Every new year I get excited; maybe this year will be the year things really take off for me. I’m not totally sure what I think is going to happen. I realized at 40 any dreams of being a rock star are moot, as are pro-cyclist and movie star. I have decided 2013 will be the last year for that nonsense. Life is really just a series of high points and low points sandwiched in between days of boredom and routine. The routine is the day the day stuff like going to work, picking up the kids, cooking dinner. The highs and lows are what keep it interesting.
Believe it or not the year started with cycling. The weather was crazy warm a year ago and so I was cycling in January. 2013 was looking to be a good year! I had signed up for boot camp and decided to join the Lapdog race team. I also started making my own ramen in anticipation. Zuimei had decided to move home and open a ramen restaurant, and so I wanted to see what was involved. February was dull. It got too cold to cycle and Zuimei wasn’t home. To be honest it is one of the most awful times of the year. Toronto is cold and grey and dirty in February. Seriously, fuck February.
In March, I went to the Adobe Summit in Salt Lake City. I got to go skiing again for the first time in fifteen years and stand in the front row for The Black Keys.
April started out well. I road in the first two O cup races before heading to Europe for Zuimei’s 40th birthday! Paris was beautiful and the food was good. Personally I much preferred Italy but that’s probably because on our first day in Paris we got robbed by gypsies! I suppose they needed the money more than us.
However we loved Florence, and we will definitely be back.
Shortly after returning, Zuimei’s nephews moved in with us to go to school. It’s been quite a change going from having a house to myself to not having my own room. It’s also been trying to go from no children to two teenagers. They are good kids but very lazy, they are definitely getting better. In Japan their mothers did everything, and I simply won’t put up with that nonsense. They can now cook, clean and do their own laundry!
Three days after Zuimei left to take his mother back to Japan I was in a motor vehicle accident while cycling!
I struck the side of a Wheel-trans bus after the driver made an unsafe left turn. I was training for a race at the time and was travelling around 40km/hr. I ended up with several broken bones including my ribs, left foot and left shoulder. And I know I got off easy, it could have been much, much worse. The shoulder has required surgery to reconstruct, as well as months of physiotherapy and massage to get back to work. Luckily CBC had a good medical plan and short term disability. Poor Zuimei had to fly back and look after me since I was physically incapable of doing so myself. I suppose that is what marriage is for!
I am still looking at another surgery to clean up the bone and repair the rotator cuff but at least I got to keep my own shoulder. There was talk of an artificial one which would have needed replacing every 15 years. The accident took me out for three months and then followed that up with 6 months of physio… whee! Despite needing another surgery it could have been much worse.
Shortly after I was able to return to work I handed in my resignation to CBC to start a new job with my good friend Mark at the Bank of Montreal. I wear a suit everyday which is a bit of a change from the jeans and a t-shirt I wore at CBC! However the work is very similar, and something I am comfortable with.
Zuimei meanwhile started a new business. He now owns a restaurant called “Touhenboku” (www.touhenboku.ca) on busy Queen Street. It’s a Ramen restaurant which is quite popular here. He seems to be doing well but works long hours. A normal day is at least 12 hours. He worked very hard opening it, with little help from me. I hope he does well.
Zuimei’s mother fell ill and he had to race back to Japan. Luckily she recovered and moved in with us. With the boys and his mother there was five of us in a three bedroom one bathroom semi so we bought a new house! We looked around Toronto but like most big cities it is stupid expensive. We already had our foot in the real estate market so we thought we’d be able to find something for a million dollars but no luck. As a result we started looking outside the city and found a great house in Newmarket.
And as luck would have it, it’s called “the Sutherland house”, which is sort of fitting since my grandfather was a Sutherland. It is a beautiful brick century house with some modern updates to the kitchen and solarium but most of the house is the original woodwork, made with the best wood planer. We take possession in the spring.
So now we are patiently waiting for winter to pass so we can begin a new chapter of our lives. Personally I am happy to close the book on 2013. It’s been too much of a roller-coaster and I could use some normality! Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying I want the tedium and boredom of routine, I just want a year that doesn’t tax me to the limit like this one did.