In which Someday arrives.

    

 ell, I'm in the wee town, and several things are happening. The amount of brown cardboard in our house is slowly diminishing. I'm within striking distance of being able to walk across the music room without looking like a tap dancer in an earthquake. (One more box, and I'll be able to see floor! Measurable areas of floor!)

     I've made contact with a local brass quintet, and I sat in (listening) on one of their rehearsals last night. I've had a long look at the second trumpet music, to see if I would be any use to them when they need a sub. The verdict is: maybe. Someday. Just not soon. So I'm setting my second priority: play the heck out of the cornet, six or seven days a week, and try to get to where it's some musical use. I start every day with the "Have You Ever Actually Played This Thing?" Session. (Mostly flow exercises, including Cichowicz.)

     After a bit of a rest, I have "Okay, Arguably You've Played This Before, But Why Bother To Try Again?" Session. (Mostly Long Tones and Michael Irons Lip Slurs.)  In later sessions, I have a run at the Clarke Technical Studies, and any repertoire that recommends itself.
 
     "But," you cry, "why only the second priority? Surely, the chances of making a fool or yourself on cornet would make that the first only thought on your mind?" And that brings me to the Fairly Bad News.

     In rapid succession, I've received two pieces of medical news that are not entirely unexpected, but were almost entirely bad: 1) I meet the clinical standards for obesity, which is bad, but not exactly a surprise, and 2) I meet the clinical definition of diabetic which is very bad, and something of a surprise. I always knew that I was too heavy, and I knew that it could cause complications, someday. Well, someday arrived on the 12th of February.

Now, being a linear, reductionist kind of thinker, I assumed that there was something to be done, and I went looking for it. I found two things: First, this diet, outlined in the Guardian. Yes, it's extreme, but I've seen what type II diabetes does if not handled, and it's even more extreme. (Reminds me of the guy that said, "I don't really care about climate change. It's just that climate change is in the process of destroying everything that I do care about." But I digress.) The second was this study by people at UCalgary and UOttawa. It seems to show that working out six days a week was better than working out three days a week. This is the beginning of a plan....

I've joined a gym here in the wee town, and the routine here is: Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I'm lifting weights. My shoulders are still a mess, which restricts what I can do, but the leg press and the cable row are still my friends. (The leg extension machine is still my friend, I think.) Overall, I'm nicely into the "Training seriously, walking kind of funny" mode which I knew and loved many years ago. Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, I'm exploring the aerobic machines. The working goal is to do 1000 calories in a workout, which is roughly equivalent, at my size, to walking or running a 10K. So far, I'm up to 400 calories, but progress continues. (This will also help with my VO2 max. When I tested it, the machine just said, "Ashes to ashes....")

Then there's the diet. Oh yes, the diet... Basically, carbohydrates are a thing of the past. My new favourites vary from spinach omelettes, (Eggs with spinach in it) to Eggs Florentine (Spinach with eggs in it). This may stir some memories for some readers. I also get into almonds, but not as much as I'd like. What I don't get is bread. Cake. Cookies. Could someone wander past Wendy's, and see if they still do baked potatoes? (I'd just like to know.) There have been moments when I've started to hallucinate about toasted Wonderbread.... but I digress. The essential rule is, if I'm not kind of hungry at any moment, I'm doing something wrong. Most of the time, I seem to be vaguely on target.

Now, because too much of a good thing tends to be my standard procedure, I'm adding a couple more elements: I've acquired the parts for an adjustable kettlebell. That will give me something to do in the evenings, to fight the urge to go back to the gym. The wee town is rated as very walkable (by someone who measures distances and sidewalks, and not hills,) so I intend to walk around the wee town, whenever the weather gets warm enough to make the polar bears and wolves safely lethargic. Which I'm about to do.

In which our hero drives a thousand miles, but complication follows him faithfully every step of the way...

There are a lot of reasons why I shouldn't have a blog. I'm not a published -or even publishable author; I'm magnificently out of the flow of most modern thought; I've never been very good at the kind of sustained, long-term project that a good blog is.

But, a number of people have suggested that it's a way to keep in touch now that I'm a thousand miles away, so...


I drove down from the Centre of the Universe this week. My house sold on Monday, and I stayed overnight with friends up north. Tuesday, I had lunch with my brother and sister-in-law, and rolled on a little farther before nightfall. My magnificent trip planning meant that I started by hitting the Toronto morning rush hour, always a good start to a trip. Still light traffic and OPP with better things to do got me to lunch on time.

I hear that there was a multiple-car accident on the 400 this week; I'm surprised they don't have them every day. There are people out there making bad, bad tactical decisions.

The second day involved the one non-negotiable part of the trip: Never drive 185 in the dark!  (Tried it back in November, didn't like it. 1/10, would not drive again.)

This wouldn't have been too hard, but I stopped to help a guy with a flat (on a Dodge Ram - rather like jacking up a tank) so this led to the second speed run in two days, to get past Edmundston before the sun went down. (By the way, if you're the guy who designed the spare-tire hanger on the Dodge Ram, I need a word with you about your true vocation in life, and why it doesn't involve designing stuff.)

The highway 20 route through Quebec is one of my favourite parts of the world to dawdle around, and take detours, and explore. Actually, it's one of my favourite parts of the world, period. So, of course, for the fifth time in 13 weeks, I drove through it about as fast as I could, and missed everything that I love about the  Eastern Townships. One of the things I missed was Restaurant de la Montagne, in Saint-Pascal. The food is terrific, and I promised myself I was going to get back there, which I will. One of these days.

The rest of day two would have been pretty easy, except for a wrong turn in Woodstock. It delayed me just long enough to encounter something between an over-sized snowstorm, and an avalanche with a lot of air in it. At one point I was driving on and off the corrugations on the side of the road, because that was the only way to know where I was. Fun times, I tell you. This is what you miss when you go to Spain for the winter!

Third day should have been relatively uneventful. Let me just say, about taking wrong turns in Fredericton: Don't take wrong turns in Fredericton. Just don't, okay? And then there was the traditional driving snowstorm as the sun went down. #ThisWasntFunnyTheFirstTime.

Strange occurrence that night, as I was sitting here checking email. I had a vague but persistent feeling that I should be in a band practice somewhere.

And that's about it. I'm in the wee town where I'll be for the next several years.

Can't wait to see what comes next.