When my friend, M, suggested we check out their boot camp class, I figured it would be kind of like the studio—peaceful, encouraging and almost spiritual. I was very, very wrong. (Very.)

Our first mistake was not reading the warning description of the class:

This high-intensity workout combines plyometric interval training and strength training. Everyone should bring a towel, water, workout gloves and a mat for abs. Also, it is not a workout that should be done on an empty stomach. A small healthy meal (like Greek yogurt and berries or a protein shake) should be eaten 1 hour before this workout.

I once read that plyometrics (“explosive” exercises like jump squats) shouldn’t be attempted by women who’ve had babies because their pelvic floors might not be strong enough and, long story short, they could pee themselves on impact.

Let me be clear: I have birthed a ten-pounder. My pelvic floor ain’t what it used to be. Thankfully there were no impact issues in the class, but if I’d known that what I was doing was plyometrics, and that the impact risk was there, I totally would’ve faked incontinence and bailed from the class.

Our second blunder was not bolting from the class as soon as we saw our instructor:

Her name is Magda. She is a former Miss Universe. Her goal is to make you feel pain. And nausea.

There were only three of us in the class. I had nowhere to hide. We did lunges, sit-ups, burpees, push-ups and planks. That was our warm-up. The rest of the class was a gasping, sweaty blur and I can’t remember most of the exercises. I suspect the experience was repressed, similar to childbirth or bikini waxes.

For three days after the class I was constantly reminded of Magda’s boot camp, mostly because I couldn’t stand up from a chair (or toilet) without assistance.

I’ve determined that if my exercise regime requires digestive preparation and more than two pieces of workout gear, it is not the class for me. Also, I shall no longer exercise if I cannot do it barefoot.

Here are snippets of his ordeal, in his words:

I had to reach deep to make it through.

All I kept thinking was, save me from the light.

This would’ve killed a lesser man.

It was by far my darkest hour.*

All feeling in my fingers was lost—that’s when the fear really set in.

I started wondering if I could get voice activation on my computer to compensate for no hands.

I didn’t think I was gonna regain my functions.

Then I was thinking, who will drive us home?

Winter would be more fun if I didn’t have to worry about my heart stopping.

Can a jaw freeze shut? Because I’m pretty sure mine was frozen.

Stop laughing.

In case you haven’t figured it out (and really, how could you, based on the above declarations?), the Serb had been tobogganing.** With our kids. For 38 minutes.

*Please keep in mind that this man escaped a war-torn country.
**That’s Canadian for “sledding.”

This was taken on the weekend, -4 Celsius/25 Fahrenheit. Not exactly Donner Party material...

“Um, hi,” a young woman’s voice breathed in my ear. “I have a question? About a guy?”

I automatically flipped to the red tab (‘romance’) in my “consultant” binder and started shuffling a deck of playing cards near my mouthpiece.

“Okay,” I said, scanning the page before me. “The two of hearts has come up, indicating a new relationship.” I paused. “Or perhaps one that recently ended…”

My binder had been provided by the owners, a couple from New Jersey with sketchy morals and questionable credentials (as if one could even have credentials in such a venture).

The caller jumped in where I’d left off, just like she was supposed to. “Yes! I’ve just started seeing David…”

My heart clenched like it always did when I heard that name. Why couldn’t I have married a Denzel, or a Sigmund?

“I’m wondering if he’s The One.” She was still babbling, just like they all did, eager to provide all of the necessary information required to get the answers that they craved. “We actually met when he was still married… so he doesn’t want to jump into something serious. But he’s been separated for, like, months.”

My headset suddenly felt too tight, my cubicle too constricting. “His, err, wife…”

“Ex-wife,” she interrupted.

“Right. Whatever. I’m, uh, sensing her name begins with an…M?”

“Yes!” she exclaimed. “It’s Melanie! And she’s a total nut job, too. She’s, like, practically a stalker.”

“Really?” My tongue was like sandpaper against my teeth. I took a quick sip of my Big Gulp. “The cards show him to be rather tall, with dark hair…” It was time to stop messing around. “…and it looks like he works with animals.”

“OMIGOD!” she bellowed into my ear. “That’s amazing! How did you see…?”

“It’s all in the cards,” I answered in a stronger voice. “He’s coming through very clearly.”

So clearly I could punch him — if it wasn’t for that douche bag, I wouldn’t be here. I didn’t even get to keep the damn cat.

“So, um, what was your name again?” I inquired.

“It’s Sherene.”

Of course it is.

“Well, Sherene,” I said, as visions of payback danced in my head. “I have good news and I have bad news.”

“Oh no,” she moaned. “I knew he was too good to be true.”

“You’re half right,” I assured her. “There is some negative energy in your relationship house that’s preventing true bliss with Dr. Dave, but the cards are showing me how you can release it.”

“I’ll do anything,” she pleaded.

Like taking candy from a baby, I thought, closing the binder and leaning back in my chair. Or, in his case, dignity from a dumbass.

An hour later, Sherene had a lengthy to-do list and I’d doubled my quota for the day.

“I think I’ve got everything,” she said. “I’ll put it on eBay as soon as I get off the phone with you.”

“Perfect,” I answered. “And remember: he might be upset at first, but all those big boy toys — the Wii, the diving equipment — are just cluttering his psychic house. He’ll be muchbetter off without them.”

Just like I’m better off without him, I thought, finally believing it.

She exhaled loudly. “Thank you, Desiree. I feel so much better after talking to you.”

“The feeling is mutual, Sherene.”

We said our goodbyes and I was about to hang up when I was struck by a final, inspiring thought.

“One more thing,” I added. “Make sure his ex gets the cat.”

This is not me (my ball is bigger).

If you come by our house on a Saturday afternoon, you might hear me holler declare the following: “Coci—get Pootch and Matsie in Stinky or we’ll be late!” which roughly translates to: “Darling husband—please gather the children and deposit them in the car so that we might keep to our schedule.”

I wasn’t always this way; no one laughed harder (or more scornfully) than I when Seinfeld got all Shmoopy with his girlfriend to the annoyance of everyone they knew. Years later I met the Serb, who’s from a much more—let’s call it demonstrative—culture, and before I knew it, we had pet names for all sorts of things (minds out of the gutter, people…my granny reads this blog).

For twelve years, the Serb has lovingly referred to me as the following:
Loci (pron. Low-tsee, a take on Lori that sounds cute with his accent)
Lorika (pron. Lor-ee-ka, also: see above)
Govno (pron. Gove-no, for years I thought it meant “adorable scamp” but I recently learned that it roughly translates to “crap”)
Picka (pron. Pich-ka, a very bad word; in English it rhymes with “kunt”)
Mofo (pron. Moh-Foh, short for mother f*cker—a nickname within a nickname!—we call each other mofo regularly and last month my 4-year-old started using it on her doll)

In turn, I have taken to tenderly calling my husband by these pet names:
Coco (pron. Tso-tso, his childhood nickname also the name of a piglet he knew as a kid)
Coci (pron. Tso-tsee, a variation of the above. I know, Serbs are bonkers with pronunciation)
Sine (pron. See-nay, means “son” in Serbian. I say it with his mother’s accent to freak him out.)
Stole (pron. Stoh-lay, his Serbian nickname, the spelling of which just confuses the Canadian people)
Kucka (pron. Kooch-kah, loosely translates to “bitch” and always gets his attention)
Bitch (pron. Biiiitch, used when I’m feeling sassy or I’ve had a few glasses of red wine)
The Serb (pron. Hot Stuff, used here to retain a semblance of anonymity)

Our eight-year-old son is known as Pootchie—a name I made up in the hospital while nursing him for the 39th hour straight—and our daughter goes by Matsie, which means “kitten” in Serbian. We call our cars Stinky (the interior reeks of smoke) and Tiny (because it’s a huge SUV and we are being ironic). My kids go to The Hippie School and when we had a cat everything was known as Pussy (because we are as immature as we are shmoopy).

At this rate, I expect to be off the grid, language-wise, before the kids hit puberty. Then the shmoop will really hit the fan.

It got me wondering about my own Google searches. I work from home and spend a good deal of time waiting in line at grocery stores or the parking lot at my kids’ school, and I often Google random crap that pops in my head. I had a look at my recent searches and it turns out that, at first glance, I am queen of the wackadoo nutbars:

1) “oprah interview woman shot husband for cash”
Did you know Oprah has a radio station? Our new car comes with satellite radio and I obsessively sometimes listen to the rebroadcasts of her old TV shows. I find it fascinating to Google past guests to see how they’re doing today. Fun fact: I’ve been known to sit in the car in my driveway after buying groceries, listening to an entire show while the Serb folds laundry in the house.

2) “gregory brothers”
One of my online sisters-from-another-mister, the fabulous Colie, gave a shout out to this group on her blog. They’re pretty awesome.

3) “dip fish in milk”
Could this be a clue as to why my family won’t eat the dinners I cook them? #niceonenancydrew

4) “cpcrake botiquel”
I forgot to include a piece of my son’s favourite dessert in his lunch and wanted to make amends with an afterschool treat. Thankfully, my pal Google didn’t let my stubby typing fingers prevent me from finding a proper cupcake boutique.

Gratuitous cupcake porn.

5) “mama tooted”
The satellite radio also comes with a station for kids and this song is always playing. My daughter wanted to know the exact lyrics (which she has since taken to repeating at the top of her lungs to strangers while I sheepishly explain that it’s a song, not a play-by-play of my inner workings). Listen to the whole thing. I dare you not to giggle.

Keller Williams – Mama Tooted by spencer4linn

The day after I sent that letter (minus the subtext), I received the following reply:

Hi Lori,

Best,
Ms. Fancy Pants Restaurant Owner

Obviously I was thrilled with such a prompt and promising response. Then I realized I would have to speak to her, which I wasn’t so keen to do. My best work is done with a laptop as my buffer. Talking often leads to inadvertent Canadian politeness that could diminish the impact of my grievances.

Thankfully the Serb saved the day by pissing me off (who needs 9 jackets in the hall closet?!?) right before the owner called me and I had an appropriate edge to my voice. The owner kindly offered a complimentary meal for me and a guest on a night of my choosing—all I would need to do is phone in advance and speak to the manager.

I hung up quite pleased with myself; a feeling that lasted for all of three minutes, until I began imagining how it would feel to show up at the Fancy Pants Restaurant with every employee knowing that I had complained. What if someone spits in my soup? Or wipes my fork in their armpit? Or worse?*

Herein lies my conundrum: do I risk the wrath of wait staff for a free meal? What do you think? Should I walk in there with my head held high and demand some decent food without the attitude, or should I take the apology as my prize and forget about the meal? I know I’ve done a lot more for a lot less in my time…

*The Serb has worked at FPRs all over the world and he assures me that yes, worse things could easily happen.

Sweet Jeezuz, I am screwed.

And yet, as we bustled into the waiting room, we found this playing on the television at three o’clock in the afternoon:

The final scene of Scarface. Unedited. Full Volume.

Brain Leaking From Nose:
When my daughter was two-years-old, she approached me crying and pointing to her face. She was swollen from her eye to her chin on one side. She wailed and thrashed when I tried to touch her and, being the sensible mother that I am, I immediately assumed a tumour in her brain had burst and then I started freaking out.

I think I drove her to the hospital because we ended up in our car in the ER parking lot, but I have no memory of the trip because my daughter’s nose had started leaking a thick, green-red mucous at an alarming rate. We were immediately triaged and told that it wouldn’t be a long wait.

I clutched my daughter to me in the waiting room with a cloth over her nose to catch the gunk until her thundering sobs had subsided to pathetic whimpers. I slowly removed the cloth and there it was, sticking out of her nostril: a purple Light Bright piece. I don’t think I even told the nurse I was leaving.

Weirdly Wedged Foreign Objects:
I’ve documented exactly how I get so sexy for the Serb in the past, and part of that ritual involves sticking Kleenex up my nose when it’s allergy season (or cold and flu season, so basically every night).

One night I woke up with a start. Something was lodged in my sinus cavity, similar to when a piece of carrot gets stuck up there (or is that only me?). I spent the rest of the night getting kicked by my husband while I made disgusting snarfing sounds with my throat, trying to loosen whatever was stuck in my head.

In the morning I realized that one of my Kleenex wads nose plugs was missing. A quick Google search (“Kleenex stuck in nose”) confirmed my suspicions: a tissue stuck in my head would definitely fester and lead to death unless action was taken to remove it.

First I dragged my family to a walk-in clinic where a doctor poked and prodded my proboscis before declaring me clear of foreign objects. I didn’t believe him. The Serb went home with the kids (rolling his eyes the whole way) while I hauled my clogged cookies to the ER. I may have exaggerated my discomfort slightly to the doctor there and he ordered an X-ray to get to the bottom of things. He peered at me over the folder holding the results.

“Before I tell you the findings, do you promise not to stick Kleenex up your nose?” he asked.

“I promise,” I answered.

“Good,” he replied. “We see a lot of things stuck in a lot of places, but there’s nothing in your sinus cavity that shouldn’t be there.”

By this point I was feeling a lot better. Like, perfectly fine. I thanked the doctor and left before he realized that my family stuck crap up their noses and signed me up for a TLC show, like that one where they eat diapers.

I should probably invest in one of these.

*This post is dedicated to my sister the nurse, who puts up with my frantic phone calls concerning the likelihood of brains leaking from one’s nose. (Answer: Not likely. But also not impossible.)

I recently dined at Fancy-Pants Restaurant with two friends and feel compelled to share our experience with you. I was looking forward to sampling the best of Toronto at your Fancy Pants Restaurant Location, but unfortunately, not even our most basic expectations were met.

[I decided to get a second mortgage and have dinner at your crazy-expensive restaurant so I could see what all the fuss is about. Judging from the braggy wall photos, Oprah and her Hollywood friends seem to love it. I'm now thinking you accosted them at a Starbucks or Whole Foods to snap those pictures.]

From the moment we arrived, your employees were incredibly rude and condescending. The hostess appeared to be greatly inconvenienced when taking our coats and she proceeded to seat us at the most remote table in the farthest corner of the near-empty restaurant.

[Listen, I can bring out my inner bitch with the best of them; however, this cranky cow took the cake. She made Mad Men's Betty Draper look like Betty White.]

Our waiter was not much better: his overall demeanour—sneering at our questions, rushing us through our courses and apparent relief when we left—was that of someone wishing he (or rather, we) were somewhere else.

[Oh, to be a douche-nugget aspiring actor in Da Big Smoke. Speaking of smoke, we kept waiting for him to offer us a spliff.]

While my meal was excellent, my friend’s rice pasta verged from al dente to crunchy. Instead of ordering a new dish, she waited for our server to enquire about her meal to inform him of her discontent. He never did.

[You think I'm cranky when I don't eat? My friend would have written you a note so bitter as to render you speechless, but I think she ate her pen. FYI, it tasted better than the pasta.]

I was ready to chalk up his contemptuous service to having a bad day until witnessing his transformation when dealing with other guests. In particular, two ladies at the table beside us had our waiter and another employee doting on them throughout their meal while we were virtually ignored. Such blatant and clumsy genuflecting was not only excessive, but also quite embarrassing to witness.

[These lucky bitches were given complimentary cocktails and wine pairings with each elaborate course. It was at this point that I contemplated setting my hair on fire so as to draw attention to our empty wine glasses, but Douche Nugget and his cohort were too busy wedging their hipster-doofus craniums up the other diners' butts to have noticed.]

My companions were visiting from New York and are accustomed to a certain level of service when dining at a restaurant of Fancy Pants Restaurant’s reputed calibre (and frankly, so am I). They could not believe how deplorable your service was. With so many amazing culinary options in Toronto, I was extremely embarrassed and disappointed with our choice.

[We passed an awesome-smelling Shawarma place that would've not only hit the spot, but also left us enough cash for a spa day. On Rodeo Drive.] 

I sincerely hope that you will encourage your staff to make more of an effort to ensure that all customers receive an extraordinary dining experience. My meal was wonderful and if we had been treated with a modicum of respect and graciousness, I would have left confident of my return to Fancy Pants Restaurant. As it is, I now feel obligated to warn people of our unsatisfying experience.

[You were like the gorgeous jock in grade twelve who I finally got to make out with, only to realize he kissed like an epileptic St. Bernard. #epicdiningfail]

Best regards,
[You suck,]

Lori Dyan
[I'm still hungry]

This place is like the nerdy drama geek you should've made out with who grew up to be Ryan Gosling (or Reynolds, depending on your tastes).

Before “scrapbook” was a verb, I was making killer photo albums. I’m a compulsive picture taker and keepsake keeper, which resulted in a lovely chronicling of my wanton and hedonistic youth. My wedding album is work of art, as is the recording of our move to Toronto, and my first pregnancy. Then I had a kid and it all went down the toilet.

I love marking the special occasions in their lives, but I’m the absolute worst and preserving them. The last image I put in a photo album was from my son’s second birthday. He is now almost nine. My four-year-old daughter is missing completely.

When you combine my love of mementos with my attention span (roughly that of a Muppet), you’re left with a 76-litre (that’s, like, 837 gallons) Tupperware storage bin crammed with crumpled arts and crafts (facilitated by someone else, obviously) that likely wouldn’t even make the scrapbook edit.

This failure to part with garbage stuff pertains to all areas of my life. The 837-gallon rubber tote is simply the most glaring example. I have a stash of MAC lip gloss that I ordered in a panic five years ago after the colour was discontinued. Did it matter that I was pushing the limits of lip gloss chemistry when I bought enough to take me into 2020? Apparently not.

I’m consoled by, and resigned to, the fact that I come by this trait genetically. My eighty-six-year-old grandma has been known to keep salad dressing and ketchup years past their expiration dates. Although we’re dealing with condiments versus cosmetics and crafts, the motivation to hang on to them remains the same: we have plans for them. We just haven’t gotten around to figuring out what they are yet.

Look out, 2012. You’re about to be de-Tupperfied.

R.I.P. Lustrebloom Lip Gloss, I'll miss you even though you made my lips tingle in a bad way when I used you.

The day before yesterday marked the twelfth anniversary of getting proposed to by the Serb, after nagging him for days to do so, whilst clinging to him on the back of a Vespa.

I don’t know if it’s a case of symbiotic amnesia or early-onset dementia, but neither of us remember how we decided to get married. We started dating in August 1998 and by the summer of 1999 we were booking our tickets and buying rings. The Serb asked my parents for my hand (a blog post unto itself, since it was only the second time he’d met them) and I bought my wedding dress from a prom dress clearance rack.

I hired an event planner on the island to take care of the arrangements and made sure everyone from the flight attendants to the hotel manager knew we were on our weddingmoon.* On our way to the airport we mailed “We got hitched!” announcements to our friends and family. And yet, despite all of these preparations, neither of us can remember the other suggesting (or—ahem—proposing) that we get married.

We were on the island for two glorious weeks before the actual ceremony—making it more of a honeyding, I suppose—and during that time I continued to ask my non-fiancé if he planned on officially asking me to marry him. He would inevitably respond by handing me a(nother) cocktail.

The day before our wedding, the Serb and I were zipping home from a snorkelling session when I declared my love for him with these words: “For f*ck sakes—are you gonna propose to me, or what?!?”

That adoring nudge did it. The Serb looked over his shoulder at me and yelled: “You wanna marry me?”

I did.

*Lamest term EVER, unless using it will get you free stuff.