Losing a part of me

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  • War and Sanctions and the Economic Casualties of War

    I am in a quandary.

    Flags of Russia and the Ukraine Divided Diagonally - 3D Render of the Russian Flag and Ukrainian Flag with Silky TextureThis week, Russia invaded Ukraine. We can discuss the reasons behind it, but they are irrelevant. Simply put, Vladimir Putin wants to control the country, while the country wants to join NATO and the European Union. It is clear that Putin is a ruthless dictator who wants to rebuild the Russian Empire, conquering people who do not want to be controlled by Russia.

    The West has imposed sanctions on Russia, which short of declaring war and putting troops on the ground is as much as they can do. Fighting Russia on its borders would be catastrophic for all involved, and so before it gets to that, they are going to try the sanctions. Anyone who knows what terrible effects war can have would support this… unless of course you are Ukrainian and your country has been invaded.

    For these reasons, I support the sanctions. The fact that, as many news outlets are reporting, the effects of the sanctions might take years for them to feel does not diminish the importance of them. Russia invaded Ukraine, we impose sanctions. Everything else might take time, but this is an immediate step that we can take to show our support for the Ukraine and our opposition to the criminal activity of Russia.

    I know people in Russia who are against the war. They are against Putin, and know that he is a ruthless dictator. They want him gone, but are realistic enough to know that he is not going anywhere. These people have already started to feel the effects of the sanctions. This morning, many Microsoft Certified Trainers living in Russia received an e-mail effectively saying that they are not to receive the benefits of being an MCT anymore.

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    This is not from an occasional trainer; this letter was forwarded to me from an active full-time trainer who is a nice guy, and who is now worried because he has effectively lost his livelihood, and his ability to feed his family.

    So how can I be in favour of sanctions, yet against the effects of them? It is indeed a quandary that I have had to think about. I feel terrible for the individual Russians who are going to feel the effects of the sanctions long before their government ever will, and I will cry for them. At the same time, I have to cry also for the trainers in Ukraine who are also losing their livelihoods… and often their lives. They are not losing anything because of sanctions, rather because of the invasion that is killing people.

    War is not simple. It is not black and white, good and bad. It is, in a sense… but it is not completely so. This war is a completely unwarranted invasion of a sovereign nation, and there is a right side (Ukraine and the West) and a wrong side (Russia and Vladimir Putin). The response from the west could be stronger and it could be lesser, but for the time being, the effects are being felt by the innocent, where the not-black-and-white part comes in. I feel horrible for the people in Russia who are being hurt by the sanctions, but if the alternative is sending in troops that will result in more death and destruction, then maybe the current economic sanctions (that are hurting the wrong people for now) are the only reasonable immediate response.

    And so, I completely support the sanctions… and I completely sympathize for the innocent people who are being hurt by it. I would love to send this friend money… but with the sanctions what they are, not only would I not be able to get it to him… I would be in danger of having my accounts frozen for trying to defy the sanctions.

    I have thumbed my nose at blockades when they are unjust. I feel that the American blockade of Cuba is not only an anachronism, I think it was a stupid blockade when it was put into place… essentially John F. Kennedy and the Americans taking their ball and going home after the Cuban Revolution kicked out his (JFK’s) gangster friends out of the country, and then foiling their attempted invasion at the Bahía de los Cochinos (Bay of Pigs). I have been to Cuba dozens of times, mostly when I was living in Canada but also several times when I was living in the USA. Yes, I have thumbed my nose at this unjust blockade. Sanctions against Russia for invading Ukraine? I’m sorry, but there is nothing unjust about that. Unfortunately, the effect is that many innocent people will be hurt in Russia.

    When the innocent people in Ukraine stop getting hurt and killed by Russia, then we can discuss removing them.

    Conclusion

    It is hard to be for an action but against the effects of the action. On the surface, the geopolitics of a war can be clearly good versus evil, but there are good people on the side of bad who are going to be hurt by the consequences of what their government does, and that is unfortunate. I wish there was something that could make it easier for them, but it is up to them, if they feel they are being led by an unjust dictator, to topple that dictator… and I am not going to go into by what means they should do that. Hoping that he, one of the richest men in the world, and not yet 70 years old, will die soon of natural causes is unrealistic. The people of Russia who are against the war and against the man must find a way to bring about change. It cannot be done by foreigners, who would then be seen by the Russian people as just as bad as we now see the Russian government.

  • Day 37

    There are going to be good days, there are going to be bad days. Then there are the days that are going to start out really well, go really bad in a hurry, and then end up well again. This is the sort of day yesterday was. It had nothing to do with dieting. Suffice it to say that all’s well that ends well.

    While my weight loss is not going as fast as I would like, I am also not starving myself. I might be consuming as many as 1400 calories in a day, instead of the prescribed 900 calories. Knowing (or at least suspecting) how many calories I used to have in a day, there is no way I can eat 1200-1400 calories and not lose weight. The only differences are that a) I will not see dramatic weight loss every day, and b) I will not be depriving myself, and I will hopefully adjust to eating like this, rather than how I used to eat (and what I was used to eating).

    Leslie has a couple of meetings today, and the weather is pretty ugly outside. It is currently -10° outside, with a windchill of -20°, and with blowing snow. By early afternoon it is supposed to go up to -4°, at which point I hope the wind will have died down, and I can enjoy a cigar. For now, the balcony is quite inhospitable, even with the heater.

    I have one piece of work to do today, and it starts late in the evening. I essentially have the day off, which means I can relax and spend time with my girlfriend… in between her meetings, and her preparing for meetings. I also plan to look at the labs and courseware for my class that starts next week… oh, and I will review the evals for the class that finished last night. I suppose I do have some work to do… but it will still be a relaxing day.

    I was showing Leslie some of the custom-tailored shirts that I have, and then I realized that if I am going to do this slowly, I am going to get a few shirts for the next few months. I have them made by a tailor in Hong Kong who comes to Canada twice per year to measure people and to sell. We looked on their site, and it turns out they will be in town during her next visit! She has excellent fashion sense, and we will pick out a few shirts, maybe a couple of pair of pants, and a sports jacket. I do not think I am going to get a new suit, but I still have a month to decide about that. In the meantime, I have to spend the next month losing weight, so that when the time comes, I will be hopefully 15-20 lbs smaller than I am now.

    This is yet another difference between this time and the previous diet attempts. I had vowed to get a custom-tailored suit when I lost 100 lbs in 2017… and I did. In fact, I got two of them. Neither of them currently fit, but they will when I am at that weight. This time around, I want to start dressing snazzy sooner. I hope that by the time I have a wedding to go to (mid-July) I will fit into my 2017 suits, but in the event that I don’t, at least I will have something nice to wear.

    I had my meeting with my diet-buddy last night. I was worried about her because she had missed the previous meeting, so I reached out to her, and she told me what had happened. Neither one of us is on the pace we want to be, but we are both losing weight, which is just fine.

    I see the weather is getting a little better, and in an hour or so I might be able to wipe down the chairs on the balcony and light a cigar. In the meantime, I want to wish you all a great day, and a wonderful weekend!

  • 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 34

    I am going to the doctor’s office to get weighed today. I do not think that it will be a successful attempt, as I still think my weight is over the upper limit of the scale. However, knowing that my bathroom floor will not allow me to take an accurate reading (and that it might be up or down fifteen pounds!) I decided to go anyways and see.

    My evening class is going well, and with the exception of IPv6 I am extremely comfortable with the material I am teaching now. DHCP and DNS are two topics that I have been lecturing on for over fifteen years, and frankly the changes to them over the years have been minor.

    I was mostly good on the program yesterday… I had a salad with canned salmon for lunch, but for the evening meal I bought and prepared salmon tails for Leslie and I (as well as making a large salad). I put them into the air fryer with lemon juice, a little salt, pepper, oregano, and dill. I air-fried them at 400°F for 11 minutes and plated them alone (opting to serve the salad in separate bowls. I brought the lemon juice to the table to allow for extra flavours, and the result was fabulous. I daresay, I seldom choose to prepare fish for dinner, but it really is an easy dish to prepare. The only cheat that I had yesterday was a slice of all-beef salami.

    For this evening Leslie is marinating chicken, and I know that if she is making it then I will love it. She is a really good cook. She asked me last night over dinner where I had learned to cook, and I gave her a bit of a rundown… yes, the genesis was in my mother’s house, but I cooked for myself ever since the Army, and on several occasions have even cooked for others. My repertoire is not too extensive, but I have a base that I can go to pretty easily. She told me that she asked because her ex was none too handy in the kitchen, and she does not want her son to get to the age of thirty without knowing how to make a sandwich. I told her about my grandfather, who after my grandmother went into the home would eat cans of anchovies for dinner because he did not know how to make anything else. I told her about my father, who I was certain would never leave my mother because he did not know how to make toast. I told her that I do not want to be that guy, and that I want to be able to eat well without having to eat out or order in every meal. I may not be able to make a lot of things, and what I do make is not complicated… but everything tastes good, and there is enough that I could make a different meal for every day of the week if I had to.

    —

    I am back from the doctor, and I am still several pounds above what their primary scale can measure… but they have a secondary scale that measured me at about what my bathroom scale has me at, if we take into account the weight of my clothes. I am unhappy to be this heavy, and I am certainly unhappy with the slower rate of progress (over my two previous attempts at this program); with that said, it is firstly possible that because of the floor/scale issues at the apartment I started out heavier that I recorded, and secondly, I need to remember that I have not been as religious with the program as I was the first two times. I might have already lost 40 lbs, who knows?

    I have a few hours to kill before I teach this evening, and I am going to spend most of that time on the balcony smoking cigars. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 33–Monday, February 21, 2022

    I have made no progress in a week… but with all the crap that has happened, I am just glad that I did not lose any ground either.

    Leslie and I went shopping yesterday and we bought two gorgeous dress shirts for me to wear for the next couple of months, until my nicer dress shirts start to fit. I spent more than I was planning to on the second shirt, but Leslie is so good to me, how could I deny her? Also, I thought it was a gorgeous shirt too!

    Yesterday I was good until I was not. Lyle made a fabulous dinner of boeuf bourguignon, which he prepared for me without noodles. I also ended up having a few of Leslie’s noodles when she was done, which means that not only did I go overboard on the portions, I also had the carbs which I have to work so hard to avoid. I will not have any more this week!

    It was a very nice weekend. Leslie and I spend at least an hour on the phone every day, but there are some things that are just easier to talk about (or at least to go into detail about) in person. It has gone both ways, and we have both had things to talk about. We also spent an hour on the patio yesterday smoking a very fine cigar, and I read her my favourite Rudyard Kipling poem from a book of his that I purchased a couple of weeks ago… printed in 1899. The book is delicate, but how much more romantic can it be than to read poetry to your beloved… even if it is a poem about having to choose between a woman and cigars.

    I am working this evening, and Leslie is working during the day. She plans to audit my class tonight, which will be fun. She has heard me present to an audience before, but she has never actually seen me teach. Also, it has been a year since I last had an in-person audience! While she works, I will be sitting on the balcony smoking – it is a beautiful day, the first in a series of days that will be unseasonably warm. Tomorrow afternoon Lyle will come for a cigar or two, which will be nice. Of course, Dorothy is always invited, but she works during the days, so that won’t work out. Hopefully Leslie will have enough of a break between meetings to join us for a bit.

    My goddaughter’s birthday party was supposed to be next Saturday, but her mom messaged me yesterday telling me it is postponed by a week. She (the mom) tested positive for Covid-19 and is isolating for two weeks. I am sending her positive vibes for a full and speedy recovery.

    After a couple of hours of distractions, I am on my way to finish my day. My friend the cleaning lady is here, Leslie is working, I have had a salmon salad for lunch. I do not have to teach for another five hours, and I am going to choose a fine cigar and sit out on the balcony for a few hours.

    Have a great day!

  • Day 32

    It truly feels wonderful having Leslie here. I was so happy that she decided to come, and when her plane arrived nearly 30 minutes early, I was elated! Five minutes after her plane was scheduled to land, she messaged me to say that she had her suitcase and was coming out to the kerb. I was only halfway through the cigar that I had been smoking, which is fine because Leslie loves when I smoke cigars. I finished that cigar on the drive home, rather than lighting a fresh one (which had been the plan).

    I was mostly good on the diet yesterday. I did have a bag of almonds on the way to the airport, but it was a small bag, not the big size I would have bought before the diet. I had my piece of chicken and a bog salad, and then I polished off Leslie’s chicken when she said she was done. None of that is really more than I have been doing on the accepted hybrid program I’ve been on. One last shake in the evening, and I estimate that I might have had 1300 calories yesterday, all healthy ones.

    This morning, I prepared a very nice omelet for Leslie, with all-beef salami, onion, and mushrooms. She loved it, but I did help her to finish it. I did not even have a quarter of it, and with the exception of the salami, it was all very healthy. I do not feel bad about it.

    The plan for today: As long as it is warm enough, Leslie and I are going to spend the evening with our friends Lyle and Dorothy. Lyle will be preparing dinner (he is an award-winning gourmet chef), and I expect that he will make something for me that is within the guidelines of my program. In case he does not, I will have a shake and a shaker bottle with me… just in case. Knowing my friend, I will not need it. He has promised Leslie a gastronomical masterpiece heavy on the mushrooms (Leslie is a fiend for fungi!) and served over a bed of his homemade pasta. While I am sure I will eat well as well, I suspect I might be just a little jealous of what they will be eating!

    The cigars that Leslie brought me were… well, there is no other word for them – spectacular. She brought me two limited edition boxes of Davidoff cigars, plus ten Padron 1964 Anniversary (the Cigars International Cigar of the Year). They are absolutely drool-worthy! We took the pictures, and then we put them nicely into the humidor. We then affixed the new LED light strips that I bought into the door of the humidor. The result is amazing… unless you press the flashing button, at which point it feels like a 70s discotheque (minus the LSD).

    I will stick to the plan today! Again, the plan does not have to be as strictly regimented as I once thought… I can replace a meal-replacement shake with a piece of chicken, and I can have a few bites of Leslie’s scramble (I called it an omelet before; in truth, when I tried to flip it and failed, it transformed into a scramble) without beating myself up over it. The spirit of the program is more important than the rules… no starches, very minimal carbs, and smaller portions. I failed on the portions a couple of times this week, but not today. I’ll stick to it today as well.

    Tomorrow is a holiday in both Ontario (Family Day) and the USA (Presidents’ Day), although I will be teaching my group in the USA from Ontario in the evenings. No matter, I love what I do… and I certainly love knowing I am earning a full salary while on shortened hours at my day job!

    Have a great day, and enjoy your day off tomorrow!

  • Day 31

    As Princess Sophie and I stepped out of the front doors this morning, she was in a way. There was a pile of snow, and she did her business. It took her five seconds. I am unsure if this is because she had been holding it in, or because she realized that this morning might have been the blusteriest morning we have had since she arrived in Canada. For a girl who had spent her first four-plus years living in Southern California… the worst ever. Really, it was not too bad, with the temperatures hovering around -8°c, but with the wind chill it was ten degrees colder than that, and the wind was howling indeed. While the temperatures won’t bother me, I do hope the wind will die down over the next few hours.

    Yesterday was not a good day on the diet. A mix of anxiety and sadness, tinged with the happiness of knowing that today Leslie will be arriving. I just got off the phone with her. She is at the airport waiting to board her plane. I have a few things to do today, but at about 2:30pm I will be in the cell phone waiting lot for her to call me and tell me she has her bag and is meeting me outside. We are both jumping out of our skin! I wish she was coming to better weather; maybe she will bring it with her from Texas.

    I drank more water yesterday, which is important. I have to pay attention to that today, although I will balance it with the fact that from the time I leave home until the time I return will probably be three hours, and I do not want to be looking for a public washroom if I can avoid it. I will take a cup of coffee in the car, which I know will be rather small (I know how big my travel coffee cups are). Before parking in the cell phone lot, I will stop at the nearby Tim Hortons to refill it and will use the washroom there. Hopefully that will be fine until I get home with Leslie.

    Oh, right… I also have to replace one of my propane tanks! I’ll do that before heading to the airport.

    My goal for today is to not cheat on the diet. Yesterday was another bad day, and the only good thing I can say about it is that I have now finished the aged cheddar that was in the house and will not be tempted to buy more. I will be preparing food for Leslie – I love making her breakfast, and I found out recently how meaningful it is to her. She keeps telling me that she does not want me to do anything for her food-wise that I would not be doing for myself, but I am going to do it anyways. Besides… if I take a bite of her omelet, it will not harm my diet.

    For a while this morning, I thought I was coming down with a cold. I realized a while ago that my eyes are dry and itchy, which is usually a symptom of allergies, and not of a cold. I do not know if that is better or worse, but I have taken an allergy pill, and will try to pay attention throughout the day to see if they helped. I know that I will be rather preoccupied later in the day… Leslie’s presence (after nearly two months) will be quite distracting, and I might not pay attention to things like itchy eyes!

    My goal for today: do not break my diet. I want to stay the course, and to get back on track. I know that Leslie’s support will be a big help for me!

    Have a great day folks! Enjoy your weekend!

  • 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.