I am not a postie!

The weekend has began in excellent fashion.

Friday morning I fulfilled a promise, weighing in for the first time in a month or two. 296 lbs. I was shocked. I hadn't sensed my patterns had changed much. Short walks five times a week and much sensible eating punctuated by occasional breakdowns of the DQ blizzard, 7-11 burrito or bottle o' wine varieties (The three B's). The 'Five-steps-forward-one-quintuple-step-back' pattern. Yet somehow I'm down 21 lbs. And for the moment anyway, no longer a post-300-pounder. Perhaps the weekly lacrosse games have tilted the balance slightly in my favor.

Managed to split the office at 3:30 and picked up some celebratory steaks and low-calorie beer. Steve-o has vacated the grotto for a week-long cottage stint. The I.S. was thrilled at the announcement and came to visit. Spent an evening of pure bliss curled on the couch, I.S. watching the TV and me watching the I.S.

Well.

Watching, pawing, nibbling, etcetera.

This morning I took a walk to the former building managers' house to pay my rent, having finally learned that this protocol is still, for the moment, in place despite written notice that said managers had retired leaving us no representatives whatsoever of the twenty-four year-old landlord of foreign residence. Unless of course you believe the claims of Jolee-slash-Barbie, Queen of Nutberries, whom by the way, was arrested last night and carted away. Oh - and her eviction notice matures in ten days so if you were hoping to get the full experience here at the Streetsville Nut Hatchery and Petting Zoo, you may have missed your chance. Sorry Dave.

I took one of my current reads with me, realizing I'd lived here a year without exploring the Credit River and its trails that run very near to our building. The novel is The River Why. Its every word concerns water, fish, fisherman, fisheries, rivers, fishing, fishing and fishing. That all such material is inherently an unmerciful bore to me is testament to the author's cleverness and wit given he still holds my attention 80 pages in. I figured a shaded park bench with a view of the Credit might be the perfect reading spot to get me in the mood.

I came upon no park benches but did discover three anglers standing knee deep, placticing their fly-casting. Okay, that was an honest type-o just now but I shall leave it as it so happens that two of anglers were almost certainly Chinese and may very well have been placticing their fry-casting.

I parked my butt on the cement remains of some obsolete industrial hunk of geometric blonkaroo and read a couple chapters to the sound of fish-lines whipping and smacking the water. It wasn't nearly the homogenous experience you'd hope for. No Zen-like symmetry manifested.

All about at once I became aware of my leg falling asleep; the tickling of weedy vegetation against my arm; the crawling upon me of two large ants; an uncomfortably warm neck - reminding me the dangers of harsh sun on unprotected skin and the meandering gaggle of twenty-or-so geese paddling by. So I rose, stomped my foot into wakefulness and gaggled along beside the geese, homeward.

Back on the street, I had to cross to the other side as a gang approached. Its leader was clearly apparent. She pushed the stroller while the others toddled along beside her. I've learned to give these troublesome types a wide berth. I'm a KCM, you see. A Kiddie Collision Magnet. I can't go into a mall or to a fair or festival or any dense family-friendly crowd without some tiny person-like humanoid, head swiveled in entirely inappropriate direction, walking into me and falling over and crying and drawing to myself awkward or accusatory glares from the mother. I usually offer no apology or even apologetic expression. I mean, what do they think? That I purposefully go around looking for small children to knock down?

I don't by the way. As uproariously and irresistibly fun as it sounds - I don't.

And now I sit before the computer, about to publish this pointless piece of fluff, in blissful quiet but for the air-conditioner humming. I'm peckish and dreaming of burritos and blizzards but I will resist. I'm a sub-300-pounder again and damn well planning to stay that way.

Hoo haw!

[Editor's note: The term hoo haw is a celebratory utterance having nothing to do with vaginas.]