July 2, 2012

Randomly on what I think is a Monday

That weekend blew by me faster than a teenager thirty minutes past curfew with beer on her breath - but let's try to sum up, shall we?

1. Happy Canada Day!  I swear I was going to put a post up, but yesterday got seriously out of hand, and instead of arriving home in the early afternoon to finish it up and hit post - I arrived home at 11pm and lay helplessly wilted on the chesterfield instead.  Still, don't take the lack of a post for a lack of enthusiasm.  The post I was going to put up listed so many of the things that make this country great, and then I realized that it's Luis' first Canada Day, and thought of what I like best about what growing up Canadian will mean to him.

This country is safe. 
Unbelievably safe.  Our crime rate fell another 5% last year, our homicide rate declined by 10%, the severity index said crimes in general were 6% less nasty. In a country of just over 34 000 000 people, only 554 of them were victims of homicide in 2010.  It's not just that, we've got no really deadly animals, no really nasty insects, and a stunning lack of natural disasters.  We're politically stable, more educated than any other nation, we have a social safety net that- while it's far from perfect, provides a great deal of security.  Our health care system covers everybody, and it must work, because only 5 countries have better life expectancies than Canadians do. We enjoy a terrific degree of freedom,  our economy is remarkably stable,  we have no major infectious disease like yellow fever or malaria - and most Canadians enjoy the luxury of flushing the toilet with potable water. We have few enemies,  only share a border with the US, and they haven't invaded since 1812 - in short, it's a fabulous place to live, and Lou will be very safe growing up here, and what could you want more than that?


2.  I decided to do the Tour de Fleece.  My goal is to get all the spinning stash to fit back into the bins. I'm afraid to weigh what I have to move out of here, but I spun a chunk on Saturday.  I'll show you tomorrow.

3.  Yesterday my sister and I (and her charming friend Nina) decided to ride our bikes from Toronto to Port Hope.  That's about 110 km, and we thought it wouldn't be that hard. 

(We are seen here smiling before it got too hard.)

4. Then I suggested that we take the waterfront trail. It's sort of zig-zaggy, which I didn't think of, but it's close to the lake, which we all agreed would be cooler.

5. Then we got lost.

6. Then the destination was about 5 km further into Port Hope than we hoped for.

7. When it was all said and done, this is what my odometer said.

That's right. 141.2 km. (That's about 88 miles, for anybody who's wondering.)  That's so far.  That's ridiculously far.  That's so far that when we were about 10 km from the end, I remember thinking, in all seriousness, that it was a shame I was going to die so close to finishing.

We are seen here smiling because we thought we were done - and seconds after a kindly passer-by stopped us from posing right by that sign, and in a large stand of poison ivy, which would have really just been the icing on the cake. (Thanks dude.) If we'd have known then what we know now, which is that the sign was 20km from our destination, we wouldn't have smiled. We would have called someone to come get us.

8. I am currently not in a civil speaking relationship with my thighs or any part of my body that touched the seat.

9. Wait until they find out we're riding again this evening. 

10. I didn't spin yesterday, because I figure that since yesterdays stage of the actual Tour de France was 198 km, and I rode 141 km, that maybe I could let myself off the hook.  I did a lot of spinning.  It just wasn't at the wheel.

11. If nobody minds, I'm going to do the Karmic Balancing gifts tomorrow. I know I said Monday, but my drivers license expired and I really need to do something about it.

12. I can't believe I have to ride my bike to get there.

Posted by Stephanie at July 2, 2012 12:21 PM