When we moved back to Canada from the United States, I knew that some lifestyle adjustments would be necessary. In particular, I knew that giving up Whole Foods Market would be especially difficult. The nearest WFM is about a ninety minute drive from here, which doesn't make for a practical weekly shopping run. Starting soon, we'll be receiving weekly boxes of locally-grown organic fruits and vegetables, which might make up for the lack of a store that stocks lots of fresh organic food.

All the same, towards the end of living on the west coast I had stabilized on a single breakfast cereal: Sierra Crunch Muesli. I could buy it in bulk from WFM, and did so, in great quantity. Finally, here was a cereal that had everything I needed. Alas, I couldn't find it at any of the local stores, not even at the regional WFM. So back in January or so, I put in an order for some at one of the local organic markets.

For a long time, it seemed as if the store had no interest in getting me my cereal. Apparently, it was hard to import because there was no version with French labeling. Weeks went by with no word from the store. They called a couple of months after I ordered to ask me if I really wanted it. I didn't take that as a positive sign. I decided to drop the idea, expecting never to hear from the store.

Well, I was amazed to hear from them last week. They had managed to bring in the cereal. They had hidden a box of it inside a much larger shipment to avoid customs problems. Apparently, a large network of smugglers and shady types had conspired to get me my muesli!

I picked it up a few days ago, and now I'm in cereal heaven. And I had better be. You see, the smallest package I could order this way was fifteen pounds:

So now I'm on a strict cereal regimen. I have to make my way through this huge pile of cereal while it's still crispety crunchety. I have to justify the tremendous efforts of the dark cereal underworld in getting this clandestine shipment into my hands. I have to eat a lot of cereal. Judging by the rate at which I went through the stuff back west, it shouldn't take that long.

Now that I have a few minutes to write thingo entries, I realize that I have a backlog of things that I want to make sure end up immortalized here. So the next set of entries will contain some older stories.

I take you back to an early morning a couple of weeks ago. I was out in the living room eating breakfast. I noticed a flurry of colour out of the corner of my eye; it was coming from outside on the balcony. I went over to the balcony, and much to my surprise discovered a small, brightly-coloured bird hopping around! He was fluorescent green and clearly an escaped pet, possibly a parakeet or a lovebird. I did about the only thing I could do in such a situation. I said, "Uh, Nath, there's a parakeet on our balcony".

Anyway, we took him into the apartment and hid him in the bathroom, away from the hungry eyes of the household feline population. Eventually, the humane society came and picked him up. They said they'd hang on to him for three days waiting for the owner to claim him, and then offer him up for adoption. I hope the little guy's okay. I'm not much of a bird fan, but he was kind of cute.

A few days ago, I found myself watching the Showcase network with Carmen and John. We were watching some sort of redecorate-your-neighbour's-bedroom show. They told me about the wide variety of interesting shows on Showcase, including Kink, a reality show that follows the lives of eight or so members of Toronto's kinky sex community.

What they didn't tell me is that my ex-girlfriend is on the show. If you watch the show then no, I'm not talking about Nina, the beautiful she-male. I don't truck with no she-males, yo. And I also don't mean, uh, Mistress Demonika. I'll let you figure out the rest.

I'm shocked and disappointed that I hadn't found out about this amazing fact until now. Surely someone I know would have seen the show and asked me, "say, didn't you date that person once?" Oh well. I guess I'll have to watch a couple of episodes.

This is, of course, the point in the narrative where our hero says something like "I taught her everything she knows" and tries desperately to keep a straight face.

Last night, after another great evening of rock climbing (a subject that demands attention in a separate entry), we were walking back to Martin's car when he stopped and bent down to the ground. I couldn't see what he was doing, but it turns out he had bent down to pick up a worm and transport it from the parking lot to the relative safety of the adjoining lawn. He just wanted to give the poor thing a fighting chance of being a valuable member of the biosphere.

I had forgotten all about the worms. For whatever reason, you don't get armies of worms crowding paths and parking lots on the west coast. Maybe there's generally more moisture in the ground, or maybe the surface is the exclusive domain of the giant slugs. I'm not sure. Here, when it rains, the worms come out in force (to the extent that a bunch of worms can be considered a "force"). And I guess some people feel some compassion towards the poor annelids.

It's a rather Buddhist attitude. But count me out! I'll try to avoid stepping on them, mostly because that's gross. But I won't rescue them. Anyway, I had never seen someone move worms to safety before last night, and I expected never to see it again. I stood corrected less than twelve hours later, when I saw two people in front of me on the path to campus, moving worms off the path. Obviously there's been some sort of "save the worms" campaign on TV that I missed.

There's an "inspirational" (Christian) gift shop not far from Thingo central. Walking by the other day, I noticed a couple of little statues on display in the window. Here's one of them:

Now let's ignore for the moment the fact that Jesus has that whole smarmy, flirtatious, let-me-show-you-how-to-hold-this man-boy-love thing going on. Ignoring the creepy side of the statue, I can sort of understand the point. Jesus is there with the batter in spirit, helping him, keeping his aim true. Glory awaits little Timmy -- he just has to accept Jesus as his Lord, Saviour, and Batting Coach.

What I can't understand are some of the manufacturer's other statues, such as this one:

What on earth is Jesus doing here? Look at his face. He's not trying to help these kids. No, he's fighting for the puck. Next thing you know, he's going to body check poor number 6 into the boards! Those poor kids don't stand a chance; I mean, it's Jesus!

Here's a final one, just for fun.

So the guy in the yellow shirt is doing a hand-off with his teammate Jesus, and the guy in the red shirt is going to tackle him? Tackle Jesus? Surely that's listed as a sin somewhere. Mind you, in Buddhism it would make perfect sense. To paraphrase: "If you meet Jesus on the gridiron, tackle him".

Anyway, you can satisfy all your Jesus sport statue needs at www.catholicshopper.com.