And there's more...

Nothing says holiday like:

Wearing the t-shirt you bought on your last vacation, while on this one. We lost count of how many Hard Rock Cancun t-shirts we saw yesterday. People like you to know that they've done this sort of thing before. Don't mess with them.

Hard Rock Cafes. I know. Let's fly around the world and go to a restaurant that's an exact replica of the one we went to in the last city we were in. In an effort to sample the local cuisine and partake of the extraordinary island culture, be sure to order the curly fries.

Para gliding and other extreme sports. For 358 days of the year, you get up, go to work, and come home to commandeer the channel changer and watch Rock of Love. What possesses you to tether yourself to the back of a boat and go flailing around the harbour?

Hotel sized toiletries are the new black market currency. I don't care how much money I make. It gives me a perverse thrill to take half-empty sample sizes of shampoo and body lotion.

Nothing says holiday like....

White powdered mini donuts. Reading the nutritional information on the side of the Hostess donettes package is scarier than any Stephen King novel. You might be surprised to know that a single package contains 40 per cent of your USDA daily fat content. One question is: do I eat them or snort them?

Drinks served in little plastic pineapples. I'm keeping it as a souvenir, and as a stark reminder of my money-managing skills.

Popcorn shrimp. Shrimp, coconut, a deep fryer and a defibrilator. Happy holidays.

A charley horse. It's holiday boot camp. We must have walked a billion miles yesterday. We had to...we had to burn off the mini donuts.

Vacation fights. Barb and I are making sport of spotting the fighting families. There seems to be something about deviating from your usual work-a-day routine that drives even the closest knit families into cold, clipped sidewalk spats. They need mini donut 911.

Time Change

My body says 3:15 p.m., but the clock says 9:15 a.m. I'm afraid this won't bode well for leading tonight's conga line.

After more than ten hours in the air, I landed in Maui last evening. Barb was there, looking tanned and lovely, at the bottom of the escalator. We came home to their amazing place in the rain forest, where the tiki torches were burning and the hospitality is over-flowing. I'm starting legal adoption proceedings this afternoon.

It's paradise!

But you know what's NOT paradise? Travelling anywhere on a plane these days.

I took two different airlines yesterday -- Air Canada and United. 10 hours in the air. And the ONLY free bit of nourishment I was given was a pack of pretzels.

I think the pretzels were an ironic nod to the way my spine felt after being squeezed against the window for the last leg of the journey -- trying to avoid getting hit in the head (again) by one of the 20-odd revellers, wearing the same electric green t-shirts, all heading to Maui to celebrate Alex's Bat Mitzvah.

Oy vey.

Vacation Checklist

Musn't forget:

1) A positive attitude. You can never have too much of that.

2) #45 sunscreen. This is a nod to the Scots who contributed to my genetic make-up. By crawling out of the peat bogs as they did, they ensured I'd spent a lifetime without any measure of pigmentation.

3) Two not-quite-serious-enough books. I once went on an all inclusive vacation with a group of girls. A few of them brought along some pretty serious reads -- A Map of the World and Fugitive Pieces. I brought along a seering look at the Jon Benet Ramsay murder case. Guess who did more pool side reading?

4) US, People, In Touch, etc. God I miss the demise of Weekly World News. The continuing adventures of Bat Boy were always good for half hour of flight time. Instead, I will have to contend myself with: Stars, they're just like us.

5) Snacks. I'm an eat every two hours kind of girl. It's crazy that they don't serve you anything to eat anymore. I have a baggy full of raisin boxes and Kashii bars. I'll fit right in during my layover in San Francisco.

Ready for takeoff!

Wear and Tear

I'm wearing my yoga pants at work today.

They're a modern cut of yoga pants. The type that look like dress pants with a kicky little flare, but have the comfortable give of blended spandex. They hide a multitude of figure flaws.

I don't actually do yoga, I just have an entire collection of yoga gear in my closet.

If a sudden and overwhelming need to do Downward Dog or stand on one leg like a tree should overcome me, I'll be ready.

On this, my last day of work before vacation, my yoga pants are a talisman against stress. They're telegraphing my brain to remind me to breathe. How important is it? This, too, shall pass.

When I think about it, I have many other items in my closet that I invest with the same supernatural powers that I ascribe to my yoga pants.

I have the Lucky Power Presentation Outfit -- the few items that work together to give me the Wonder Woman-like confidence to sell through any creative idea -- the Pretty As Can Be Outfit and the Don't Mess With Me Outfit.

Tomorrow, I'll be wearing the best outfit of all. The Going to See my Friend in Maui Outfit.

Not sure what it will entail, just yet, but I'm pretty sure it will involve a sign around my neck that reads "Unaccompanied Minor". Here's to clear skies ahead.

Happy Tuesday, everybody.

See this woman live

Sandra Bernhard opened Toronto's Pride festivities with a concert at Toronto's famed Massey Hall last night.

The show opened with the spotlight on Bernhard, in the aisles, as she belted out a completely ironic and campy version of "And I am telling you," from Dreamgirls. She's larger than life. A female drag queen. It was hysterical...but it was also good. The girl has pipes, and she knows how to use them.

The audience went wild.

From the first note to the last -- a completely over-the-top rendition of Prince's "Little Red Corvette", she had us eating out of the palm of her hand.

I slept like a baby last night. Laughter really is the best medicine.

In the realm of hungry (and thirsty) ghosts

A couple of weeks ago, I read a book called "In the realm of hungry ghosts: Close encounters with addiction." Author and physician Gabor Mate (there's an accent on that last "e" but I can't figure out how to do it on my computer) who has spent numerous years as doc in residence of a residential treatment facility for drug and alcohol abuse, explores the epidemic of addiction in our society.

While the good doctor's patients are at one end of the spectrum, he takes a decidedly compassionate approach to their plight based on his own addictive tendencies.

What follows is a completely frank and honest examination of his obsessive thinking patterns. For it's not just drugs and alcohol that can destroy your chance for happiness, he argues, it's tobacco, work, food, sex, gambling,shopping and inappropriate spending. ANYTHING that can take over and unbalance your life.

Doc cautions that while society derides certain types of addictions -- the street crack addict, for example -- it supports and even institutionalizes others. He points to the perceived normalcy of the workaholic, slogging away 12 hours a day, glued to their "Crack"berry, missing out on real life.

In short: we're all addicts, in one way or other.

I thought of old Gabor this morning. I ran out of milk yesterday and forgot to buy some on the way home. So I decided to forfeit my usual morning coffee until I got into the office.

On the way into work, I noticed my thought patterns were muddled. I'd lost the usual zing in my step. I felt tired and irritable.

I didn't just want coffee. I needed it. Bad.

And then I saw it. Starbucks.

It's got all the requisite drug paraphernalia -- shiny espresso makers, a community of like-minded users, unquestioning devotion, and a language all its own. My own private crack house.

What a great reminder on this Friday morning.