the Air.

In the flick, a gentleman gets cold feet on the day of his wedding.

As the scene wraps, Hot Wife turns to me.

Hot Wife: Did you get cold feet when we got married.
Me: No. Long pause. I was too drunk.
Hot Wife: You're an idiot.

It's an original Eldest

2010-03-21T17:24:00.004-04:00

The Eldest is like any other toddler her age. She likes to draw. Loves to draw, actually.

So it was of little surprise that she came to me this morning, clamouring to colour.

Usually she opts for the Princess book, or the Halloween book, or any other book that contains images she can fill in with colour.

But today she wanted the blank booklet, so she could paint upon its pages the masterpieces of a little girl's mind.

So I complied with her request and set her up at the kitchen table with some markers and paper, then turned around to keep reading the news online, oblivious to what was emerging at the tip of my darling daughter's pen.

I should have been paying closer attention, because this was The Eldest's drawing:

My first thought when I saw it? What the fu...? What up with the schlong?

It was only when I watched her take a second stab at it that I realized that she was attempting to trace her hand, but got no further than a testicle-shaped thumb and an erect index finger!

She carried on awhile longer, and I swelled with pride -- that's right, I swelled -- when she finally managed to get over the initial penile 'hump' to end up with a dozen pages worth of perfectly traced little girl hands.

I ripped the dick page out thinking it should go to the garbage, but what the hell, I brought it here instead, thinking of no better place to put this original Eldest piece of work up for auction.

Time is tickin' on

2010-03-18T20:51:00.007-04:00

One of these days, a spare minute will materialize in my life, and with that minute, I will come to this page, to this place, to this sanctuary of the written word, to where I record the occasional ramblings of a sometimes warped or weary mind, and while I'm here I will spread the gospel of Chubbs in a most meaningful and perhaps even magical way.

I will write about all and nothing at once.

Highs and lows.

Share the moments that made me laugh, and the ones that stole my smile and left sadness in its place.

I will write about my kids and my wife; my inspiration for living, the pride of my life.

It could be poetic or beautiful or funny or sad or dark or bright or none of the above.

It could be true or false or weird or wacky, but whatever it is it will come from the heart.

I wish I had more time to devote to what I do here, but time is a luxury which for now is exactly that, a luxury.

Spring has sprung in these here parts, far earlier than ever expected, far from usual for this time of the year.

The golf course is open. The sky is blue and the air is warm.

I would rather be outside than anywhere else, watching The Eldest pedal away with the precision and persistence that only a near four-year old can put to the pavement.

I would rather be outside than anywhere else, teaching The Daughter Formerly Known as The Latest Addition that she too has it in her to make that new princess bicycle of hers move down the street on the strength of her own little legs, with every last ounce of energy she can muster.

I would rather be outside than anywhere else, watching The Final Addition discover life's hidden treasures, in this, the first spring of his life.

I would rather be with my kids and my Hot Wife, doing the things that make it so worthwhile to be a father of three and a husband of one.

You will have to forgive me, friends of Confessions of a Blogophobe, for the rare spare moments that I am afforded these days I am choosing to spend elsewhere, with the ones that I love and whose importance in my life makes them the rightful recipients of my time.

Unsolicited advice

2010-03-09T18:59:00.002-05:00

The best way to get little girls to stop drinking the bath water?

Tell them their little brother peed in it.

The Life and Times of Chubbs --- Part I

2010-02-26T16:58:00.005-05:00

Several weeks ago, I invited you, the readership, to ask me anything. It was a little exercise designed to a) give me something to write about and b) give you some insight into who I am and what makes me tick.

That a 1,500-word post emerged from that initial invitation tells me that I succeeded on both counts.

Still, much mystery remains in the telling of my story, with much left to recount in the life and times of Chubbs.

So today, I bring you Part One in a series I will call, appropriately enough, The Life and Times of Chubbs.

What follows are excerpts of my life, pulled together under the backdrop of the modern technological marvel that is Google Maps’ Street View.

Always I have known of the application, but never did I realize the full extent to which it could allow me to travel deep into the history of my life, practically right into the various living rooms in which I grew up.

So for you, friends of Confessions of a Blogophobe, I took a journey through time and chronicled the details.

The result?

A collection of posts about the old haunts of my youth, and the moments that came to mind in vivid detail when I returned, if only in the metaphorical sense, to the cities, the towns and even the houses that I have called home over the years.

Enjoy.

***************

I was born overseas, to military parents of modest means, the second child in a family of two kids. My time in Europe, to the best of my recollections, was quick.

I was no older than two when we returned to Canada, to the place where my earliest memories of life find root.

It seemed a natural starting point, in my Google Maps voyage, to saunter down to the first military base that I can remember, a place which, upon further review, was idyllic, perfect, the very embodiment of a community... a place where you knew your neighbours and your neighbours had no qualms about telling your parents that you were up to no good.

At least that’s how I remember it (or choose to remember it, anyway).

Life on Canadian soil, for me, began in the slightly obscured duplex (on base known as a PMQ) just beyond the blue rig. At least I think that’s the one.

Memories of living in that house are hazy and clear all at once. Some moments of particular magnitude do come to mind as I reminisce about those early days of my life.

It was there, in that backyard, that I learned to skate; I have slight recollections of a backyard rink in the wintertime. I also vividly recall crying my eyes out in the living room of that old house, the product of frozen toes slowly coming back to life after a hard evening of chasing a puck across our iced-over backyard.

I also remember getting into a whole heap of trouble one spring, when against Mom’s wishes I went traipsing through the neighbour’s wet and muddy yard, only to get caught nearly knee-deep in the muck. Thankfully, Mom pulled me out and carried me home, though I recall my rubber boots being left behind, so stuck they were in the thick remnants of that spring’s thaw.

In that home’s front yard, I once crashed through the ice jumping in a frozen ditch, probably after I had been told to steer clear of it. Nothing much to worry about at my present size, but at maybe five-years old, 30-pounds at most, the water was deep enough to drown in, and if not, then at least cold enough to freeze in. Lucky for me, someone quickly came to my rescue, again, though the details are fuzzy at best.

On the front porch, I once stuck my tongue to the iron railing. On a cold winter’s day. I pulled it off just in time, though not before I left at least some DNA behind. The wounds on my tongue faded long ago, but the memory is still clear. Some lessons we learn the hard way.

I remember playing floor hockey in the basement, trying to emulate my goaltender father by reaching my minuscule hands into his giant blocker and trapper. And I remember putting what I thought was an old-school goalie mask over my face, oblivious to why no straps would hold it in place. Years later it would occur to me that what I thought was my goaltender father’s mask was in fact my goaltender father’s jock strap.

Like my tongue on the frozen railing, I never made the jock-sniffing mistake again.

In the foreground of the picture, you see a chain-link fence. It was there, as a daring and devilish youngster not much older than I was when I went through the ice, that I got stuck, trying to jump the fence like the older kids I was trying to impress.

Heartless bastards left me hanging, wailing away.

Eventually, my screams drew the attention of a small speck of a girl who caught my eye as she pranced, seemingly a million miles away, through our yard. Much to my relief, my sister, the Mother-of-Many, came to save the day.

To the right, the red brick building at one time was a school, my school, where I remember stealing some small ceramic animal figurines from my Junior Kindergarten class. When I was found out (because Moms have a way of finding all this stuff out), I was made to return the small ceramic animal figurines to their rightful habitat in the classroom. What a long and dreadful walk to school that was.

I remember birthday parties, and getting a G.I. Joe Big Wheel as a gift one year.

I remember playing t-ball on the baseball diamond that stood only steps away from our backyard.

I remember community barbecue’s, and still today can smell the charcoal burning on a hot summer’s day.

I remember Sunday nights, biking down to the Dairy Queen at the bottom of the hill, for an ice cream cone before bed.

It’s good that I remember because the physical evidence of life on that military base will soon exist only in the mind or in photograph, though not necessarily by way of Google Maps Street View. The application could take me no closer to my old neighbourhood than I got in the above picture.

The property is still owned by the Department of National Defence, and for obvious reasons it’s bad for business to have an Internet giant rolling through town taking 360-degree panoramic views of a military base.

Still, it’s not like there is much to see there now anyway.

The base was decommissioned in the 90’s and officially closed last summer. Although I drive by the base every day on my way home from work, chain link barriers now block all entrances.

The homes, so carefully maintained and manicured by all who resided there through the years, stand boarded up and shuttered, to keep the squatters away.

Slowly, Mother Nature is reacquiring what is rightfully hers, in a desolate and derelict part of town that once was a thriving neighbourhood of military brats like me.

The arena, where I remember my father taking me for early morning skates, pushing a bulky helmet down so low over my wool toque that I could barely see a step in front of me, was torn down years ago.

Same for the indoor pool where I learned to swim and the corner store where it could take me ages to decide how to spend 50 cents.

I close my eyes and even a quarter-century later can still see myself in those two places.

In the water, desperately clinging to the edge, madly kicking my feet in a valiant effort to stay afloat. At the store, my nose pressed closely to the candy window, a dusty, wooden floor beneath my feet, finally settling on what I always settled on, a package of bottlecaps and coca-cola flavoured gummies.

The outdoor pool where we spent our summer afternoons was buried long ago.

The baseball diamonds are overgrown, with four-foot high weeds swallowing the infield.

All physical ties to the early years of my life on that military base are fading.

And while the realization saddens me, I’m happy to have spent the past few days reminiscing about my family’s life there.

In retrospect, there was no better place to make my first memories, even if the evidence of that life is preserved in memory alone.

P90X – What is the program?

2010-02-23T12:45:00.005-05:00

Confessions of a Blogophobe reader Michele revealed recently that she and hubby Kirby are considering jumping on the P90X bandwagon, and through the wondrous world that is the blogosphere, sought my counsel on how Hot Wife and I manage to get it done.

Initially, I began a retort in the comments section, but thought better of continuing when I realized I had far too much to say for such a small place. Also, because some out there insist that I should be writing more often (yes you, Hot Wife’s Sis!!), I figured why not add to my numbers with an actual P90X post, so here it is.

Before I address Michele’s questions, let me first take you through the P90X workout regimen, with this proviso on the front end: It is intense.

Of course, a 90-day commitment to anything is intense, but it is doubly so when it is a commitment to move your ass with the alarming regularity that P90X requires.

The basic premise of the program rests on the ideals of good fitness and healthy living, really a combination of exercise and nutrition that ultimately leads to great gains in the belly-off department.

At least thus far it has proven so for me.

We begin with a baseline test to a) determine if we are fit enough to partake in the program and b) to give us something against which to measure progress when the 90 days are up.

The test is really quite simple: reach maximum capacity on a selection of pre-determined exercises (pull-ups, vertical leaps, push-ups, toe touches, wall squats, bicep curls) then record your maximum heart rate after engaging in jumping jacks for two minutes. For each exercise, the program sets a minimum number of reps that men and women should be able to do in order to consider themselves fit enough to survive P90X.

Hot Wife and I passed, much to our chagrin!

Three days a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) consist of resistance training, to build muscle in the chest, back, shoulders, arms and legs.

Each workout is roughly an hour long, though built-in to the hour are warm-up and cool-down exercises that usually eat up a combined 12 to 15 minutes. At the end of each of these workouts comes, arguably, the worst part of the entire P90X program – Ab Ripper X, or 16 minutes of torturous abdominal torment that stops for less than eight seconds between exercises.

Ab Ripper X is constant movement and constant burn, but also, constant progress. Seven weeks in, I can feel it getting easier every time.

The other three days of the week are what we can consider the cardio component of the program, divided equally between Plyometrics on Tuesday, Yoga on Thursday, and Kenpo kickboxing on Saturday.

To put it simply, plyometrics equals death. It is an hour of intense jump training, during which the warm-up alone will leave you winded. But it’s tough to argue with the results.

Yoga, to me, has been a revelation. I had never before contemplated doing Yoga, much less an hour-and-a-half of it at a time, but even since Day One I have thoroughly enjoyed it. And like the rest of P90X, the Yoga workout is intense and I would even say integral to the program’s overall success.

Our final workout of the week comes on Saturday, when we engage in some Kenpo Kickboxing... an enjoyable bit of cardio if you can keep up with all the punch-kick combinations.

Weeks One through Three, Five through Seven and Nine through Twelve combine resistance and cardio training.

Weeks Four, Eight and Thirteen are recovery weeks, during which the accent is placed mostly on cardio routines, with a special emphasis on working out the body’s core muscles.

So how do we do it?

First, it helps that Hot Wife and I are doing it together. I imagine it would be difficult for her to want to ‘bring it’ every day if I was the couch potato type. I’m not, nor is she.

Hot Wife, because she is still on maternity leave, usually gets her workout in during the day. Mine typically comes after 7 p.m., once the babies are bathed and fed and down for the count.

As for the time commitment itself, to some over an hour a day might seem extreme. And yes, it can be.

But what else would I be doing were I not exercising from 7.30 to 9ish every night? I would be watching TV. All I have sacrificed since I began the program is watching my shows in real time.

And what is the secret to success?

Planning.

Every Sunday, Hot Wife and I prepare a meal plan for the week and do groceries accordingly. It’s much easier to eat well when all the ingredients for good, healthy meals are within reach in the house.

We also each have a 13-week exercise chart on the fridge, with each day’s workout planned in advance. When we’re done, we highlight the workout on the chart. Nothing keeps us motivated as well as those charts on the fridge. Neither of us wants white squares (which would mean a missed workout), so we strive to exercise every day. It keeps us accountable to ourselves, to each other and to the program.

So far, we have not missed a workout in 50 days, and therefore have no white squares on the calendar.

Of course, it also takes discipline.

Eating well is hard, especially with pot luck and pizza lunches at the office, or the occasional invitation to dinner with friends on a Saturday night.

I gave up beer for the first month of the program (and survived), and overall have averaged less than one alcoholic drink a week.

I have two pieces of gum for desert, just to quell my cravings for sugar.

Like anything else in life, succeeding at P90X is just a matter of perspective.

How hard is it to exercise for one hour, daily, when really, an hour is only one-twentyfourth of an entire day?

How hard is it to exercise for 90 days, when really, 90 days is only one quarter of a year.

I made my commitment to the program because I wanted to get fit, but also because I wanted to prove to myself that I could see it through to the end. I also did it because I don’t recall ever seeing abs on this body of mine, and am intrigued by the possibility.

Find the reason why you want to do it, but most importantly, find the reason why you will keep pushing play day after day. Even on a day when you don’t feel up to it, a workout you struggle through is better than no workout at all.

Seven weeks ago, when we began P90X, I tipped the scale at 180.8 lbs. Seven weeks later, I am at 168. I’m not telling you this to toot my own horn, but instead to prove that P90X works, and that it’s worth the effort.

Yes, it’s intense.

Yes, it’s a hard commitment.

But the rewards (even only seven weeks in) so outweigh the burden, that for us anyway, the program has already become a natural part of our day.

So all I can tell you, Michele and Kirby (and all others who might be contemplating giving P90X a try) is to subscribe to the program creator’s mantra:

Decide. Commit. Succeed.

Just to give you a taste, here is a look at the plyometric workout

(no, that's not me in the video!)

Potpourri

2010-02-09T09:21:00.006-05:00

In response to my previous posting, the anniversary post, thanks to all -- the old and the new -- for your kind wishes.

I should have replied to your kindness in the comments section, but thought I should do it here instead, and add to that a warning as well.

Seems the spammers have found me online, choosing what I think is the oddest of locations (my comments section) to peddle whatever it is they are selling. In any case, I suggest that you not click on the ...... link below the Chinese spammy comment under my last post unless you're sitting at your home computer.

Under no circumstances should you do as I did, and click it from work, lest viewing inappropriate pictures of youngish Asian women be considered an acceptable use of the Internet on your employer's time and dime! Never before, from my very open concept cubicle, have I had to click my browser's Back button so fast or furiously!

***********

I'm on Day 37 of my quest to go from one shape (round) to another shape (ripped), and not even the misery of a dislocated shoulder has stopped me. Neither Hot Wife nor I have yet to miss a workout, and the results are starting to show.

I am ten pounds down, Hot Wife nine, both of us lighter on our feet and looser in the pants.

So far along the way my resolve to eat well has been tested, like the time early on in the program when our office threw a thank you lunch for those of us who contributed to our Agency's response to the earthquake in Haiti. I walked into the boardroom and saw a dozen boxes of pizza piled high on the table.

I walked out and opted to buy a healthier alternative at the deli instead.

Then again at work some of us were summoned to a special event (as seat-fillers, more than anything), and wooed with cake when we got there.

I passed.

Still, that's not to say I haven't cracked, because last weekend I did. Chips, chocolate, wine, garlic bread, bacon -- BACON!!! I had them all, and all were unequivocally delish.

But I'm back on the wagon, and with only 55 days to go, I am still bringing it.

***********

On the way to the cake-serving ceremony I mentioned above, I piled into the elevator with a dozen or so others, all bound for the same place.

Somewhat wedged into the elevator's front corner, I opted to let all others out when the doors finally opened, before following their lead. Seemed to me a better way to proceed than to just push myself in front of everyone so I could get out first.

In any case, most everyone obliged when I signalled for them to go ahead, except when only two of us remained in the elevator and the woman at my side informed me that she was a feminist and therefore would not acquiesce to my gesture of good will.

Alrighty then.

I wasn't being chivalrous ma'am, just polite.

***********

I am at the grocery store, standing in the junk food aisle looking enviously upon a whole bunch of chocolate that I should not eat, seeking salvation in one of those 100 calorie Dairy Milk Thins that will appease my craving, when I sense a fellow shopper walking just behind me.

He is an older gentlemen, way older, just shuffling his way down the aisle, when all of a sudden he stops his cart not too far from my proximity, and proceeds to do the unthinkable.

From the corner of my eye, I am certain that I see him gingerly lift his right heel off the ground, perhaps or probably to facilitate the passage of what comes next --- a succession of impossible-to-miss farts, loud enough to make it known, to me anyway, that the boundaries of normal social decency appear not to apply to this gentlemen, which we'll attribute to his obvious advanced age and not necessarily to the I am above the rules mentality that afflicts far too many in today's society.

Still, dude just up and let one rip right in the middle of the friggin' grocery store, with my lucky self within smelling distance. And to top it all off, there were no 100 calorie Dairy Milk Thins to be found, so all I got from my trip to the store was farted on. Yay.

Two

2010-01-29T15:18:00.001-05:00

Today is an anniversary.

Not mine and Hot Wife’s.

Not a celebration of a birthday.

No candles to be blown out.

No presents to give.

No Happy Birthday to sing.

Still, today is an anniversary.

Not of a moment of magnitude in the history of mankind.

Not of a happening that many will remember.

Not of a point of reference for a victory or defeat.

Still, today is an anniversary.

Not of sad times, but of a happy occurrence.

Not of a milestone that will mean much to many, except maybe only to me.

Not of anything of particularly high note.

Still, today is an anniversary.

Today is the 2nd anniversary of my becoming one of those people, the kind who put it all out there in written word, for the world (or at least a dozen dedicated followers) to read.

Today is the 2nd anniversary of my becoming a blogger.

By human terms, Confessions of a Blogophobe is still merely an infant, just now rounding the corner into toddlerhood.

But measured in Blog terms, mine is a page that has grown into its own, quickly sprouting through the phases of life to become a seasoned veteran of the blogging scene.

Two years it has taken to get from one post to one-thirty-four.

Two years it has taken to get relevant and stay there.

Two years of highs and lows and emotions that fall to all points in between.

Two years I have spent, back-and-forthing to this page, eager to share a thought, excited to read a comment.

Never did I think when I set out down this path that two years later still I would be at it.

Never did I believe that I would have the stomach, the stamina or the stories to keep coming back, day-after-day, week-after-week, month-after-month, and now, year-after-year, to share with you, the readership, whatever it is that my little scatterbrained head was contemplating.

And yet here I am, two years later, not necessarily going strong, but averaging, at least, more than a post a week.

Not bad.

Not great, for sure, but still nothing to sneeze at.

I’m happy with how far I’ve come as a writer over the past two years, happier still that my words keep resonating with you, the readers.

Every post I have written since August 1, 2008, has been commented on. That means that of the 91 times I have added to C-o-a-B since then, 91 times you have paid me a visit, and at least 91 times you have paid me the ultimate compliment by commenting on my writing.

It gets no better than that.

So today, on the occasion of this 2nd anniversary, let me thank you once again, as I’ve done from time to time over the years, for your continued patronage of this very page.

I write because I want to get better at what I do for a living. But I write here, at Confessions of a Blogophobe, because I get few greater kicks than knowing that somewhere out there, someone clamours for my words.

Cheers to all. Here's to C-o-a-B.

Unequivocally quizzical questions, Vol. II

2010-01-27T08:36:00.002-05:00

For Volume I, click here.

Ask, and ye shall receive.

Caught with little content just over a week ago now, I invited all to ask me anything. All did not, but some of you did.

So here, in the order in which the questions were asked, are the answers.

**********************

Michele from Minnesota asks: How did you meet your Hot Wife?

The story of mine and Hot Wife’s first encounter is a beautiful one. You know those ads in the classified section of most newspapers, the ones advertising everything from a sensual massage to some less-than-PG sweet talking?

Hot Wife and I did not meet that way.

Nor is she a Russian mail-order bride, just to be clear.

Truth be told, our relationship, marriage, children and all-round life together we owe to a mutual friend of ours who thought, way back in the spring of 2003, that the two of us would probably hit it off were she to set us up on a blind date.

Athletic yet feminine, is how our mutual friend described Hot Wife to me. And she was right.

I had an inkling that it would work out when Hot Wife’s only condition for our first date was that wherever we went, whatever we did, we had to remain within view of a TV so we could cheer on the hometown Senators as they fought the Flyers in first round Stanley Cup playoff action.

She may not have had me right at hello, but she pretty much sealed the deal at hockey!

In part one of a two-part question, Kirby, also from Minnesota, asks: How does a guy score a wife way out of his league?

The simple answer, in my case anyway, is this – have a trustworthy mutual friend with good taste and sweet juxtaposition skills (athletic yet feminine, yo!) set you up with a hot babe who loves hockey.

Since we are talking hockey, let’s address Part II of Kirby’s question: Which NHL player does your game most resemble?

On the short-lived Xpertek Hockey News, I once described myself and my game like this:

BIO – A play-making centre who can put the odd puck in the net, Chubbs is an unselfish player who always looks to dish first and shoot second. He plays this way out of necessity – Chubbs’ slapshot is usually a two-hopper and his wrist shot looks a lot like the Mighty Duck knuckle puck. He talks too much on the ice, and were it not for the cage he wears to protect his one good eye and his $3,000 teeth, Chubbs probably would have had his face smashed in by now.

NHL comparable (between whistles) – Doug Weight
NHL comparable (after the whistle) – Sean Avery

Shammy from close to home asks: What is your favourite food? What is your biggest fear? Who are your favourite actor and band?

First, the food. Culinary delight is not exactly my thing, and really, I would hardly consider myself a connoisseur of all things cuisine.

I am not much more than a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy. To me, nothing beats a well-done barbecued pepper steak with a side Caesar salad, garlic bread, almond green beans and baked potato topped with melting cheddar cheese and bacon bits, all washed down with a cold Bud Light, and all enjoyed outdoors on a hot summer’s night.

Mmmm, good.

But just in case the P90X guy is reading this, let me also say that the best part of my day (at work, anyway) comes at 10.30 a.m. when I gulp down my protein smoothie, a concoction of chocolate protein powder, skim milk, banana, strawberry and ice. It’s just plain delish.

As for my biggest fear...

In just about two months, Shammy, when you and that fine lad of a husband of yours, Red Firebush, first lay eyes then hands on that sweet little baby you are expecting, you will at that very moment, fall in love. No more than a nanosecond later you will immediately understand, and quite likely share, my biggest fear – to lose a child.

Coming a close second on my list of fears, being touched by ooey, gooey gross and clammy human feet. Ew.

Favourite actor, well now, that one is easy. It’s Vince, the Shamwow / Slap Chop guy. Nobody but an A-grade actor can possibly be that enamoured with that rag sponge, even if it can suck up ‘cola’ from under a rug. Also, ‘You’re gonna love my nuts’ from the Slap Chop ad is easily the single greatest line ever uttered in modern infomercial history.

As for my favourite band, I don’t discriminate. I’m a fan of any and all, as long as the beat is good. Bon Jovi, Great Big Sea, Michael Jackson... I tap my foot, and dare I say sing along, to all of them.

From Ginger, also from close to home, comes this query: How come you don’t write more often? Besides three kids and P90X, what else is going on.

The answer is in the question, my friend.

I don’t write more often precisely because I have three kids and also don’t want to break from what so far has been a stellar start to my P90X quest to get in shape. Time is at a premium these days, and sadly C-o-a-B can’t come first when there are baths to be given, abs to crunch, babies to feed, push-ups to pump out, dance lessons to go to, toy rooms to clean up, and life in general to live. Still, I get here enough, and could probably point you to a few other blogs that aren’t getting quite as much attention as they should be (you know who you are...)

Finally, Hot Wife’s Sis on the Island of Aloha, asks: If you had to do it all over again, what would you change and what would you keep the same?

I would keep my Hot Wife, my kids, my family, my friends. Everything else, I think, is up for re-examination.

If I could go back 15 years or so, I would have started exercising like a mad-man then, so I wouldn’t have to make up for it now. Seems to me that a washboard stomach would be much easier to find on a belly that starts out flat rather than on one that has been the recipient of too much junk over too many years!

But really, I try to live without regrets.

I can’t change the course I took, so it does me little to dwell on what I should / could have done. Still, I will humour you and say that I wish I had paid more attention in school; I could have done much better than I did.

I wish I had discovered years ago that I enjoy all aspects of home improvement. The outcome of that discovery probably would have launched me down a completely different path, career-wise. I'm learning now that real estate has become an area of interest for me, one that I wish I could make a career out of. The uncertainty of leaving behind a stable job and good income, not to mention the fact that daycare for three costs two arms and a half-dozen legs, makes it impossible for me to make such a bold change, though I do hold out hope that some day I will manage to flip a house and make good money on it.

If I could do it all over again, I probably would not be in such a rush to grow up. I bought my first house at 23, and damn was I proud. I already had been gainfully employed for three years at that point, and had no reason to think it wasn't the right thing to do at the time. Actually, I still think it was the right thing to do.

Still, I regret that after Hot Wife and I got married, we didn't sell the house, quit our jobs for six months or more, and take some time to live a little before letting the reality of life actually set in. I daydream from time to time about what it would have been like to just disconnect for awhile. Go to Europe. Find a secluded ocean-front paradise -- a la Dicaprio in The Beach -- and enjoy the liberty of living without responsibility for how ever long we could hack it.

Here, please don't misinterpret me.

I don't regret for a second that nine months and five days after we got married we added The Eldest to the family. My children are my life and I have no qualms with the way they arrived. I just wish, at times, that we had taken advantage of our situation when we had only ourselves to look out for. Those plans are now on hold for at least another couple of decades.

Oh yeah, and if I could do it all over again, I would also go back to the early 90's and purchase all the domain names that I could -- playboy.com, microsoft.com, cnn.com and any others I can't think of now -- then sell them back to their rightful proprietors for a tidy profit.

Then I could do the real estate thing!

************

There it is folks.

In a nutshell, the answers to your questions. If you think of any others, please keep them coming.

The answers are coming

2010-01-20T20:40:00.003-05:00

Folks, thank you kindly for your enquiries. I purposely let my last post sit for a bit, hoping to reign in as many questions as possible.

All of you have given me pause to think, and I assure you that before long each question will be answered here.

For now, time just simply is not a luxury that I have within my grasp. May that little nugget of information sit with the asker of question four, my good friend Ginger.

Nearly three full weeks into P90X, Hot Wife and I have not yet wavered and are still going strong; we are 17 for 17 in the workout department, although each one has demanded at least 1h15 of commitment every night -- thus the slow and sporadic posts here.

But it's worth it.

Between the two of us, Hot Wife and I are down a combined 13 pounds in just over two weeks. A fair start that leaves us optimistic for what lies ahead.

As always, I appreciate that you keep checking in here... I will be back soon with your answers.

Still bringing it.

Ironically yours,

Chubbs.

Ask me anything

2010-01-15T23:51:00.003-05:00

If you read Confessions of a Blogophobe with any kind of regularity, chances are you know me.

Maybe we grew up together.

Maybe you raised me.

Maybe you carried and delivered my children.

Maybe you are related to someone who carried and delivered my children.

Maybe you wish you had carried and delivered my children.

Who knows?

Even those of you whom I have neither ever met nor ever even spoken to still know me on some level, for having read from time to time the tantalizing tidbits of my reality that I choose to share with you here.

A blogger is a public figure, even from behind the veil of a nickname that soon will not apply, so to some degree it’s natural that anyone who reads me would think they know me.

I write about my life, the people with whom I share my life, the things that amuse, madden and sadden me.

I keep it as real as I want it to be.

Still, there is probably (I hope), much more to me than could ever be unveiled here, on a page that I confess I never thought would still be visited (by me or anyone else) nearly two years after its triumphant birth into the blogosphere.

So I’m opening myself up, friends of C-o-a-B, to your enquiries.

Go ahead, ask me anything.

Welcome 2010. I’m bringing it.

2010-01-06T18:08:00.001-05:00

Another year over, and a new one just begun – so goes the old Lennon jingle, that timeless reflection on time gone by, on time to come, on where we were, where we’re going, what we’re up to, what we hope for.

It was a good 2009 in the Chubbs and Hot Wife household, the highlight of which, obviously, would be the addition of our Final Addition, a beautiful (and hefty) baby boy who arrived to a soundtrack of squeals and screams, just a shade past midnight on a hot summer’s eve.

Nothing last year will top that moment, which so outdistances all other oh-nine occurrences that it is barely worth a bother to even try finding a runner-up.

There is none.

The familial circle is complete, with confirmation coming early next month that indeed, November’s ties were properly severed and this manufacturer can manufacture no longer. Never have I looked so forward to getting it on with a sterile plastic cup!

As far as 2010 goes (and to be clear, that’s twenty-ten, not two-thousand and ten), we wait with baited breath for whatever the new year and new decade might bring.

As is customary, January One came without pronouncement, in these parts anyway, of any resolutions, unless we can legitimately count growing my hair long as one.

It has traditionally not been my style to set myself up with bold declarations of personal growth.

Until now, that is.

For the coming year, Hot Wife and I have endeavoured to keep up with a lifestyle that always we have pursued, which is to be active. Never have we been strangers to the gym. Neither of us fears the treadmill nor the weights, though since my bubble burst we’ve approached the exercise ball with both caution and concern. I kid, sort of.

Still, despite my best efforts, I plateau-ed in 2009, after years of doing the same old thing – weights, treadmill, weights, treadmill, weights, treadmill.

It’s time for a change, and that change is manifesting itself in the form of P90X, a ridiculously intense and difficult 90-day commitment to an exercise program that really ups the ante.

And in the interest of keeping that commitment, I’m laying it all on the line here, in black and white for all to see. My 2010 resolution is to follow the program by eating and exercising well, in the hopes that by April I will have shed the last of the pounds that earned me the nickname Chubbs early in the 00’s.

I know it will be difficult. I know there will be days when I will struggle to put in a solid 75-minute effort.

But I hope that sharing my resolution here will help push me through the tougher days.

It will keep me focused. And it will keep me honest.

Welcome 2010. I’m bringing it.

Hiccup

2009-12-31T23:20:00.002-05:00

That would be me, hiccupping, just short of twelve a.m., January One, New Year's Day.

Too much wine has been drink, drank, drunk by now, and still i am primed for another glass. a great night it has been with The Moustache, The Banker and all others in our proximity. i will say, however, that the keyboard cvrom wchich i type is crap, especially in the drak... so i'll wrap it up here by wishin all who lurk here a wondrous and merry 2010. may peace and prosperity andn good health and good wishes find you without problem in the new decade. \\

all the best rom this air blogger. shit, my eph don\'t work no more!!

happy new year.

Twas the night before Christmas – v. 2009

2009-12-17T19:09:00.003-05:00

Back by popular demand (o.k., nobody asked but I did it anyway), my take on the classic Clement Clarke Moore poem,
The Night Before Christmas...

A new Confessions of a Blogophobe holiday tradition.

******************

Twas the night before Christmas, when in the Chubbs-Hot Wife house
The laptop was dormant – screen, keyboard and mouse.
CoaB visitors, however, stood awake and aware,
In hopes that a new post soon would be there.

With the children up nestled all snug in their beds,
Hot Wife was near sleep when she looked at my head.
With a quizzical glance, she asked ‘what’s with the hat?’
To which I replied ‘this is my thinking cap.’

At the launch of those words, to my brain an idea,
So I sprang from the bed, told Hot Wife ‘I’ll see ya’.
Away to the laptop I flew like a flash,
Tore open its top, then typed dotcom backslash.

The glow from the screen cast me in shades of green-blue
As the colours of CoaB, they came into view.
Then, what to my wandering eyes should appear,
But a comment below my last post of the year.

We need us a story, come on Chubbs now quick,
It was signed by anonymous, just an X to that quip.
Without knowing its source, I thought oh what a shame,
So I whistled, and shouted CoaB readers by name!

"Now Ginger! now, Shammy! now, Mother of Men!
On, Kirby! Jennine, and the Hawaiian!
Who’s prodding me so, I wondered aloud,
While silently pleased that CoaB had such a crowd.

In response to the prod, I began my retort,
With much to announce, and more to report.
So down to the keyboard, all my fingers flew,
And from a blank page emerged, a Christmas message to you.

Tis’ the season of joy, it’s finally here,
A time to soak up good tidings and cheer.
And although I am guilty, of indulging with might,
I still pledge to you, that I’ll not drink and write.

But should my intentions, as good as they be,
Get muddled from drink, maybe one, two or three.
My thoughts for the season, here they will find you,
Even if those said thoughts, are about my kids’ poo.

My message went on, towards its apex,
As I fought back the urge to talk about sex.
But since no one should know, if I’m shaven or hairy,
I shifted the message towards January.

For the year twenty-ten, to all many wishes,
First and foremost, that you not sleep with the fishes.
What a shame it would be, if you went astray,
For CoaB can’t afford, to lose readers that way.

All the year through, may you find what you want,
And may always at CoaB, you find readable font.
May your highs be so high, that always it shows,
And may you escape the lowest of lows.

Soon as it began, the note met its end,
With one final thank you to family and friends.
And that’s when I noticed, as I exited CoaB,
That my wiener was hanging right out of my robe.

So I sprang to my feet, like a spry man of thirty
And carefully wrapped, my little birdie.
And then I exclaimed, as it dove out of sight,
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!

The Century Club

2009-12-04T20:52:00.017-05:00

Nobody does ceremony like the Montreal Canadiens.

Tonight, as the Habs bring to a close their 100th anniversary celebrations, the tradition, the heritage, the lore of what is, without question, the most renowned and celebrated franchise in National Hockey League history, has come to life in vivid, living colour on Bell Centre ice.

They skate before an adoring crowd, the legends do, stride for stride as memorable as always they were, though far slower than when last they were winning Stanley Cups and otherwise thrilling the masses, the fans, the families that have passed along their love for all things Sainte Flanelle from generation to generation like a cherished family heirloom.

Lafleur, Cournoyer, Dryden -- the heroes I am too young to have seen play, yet recognize without a second look the moment their faces flash across the screen.

Carbonneau, Richer, Roy -- the faces I remember from the first times I sat transfixed on a Saturday night, mesmerized by the size and skill of the professional players I wished I would one day become.

In the booth, the squeakily velvety voice of one Dick Irvin Jr., a man of a near-80 years who looks not a minute older than he did two-plus decades ago when first his intonations caught my ear, his descriptions so perfect, so pure, that even with eyes closed I could still see the play, as if I too held a seat high above the frozen surface, perched like a pundit up there on press row.

The red carpet, on this night reserved for the who's who of Montreal Canadiens history, stretches to centre ice, at once a path of sure footing for the eldest of alumni, at once a roadway that takes us on a journey through time.

They raise to the rafters the numbers of Montreal's oldest living legends, Emile Bouchard's Number Three, Elmer Lach's Sixteen, two men who never I saw play, two men who barely I have ever even heard of, and misty-eyed I am as the two grizzled graybeards wilt under the weight of an appreciative crowd's roar.

The past and the present then converge one final time, a confluence of red and white jerseys to be preserved forever in photograph, combining to tell the historical story of hockey's most famous, most fabled franchise.

To you from failing hands we throw the torch.
Be yours to hold it high.

Vivement le Bleu, Blanc, Rouge du Canadien de Montréal.
Vivement Les Glorieux.

Testing, Testing, One, Two, Three

2009-11-24T20:33:00.008-05:00

Tap, tap, tap.

Is this thing on?

That's me, milking the mic for a moment, wondering if still a single soul is venturing to what was formerly the widely-read(?) and highly-acclaimed(?) Confessions of a Blogophobe.

I've let the ink go dry on this here page for a near-month now, accidentally on purpose to be truthful, plagued by a devilish desire to do anything but write.

Sad really, that I would let waste away my perch, my soapbox, my stage, my spot, at a time of great growth within the readership no less (Kirby's, thanks be to you!), but disinterest got the better of me.

Mea culpa.

Truth be told, I'm tired.

The Final Addition has been acting up of late, still suffering from whatever it is that has ailed him since the mid-summer moment when he did what never I would do, which is to decline the offering of Hot Wife's bosom.

The boy didn't take to the milk and has taken to no other in fact, save for the medically prescribed formula that up until recently made it possible for him to eat, drink and be merry without fussing up a storm. All. Night. Long.

Still, since birth he's been eating at an every-three-hours clip, leaving Hot Wife and I to wonder when or if we'll ever encounter a full night's sleep again.

To make matters worse, The Daughter Formerly Known as The Latest Addition has developed her own maddening affinity for screaming the night away, waking up at all hours to let us know that dodo-time is over.

Midnight. Fini dodo, she screams and yells and taunts, from the bedroom, the hallway, from within an inch of my nose.

2 a.m. Fiiiiniiiii doooodooooo, she screams and yells and taunts, her conviction growing with every grunt and groan.

On and on and on it went for a few nights in a row recently, a distinctly difficult development as it kept happening in between the boy's feedings, until finally Hot Wife had enough and saddled our precious little demon-child (I kid, I kid) back in the playpen as punishment.

The DFKATLA thought it was a camp-out and saw it as a reward.

Fail on our part, but at least she's not emerging from her room at all hours to proclaim that what they say is really true and there is, in fact, no rest for the wicked, or weary, or whatever it is they call them.

I also got my sack snipped since last I posted on these pages, as pleasant an experience as I've ever had with my knickers at my ankles.

Right.

All I kept thinking as Dr. Death to Reproduction persuaded me to drop my drawers was that the least he could have done was buy me dinner first. Does it make me easy that I gave in without a fight?

Eight minutes later, Bob Barker would be proud to know that I was neutered, and according to the handy vasectomy pamphlet, unlikely to ever hump anyone's leg under the kitchen table again.

A sad development for my weapon of mass production, but for our dinner guests a pleasant reprieve from a few awkward moments.

In a nutshell, these would be a few of the reasons that have kept me from the keyboard for so long.

I make no promises to be back again tomorrow, but know this, the tens of you still reading this page, rather than invest my time in sleep this evening, I've invested it here instead.

That's saying something. What, exactly, I don't know.

Maybe it will come to me in a minute.

In bed.

Interactive storytelling, Volume II

2009-11-04T20:28:00.004-05:00

Ten months have passed since last we engaged in some interactive storytelling where you, the readers, push the tale in whatever direction you wish it to go.

As I did in the wildly successful story of Shartsy’s misadventures, I will set the scene before letting the readership author the story’s denouement, jumping in with my own two cents along the way of course.

I count on you to keep this ball rolling in the comments section.

**********

“For the last time, look at me!”

Scarlet was growing impatient with her younger brother’s disinterest in her mastery of the moonwalk.

“Watch me again,” she said, annoyed.

With Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean blaring in the background, Scarlet jumped up onto the family room’s parquet wood floor, a relic of 1980’s decor gone wrong if ever there was one, and proceeded to glide her way across the room with all the aplomb of a wounded worm limping across a ball of crumpled sandpaper.

It was not pretty.

She was walking backwards, Scarlett was, in a disjointed and robotic attempt to imitate the smooth, suave style that was the Michael Jackson trademark, white glove notwithstanding.

“You’ll see, Rico,” she said, talking to her disinterested younger brother, “when I get to my audition, my moonwalk will blow the judges away.”

Rico rolled his eyes.

He had grown immune to his sister’s delusions, to her grand aspirations of stardom, to her constant referrals to herself as Scarlet the Starlet.

She had no talent.

Rico knew it. Their parents knew it. Even their pets knew it. Whenever Scarlet would launch into one of her impromptu song-and-dance routines, it was always a treat to see which of Speedy, the three-legged turtle, or Blackie, the albino rat, could evacuate the premises first.

As for Scarlet, she was just clueless. But what she lacked in raw ability she more than made up for in the self-confidence department. In her mind, Scarlet the Starlet was destined to go down as one of Hollywood’s all-time greats.

“You’re dumb,” Rico said. “You’re auditioning for American Idol and you think the moonwalk is going to get you on the show?”

“No, the moonwalk is what will seal the deal. I’m not just a singer, Rico. I’m a performer. And as a performer, I intend to show those judges that Scarlet the Starlet is the TP.”

“You’re the toilet paper?”

“No, silly, the total package. Scarlet the Starlet is the total package.”

“Whatever, your moonwalk still sucks,” Rico retorted as he left the room.

Scarlet ignored her brother and quickly went back to rehearsing her choreographed moves, in her mind a diva of Celine’s proportions but in reality a karaoke bar’s worst nightmare.

In her right hand, she held an old hairbrush, singing into it with every ounce of effort she could muster. With her left hand, she pressed a thumb into her ear, mimicking the Mariah Carey’s of the world who always sing with a finger in their ear, for what reason, Scarlet didn’t know. If it worked for Mariah and Beyonce though, it would work for her too.

For hours, she rehearsed, until finally she fell to the floor in a heap, reduced to a sweating ball of exhaustion.

Twelve hours later, Scarlet woke up in a frenzy, realizing that in less than an hour the doors to the local auditorium would open, as would the doors to her Hollywood dreams. But she was far from ready.

In a huff, Scarlet rushed upstairs to shower, but the bathroom door was locked; Rico, the precocious little brother, was in there feigning a case of the runs so he could take his sweet time secretly flipping through that month's Cosmopolitan magazine.

With not a second to spare, Scarlet couldn't be bothered to argue with Rico. On the spot, she decided to pass on washing and brushing her teeth and instead ran to her room, packed up her audition bag and ran out the door.

It was only on her way to the bus stop that she realized...

TO BE CONTINUED IN THE COMMENTS SECTION

It's close to midnight

2009-10-31T08:00:00.003-04:00

... and something evil's lurking in the dark
Under the moonlight, you see a sight that almost stops your heart
You try to scream but terror takes the sound before you make it
You start to freeze as horror looks you right between the eyes
You're paralyzed

'Cause this is thriller, thriller night
And no one's gonna save you from the beast about to strike
You know it's thriller, thriller night
You're fighting for your life inside a killer, thriller tonight

You hear the door slam and realize there's nowhere left to run
You feel the cold hand and wonder if you'll ever see the sun
You close your eyes and hope that this is just imagination, girl!
But all the while you hear the creature creeping up behind
You're out of time

'Cause this is thriller, thriller night
There ain't no second chance against the thing with forty eyes, girl
Thriller, thriller night
You're fighting for your life inside a killer, thriller tonight

Night creatures calling, the dead start to walk in their masquerade
There's no escaping the jaws of the alien this time (They're open wide)
This is the end of your life

They're out to get you, there's demons closing in on every side
They will possess you unless you change that number on your dial
Now is the time for you and I to cuddle close together, yeah
All through the night I'll save you from the terror on the screen
I'll make you see
That this is thriller, thriller night

'Cause I can thrill you more than any ghost would ever dare try
Thriller, thriller night
So let me hold you tight and share a
Killer, diller, chiller, thriller here tonight

'Cause this is thriller, thriller night
Girl, I can thrill you more than any ghost would ever dare try
Thriller, thriller night
So let me hold you tight and share a killer, thriller, ow!(I'm gonna thrill ya tonight)

Darkness falls across the land
The midnight hour is close at hand
Creatures crawl in search of blood
To terrorize y'alls neighborhood

I'm gonna thrill ya tonight, ooh baby
I'm gonna thrill ya tonight, oh darlin'
Thriller night, baby, ooh!

The foulest stench is in the air
The funk of forty thousand years
And grizzly ghouls from every tomb
Are closing in to seal your doom

And though you fight to stay alive
Your body starts to shiver
For no mere mortal can resist
The evil of the thriller

Happy Birthday Baby Girl

2009-10-21T12:08:00.006-04:00

Today, The Daughter Formerly Known as The Latest Addition turns two.

Two years of constant giggles.

Two years of heartfelt hugs and kisses.

Two years of chattering, first incomprehensible, now a collection of comprehension far ahead of many her age.

She began bald, but now has the sweetest, blondest, curliest 'do a little girl could have.

She started weak, but now has grown into a healthy, happy ball of fighting fury.

She is the apple of our eye, no longer the baby in the family, but forever, for always, our precious little girl.

Happy Birthday DFKATLA.

We love you more than you will ever know.

And how best to celebrate a 2nd birthday? How about two parties and two cakes:

Special thanks here to the Mother-of-Many for her splendid cake mix Tinkerbell rendition.

Monday morning musing

2009-10-19T09:21:00.002-04:00

The opening minutes of Papa was a Rolling Stone... pure musical genius or just the soundtrack to every adult film produced between the years 1975 and 1984?

Not that I've ever seen any of those.

Bright lights, big city

2009-10-16T21:49:00.002-04:00

Hard to beat Las Vegas for a long weekend escape from reality.

That's because there is no reality in Vegas.

Excess and extravagance is how I described it here.

Nearly a year and a half later, little has changed in the desert... well, except for the additional $$$ Hot Wife and I, along with Ginger and The Numbercruncher, pumped into the local economy. When all else fails, you can always count on a few green gamblers to leave their green behind.

In any case, many thanks to our friends for joining us on fun jaunt to Sin City, swift as it may have been.

Here's to better luck time!

Blackjack-War

2009-10-08T22:10:00.006-04:00

When last Hot Wife and I travelled to Las Vegas with our good friends The Feathered One and His Hot Wife, we did so as relative neophytes to the whole gambling scene.

Witness this conversation as we approached for the first time what we thought to be a Blackjack table:

The Feathered One: We’re a little fuzzy on how to play Blackjack. Can you remind us of the rules as we play?

Dealer: This isn’t Blackjack. This is War!

War, for crying out loud.

For $15 a hand, I get dealt one card. The dealer deals himself one card.

Highest of the two wins, and in most cases, I lost.

War.

Pfffft.

I bring up the Blackjack-War debacle because it is one I intend to not repeat this weekend as Hot Wife and I join our good friends, Ginger and The Numbercruncher, for a fun-filled Vegas Vacation.

A little over a year ago, as I left behind my twenties and emerged on the other side a more mature and responsible man (yeah, right), Hot Wife surprised me with a trip to Las Vegas as a gift.

This year, it was my turn to reciprocate.

For her birthday in August, Hot Wife received this:

It's a an authentic-ish place ticket to the destination of Hot Wife's choice, within reason of course.

She chose Vegas, and I am pumped.

We leave tomorrow, with pockets full. We hope to return on Monday with pockets fuller.

From many wins at the Blackjack table. And to be honest, at the War table too.

Wish us luck.

Vegas Baby.

And then my bubble burst

2009-10-01T22:24:00.005-04:00

Riding high in recent days (on the strength of some excellent C-o-a-B commentary from the readership) I did what I usually do with my spare time and last weekend strode in to the home gym for some good old-fashioned exercise.

I’ve always been a big believer that a healthy body begets a healthy mind; given my recent struggles to find meaning in my professional pursuits, I figured a solid few rounds of reps and sets could help reposition me down the path of healthy and enlightened self-thought.

Most often, my time in the gym is spent with a single, solitary focus in mind –- losing the fat bastard belly that I’ve accumulated over the duration of three Hot Wife pregnancies, and before that, too many years of too many beers and bad eats.

This time, though, I let my head wander down paths unknown and largely untraveled, failing to properly focus myself on the task at hand.

As I sat my ass down on the exercise ball and began what was to be a mildly productive set of 12 crunches, I found myself distracted by music and displaced by thought.

Physically I was there, mentally I was not.

With little attention to form, I leaned back and entered into my first repetition, caught somewhere between Samantha Fox on my i-pod, alarmingly overt in begging to be touched, and the goings-on in my mind, where scattered thoughts of anything and everything came at me with unpredictable and reckless abandon.

Down, up. One.

Oh, hot emotions, confusing my brain, I could not decide between pleasure and pain. Samantha was singing in my ears.

Down, up. Two.

Should I take Marian Gaborik in the hockey pool if he is still available come my turn, or should I steer clear of his temperamental groin?

Down, up. Three.

Touch me, touch me, I wanna feel your body, your heartbeat next to mine. She is persistent, that Samantha.

Down, up. Four.

I wonder if I could make it as an Ice Road Trucker.

Down, up. Five.

Like a tramp in the night, I was begging for you, to treat my body like you wanted to. Uh uh.

Down, up. Si...

KABLAM!

Before I even knew what hit me, I was lying flat on my back with only the remnants of an assploded exercise ball having cushioned my fall.

My bubble had burst.

Literally.

Rest in peace, dear exercise ball. The blunt force trauma of our final encounter will stay with me forever.

An open letter to the commenters

2009-09-28T18:02:00.005-04:00

I have been a blogger for just under two years.

In that time, I have mostly blogged about the irrelevancies of life, offering my take on all manner of subjects in the hopes of creating contemplation within the readership while also improving my own skills with the written word.

If you have read me from the very start, or if you’ve taken the time to read your way through my archives (thank you, by the way), you know that my daughters have dropped deuces on my living room floor.

You know that I can’t pee in public.

You know that I was the creative force behind such catchy 80’s tunes as Only the Good Die Young, and Come On Eileen, and I Don’t Wanna Dance, and Super Trouper, and Ain’t Nothin’ Gonna Break my Stride, and Red Red Wine, and a whole bunch of other ones too.

You know that I play Beer League hockey and that I have cheated on my Hot Wife with a mistress named golf.

You know that I am the poster child for erectile dysfunction, and that Billy Jean is not my lover.

You know that I am hot for Diane Lane and Susan Sarandon.

And you know that Shartsy shit his pants at the most inopportune of times.

In a world that seems to grow darker and more frightening by the day (damn you, CNN), you know that I tend to keep things light; by design, I let Confessions of a Blogophobe ooze comic relief as often as possible.

Still, blogs are about reality and at times reality just ain’t pretty.

Last week I eschewed the comic relief and went the other way instead, opening up a little about my present professional frustrations.

No humour.

No jokes.

No nicknames.

No puns.

Just an honest assessment of my current state of mind.

As I always do, I followed up that post with regular clicks to the C-o-a-B comment board, eager to get your take on my reality.

To say that I am blown away would be to understate my true appreciation for the kind words of encouragement you’ve left here, all of you.

I’ve gotten what I needed from your comments – a cool dose of perspective and some fresh ideas on how best to overcome this bump in the road.

When I began blogging, I confess that I looked at it more as a self-indulgent exercise where the limelight would be on me.

If you’re coming back and commenting, it’s probably because you like what I write and that makes me feel good.

Never did I imagine that Confessions of a Blogophobe would become a place where I could seek counsel and commentary, opinions and perspectives, and dare I say, friendship, on the one hand from people I have known forever, but on the other hand, and amazingly too, from perfect strangers I have only ever read.

Friends of C-o-a-B, it continues to be my privilege to write for you. Your comments on my last post have truly hit home.

Keeping it real,

Chubbs.

Outward introspection

2009-09-23T15:46:00.004-04:00

The following is a raw interpretation of my current state of mind. If Confessions of a Blogophobe is to be a blog about my reality, then at times it should call for me to drop the façade and be real. Consider it a rare glimpse into the other side of me.

*******

Purpose and persistence.

Raison d’être.

Motivation.

I find myself lacking all of the above these days.

Barely a half-week into my return to work after a stupendous summer of sitting at home playing Papa Bear to the newest cub, I am already restless.

That didn’t take long.

For all the reflecting I did during my nine-week reprieve, for all the good intentions I had upon my return, I find myself staring out the window wondering if this is what I am destined to do for the rest of my life.

Urgh.

Call it a crisis of confidence or a case of stagnation gone wild, but whatever it is, it’s not pleasant.

The simple truth of it all is that I am unfulfilled by my lot in life. Professional life that is.

I write for a living, and yet I feel like I write nothing of consequence. I collect a paycheque, yet I derive very little satisfaction from the source of my income.

I suppose that’s no different from many and maybe even most others who toil away in government.

At a time in my life where I should be coming into my own, cementing my place as a writer of high repute, I feel like I’m going backwards or (worse yet?), that I’m going nowhere at all.

Stuck in the every day grind of the nine-to-five routine. Average on a good day. Mediocre at best. Looking at the next quarter century of my working life as a death sentence more than an opportunity to grow and progress and actually become something.

Where’s the fire?

Where’s the desire?

Somewhere deep within me, I can’t shake the feeling that I am destined for something far grander than this. That I can do more, be more, accomplish more.

But what? And how? And why the internal resistance to anything that might resemble a professional gamble?

Is it possible to fear success more than failure? Sometimes I wonder.

For as long as I can remember, I have struggled in the self-confidence department, particularly when it comes to professional aspirations.

I’m not good enough is a familiar refrain for me.

But why?

Why do I set limitations for myself then do as little as possible to overcome them?

Why do I not let myself believe that I can be more than I actually am?

More times than I can remember I have been told that I’m gifted with the written word. That through a keyboard alone I can elicit laughter or tears or contemplation or inspiration.

At times I agree. Most times I don’t.

Why?

Why the reluctance to believe that I could actually accomplish something of consequence by simply doing what I am, apparently, good at?

I don’t know, but it’s good to be thinking about it.

Introspection is a funny thing. Mostly unpleasant, if you ask me, for it calls for a close examination of your inner-self – warts and all.

But it can be cleansing.

I’m not saying that taking 20 minutes to write this has erased thirty years of internal self-doubt. I have a ways to go yet.

Still, the general conclusion that I draw from this post is that it’s time for me to shut up, grow up, man up and deliver the goods.

Eau de vomette

2009-09-12T06:55:00.004-04:00

Against my better wishes, Eau de Vomette has become my de facto scent... my new cologne, if you will.

I stink of puke.

All. The. Time.

No matter how hard I try, I can't shake the smell of upchuck that permeates the air around me.

It's on The Final Addition. It's on my shirts. It's in my nose.

Eau de Vomette.

Available on a newish-born near you.

Snippiddy doo dah

2009-08-31T20:38:00.008-04:00

A couple of years ago, I came across this video shortly after my brother-in-law, then the Father of Two, now the Father of Many, balked at his vasectomy appointment once or twice, only to turn around and accidentally inseminate the woman who now is known as the Mother of Many, for having since added to the family once again with a fourth child.

I thought it was hugely funny then.

I still do, though I now watch it differently than I did back when I was forwarding it to the FoM thinking myself funny.

Tonight I visited vasectomy.ca, more less a once-stop shop for consultation registration for what will later become snippidation. I broke out in cold sweats once or twice, reading about what I need to do in the lead-up to the operation.

I'll spare you the details, except to say that prior to the procedure I am apparently expected to shave my sack DRY -- no soap, no shaving cream, no water, no nothing. Sounds delightful.

After I finished reading, I understood a little more the FoM's reluctance to go through with it.

Thankfully The Daughters have been going just nuts enough since The Final Addition's arrival to provide the built-in impetus and constant reminder I need that it's time to endure the medical procedure, even if it's one that makes me half a man!

Look, a blogpost about MEEEEEE!

2009-08-27T20:37:00.010-04:00

My blogger friend Jennine left an interesting link in a comment on my last post.

Good people... I'd like you to meet good people is how she put it.

So I followed that link and imagine my surprise when I read this!

HELLO!

A post about me! Me! ME!

Can you believe it?

In this blogger's fair opinion, a post dedicated to the scattered writings that pepper the pages of Confessions of a Blogophobe is better than scoring a beauty goal by going top shelf glove side and nicking some crossbar before watching the puck bulge twine for an OT winner... it's better than finding a crinkled old twenty in the pocket of last year's winter coat... heck, it's even better than se...

Well, o.k., it's not better than that.

But it definitely comes close!

Well, o.k., it doesn't come close at all, though for a second there the comparison did work to make my point!

In the interest of full disclosure, I will say that I'll take a good roll in the sheets over some blogosphere recognition any day. But let me also state for the record that it made my day to read that someone new has enjoyed the miscellaneous musings that come up periodically here at C-o-a-B.

And between you, me and the fencepost, that post over on The Kirby Krew Blog was timely.

Lately, my thirst for blogging hasn't been what it used to be.

I could blame the rigours of rising before the sun with a cranky newborn for my lacklustre attempts to put together some posts worth reading, but those of you who visit often know that my sporadic-ness goes back much further than that, to well before the moment The Final Addition ripped his way into the world.

I was caught in a rut -- at work especially, and to an obvious extent, here as well.

I figured that time would probably shake loose the creativity caught somewhere in my cranial cobwebs, but even that, up until I read The Kirby Post, hadn't done the trick.

Thankfully, reading the words that Jennine pointed me to has done more to reinvigorate my inspiration than my procrastination ever could.

So thank you, Blogger Friend Jennine (that's your new C-o-a-B name, by the way) for playing matchmaker, and thank you, Michele (you'll earn a C-o-a-B name if you come back often enough!) for your timely post.

It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, and my long-lost twin's too, for that matter! (For the record, I don't hunt or fish -- but if 4 of 5 can work for the dentists recommending Colgate, it can work for the purposes of calling your husband and I brothers from different mothers!)

And in case you haven't noticed, your comments earned you an automatic spot to the right, as a blog that I am now following.

Oh, and one final thing, now that your Logan is in big boy underwear, you wouldn't happen to have a few size five diapers left-over that you could ship up to the Great White North, would you? We're still a few months away from making that transition with The Daughter Formerly Known as The Latest Addition!

Cheers.

All we need is just a little patience!

2009-08-22T22:25:00.003-04:00

It's late, relatively speaking at least, and with all in the household resting heavy I should probably be doing the same.

The Final Addition is now five weeks old, and in those five weeks sleep has been sporadic at best. A three-hour stretch of uniterrupted snoozing is a blessing. Four hours would be a miracle.

Life as a family of five is certainly proving to be challenging in the early going. The Daughters are changing, growing up quickly and, to be frank, by the looks of it, conspiring to get Hot Wife and I to jump off a bridge!

They alternate, pushing our buttons, pushing limits, pushing the boundaries of what they know, or should know, to be acceptable behaviour, testing us to see if in fact with a baby brother in our arms they might be able to get away with a little more than they used to.

They can't.

Matter of fact, they're probably getting away with even less.

Patience is coming in short supply for the Mrs. and I, and The Daughters are paying the heaviest price in the wake of The Final Addition's arrival.

But I suspect the adaptation will smooth itself out... at least I hope it will.

These are the things they don't tell you in the book (not that I've ever read a parenting book).

How do you juggle a wailing newborn while sister number one is going nuts over the juice she just spilled all over the floor and sister number two is off somewhere doing number two, most likely anywhere other than where she should be?

How does a parent maintain a level head in the midst of chaos and insanity and piles of dirty laundry and toys strewn all over the family room floor that just three minutes ago was finally clean?

How can I know that my daughters are getting all the attention they need, while their five-week old brother commands most, if not all of it?

How can Hot Wife and I stay connected amid the rigours of raising not one, not two, but three precious kids, all with different temperaments, all with different needs, and all of them combining to leave us not much more than a minute or two to breathe and reflect and realize that despite the challenges of it all, all of it is worth it?

How can we do it?

All we need is just a little patience.

Hey Hot Wife, Part II

2009-08-15T14:45:00.006-04:00

Congratulations Hot Wife, you successfully found Part One of your 30th birthday extravaganza gift, and without too much trouble, I think, figured out the hidden Facebook message that brought you here.

By now you know that there is more to this day than just a good rub-down at the spa, though I hope your feet are soothed and silky smooth by now.

Still, don't rest those feet just yet.

If you think you have it in you, there could be something else for you lurking just around the corner.

You've already found and received Part One of your gift... any chance you might want Part Two?

If you do -- and I really think you do -- follow this clue and the gift will be yours...

Hey Hot Wife

2009-08-15T12:55:00.002-04:00

Today is not your birthday.

Today you do not turn 30 (shite that's old!)

Today you do not get to blow out the candles or get a happy birthday or open any presents.

That will come in another three days.

Today is just another day.

But just for shiggles (yes, that's an amalgam of shits and giggles), what say we start the proceedings a little early.

You've always said that yours is a birthday 'week' and not just a birthday 'day', so what say we give you part one of your birthday gift today, just a notch south of prematurely?

As Tila Tequila would say: Are you interested?

If so, here is a hint of gift Number One of what will not be the last to celebrate the milestone that is your 30th birthday extravaganza.

Find this enveloppe in the house, and you find your first prize.

Good luck.

Heard at home, Volume I

2009-08-13T22:13:00.007-04:00

The Daughters are in the bathtub, splish splashing away. I have to go Number One. Can't leave them on their own quite yet, so I do what I have to do and use the loo by their side.

The Eldest: Why you peein' dad?
Me: Because I drank.
The Eldest: A lot of beer?

(Editor's Note: It was early in the evening, on a weeknight no less. No beer had been consumed that day. By drank, I meant water or juice or milk or whatever else caused me to need to go at that time! By drank, The Eldest's first assumption was beer. How nice! At the height of her three years, The Eldest seems to have developed the wrong impression of me!)

---------------

I am sitting in the recliner, The Final Addition in my arms set to gulp down his latest bottle, when I realize that I forgot one critical thing -- the remote control.

Me: Eldest, could you pass me the remote off the bed please?
The Eldest: So you can watch hockey or golf?

(Editor's Note: I knew I watched a lot of hockey and golf. I knew not that The Eldest knew!)

---------------

It is blazing hot outside. Blazing. We seek cooling in the Mother of Many's pool. We patauge for awhile and emerge twenty minutes later refreshed. It was nice. Towels are wrapped around small bodies, and just as she goes to reach the top deck step leading towards the back door, The Eldest tumbles downward onto her back and thuds loudly at the bottom of the stairs. Ouch.

Concern comes from all corners. From the Mother of Many, standing atop the stairs. From Hot Wife standing nearby. From myself, still dripping.

The Eldest is crying, probably half-hurt and half-shocked. We seek out the source of her pain.

Hot Wife: Eldest, where did you hurt yourself?
The Eldest, through flowing tears: On... the... stairs!

(Editor's Note: She is, quite obviously, fine, and like her father, quite surely destined to be a quick wit!)

Oh deer!

2009-08-03T20:12:00.003-04:00

Three babies are fast asleep as I sit here, and with Hot Wife still off limits now 14-plus days post-partum, I figured I could take advantage of the time I have to add to C-o-a-B instead of risking another pregnancy just yet!

********

The summer sun broke through the cloud cover late last week, just barely, but at least enough to allow us a fun-filled family day on a wildlife safari.

We packed the kids in the van, put a picnic lunch in the basket, and with The Rock family ventured out on a day trip to a nearby reserve where we could observe all manner of wildlife in their naturally replicated habitats.

It was awesome.

Never even had to leave the van, just had to drive through the park as deer and caribou and wild boar and buffalo wandered right up to the windows, looking for an offering of carrot or apple.

Close enough to feed them.

Close enough to touch them.

Close enough for them to slobber all over our clean windows.

The highlight of the day came at lunchtime, when all of us saddled up around a picnic table surrounded by roving deer that feared us not, so much so that a few of them may as well have grabbed a seat with us and had a sandwich.

They were that close, and in one instance came even closer.

Seems carrots are a natural deer magnet.

The Daughter Formerly Known as The Latest Addition found out the hard way.

Picture her, sitting at the table, her little legs just barely dangling over the edge of her seat, her little self just enchanted with her big sister to her right and older cousins in front of her.

She picks a carrot off her plate, TDFKATLA does, and is holding it within about six inches of her mouth when a glutton deer appears from the rear and ever so gingerly stuffs his snout right into the nook of TDFKATLA's neck, en route to snapping up that carrot before our little girl could get it to her mouth.

At first, she really didn't realize what was happening.

Then she turned around, and with a look of terror in her eyes came to see that it was a big hairy creature not named dad stealing her carrot.

She freaked.

Scream. Cry. Wail. Shake.

But only for a moment.

To TDFKATLA's credit, she didn't let herself be intimidated any further by the deer, and rather than take the long way around whenever another came close (like her older sister did), The Daughter Formerly Known as The Latest Addition picked up another carrot and fed the deer, in what I can only describe as a moment of beauty, where a little girl overcame her fear enough to actually enjoy the opportunity that stood before her.

No trepidation.

No hesitation.

Just a kid with conviction, determined to not let one glutton deer spoil her experience with the rest of them.

It was beautiful.

Here is a shot of her overcoming her fears:

So you wanne be a parent?

2009-07-23T09:06:00.003-04:00

MONDAY, 5 P.M. -- Car

We pull into the driveway, myself at the wheel, The Eldest and The Daughter Formerly Known as The Latest Addition snug in their car seats, only moments away from walking through the front door.

Just as I'm about to pull the key from the ignition, TDFKATLA lets out the kind of noise you never want to hear, particularly in the car. As I turn towards the commotion, I watch in disbelief as the contents of my darling little daughter's stomach spill themselves all over her front and onto my back seat.

Apparently, it was cheese curds and chicken soup for lunch.

Urgh.

MONDAY, 6 P.M. -- Backyard and bathroom

TDFKATLA recovered from her upchucking experience remarkably quickly. No traces of illness, so we attribute it to the heat and opt for some post-dinner water play to offer the kids some much-needed relief from a rare hot day in what has been, thus far, a truly craphole summer.

They patauge away in the kiddie pool, when The Eldest proclaims a need to relieve herself.

In the house, I tell her. Let's go.

I walk with her to the bathroom, and just as I'm removing the bottom piece of her swimwear (yes, my three-year old wears a bikini), a couple of disgustingly large turds (considering their source), go splat on the floor right at my feet.

What the hell? The kid looks shocked and I am not amused.

It was an accident, she would later say.

Urgh.

TUESDAY, 12.15 a.m.

The Final Addition has just finished his last bottle before I turn in. I crawl into bed, rest my head on my pillow and within minutes am near sleep when TDFKATLA lets out a rare mid-night scream. I hustle over to her room, wondering why she is fussing, when the ooey-gooey reason finds itself on my fingers as I reach into the crib to console a crying child.

She has barfed.

Again.

Over to the bathroom for a quick clean-up while Hot Wife strips the mattress and replaces the soiled sheets.

The kid is cleaned up and put back to bed in short order; the Mrs. and I rush back to our room to take advantage of the precious few hours between newborn feedings while The Final Addition sleeps.

Finally, I think to myself, some rest.

TWENTY F*****G MINUTES LATER

I think I fell asleep, but if I did, it was for no more than a minute or two. TDFKATLA is screaming again, her tone no different now than it was twenty minutes ago.

I rush back to her room, this time reaching in gingerly -- if I'm going to put my hand in vomit, I'm going to do it lightly this time. To quote a very quotable former U.S. President -- fool me once, shame on you. Fool me... you can't get fooled again.

Yep, more puke. Much more puke.

To the bathtub dear daughter, despite the fact that it's the middle of the night.

Right about now, I'm thanking my lucky stars that I'm on leave. At least I can come back to bed after I drop the girls off at daycare.

TDFKATLA is cleaned up -- again -- and I hold her hands as Hot Wife shoves a Children's Gravol up her ace to help control the nausea.

Urgh.

WEDNESDAY, 5.30 p.m. -- Living Room

The girls are on the couch, watching some cartoons before dinner. I casually walk by, only to realize that the general vicinity smells like, well, shit.

I pull TDFKATLA over and peak into her diaper. Not ten minutes ago I was up in her room changing her, she cannot have possibly crapped again, no way.

I am right.

Her diaper is empty.

So where the hell is the stench coming from?

I lean in towards The Eldest's arse. The Eldest, who has been potty trained for a year. The Eldest who knows better than to go for it in her pants. The Eldest, who at the moment smells like shit.

What the f**k is this?

For the record, I muffled the f**k -- she didn't pick up on my swearing, though she did sense that I was less than pleased with her.

Apparently, Dora and Diego's latest adventures were far too riveting to pull herself away from for the small modicum of time it would have taken her to drop that deuce in the toilet.

Her panties are caked in it.

Gross.

I contemplate using the pressure washer to clean her backside. She lucks in and gets a warm, soapy facecloth instead.

She puts on a new pair of pants and runs back from whence she came.

I am left with size two undies overflowing with crap.

Not even a wash for these babies -- straight to the trash they go.

I grab them daintily between thumb and index finger, careful to leave no evidence beneath my fingernails, and head straight for the can in the garage.

I remove the lid and the smell of a dozen dirty diapers hits me as though I've just run face first into the south end of a north-bound horse.

You wanna be a parent?

Prepare to go urgh!

Introducing...

2009-07-20T12:19:00.003-04:00

He is here.

Finally.

A stocky 9.6 lbs at birth, but probably a little less this very moment on account of the pleasant surprise he just left me in his diaper.

The last of our brood made his appearance late last week, late into the night, unprompted.

No need for Hot Wife to be induced.

No need for poking and prodding.

The Final Addition now joins The Eldest and The Daughter Formerly Known as The Latest Addition to make Hot Wife and I parents of three. Incidentally, they say three is the new two, so statistically speaking we are right in the norm for the new millennium.

I'm hoping to post the blow-by-blow account of Hot Wife's delivery, with only the gooeyiest of details left to the imagination, within a few days. I'm otherwise occupied right now, just sitting on my arse watching The Final Addition sleep.

He is beautiful, and damn does he ever stink.

In the meantime, a photo of The Brood, the three most precious babies on earth.

Let the record show

2009-07-13T19:46:00.004-04:00

That it was well into the waning days of Hot Wife's third (and final -- !#!^%^%) pregnancy that she finally and fully succumbed to the cliche request of sending her husband out to get her some ice cream.

Once or twice when she carried The Daughters, she voiced an interest, but was hardly convincing in her desire to be soothed by the sweet sweet taste of a frozen treat.

But today was different.

Today, Hot Wife found out from Dr. McDreamy that absolutely no progress has come in the week since she last saw him.

She found out from Dr. McDreamy that as of now, it is unlikely that labour will begin without prompt or provocation.

She found out from Dr. McDreamy that as of Wednesday, she will be on the waiting list to be called to the hospital to be induced.

And she found out from Dr. McDreamy that as of Friday afternoon, he will be on holidays for a few weeks, meaning the odds of him delivering the last of our children have suddenly taken quite a hit.

All of the above conspired to make for an all-round crappy day.

I hope this made it better:

P.S. Thank you, Hot Wife. You have the best cravings!

A little encouragement please

2009-07-08T15:51:00.003-04:00

The Mrs. is malcontent these days, down to the short strokes of what has been, by her own admission, an interminable pregnancy.

Hot Wife be tired.

Hot Wife be sore.

Hot Wife be done with the whole pregnancy thing.

Two days past due, the frustration is percolating. Thankfully, she has an empathetic Mr. by her side. Truth be told, I know exactly how Hot Wife feels.

Once we ordered furniture that did not arrive on time, and I was like, so frustrated. Of course, I hadn’t spent the previous 40 weeks carrying that couch inside my uterus (what? Dudes don’t have uteruses?), nor was it to arrive through a bodily orifice of mine, but still, it’s almost the same thing!

Rest easy, friends of CoaB, all I do is kid. It was a chair, not a couch.

In any case, back to Hot Wife. Her doctor (McDreamy, as it were) insists she is due today, though an ultrasound early on told us to set our sights on last Monday.

As previously scheduled, we paid the good doctor a visit on the alleged due date, an appointment that both of us thought would have been pre-empted by birth.

Not so, my friends, not so.

Historically, I’ve made myself a bit of a buffoon in medical settings, in part out of a natural tendency to be the class clown and in part out of a desire to do whatever I can to relieve the tension that typically accompanies a trip to the doctor’s office.

Take these quips that came up in the delivery room shortly before The Eldest’s arrival now three-plus years ago.

When the anaesthesiologist came in to administer the epidural, he asked Hot Wife if she was allergic to latex. Before she could answer I had already piped up with this gem: “Yes sir, she is allergic to rubber. That’s why she got pregnant!”

Then later, as another doctor poked and prodded at Hot Wife in an effort to break her water, I made sure to point out his feet to her. “Obviously not his first time,” I said, looking downward. The lad was wearing Crocs, no doubt because they are easy enough to scrub clean after a torrential downpour of maternal liquid gushes off the edge of a hospital bed. I wondered aloud if he had learned the hard way that amniotic fluid can easily ruin a new pair of Nikes.

He did not respond.

In any case, that penchant for ill-advised humour at the most awkward and sometimes inopportune of times carried over through Hot Wife’s pregnancy for The Daughter Formerly Known as The Latest Addition as well, and now, through her pregnancy for TLooCUtViB (short for The Last of our Children Unless the Vasectomy is Botched).

Because Hot Wife is perilously close to giving birth but showing no signs of it (aside from the beach ball belly of course), we struck up a conversation with Dr. McDreamy about options for inducing labour.

As we chatted, he mentioned that the hospital has been unusually busy these days, at which point I asked what happens when a woman in labour comes in but no beds are available.

Apparently, they call around to other hospitals, looking for a bed somewhere else, though a transfer can be denied if other hospitals are full too.

“No worries,” I said. “That’s what happened to Jesus and he turned out alright.”

Dr. McDreamy got a kick out of that, but not as big a kick as he got 10 minutes later, just as he was about to dig in and determine if Hot Wife had at least dilated a centimetre or two.

“We were placing bets,” Hot Wife told him, in reference to a conversation we had while McDreamy was out of the room so Hot Wife could disrobe. Our wagers were based on a dilated and effaced cervix.

Riveting stuff.

“I could be swayed to say a centimetre or two if you let me in on the winnings,” Dr. McDreamy said.

“Oh no,” I answered. “Our bet was whether or not you would wear a glove!”

At that, Dr. McDreamy almost lost it. In a good way I think, laughing along with us in a tension-free office.

But sadly, that was about it for the pleasantries. As we hopped in the car to make our way home, the frustration of having no progress to report brought Hot Wife to the brink.

So I ask you, friends of CoaB, to leave her a word of encouragement, some wisdom from those who have been there before, and if you are so inclined, a quip or two.

If it can work at the Dr’s office, it can work here too.

Thanks in advance.

Happy Canada D’Eh

2009-07-01T07:30:00.004-04:00

Here is Joe
An old friend from our past
Presented to us on TV
Polite, won’t talk fast
You remember his message

Because it is true
It fell upon Joe, to define us to you
Riffing about Canada
To one and to all
He tells it like it is
Dogsleds and all
A Prime Minister I have
You will hear him exclaim

Cuts to words about lumberjacks
And to Canada’s game
Now here we stand, today July One
A day where we celebrate, all Canada’s done
Dancing and singing, with flags, friends, no foes
A reminder to all, that we are all Joes.