Losing a part of me

With regard to my weight loss and health, this morning is a big one. My sleep score was an 86, which is absolutely wonderful for me. I had a very small bowel movement, and on the bathroom scale my weight was down… about 1.5 lbs.! Happy day!

I expected yesterday to be more of a challenge than it was. I took my son for lunch at his favourite restaurant and ordered a cup of coffee. I did not eat so much as one chip! I did eat the carrots off his plate of chicken wings… and I confess that I did not try to wipe off the very small amount of barbecue sauce that had found its way onto one of them. Yum! I did not stop for peanuts – not on my way there, and not on my way home. I did have a little bit of grated cheese that I share with Princess Sophie, but that was it. Oh, and I only had three meal replacements, and not four as I normally should. I will not make a habit of that, but I know that the cheese compensated for the caloric deficit.

I am going to see my son again in a few minutes, and then I will drive out to Hagersville to pick up some cigars. I have been smoking them way too quickly. It is not an addiction by any means, but I do use them as a nervous crutch – when I am anxious or nervous – in addition to just relaxation, and occasionally for celebrations. My humidor is not empty by any means, but most of the cigars I have are not to be smoked… at least, not yet. I have five boxes (which might amount to 50 cigars) of Davidoff Limited Edition cigars… I am going to sell them eventually. What I can earn off of these fifty cigars would conservatively buy me six hundred everyday cigars. No, I am not smoking those. Additionally, I have 46 Davidoff Limited Edition cigars (two cigars each of twenty-three releases) that I was planning to save for a decade… to see how well they smoke with ten years on them. I am not ready to break into those just yet – the oldest of them still need another couple of years.

There were times when I would smoke high-end cigars on a daily basis, but right now times are lean – and because I cannot travel either to the United States or to Cuba (the State Department still has my passport) I am forced to pay Canadian retail prices. To give you an idea of what the difference is: I have two boxes of Davidoff Year of the Dragon (2024). The two boxes that I have still have the retail price sticker on them – they were selling in November, 2023 (when I bought them) for USD$59 per cigar. If we converted that today it would be CDN$81.30 per cigar. One of the stores that I shop at on Native land (which is not bound by import duties or tax laws as we would be off the rez) sells them for $190 per cigar. That is a significant markup. Davidoff pulled out of Canada a few years ago because the import duties and tobacco taxes are so ridiculous as to price their cigars in the stratosphere (in Ontario, because of those taxes, a box of 20 cigars that sells for USD$250 (CDN$345) in the United States will retail for $1,067 in Canada. Thank you, I am going to mostly smoke decent but not great cigars for the time being… until I can buy them abroad, or until I win a very huge lottery jackpot.

The cigar that I smoked the night I passed my CISSP exam was a USD$500 cigar. That was a special occasion cigar. I still have several of those, which I will smoke when I pass a very significant exam or celebrate another milestone. For the every day smoking… Yeah, it’s the more pedestrian cigars for me.

All of that to say I am driving out to pick up cigars after I see my check in on my son, and then I will come home and study for an exam I am sitting on Wednesday. I will try to not cheat, but I also will not short myself on meal replacements. The only reason I will do that is if I do cheat.

Speaking of cheating, I need to stop at the supermarket to pick up milk, and I am going to pick up more grated cheese. The cheese is not for me, it is for Sophie… but I do enjoy the spoils 😉 I have a lot of it left in our current bag, but I found a whole lot of mould in it, so a new bag is in the cards.

Have a great day folks!