Goodness52

"Uh, Earth to Matilda. I was at a day spa. Day. D-A-I-Y-E. Okay?" Derek Zoolander pretty much set the standard for non-manly men, but he sure knew how to pamper himself. As a big hairy ape-man, I decided I would do the same for a week, pretty much following Derek's lead and starting with the spa. Manscape Spa in downtown Victoria Manscape is the only all-male spa west of Toronto and north of San Francisco. Owner-operator Doug Janczyn is an ex-investment broker who's been offering manicures, pedicures and more for 10 years, and he's just an overall great guy. He took one look at my fingernails, which I had clipped way too short and decided he could not give me good value on a manicure. So he suggested a few other pampering procedures: an eyebrow sculpt and a pedicure. Now, why would a dude want that kind of stuff? Doug explained that the sculpting would give me the appearance of being more alert, and there are all kinds of health benefits to a p...

"As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden." Anyone who has seen Peter Sellers in Being There knows all about the seemingly profound statements delivered by Chauncey Gardner. But the fact is, Chauncey was right. All will be well in the garden. I spent the past 7 days puttering in the garden and planting a bunch of herbs. There's something about getting soil under your fingernails, and about setting those plants in a tidy row that strikes an elemental chord in all of us. It's earthy, and it's real. Gardening is enjoying a re-birth these days, thanks to the millennial foodies and environmentalists who see all kinds of goodness sprouting from the ground beneath their feet. I've made some half-hearted attempts in the past, so the first thing I had to ask myself was what kind of garden I wanted. For me, it has to be herbs. Flowers are just kinda showy, and vegetables seem like more effort than they're worth....

"The only time to eat diet food is while you're waiting for the steak to cook." I think Julia Child may have been promoting the keto diet without even knowing it. For those of you who haven't jumped on the keto bandwagon (yes, both of you!) it's the no-carb diet that sends you in search of a nirvana state called ketosis. Once you're in it, the pounds come dripping off. You get to heavy up on the meat and the high-fat high-protein foods like avocados and eggs. Seems delicious, right? Well, here was my experience over 7 days of being on it. Fat-head pizza So, the maybe-not-so-surprising news is that the keto diet works. Val and I were very strict about following the no-carb program and I went into ketosis early in the week. I know it was mostly "water weight" but it sure felt good to see those winter pounds just blow off my body. By the end of the week (yup, in just seven days!) I had lost a full 7 pounds, down from 184 to 177. But all is n...

"Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it." Thanks for the great advice, P.J. O'Rourke! I think it's fair to say I followed that rule all week, with an added twist. I spent at least half an hour every night reading aloud. Sometimes in a silly voice. Sometimes until I knew from the evidence that my audience had drifted off to sleep. But why aloud when there are no children in the room? There are already so many great reasons for reading aloud to your kids. Now research into reading aloud is suggesting that we should keep on doing it long after the child-rearing years are behind us. The number one reason is memory improvement, which might even delay the onset of Alzheimer's. I'm all for that! We used to read to our kids all the time. My favourite was Winnie the Pooh, which gave me a chance to try out all my Disney voices. I flatter myself that my Eeyore is spot-on. But it's been at least 10 years since our ...

"Such strenuous living I just don't understand, when in just seven days I can make you a man." If Frank N Furter could dive into his lab and mould a perfect human in just one week, I figured I had a shot. Of course, The Rocky Horror Picture Show was hardly a documentary. In my case, the lab would be my local gym, filled with medieval racks and muscle-bending weights and pulleys. Let me start by saying I hate gyms. Always have. Maybe it's the preening and posturing in front of the countless mirrors they all seem to have. Maybe it's the intimidation of the machines themselves and the thick-necked muscleheads straining themselves into contorted pink puff balls. Still, the research - and even my family doc - suggest that older dudes like me need to use it or they will definitely lose it. Meaning muscle mass, and a slow descent to the grave. Enter Harley. The club I go to for swimming just happens to have a great gym (or so I'm told) and they employ a ...

"My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She's ninety-seven now, and we don't know where the heck she is." Ellen's grandma knows something a lot of us don't. It's pretty easy to just go for a walk. We fall into these comfortable habits, like tucking into dinner in front of the big screen and then sinking deeper and deeper into the couch until it's time to brush our teeth and go to bed. Well, not this week! For seven straight days, Val and I put our shoes on after dinner and headed out the door. It's something I remember doing as a forced march with my dad when I was a kid, and something I hadn't done for at least 10 years. That's despite knowing the many benefits of an after-dinner walk , which include better digestion, improved sleep, and weight loss. There really was no decent excuse for not going for a walk. After all, we live in Victoria so it's pretty easy. And not just Victoria, but a great ...

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever. Its loveliness increases. It will never pass into nothingness." Was John Keats talking about art? A pretty face? A stirring sonata? For the sake of this week's post, let's go with art. I am not artistic. I'm so unartistic, in fact, that I once had a freelance business called Robb J Can't Draw . So I approached this week with the appropriate amount of fear and healthy amount of respect. My goal was to product a work of "art" within 7 days, under the watchful eye of my artist wife .  Val supplied me with the art board, a collection of paints and brushes, and a lot of advice. My job was to fill in the rest with a subject and some brushstrokes. Here's how it went. I'd recently seen a picture of a grain elevator being demolished in Mortlach, Saskatchewan. As a transplanted prairie dog, that image moved me. Those "things of beauty" are fast disappearing on the prairie landscape, and...