Kitsgal.com

Stormy Weather 

I have an intense fear of my roof being ripped off by a large bird.  It happened again last night.  I was lying in bed as a severe storm passed overhead, and my heart started to beat wildly. 

When I was growing up in Burns Lake, we had nasty electrical storms.  While incredibly beautiful from a distance, the fork lightening was known to be deadly and something to be avoided.  Of course, after each storm, the local news would profile the same guy who had been hit by lightening 14 times in a row and survived.  For some reason no one thought to fully question Reggie Stanson’s affection for playing golf in turbulent weather…nor did anyone do a suicide assessment on him. 

As a young girl, the storms were terrifying.  The house would shake.  The lightening would illuminate the whole house for long periods of time.  Tree branches would break  and fires would start wherever the fork lightening hit.  

One night, in a valiant effort to calm his scared daughter, my dad thought it would be a good idea to explain thunder and lightening – you know, to apply a more rational approach to the fear.  Did I get the traditional children’s explanation such as “Oh, don’t worry.  That is God bowling.  The lightening happens when he gets a strike!”  Or, “Oh, don’t worry.  That is Mother Nature pushing a hot and a cold front together. They are fighting over space in the atmosphere just like you and your sister fight over your play area.”  No. I got this tidbit of rarely used Scandinavian folklore.

Listen, Maggie.  Thunder and lightening are nothing to worry about.  What happens is sometimes, the Norse god Thor gets upset at the world so he opens up the sky and he sends a gigantic flying eagle down to earth and it lands on the roof of the house.  Sometimes the bird flies off with the house and takes it back to Thor as a gift.  See, nothing to worry about.  Now good night, Sunshine. 

With that jaw dropping anecdote, I was tucked into bed and left to worry about the dangers of thunder and lightening, our friend Reggie (and the fact that no one in the town thought he could survive one more lighting strike)….and now a giant eagle landing on the roof of my house and possibly taking it back to some guy with a weird name as a gift! 

To this day, I am still terrified of thunder storms.  Granted, I have a much more grown up understanding of thunder and lightening now – it is caused by space aliens who are doing a laser light show for friends - but the giant eagle thing is always in the back of my mind.   It is why I own two cats.  In the event the big bird shows up, I want to be armed with as much cat power as possible. 

As a post script, Reggie survived two more hits of lightening and to the best of my knowledge is still alive and doing well.  He has no hearing in his left ear and can pick up CBC North without a receiver.  He has given up golfing in stormy weather but has taken up skydiving.  Stay tuned.

 

Boot Camp

It was an idea borne out of utter desperation after a summer of laziness and debauchery. (Sorry I haven’t posted in a while but as I just said, it was a summer of laziness and debauchery). Stumbling back from a gossip session with a friend two nights ago, I saw it – the following words emblazoned across a yellow poster stapled crudely to a telephone pole:

“Kits Boot Camp – Give us one month and we will get you in the best shape of your life”

Wow! The best shape of my life would be an easy goal to attain given that I have worked hard to keep that bar really low. I ran home (who am I kidding – you all know I took my own sweet time getting home – stopping at McDonald’s to get a hot fudge sundae with extra hot fudge and no nuts….).

I signed up as soon as I found the website. I am not sure what caused me to think this would be a good idea. It might have been the sugar from the hot fudge sundae in my system or the three glasses of wine I had earlier in the evening but, gosh darn it, I wanted to go to boot camp. I pictured hot, ripped former marines (who still got called occasionally to go on secret missions) yelling at the other participants to watch my form when I ran. I pictured myself running in slow motion on the beach at the front of the pack like Pamela Anderson in Bay Watch. I pictured myself becoming almost bionic from these sessions. In fact, maybe the hot marines will soon ask me to go along on secret missions with them to assassinate annoying world leaders too. How sexy is that? Yippee!

When the alarm went off at 5:30 am, I thought I was going to die. And not in a pleasant, Oh, I’ve lived a nice long life and it is my time to go kind of death. No, this was an unpleasant, I’m kicking and screaming my way to the cemetery and I am taking as many of you with me along the way kind of death. Still, by some force of nature, I forced myself up, got dressed and somehow drove my car over to Kits Beach where these workout sessions happen at 6 am every morning.

It was cold, damp and dark outside. I quickly found a group of six other zombies in the beach parking lot at the designated meet up area. At least I think they were in my class – either that or I spent the next hour of my life with a bunch of energetic can guys.

Anyway, at 6 am precisely, Christiana, our fearless leader arrived. Christiana was nothing like the testosterone filled marine I envisioned in my fantasy. First of all, she was a girl. And not just any girl. Christina was your basic kitsgal nightmare. Blonde, perfect and perky. At 6 am! She wore tiny camouflage shorts, a tiny camouflage hoodie and nifty camouflage hat. I somehow doubted that she had any real military training – unless she was part of some sort of Playboy army.

And so it began. The exercise. The torture. The screaming. (just to be clear, the last element came mainly from my direction.) In case you are wondering what happens at these boot camps, essentially, you do all the exercises you absolutely hated in Gym 8. Together. One after the other. At 6am.

I began to plot as to how I could get thrown out of this faux military experiment of mine.

List of things I did to get thrown out of Boot Camp:

•  
  • Produced a negative attitude: I hate this. I hate you. I hate all of you. I am going to eat you and your tiny dog when this is all over.
  • Announced that I had a medical condition which barred me from doing exercises: I can’t do those lunges. With my leprosy, my leg might fly off.
  • Pretended to be gay: Hey Christina! You look hot in those shorts.

But nothing worked. All of my efforts were met with counters from Christina such as:

• Good for you. Get angry at the pain!
• Looking forward to our date.

It was a little creepy and frustraing.

Finally, it happened. Christina gave one direction that proved to be too much and was to be my ticket out of the Army of the People’s Republic of Kitsilano.

Put your yoga mat on the grass and then lie on it to stretch.

Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Put my expensive lulu lemon yoga mat on the ground? The ground? Where everyone’s little dog and the odd hobo has taken a crap and a urination in the last forty years? Where drug addicts throw their needles? Where horny couples fornicate when they are too cheap to rent a room? And do this in the dark when you can’t see exactly where you are putting your mat and see exactly what you are lying in….Harrumph. I don’t think so Missy.

And so that was it….my chronic hypochondria and my over functioning nature got me a section 8 from Kits Boot Camp.


Less limbs mean you can lunge farther.