A little lie is OK, right?

Apparently, it’s not if you’re 5 years old. Shish, I was put on the spot, had to explain myself, and then had to lie some more to fix it.

Situation: My family and I were heading up to Cypress Mountain to celebrate a friend’s birthday by snow-tubing, which is an insane activity consisting of sitting on an inflated rubber and coming down a steep hill at an insane speed. Frankly, there were moments that I thought I was going to dislocate my shoulder. Back to the story: Given that this was my 2^nd or 3^rd time up the mountain, I thought I’ll use my OnStar (a person-to-person Global Positioning System offered by GMC) to find the fastest way to get there. Well, as I was speaking to “my” personal advisor, I mentioned that we were heading up to the mountains for some skiing!!!

Explanation: Aha, do you see the problem here? I said skiing and not snow-tubing. Well, as you may have guessed, this prompted my 5 year old, god bless her truthfulness, to yell from the back seat “Daddy, we’re not going skiing! We’re going snow-tubing”, all while I’m still on the call with “my advisor”. Of course, I turn around and motion to my daughter to be quiet as I do not want to embarrass myself by telling the OnStar advisor that I’m going snow-tubing. I mean really, who lives in Canada and doesn’t know to ski? Oh, I know!!! Me!

So while I’m shushing my daughter, the advisor downloads the route to my GPS and wishes us a safe trip (probably while laughing his head off on the other line) and hangs up. That’s when my daughter repeatedly informed me that I shouldn’t have lied to the advisor and that I should call them back and apologize. Apparently, apologizing to my daughter wasn’t good enough because she just wouldn’t drop it.

Lies, lies and more lies: Realizing that it was a lost battle with my daughter and the fact that calling OnStar back would not solve the problem as I would most likely end up speaking to a different advisor, I decided to end the conversation with another lie: “Honey, you’re right... I shouldn’t have lied! I promise to send OnStar an email first thing in the morning to apologize and let them know that we went snow-tubing and not skiing”.

I promise to set the record straight one day!

My commitment: I will no longer lie or exaggerate the truth! I just won’t say what’s on my mind ;)

Thanks for reading,

Armin

Ps. I hope my daughter will be as adamant in telling the truth when she is a teenager!



This is our group coming down the hill! Isabella, my daughter, is right in the middle!



Don’t pee in the ocean...

Do you remember that one time in the middle of the night, under the full moon, in Mexico, after several shots of tequila and muchas cervezas, you decided to get off your beach chair and stand by the lovely Atlantic Ocean and relieve yourself while the cool waves were gently washing your feet? Ah, it felt great, didn’t?

Well, did you look down at your feet to see where all that pee ended up?

So here we are in 2011 and many are sounding off the alarms. Scientists, environmentalists and others are no longer reminding us gently to be kind to Mother Earth; rather they are hitting us in the head with piles and piles of documents, which are most likely printed on cheap paper imported from one of the old rainforests in British Columbia or Brazil.

Well, it was nearly 40 years ago when my grandmother told me “never pee in the ocean” (please excuse the language, but she was a straight-forward and no non-sense woman, who survived many wars and did not think she owed anyone anything). She always said to be careful with how we treat Mother Earth because as kind as she is, she does have a temper.

Well, as you’d expect, I didn’t realize what my grandmother meant until a decade later. Here it goes: After many years of abusing Mother Earth, she is finally throwing it back at us. She is telling us that enough is enough and that she can no longer accommodate our wastefulness and growth. Have you noticed how much stuff we have been throwing away over the past couple of centuries? Everything we own is getting bigger, including our expectations from Mother Earth.

Why not take a step back and figure out what it is that we need in this life and pursue that instead of owning a television set in each one of our 4 bedrooms, living room, family room, toy room, home gym, entertainment room, each one of our bathrooms, and the one that is installed to the ceiling of the master bedroom so we can watch our own reflection when... well, you get the point.

My commitment to Mother Earth: I’ll never pee in the ocean again; please forgive me for that time in Cancun.

Thank you for being kind,

Armin

Rest in Peace My Friend

I can’t believe we were friends for 23 years. I have known life longer with you than without you.

I had to think really hard to remember the first time we met. I was about 7 when our family friend introduced you to me. Do you remember how shy I was? May be I didn’t show it but I had “butterflies” in my stomach. And then you were gone.

It was 8 years later when I saw you again. You helped me get introduced to new friends at high school. It was because of you that I “fit in” with the cool crowd.

Since then, you were there when I needed someone to share a moment with. You were there for me when I broke up with my girlfriends. You were there to keep me company on the lonely nights. You were there when I experienced the best and worst moments of my life.

Thank you!

But it’s time to say goodbye my friend. Over the past few months I’ve noticed that you were in fact a downer. You pretended to be a friend. You pretended that I needed you every living moment of my life. At times, you left me breathless. You began to grab a hold on me like no other friend would dare to. You began to control my life without me being aware of it. You began to call me every hour on the hour, never leaving my sight for a moment.

But then I realized something; it’s not me needing you, it’s you needing me for your survival. You managed to drain my pocket; and as though that wasn’t enough, you began to affect me. Did you think I was stupid and that I didn’t realize how your poisonous being was impacting my health? Once I realized that behind that shiny facade lived a demon stronger than all other addictions in the world, I started my plan to slowly cut you off my life. And it worked my friend!!!

You will no longer tempt me with your promise of tranquility. I am stronger without you!

Thank you for reading; here’s to a smoke free life.

Armin