So, I think my ass is my personal trainer’s Sistine Chapel. Yes, it is the culmination of all his talent as a personal trainer, his years of work developing his skill and his desire to sculpt the bodies of every day people into works of art. My behind is a staggering work of his fitness genius. Seriously, I am not exactly what one would call bootylicious (to borrow a term from Destiny’s Child circa 2001). I blame my big Dutch grandmother. I think I have her exact figure. She was all boobs.

Anyway, a few years ago, while emailing about fitness with my friend Alex, I complained about my flat flat ass. I also asked him if there were any exercises I could do to make my tail look more attractive. He said, “Debbie, you can’t build on what’s not there.” After Alex dropped that bomb, I had to work through several emotional stages to get through it. I went from denial, to anger to acceptance.

I thought all was lost and I had resigned myself to a life where people assumed I had really long legs or a really long back depending on their perspective. But, lately I have started to notice that I seem to be building an ass due to the elliptical trainer and the squats I have been doing. Lord, thank Scott the trainer. Everyone said that it couldn’t be done.

I’m not saying that I have suddenly become Quebec’s answer to Beyonce Knowles. Oh no, that would take both a personal trainer and some pretty comprehensive surgery. But the improvement is nothing short of significant.
- posted by Debbie @ 3:51 PM |

 
So, last night while shopping with a good friend of mine I expressed a desire to have a flash pair of shoes for the spring. You know, the kind of shoes that are so sweet that when you wake up in the morning you say, “I don’t know what I am wearing, but I know I’m wearing those.” I considered getting a pair of gold heels. But that dream was shot when Anne said “honey, by the time Spring rolls around gold will be so played out.” It is totally true. You look around and find left over gold from the fall and it has cropped up all over Zara and other stores. Once it is in Zara, you know it’s singing a swan song. Last stop…Old Navy.

So, as you need to start the shoe shopping early, I put Meredith the Man Magnet on the case. The girl has got style. So, I strolled over to her desk and said, “Meredith,” I had to be serious, “Meredith I got a mission for ya.” My girl was ready to pounce. I told her that I need a flash new pair of shoes for the Spring and as she well knows, gold will be played out by then. Meredith quietly agreed, but then gestured toward the intern’s desk, right beside my own. Draped on her chair was a gold shrug sweater. DAMN! Was I temporarily blinded? What is wrong with me?

Anyway, Meredith is on the case, and I think she will be doing some shoe research for me via internet over the next few weeks. Then, she will present her findings to me in a report by mid March. The report will include a brief fashion history, which years from the 80’s will be considered retro, which vintage styles will be hot as well as a trend prediction in chart form along with a bar graph representing prices. I’ll be well shod.

On to something completely different.

I have been asked, by that bastard True Craig, to participate in a Meme. What is a meme, you ask? It is a blog chain. I have to write five weird things about me and then challenge others to do the same. So, here goes.

1. I am a little bit vain. Surprised? I have to say that I get my vanity from my mother and all her vain vain sisters. My father was also extremely vain. In fact everyone I know from the Guyanese community is vain. Therefore I like to think it is cultural, so you can’t hate me for it.

2. I am extremely flexible. I can still do the splits on demand, bed over backward, get my feet behind my head and do several other slightly gross feats of flexibility. I did do a year or two of ballet as a child and about 5 years of gymnastics, but most girls did. I don’t know why I have maintained my flexibility, I just have. It could be due to my red belt in Taekwon-do, but I only started that sport in my late 20’s and found that my bendy abilities have only slightly deteriorated since my childhood. It must be my fantastic genes.

3. I am very strongly affected by violence and suspense in movies. So much so, that I often have to leave movie theatres and there are a number of very famous films I have never seen, nor will ever see. This may be a symptom of my increased sensitivity. I will probably never see History of Violence, and there are large parts of Boys Don’t Cry that I have not seen. I am avoiding Crash for the same reason. These are just examples. This trait is getting worse as I get older. I am convinced that by the time I hit 45, I will only watch comedies and documentaries.

4. I have a strange fascination for other languages. That was once combined with my extremely approachable nature and bitch for a boss and it put me in a situation where I was taught Tagalog, a language from the Philippines, by my co-workers at a bank (my boss refused to let me sit with people who spoke English because I was “disruptive”). I really took to it and even spent a large part of my weekend taking books out of the library called “Let’s learn Tagalog!” And boy did I! Matututto Rin Ako (I am learning) Maginda hapon, po (good day sir), Calbat, po (Sir, you are a horse!), Mataba (Fat). By the end of the summer I could go a whole workday without speaking English. Boy, was my boss mad. Her next move was to seat me with the women who spoke Cantonese. But, they liked me a lot too. In any case, the events of my life took me away from that office. Imagine what I could have learned!

5. I love to read, and I read all the time. But, I read very slowly. So, it takes me a really long time to finish a book. Unless it is stupid. If a book captures my attention, I will read the lines from different characters in different voices in my head. I have been known to gasp, laugh out loud and cry in public all due to the book I was reading. Also, I often read the first 30 to 50 pages of a book, put it down and then go back to it six months or a year later.

So that’s the weird stuff about me.

www.totolehero007.blogspot.com/, you’re on!
- posted by Debbie @ 11:42 AM |

 
So, I think I found my first crush of 2006. I mean I liked him before, but after last night, he became a total crush candidate. Last night I spent some quality time at the gym, you know doing the kind of exercise a girl who’s built for comfort does. As I finished my warm-up on my elliptical trainer I heard the quick beep beep beep of the gym’s door alarm. Which, of course, caused me to crane my neck around to see who had walked in. I only caught the back of his head, but I had some idea of who it was. A few minutes later my suspicions were confirmed. YES! It was Potential Perfect Storm Participant, “Guy at the gym.”

As he walked by me I kicked it up a notch in the elliptical – I think I managed to make to 196 strides. I wish I could say that I did it to impress him. But, amazingly, it was my sheer exhilaration that powered my weakened knees, and the joints that connected my then quivering thighs to my desiring hips. Yes folks, I want him pretty bad.

Through my entire work out I knew his exact position in the gym. He does the leg press machine – the one where you lie down, not the other one. He does his warm up on the bike and to my delight he does the same arm weight lifting on the stability ball that I do, although, he does lift A LOT more than me.

I finished up my work out with some ever so graceful hamstring exercises involving me flat on my back and a stability ball, and some really sexy sit ups. This was when he chose to work out beside me, just in time to see the fat on my abdomen bunch up together in the perfect crunch. I don’t know how many sit ups I did, but I do remember that a classic love song was playing in my head “Tonight…I celebrate my love for you…”

Somehow, I don’t think this guy knows I exist. Really, that’s OK with me. Because if he were actually to talk to me I’d probably fall off the elliptical trainer, walk into a stationary bike or bang my head on the weight lifting apparatus known as “the cage.”
- posted by Debbie @ 2:21 PM |

 
So, I didn’t watch the debate last night. I used to watch them, but then I stopped because they are often little more than grand standing and leaders saying basically what they said throughout the whole campaign. Perhaps I should have watched the debate last night, but to be honest, I wanted to watch the wedding Crashers. However, I think if the Greens were debating I would have tuned in. I find myself in a strange position here in my Montreal riding. I always vote my conscience. I pay attention to what the candidate in my riding is saying. However, the only candidate doing any talking in my riding is the guy running with the Bloc. He was at my metro stop yesterday and gave me a pamphlet. He was also there to talk, however, the bloc is obviously disinterested in voters who do not speak French.

I have seen signs for the Liberal candidate, and one for the NDP and Green. But I have not gotten a thing from either one. It is almost like here, in Quebec, everyone knows that the Bloc will prevail. Honestly, if I were to vote for the candidate who has tried the best to talk to me, I’d vote Bloc even though, I don’t 100% understand what they are saying.

Sadly, the conservatives are doing extremely well in the Polls. I really hope the polls change. I hope Canadians don’t elect one of the most hateful men in Canadian politics. If the current conservative party gets elected, I think it would be a dark day for Canada.
- posted by Debbie @ 10:32 AM |