Some of you have probably heard over the past couple days that a village was uncovered near one of the seven wonders of the world, Stonehenge.

That’s so cool, I think I’ll go visit it.

Ok, so the decision wasn’t exactly that easy, and didn’t have anything to do with Stonehenge. But I am going to the UK (primarily Oxford area) for 8 days - leaving Friday evening Feb. 23rd, returning Monday afternoon March 5th.

Neil and a few other managers have been summoned by work to the UK office for a few days, and since accommodation and his flight are covered, it’s a bit of a no-brainer that we’d spring for the extra plane ticket and I’d go along and turn it into a bit of an adventure.

The plan thus far is that Neil will be working Saturday through Tuesday while I putter about and explore Oxford and surrounding area. I may train into London one of those days and do some shopping (mmm… Harrods).

Other than that, we’ve planned on an XTREEM driving day-trip circle-tour from Oxford, North through Stratford on Avon, Birmingham, up to Liverpool (for my love, the Beatles nerd), over to Manchester, and back South through Nottingham. Hopefully we’ll do another, slightly less extreme driving day Southwest to see Stonehenge and perhaps visit Bristol, then two or three days in London together to be touristy and explore.

Since this trip wasn’t exactly budgeted for, and is instead a “too good to pass up” opportunity for me to visit somewhere I’ve never been and for Neil to explore the UK a little more, which he hasn’t done since he was 8 or so, the budget’s more Oliver Twist than Victoria Beckham, but I’d still like suggestions from those familiar with the UK on the following:

Today is a good day in my world.

In fact, I’m in such a good mood, I’m going to do something completely uncharacteristic.

Blog about cats!

If you know me well enough, you know that usually the best thing I have to say about cats is that they “taste good with rice and teriyaki sauce.”

But I found a cat video that I actually liked enough to a) make me want a cat to do this with, and b) want to share with you!

So go forth, and check out this YouTube video.

Embedding has been “disabled by request,” but I assure you, it’s worth the clickthrough.

Scene: Wiederick/Watkiss household. Wednesday Morning, 7:45am.

Him: You know what I hate? I hate it when someone has the technical knowledge to do a task and just doesn’t do it.

Her: What do you mean?

Him: Well, the task has been discussed, it’s on the board, they know how to do it. They’ve acknoweldged that it needs to be done. Then I walk over and they’re reading Slashdot, and when I ask why it’s not done they said “it never occured to them” to start on it.

Her: Yah. I’ve had staff like that. It sucks.

Him: Ok, I’m gonna take the dog out - back in a few.

15 minutes goes by

Him: Hey! I’m back! You know, you might want to put a dog blanket or something on the couch, the dog’s really muddy!

Her: You know what I hate?

Him: What?

Her: When someone has the technical knowledge to accomplish a task, acknowledges it needs to be done, and then it just never occurs to them to actually do it….

Just a wee, quick note.

I’m getting insane amounts of spam these days, and didn’t want to be so annoying as to install a “capcha” - so I’ve gone with the seemingly lesser of a few evils: I’ve activated the “close comments after 21 days” plugin.

If you want to comment on a post older than that, you’ll have to settle with emailing me.

We now return to your regularly scheduled programming….

I’ve got a pair of hockey tickets for sale, again.

Vancouver Canucks vs. Columbus Blue Jackets
Tuesday, January 30 - 7:30pm
Section 321, row 13.

$120 for the pair (regular $160 through ticketmaster).

You can either paypal me and have them left at will call, or pick them up from me - cash only - near my work (Oak & Broadway) during business hours or near my home (4th and Macdonald) some evening.

Comment or email if you want ‘em!

UPDATE: sold!

Darren wants to know. I answered the survey, so should you!

It’s going to be used in his pannel at this year’s Northern Voice conference, which I plan on attending this year - so answer, if only so I learn something new and entertaining about you during that particular timeslot.

And if you don’t have 10 minutes for a survey (and who doesn’t have 10 minutes?), just give me a bulletpoint answer in the comments. Because now I’m curious too.

Oh my hell.

I love snowboarding, I really do - what I don’t love are the typical injuries that come along with it.

I know most snow sports are inherently dangerous, and to date I’ve still hurt myself far worse skiing than I ever have snowboarding.

But Sunday I took a tumble, and my poor coccyx (tailbone) took the brunt of the impact. It’s bruised and kinda swollen. And this is one of those times that being bootylicious is a liability, rather than an asset: every time the rest of my butt moves, the swollen tissue is forced to adapt, and vehemently expresses its displeasure at that fact.

Do you know how often your butt moves during the course of a day? I bet you never thought of it before, but think about what happens to all that fat and muscle between your lower back and upper thighs when you sit, stand, walk or shimmy. Did you know that the connective tissues around your coccyx move substantially when you contract your sphincter? Yah, neither did I, until Sunday afternoon.

So now, in spite of taking enough ibuprofin to choke a horse and being on a near constant Robax high, I present to you a (far from complete) list of things that still hurt like a sonofabitch:

-Sitting on anything (chair, car seat, bench, couch, toilet - go ahead and contemplate that last one for a second)
-Getting from sitting to standing and back again
-Walking
-Lying on either side or my back
-Getting up from lying on my stomach (so far I can’t levitate my way to standing)
-Rolling over in bed
-Bending over to put on socks and shoes
-Farting

And do you have any idea how many people bump into you while standing on the bus? I’ve already established that sitting on bus seats right now is somewhere approaching the 7th circle of hell - but standing isn’t much better. I get nailed from all angles, then have to make sudden movements to steady myself, or risk falling (again) on my ass. None of which are terribly comfortable.

And while the idea of heading up the mountain tonight is a complete write-off, I really hope that I’ve healed enough by next weekend, so I can go out and do it all over again.

My biggest pet peeve about the wedding industry is that it’s just a gigantic mess of vendors all thrusting their wares at brides- and grooms-to-be using the ever-popular tactic of fear mongering.

What do you mean you haven’t thought about chair covers? But it just won’t be the same if you don’t have live butterflies glued to your bouquet! I can’t believe you’re not writing your own love song (thanks James) - is your relationship so indistinct that someone else’s words and melodies can adequately describe it?

For the most part, I’ve done well at generally shoving those things aside as frivolous and unnecessary and keeping my attention focused on things I feel are far more likely to make or break a great party (and how much of it’s remembered): Food, Liquor, Photography.

However, something else has just come up from nowhere and blindsided me with its apparent importance: Music.

The plan so far is to have a late afternoon wedding and evening reception, complete with dancing into the night. Of course music is necessary. We naievely figured we could simply create our own playlist, and plug either an iPod or laptop into the venue’s AV system (the planned location has one) and let ‘er rip.

But after doing some reading, I’m now not so sure.

Every Source I’ve Consulted has made mention of the fact that music is vital to any successful wedding reception. The list of adjectives to describe such is alarming: crucial, critical, necessary, complicated, and “best left to the professionals.”

Ok, colour me frightened.

So, gentle readers, it’s now your turn to smack me firmly into reality, either with a good shaking and the knowledge that there is no way in hell I should entrust my music to anyone but a professional, or ample reassurances that asking a friend to man the iTunes Party Shuffle feature is more than adequate. We plan on having a fairly swanky affair, the music will generally be jazz standards and the like, and now I’m concerned that the do-it-myself-DJ solution will detract from, rather than add to, the atmosphere.

In the meantime, I’ll be thinking up meaningful phrases for my own custom love song, to add to the mix.

Alternate titles:
“Another post containing more than Neil’s parents ever wanted to know about their child”
“Yes people, Neil’s junk is being talked about again.”

I’m sure you all remember that Waxing post from the not-so-distant past. You may also remember that at the end I mentioned I wouldn’t mind subjecting Neil to the “Full Monty” for comparison.

Well I still haven’t found a place to do the man-wax, but I did receive an email offering an alternative solution, and I was sent the Phillips Bodygroom for Neil to try out.

I really did mean to review it before Christmas, but my subject was… let’s say a tad reluctant.

But I harrassed, and he relented, and I can vouch that it is a pretty keen little gadget!

First off, check out their awesome site: www.shaveeverywhere.com. It’s a fun bit of flash that went around the viral marketing circuit a few months ago - if you’ve seen it, it’s worth a revisit, and if you haven’t, well you really should watch the intro video, which is safe for work (barely). And to keep this site mostly the same (and perhaps keep the kinky googlers’ search results relevant), I’ll refer to the more delicate bits of the man’s anatomy by the pieces of produce referred to in the video.

So, what’s in the package? (And by package, I mean the box the shaver comes in… we’ll get to the other package in a moment.) The bodygroom of course, an instruction book (boring, as they usually are, but efficient and clear in its directions), a plug-in charging unit, three attachments for different lengths, and a handy rubber wrist cord for use in the shower (on top of everything else, it’s a wet/dry unit), so you don’t drop it on your toes.

Before I really explored the shaver, I honestly thought it would be pretty similar to most other electric razor or beard trimming appliances.

I’m glad to say I was wrong, and it’s really like both devices in one, and definitely designed for body hair, which is much finer (and generally longer) than either scalp or facial hair (which the instructions emphatically note one should NOT use the bodygroom on).

The head of the shaver has a shaving foil in the centre, perfect for taking any unwanted hair right down to the skin. Of course, as with any shave, this will leave stubble and stubborn regrowth, so I wouldn’t actually recommend it for areas with thick and very noticeable hair, like say, on the average caucasian man’s legs. (I say caucasian, because those are the legs I’m most familiar with, and I know both density and coarseness of body hair can be affected by ethnicity.)

What the shaving foil IS good for, is easily and painlessly getting rid of strange, sporadic patches of hair. Neil has about 12-16 hairs on each tricep - about the texture of chest hairs, and with a good two inches of separation from where his noticeable arm hair starts. The foil was awesome for that.

Then on both the top and bottom of the foil, the body groom also has trimmer attachments (much like those you’d find on a beard trimmer). You can use the trimmers with either of the two reversable guards, or with no guard at all, depending on the hair length you’re attempting to achieve.

The key differences here between the Bodygroom and any other trimmer I’ve seen are that a) the gaps between the teeth are a lot narrower, resulting in better precision when trimming finer hairs (like those on the underarms) and b) TWO trimming heads (with reversable guides), so you can still hold the shaver comfortably while shaving up, or down - which is really important when navigating the delicate carrot, kiwis and peach.

So after all that, how’d it actually work?

Turns out, pretty darned well. The body shaving and trimming performance is on par with a facial shaver at the same price point. The handle is comfortable, and the wet/dry capabilities are a big plus. It performed well on all types of body hair - underarm, arm, chest and undercarriage - either trimming or shaving as attempted. The only thing it wasn’t tested on, was the peach (Neil stormed off saying “No f*$king way something sharp and buzzing is getting near my a#$!” - hence the “almost” in the title).

Of course, while it does what it does extremely well, the bodygroom is still ultimately a shaver and trimmer.

Trimmers, unfortunately (with their side-to-side blade), sometimes catch and tug hair instead of slicing it off (Neil says “ouch!”).

Shavers ultimately cut the hair off at the skin level, allowing the roots to grow stronger and produce thicker, coarser hair and leave the issues that come with stubble and regrowth (Neil says “my bits itch”).

Of course, if you’re already a die-hard man-scaper (which Neil is just… not.) and would like to scrap the beard-trimmer and manual razor combination for a product that’s designed especially for your body, you really can’t beat the Bodygroom.

There - the end - you made it! No more talk of Neil’s junk, and the squeamish can now uncover their eyes.

Just be thankful I posted an image of the shaver, instead of a picture of the “Extra Optical Inch.”

In planning our wedding, Neil and I have had an ideal scenario in mind the entire time: personal and intimate.

We purposely picked a small, destination venue that could only accommodate our closest family and friends, and have established some personal criteria for how to deal with making the guest list work.

We also made another decision that seems to be exactly the opposite of what a lot of the rest of the world is doing right now: no wedding website. This entire thing will be conducted offline.

Not to say I won’t share details here about the clusterfuck that is planning a wedding these days (I really should have an “I Survived Wedding Fair” T-shirt) - but this is a personal blog, so I figure I’ll just keep my personal experiences archived in one place (a place which has been sorely lacking in content anyway) instead of starting up another site.

But the more I think about what’s involved in not dumping details online, the more I like the idea.

While I like to think I was raised to be polite, with good manners, and to conduct myself in a way that Miss Manners herself would approve of, I’ve really been getting off on all the pomp and circumstance and social mores that have evolved over the years when it comes to conducting a wedding.

Since it would be impossible to cram every single detail of the where, when and how into save-the-date and invitation mailings, I’m going to have to pick up the phone, or write some casual letters to friends and family clarifying the ins and outs of everything.

(It’s just occurred to me that this would be a LOVELY time to procure some engraved, monogrammed stationery, and I got some lovely new pens in my Christmas Stocking, and maybe I could get some personalized stamps, and who doesn’t love actual postal mail that isn’t bills?!… ok, I’ll admit it, I’m an office-supplies geek, though not as bad as my boss who just bought an Easy Button…)

I’m also hoping this will be a really special time in our lives to further solidify the relationships we have with our friends and family. If they need further information, they’ll need to actively contact us, instead of passively looking it up on a website. If we have something that needs sharing, we’ll have to make an effort to communicate with each guest personally.

Guests will have to make an effort to save and remember the wedding date, time and venue information they’re sent. No disregarding it and checking for details online later - the invitation is required reading. Anyone who loses theirs will be voted off the island will have to suck it up and either contact another guest, or someone in the wedding party to figure out the details. (Not that I would actually be completely offended if someone lost their invitation - it happens.)

Someone, at some point, will have to march their wee tush down to the mailbox and send back their response card. I know RSVPing online at 3:00am in one’s underwear is preferable to some people, but I’ll remind them that mailboxes don’t close for the night either. Though, depending on how dark it is, I’d recommend considering pants before going out.

For me it’s all a part of representing how seriously we’re taking our relationship (not that I’m implying that other people don’t take their relationships seriously, this is just what works for me, don’t hate.) and how engaged we want our guests to be with their participation in our wedding.

As fun as it would be, there isn’t going to be any sort of “skill-testing-question” for potential guests to garner an invitation or a scavenger hunt for a map to the venue.

But it does force Neil and I to ask ourselves some questions regarding anyone we’d consider inviting:
-> Do we have their postal address and/or the ability to get it easily?
-> Do we talk with them regularly, and feel comfortable calling them (requiring obviously, having their phone number) to chat? Would they call us for the same?
-> Do they know our families or attendants well enough to contact them to ask about things don’t belong in invitations like if and where we’ve registered, or exactly how formal a ceremony and reception we’re planning? (or things that were in the invitation they lost…)

If we don’t know people well enough to even answer those simple questions, then it begs the question, do we really have a strong enough relationship with that person to participate in the kind of wedding we want to have, and offer the support in our marriage that we’ll ask of them?

I can’t really call it a “New Year’s Resolution” since it started in late November, but Neil and I are on a bit of a health kick these days.

Summer was great: we had salads nearly daily since fresh, organic produce, meats and cheeses abound in our neighbourhood, and took epic walks with the dog (2-3 hour wanders around town) a few times a week. I rowed, he ran, we rollerbladed and hiked and generally our bodies were tighter than… well… fill in your own simile regarding very tight things.

And then the rains came.

The salads were no more, as all of the fresh things went out of season. Sure, we can still get lettuce, but it’s leathery and flavourless. The tomatoes have lost their tangy zip. Broccoli is wilty and brownish and sad.

The once epic walks have become instead games of “how fast can we run around the block, scoop the poop, and dodge as many raindrops as possible” and “how much stuff can we toss around the apartment for the dog to chase before she breaks something.”

We turned to stews and tubers and TiVo. And lo, our waistlines grew.

So we decided to nip the fat in the proverbial bud.

We’ve embraced frozen vegetables, smaller portions, cut down on “white” food (rice, flour, pasta) and started exercising most mornings.

Frankly, it was all my idea (brought on by some pants that suddenly “shrunk”) and wouldn’t you know it, Neil’s taken to all this like a damn duck to water.

I am not all that impressed.

I am the penultimate procrastinatrix, and instead of getting out of bed at 6:30am to work out, I’d rather make all sorts of excuses about how I can do it later (or tomorrow) and just ONE brownie won’t kill me (ok, maybe two).

But Neil practically springs out of bed in the wee hours to hit the road for a 35 minute jog with the dog. Then he comes home all chipper and and concocts fat-free fruit & yogurt smoothies in our spanky new blender (thanks again Chris & Jill!). He takes an active interest in sticking to a low GI diet and comes home gloating and proud to share his good food choices.

And what do I do? As he leaves for his run, I begrudgingly stumble out of bed and let Carmen Electra and Michael Carson kick my ass. Neil and the dog usually arrive home when I’m somewhere in the middle of a set of excruciating donkey kicks, and more often than not I nail the dog in the head while she’s running around being crazy.

I suck back my tasty smoothie, think about how good for me it is, and dream of the 24g of fat in a Tim Horton’s bacon & egg breakfast sandwich.

I get to work, I plug through, sometimes I have soup and salad for lunch, sometimes I have pie. Neil goes to Salad Loop nearly every damn day (which I don’t have near my work). I fantasize about cheeseburgers.

Neil will even get up and go for his regular run on Wednesdays AND Thursdays, when we ski Wednesday nights. He claims he feels Grrrrreat! I did a light upper-body workout Wednesday morning, snowboarded Wednesday night, and suffered through most of my workout Thursday afternoon. I had to go to work with my hair in a wet ponytail today, because my arms are so sore, I can’t bear enough weight to wield the hairdryer.

But I am noticing that overall I’m feeling better. The pants are mysteriously un-shrinking themselves. I’m standing a little taller now that I’m not feeling bloated and puffy all the time. I’m even sleeping better.

Is that enough to keep me going? Hell no.

I do it because I’m stubborn. I will not be shown-up by my fiancé. Whatever he can do, I can do backwards in High Heels.

I’m just hoping he starts to feel the same way about doing the laundry…

It’s been this way for as long as I can remember.

I don’t know if it was because my parents really had to make sure Santa was gone, or if they had to wrap some last-minute presents, or needed to caffeinate before dealing with three small children, or just wanted some peace and quiet to makeout like teenagers in front of the tree for a while.

Whatever the reason, there is a Christmas Morning Ritual in my family.

My brothers and I were always forbidden to leave our rooms on Christmas morning before we got the “ok” from the parentals. We were every bit as stereotypical as you may expect for three middle-class suburban kids on Christmas morning, complete with the excited waking up at about 4am and wanting to see if Santa had been, and had he eaten the milk and cookies and can we open presents NOW?

Looking through the Wiederick family Christmas photo archives, there are pictures every year, for at least two decades, with three kids sitting at the top of the stairs, looking every bit as angelic as the very Nicest children on Santa’s Nice list. This is because photographs lie, and we had only paused for a brief moment from elbowing eachother, vying for the pole position from which to race down the stairs and around the corner to the tree.

Belief in Santa came and went, but for the sake of nostalgia, the rule stayed the same. Flying elbows and tiny feet were replaced by teenaged yawns and stumbling limbs - but every year we dutifully stayed in or near our bedrooms, and paused for the requisite “top of the stairs” photo.

Except this year. This year it was different.

In what seems like a gigantic tumultuous move which was really not much more than the passing of time and changing of seasons, and carrying on of life as it insists on doing, what were once five in one home has turned into three homes with girlfriends and a fiancé. It has brought the exchange of the familial home for a townhouse in a gated community that has the benefit of having someone else to mow the lawn and can be locked up for extended vacations without much worry, but not enough spare bedrooms to hold all of the offspring, and thus no anticipatory rush of three wee bodies as they hurled themselves down the stairs first thing Christmas morning.

And I did miss it. But that twinge was rapidly doused by the immense pleasure of what Christmas was this year.

Christmas was the one I love getting up at 3am to share one of his own traditions - to play Santa, placing a stocking at the end of my bed, where my sleeping feet would discover it full of goodies when I awoke in the morning.

It was hanging out for a couple hours with my own, tiny, new family as we did what we do every day - coffee and waking up in bed - with the addition of stockings and eggnog.

It was heading out to spend time with a family that embodies the fact that home is wherever you choose to make it. It was a turkey dinner in that new, impersonal townhouse, exactly the same as all those in line with it exactly the same as all the gated communities peppering suburban North America, which was the brightest, shiniest spot in the world that day, bursting at the seams with a family larger than ever before, and the happiness that only comes with an immense love - not only for everyone in the room that day, but for the extended family that’s sure to increase and visit over the coming years.

And when I wandered up the stairs in that townhouse alone later that day, I thought about how very, very lucky I am. And how, though time is relentless in its moving on, traditions don’t die - they only fade away if you let them. And I vowed that when the time comes, I will always place stockings at my own children’s feet, and subject them to the small purgatory of waiting at the top of the stairs until I give the OK - and hope that the memories I create will enrich their lives as the memories I’ve had created for me enrich mine.