So I might be going literally around the world which I think is pretty cool. Basically I have a meeting in Australia and then five days after I get back I need to be in Italy and three days after that I need to be in Argentina before coming back to Montreal.

Now doing this in individual segments will be stupidly expensive so I might end up getting a round-the-world ticket to save money.

I have not yet decided whether I want to do this or not because, while I think it would be insanely awesome to actually go all the way around the world, I would have to be gone for 17 days which definately falls into the ‘gone-for-too-long’ category. I would miss my husband and my dog and would live for an entire month before and month after in throes of guilt.

Which brings me to a point that you may not know about me…when I feel guilt I really feel guilt! Honestly you’d think I’m Catholic or something but no, I just have a very well developed guilt complex.

My Jimminy Cricket is a friggin whale shark

Living in Montreal I have identified a number of sensations which can only be exprienced when it gets really, really cold. They are:

Lung Rebelion: Lung rebelion occurs when you make the grave mistake of taking a really deep breath the second you step outside. Symptoms of lung rebelion include a burning pain in the chest and convulsive coughing as the lungs try to expel the hyper-cold air you so calously sucked in (you idiot).

Snot Freeze: Even if you don’t have a cold there is enough mucus in a healthy nose to inspire snot freeze. Snot freeze can be identified by a sudden stiffening of the nostrils as all moisture rapidly freezes along the nose hairs. I imagine this is particularly painful for old Greek men.

Cheek Burn: When the temperature really drops there are two courses of action for pedestrians: 1. walk or 2. run. If you walk you have to spend longer outside and it is more difficult to keep your core warm. If you run, you can get the pain over and done with (the bandaid removal theory) and you maintain a warm core (as your heart pounds in a desperate attempt to keep your frozen legs moving). An unfortunate side effect of running, however, is cheek burn whereby super-cool air flowing over exposed cheeks simultaneously freezes the skin and sucks all moisture out.

Eyelash Stickiness: When it’s cold and windy the eyes protect themselves by releasing tears (not the crying kind). These tears, however can be blown from the eyes onto the surrounding eyelashes where they wait for a blink. The moment the upper and lower eyelashes touch the tears begin to freeze requiring a rapid and gargantuan response to prevent permenant freeze-sealing. If blinking properly eyelash stickiness results, if blinking inproperly the eyes will freeze shut landing you in a whole new can of worms.

Since I only have a couple of minutes:

I find men with manicured nails to be very, very creepy. I don’t know why, I just do.

I love the wool scarf my Mom knit for me because it smells like real sheep.

Thinking ‘it’s ok if my top is see-through, I’ll just wear a cardigan’ is a bad thing on a day when you have to literally run around the office.

I cancelled my wisdom teeth extraction today because I can’t breathe through my nose…I do not think that this counts as wimping out.

I may cancel speed-skating practice tomorrow morning for the same reason…I think this does count as wimping out.

I have a cold.

A miserable achy joint, stuffy nose, scratchy throat cold.

The thing I hate most about colds is the fact that they are so useless. They waste so much time and energy and accomplish nothing. Does it make me weird that I hate colds first and foremost because they make me inefficient.

On a related note, Bert was talking about being organized in the morning and I realized that I have everything timed perfectly. At five or six points during the morning I have time checks which allow me to adjust the time I spend on things in order to ensure that I’m slipping my hands into my gloves at exactly 8:39am.

If I have to take the garbage out I eat breakfast while making lunch instead of doing each seperately. If I discover that my tights have a hole in them and I need to dig around for another pair I spend less time doing my hair and use a single-tone eyeshadow instead of blending different shades / colours.

I don’t know when I became so freakishly obsessive compulsive but I’m not worried and I’ll tell you why. Every single minute from 8:39am on is unscripted, hectic and absolutely chaotic.

But for an hour and a half every morning (two hours when I walk the dog) I might as well be Swiss.

In the meantime, sniff, sniff…cough.

Dan, I am adressing this post to you because it’s all your fault.

I needed a little something to top off my lunch and grabbed ‘America’s Protein Bar’ which Bert had brought back from Boston without eating. Dan gave it to him in case he got hungry on the drive up.

Bert didn’t get that hungry.

I did.

It tastes nothing like the professed ‘country blueberry pie’.

It tastes like melted gummy bears, flat coke and chalk all mixed together. For those of you who are thinking ‘yum’ you’re not getting it. It is not ‘yum’.
And the colours are completely unnatural. You know the grape in the fruit of the loom commercial - the ‘blueberry’ topping is way more purple than that. In fact it vaguely resembles the purple pen in a pack of scented markers.

Dan I appreciate that you didn’t want my husband to starve to death but next time can you give him a donut instead.