Race Bandit?

This past weekend I completed my 2nd half marathon.  In the past year I've become "addicted" to running and have really enjoyed training for these races as well as a couple of shorter ones.  Now, even though it is not expected that you look like a model while running a 21.1km race, there are some people who pull it off really well.  I am not one of those people.  I tend to turn bright red and look like this:

I know, hot!

It has also become apparent that the photos of me, which are taken by professional photographers during these races, either turn out horrible or are few and far between.  It is almost as if I have dodged off during the race and found a shortcut to the end OR the photographer feels as it is better that I don't see what I look like.

The photo's for the Scotiabank 1/2 Marathon are now up and although there are very few of me (again!), the photos that were taken "take the cake" this time!  Not because of me.  I look surprisingly normal. 

I'm the runner on the left hand side, top of the frame.  I'm casually stopping my watch as I cross the finish line.  I know you didn't notice me first though...all you can see is the guy in the red shirt...

 Is this a face of extreme pain? Immense joy of being finished? Is this a face that says "I really should have stopped at the porta-potty at 18k!?"

And it get's better.... 

Photo Credit

See me?  I look happy!

Where is his race bib?  Did he even run the race?  Maybe he's a race bandit!

There isn't a single photo of me without this dude!  I will always remember this race as the one where I finished behind the guy who might have just s**t his pants!

Listen to your mom

I was the kind of kid whose parents would say “I can’t wait until you have kids and they are just like you”.    I don’t have kids yet but if my cat is an indication of how karma is going to bite me in the ass, I’m screwed!

My parents raised my brother and me to make our own decisions and to accept the consequences of our actions, good or bad.    I made a lot of interesting decisions.

I was stubborn.  My mom tells me that one day she had to go to the bank and I had to go with her.  For whatever reason on that day, I was adamant on wearing a pair of underwear on my head, so she let me.  I have given up trying to decipher why I did the things that I did as a child and have chalked it up to a weird combination of East Coast/British genes.  The more I learn about my parents the more I believe that I am genetically predisposed to my quirks. 

My mom grew up in a house that had a two-seater outhouse...

Side note:  When I goggled “two seater outhouse” to find a picture I found this.  I promise that this is NOT what I was referring to.

My dad once ate a hearty portion of a bag of cement powder (Solution: do not eat any rocks or water and then proceed to roll around for a day or two)...

This leads me to the day in primary school when I decided to wear a see-through outfit.  A older girl down the road had given me a bunch of her old dress up clothes.   I was immediately in love with these clothes because A: they were given to me by a girl who was 5 years older than me and therefore immediately considered cool and B: because there was one outfit in particular that was purple and sparkly. 

I decided that because I loved the purple outfit that I was going to wear it to school.  I got up one morning and put it on. 

Mom:  Jody, you probably shouldn’t wear that to school because it is see-through.

Me: No it isn’t. 

Mom:  Yes it is.  The kids are going to make fun of you.

Me (becoming increasingly stubborn): NO IT ISN’T. 

My mom didn’t make me change.  She had given me the option, let me weigh the pros and cons and then allowed me to make the decision.  I was wearing the purple sparkly outfit to school! 

So not only was this outfit very see-through it was also made of some combination of completely unnatural fibres and as the day went on it became increasingly itchy. 

Kid:  I can see you underwear

Me: No you can’t!

Other Kid: Yes we can!  Jody has hearts on her underwear.  Jody has hearts on her underwear.

This is when I realized that my mom hadn’t been trying to trick me out of wearing this amazing outfit to school.  She had been telling the truth.  I had willingly gone to school in an outfit that you could see my underwear through!  Sadly me being in my underwear in public is becoming a reaccuring theme.

There was nothing that I could do.  I had to stick out the rest of the day with my underwear on parade until I got home.  In tears I proclaimed to my mother that the kids had made fun of me and they could see my underwear!  She told me that she had warned me, which was true.  From that day forward I have never had the urge to wear something see-through out in public.  Not even in university where wearing a shirt as a dress is apparently acceptable.  Maybe short, maybe low cut, but never see-through!   

The lesson's I have learned from bicylces

EDIT:  I've added #8 which I had forgotten about, likely because of the head trama it involves!

1: Do not drive down the Beach Meadows boardwalk on your bike with your eyes closed. You will hit the railing and fall off your bike.


2: Do not purposely ride your bike head first into your brother’s bike when you are racing around the house. He is much bigger and heavier than you.

3: Do not let your best friend drive your new princess bike on the day you received it as a birthday present. She will like it just as much as you and will not want to get off. You will proceed to get in a fight, one of you will get punched in the nose and someone’s hair will get pulled and both of you will end up crying. You will make up 15 minutes later.

4: Do not get too attached to your princess bike because a couple years down the road, your brother will dismantle your bike to use parts of it to assemble a strange combination of your little bike and his big bike.

5: Do not let your older much larger brother drive your bike, especially if you still like it. He will proceed to fall over the handle bars while going UP hill, break off the gear shifters and possibly break his nose. You will then feel the need to run home in tears like a wild child and proclaim to your parents that you have killed your brother!

6: Do not stop suddenly after going down a large hill when the person behind you had not mastered the art of hand breaks! They will run into you and bend the rim of you tire.

7: When crossing railways tracks on your bike, always abide by the road signs. If you are not careful and the road is slippery, you will slip into the railway tracks, and fly over the handle bars of your bike into traffic.  The hand grips will fly off,  the front tire will be twisted backwards and the chain will get wound around the foot peddles. Traffic will continue to drive around you as you lie stunned and bleeding on the road. A homeless man will eventually take pity on you and help you to the side of the road. He will be nice to you and offer to get you some band aids from a friend of his.

8: When your brother asks you to do something, you should probably listen because he does not make empty threats.  When your brother is practicing his slap shot in the driveway and you keep driving your bike in front of the net, he will ask you to stop.   Being an annoying little sister you will continue to drive you bike around in circles in front of the net.  He will threaten to shoot the puck at you, but you will not listen.  He WILL shoot the puck at you and it will hit you full force on the side of the head and will probably knock you off the bike.  You will cry and run to your mom and her response will be:

Mom:  Did he ask you to stop?

Me (sobing): Yesss

Mom:  Did you?

Me (still sobing):  Noooo

My mom tried to give me away...

My mom kindly reminded me of this story tonight while we were talking and I feel like I should quickly share the story before I forget it!

So as you can imagine, I was a bit of a terror of a child.  Not in the bad way (if that makes sense).  I wasn't a bad kid by any means but I definitely tested my parents patience...from day 1.

My mom has told me many times that when I was little she tried to give me back to the doctor.  I was very allergic to cows milk but before they figured this out all I did was cry and thump around in my bed.  As my mom told me tonight she already had one child and she knew that this wasn't normal, that there must be something wrong with me!

So on a particularly trying evening she took me to the doctor, who is also a very close family friend and told him "if you don't think there is anything wrong with her, then you keep her!".  The thought of having to keep me scared him enough to take my mom's concerns seriously and they quickly discovered that it was the cows milk. 

What my mom hadn't told me before is that prior to this episode she had left me overnight with one of her friends.  I was so horrible during those 12 or so hours, that the lady very shortly after went to have her tubes tied!!!  As a child I single handily made a women decide to forgo the option of having children!!  

Impressive or incredibly sad?! 

Golf Day

Since tomorrow is our annual work golf tournament I thought I would reminisce about this tournament 2 years ago. The 2008 golf tournament is the one that sticks out in my memory because the firm opted to have the meeting first and the golf second which meant that the beer carts were out in full force for the entire length of the tournament!


Accountants (work hard/party hard attitude in play) + beer + hot summer’s day = FUN

So as you can all probably tell by now, if there is a way for me to make a situation awkward, I will find it. Also, if there is a way to embarrass myself in front of my colleagues then I will also do that.

The day was going by fairly uneventfully. I was in a great foursome and since we were playing best ball, the game wasn’t too tedious. That was until I decided to try to retrieve something that was at the bottom of my golf bag while waiting for my team to finish their shots.

The bag was strapped to the back of the golf cart. I’ve got fairly long monkey arms but they are not quite long enough to reach the very bottom of my golf bag so I had to really stretch out to reach the bottom. So here I am with my arm, pit deep in my golf bag when I realize that I can’t pull it back out! I don’t know if it was because of the angle that my arms was in the bag since it was elevated on the back of the golf cart, or the width of my enormous pipes or a combination of the two, but my arm was wedged in the bag and was not about to move.

This is when I start to panic.

Do I keep pulling and hope that it will dislodge itself?

Do I ask someone in my foursome to help me out?

Do I just lean up against the bag casually as if it’s normal to have your arm entirely inside your golf bag and hope to god that nobody jumps into the cart and takes off?! What do I do?!

I don’t have much time to make up my mind before the team decides to move to the next hole. This is when I realize that I need to ask for help. GC, happened to be the first to notice that I was doing something strange so I had to suck it up and admit to him that my arm is stuck in the golf bag. Now GC is always the first to poke fun at me when I’ve made a fool of myself. I’m sure he would swear that he is laughing with me, not at me. So the first thing that he does, before trying to help solve the problem, is take a picture!

Now my embarrassment is immortalized for all to see! Ok, maybe I’m being slightly dramatic but there is definitely proof so I will not be able to deny it and chalk it up to GC’s wild imagination after 1 to many “pops”.  Thankfully GC took pity on me and unstrapped the bag from the cart and helped me shimmy my arm out of the hole.

Now let’s jump a couple months forward to our annual Christmas Party. A slide show was put together with photos from all the events that had been held during the year, including the golf day. So periodically through the night, this photo of me stuck in the golf bag would show up on screen.  I would smile to myself and then "oh Jody, why do you do these things". Then this photo popped up:

Just when you think you’ve embarrassed yourself enough for one year, someone finds a photo like this! The icing on the cake.

Wish me luck tomorrow!

Why I wanted to be like my brother, I will never understand

So this post is not so much a story but a list of ridiculous things that my brother convinced me to believe when I was little. I’m sure I will continue to think of things to put on this list for years to come. I want to believe that I’m not quite as gullible any more, but that is questionable. I’m not going to tell you what age I was during these events. I will let you imagine me at the age you believe appropriate!

First off, I’m going to introduce my brother with the most flattering picture that I have of him:

Note: I did not ask permission to post this photo so i hope it does not result in an atomic wedgie the next time I see him

Secondly, I'm going to prove to you that I would do anything to be just like my brother with another photo:

Alright...now that we have that over with, on to things that the brother convinced me were true:


My middle name was Scruff

That’s right, Jody Scruff Porter. Do you know how embarrassing it is to introduce yourself to new friends as Jody Scruff Porter? As an aside to this point, he was justified in naming me Scruff as I basically looked dishevelled every day of my childhood, at no fault to my parents. I’m slightly more put together now, but it takes work, people!

In general I did not seem to understand the concept of a middle name. After the scruff incident I then went on to believe that everyone’s middle name was either Leigh or Lee. My middle name is Leigh, my brother’s is Lee, my neighbour’s was Leigh and the list went on so I just assumed it was a standard name!

Cows were horses and horses were cows

Now you might not think this was a terrible thing for him to teach me and that it was just a normal brotherly sisterly relationship. If you think that then you underestimate just how much weight I used to put in what my brother taught me. He was my older brother so he HAD to be right. He would never trick me!

I think my parents thought that this was kind of cute as we would be driving down the highway and when passing various farms, I would shout out cow, horse, cow, cow and each time it would be the opposite of what I said. They might have even thought I was joking until the day that we went to visit my cousin in NB. She had recently got a new horse which I was really excited to meet. As we pulled up to their home there was a cow standing at the end of the road. With joy and excitement in my voice I said “Is that Belle’s horse?” I was being serious. I had no clue that it was a cow. That was the day that I learned just how sneaky a brother could be!

Sneaking into the neighbour’s yard was not dangerous

Ok, so why were we sneaking into our neighbour’s yard? Well, we were constantly losing our toys over the monstrous hedge that separated our land from theirs. These neighbours were not the friendliest of people and didn’t understand the importance of us coming on to their property to retrieve our belongings. So we had to be sneaky. On most days this went undetected except for 1 day which I will never forget.

We were playing with a ball and I’m sure we were having a ton of fun until the ball went over the hedge. My brother wasn’t the bravest of little boys (sorry, but it’s true!) so he sent me on the ball retrieval trip. I was so happy to be playing with my brother that I would have done anything to keep the fun going so I took on the challenge willingly. To be honest, I don’t even think that I thought that much about it. He asked so I did it. Now a key part of this story, is that on this particular day I was wearing a dress. This was unusual because I was not a girly girl. Unfortunately on this day, the ball had landed in a particularly horrible spot. In a ground nesting bee’s nest!! That’s right; there are some bee’s that make their home underground. I didn’t see this nest and stomped up to the ball and straight into it. The bee’s went bezerk since I had just smooched their home.

Have you ever had a bee fly up your dress? Have you ever had multiple bees flying around under your dress? I don’t recommend trying it out.

I had bee’s everywhere and unfortunately bee’s leave their stingers so everywhere that they stung me, the stinger then had to be removed. I ran home most likely screaming and in panic! When my parents realized what had happened they brought me into the house and began extracting all the stingers.

Now I don’t remember exactly how many stingers had to be pulled out (I’m my mind it was hundreds but it was probably closer to 50, or maybe that’s an exaggeration s well) but I do remember that they were in my hair and in my dress and that it was very painful. I guess the bright side of this story is that I wasn’t allergic?!


I know I said that this was less like a story and more like a list but I lied. In order to show the why these things were so funny, I must elaborate a little. There are many more things that my brother convinced me to do during our childhood and even into adulthood. He continues to convince me to do things that I would otherwise be too cautions to attempt!

I assaulted a man today

EDIT:  Ok, maybe assaulted is a little over dramatic. 

If there is a way to make myself look awkward in a situation, I do.  Like the time I got my arm stuck up to the armpit in my golf bag.  A story I will have to tell another day.   

This morning while waiting at the fake Starbucks in Jackson Square to feed my caffeine addiction, I did just that.  Now, since this is Hamilton, it is pretty hard to make a fool of yourself in comparison to the daily rift raft that hang out in Jackson Square, but I managed to do just so.

I was second in line and I had already gotten the exact change out of my wallet to pay.  I didn't want to hold up the line while scrounging around my wallet trying to find 15 pennies. I hate when you get stuck behind one of those people. 

Since this week has been unusually hot, I was feeling a little sticky from my walk from the parking lot to the Starbucks.  My hair was kind of stuck to my face and in my mind I was going to gently brush it to the side, so that it didn't end up in my mouth when I placed my order.  Because that would be embarrassing.

Instead, when my brain told my arm to gently brush the side of my face this is what actually happened. I dramatically swept my hair out of my face using way more force than required.  Very hollywood and totally unnecessary.  Who do I think I am?  At the same time, I forgot that I had a bunch of change in my fist. I opened my fist and the money went flying.  Unfortunately there was a man standing right behind me.  The handful of money hit him, probably mid chest and then bounced all over the floor. 

I turned around to apologize, trying to hide my laughter because that's what I do when I know I've made a fool of myself plus it actually was really funny!  I would have laughed at someone else who did the same thing.  Who throws their money at someone?!  He just stared blankly at me like I was an idiot.  Which isn't really far from the truth because most people have better motor skills than me.  So I apologized and giggled to prove to him that it was funny and he should at least smile.  He didn't make a sound and continued to start at me.  I then scrounged around on the floor picking up my change that was now surrounding his feet.  

What does someone do in a situation like this after they have made a scene and then been denied the customary "Don't worry about it"?  I placed my order, avoided eye contact with everyone else in the store and high tailed it out of there!