Urbane Lion's Den

And now for something completely different!

What a neat concept: what would you miss from Earth if you were suddenly zapped to Mars? Thank you, Robin, for making us reflect on the good things in life that we all too often take for granted.

It will be of little surprise to everyone to find similarities between the Urban Panther's list and my own. Isn't that why we are soulmates after all?

Number one on my list is definitely water. To paddle a canoe or kayak on a dead calm body of water is such a zen like experience. But then again, the sound of surf breaking on the shore, or the thunderous sound of a waterfall. Heck, I even have an MP3 file of water sounds that I sometimes loop all night for a good sleep.

The sweet smell of grass. Lying on my back on a hot summer day, all senses tuned in. I can smell the grass, hear the chirping of birds, and the laughter of kids. HAPPINESS!

I know I'll live to regret this one, but snow ! I would miss snow! I just love to be inside and watch a nice big snow storm. I like building things out of snow and zooming down the hills on my snowboard. To cross country ski in the forest is also a very relaxing activity.

Rain and thunderstorms. In fact, any of Mother Nature's sound and lights shows. To lie on your back on a cool night to watch Northern lights is so amazing.

I assume there's beer, wine and yummy animals on Mars right?

What I wouldn't miss? Harley friggin' Davidsons with their noisy exhausts. Inconsiderate people who think they are alone on this Earth. My Yahoo neighbours and their loud antics.

Although a trip to Mars sounds very tempting, I really think I'd like to come back eventually. I like it too much down here and still have a lot of things to do.

How about you? Are there any similarities between your list and your partner's? Anything you wouldn't miss?

Back from the Dead !

You may have noticed (or not!) my absence from the blogging scene in the last few weeks. Why you ask? Was I closely involved in the canadian election or the Paulson plan? Was I busy globe-trotting to far away exotic destinations? Unless your idea of exotic is Trenton, or London, Ontario, the answer to both questions is no. So where was I really? I was at home TOTALLY FREAKING OUT!!! Deadlines coming fast, work needing to be done before winter hits (yeah I know, you California or Australia residents have no clue!) but more importantly, the Urban Panther moving in.

Although I was extremely looking forward to this moment, and I had a very good idea of what was remaining in her apartment, I was ill prepared to face the state the house was in when the move was completed but before anything was put away. You think the previous pictures were bad? You have absolutely no idea! Two heavy gauge wires of different colours touched inside my brain causing me to go completely beserk! As the Urban Panther posted previously, I have no experience in moving. My father was military and all moves were relatively painless. I did move a few times as a student, but my possessions were restricted to a few cardboard boxes. But the Den is completely different. This place was Ali Baba's cave even before the Panther moved in, so imagine it with all of her stuff piled up wherever space was available! Despite words of encouragement from the Panther, and a friend of mine who graciously helped us move, it was simply beyond my ability to make any sense out of this. So what did I do? I retreated outdoors to accomplish simple tasks that my injured psychological state could accomplish. You know, counting stems of grass, pulling wings off of flies, etc.

Well, as promised, the Panther had everything placed a matter of no time. And so the healing process began. There is still quite a bit to do, like hang her frames, and clean out the basement and garage, but at least the house is livable once again. I am still not top shape, but well on my way to total recovery, with no discernable permanent damage to my nervous system.

Have you ever been placed in a situation that was completely beyond your reasoning and had to retreat? Were you able to participate in the finalizing of the task or did you have to wait until it was completed?

Hurricane Ike hits Quebec

Yes that's right. We just got hit by the tail end of Ike. Loads of rain, hot and steamy weather, but nothing like what hit the southern part of the US and Caribeeans. No, we are usually pretty sheltered from those bad storms. We do, however, feel other side effects such as a big hike in gas and food prices. But, as I don't want to steal the limelight from CNN, I'll let them report the damages caused by Ike, and will instead tell you all about what hurricane Panther left in its trail.

You've all seen the pictures of the Den in total chaos . Not one square inch of counter space was available. Well Saturday, while I was outside busy setting up the wiring for the hot tub, unbeknownst to me, hurricane Panther was hitting the inside of the house very hard. Not only was all of her stuff that she had retrieved from her apartment stashed away, she even emptied every cupbard in the kitchen and reorganized every single one of them! The kitchen now looks fabulous! Although she switched a lot of the stuff around, everything makes so much sense that I have no need to look around for stuff anymore. I had been living alone for over two years and had developped some old (bad) habits. But now, gone are the frustrations of fighting with the Tupperware drawer (come on, you have one too!) or having tin cans fall on your toes while mucking around in the pantry.

The move isn't finished yet. We still need to get the rest of her furniture from her apartment this weekend, and place them appropriately in the house. If I had known all the good that would come from having the Panther around, I would have hunted her down much sooner!

How about you? Have you ever gotten to the point of having to rely on someone else to put some order in your life? Was it a good or a bad experience?

Random Acts of Kindness

An interesting thing happened at work yesterday. As you may know, I work in casualty support for the Department of National Defence. We provide support services for injured members and their families, and handle all the assistance and funeral arrangements for those who have fallen in combat. About 80% of my colleagues are military and wear the uniform.

Well yesterday, a group of about 5-6 of them went out to lunch. When they got their bill they noticed that things didn't add up. When they mentioned it to the waitress she replied that the woman at the other table had paid for all their drinks. When they went up to thank her the woman simply replied ' Thank you for wearing that uniform'. Just a random act of kindness. Although a lot of people do not support the war, most people will support the troops, and buying a round of drinks was this woman's way of showing her support.

It's interesting to see how we are seeing more and more of these random acts of kindness. I remember seeing a picture of someone in the days following 9/11 who was giving away free hugs. Or, more recently, Garden Guerillas have taken over some cities and plant flowers on city property just for the sake of embellishment. I've been known to offer bottles of water to the garbage guys on a hot summer day, or hot chocolate to the postman during a cold winter run. I believe that more and more of these acts of kindness can make a difference. Everyone needs to feel appreciated and even though the garbage guys, the postman, or my military colleagues make a decent living and need not rely on other people's charity to buy their drinks, these little gestures are a nice way to say thank you. They probably talked about it at the dinner table that night and it just puts a positive spin on life.

What are your thought on this? Have you ever received a random act of kindness or, have you ever given one?

The truly non-technical Panther

In case some of you haven't read my About Me page, and have only justed started to read the Urban Panther's and my sites, I would just like to inform you once again that I am French (and loving it!). Although my English is very good, I still need to have the Panther proofread my posts for wordsmithing purposes. Rest assured, she never censors anything, but merely corrects any spelling mistakes and makes my sentences 'more pretty'.

If you read yesterday's post, you may have noticed that it was full of mistakes and poorly written. Why you ask? Didn't the Panther review the post? Of course she did. She reviewed it and said it was good to go! Being a trusting soul, I never double check the post. That would be duplicating the effort afterall. Well, apparently the Panther proved once again to the world how technologically inept she is. She didn't save the edits! She just closed the file and assumed that it saved all by itself! What? How can this be you ask? Doesn't she work in IT? Yes she does! But, her coding days are behind her and she is now a number cruncher. All this to say that my post on the salt and sugar mishap was posted in its original un-edited form. Please accept my apologies if some of my writing made you cringe. If you were lucky enough to have printed a copy you may want to keep it in a precious place. It may be worth something someday.

Needless to say that the last thing I want to do here is go Panther bashing. She is just the greatest person in the world (apart from me of course!) and I love her to death, but if anything has more than 2 buttons on it she will just push it away in despair after fiddling with it for a couple of minutes. As for myself, I just love fiddling around with new gadgets, toys, tools or machines and although I will be able to make them function intuiatively, I will also read the owner's manual from cover to cover to fully explore all of the functions. I get a virtual techno orgasm when something breaks down and I need to take it apart and fix it! I just love playing around with all those cables, wires, tubes and gears. Is it any wonder that Little Lion's favorite past time is Lego construction blocks?

Luckily for the Panther, I will always be there to get her out of a tight spot when complicated devices such as microwave ovens or remote controls are causing her undue stress. As my ineptitude is already covered in today's Lab rat exercise over at Someday Syndrome, I won't repeat myself over here.

As for yourself, are you totally inept in certain departments? Come on, don't be shy!
Do you excel in an area that your partner totally sucks?

She said, he said, YOU SAY!

The Urban Panther is literally moving into the Den, so it makes sense to revamp our blogsites as well. But how?  We've been doing the He Said/She Said thing, now it's time for You Said! Head on over to the Urban Panther's Lair and help us decide what our new sites will look like, by completing a very exciting poll.  Results will be tabulated and announced next week.

Back to school lunch woes

It's that time once again. Little Lion is back in school. He's a fast lion. He's in an advanced class and he performs very well. With every start of the school year comes two stressful concerns; will my son like his teacher? And, definitely the worst, the food allergy letter! This dictates what we may and may not give our kids for lunch because of food allergies in the school.

Last week was the beginning of the school year. Concern #1 is a non issue. My son loves his teacher. But, tomorrow is the parent-teacher meeting. This is when we will get the allergy letter. It can get very restrictive; no bananas, no kiwis, no egg products, no this, no that. This is strictly enforced and not only will you get a stern warning from the teacher ifyou forgoe the letter but, worst of all, I also have to face Little Lion's wrath! Are you crazy Dad? You put a banana muffin in my lunch today! What were you thinking???

I strive to give my son healthy and balanced lunches without any processed foods. Now, I can't even give him homemade baking anymore. Any baking needs to come from a certified peanut-free factory and properly labeled as such. You know what, I sometimes cheat on this one. I am careful not to put any of the sensitive ingredients in my baking but come on, where is this world coming to? I would much rather give my son fresh, homemade muffins (sans the bananas) than to risk feeding him plastic like muffins from a factory that will eventually recall their products because hydraulic oil has seeped into the mix (no, that wasn't molasses!)

How about you? What are your restrictions as far as school lunches are concerned? Are they self imposed or dictated by the school?

Acting under pressure - Don't worry, be happy!

Whooooh... that Lion, he can be sooo careless! I mean, who in his right mind doesn't have a will? And all that other paperwork left to the last minute?! Aaaargh ! Completely unacceptable! How has he managed to survive all these years??

Yeah... took a beating once again! But this time, by the comments left on the Urban Panther's site, it seems I'm not the only one to leave things to the last minute. Could this really be a male trait?

Let's elaborate on the various scenarios the Panther listed on her site.

Getting our wills done: Mea Culpa. I have been neglecting this for too long. I did have an agreement between shareholders with my previous business and that acted as a will of sorts, but that isn't valid any longer. I did, however, send the notary an email yesterday.

Buying into the Lion's house: Bought 1 house, sold 1 business. Apart from those two events, I never had to deal with a notary in my life. My banker suggested a few names that I added to my list. Notary # 1 handled the sale of my business. Things went rather smoothly back then so I asked if she was fluently bilingual. She said that she had no problem doing the paperwork in English and that she could get by in English. Notary #2 basically gave the same answers. From past experience I was leaning towards Notary # 1, but when I told the Panther that she was also a very hot chick, her choice went to Notary #2. As she was the one buying into the house, I let her make the decision.

The Lion getting a divorce: Laws in Quebec are different. I have a court judgement for the separation and all assets both physical and financial have been taken care of. Were it not for the Panther, I probably would have never gotten a divorce, simply because it's just the same piece of paper that I already have except that it now says DIVORCE on the cover page.

Home renovations: I sure hope the Panther isn't considering moving out of here in two years!? I like this house. It's big, confortable, and has a happy vibe. Although I am not a professional carpenter, I really do enjoy building things and doing home renos. As I don't intend on moving anytime soon, I can take all my sweet time to get things done. I work on a project until I need a rest. Then I drop it. I relax for a bit (maybe a few weeks) then I pick it up again. It's all a matter of balancing work and play. I refuse to work inside during the summer months. I have all winter to do that. But now, the Panther is moving in and she wants all of her possessions in their final resting place right away. Who's feeling the pressure you think?

You see, I choose my wars. A professional is neglecting me? He'll never get my business ever again. Am I in any danger, or am I losing any money because of this neglect? If the answer is no, then why should I worry about it? I don't intend on developing some strange stress induced disease because of a negligent professional. Just not worth it! I also find that a lot of things just fall into place when you let them be. They may not get done according to your planning, but does it really matter? Don't you think we worry too much as it is?

By reading the Panther's post, I conclude that she needs a rest and that we should drop everything and take the next few weeks to relax. We also just purchased a hot tub with an expected delivery date of the third week of September. This should really help in making her relax and see the bright side of life. In the end, maybe my relaxed attitude is the reason I was able to survive for so long in this wild jungle!

Do you sometimes find yourself overwhelmed and realize that you are somewhat out of control?
What do you do to chill out and regain control?

The power of saying NO!

OK, let's face it, this is going to be a long post. I'll probably lose half of you not even half way through but, it's a necessary post.

You may have noticed that I have somewhat disappeared from the blogging scene in the last few days. Faithful readers have noticed, while others may have failed to notice, that their feed readers was not refreshing for my daily post. Some of you who follow hundreds of blogs probably haven't noticed anything at all.

Truth is, September 1st in Canada is a statutory holiday. It is also known as Labour day. Canada basically shuts down on that day. This meant a whole long weekend in that final stretch of summer to get some work done before winter comes along. You all know that the Urban Panther and I are putting in an outdoor kitchen to accomodate our entertainment needs. Mother Nature failing to cooperate, and a busy social calendar, caused serious delays in our project.

As per my answer in last week's assignment in Alex's Lab rat experiment, I constantly monitor and reassess the progression of any project I undertake and make necessary adjustments  along the way. This time, in order to get things done, I had to devote 100% of my time to the lugging around of huge, massive (read heavy!) concrete pavers. I knew in advance that my 43 year old body was going to take a serious beating. The effort on my part involved planning the work to do, lugging aroung 50 lbs slabs of concrete, placing them in an intricate puzzle, making slight adjustments to the original plan, making certain that the 'free labor' (that would be the Lion King) did not go hungry or thirsty, giving my 10 year old son some deserved attention, and giving my 45 year old Panther the occasional look that meant that I thought she looked hot and sexy despite the fact that she was covered with dirt and smelled worse than a gym room locker!

Those are some of the immediate psychological costs involved in the project. What also needs to be taken into consideration are the invitations we received from friends and family that we had to turn down to get our project accomplished.  Luckily for me, I have learned a long time ago the power of saying NO. When I first started my business in the early 90's, I put in the required (read expected) amount of hours into the business and then added some for good measure. Work weeks were on average between 100-120 hours. On top of that, I still needed to juggle with the usual family and friend commitments. Now, I may be wrong, but nobody wakes up in the morning, looks in the mirror and says " I am a mean person and I will deny my loved ones today!' Having to say no is a dilemna that we are faced with in our day to day lives. There are only 24 hours in a day, of which 8-10 are dedicated to work/commuting, 6-8 for sleep leaving very little else for your evening shift of raising kids and taking care of yourself.

This is where you need to sit back and assess your work/life schedule. Are you setting enough time aside for your family and some alone time for yourself? Are you able to rest during the weekends, or do you head back to work on Mondays feeling exhausted due to a busy social calendar?

Saying No is a very powerful tool. Not easy to assimilate, but once you get the hang of it, it will become the most used tool in your toolbox. I remember having to tell my Mom that I wasn't going to be at a family dinner simply because I needed some alone time. How selfish is that? Is it selfish or is it salvatory? In the beginning, saying NO, especially to your loved ones is not easy. They may get flustered, or not understand what is going on. But, with a little straightforward communication they will come to understand.

These last few days I have had to say NO to a few invitations, but also to blogging and my readers. Do I feel bad about it? Not in the least. This break was necessary for my well being. I know my limits and respect them.

Do you know your limits?
Do you know how to say NO?
Have you had to say NO recently?

Gas light? What gas light?

Oh my goodness ! Here I am being blamed for undue psychological mistreatment towards the Urban Panther! All this because a little yellow light suddenly came on, on the way to work. Ok, let's get something straight here. I have much better ways to cause psychological stress to the Panther. Much more fun ways too! But, that may be the subject of a future post.

First of all, in this relationship we both share the driver's seat. I probably have a little more than my fair share, but she likes it that way. Second of all, except with my lawn mower, I have never run out of gas! Never ever! I have my favorite stations that I like to go to and will sometimes let the gas go down a little bit before I can make my way there. The Panther listed 6 reasons why it's not OK to let the light come on. Let me smash to smithereens every single one of her good reasons:

"I was a single mother living in the country with three small children.  There was one ambulance for a large area. If there was ever an emergency with my kids, and no ambulance available, I wanted to be able to hop in the car and drive to the hospital 40 kilometers away.  Gas in the car was a safety feature."

1- We live in Gatineau, Quebec, not Mosquitoville and we have ambulances parked here and there in the city to shorten response time. We have 3 major hospitals within a 10 minute drive and countless clinics. Reason # 1 is moot.

"I have this fear of looking foolish. There you are on the side of the road, heading off with a gas can in your hand. You know people are laughing."

2- We commute daily to Ottawa, Ontario. Roughly a 20-25 min drive. We probably pass 500 gas stations along the way. In the unlikely event that we would run out of gas, we could probably cross the street to the gas station and get some! No need to walk 1000 miles in the desert! Reason # 2 is demolished!

"On a similar note, I have a fear of the unknown.  What would I do in this situation? Who would I call? Can I even get the car off the road, or does the car just seize up and refuse to move? "

3- The car would slowly sputter and eventually conk out. Plenty of time to make it to the side of the road or, at the gas station at the next corner. Crash goes reason # 3

"I am from Toronto, which explains a lot of things about me, but I am all too familiar with the Don Valley Parkway in commuter traffic. You could be stuck there for hours, just idling. Literally hours.  If you are already running on fumes, you will run out of gas.  And if this happens to you do in the middle of this potentially road raged mob?...see points #2 and #3."

4- Whenever I anticipate traffic, or need to drive on isolated roads, I fuel up and fill the windshield washer fluid. I'm not stupid! Let's cross out # 4

"I have no idea what 'another 100 kilometers' is. As in, don't worry, you can drive for another 100 kilometers with the light on.  From when? From the time the light first came on? How do you know when it first came on?  How far is 100 kilometers? As in, will it get me to the next gas station?"

5- What is another 100 km? I don't know either, but this Volvo is equipped with a nifty little device that calculates the distance travelled. My lawnmower doesn't! That's why I run out of gas with the lawnmower and not with the car. If the light goes on, and you're not sure for how long it was on? Be pessimistic and assume you only have 20 km left. Another good reason down the drain!

"I have learned not to trust anyone who says I can drive for another 100 kilometers.  LTR#2 pulled that one on me. I drove 5 kilometers from his house to mine and ran out of gas. Fortunately, it was at a top of a hill, and my driveway was at the bottom. I threw 'er into neutral and rolled 'er down the hill. I just made it into my driveway."

6- I am not LTR #2! Need I say more?

I will not go out of my way to put gas in the car unless the light is on, or I am doing some highway driving. I would not take any chances of being stranded in the middle of nowhere. I do not take this type of chance with the boat where you have nowhere else to go and need to rely on the Coast Guard. I always pay with my credit card so the payment is always delayed and as the Panther and I split the expenses, whether she pays or I pay makes no difference.

Do you reallly go out of your way just to fuel up?
Do you own a gas guzzler that will give you about 30 second warning before it conks out?
Do you really think the Panther's fears are justified?