The Smile Project: 30 Smiles for 30 Years

You know those people who, even years after losing touch, you can still count as one of the finest human beings you have ever known?  My friend, Shannon, is one of those people.  I am very fortunate to say we haven't lost touch - just wanted to make a point.  She's the type of human I aspire to be.

So - check out her first blog entry and see for yourself.

The Smile Project: 30 Smiles for 30 Years: My plan to celebrate my 30th birthday on December 27th was to go around the city doing 30 Good Deeds that day.   As life so often l...

Game Like Gouda

Meandering about the grocery store after a long day, I was feeling uncharacteristically indecisive about what to have for dinner.  Cooking was not in the cards, but neither was walking around the entire store to attempt to figure out what to eat.  So, it was going to be deli or produce – the departments within closest proximity.  The limitations of the food being easy and close were weighing heavily on me.  It was a tough life.

I noticed the cute clerk was on duty, and loathed to admit to myself that this also affected my food choice.  He wasn’t my type, but from time to time, I enjoyed the mild flirtation – and I couldn’t enjoy mild flirtation if he was tallying up the bill for my chips and bacon.

In a move as lame as it was lazy, I grabbed the lettuce that was in front of me and headed for the checkout.  I normally would have done a little better than to give the strange yet stereotypical impression that I was going to eat lettuce for dinner, but really couldn’t be bothered, and truthfully, other than adding vinaigrette and a side of cheerios, I legitimately was about to eat lettuce for dinner. It wasn't  uncommon on my lazy days.

“Hey, how’ve you been?” he asked with a slight grin.

“Not bad.  Same old. You?”

Zing!  I was so smooth and interesting.  Yay me.

“Yeah.  Good.  Just working a lot and stuff”

We were obviously both interesting.  Commonalities?  Check!

“Cool.”

I paid for my lettuce and tossed my wallet back in my purse.

“Wait.”  He walked around the counter and handed me what looked like a recipe card.  With a lower voice, he continued.

“You’re  - uh - a preferred customer, so you get an invite to this event”

He avoided eye contact with me, and I felt my left eyebrow jolt to attention.

 “Oh?  Why am I preferred?”  I inquired, with what I imagined at the time was a cutely coquettish look on my face. 

Since I’m actually incapable of a cutely coquettish look, I’m sure it more closely resembled what I look like when attempting to control the volume of my farts.

He cleared his throat and flushed a little.  Had I unnerved him?  Maybe I was learning how to have a little game.

“Well” he quickly stole a glance back at the screen and lowered his voice further still, “uh … you eat a lot of cheese … I guess”

I looked down at the invitation for a cheese sampling in my hands.

Right.

Right.

Nothing sexier than a girl who eats a lot of cheese - enough cheese to be flagged on their system and find herself invited to a private tasting.  I’m sure it’s right up there with incontinence and upper lip hair. 
I was mortified.

           

 “Yeah” I mumbled, “lots of cheese sounds about right.”

I inhaled sharply and picked up the lettuce.  The covert pride with which I had so recently placed it upon the conveyor belt wilted rapidly around me.

“See you around” he said with a quick wave.

 I turned around and waved back.  

“Yep. Yeah.”  

A future as an orator was definitely in the cards for me. He was smirking.

 I shook my head and smiled to myself as I stepped outside.  This brand of embarrassment and I were old familiar friends. Chuckling most of the way home, I made a point to not regret my salad and cheerios - or my love of cheese.

The Oppositist pt. 2

"Well," he said with a bounce in his step "let's see if we can make up for that disaster with some good dinner."

By appealing to my love of food and my incredible hunger, he'd played the only card that would have kept me there, though the 'disaster' comment did make me want to trip him.
Since I picked the gelato, the dinner decision was left to him.  He rubbed his hands together in anticipation.  My stomach growled for the same reason.

"We should be there soon" he announced.

"Great" I replied with about as much spunk as a cinder block. "what's it called?"

"Um.  Amore I think"

The thought of the evening in any way being associated with the word 'amore' did worse things to my stomach than the mounting hunger.  This was now about getting dinner, and getting out.

"I'm actually not sure what it's called" he went on "I've never been there.  My friend recommended it.  I think it's in the food court."

Negative. 1000.  Points.

A food court?  I wondered if anyone went on nice dates anymore. Perhaps I had been guilty of watching one too many bad Jennifer Lopez movies on the women's network when I was sure no one would catch me, and was now paying  the price with a warped perception of romance.

We walked in to what actually turned out to be Aroma.  A nice cafe, though not a place I'd pick when looking for dinner on an empty stomach.  I walked behind him a little so I could roll my eyes vigourously without being seen.  It was surprisingly cathartic.

A chorus of angels sounded in my mind as I looked at the counter to see panini upon golden, glorious panini, just waiting to be grilled.  Most of them contained avocado, which, in my mind, settled the internal debate I'd been having over whether or not there was a god.

Before we reached the counter, I'd already decided upon a brie and avocado panini with extra mustard, and a double latte.  He turned and  looked at me.

"What do you think you'll get?"

I told him and the barista simultaneously.

"I think I'll get an espresso.   Yep."  He nodded at the barista and rocked back and forth on his feet, hands in his pockets.

"What are you going to eat?" I asked.

"Oh nothing.  I'm not hungry"

I prayed to my new avocado-providing god that he was kidding.

"But it's almost 9:00."  This was painful.

"I know.  We agreed to meet so late and start with gelato.  I just got hungry and decided to eat dinner before we met.  Didn't you eat?"

"No."  I said with teeth and fists all clenched.  "We were meeting for dinner, so I thought eating dinner first wouldn't be necessary."

"Well you can eat, if you want ... I'd love to watch you" he offered, behind a disturbing grin.

Watch me eat?

"No."  I offered no justification and turned to cancel my panini and pay for my drink.

"Thank you!"  he said "That's very impressive of you.  Not many girls would do that"  my jaw dropped as he turned to the barista "she's got mine."

I stormed to the patio while he waited for his coffee.

I felt like a cranky child.  A tantrum was not completely improbable.  I was infuriated with myself for not walking away from this ridiculous evening, and tried to think of a good way out that didn't involve scalding him.

He sat down with a grin.

"You see I didn't put any sugar in this" he lifted the tiny cup by the tiny handle with his tiny finger perched high in the air.

"I see" I replied, wondering if he would be merciful and not make whatever point he was gearing up to make.

"It's because I'm on a diet.  I only eat one small 300 calorie meal a day, and no sugar."

"That's not a diet" I replied, wiping the foam off my upper lip in an unapologetically unladlylike manner "that's a disorder."

He chuckled.

"Well I'd like to lose 10 - 15 pounds in the next 10 days."

He was already frail looking.  10 - 15 pounds less of him was entirely unnecessary.  145 pounds less of him at my table would have been entirely excellent.

"Okay."  I put my mug down.  "That's completely ridiculous.  You know it's ridiculous.  I can tell by the look on your face that you're trying to get a reaction out of me. Congratulations, here it is:  You know you don't need to lose any weight, and you know that the way you are choosing to do it is unhealthy and goes completely against what every credible professional has ever said about weight loss.  Furthermore, you're likely going to gain it back, and it's going to bring some of it's wobbly friends along with it - and quickly.  So essentially, you are sitting here telling me that you are planning to gain 10 pounds of fat in a rapid manner.  I don't understand why I'm supposed to be impressed by that."

He was listening to me with a grin on his face while nibbling the chocolate that came with the coffee.  I guessed both that chocolate and the gelato he'd had were not sugar free.

"Well you see, that's exactly it" he replied "I'm an Oppositist."

"What."

If I was a cartoon, my eyes, eyebrows, and mouth would all have become horizontal lines at that point.

"Ooh this is bitter." he said, distracted by his espresso.  "I'll have to make an exception." He shook two sugar packets, and winked at me as he poured them in.

"An Oppositist." he resumed, "I find that so much of what the 'experts' say doesn't work.  I choose to do the opposite of whatever they say, and it's done me well so far."

I made no attempt at disguising the eye roll this time.

"So you don't wear seatbelts, and you smoke, and hold knives by the pointy end, and stuff?" I asked.

"No."  he paused for a moment.  "Well no, not like that."

"Well like what then?"

"Well this diet, for instance."

"Yes, I understand that.  But what other instances in your life does this thinking apply?  You define yourself as an Oppositist.  I'm guessing it applies more broadly that this one situation."

"Well.  Like ...  Okay so there was this time ... you know it probably wouldn't make sense to you."

"You're right.  It makes no sense to me."

I chugged my latte.  It was far too hot for that, but my pride allowed for it.

"A lot of things here don't make sense to me."  I stood up, said goodbye, and walked away.

Two days later he emailed me to let me know that he may allow me to make another decision.  He wanted to go for coffee and said he would trust that I could pick a decent place. Maybe.

I used my decision-making skills to not reply.

The Compliment

While frequenting the local gym, as I'd been known to often do over the past year, I was mid leg press when I noticed something unusual.  Approaching me from a right angle with an unflinching toothy grin, a spray bottle, and the kind of plastic gloves that come in home hair-dye kits, was the little old man who I had seen regularly changing the paper towel rolls.  

He stood within one foot of me and continued to stare, expression unchanging.  I finished the press and looked over with a questioning smile.

"I see you on first day", said the man "You big and fat.  You big fat girl."

As if the comment weren't clear enough, he puffed his cheeks, raised his shoulders to his ears, and pulled his hands away from his hips to physically illustrate my apparently once uncanny resemblance the stay-puft marshmallow man.

Mouth agape, I wondered how high my eyebows actually were on my face, worried they might rise above my head, and remain suspended in the air there.

"You lose.  How much you lose?  Fifty pounds?" he asked

"I don't know."  I answered, trying to suppress the percolating laughter "I don't ...weigh ... um ... myself"

"You lose fifty pounds.  Yes."

"No, I really don't think so.  That's a bit much"

"Yes.  Fifty pounds.  Yes.  You big fat girl on first day"

There was a moment of silence as I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening.  He clearly meant it as a compliment.

"Thank you?"  I almost asked.

"You welcome!"  He replied happily "Wow.  Good for you."

The Oppositist pt. I

An online profile informed me I should be looking for a 34 year old non-smoking 5’8” consultant who felt fortunate for family, friends, and health.

I walked onto the patio where only one patron sat, and without any gelato.  He looked up with the standard, twisted, excruciatingly awkward “Are you the person I’m supposed to be meeting?” expression, which I could only imagine I was emanating myself.

“Paul?” I asked, tilting my head slightly to the side inquisitively, immediately hoping this didn't come across as ditzy.

“Hi there ... uh, hiya” he replied, wiping his hands on his khaki pants before standing up.

‘He blanked on my name’ I thought, while he laughed nervously.

“Great to meet you.”  I extended my hand.

We looked at each other for a moment, mouthing the beginnings of words, both hoping this would prompt coherent spoken dialogue.   It was in this moment that I noticed Paul was neither 34 nor 5’8”.  I was with Paul, the roughly 43 year-old, 5’5” liar.

We stepped into the shop, each likely feeling as apprehensive as the other.  We’d picked this place because I’d mentioned I was a fan of their pink grapefruit gelato.  I turned hesitantly toward him.

“The grapefruit is one of my favourites, but don’t order it if it’s not your thing.”

“Oh no, I’m curious.  You said it was great, so I’d love to try it.”

‘Well he scores points for that’ I thought to myself, still trying to adjust to the height and age lie.

As we walked down the street with matching gelatos awkwardly discussing the weather and our respective jobs, I became increasingly certain that Paul was not my guy.

“You know” he said, holding up his gelato with a big grin on his face, “this is terrible.  It’s so bitter.”

“Oh ... really?” I asked, looking at my own gelato cup as if searching for shreds of dirty gym socks “mine’s fine.”

“Yeah.  I actually hate it” he said, chuckling.

I wondered why it was so funny.  Instead I kept walking and changed the topic.  My tactic was successful for about five minutes. 

“This is really terrible.  I can’t believe you would even suggest something like this.”

“Well I’m sorry you feel that way.  I guess you shouldn’t have ordered it after all.”

“It’s so bitter.  How are you eating it?” His grin widened.

“It’s pink grapefruit.” I was starting to get annoyed “It tastes like pink grapefruit.  I’m not sure what you were expecting”

“I hate pink grapefruit” he said, chuckling again

“Then why did you order it?” my voice began to rise and I made an effort to control myself.

“You said it was good.”

“It’s good for pink grapefruit.  So if you don’t like pink grapefruit, then that was a bad decision on your part, and not my fault at all actually.  What did you think it would taste like?  I mean  ... there’s a big slice of pink grapefruit sitting on top of it.  Not exactly cryptic what we were shooting for with the flavour.”

“Whatever” he said, clearly thinking both that this was a cute way of flirting, and that it was working.  “You’re just bad at making decisions.  Maybe I’ll forgive you.”  He winked at me.  “But I should probably call the shots for the rest of the night.”

Now I was angry.  His sharply tucked-in shirt began to bother me at this point.  My eyes followed the fastened buttons all the way to the collar.  His adam’s apple hit it when he laughed, reminding me of a carnival strength tester.  The date was taking a nose-dive.

 

“Hey I just want to show you something” he said with a grin as he purposefully walked over to a garbage bin.  “I want to show you how much gelato is left in my cup before I throw it out.  Terrible waste.” He feigned a dramatic sigh.  “And no one but yourself to blame” 

He was still sporting that insipid, self-satisfied grin when visions of slapping his adam’s apple and running away pranced through my mind.  The very thought caused a smile to finally spread its way across my lips, the sight of which sent him into self-congratulatory frenzy.


to be continued ...

The Gym Buddy

Having recently strained a muscle in my hip while running, I thought it would be wise to dust off my kinesiology degree and prescribe myself a healthy dose of more running to really heal it up good.

At about the fifteen minute mark of a run on one particularly uneventful day, the pain became intense enough that even through the haze of my wildly misguided desire to continue, the need to stop became clear.  Frustrated, I lumbered awkwardly off the treadmill and went to pick up the spray bottle and some paper towel to wipe it down.  Tearing the paper towel with some gusto, I became the focus of one of the newly muscular regulars.

“Wow.” He cocked his head back, jutting out his chin and smirking.  “Someone’s angry.”

I looked up at him.  The transformation over the past year had been marked.  He’d lost at least 80 lbs., from what I could tell.  His ego had overcorrected for the sudden loss by inflating to at least triple its previous size.

“It’s my hip” I said, still sweating as I was wiping down the hand sensors “I’m having a lot of trouble with it.  It’s only getting worse.  I can’t seem to stretch it out or do anything for it.”

His eyes had already glazed over.  We were talking about me way too much.  If I had said I was angry at the paper towel machine because I was jealous of his quads, his interest level would have sky-rocketed.

“Hip” he echoed, “yeah”.

I could help but smirk.

“Well here’s what you’ve got to do ..” he began.  


Was I getting advice?  Was this still about me?  I was impressed.

“You run too much.”  He had that part right.  I knew I was getting my just desserts.  I knew better than to push it the way I had been.

“And you know, running is hard on the frame.  I mean, it’s even hard on my frame, and look at me.”  He motioned up and down his body as if he was both the assistant and the prize on The Price is Right.

“Now with you” he continued ,“it would be even harder because of the extra weight”.  I froze.  He went on. 

“Yeah, your joints probably can’t take it.”

I attempted to interject , much more mildly than I should have, at this point.

“But I’ve been running for a well over a year, and I was heavier before, so I really don’t think tha-"

 “So what you need to do is quit the treadmill completely, for at least three months.  Do the bike, lose 20 lbs, then come back to the treadmill and you’ll find your joints can handle the stress way better.”

He grinned from ear to ear in wonderment at his own impeccable advice-giving skills.

I stood with paper towel in hand, mouth agape, and wondered if a man had actually just come up to tell me to lose 20 lbs while I was standing on a treadmill, still sweating and visibly upset.  Was this what worked for the ladies nowadays?  Could this guy possibly be getting laid with intros like this?  I decided it most likely that this awkward rendezvous was the result of a previously awkward wall-flower now being a nouveau-thin.

“You don’t look happy”

He was probably able to tell that from the general lack of smile on my face. 

“Correct, genius” I thought, “happiness would not be something I’m emoting at the moment.”

“Don’t worry.  You’ll get to run again soon.”  He said in an attempt at soothing, assuming incorrectly that he was right about my injury, that I would be following his advice, and that I was upset about not being able to run.

“Yeah. K. Thanks.” I mumbled as I got off the treadmill and tried to invent an excuse to be anywhere in the gym where he was not.  My workout wasn’t over, so leaving was not an option.  I saw the answer before me.  It was humiliating, but it would work and would be easier than telling him off.  I went to the bike, as he suggested, and turned up my music.

He gave a self-congratulatory smile and trod along to the next lady.

My time on the bike, unfortunately, was rife with brooding.  I had received only positive feedback regarding my efforts at the gym in the past year, and did not take a liking to what I had just heard.  I knew already what would follow.

After leaving the gym, I had to stop by the grocery store to pick up a few things.  My general after-work-out hunger was magnified intensely by my need for an emotional eating binge.  It was unmistakeable. The produce had no lustre for me.  It was carbs I wanted.  My old friends.

I picked up the items that I needed, but had only brought one bag with me.

“I’ll carry what you can’t fit in here.  It shouldn’t be much.” I told the cashier.

She carefully packed my items in as my mind wandered back to the 20 lb comment, and was still in a daze as she gave me my change and handed me the bag.  I began to walk away in a fog.

“Ma’am?”  she called out after me. 

I didn’t really appreciate the whole “ma’am” thing.

“Don’t forget this” she said with a shiny grin, handing me the loaf of warm, fresh bread.

“Oh.  Thank you so so much” I replied in earnest as I took the loaf carefully from her hands and carried it lovingly out of the store.

As I walked home, I began to brood again.  It was at least half a block before I realized how I might appear to anyone who wasn’t me.  Sweaty and dishevelled from the gym, sporting a hodgepodge of sporty and business attire, I lumbered along with a slight limp because of my hip.  With my right hand, I was tearing large chunks of bread off the now annihilated loaf tucked under my left arm.  Each chunk was being stuffed rapidly into my eager mouth.  My cheeks, the overflow reservoirs for this carb flood, were packed tightly.  I was sure that if I took off a shoe and started making pirate sounds, people would start to throw their loose change at me.

My reality check came, as they so often do in life, as a cat call.  The passenger of a passing car leaned out of his window to let me know that I was a lovely young woman with good moral fibre and an obvious heart of gold, which, for the record, is the direct translation of “yeah baby, do me.”  

I began to think of all the gems in this city and why I was beating myself up over trying to impress them, when I had a warm, non-judgemental loaf of bread who wanted nothing more than to make me happy.  As I pulled it out of the toaster oven, I chuckled to myself  thinking that this day, in the battle of common courtesy, it was Bread: 2 Humans: 0

Big Hands

About halfway through dinner on our first and last date, I looked up and realized I had long since been completely at a loss to contribute to the conversation.  My date, John, had been monologuing about the acceptable and unacceptable items any self-respecting man could hang from his rear view mirror or place on his dashboard, and I had been  little able to add more than an “Oh, I see”.  In addition, he had been nonchalantly unbuttoning his shirt throughout the meal, and fear of eventually seeing his navel had sufficiently distracted me.  

The meal was followed by his folding up the bill and using the corner to pick his teeth as he described the exact hue of his car, and why he felt Paris Hilton was legitimately a ‘hottie’.  I was ready to head home and call it a night.

After the server returned with the change, he put down the bill and, in an unexpected and abrupt change of pace, grabbed my hands in his.

“You know” he said, with something resembling a longing expression on his face

“I like your big hands”.

“What?” I asked, not quite sure if I trusted what I had heard.

“Yeah, you have short fingers, but your hands are kinda big.  Reminds me of my mom.  They’re cute.  I really like them”

My expression obviously betrayed me at this point.

“It’s a good thing.  I mean it as a compliment.”

“Thank you” I said.  “I know you meant well, and I really appreciate it ... but just so you know, that’s hard to take as a compliment.”

“Gimme a break” he said, swatting the air between us.

“Seriously” I replied, in an unusually unflinching tone for me.

Seeming almost disgusted, he took a dramatic breath.  I could see he was on the verge of formulating what he would consider a rational means of changing my obviously ludicrous opinion.

“Come walk with me.  I wanna show you something” he said, before a reasonable excuse to leave sprang to mind or escaped my lips.

“Oh – I ... okay” was my smooth response.

We walked through a charming neighbourhood.  I wondered what he would have to show me on this tree-lined residential street.  There seemed to be nothing around except houses and happily mild-mannered passers-by.  He walked down a small pathway surrounded by a yard of statues and figurines, up the front steps and pounded forcibly on the front door three times before opening it and sticking his head inside.  I remained a comfortable distance behind.

“MA!” he yelled. “MAAA!”

I was frozen in wordless disbelief.

Mere moments later, a woman in a nightdress and a man in a robe who had obviously just awoken came to the door.

“There’s someone I’d like you to meet” he announced to the sleepy, yet unfazed couple, motioning to me.  “This is Di”

I remained frozen; the shock washing over me again and again.

“Di, these are my parents.”

His mother came down the steps and extended a swarthy female hand towards me.

“It’s nice to meet you.”