Untresting

So I'm waiting for my dad to email me the pictures of the damage to the garage so you can participate in the gory carnage. But while we wait, here's what's been going on.

The short answer is: Not Much.

I have a bruise like a hydrangea blossom on my knee from skating on hockey skates the other night. I always thought boys were just kind of hilariously awkward when learning to skate. Turns out hockey skates are really kind of hard to skate in unless you are accelerating. Tippy forward, tippy backward and no little picks with which to dig into the ice. I didn't, as Sarah or Janey predicted we might, get shoved around on the ice by hot-dogging 12 year-olds, but I did do a kind of pathetic slow trip-and-bail.

It was during skating that Sarah accidentally coined the term "Untresting". What a perfect thing for many situations! Your uncle telling you in detail about his plans for his deck? How untresting. It's perfect for work. You might just be able to slip it in and make it sound enough like "intresting" to satisfy yourself and not offend the listener. Conversation hacking. Like at my old job when I hated the impatient customers so much that I'd start answering their questions by tallllllking realllllly sloooooowly.

Yesterday I went biking with my parents. It was a beautiful clear day and the temperature hovered around freezing. When I was a teenager skiing or biking or whatever active family thing we'd be doing, I had extremely intense concerns over whether or not I looked cool in whatever active gear the activity required. Putting a ski school bib thingy over my fuschia and grey ski outfit was devasting. The high rounded crown of my old bike helmet was a source of shame. I've kind of swung the other way now. I wore long underwear under knee-length running tights with socks pulled up to mid-calf to go biking. With old white running shoes stained with red dirt. I looked like someone's embarassing dad, it was awesome.

When we were going through old Expo site on the south side of False Creek (currently under construction to become the Olympic Village) the strong smell of weed filled the air and I zipped past a man saying to his 10 and 13-year-old daughters, "So now you know what it smells like," and I felt a wave of nostalgia for similar conversations with my parents when I was that age.

An associate of my dad's gave him a giant basket full of all the different kinds of Pocky there are, and other assorted Glico products (like pizza-flavoured Pretz--sadly no Curry Rice), so it's been a good Christmas here. Looks like Men's Pocky is now an equal-opportunity edible as the "Men's" part has been edited off the package. Thank you Baby Jesus!