The Coffee Stalker

I wish I could say I was writing about my own stalker, you know... someone that makes life a little more interesting and maybe gets your heart pounding with fear wondering when they're going to turn up. But alas, I'm writing about someone ELSE's Coffee Stalker. All names will be withheld to protect the innocent and those refusing to take no for an answer.

Every morning a group of us make our pilgrimage to Tim Hortons. Typically there are 3 or 4 women and our token male co-worker. My one co-worker is a babe. She's pretty, she dresses nice, she has a figure that won't quit, men are routinely checking her out even when she seems oblivious to this. I mean HEY, we are all babes in the coffee brigade but let's just say some women are more babalicious than others. Enough said.

Every morning we all go down and stand in the horrendously long Timmy's line up and chit chat. Then we grab our double-doubles or large's with one sugar, or tea or bagel etc etc and head back to the office to officially start our day.

A couple months ago my co-worker caught the eye of another Tim Hortons lover. Now... you gotta give this man some brownie points. He came up to us one time asking where our co-worker was when she was on vacation. And of course we emailed our friend while she was on another continent to let her know of this occurance. When she came back this guy boldly announced himself to her and... bought her a coffee. One could wish this would have ended well, that she would have been smitten with him and they could have gotten married at the Tim Hortons where love perculated. But no. My co-worker was flattered but not interested.

Now guys... please.. if a women is truly interested in you, it won't be difficult to figure out. You'll have her number or email faster than you can say "I'm a stud". So, if you find you're having to ask multiple times, or go out of your way to get noticed there is a very, very high likelyhood that she is not interested.

This guy not only bought my co-worker a coffee once. He has shown up with coffee's for her using it as an excuse to ask her out. The biggest problem is that he gets the wrong coffee so she can't drink it anyhow and she continues to decline his offers of seeing him again. I mean, if you're going to be a coffee stalker its a good idea to know what coffee your object of obssession likes to drink. That may up your chances for success who knows.

My co-worker has done her best to let this man know she's not interested in him without coming right out and saying it. You know what guys, we actually don't want to hurt your feelings if we're not interested. We would prefer you would get the idea so you could retreat with your dignity intact. Most of us women have stories of slinking away when our object of luuuvv has not been so enamoured with us. (hmmm or is it just me?) However, this morning her coffee stalker showed up with coffees for all of us in the line up. Unfortunatley only one coffee was suitable for our coffee drinking palettes which was mine since I'll drink anything that's free.

We ended up pushing the coffees on the confused young guy ahead of us who really didn't know what to make with getting 3 free coffees. We even had to convince him that these single-singles could very easily be converted to double-doubles by asking the speedy Timmy's help to add some extra mojo. (mind you I should add that my Tim's counter person looked at me like I was a leper and a stupid one at that, when I asked her to add another cream and sugar to my freebie coffee.)

Now.. the issue is this: This man's eagerness is making my co-worker very uncomfortable. She now dreads to see him in the line up and it causes her angst. What was at first an awkward situation has morphed into something more. I'm sure this man doesn't mean anything by it and perhaps in his world not taking no for an answer is charming. But for many of us women today it forces us to feel like we have to act like bitches so that an eager dude will take the hint. Unfortunately she doesn't have his email address to get her point across that way. I don't think I'd want to have a face - to - face conversation with someone to say "Look, quit bothering me, I want nothing to do with you NOTHING! You understand me?!! (insert foot in groin here)".

As much as the rest of us are entertained by her situation I know I wouldn't want to be her when coffee stalker says hello. A free coffee just isn't worth it.

Dig This

Saturday: weather abysmal, too cold to climb or Mt Bike. Kevin comes over as promised to work on my garage. I opted to be his helper rather than sit inside and bemoan the lousy weather. Now Kevin was a worry. (good thing he's cute) He showed up complete with a junker old work truck and a plethora of tools, some of which I'd never seen before. Which inspired confidence... at first. But then everytime he would do something and it worked he would act really surprised and happily pleased with himself. This had me unsettled while he was working, like it was all a grand experiment. I do have to admit that his impact nail gun that took gun shells to propel the nail into the wood & concrete was damn cool. And we had to wear safety glasses and ear plugs to use it. Well, I used safety glasses because I think half the fun of doing home renos is looking the part.

However, at the end of the day he got the job done. Except for.. but.. (and there's always a but isn't there?) The real problem is the moisture that is seeping into the garage and creating the rot in the first place. That is due to the slope of the ground outside of the garage. Which Kevin and others have explained needs to be dug out so dirt isn't resting against the garage and it's not sloping. The conundrum... I can take a shovel and spend a day digging out the dirt and trying to level it myself OR I could get someone in with a backhoe and spend oh, 15 minutes digging out the dirt and leveling. Once again Lise will get out her cheque book but it becomes the holy grail of finding another "operator" who's willing to do a small job for a pittance. And once again I will rely on the network of friends such as Kevin and Allistair who say "well I know a guy..."

But at some point I grow tired of being tied to others' schedules. At the very least the garage is in decent shape for Colin to begin construction of the gym when he returns from the Coast. I suspect he won't expect it to be ready as he left me with an instruction list of what needed to be done and a somewhat satisfied look that he'd earned himself a couple months reprieve from hard labour. Colin should know me better, tenacity has another name, and it's Lise.

Climbing Gym Saga

Thought I'd provide an update to my climbing gym project. WELL... so far the prep work has revealed that the garage would need to be re-wired and that there's water damage in parts of the wood frame.

Re-wiring has been done. The gods smiled on me and I found an excellent electrician who:

A) said he could come in a couple days
B) actually did come in a couple days
C) did the work he said he was going to do

I haven't received the bill yet but even if he decided to charge me double than what he quoted I would be blissfully happy!

Now about this rotten framing issue. I've participated in enough renos over the years to not be surprised when something that should be an "easy" project turns into a multi-headed monster with a big old mouth that gobbles up money! My motto is to expect the worst and be pleasantly surprised if things turn out better than expected.

I had a friend over last night who has worked as a general contractor over the years. He took at look at my conundrum, whacked pieces of wood with his hammer, took a look at the foundation, shook his head ominously.. and said.. "I can fix this in a day". It will involve replacing a portion of the frame and digging out the foundation to avoid future water damage.

Which I tentatively ask.. "Do you have time do this project?" And he replied, "I'll come over on Saturday and get it done" I didn't ask how much this would cost me, he's a friend and will charge me fairly, I have no doubt about that. I also threw in the offer that he could come and use the climbing gym when ever he wanted. As a fellow climber he seemed to like that idea.

So far not much looks like its been done and I just have to keep the vision of this kick ASS bouldering area I will have by the end of the summer. (Here's hoping anyhow)

Women and Dirt

This weekend I participated in the Women's Suguoi Dirt Series Mountain Biking camp. Deanne had taken their course last year in Edmonton and had such good things to say about it, I wanted to give it a go this year. Deanne was in the camp as well but to give you an idea of the difference between our skills, I was in Level 2 and she was in Level 7, which is the highest you can go. So needless to say we saw each other at the lunch break but the rest of the time we were in different groups.

I'm typically not a big fan of "women's only" anything. I like hanging out with both sexes and the different energy of men and women. My biggest concern with a women's only learning environment is that it will be heavy on "support" and "cheerleading" and less on pushing me to improve. But this was certainly not the case here. All the coaches were or have been at one time nationally ranked riders. These women are hardcore competitors but are also very interested in helping other women either become riders or to improve their skills.

The majority of the women in the camp were more experienced riders than I was so I didn't have to worry about not being challenged. The biggest difference I could tell between myself and alot of the women was our fitness levels. At the end of the class many women were commenting on how exhausted they were, especially on day two. Where as for me it was a fun and challenging day from the perspective of learning but not physically. Once again Nathan gets a ton of credit for my strength and fitness.

My biggest nemesis in riding as been going downhill and not pitching myself over the handlebars. By day two, I certainly felt like I had more control with my brakes, body position and more importantly knew the mistakes I had been making before. I still have a fair amount of work around cornering, looking farther down the path and the ellusive body-bike separation that allows a rider to be more fluid. I didn't concern myself with jumps, manual wheel lifts and such. All things in good time!

I made an interesting realization while at the camp. I'm happiest when I'm outdoors with like minded people and women. I had dinner at Melrose Place on 17th Ave on Friday night and I found that it was depressing me on some level. There were so many women dressed to the nines and almost on display. I get frustrated out in the so-called "real world" where the pressure is there to look good, be pretty, have trendy cloths, yada yada. I can find myself slowly getting sucked into that world where I'm considered "sporty" because I refuse to cram my feet into pointy girly shoes and make sure I have lipstick on. At the bike camp it was refreshing to be around other women who many would call "tom-boys" and find that hey.. this is perfectly OK, to be dirty, messy and physical. Not to say that lots of us can't be girlie when we want to be, but that we can also be comfortable with who we are without makeup and lipgloss. Hallehlooya!

Up and Over

It was a busy weekend and the weather was stellar, what more could I want? Well I could want to learn how to ride my mountain bike properly so I don't end up having to get some stiches, now that would be nice. I got out on my first trail in the mountains on Sunday. All was going well, as per usual I was trailing behind Deanne, hearing my ragged breathing and doing lots of pushing my Mt Bike uphill. However I did note that my fitness is stronger from last year so that was encouraging. I had promised myself to do more Mt Biking so I could get better. My first year riding I pitched myself over the handle bars and ended up having some very serious road rash and a scar left behind to remind me of the event. Last summer I Mt Biked only once in the season. I'm not sure if I was climbing lots or if I wasn't feeling the Mt Biking love but I didn't go. This season I signed up for a Women's Riding Camp to improve my skills, which is next weekend.

However that didn't help me too much THIS weekend as once again I was sailing over the handle bars of my bike, but this time with the bike still attached to my foot. My face was skidding along the dirt and even in the midst of that I could think "ohhhh, this is going to hurt"

Interesting what systems kick in at a time like this. My Adventure First Aid training came up automatically and I started to do my own primary assessment as I was still lying on the ground. I was uncertain what to do next since I didn't want to risk twisting my ankle that was still attached to the bike or have it fall on me and hurt me more. I did get myself untangled and Deanne patched me up well enough that I could ride/walk my bike back to the car.

Once I could look at myself in the mirror at the car it became apparent that the cut on my chin was deep enough to need a stitch or two for sure. The bruises, scrapes and sprain were annoying but not that serious. And thank goodness, no nasty road rash! So off to the clinic Deanne drove me, I was in and out of there in 15min. Mostly due to the fact that the cranky doctor wanted to close up shop and I was his last patient.

Deanne is the best person to be with during this time. She has first aid training, she stays calm and she knows how to calm someone else down. And she was my coach/cheerleader while I was getting stitched up. She would make a great nurse and I bet her fiance Jason would really dig seeing her in a little nurses uniform, but I digress.

I obviously have lots to learn about Mt Biking and I am very much looking forward to my upcoming skills clinic. I know I'll have to work on my confidence again since every fall does set me back mentally. I'm apparently not alone with taking knocks during the first couple years of riding. So I will keep plugging at it and see what happens.

Climb right up

Work has begun on my climbing gym in the garage. Monday nights have been blocked off as "working on the gym nights" it was either that or I was threatening to turf Tom on the street and all of Colin's climbing holds and pre-drilled boards were going to be turned into lawn ornaments. I hate to resort to threats to get work done, but then again - whatever it takes.

However, true to his word Colin showed up to begin dismantling part of my garage. Tom has lucked out by being out of town for work. Although I suspect he would have preferred sweating it out with us rather than being kooped up working at a tradeshow booth and schmoozing potential customers.

We began to pull off the plywood boards that will be replaced by the predrilled boards for the climbing holds. We start on the ceiling boards when some crap starts sliding out, looking suspisciously like squirrel shit. However on closer examination animal scat doesn't have a metallic look to it and there would have to be a hell of alot of squirrels to generate the amount of stuff we were seeing. Bags and bags worth of loose insulation. Falling all over us, the floor, all over everything in my garage, our hair, our eyes, our lungs. At one point we both ran out of the garage, coughing as a cloud of dust followed us out. My neighbour across the alley eyed us dubiously.

Here's hoping this insulation has no cancer-causing agents in it. With the boards off, now the next step will be to get an electrician to move my wiring to the other side of the garage. This may prove to be difficult. Getting a professional to do a small job in the hot Calgary market isn't easy. The good people are busy and if you want to make it worth their while you have to pay. But even if you're willing to pay, in this market, tradesmans are developing a reputation for being late, not showing up, what have you. I'm not trying to slag anyone but ask most people who have had reno's done lately and you will hear a tragic tale of unmet deadlines, cost over runs etc etc. The reality right now is that Calgary is one very busy place for skilled tradesmen, we are at their mercy.

I have no idea how long it will take to get this project completed but I suspect it will take longer than I hope. I've taken photos of the current carnage and am looking forward to chronicling and blogging the work in progress.

Oh - Climbing! Got out to the Ghost on Sunday for my first day of rock climbing. Brian Spear and his buddy Mark and I jumped on one of Brian's routes in the Little Egypt area. A very fun 5.8 multipitch. I had memories of freezing my ass off last June in the Ghost so I dressed accordingly. I had to wonder though why I was rock climbing when I still needed to wear a touque, 3 layers of clothing, gloves and hand warmers! But I was desperate to get out. The mountains were calling and like a faithful servant I had to comply. It was great day . The nice thing is when you have quality climbing partners like Brian there is a good expectation that any friend he brings along on a climb will be quality as well. And true to form Mark is a great guy with a laidback, supportive climbing attitude. Meeting good people will continue to be one of the things that pulls me to the mountain culture.

I hope y'all are getting out there enjoying our chaotic spring weather!