Losing a part of me

Category: Emotions

  • Day 39

    I had another great day with Leslie yesterday, despite her taking a pretty nasty fall. She keeps telling me she is super clumsy, but I don’t know if I believed it… until now. Fortunately, she is okay, and was saved from grievous and possibly catastrophic harm by a teddy bear. There are some things that you just cannot make up.

    While I am only taking very small bites of her omelets in the mornings, I will tell you that both yesterdays and todays came out better than usual. I am not sure what I am doing to make them so much fluffier than they were before, but man they are good. The dill (I have discovered that adding dill to things makes most things better) is an improvement, and she really loves the broccoli that I have started adding, but I added those on Thursday too, and they were nowhere near as fluffy as they were yesterday and today. Since today is the last day that I will be preparing an omelet until she returns in a little over three weeks, we can only hope that whatever it is that I have been doing does not get lost.

    I took Leslie to Costco yesterday. I was a little surprised that she reached her current age (no, I am not going to disclose it… suffice it to say she is much younger than I am) without ever having set foot into a Costco. You would have thought from the lineups that World War Three was starting… and judging from what is going on in Ukraine, it might be. I did not take her there to stock up on toilet paper or bottled water or gumballs. A few months ago, I bought her a pair of garnet and diamond earrings from Costco, and she absolutely loved them. She did not know this when we walked into the store, but I was hoping that they would have a matching pendant and chain. They did, and I bought it for her. She was emotional on a level that I am not sure I expected. It seems her ex-husband felt she was so difficult to shop for that he simply didn’t buy her presents. I find her singularly easy to shop for, and her new pendant matches her favourite earrings perfectly.

    After and before Costco, I took her to get her Covid test. I do not like that she is going home today but knowing that she has a return date in a few weeks makes it a bit better. I love having her here, and even when we have minor disagreements, we are always able to resolve them. She and I sit on the balcony enjoying a cigar and talking about… everything. I love my time with her.

    As planned, we collaborated on dinner last night. I prepared the fish: salmon tails marinated in lemon juice, air-fried at 375° for 10 minutes, then liberally coated with black sesame seeds. Leslie prepared the rice, which was also liberally seasoned with black sesame seeds. They were both served on a plate with a helping of gari (Japanese pickled ginger), and it was absolutely scrumptious. That meal is definitely going into the ‘make it again’ file.

    For this evening, I defrosted chicken. I will be eating alone, but because I was not paying attention, I froze the entire pack of chicken together, which means that it had to be defrosted as one. I will prepare them all this evening, but I will eat them over the next few evenings.

    In a few minutes I have to take Leslie to the airport, and I am not happy about that. She will be back in three weeks is what I have to keep telling myself.

    Have a great day!

  • Day 38

    Last night was an incredible night, but yesterday was a very emotionally difficult day.

    The story:

    When I was in Montreal a couple of weeks ago, Esti (my father’s widow) gave me a DVD to borrow of a presentation that my father did. Dad grew up in a poor, very Jewish immigrant neighbourhood of Montreal (that has since been gentrified and populated by Yuppies). Eighty-some years later, there is a group “from the old hood” that is called The Boys/Girls of Esplanade, and they get together every so often to reminisce about the past. At a certain point, they started a tradition that at every meeting one member would get up and give a speech about his or her memories of the old neighbourhood, and how their lives evolved after leaving it. In October of 2017 it was Arthur’s turn, and it was recorded and put onto a DVD. I think he might have told me about it then, but I forgot. Esti was sure he had gotten copies to give to my sister and me, but I know I never got one.

    For the first time since my father died, I heard his voice. I heard him speaking, telling so many stories that I had heard before… and a few that I had never heard. For over an hour, my father told stories about his life, and I was in tears from nearly the first minute. Leslie held me throughout, and when there was something that she couldn’t understand (as Montreal Jews, we often throw in French, Hebrew, and Yiddish words into everyday conversation). At the end of the speech, I called Esti to tell her I had watched it, and then Leslie and I went to sit outside, and I smoked a very high-end cigar in my father’s memory. My father never smoked cigars – he smoked one in law school and got so sick that he never tried another – but he did not mind if I smoked them around him, as we sat on his back patio.

    In the evening, Leslie and I had a date night. I had a very high-end cigar, and I also had a glass of scotch whisky. It was the second dram that I enjoyed this week, and I know that it is completely not on the weight-loss program. The first one that I had was to calm me down during a very unpleasant disagreement between Leslie and me. It was a good dram, but I did not enjoy it because it was just to calm my nerves. The one I had last night was different. Leslie (at my request) brought me a bottle of Glenrothes 18-year-old Speyside whisky, and it was just heavenly. In fact, our entire date night was perfect. I prepared dinner as I usually do, and then I sat outside listening to music while Leslie got ready… and wow, did she doll herself up! My girlfriend is always pretty and sexy, but when she stepped out onto the balcony my jaw dropped. We had a fabulous time, and throughout the evening I think, if it is at all possible, we grew even closer together.

    I think the only cheat from yesterday was the whisky, but it was worth it! We went shopping yesterday afternoon, and I purchased two gorgeous salmon tails that I will prepare for dinner this evening. I also purchased sesame seeds, soy sauce, and ginger. Because of my diet, I cannot take Leslie out for Japanese food… but I can do my best to recreate at least some of that culinary experience for her (and for myself). She is a master of preparing rice, and she will be in charge of that… and yes, despite rice not being part of my plan, I will have a little bit… not a lot though.

    We got up a little later than usual this morning, but we stayed in bed and talked for a long time, so her omelet was a brunch omelet, and she will likely not need to eat before dinner. I had my breakfast shake and will have a salad mid-afternoon. Around 4:00pm she is scheduled for her Covid-19 test (she is flying home tomorrow afternoon) so we have to drive out to the area around the airport to do that, but we will then come home and have dinner.

    It is a nice day outside, and we took HRF Princess Sophie for a nice walk this morning. We will repeat that process this evening. It is our last evening together for this trip, which is sad, but knowing that she will be back in less than a month makes it a little easier.

    Have a great day folks, and enjoy the weekend, wherever you are!

  • Day 35

    If I could believe my bathroom scale, I am down three pounds from yesterday. I do not believe my bathroom scale.

    For the most part, I did pretty well yesterday; my only cheats were a few honey graham crackers that my girlfriend was eating, and I do not think they did a whole lot of damage. Certainly, they would do less harm than the piece of cake that I had at Lyle ad Dorothy’s the other night – something that I neglected to mention, not out of shame but because I forgot.

    I think my class is going well. I am zipping through a lot of the material because there is a lot of redundant material between the last class that I taught this group, this one, and the next class that I will teach the group. Some of my students are still trying to pull the wool over my head. They log in, make a big show of saying hello in the chat window, and make sure I have marked them as Present in the book. Okay, it’s not a book. I just had a flashback to elementary school where there was an actual book that the teachers all used. No trauma… just a memory.

    On that note, it seems that recently, so many of the memories that are coming up are in fact traumatic. I have had disturbing memories and realizations of my sister (and of my whole family) and of my professional life. It is funny that through it all I am now longing for those wistful days in the Army when I was getting shot at and bombed a lot. For so many years I have been hopeful that one day my sister and I would reconcile; I have come to realize in the last two weeks that that will never happen… and it would probably be a bad thing if it did.

    That is a very disturbing realization to come to, and it is one of the reasons I have been down these last two weeks. To come to terms with the fact that life was better when Hamas and Hezbollah were trying to kill me than when I was with my immediate family (both growing up and later in life) is harsh. My father was a wonderful man, but a weak man, who failed to protect me when I was growing up for fear of my mother (his wife). Many years later, he finally left her. He and I were driving somewhere one day when he asked my forgiveness. I do forgive him, and I love him, and I miss him. But the damage was done.

    I cannot be sure, but these family traumas just might be the root of my unhealthy relationship with food. I am not blaming anyone for my obesity. I am just coming to terms within myself with some of the root causes. How does a high school athlete and soldier devolve into what I became? There you go.

    Fortunately, Leslie is here to help me through it. My friends are here to help when she is not. I have a great support system… now. Maybe, just maybe… if I had had one twenty-five and thirty-five and even forty-five years ago… well, the sands of time are in a one-way journey, and we can look behind us from whence we came, but we cannot reach back and change it.

    I do not know if I will make it through the day without cheating today, but I want to be good because I am planning a dinner for Leslie and I that will be scrumptious. I am going to buy some fish fillets (maybe rainbow trout), and I will make my Buffalo wing sauce for them. There will be some sugar in the sauce (ketchup is an ingredient), but not a lot, and it will be so delicious!

    The weather forecast is not great. Looking at today from yesterday, you would think that we’d be wearing shorts outside, with high temperatures of 11°c. What that would not have told you is that the high would be reached at 1am, and that by the time we woke up, it would be windy and snowing, with temperatures already below 0°, and heading for -8° in the evening. The winds are gusting at 35km/h, which is to say that while I might pop outside for a quick one, today will not be a comfortable ‘sit on the porch smoking cigars’ day. Phooey.

    Have a great day everyone!

  • Day 30

    It’s been just about a month, and I am down just under 30 lbs. One pound per day. How could I really be disappointed by that? If I was following the strict program, then it would have been more. I have stated before that I suspect the moderate approach will give me the best chance for long-term success.

    Yesterday I went to prepare a salad with my dinner, only to realize that I had no lettuce… or cucumber, for that matter… but it is the lettuce that is usually the base of the salad. For a minute I considered going shopping, but realized the weather was not quite agreeable to that. Instead, I took the bag of shredded carrots that I had and used them as the base of the salad (rather than an almost-garnish). I chopped tomato and onion onto it, sprinkled some pumpkin seeds, and then a drop of oil and a healthy portion of balsamic vinegar. It was unusual but not unpleasant.

    I think my class is going well. I am enjoying teaching them, although I had a mic blunder yesterday. Prior to class I was speaking with Leslie on the phone. Thinking my computer mic was muted, I told her of two students who I know are phoning it in… they have not done any of their labs, and I do not think they are even sitting through the class. I do not know if they are having their program paid by a government program which mandates they attend… and then I realized my computer mic was hot. I apologized to the group and took the opportunity to remind them that I mark attendance for those who log in, but the school has a record of who is doing the labs and who completes them, and that is out of my hands.

    —

    I was halfway through this morning’s entry when my phone dinged. A buddy was downstairs waiting to come up. I haven’t seen him in a couple of years, and it was great to sit and chat with him. The original purpose of his visit was to bring some cigars that I was buying from him, and we sat outside and enjoyed a beautiful cigar. Despite the chill, it is a beautiful sunny day, and we had the heater going. Once it was too cold to continue, we sat inside with another cup of coffee discussing cigars and golf and dogs and whatever else we wanted to. I really enjoy it when friends come to visit. I do not mind smoking alone, but cigars are a social lubricant best enjoyed with friends – old or new.

    Something that I have to be more mindful of is my water intake. The fact that I have been drinking a lot of coffee does not change the fact that I need to drink a lot of water, and I know that I have been neglectful of that the last week – since driving to Montreal, I suppose. If there is one thing you do not want to do when you have a six hour drive it is to drink so much water that you need to stop to pee every fifty kilometers. Leslie asked me about it Wednesday, and I confessed that I was not drinking as much as I should. I have tried to remedy that, and am so grateful for her help!

    I suppose I do not have a lot to report today. I have to go shopping now – I am woefully short of salad fixings, and I am out of chicken as well. When I come home, I will prepare a meal, and I will likely sit outside to finish the cigar that I left over. I am a firm believer that you finish a cigar in one sitting, and if you let it sit too long it goes bad. The 2-3 hours that this one will have been sitting should not be too rough, but if it is, I will just pick a new stick.

    I always look forward to the weekend (as does everyone, I suppose), but knowing that tomorrow Leslie is coming I am looking forward to it even more. It is so exciting knowing that my baby will be in my arms in just over 24 hours. I have mentioned before that she is very supportive of my diet, and I have been trying to make her understand that just because I am on this program does not mean that she has to be. As such, I made a date for us to spend the evening with Lyle and Dorothy on Sunday. Lyle is a world class chef, and Dorothy is an amazing baker. When we were last there, Lyle discovered that Leslie loves mushrooms, and promised to make her something special on her next visit. The fact that I will not be able to enjoy that something special does not mean that we should not go and spend time with our friends, and yes Leslie should enjoy her mushrooms and homemade pasta and all of that wonderful stuff. Lyle is aware of my dietary restrictions and will likely make me a fabulous piece of chicken or fish to enjoy while they are indulging. I am really looking forward to it… but I saw Lyle last week and Dorothy a couple of weeks ago, and I have not seen my girlfriend since December. I am really looking forward to her visit!

    Wherever you are and whatever you have planned, you enjoy your weekend, and I will see you all soon!

  • Day 29–February 17, 2022

    Weight: Down 1.4 lbs, 28.4lbs overall

    The last few days have not been great on the diet, but I daresay that yesterday was at least a little bit better than the three previous days. I woke up and had my breakfast shake, and then did not actually have a second meal replacement midday. Instead, I went shopping (which I will need to do again either today or tomorrow), and when I arrived home I prepared my evening meal, which was really a mid-afternoon meal. Two pieces of chicken and a large salad. I suspect that in a few weeks I am going to want to cut down to a single piece of chicken, but for now it is working, I am still losing weight, and am seldom feeling deprived. In the evening, rather than preparing another shake, I made a big salad… and added a half tin of canned salmon to it. It was very tasty… and while it was not strictly speaking part of my diet, it was not the worst possible cheat.

    My weight loss this past week was abysmal if we take out the dire psychological factors, not to mention the trip to Montreal. If we take all of those factors into consideration, the fact that I lost any weight at all is a success. While I would like to be down 40 lbs by now, I’ll satisfy myself with just under 30 lbs in four weeks I know that had I stuck with the program religiously I would be down much more, but I also know that this program is hard, and the lenience is making it just a little bit easier.

    I got several pieces of excellent news yesterday, all from my girlfriend. She knows that I have been extremely down this past week, with all of the emotional baggage that have opened up in me. She asked has asked me every day since the revelation what she could do to support me, and I have not had a real answer, other than ‘just be there for me.’ That’s how I am. She asked Monday if she should come to visit me this weekend, and I told her that it was an expensive trip, and that I would be okay. When I realized that she is really trying to support me, and that however brave a face I might be putting on, the diet cheat of the last few days has been proof that maybe I am not coping as well as I might. Yesterday when we were speaking in the afternoon, I told her that I would like for her to come if it was not too expensive. Within the hour she sent me confirmation of her flight, and I will pick her up from the airport Saturday afternoon. YAY!

    Leslie likes to bring me cigars when she comes to visit. It is not only that she knows how much I enjoy cigars… she loves enjoying them with me, possibly to the point of being a fetish! She already has two boxes of cigars that she was planning to bring to me, but her plan was to visit the Cigars International Superstore near her house to top up her allotment of what she is allowed to bring into Canada. We will get back to that in a moment.

    My girlfriend knows that I start teaching at 6:30pm, so it was a bit of a surprise to see my phone ringing at 6:32pm, with her name on the call display. Fortunately, I was waiting for the last stragglers to come into the class, so I muted my mic to answer the phone. “I GOT THE JOB!” She had applied for a full-time position with Microsoft, and has been pretty down on herself, figuring she did not get it. I kept telling her that she was absolutely the best candidate for the job (I know a lot of the other probably candidates), and that they would be crazy to not offer it to her. They did!

    Now, instead of picking up some okay cigars, she wanted to get celebratory sticks. She went a bit overboard, but I completely understand – she has something to celebrate, and she wants to celebrate with me, and she wants to celebrate with me smoking very high-end cigars. Saturday afternoon will see several new and wonderful vitolas added to my humidor, none of which I currently own, and only two of which I have ever smoked. Two of them are limited-edition cigars too… very collectible, but I do not collect cigars, I smoke them!

    Leslie also loves HRF Princess Sophie, which does not surprise me, as she (HRF) is absolutely adorable. Someone asked me the other day what HRF is short for, so here it is: Her Royal Floofness.

    Another thing that I am thrilled with is that Leslie has made it clear that she is going to continue to support me on my diet, which means that she does not want me ‘taking a break’ while she is here and does not want me taking her to restaurants and the like. Considering that there was a time when I felt that the best social experience between a couple was to sit together at a restaurant, this is a big change. The first time I was on the program (back in 2017) I remember going on a date with a woman the first week (or possibly second) that I was on it, and she had her lunch while I… watched her eat her lunch. There was no second date. I get that… it is uncomfortable to sit at a table eating while the other person just watches you. Fortunately, Leslie and I enjoy each other’s company quite a lot, and we are very familiar with each other. We can be just as happy sitting on the couch or at the table and not saying a word, or sitting on the balcony, sharing a cigar, and solving all of the world’s problems. I am so excited that she is coming in two days!!

    I have a dentist appointment this afternoon (I lost a crown), and after that Lyle might come over for a cigar. He is still unsure, due to the potential for the weather to change for the worse sometime this afternoon. If he feels the driving will be treacherous, he will likely stay home. I hope he comes… I have a nice birthday gift for him, plus a lot to talk about. After that, class… Thursday is my last teaching day of the week, and I’m looking forward to it… as much as I am looking forward to the weekend!

    Have a great day folks! I’ll see you all tomorrow.

  • A Cause to Die For

    I have had a number of causes in my life that I have been (and am) passionate about. I have protested, I have been an activist, and I have been a soldier. I have written articles in support of the causes I believe in and against those things that I oppose. I hope that I have done that well, and I know that in some cases I have changed some minds.

    I hope I have never made my case to someone, and then, being told that it is not their fight, gotten angry with them that they would not take up my cause.

    In case you are not paying attention, there are a number of protests going on in Canada, most specifically in Ottawa and at the Detroit-Windsor border crossing. The protests are around vaccine mandates and passports, and the terrible effects that the two years of pandemic have had, and how bad the government’s response has been. “IT’S ABOUT FREEDOM!” Maybe it is, maybe it is not. I am not taking a hardline position on this. I have told several of my friends that this is not a cause that I am willing to take on as my own. It is not that I oppose their position… I am just not going to be passionately supporting them.

    I have three friends – none of whom are only Facebook friends – who are extremely passionate about the cause. Each of them has tried to convince me, in their way, that this cause is the most important thing in the world. Each of them has equated the Canadian government of 2022 to Nazi Germany, and each of them has told me that if I am not willing to stand up and fight for this then I am as bad as the people who stood idly by as Jewish businesses were being shut down, leading eventually to the deportation of the Jewish population to the death camps at Treblinka, Sobibor, Chelmno, Belzec, Majdanek, and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Each of them has told me that if I served in the Israeli Defense Forces and am not willing to stand up for their cause then it is obvious that the IDF does not stand for freedom.

    Each one of them is infuriating.

    Firstly, and I cannot stress this enough, I served 2.5 years in the IDF and rose to the rank of Staff Sergeant. While there is an official position and mission of the IDF, it is not set by Staff Sergeants… certainly not by one who did his conscription service and was discharged twenty-five years ago. On top of that, if you have ever tried to get ten Israelis to agree on anything, from the peace talks to the lunch order, then you will know that it is a futile task at which kings and deities have failed.

    I have tried to tell each of them that I am not taking a strong position on this movement. Each of them has tried to guilt me into it. Each has tried to convince me that I am letting another Holocaust happen and standing by passively.

    I respect that some people are against getting the Covid-19 vaccine. I do not agree with them, but hey, it is their choice. To equate them to Jews in Nazi Germany is absurd. Jews did not have a choice. It was not only Jews who wore the black hats and shtreimels and wore side locks who were sent to the gas chambers; if you had one Jewish grandparent, you were considers tiersch untermenschen and would be cleansed from the face of the earth. That was Nazi Germany. In Canada, if you want to be able to eat in restaurants, if you want to be able to travel to the United States (a mandate from the US, by the way), then get the vaccine. It’s as simple as that.

    Two of these friends have told me that for the people not getting the vaccine it is like trying to tell a Jew to be Christian. I’m sorry, but for me that is a ridiculous comparison. We are dealing with a global pandemic, and the only way out is through a combination of science (by doctors and scientists), and the cooperation of the rest of the population. If you are unable to get the vaccine (and there are people who have legitimate medical reasons) then that is one thing. If you just do not believe in the vaccine and do not want to get it, well that is also legitimate… but it can be helped.

    I have a friend whose son was laid off from Canada Post because he is unvaccinated, and he accepts that. When we take a stance and are willing to accept the consequences for that stance, then it is commendable. Mohammed Ali refused the draft; he was stripped of his title and went to jail for his principles. He did not flee the country or hide in some underground, he stood up and said ‘I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong.’ You may or may not agree with his position on the war (which is much easier to look at as black and white in 2022 than it was in the heat of 1966), but you have to respect his actions.

    In the middle of a global pandemic, anyone who refuses to get vaccinated (simply because they do not believe in the science) but expects to be treated like everyone who did get vaccinated, is taking a stance but is unwilling to accept the consequences. ‘You must be vaccinated to cross the border.’ That is (a very simplistic wording of) the law right now. Will it change? Maybe yes, maybe no. If your job requires you to cross the border but you refuse to get the vaccine, then you cannot break the law. Can you protest the law? Absolutely. Is it a just and fair law? I don’t know. Do you have the right to require me to protest the law? No. Do you have the right to take over an entire city, or blockade international border crossings? To make your point, I suppose you do… but do it for a weekend and then go home. When protesting the government, you have a better chance of winning widespread public support if you do not inconvenience the people who you think you are fighting for… at least, not beyond the time it takes to make your point.

    I am not saying that ‘I do not work in the auto industry, and so my livelihood does not rely on the Ambassador Bridge traffic, and so I am not protesting.’ I am not saying that ‘I do not live in Ottawa, therefore I have not been inconvenienced by the protests, and so I am not protesting.’ I am saying that while I understand why people are protesting, I am not going to get worked up about it, and I am certainly not taking a strong position either way. Trying to force me to do so will not change that, and that position does not make me ‘just like those who stood by and let the Holocaust happen.’ That, my friends, will raise my hackles, but not in favour of your cause, rather against you for having the nerve to equate pandemic measures to the worst crime in human history.

  • Day 28

    For the first time since I started this journal, this is not the first entry that I am writing today. I started by writing the 1200-word essay I call “A Cause to Die For” which I will publish today as well. I am sick of people equating the current situation in Canada with Nazi Germany, and I had to say something.

    My emotions are not getting a whole lot better, and my food intake yesterday shows it. I had two pieces of chicken, a couple of pieces of cheese, and a couple of extra meal replacements. I am not proud of myself for it, and I hope that I will be able to rein my eating in a bit today and going forward. I have been lacking discipline, and the only good thing that I can say about it is that I did not completely go nuts and order a pizza (or something equally bad for my diet.

    Leslie is being a big help, although she thinks she is failing me. She wants to be here for me, and in truth I wish she was here… but we are in a long-distance relationship, and her next visit is not for 33 days from now. Yes, I would love for her to be here to hug me and hold me. Her caring for me, even from Texas, means everything to me. She keeps asking how she can help or support me, not realizing that just being there for me means the world.

    I woke up this morning angry with how I ate yesterday, and hopeful that today I can do better. I do have to go shopping though… I am out of chicken and tomatoes, and while I do have half an onion left, it is not the sweet onion I usually buy (it was a Spanish onion that was mislabeled). The weather is unseasonably warm (although I suspect rather windy), and Lyle will come over in the afternoon for a cigar. In the meantime, I’ll do my shopping, and I want to go through the labs that I will be working on with my students this evening. They are all Linux-based, which means that they are not really in my comfort zone, as would be Windows-based labs. Not a problem, but I like to stay ahead of them as we go through the class. (It is not the first time I have taught the class, but CompTIA released a new version of the class in January, and the labs are mostly brand new). So: class-prep, shopping, and cigars… and then teaching in the evening. It sounds like a pretty normal day!

    I am wearing the shirt that finally arrived in the missing package yesterday. Wouldn’t you know it? It is the first of the shirts that I ordered to Leslie’s house that actually fits now… none of my stomach is showing! That does not mean that I’ve lost weight, rather that the shirt that I ordered in October is the only one that I ordered in the correct size.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 27

    Either the weekend’s cheating was too much and prevented any weight loss whatsoever, or the bathroom scale (on the uneven bathroom floor) is not reporting properly. I know that I cheated in Montreal, but I did not think it would be so bad that I would not be at all down from Friday morning. A week from today I will drive to the doctor’s office to get weighed, and we will see if I have made any progress whatsoever. In the meantime, I plan to stay the course. If, however, by next Tuesday my weight has not dropped below 350 lbs, I am abandoning the hybrid approach and going back to the regimented plan.

    On the drive home from Montreal, I did buy an all-beef pepperoni stick. I am not even sure that I was that hungry, and I do not know why I did it. The emotional turmoil from the last few days, matched with the anticipation of my evening meal of chicken and salad. I broke down, and I shouldn’t have. I should have just lit another cigar and waited until I arrived home to eat. I wonder how much of my weight-stasis is owing to the high salt content of that treat. I know that I should not be touching any processed foods, but I did, and now I have to move forward.

    I am not sure how I will be able to move past the emotional and psychological realizations I made this weekend. They were hard and painful, and I do not know what I am going to do. I know that there are people who are concerned about me, but I do not know if I can overcome them. My parents, my sister… when I went off to the Army I should never have come back. I should have changed my name and disappeared from their lives, and screw them all for whatever hurt it might have caused them. Lord knows that my mother and my sister never gave a damn about causing me hurt, and my father’s failure to protect me… I would not have wanted to intentionally hurt him, but I should have protected myself whatever the consequences to him and to them.

  • Day 26–Monday, February 14, 2022

    Happy Valentines Day. My Valentine is 1600 miles away, but at least I will be able to speak with her. I sent her and her son a couple of gifts which they received and enjoyed over the weekend, but I really need to remember to ship her box to her this week!

    Yesterday was not a good day. I started out by visiting my father’s grave, and while it was -28° with the wind chill, I had some things I needed to say to him. It was cold but I said my peace. I did not rush it. I lit up a cigar, and by the time I was done, my cigar was nearly finished too.

    As I prepared to leave the house, I made sure to take my shake pouch with me. What I neglected to take was my shaker bottle, which meant that I could not actually make it. As I left Stephane’s house (where I smoked my second cigar, while chatting with a few friends), I took a handful of mixed nuts. As I sat with Caryl and Lawrence, I had a few slices of cheese. Either of these (or even both of them) would have been fine. It was the breaded foods and egg rolls that I had during the Super Bowl that were the killers. I did not overly pig out, but I did have a couple of egg rolls, a couple of chicken strips, and six wings. While the chicken was breaded, I take at least some comfort in knowing that they were baked and not fried, which would have been so much worse.

    Today has to be a better day for my diet. I have to get through it without cheating. I will be driving much of the day – I only sat down at my computer so that I could write and maintain my routine. Once I finish, I will pack up my kit (most of my stuff is already packed, and I am somewhat relieved that I am leaving Montreal with fewer bags than I came with) and hit the road. I will stop in Brockville to top up my fuel… or at least, fuel up enough to get to Tyendinaga, where gas was $0.16/litre cheaper than it is anywhere else along the road in Ontario (which is another $0.10/litre cheaper than it is in the Province of Quebec). Fuel prices have skyrocketed these last few weeks. I do not know if they are at an all-time-high (which is possible), but they are certainly higher than I have ever seen them.

    The drive will look like this: Brockville for gas, Tyendinaga for gas and a chat with a friend and potential business partner, and then probably one more stop to pee. I just finished my morning shake (it is 9:10am) so I will pull over somewhere around 1:00pm to prepare Shake #2. That should already be past Tyendinaga, but I do not need to map out everything with military precision. Taking a leisurely pace and the planned stops, I would like to be home by 3:30pm or so. There are advantages to not needing to stop to eat!

    I do have to pick up Princess Sophie from Nathalie’s house. I really have missed her this weekend, and especially knowing all of the crap that I have been going through it would have been very nice to have her here. If the timing works as planned, and if nothing else comes up, then when we get home we can take a nap before I have to start teaching at 6:00pm. Oh, and I should make sure I have lozenges and lip balm.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 25

    Yesterday was an emotionally difficult day. I came to a realization that was extremely difficult, and it is a wonder that I did not do worse on my diet than I did. I had always planned to have the rotisserie chicken for lunch (although I should have had a smaller portion); the salad that went with it was very tasty, but it had what I suspect was not a low-cal dressing. In the evening I got back to my friends’ house, and she made me have a bowl of chicken soup (with tomato? What heathen puts tomato into chicken soup?). All of this was in addition to three shakes, so it really wasn’t too bad… but I will try to do better today. I still believe that accountability is the key to my potential success, and so I am not going to blow smoke up my own ass and make excuses for myself. Yes, I had a crappy day. No, I should not have gone straight for the food.

    Wonder of wonders, I smoked a few cigars yesterday. It was not my entire day, but it was a portion of it. I started by visiting with my father’s widow… that’s where the emotionally draining revelations came to me. After that, I met with an old friend and her husband for a coffee. It is always good to see them. Once I was through there, I drove over to my buddy Stephane’s house, where we smoked cigars in the garage. He is an amazing woodworker, with a passion for ‘turning wood’. I never knew that was a thing until I involved myself with a broad community of cigar smokers. I now have several pens, ashtrays, and cigar stands that were made by him over the course of the last five years. During the course of the day, I bought a pen stand that he made, and he made me a pen. The pen that he made for me is gorgeous, but it is an everyday pen, as opposed to some of the other pens I have from him, one of which is a $200 work of art. So yes, the day was not cheap for me, but it was worth every penny.

    I came in from his place at about 9:00pm, and Rick and Isolina listened to my issues for a few minutes. She made me a bowl of soup (she was quite insistent about it, so I stopped arguing). We then watched the UFC fights, which I also rather enjoy. I lit a very good cigar (I know that she is not fond of my cigars, and I smoke cigars that I know she will enjoy more than the cheaper ones), and by the second fight I had forgotten most of my issues. Fortunately, I was able to remember most of them as I was trying to fall asleep later on.

    Today is a new day. I am going to visit my father’s grave, and then have a few other friends to visit with before I return to Stephane’s for another cigar. I’ll be back here in time to watch the Super Bowl with my friends, especially knowing that Stephane is not a sports lover. (He also does not have a television in the garage, which means that we wouldn’t be able to smoke cigars during the game anyways).

    It is bone-chillingly cold out today; yesterday morning when I left Rick’s place it was 5° Celsius outside. By the time I left Stephane’s it was -14°, and this morning the wind chill is reading -29°. In short, it will be a relatively brief visit with my father. Standing outside in an unsheltered field when it feels like nearly -30° is not my definition of fun… but I cannot think of an enjoyable reason to visit a cemetery, even in the nicest climes. I need to speak to my Dad about the realizations I came to yesterday… and even if I did not, it is a son’s duty to say a prayer at his father’s grave. (If anyone is wondering, I have not once visited my mother’s grave since the day of her funeral, and while I know the cemetery she is in, I would not easily be able to find her grave. She caused me more that enough pain and discomfort while she was alive; I will not suffer the cold for a minute to go looking for her now. Maybe in the summer I will find her grave and say a prayer over it.

    One thing that can be said for extremely cold days in Canada, they are usually sunny and clear. It will at least be a pretty day to be driving about. Wherever you are, enjoy it! I’ll see you tomorrow.