a bumpy 3rd week

& up half a pound *whines* ok, not as bad as two or three pounds, & i did say last week that i expected my numbers for this week to be kinda blech because of all the over indulgence on sweets & the lack, or rather, lack luster, gym performance. so it's not like this is a surprise, but still kind of disappointed in the numbers.

BUT, looking on the bright side of things. i'm still firmly in the 260's, & while it was a gain, it could've been so much worse, just means that i need to work that much harder at this whole freakin thing. right? & some how, 2007 seems to be treating me better than 2006 did in this whole venture.

i just looked back over my blog, & when i first started posting a ticker back in july my weight was at 272, so that's down from july. which is good. gotta just keep keepin' at it!

the very last stop

one thing that they want to make sure of, at least at HCMC, is that before you make that drastic move of getting gastric bypass that you have really truly honest injin tried every single thing that you could in order to lose weight on your own. & i've been there. i did slim fast, metabo life, richard simmons, just about every program you can think of for weight loss. i've done meal replacements, i've done drastic changes to my diet, diet pills, working with a nutritionist, doctor supervised monthy monitoring...i mean EVERYTHING. & still, here i am weighing in at 260-something & while i have come down from my overall highest weight of 323, so that's about 50-ish pounds gone for good, it isn't enough for me.

my surgeon consult is set for friday february 9th, at 8am. so just under two weeks & i'll be sitting down to meet with the surgeon, he'll write a letter to my insurance company telling them that i'm the perfect candidate for surgery cause i've tried all the afore mentioned methods & i'm still a fat pig. ok, he'll be more professional than that in his letter, but that'll be the general tone of the letter.

& that brings me to what jenn & i just did today. no, nothing remotely thelma & louise-ish, & for you dirty boys in the crowd, nothing girl gone wild, or even just girls on too much schnapps-ish. we went to the Y & signed up for a personal trainer.

dum-da-da!

yeah. about that. we were just going to do their free program called fit start, which would've been great for us a year ago when i was able to do a whole minute on the elliptical before falling off & declaring that i would indeed die a painful death from my lungs bursting. the fit start is basically a twelve week program that gives people a wee bit of guidance while they find their way off the couch & onto a treadmill. luckily, i'm beyond that point. not where i would like to be, by any means, but still better off than i was a year ago.

so riley went over fit start with us, & jenn & i both quickly came to the realization that it was too basic for our current needs. so we decided to take the plunge & go for personal training. for group training it's $35/person/session. EEK! but the sessions are an hour long, & since we have similar goals it should work out well. so we're starting with two sessions a week, which means we'll be shelling out $70 a week to go into the Y & have a beautiful boy spend time with us. YUM. oh wait, i mean we'll be spending $70 a week to get focused weight training to increase fitness & health. yeah, that's it.

it's a lot of cash, admittedly, but if i really am going to admit defeat & say that yup, i need to go for the surgery, then i need to be abso-positively-fuckin-lutely sure that there is not anything more that i possibly could've done on my own to change things. & while if i stick to the on my own way, it will take longer, i think that i may get more satisfaction out of it.

now that january is nearly over

i figured that i would put up my new years resolutions. i've decided to do things differently this year. instead of putting up a laundry list of things i want to do, not do, or to change about myself or my environment, i'm taking a five pronged approach to 2007. it's the five f's of the new year, so five categories, & under each a couple things i want to accomplish in the next, oh, eleven-ish months.

each month i'm going to focus on a couple mini goals towards reaching my year end goals, so we'll have those posted. for now, this is good:

fitness
~work out an average of 4 days/week for 60+min/day
~be able to do 10 real push ups
~run for five minutes without dying
~by year's end be able to do firm videos without dying
~increase flexibility (for use in "fun" category)

finance
~pay off at least two of my credit cards
~put money into my savings with every check

future
~finish my novel
~finish revising my poetry book
~submit to at least 5 publications this year

fun
~get my 3rd tattoo
~party like it's 1999 for my 30th
~enjoy the last of my 20's & the start of my 30's
~end the year with ZERO regrets

focus
~work up to meditating 5 times a week by years end

saying good bye to old friends

i was just looking through pasta queen's archives & i came across a very apropo posting: good-bye to soda. even though christmas beat my ass like i was stealing its tv, i learned some very important lessons, the largest of which is: don't binge, food makes me feel bad, not good. i know, a very obvious thing, but in the life of a fat girl, it's not such an easy concept to embrace because, well, for many years i've been that fat girl stereo type. eating to make myself feel better. comforting myself with rich, sweet, tasty foods. anything with a complex texture & taste that made me forget whatever it was that inspired the binge. in high school, it was mostly feeling alone. food really was my best friend. i didn't have to worry about being judged, abandoned, made fun of, or harmed. it was there, no questions, no strings, just there. & i was a secret eater. it was my guilty pleasure. my addiction. it was my shame to conceal.

& when you start making food your friend at seven, it's hard to give it up, even if you know that it's slowly killing you. but lately, since christmas i'd say, or maybe more accurately, since the end of the canukian porn trip, i haven't felt that same urge. the longing & the desire to gorge myself is dissipating. i do definitely have my slips, like the 3 brownies at the post-funeral luncheon on tuesday, but i'm showing great restraint over all. i did not stuff myself at little oven tuesday evening, even though their garlic butter is so good i'd fight my mom for the last piece of bread. & yesterday i passed by the two cakes (one chocolate & one white with raspberry filling) that were sitting in the breakroom in the afternoon. i actually passed by them several times, without so much as the teensiest tiniest morsel touching my lips. i didn't even have a post workout evening snack when i got home. i was hungry, but drank some water, played some wow, & pushed on through it. & that felt good.

sometimes, the things we love the most are the things that are the most detrimental to our well being. case in point: tssob (the southern son of a bitch). while in the relationship i loved him, er, thought i did. & i was so wrapped up in that dysfunctional relationship that i was literally blinded by the truth. it really was like i was seeing my life through a tunnel. & all around me my parents, tina, rachel, all my friends, even my coworkers saw the truth as plain as a billboard on 94, flashing red & orange, danger ahead. but all i saw was the road straight ahead of me, nothing else. & then one day, i woke up, realized i'd been wasting my time, money, my life, on someone who was completely unworthy of any of my attention, much less the degree of caring that i invested in that relationship. & FINALLY, then, it was ok for me to simply say good bye & walk away. ((OK, i do still have some anger issues over the fact that the lying cheating mother fucker never sent me back my stuff which he said SEVERAL times he'd do & then the bastard kept calling me for a year after i broke up with him trying to insinuate himself back into my life. & luckily for me, he's a closet racist & stopped calling me when i told him i had a temporary booty call in the form of a yummy indian boy. yo.))

& with food it's kind of the same way right now. the things that used to be my biggest vices no longer hold the same appeal to me. for instance, the brownies at the luncheon were just OK, nothing fantastic. & i think i had them out of boredom. hoping that they would taste better. we can always chalk it up to grief too, if we want. but i'm not even trying to make any excuses for the brownies because, it happened, i felt like shyte afterwards, & i'm over it now. & even with the slip up for the luncheon, i don't feel the same way towards food anymore. just like with tssob, one day i opened my eyes & was able to see a huge world beyond the tunnel vision of the routine of eating.

i know that it's not going to change how i feel except for possibly giving me a gut ache & making me feel guilty for putting such horrible things in my body. neither of those is a very appealing option for me at this time. i like feeling strong & healthy. with my tummy satisfied from good food, but not overly stuffed & miserable. & looking back over the years i know that i've said this kind of thing before, but i think that i've finally reached my limit with junk food. i've been living that old tired saying of "living to eat instead of eating to live." & like any addict, i've let my addiction control me, warp my everyday actions. while i'm not knocking over a liquor store or purse snatching from old ladies, it was controlling my life. it's not like i sit at my desk fidgeting until i can get that next twinkie fix, but it was getting to the point where all my socializing was done over food. i was going out to dinner several times a week, sometimes twice a day. so it really is time for me to cut the ties, say good bye to all of those bad food fetishes, & look into the future & find a life for me outside of being just the fat girl. part of it is growing up, part of it is just living life & taking in the little experiences to compile them into something larger, & a large part of it is having faith in yourself & your abilities.

& it feels damn good to have that faith. that strength. to break away from familiarity. from the ties. from the safety of routine. & find a new way in the world.

when i die, bury me with orange pop

this past weekend one of my residents at the group home died. ok, background: in addition to working in insurance i work at a group home, every other weekend, where i've worked since december of 1995.

when i first started there, i hated it. i mean, hated with everything i was. i like the residents, i always have, but i didn't like some of our management, some of the other staff & lots of the policies. but over time i've mellowed out quite a bit & can take most everything with a grain of salt. & of course, the residents are so much a part of my life that it's odd when i do take time off & don't see them for a while.

i go to their christmas party, when they're in the hospital i visit, they're just like my extended family. except instead of feeling obligated to care because of blood lines, i care because they're such great people that i feel blessed to have them in my life. & i have to say, while i've been told by their families that my residents' lives are better because i'm there, i think that i am really the lucky one because they have taught me SO much about being a good person, love, selflessness, & just about every other human trait you could imagine.

my resident that died had only been with us at our house for about three years, but i loved going in & seeing her. she had the brightest smile, that would just light up the entire room. & she was the biggest prankster, loving to joke with the staff, tease us, make us smile. i really feel like something very special has been taken from my life.

her funeral is tomorrow, the memorial service part, with the internment of her body later on in the week. i have the day off my full time job & i'll be doing a reading. i said i would write a poem for her, if i could, otherwise i have a couple of bible verses, corinthians & ecclesiastes. i want to write her a poem, she deserves at least that from me for all that i got from her, but i'm not sure if i can do it.

& one thing that i definitely want to put out into the universe is that even though she did have disabilities, her life was still very rich & full. she liked spending time outside, playing cards, orange pop, chocolate pudding, going on vacations, van rides, socializing with her house mates & staff. she had family that wrote her letters & visited her. & most of all, she was very very loved & cherished. & in the end, that's all any of us can hope for at the end of our life, that we mattered that much to someone else.

week 2 & doing ok

so ticker requires a password now to update it's tickers & i had lost my last one :( so i had to redo it. the only upside is that now i can see the difference in the tickers between last week & this week. which is the only obnoxious thing about the new ticker coding, it over rides from the previous week. *shrugs* whatever. at least i was able to get a ticker, format it to look the way i want, & get it updated on my site.

i am happy that i'm finally losing weight. ok, so it took the eminent threat of surgery & the remote possibility of death to make any of the fat mosey it's way on down the road. & at this point in time i'm being mildly optimistic because of the fact that, as you all can see from the ticker below, i have quite a ways to go yet before i reach even my tier 1 goal, which i'm not going to stop at, especially if i keep shrinking! :) at 5'4" i'm still going to look like a pretty big porker at 176. then again, the last time i knowingly weighed anywhere near that i was in 8th grade & weighed 180lbs, so i have no clue in actuality.

on the upside, once i lose another 15.7 lbs, or get down to 249.5, my star will be halfway to my catepiller's head. yippee! my bmi will also be down to 42.8, which is quite a drop from the starting bmi of 55.4.

so, cautiously optimistic is how i'm going to proceed.

standing at the crossroads

once upon a time, there was a fat girl. & while her body carried more weight than it really should, she was still very pretty. but the extra flesh caused her to shy away from certain activities for much of her life for fear that she would be rejected simply because she was the fat girl. & while for many years she did find solace, comfort, & friendship in sweets & comfort foods. hiding behind her food fetishes, swallowing her hurt bite by bite, squeezing her eyes tight to stop the flow of the tears. it became a weary habit. the sweets turning to saw dust in her mouth as another day slipped into another & she was in her teens, & then out of highschool, into her twenties & her life was falling by her like sand through open fingers.

every new year she promised herself it would be the last year she'd be fat. every year since she was eleven, or maybe even ten. & then finally one day in the middle of the nevada desert she was sick of her life running, wasted, like the sand, & decided to change. & it was as easy as that, as deciding that not only would she change, but she could, & she did, for a while.

for the first time it was the fat girl's turn to shine in the spot light. & she had confidence, & grace& sensuality oozing from every pore of her body. & the boys flocked. & she glowed. & somehow, in the new found self hidden within the fat cells she found an identity behind the secret eating, avoided eye contact, & super sized clothing. she found out who she was. & she liked it & liked herself.

& then she fell. in love. perhaps. & gained again. fifty pounds in what seemed like over night, but was more like a couple months. & the years of work & struggle, which didn't seem like struggle at the time, but in retrospect were struggle & sacrifice, were for nothing. & the cute size 16 jeans still hung on her wall. the tags still attached. never worn.

one day, our girl woke up, without the boy, & it was ok. cause it really was more about the journey, not the destination. or rather, not a set destination. & it was about the person she became in the time, & the fat girl realized that to be happy she had to be selfish. had to put herself first. meditate. serach her heart. stare directly into her future. her mortality. beyond her mortality. to define her life.

somewhere in the middle of all of that, she found herself going down a path she swore she'd never follow, the road that would take her to surgically altering her body for good. for weight loss. for her health? & so now the fat girl stands at the crossroads. still struggling to become thin & healthy on her own. but with the allure of surgery glowing in the near distance, two thirds through the approval process, onto the last leg of the journey.

she knows thin does not equal happiness. or perfection. or peace. but she feels deep inside it does equal a better quality of life. more opportunities. the chance to do - & she feels that her fat is holding her back. & yeah, she'll go from being the fat girl, to just the girl. & that's ok too. but she stands now, the fork in the road now clearly visible in front of her. the two paths still one, but now wider. she can continue on as she has been, struggling on her own, seeming to continually fail, or she can ask for help & hope, feverently hope, that help combined with will power & sheer determination will pull her through in the end.

& as the path widens she zig-zags between the two choices. knowing her will power is strong, but weak as well. her determination is there. her vision is there. but not yet believing she can do it on her own. & not wanting to admit that she's weak & can't do it on her own. & trying to see herself twenty years in the future, looking back on this moment, being proud of the choice she made, but not knowing which it will be in the end.

the crossroads are visible ahead, just like the fables say, & the devil's there with his deal. but she doesn't know who's the devil, who's her savior, & which choice will redeem her soul.

starting out fresh: weigh in #1

we had our first weigh in for the competition & it went well for me. i'm down 1.6 lbs from my starting weight last week, which is a fairly reasonable start, not so much that i wind up disappointed later on by small numbers, but also enough so that i feel like i accomplished something, & i finally got myself out of the damned 270's, again.

& while i was rather irked at the tickerfactory a few weeks ago for the issues with the website & getting the tickers going, i'm rather happy now because of the fact that to their weight loss ticker they've added a fuctionality that automatically calculates your bmi for you, & i can also pull up a graph of my weight loss if i enter the date each time i do my ticker. woot. so here's my tubby catepiller with my even tubbier weight & bmi attached.

although, i would like to note, that while i'm still very fat, i'm not as fat as i was, & i have done semi reasonably well at keeping fifty pounds off of my body. & while it's not the 150lbs that i would like to say that i've lost, it's still a pretty good amount & something to definitely be proud of.

the cute boy litmus test

last night jenn & i made our some what triumphant return to the Y after being gone from the gym for a little over two weeks. part of our motivation being that we both feel like crap after stuffing our gobs with cookies, fudge, gravy fries, alcohol, & such until we thought we would actually literally burst. & then part of it is that challenge number two rolled around & she & i have some serious competition this time around & we need to kick some serious tail this time around! when we strolled into the Y, ok, jenn strolled, i was more like waddling into the Y, there was only one elliptical free, which i graciously told miss jenn to take, only to have another open up ten seconds later, so i was ellipticalling in no time at all. when people say it's a whole lot harder to start something again after quitting, they are so not lying! yesterday i almost died on the elliptical, seriously. jenn was so close to having to post me on mydealthspace & then attending my funeral. but luckily, i drank some water, counted down the seconds, & didn't fall on my face as i dismounted the elliptical. face planting in the Y is definietly not a good thing.

i walked by jenn's elliptical as my legs did their impression of jello, she was breezily gliding on the elliptical with another 27minutes to go, she was doing an hour. the chubi. seriously, love her to death, but wanted to punch her square in the balls because i was there hyperventilating & she was breathing normally & looking decidedly NOT sweaty. she offered to leave early for me, & s grunted that nah, i should really do some time on the treadmill.

as i walked to the back of the gym to the nice brand-new-just-arrived-after-thanksgiving treadmills i noticed a boy. correction. a hot boy. & then i had this awful image of this dark haired beauty running & watching my jiggly ass in my black leggings bounce around & laughing so hard that he trips & is shot straight into the wall. no way was i going to be responsible for that. so i went to the back row on treadmills, an old guy is short-shorts between me & the beauty.

but then i started doubting myself. cause my cute boy radar has been quite dodgy lately, i’ve been declaring males hot who were showing up as a definite not. & i was seriously wishing jenn was next to me so i could get her spot on opinion of the dark haired possible hottie. i was still dutifully plodding along on my treadmill at a whopping 2.2 miles per hour with a everest like incline of 3.0 when the hottie jumped off the treadmill & went to lift weights.

ye-haw. he was going to walk right in front of jenn’s machine.

if he was indeed cute i’d see a sign, even from halfway across the gym. so the dark beauty with the built upper arms & tattoo walked right in front of jenn & nothing. damn it. & then. something wondrous happened. jenn’s head tilted ever so slightly to the right & i just knew, just KNEW that her eyes were following the boy into the weight room. now it’s not like she was ogling him like a ravenous dog & a steak or anything, it was the smallest little movement, as if she was looking at the clock, which just so happens to be right above the weight lifting area. but the timing was just right so i knew that she sure as fuck wasn’t checking out the time.

hot damn, he really was hot. he passed the jenn test.

but the very best part of the whole night was as i was dropping jenn off at her apartment. & i was telling her that there was this cute guy that i saw, but then i wasn’t sure if he was cute, & then, he walked in front of her & i saw her checking him out. & she kinda couldn’t believe that i caught her checking him out.

& i have a whole new reason to drag my ass to the Y every night, the beautiful tattooed boy. although i’ve also developed an odd phobia regarding how people view me from the back when i work out. maybe it’ll even out in the end.

jesus bobby & the porn: a ca-nadia adventure

in my first telling of the great canadia adventure 2006, i neglected a few details. the first being to explain the title. which is reasonably funny without explanation, but could probably do with just a wee little bit of explanation.

jesus bobby comes to us thanks to miss jenn's mother who has been known to exclaim "jesus bobby" anytime her husband, bobby, does anything that infuriates her. while miss jenn was in vermont hanging with her family her little niece & nephews asked if she would like to hear an impression of grandma, when jenn said yes the three of them, in unison, said "jesus bobby!" & evidently sounded exactly like jenn's mom. unfortunately i didn't hear jenn's mom do her jesus bobby, but i heard jenn's niece heather do it several times, & it was freakin hilarious. i also met the infamous bobby, from jesus bobby, jenn's dad, & he's a very sweet guy.

& soon enough after leaving jenn's homestead the three of us were jesus bobby-ing our way across the country side. although at the border we made a different exclamation, it was much too serious for a jesus bobby...& we didn't want to confuse the border patrol & have them ask who's bobby. we escaped un-probed from the new york/canada border, & we're all glad for that.

the porn i was going to let slide with just mentioning it in general, but jenn wanted me to mention the porn, not sure why, but here it goes. we were at some random gas station in wisconsin, this was after our stop in chi-town for geno's pizza. we filled the car & got some so bad for us but oh so tasty snacks to stuff in our gobs when jenn's boy-dar went off. boy-dar is kinda like gay-dar except instead of alerting her to gay boys, it alerts her to cute boys. nice. & the cute boy was indeed very cute. & very naked. & on the cover of playgirl. ye-haw.

i'm still not quite sure how it all happened. but some how jenn & josh exited the store, with jenn still starry eyed over naked cutie on the playgirl, the playgirl still firmly in the magazine rack all while i was paying for chocolate to gnosh as we got back on the road. but jenn wanted the boy, badly. & i found myself back inside the gas station in po-dunk nowhere wisconsin buying a playgirl while the wholesome farm raised cashier blushed & picked the magazine up using as few fingers as possible to scan it & get me the hell out of her store. yeah, fat girl buying chocolate & a playgirl. there's gotta be a cliche in there somewhere.

on day one of our trip. pre-new york. pre-canada. pre-border patrol & near probing. jenn had told josh & i that she can't, under any circumstance, read while driving. & she also said that she often times she gets car sick just from riding in the backseat of a car. with all that said, i handed the playboy over to jenn, started the car, & guided us back onto the interstate to try to get us home at a decent hour. after playing with my digital camera, making josh look at the playgirl, & exclaiming after cutie's tattoos & other attributes i heard a small voice from the backseat say "i'm car sick."

"were you reading the play girl?" i asked, hoping that the back of my head wasn't about to be covered in recycled pizza.

& she admitted that yeah, she'd been reading the magazine, so josh asked, "& what did we learn?"

& jenn's answer was, "no reading porn in the backseat." in the same exact tone a kid would say something like "no cutting my brother's hair with saf-t scissors."

so there's the jesus bobby, the backseat porn, & we were in canada, so of course, gotta add a little eh, eh?

true story.

jesus bobby, no reading porn in the backseat, eh

so vermont & canada were a blast, eh.

left out of vermont quite a bit later than we really intended, & for once i was not the one making everyone late! ((that did feel good, a lot good, btw)) so we wound up not rolling into flint michigan until after 3am on the first of the year. it's the first time i've celebrated new years while traveling, & i mean while actually by-god-on-the-mother-fucking-road-at-the-turn-of-the-year, & i liked it. there was something semi-freeing about being hundreds of hundreds of miles away from home & on the road while the clock officially ticked over to 2007, & maybe that's just cause in a lot of ways 2006 sucked, big time.

at the last minute josh decided to join miss jenn & i on our great north american adventure, so it was kinda like thelma & louise in that we were traveling cross country with a boy, but unlike thelma & louise, no one got laid, murdered, or drove off a mountain. & none of it was done in a convertible. so maybe it wasn't quite like thelma & louise. but we did have porn. & pizza from geno's. & all those oddly canadian road side snacks like ketchup flavored lays potato chips, eh.

& if you pay any attention to the canadians & they're labeling laws, for rockstar (& other such energy drinks) "Recommended dose (adults): Drink 473ml 1 time per day, as needed." & according to the same can, one should not drink more than 500ml/day of rockstar. now if i don't listen to the recommended dosing of my own government, what makes anyone think that i'll listen to the guidelines of our neighbors to the north. & jenn & josh did have to cut me off having a 3rd 16oz can of the good stuff as we rolled on over the border from canada into the us. which probably wasn't a bad thing, cause if i hadn't've been cut off i may just have been the reason we got stopped at the border for a second time in 24hrs.

yeah, so about that. . .everyone will eventually hear about it, so i may as well fess up now & avoid the rumors & the paparazzi camping out on my door step. the three of us got held up in new york trying to re-enter the united states. see, what happened was, i hadn't been quite paying attention & we came to a T intersection in the road with a huge mother effing sign that said new york, with an arrow pointing to the left, and canada with an arrow pointing to the right. & jenn started to take a left, & then i said some smart ass comment about don't we want to go to canada, so she took a right, we were in canada for literally 2 seconds when we realized we made a wrong turn, hung a u-ey & tried to re-enter the country of our birth.

& that's when things got ugly. see, our story, which is 100% true, is that jenn was in vermont for a week visiting her family for christmas, she was buying her mother's car from her (which happens to have vermont handicap plates on it & four tires tied to the roof) i flew into burlington the day before to drive back to minnesota with her, josh flew into boston & then drove up to burlington from there the day before, & we planned on driving through canada to avoid the tolls, eh. yeah, even typing it the whole thing seems very bizzarre & highly suspect, but you know what they say, truth is stranger than fiction, & this is the by god truth.

so the guard saw the tires, the plates, the three minnesota ids & was like "yea, right, about that whole getting back into the country thing. . . ." & we were hauled into the office. grilled about EVERYTHING.

have you completely emptied your pockets, why do you have uncashed checks in your wallet, where are you going, why are you doing there, who's that, who's that, who's jenn, how do you know her, who's beckah, are you carrying any dope, why haven't you cashed these checks yet, who's john, why do you have a check from him, how long have you been at your job, what do you do, who's that, do you have any dope, why do you have vicodin, what's wrong with your ankle, is everything in that vehicle yours, take off your hat, flag your pockets, who's that, why are you going to canada, why are you in vermont, who's car is that, why are you going to minnesota, how long have you lived in minnesota, where did you live before that, do you have any dope on you. . .

yup. & basically the same on & on for a while. then they searched the car. basically tore everything out, put it back in a haphazard manner. threw our ids at us & basically told us to get out. god bless america.

so when we rolled across the border into canada a few hours later they asked our citizenship (american) & why we were going to canada (to drive through it) & said welcome to canada, have a nice day, eh.

& then after several hours on the road, a burning smell from the engine, rain, salt trucks, desolate canadian highways, & without tim dots, we pull up to the american border again, give the guy our licenses & he asks if any of us have ever been pulled inside before. awwwww shhhiiiitttt is all i could think. & we got a much shorter version basically asking us if we picked up anything in canada (just some left over's from boston's & some chips if you want 'em). the guy stares us down & says he'd hate to have to tear the truck apart. double awwwww shhhiiiitttt. & then, while i nearly passed out from holding my breath, he said happy new year, waved us on, & i casually, & like satan himself was chasing me, put distance between us & the border.