Losing a part of me

Category: Psychology

  • Day 46

    While today has not been a perfect start to the day, I am going to make it better than yesterday. That is my only goal. It is windy out, but unseasonably warm. I am going to drive over to Lyle and Dorothy’s house for a cigar or two, and probably dinner. It will be good to see my friends. Yes, I was with friends yesterday, but you can never have enough time with friends.

    I only wish my girlfriend could be here too. I am counting down the days!

    As expected, my bathroom scale was up a terrible number this morning. I could not have imagined it would be otherwise; honestly, before I stepped onto it, I predicted the number. I was off by .2 of a pound. It is time to reset. Today, better… tomorrow, better than today. That is the only way to move forward.

    Have a great day!

  • Explaining Today… or Yesterday.

    It was just past 1:00am when HRF Princess Sophie and I walked back into our apartment in Burlington. With gasoline at the highest price I have ever seen in any country ($1.849/litre as I was arriving home) I was not really thinking about that; I knew that we would be driving about 375km on Saturday, but I did not particularly care. We were going to celebrate my goddaughter’s birthday (a week late thanks to Covid), and the price of gas was not going to stop that. Thirteen hours ago, when things were completely unraveling and my rage was through the roof, I was not angry about the price of gasoline, nor about the war that is the cause of it. I was just having a terrible day. Everything was falling – out of my hands, out of my pockets, and when I put my prepared shake down as we got into the car, that fell too. Nothing was going right, and I could not keep a handle on my emotions. I started screaming and swearing and screaming and swearing some more.

    I Remembered that five years ago I spilled some of a shake in my car, and I paid the price for not cleaning it up right away. Until the day I sold the car, the stained leather was a daily reminder that I had not cleaned it up. I had nothing in the car to wipe up the mess. Despite the anger and rage that was coursing through my veins, I decided to leave Princess Sophie in the car for a few minutes, and I went up to the apartment to get a roll of paper towels. I came back down and cleaned as best I could. I think I did a pretty good job of it. It didn’t matter, my emotions were morphing from rage to distraught sadness.

    I called Leslie, but I knew that she was busy with her son and was not surprised that she did not answer the phone. I doubt it would have mattered. The message I left for her was that I was going to Wendy’s, I was ordering a hamburger and a large non-diet soda. I was not dieting today. I do not think there is anything she or anyone could have said to talk me down from that. I pulled into the drive-through lane and ordered the single hamburger with no cheese, French fries, and I decided to stick to the sugar-free soda. Even knowing that the soda would not be my worst transgression of the day, I still opted for the diet.

    As I pulled out of their parking lot I reached into the bag, only to discover they had given me a cheeseburger without any of the other toppings. I might not be respecting my diet today, but I am sticking to my religion. I turned around and went back.

    I do not think the brainless idiot at Wendy’s realizes his good fortune. To give him the benefit of the doubt, he might have a brain, and might have just been too stoned to understand what I was saying. I am not talking about the original mistake – mistakes will happen, and I get that. The three-minute conversation I had to endure with this 18-24 kid was maddening, and the fact that I did not rip his head off is a testament to my something. I am not sure how difficult it is to understand ‘I ordered a burger with no cheese but all the regular toppings, you gave me a burger with cheese and no other toppings. This entire three-minute conversation took place as he held the hamburger I had handed to him in his hand. It was only after that conversation, and after he went to clarify something with his manager, that he came back and tried to hand the burger back to me. ‘I’m not allowed to take this back.’ Then throw it out. I am not sure what I would have said had he told me that he could not even do that. The old me, in the already highly agitated state I was in, would have been a lot louder, less calm, and most likely insulting. A small miracle indeed… and seven minutes after this conversation started again, I drove away with the right sandwich.

    The fast food was not the only nor was it likely the worst cheat of the day. I will not enumerate what the others were, but I was bad. There were a lot of chips, there was spaghetti, there was birthday cake. Saturday was a complete and utter failure.

    I did not harm anyone. I did not even lash out at anyone. I am not sure how I managed it, but while I told a couple of people that I was having a crappy day, nobody suffered from it. Nobody, of course, but me. I am sure Leslie suffered as well – she is very empathetic, and when I am not doing well, she feels my pain.

    Speaking of pain, let’s add a bad left knee to the list. I have no idea how, but it feels like there is a bruise. I have no recollection of smashing it, but there it is. However painful the gout in my foot might be, today it was muted by my knee’s phantom injury. When I say the gout pain is muted, I should really refer to it as immensely overshadowed by a different pain. I am seeing my doctor on Wednesday and am definitely going to speak with him about the gout. I expect my knee will be fine by then. However, I have been complaining about the gout since Wednesday, and taking Naproxen and pain killers since then. While it might eventually clear it up, it is certainly taking its time. Time to bring in the big guns.

    I am going to sleep. Tomorrow (later today) better be a better day.

  • Day 41

    Sunday was bad for several reasons; my only transgressions on Monday were quantity – I had two pieces of chicken for lunch and a piece of fish for dinner. I still avoided carbs and starches, and do not think it is the end of the world. Yes, I would like to reduce my intake. No, this level of intake will not ruin my weight loss plans.

    It is hard to believe that today is March 1. I always see this day as a bit of a turning point between ‘it’s still freaking cold’ and ‘it’s starting to get warmer.’ I hope I am right. I know there will still be cold days to come, but the 10-day forecast only has the daily high temperature below 0°c once… although the daily lows will only be above 0°c during the same time frame. All in all, I look forward to using less propane to heat my cigar sessions, but it’s still a month or more away… and two months before I’ll be golfing yet.

    I noticed this morning that I had a weird pain in my foot when I took HRF Princess Sophie for her walk. Maybe pain is too strong a word, but definitely a sensation. I will pay attention to it throughout the day. I am sure it is nothing – I probable slept in a weird position, or while I was teaching yesterday evening, I did not move my feet for a long time. I am not worried about it, but I did notice it.

    I decided today to share yesterday’s article about unsolicited weight-loss advice with my public Facebook group. I did a tiny bit of cleaning up – I do not want the person involved to feel targeted, which she is not. Hers was just the unsolicited advice that reminded me to write it out. I get that sort of advice from all sorts of people all the time and have thought these words many times before. She just happened to be the one who reminded me.

    Today’s plan: I had my meal replacement shake in the morning, and it is almost time for lunch – maybe another thirty minutes. I am going to make myself a salad with some canned salmon. After that, I plan to enjoy a cigar or two on the patio – I have invited a friend over, and hope he is able to come. What I would like to happen next, which is different from what I’ve been doing: At 5:30 I’ll take HRF Princess Sophie for a walk. I will come back in and make my dinner salad and will put my dinner (fish again) in the air fryer and douse it with lemon juice, but I will not start cooking it. I will set an alarm for 10 minutes before my class dinner break so that I can start the air fryer going. My dinner will be at 7:45pm, and that should be it for the day.

    Is that what is going to happen? I do not know. I will do my best to not veer too badly from this plan.

    Have a great day!

  • Day 40

    Today is the fortieth day of my diet. I am feeling better, my clothes are fitting better. I do not feel like a new person, but I do seem to have more energy than I did at my heaviest. I have a long way to go.

    Yesterday was not a good day for my diet. While I passed the greatest challenge (not eating any of my son’s pizza or cheesy bread), I did have a lot of chicken for dinner, and a bag of popcorn. I do not know if it was simply because I miss Leslie (who I drove to the airport yesterday afternoon), or if I just slipped. It is likely the former. Today I have to do better.

    Someone responded to a post of mine on Facebook telling me not to diet, that moderation is the key. She wrote:

    “Don’t diet. I always eat pizza fries ice cream chocolate etc. It’s the portion that matters not the food. A diet isn’t sustainable and why people gain everything back and some. Eat enjoy move on. Now that’s self-love and life.”

    I wanted to say something much harsher, but opted for the following response:

    “The preceding message works fine for people who are 10-15lbs overweight. If (as I am) you are morbidly obese, please consult medical professionals (as I have), and not people who do not understand what REAL weight issues are.”

    Believe me, the first three responses that I typed were much ruder.

    I cannot stand people trying to give me weight loss advice. Everyone seems to think they know the secret. Let me let you in on a little secret: If there was one magic bullet to lose a lot of weight and keep it off, the entire world would be slim. Hey friend, I know your heart is in the right place, but kindly keep your extremely unwelcome unsolicited advice to yourself.

    That, incidentally, is good advice for anyone who is tempted to give weight-loss advice to anyone who is overweight, and who did not ask for it. If we wanted your advice, we would have asked for it. Yes, there is the extremely small percentage of people who do not know how to ask for help, and there might even be people who will be grateful for it… although I doubt it. To help you understand, this is the conversation:

    You: “Oh, I see you are having trouble losing weight. What you should do is this. I promise it will just melt off!”

    Fat Guy/Girl: “Thank you. I will consider that.”

    But here’s the thing: What Fat Guy/Girl is thinking is: “You know what, you sanctimonious prick? I did not ask for your advice, I do not want your advice, and any implication that there is a simple way to lose this much weight implies you think that I am weak and a failure, and without your help I cannot succeed. Do you think I like being morbidly obese? Do you think I do it because it is fun, or because of how attractive it makes me to the opposite sex? You asshole, I am fat because of either psychological or physiological reasons that are none of your damned business… and if they were, I would have shared them with you long since. Also, Ass: Do you think you are the first person to tell me the secret to weight loss? You are not in the top 20. Guess what? Most of you are giving me different advice. You know what the only thing all of you have in common? I did not ask for your advice, I do not want your advice, and it is a shame that it is illegal for me to punch you in the face for giving me your advice.

    Let me make this clear. While there may be others, these are the most obvious categories of overweight people:

    1. People who are happy being overweight. While this is probably the rarest of them, it is a thing.

    2. People who are unhappy being overweight but have not started trying to lose weight.

    3. People who are unhappy being overweight and who have tried and failed to lose weight.

    4. People who are unhappy being overweight and who have lost the weight then regained the weight, often several times.

    There are others, I am sure. Unless someone from any of these categories says to you “Hey, friend… I know you are slim, and I am not, and I would like your advice on how I can become more like you” then they do not want your advice.

    As a bonus, talking about their weight issues is always counterproductive. Guess what? They will know… and it will discourage them more. Your gossiping about their weight problems is just mean and makes you sound like you are still in high school.

    You might know what the psychological trauma they faced is, you may not. Yes, everyone knows I was in the Army, and some people know (or have an idea of) what I went through. Fewer people know about my childhood. You might know it all, you might know none of it. It doesn’t matter. Unless I ask you for your advice, mind your own damned business.

    For the record: Every time you tell an overweight person that the key to life is moderation and portion control, most of them want to reach for a large all-dressed pizza, a double-cheeseburger with a side of fries, or a large plate of deep-fried breaded wings dripping with sauce. If we don’t do that, it is not because of you… any more than if we do that it is because of you. Our weight gain may have many causes, but as adults, we are responsible for it; nobody forced me to make a huge plate of extra-creamy pasta with meats and cheeses and a large plate of garlic bread. I am fat because of me.

    Now please understand the corollary of that: If we eat healthy, successfully practice the self-control that we all need, and we do lose weight, we get the credit… not you.

    Have a great day. I’m going to have my lunch, and then I need a cigar before class starts.

  • Day 36

    I find that I have gotten into a routine of having a shake for breakfast, a salad (often with either canned salmon or tuna) for lunch, a proper (but well-planned and careful) dinner, and a bar in the evenings. I seem to be doing pretty well with my weight loss on that routine. We will see how it goes. This morning, I made an omelet for Leslie, and I helped her with it… just a few bites, but I have to remember these things when I am accounting for my food. It helps nobody to consume a food and not remember you ate it. “Hey, I cannot figure out why I am not losing weight!?” Maybe it’s because of that half-order of French toast of your child’s that you ate because you didn’t want it to go to waste.

    There are days when I feel that I cannot do anything right. I have to try to remember on those days that yes, most of what I did was good, but it is the things I got wrong that I focus on. That has been my history, because it was how I was taught. “Sure, Mitch… you did great on your math test, you played well with others, you even ate your greens… but none of that matters because you didn’t clean your room. Go there and do not come out until it is spotless.” There are days when I am nearly able to come to terms with the person that my mother was… and then I remember things like this, that to this day sabotage my happiness and that of other people, and I remember why I could not stand her when she was alive.

    Last night I made the fish with Buffalo wing sauce that I planned for, and it was very good. I put a couple of rainbow trout fillets into the air fryer, doused them in lemon juice, and cooked them for 10 minutes and 400°F. The sauce is one that I learned how to make when I was in college from my downstair neighbour who was studying to be a chef. It has four simple ingredients, three of which are almost always in my fridge or pantry anyways. I did have to buy ketchup, as I suppose I had thrown it out when I started the program. Once Leslie is gone, I will likely go back to the boring chicken-every-night routine, but while she is here, I am enjoying mixing it up. I also plan to, on days when I go to the supermarket, pick up a good piece of fish to enjoy that night. I do not like letting fish sit too long… you understand.

    I am waiting on two packages that are set to arrive by Canada Post today or tomorrow, and I am excited about both of them. One is a handle for the Corning ware pots that I am buying from Lyle and Dorothy. Meh, okay. There is a history behind these that is the reason I bought it… aside from the obvious ‘Corning ware pots don’t have handles’ aspect, my mother always had one in her kitchen… and it was something that my sister always said, ‘When she dies, I am taking this.’ She can have it. I’ll buy my own. Fuck you, Jennifer.

    The second package is a lot more fun. I have not bought new funky socks in a long time, and when I saw on Facebook that a buddy bought a pair of dim sum socks, I reached out and asked him where he found them. He told me… and I had fun. The short version of the story is that either today or tomorrow I will have eight new pair of fun socks.

    It is still a bit chilly to sit outside, but if the wind dies down just a little then I will sit with a cigar today. Leslie has a lot of work to do, and I only start teaching at 6:00pm. I suppose my goal for the day is to relax until then, and to not veer too badly from my weight management program. Oh, and to drink water. Plenty of water!

    Wherever you are, enjoy the day!

  • 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 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.