Monthly Archives: April 2012

Hippity Hoppity

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Last night my husband and I went on a DATE to (belatedly) celebrate our tenth anniversary and I got a new dress and shoes!

It was exactly a year and a week since I had my varicose vein surgery, and so I thought I would celebrate by wearing shoes and stockings, rather than my usual boots.

It was fabulous going on an actual date – my husband and I go on about four dates a year, so when we do go out it’s an event.  Last night was also an event in that, as we were driving to the restaurant, we came across a squished roadkill rabbit!  Ew!  Gross!  Even in all its grotesqueness, I couldn’t stop giggling, thinking of all the disappointed children who would be doomed to spend the holiday without chocolate eggs.

It reminded me of the story I was told once by a guy who worked out in Rimbey, Alberta, who hit – but did not kill – a deer with his car on Christmas Eve, and ended up, in order to be humane, having to shoot it, his children looking on from the backseat of the car.  His children who thought their dad had just shot one of Santa’s reindeer.  I wonder if those kids are still in therapy.

We did have a lovely Easter weekend, complete with colouring eggs and then – as we traditionally, if unorthodoxly do – having the children hide them for us to find, in the backyard.  We did that this afternoon, once the sun came out, although the kids took to hiding some of them in the snow that’s still there.  For those of you who live in milder climates, I envy you.  You probably don’t know the joys of digging a hardboiled egg out of a snowdrift.

This morning the boys had an Easter treasure hunt, complete with complicated clues such as “Where do wet clothes go after they have been washed?” and “What do Mini-Wheats and pizza sauce have in common?” (answer to the latter question: they are kept in the same cupboard).

That is my new favourite picture of the boys, reading their clues.  It sums up their personalities perfectly.
Speaking of a-little-bit-evil, right this second the boys are watching The Phantom Menace, which I saw in the theatre but not since – and for good reason, because it’s terrible.  It turns out that I actually have very little knowledge about anything Star Wars-related, to my children’s grave disappointment.  In fact, due to the combination of Lego Star Wars Wii and a number of Early Reader Star Wars books, my children know much, much more than I do.
Did anyone watch the Master’s this weekend?  I watched it by osmosis, which means I know who won and I know that the runner-up (is he called a runner-up?  I don’t know.) had a double eagle, which is only the fourth time in the history of the Master’s that such a thing has happened.  It was, my husband said, a very exciting Master’s.  Maybe the most exciting Master’s ever!  Which…well…is not really that exciting. 

So, that was my weekend.  Colouring eggs, a date, some roadkill, a treasure hunt, lots of golf commentary, and the lamest and most totally confusing movie ever.  How was your weekend?     

Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.

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Did you know that Mercury has been in retrograde for the past twenty-four days, and that phenomenon is associated with a lack of energy and sluggishness?  Me either.  But it has, so perhaps that explains things a little.  I just assumed I was having a raging case of PMS.

Speaking of raging cases of PMS, the internet has been all abuzz lately, about women complaining about being too pretty, and about pregnant women being too fat, as well as the usual chatter about women being too thin and the subsequent speculation about eating disorders.  Enough already. 

I read this article, about the downside of being pretty, but I have not yet, and I will not, read all of the vitriolic backlash to it.  The whole thing makes me feel sad.  For one thing, I have NEVER had a pilot send me a bottle of champagne on a flight.  Dammit.  Mostly, though, I felt sad because the author is 41.  I don’t doubt that she has had issues with jealousy and mean-spiritedness.  If you don’t believe that woman-to-woman meanness exists, then you have never been a cute 21 year old in a C-cup working as a summer student for an oil company whose employees consist solely of “old boys” and female secretaries.  However, I would like to think that as we age our personalities also develop to the point that looks are secondary and that by age 41, even the most beautiful women have friends.  The fact that the author is still complaining about all the backlash to her gorgeousness makes me suspect that perhaps her personality has not evolved past the “Don’t you think I’m pretty?” stage. 

However, I don’t know her, so I can’t comment on her personality.  I do know this: looks do matter, in society.  We like to say that they don’t but they do.  They matter a lot in different ways – not just in the “men send me wine at restaurants and pay for my cab fare” way, but in that being beautiful can affect one’s personality.  I wonder if that is what has happened with this woman.  A sense of entitlement and the “don’t hate me because I’m beautiful” attitude can make for an unpleasant person.

The author says “So now I’m 41 and probably one of very few women entering her fifth decade welcoming the decline of my looks. I can’t wait for the wrinkles and the grey hair that will help me blend into the background.  Perhaps then the sisterhood will finally stop judging me so harshly on what I look like, and instead accept me for who I am.”  I can’t help but feel the obnoxiousness of that.  I have many beautiful friends.  I have never judged them harshly based on their looks.  I have never thought of them of anything but beautiful, kind, smart women.  But perhaps if they told me that they were looking forward to wrinkles and grey hair so that they wouldn’t be so beautiful, perhaps they would not be the sort of women I would want to be around.  OMG!  I can’t wait to get ugly! 

What I’m saying is, perhaps it isn’t this woman’s appearance that is leaving her isolated from the female community.

Speaking of the female community, apparently Jessica Simpson is pregnant, and apparently she is looking pregnant.  Good for her!  Live it up, is my motto.  My whole life, I have thought about my weight and thought about my calorie intake and my calorie expenditure, and I’ve said no to brownies and no to chips and I’ve looked at the scale critically and I’ve thought about my pant size and I’ve worried about my cellulite and when I was pregnant I thought NO MORE!  I ate and ate and ate.  It was such a relief.  I wore maternity pants when I was thirteen weeks along and I loved every second of it.  I looked like this:

and that was just when I was only eight months along.  I gained double the recommended weight.  That was part of the joy of being pregnant.  Sure, I had to watch what I ate afterwards, and sure, it was kind of hard moving around because I could only waddle, but I. Was. Pregnant. 

So Jessica Simpson is too fat, and Angelina Jolie, Kate Middleton, and that woman from Modern Family are too thin.  First of all, don’t talk smack about Kate Middleton.  She is fabulous, and I will throw down for her.  But second of all, when we criticize women for being too thin, we do just as much disservice to the female community as when we criticize women for being too fat.  We don’t KNOW these people.  At least, I don’t.  If you know Kate Middleton, could you introduce me?  But we don’t know them, we don’t know what their lives are like, no matter what the media speculates.  We don’t know if they are thin because their lives are so hectic that they forget to eat.  Angelina Jolie has practically a baseball team of children; sure, she probably has nannies and everything, but she’s probably pretty busy too.  When I had a one and a half year old toddler and a colicky newborn, and both my toddler and my husband both were ill with the Norwalk virus, I ended up losing all my excess baby weight because I essentially didn’t sleep or eat and had a nervous breakdown.  That was an effective, if disturbing, weight loss program. 

There is speculation about eating disorders, when a woman is so thin.  Does this mean we should mock them?  Should we ostracize them for having what amounts to a mental illness?  Of course not.  Real women have curves! we say, but really, real women come in all shapes and sizes.  Real women are all women.  My friend Eryn wrote a great postissues with food, for their beauty or their lack thereof.

While I did not like the “Downside of Being Pretty” article, and while I did not get a good feeling in terms of that woman’s personality, I also strongly dislike the backlash against her.  I hate that there is discussion of a pregnant Jessica Simpson being too fat, I hate that there is media hype around celebrities being too thin.  The only solution is for us women to STOP IT.  Stop beating ourselves up about our looks.  Stop beating up other women because of their looks.  Let’s be better than that.

Nicole’s Gone Kind Of Wild

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I got home at 8:00 last night from a weekend at the in-laws’, home to a mountain of laundry, an empty refrigerator, and the need to detox and/or go on a cleanse.  My poor body.  That is all I am going to say about that.   

This morning I reluctantly went to the grocery store, extremely dissatisfied with the continuation of my regular Monday routine: you see, during the spring break I went grocery shopping on a Saturday night.  Nicole’s Gone Wild!  People, I may never be able to happily go back to the old way again.  I have glimpsed perfection.  On Saturday night, I was the old person at the grocery store.  The place was filled with students: making complex decisions about prepared salads at the deli counter, cavorting through the produce section with just little handheld baskets, texting in the checkout line.  I felt like I had boarded a spaceship and had been planted on some far-off, strange planet where no one was complaining about the lineups or the price of eggs.  I eavesdropped on a young couple in the produce section, having a tense argument about which kind of tomatoes to purchase.  Which kind, field or roma?  There are pros and cons to both.  The discussion got a bit heated, and I headed to the cereal aisle, feeling footloose and fancy free since no one ever argues with ME about which tomatoes are superior.

I’ve been to paradise but I’ve never been to me.  It was hard to go back to the old way this morning, but, as I said, the cupboards were bare.

Have you heard about the Naked Face Project?  Here is what the women involved in this project are giving up for sixty days:

For sixty days, we will give up wearing any makeup, removing any body hair, altering our hair from its natural state (dying, curling, straightening), wearing uncomfortable feminine clothing (high heels, tight skirts), wearing jewelry (with the exception of wedding bands), painting our nails, using anti-wrinkle or anti-acne lotions, wearing deodorant, or styling our hair for reasons other than function.
I will not be partaking in this project, obviously.  Do not get me wrong: I deeply admire these women for doing so.  I have a number of friends who never wear makeup, who have hair that they wash and then leave it to dry naturally, and they look fabulous.  I peeked at the photos of the women involved and let me tell you, if I looked like they do, naturally, I would maybe – MAYBE – think about going sixty days without my regular grooming habits.  However.  I do not. 
1) Makeup.  The one time – the ONE TIME – I went to the school drop off with no makeup on, I had five separate people ask me if I was all right or if I was about to drop dead.  I prefer the general public does not immediately associate my makeup-free face with tuberculosis.
2) Body Hair Removal.  Oh, ha ha ha!  HA HA HA!  I can’t even go six weeks without a bikini wax, let alone not shave my legs or underarms!  I am a partial Scottish lassie.  Evidently my body was meant for the Highlands.  Not shaving for sixty days would pretty much have my neighbours wondering if a Yeti moved in.  Not to mention the unibrow and handlebar moustache that would result.  If ever I am incapacitated for some reason, I am going to need to hire out for a hair removal service so as not to terrify the children. 
3) Altering Hair From Natural State.  My hair right now has one-inch grey roots, and it’s only been five weeks since my last hair appointment.  My hair’s natural state is not good.
4) Wearing Uncomfortable Feminine Clothing.  Well, I might be able to do that one, but it depends on the definition.  I have lots of comfortable high heels – but would they be verboten?  They are comfortable but less comfortable than flats.  And what about tight jeans?  What about a bra?  The years have not been kind to my breasts.  Think partially-deflated water balloons.  Going braless is only acceptable to me if I am wearing a tank with a built in bra, but would that be included in the uncomfortable clothing category?  I have the depressing feeling that, with the exception of my pajamas and yoga clothes, ALL my clothes have some level of discomfort associated with them, yet I am so used to them that I don’t notice the discomfort.
5) Wearing Jewelry.  BUT I LOVE JEWELRY.
6) Painting Nails.  BUT I LOVE PAINTING MY NAILS.  Plus my nails are so brittle and dry that they peel right off without a good coat of lacquer.
7) Using Anti-Wrinkle or Anti-Acne Lotion.  Hey.  I’m almost 37.  I am at the awkward periomenopausal stage where I am in need of BOTH products.  I just found some miracle products that I love and that staved off a pimple prior to my in-law visit.  Since my mother-in-law is famous for gasping and pointing out any blemish that I may have, I am devoted to these miracle products and am planning an entire blog post to show my love for them.  (Spoiler alert!  Aveeno and Burt’s Bees!)  I would make out with these products if I could; that is how much I love and admire them.  In vain I have struggled.  It will not do.  My feelings will not be repressed.  You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.
8) Wearing Deodorant.  I think my yoga teacher would die, and I do not want to be the cause of it.
Naked Face Project: FAIL.  Nicole will never Go That Wild.