Finally! Last night on ANTM, it was Gina’s turn to go. Why it took so long, I don’t know. Why cute Kari got voted off first, couldn’t tell ya. The good news is just that Gina is finally gone. What can I say about her but OMG!

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One of my favourite things in my waitressing years was that we served afternoon tea daily - with fresh scones. It wasn’t the best tea service in Vancouver, but they were free, so who could complain?

I feel like a nice leisurely afternoon tea trip. There are a few in Vancouver we could check out:

The Wedgewood Hotel has the Bacchus Afternoon Tea for $25 a person Saturday and Sunday from 2 pm to 4 pm.

Sutton Place’s afternoon tea is served daily from 2:30 pm to 5 pm and is $21 per person.

If we wanted to escape the downtown core, the Secret Garden in Kerrisdale serves high tea.

The Fish House at Stanley Park also does an afternoon tea daily from 2 pm to 4 pm for $24 pp.

Mmm…scones, jam and cream galore.

I’ve been organizing people - socially and politically - since the playground and I have to say that sometimes the social event organizing is the more difficult to pull off. Email helped a lot, but then you have to keep track of a series of emails from a large number of people that aren’t always clear or helpful when you need to do things like make reservations or pick the best date for a gathering.

My new favourite coordinating tool is Evite. You can organize everything from brunch with pals to raging parties with this handy tool. It allows you to store your email addresses, send invites and reminders and track who has responded - as well as who has bothered to open up your invite and read it to start with. You can also invite a group of people to select the dates that work best for them, therefore avoiding the annoying back and forth of group email discussions. I think I may be in love.

I started the second round of boot camp on Tuesday (we got to sleep in Monday if we did the fit test on Friday as it’s the same thing again).

This means a new instructor too. I sense that my ass is going to hurt tomorrow as a result of today’s session (I almost stayed in bed, but if I figured that if I was awake enough to scratch Lola’s chin for her, I could get myself out of bed). We did a killer abs session yesterday now the ground is warmer and we can lay down on our mats without freezing.

The new instructor is pretty tough - but good tough and full of tips. Like how we need to have protein within an hour of our workout to build our muscles. All I could think of was the breaded almond chicken in the fridge from last night’s Chinese binge. Later, when I came to on the drive to work, I remembered that I am supposed to be drinking protein shakes every morning of my life as decreed by Glenda the good witch (aka my naturopath), and that I have all the makings at home.

I settled for a bacon and cheese scone from the TP instead. We’ll nail that protein thing better tomorrow - arms day.

I don’t normally quote from the Toronto Star, but the recent article on how whiny children tend to grow up to be conservative really spoke to me.

“Remember the whiny, insecure kid in nursery school, the one who always thought everyone was out to get him, and was always running to the teacher with complaints? Chances are he grew up to be a conservative…….The confident, resilient, self-reliant kids mostly grew up to be liberals.”

Nice.

I’ve wanted to go to Samba Brazilian Steakhouse for years, but haven’t made it yet, so I am thinking the meat eaters should gather on April 8ish (depending on hangovers from our birthday party the night before) to try it out. I really need an all-you-can eat Rodizio experience in my life.

Kelli hooked me up with Vitamin V, a Vancouver online lifestyle magazine that sends you daily emails with very helpful tips on things to buy, do and see. I highly recommend signing up to the free service.

Today they sent a link to this very cool “online craft fair” site with many pretty things you can order for yourself…or for me even! I do look good in red….

Sal has been a huge baby since I brought Lola home on Friday. He is terrified of her - or perhaps it is her cone that is scaring him - either way he hid in the bedroom all weekend and looked at her like she was some sort of cat killing monster.

It was sad to start with, but now the walking around the house crying is just pathetic considering Lola had major surgery and she’s being a trooper.

In honour of his silliness, here is a picture of a newborn baby Salinger before he came to live with me.

I’ve always found it interesting that over school vacation times like spring break and summer, the traffic on the way to work decreases dramatically. It might not be exaggerating to say it goes down 50%.

This leads me to wonder…are kids causing traffic congestion in Vancouver? How can we stop them and save the planet from their evil plan?

Where is Tori?

Well, here is she is on her fiancé’s arm. Classy.

And to reassure you, I spent about 10 minutes on that original post as another fine web site had collected a huge amount of detail for me already. Don’t worry.

1. I am a huge sucker for a cute kitten wearing a cone who is smart enough to know that if she gets me scratching her chin, she can easily manipulate me into letting her sleep with her head resting on my fingers inside the cone for hours at a time.

2. ‘Charmed’ is cancelled, as is ‘Godiva’s’ (which isn’t that upsetting). And it doesn’t appear they will bring Shannen back to ‘Charmed’ before the end.

3. Eggs benedict served on a croissant are a very good thing (yay Stella’s).
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Lola has returned home sporting the world’s tiniest cone on her head, and a new tattoo just like me.

She’s doing pretty well, although she managed to get her cone off within 3 seconds of being out of her carrier, and she is jumping and running like she doesn’t have a belly full of stitches. Sal, on the other hand, is totally freaked out and appears to be scared of her - she comes toward him to say hi and he runs and hides. Such a boy!

Today was technically the final day of boot camp - so fit test day - even though I have signed up for 3 more weeks. I get to skip the fit test on Monday, although I think I may go anyway for the exercise (yes, am sick, sick person as evidenced by my suggestion of biking to Stella’s for brunch this weekend apparently).

So…fit test results are in (drum roll). After one month of morning workouts, I have only lost a few pounds, but I took two whole minutes off my time for the 1 km run. I also did 14 more sit-ups in 1 minute than 4 weeks ago and doubled the number pushups (both full and from knee) I can do.

I have totally noticed my clothes fitting better, and taking my measurements today proved it - a total of 6.8 inches lost. That includes almost two inches off the belly and thighs each, and almost 2 inches off my glutes. Overall I am pretty proud and totally keen to start again next week.

I rarely missed an episode of “Beverly Hills 90210″ in the years it was on, even if it meant we had to arrive late to Pit Night. Because we usually had some drinks so I don’t remember all the details which makes it even sadder that mean old Aaron Spelling hasn’t released them on DVD yet.

Here is my first installment of “Where are they now?” Just because I feel like it.

The cool kids

Jennie Garth (My fave)- Kelly Marlene Taylor - Jennie now stars on the WBs “What I Like about You” with adorably perky teen princess Amanda Bynes.

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Okay, I’ve been a bit distracted this week as I was very anxious about Lola getting spayed today. But the vet just called and she did great and is starting to wake up nicely, but still needs to stay overnight. Going to work from home tomorrow to make sure Sal doesn’t groom her to death and remove all her stitches. Plus need to make sure she gets the hang of that cone on her head. Now we can return to regularly scheduled programming.

Today (March 15) is my seventh anniversary at work. In that time I have had three different jobs - but it’s been seven years here in the office!! Never a dull moment too. I think a toast is in order.

We think they are ours as they fly by our building and the bird lovers on staff invade my office to watch them fly by - a soothing ritual for our busy work day. Hundreds of crows fly east late afternoon each day. I never think about how strange it is until a new person starts in our office. Today they were momentarily thwarted by a burst of hail so they had to take a break on the roof of the TP. The weather rudely broke up our observance but once the hail stopped, the murder set back out again. Only to return tomorrow.

It’s weird - I don’t know if I just wasn’t get out for a while beyond more normal circles, therefore I haven’t been keeping up on what the kids are saying these days, but that seems a bit unlikely. However, in a matter of three days I have heard one person per day refer to someone as a “chach.” It’s not that it’s a new term - just that the use seems frequent and it came from totally unconnected people.

The slang dictionary says that chachi/chach is replacing guido as slang for:

any Italian male, or any male pretending to be Italian, who wears gold chains, puts gel in their hair, and dresses like a fag in a pathetic attempt to impress members of the opposite sex or otherwise overcompensate for their inadequacies.

..so not the nicest term, but the logical origin is Chachi (again with the Happy Days) Arcola, played by 80s dream boat Scott Baio (who I enjoyed when he played himself in the recent disappointing Wes Craven werewolf flick Cursed). I don’t remember Chachi from Happy Days fitting this description, nor related associations to chachis hitting on chicks all the time. I mean, he was so busy loving Joanie!

I am a fan of Stella’s Tap and Tapas Bar on Commercial Drive and when I was brunching the other day at Havana across the street, I noticed Stella’s serves brunch. I quickly text messaged several brunch loving friends, but no one was up to rejoice with me (I was out with the Tones clan - early risers).

I am pretty easy to please for brunch - give me an eggs bene and I am set. Stella’s serves their bene on fresh croissants. They also do steak and eggs with the tenderloin wrapped in bacon. I am seriously drooling now. If they are anywhere near as tasty as their addictive Thai grilled jumbo shrimp, I will be in big trouble.

Suzi Quatro has a new album. You may remember Suzi as Leather Tuscadero on Happy Days. She was pretty damn tough (even though teensy tiny) and known to many as the first queen of rock and influence on later queens like Joan Jett.

On top of her total cool rocker chick stats, she is also aunt of Sherilyn Fenn from Twin Peaks. Who knew?

..with Jeremy Piven premieres on April 1 on the Discovery Channel (do we get that?) which takes him to India. He’s a funny little monkey man, but this seems like a pretty deep show for him.

Our protagonist escapes the intensity of the city by heading south to the state of Kerala, in search of renewal. We’ll follow Jeremy as he journeys through the lush tropical countryside, hangs with locals, explores his passion for yoga and takes a memorable boat trip through the glistening backwaters of this timeless landscape.

All I can picture is Ari running around the jungle in search of cell phone reception to call for hookers and blow. Perhaps I am typecasting, but the gossip leads me to believe the little guy parties.

So, if he has time to do this soul searching trip, what does it mean for season 3 of Entourage?

Official new name for boot camp as that is where I am seeing some big changes, as are others (pervy girl gang). This is the last week of this session and we were all lamenting this morning about how we haven’t lost any actual pounds due to our muscle gain. It’s hard not to get on the scale, but I can see the changes in my body and fitness level, and also in the other participants, so I am not too perturbed (doesn’t it seem like that is a made up word?).

Plus I have signed up for 3 more weeks after this session making my last day the day of the big B-day party and then off to New York in what would be the final week. Booty camp indeed.