a peek inside the fishbowl

To review: every other Tuesday is my day off and I’m trying to use this time to recharge my batteries. No work, no meetings, minimal errands. In my previous “Andrea’s Tuesdays” excursion I went to the Library and Archives building, and Ikea.  (A weird combo, but there you have it.)

I wish I had something more exciting to report than the fact that I went to the gym, but that’s what I did. I am training for a 5K and decided that this was the day to get real about it.

I did some research about interval training, downloaded a new timer app, and set out to the gym. I was feeling rather triumphant about the whole thing until I arrived and noticed that every single treadmill was occupied. Sigh. I did a few minutes of pedaling on the recumbent bike until one freed up.

I am slow, and most of my running consists of an awful lot of walking, but I’ve done an interval training before and lived to tell the tale.

I want to confess why I decided to partake in this race event. Contrary to what you might think, I didn’t sign up for my health, to lose weight, or to further my personal goals. I am in it just for the medal: a UNICORN MEDAL awarded to all participants.

Behold the glory:

This race is not a timed event, so I’ve told myself that it doesn’t matter how slow I am. I don’t care how fast I am, as long as I can finish in a respectable way without embarrassing myself or collapsing on the finish line. This is why I’m back at interval training.

After I was done at the gym, I came home, ate lunch (smoked salmon/cream cheese/cuke/lettuce wrapped in nori) and went online to check out options for new shoes. There was a flash sale at Sport Chek, so I drove over there to check it out. I tried on a couple of pairs and talked to a very knowledgeable sales guy about footwear options for people like me. They didn’t have the pair of shoes I spotted online ($200 Asics at 40% off!), so I did something I’ve never done before. I left the store, parked myself on a bench right outside, whipped out my iPhone, and bought them. I got them a day and a half later, and they are a perfect it.

I should also mention that the most important thing about this particular Tuesday was that it was our youngest daughter’s 16th birthday. (!) Now that they’re older I want to give them some privacy so I won’t go into TOO many details, but I will say this, she planned our evening’s activities and it was all very fun: a sushi dinner and a movie at the Mayfair, which turned out to be a documentary film about cats in Istanbul. (You can read more about it here. The film was surprisingly lovely and thoughtful.) Afterward, we drove to Altitude Gym in Gatineau, not because we wanted to climb some walls, but because she’d forgotten her coat and Presto pass there. Sigh. We ate cupcakes when we got home and unwrapped gifts. All in all, it was a very good day and I went to bed feeling full and happy.

Wake Up to a Chorus of Bird Songs With This Mobile Alarm App — https://t.co/3DhEHFcH6U pic.twitter.com/8HM6lMU7ll

— Mental Floss (@mental_floss) April 14, 2017

• How Dollarama became the retail king of knockoffs, macleans.ca
• It was supposed to be a joyous trip to one of France’s famous gastro palaces – what could possibly go wrong, theguardian.com
• New Mexico Outlaws School ‘Lunch Shaming’, nytimes.com
• Lauren Greenfield has surprising things to say about how we think about wealth, fastcompany.com
• The Crisis of Attention Theft—Ads That Steal Your Time for Nothing in Return, wired.com

On the nightstand: A House Without Windows: A Novel

Now that the snow is finally receding our gardens are once again revealing themselves. Mind you, everything is still frozen, but you can spot some green here and there amid all the brown.

A couple of summers ago I buried a few locally grown strawberries in a small patch of garden that gets some afternoon sunshine. I had found them shriveled up in the back of the crisper and thought maybe something would come of it, well, surprise surprise, the following year I had a very nice little strawberry plant. It grew from one of the seeds! There are no berries yet, but I was pretty excited about it. Last summer I watered it and pulled away encroaching weeds, basically doing whatever I could to protect its fragile future in our garden.

Later that year I was making my rounds outside with the watering can when I noticed a small pile of dirt near my lovely strawberry plant. I looked closer and noticed someone had dug a LITTLE HOLE, right at the foot of the strawberry plant. Here’s a photo from that time that shows what I’m talking about:

I knew exactly who the culprit was, too. A chipmunk had taken up residence in the stone wall that was supporting this particular flower bed and he must have spent some time excavating other entrances and exits. One was between the stones in the wall itself and another was near our A/C unit. I wasn’t too annoyed with him though. I thought that having a strawberry plant as the roof of your home was pretty nice. It was positively Smurfy! So even though I was a little worried about my plant’s survival and any potential harvest that may come of it, I just left it. (Also, it was around that time that I was dealing with a different garden-related situation in the same general area: the case of the missing marbles.)

Fast forward to this year. The strawberry plant, along with everything else, got buried under a pile of snow. As the weather warmed and the pile melted I started poking around the garden. (Mostly I was just looking for signs of life out there, as eager summer lovers are wont to do.) As my eye scanned the flower bed it fell upon my strawberry plant. The top of it was dead, of course, but I knew that it was just waiting to become warm enough to send forth its shoots of green again. I looked a little closer, remembering the little doorway to the chipmunk burrow. Oh no! There was something blocking the entrance! I reached over with my hand to brush it away when I suddenly realized IT WAS DOG POOP. It must have been there since before the first snow fell! I couldn’t believe Piper had chosen that exact place to, er, let one go.

Thankfully, I hadn’t touched it, yet. I grabbed a baggie and scooped it up. Can you imagine? Living the ENTIRE WINTER with poop on your doorstep that is almost the same size as you are? Poor chipmunks.

I went back yesterday to see if anything had changed. The chipmunk doorway was partially caved in and clearly abandoned. It seems that they have jumped ship. Or maybe they moved to a better neighbourhood. I can’t say I’m too surprised.