The oracle Delfine speaks...

She is wise beyond her years, she is well-read and highly educated, she is a beautiful soul, a blonde bombshell, she's bilingual, blithesome...and she's one of my very best friends.  

I met Del, like the computer not the phone company, many moons ago at a rather large downtown bookstore in Montréal.  We were both working the cash desk at the time, and I was having some sort of trouble explaining something in French to a customer, she jumped in.  "Wow, your French is immaculate," I told her.  She then revealed, "That's because I am French."  To this day, there are only a couple of words that she says in which I can hear an accent.

Suzie & Del...right before our midnight feed on Halloween near Frenchman St..

Del is not only an amazing friend who will traipse all the way to New Orleans to join her buddies for a holiday, but she is also an inspiration for those of us who are a bit bigger boned.

A few years ago, after her July vacation she decided to embrace healthier eating habits.  Del, as I knew her, was never a skinny mini but she was never fat.  She had a bubble butt and a great set of tatas - a very nice hourglass figure if you ask me.  At 5'1" she was pleasantly plump, she ate fries and had drinks when we met up, she wasn't a compulsive over-eater like me.  But, something made her reassess her food pattern in 2009.  In January of 2010 she started walking home from work, just walking home.  The journey is 5 kilometres - it is a pretty good hike.  When she started, it took her an hour or so, and now it takes her about 35 minutes.  In 2012, Delfine incorporated 3 to 4 yoga classes per week into her routine.  This astonishing woman has transformed her body.  When we visited in 2011, the fruits of her labour were already showing.  She looked fantastic...she appeared to be an entirely different person, in fact.  The blonde hair helped, Del had always been a brunette.  But, her bod was amazeballs.  The girl brought 5 pairs of tall boots with her to Tofino, for frak's sake! 

When we met up in New Orleans a year later, she looked toned, fit, and fabulous.  And, upon learning about my new quest for fitness and my tribulations with weigh-ins...she gave me this advice (okay it was borrowed from her yoga instructor):

"People put too much importance on what they look like, when it should be all about how they feel.  In a garden, the tulip isn't jealous of how the rose looks, and the rose doesn't want to look more like a daffodil."

Namaste yogini Delfine, namaste.  This is so true.  When you exercise and eat right, you feel amazing...and the results, well...they come with...but we have got to stop comparing ourselves to others.  Take what you have and maximize.  I like to think that I have always thought this way, but it's always good to be reminded.

Anyway, I firmly believe that I am a Bird of Paradise.  One big-ass flower with attitude.  Fairly expensive, sometimes unavailable, unparalleled in its uniqueness, rather spiky, but also delicate when in full bloom, and if incorporated in the right bouquet...utterly charismatic.  

Delfine, thank you for being a posy in my vase.  I love you.