Monthly Archives: July 2012

Olympic Fever, sort of

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One of the things I love most about blogging is how much I learn.  My mind is expanding.  I mean, really, who knew about modesty socks or fake cigarettes?  WHO KNEW?  I am enlightened.  I am also confused because a very androgynous cashier called me “sir” today.  I’m not sure why.  I don’t think I look like a man.  I was wearing makeup, my hair was down, and I was wearing a pink tank top, a top that I discovered later, was missing its inserts and not properly concealing my nipples.  I don’t feel my appearance really warranted a “sir” but maybe this is a newfangled way young people refer to their elders nowadays?  Sort of like how the word “actor” refers to male and female thespians?  I don’t know.

It’s Olympic fever time around my house.  True confession: I find watching any of the events to be dull in the extreme.  I appreciate the athletes and their training, I’m happy to hear of a Canadian medaling, I understand other people’s excitement, and yet…I’m not that excited.  I did enjoy watching the opening ceremonies however.  I found myself becoming an encyclopedic explaining machine for the children, fielding questions about the British Empire, the Industrial Revolution, and Mary Poppins.  The trouble is that I tend to err on the side of over-information.  Children are by nature very black-and-white, and I end up explaining the grey areas like nobody’s business.  Half the time I can’t tell if the kids are informed or completely befuddled.  Lately some of the topics we have covered are drugs and ecstasy use, death, the dangers of not wearing helmets while bike riding, drunk driving, and what constitutes a cocktail.  After the past twenty-four hours we can now add the rise of factories and urban living in eighteenth century Britain, child labour in the modern world, and the definition of a banana hammock.

The children, unlike their mother, are very interested in watching the events with their father, who may or may not be enthused by their incessant questioning.  I observed them this morning watching the cycling and I realized that my husband is passing on his personal Olympic knowledge and general philosophies about life.  In my house, it is only acceptable to cheer for Canada, or, if the Canadian athlete is not close to finishing in the top ten, the host country, with one exception.  Under no circumstances can the American athlete be cheered for.  The Canada/US rivalry must be upheld at all times, as evidenced by the 2010 gold medal hockey game, during which I actually thought my husband was having a heart attack.  Fortunately he was not, and also fortunately, the Canadian team took the gold. 

So I have a long two weeks of Olympic commentary looming before me.  However, I think it will be more than two weeks before I get this image out of my mind.  There are some things you just can’t unsee, like how my neighbour – who has lately been mowing a lawn in both a shirt AND pants, thanks be to god – parked his truck in front of my house last night, lumbered out wearing nothing whatever but a smallish pair of shorts, and stood there with his back to me, showing off a large percentage of his butt crack.  Look away, Nicole, look away.  And yet, like a particularly horrific train wreck, I was paralyzed and powerless to look away. 

Whiskey and cigarettes

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My husband and I are currently halfway through Season Five of Mad Men.  The thought that we are almost at the end is filling me with great sorrow.  We discovered this show a few months ago, and have ravenously watched it from the first season, some evenings watching two or three episodes in a row.  I am bereft at the thought that we only have a few episodes to go.  I don’t know what we will do when we are finished.  I don’t remember what we did before Mad Men.  I’m adrift, people. 

I know I’m late in the game to watching this, but the writing is so fabulous.  My favourite Don Draper lines are as follows:

Bohemian guy: How do you sleep at night?
Don: On a bed made of money.

Betty’s dad: You people.  You think money is going to solve all your problems.
Don: Well, it’s going to solve THIS particular problem.

Peggy: You never say thank you!
Don: That’s what the money is for!

Oh, Don.  You mercenary rascal.  I do wonder if all the actors are required to be smokers for the show, or if they had to learn to smoke, or if they are now addicted to cigarettes because of all the smoking, or if they had to sign a waiver about cancer risks and smoking before taking on the roles.  Also, do they need to shower after work?  Because you would think they would be pretty stinky and smoky after shooting scenes.  I find myself becoming obsessed with those little details, the same way I obsess about sexy scenes: did the guy get a boner when he shot those scenes?  Or would he be too nervous to in front of the camera crew?  Is that girl really naked?  Because she looks naked.  That would be weird, to be shooting a sexy scene while naked. 

Anyone who has any acting/tv/movie knowledge, feel free to answer my questions.  Otherwise, I’m going to keep wondering.

I do remember, when I first started working, that some people smoked in their offices.  I remember a professor of mine telling me that he used to smoke while teaching.  This seems so strange now, doesn’t it, given that the last time I tried to buy a lighter – to light birthday candles with – that the grocery store I frequent does not sell them because it is illegal to sell smoking paraphernalia in a location where pharmaceuticals are also for sale.  I just wanted to buy a damn lighter for the birthday cake.  Also, if Mad Men is to be believed an accurate timepiece, and I think it is, everyone must have been drunk half the time.  I wondered aloud to my husband what whiskey tastes like, which filled him with surprise that I had never had a whiskey.  Really, is that so surprising?  Whiskey is not a huge drink for the ladies nowadays.  In any case he pulled out a bottle of whiskey – we have whiskey in the house, how or why I do not know – and I will say this: it’s nasty. 

The thing I love most about Mad Men, other than the writing and the plot and all the awesomeness, is the clothes.  I covet Megan Draper’s entire wardrobe.  I find myself mentally trying on her cute little dresses, not that I have reason to have such little dresses, but they are adorable.  The dress that she wears to sing “Zou Bisou Bisou” is especially awesome:

I think this dress would look great on me.  I suggested to my husband that I could get something similar for his office Christmas party, a statement which was met with dissention.

Sigh.  I probably don’t need to think about shopping right now anyway, since I was rearranging my dresser last weekend, and the pile of sweaters on the bed led to a tense conversation about how many black sweaters are too many black sweaters.  And that conversation was before my husband discovered the piles of sweaters on the kids’ beds, because I had run out of room on our bed.  What?  I like sweaters.  I saw this sweater today and I did NOT buy it, which feels to me like a massive display of self control:

Looking at that now, I cannot believe myself!  I didn’t buy it!  It is a perfect black sweater!  I have enormous self-restraint!  Unfortunately I have no room in my dresser.

I did really need to reorganize my dresser, apparently, since I found at the very bottom of the very bottom drawer not only my old compression stockings and the bra and panty combination I wore to my wedding, but a pair of size large maternity pantyhose.

Going to the zoo, zoo, zoo…

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Are you ready for this?  The shower doors are finished!  Our renovations are completed!  Wheeeeee.  Pictures to follow, but for now I’m just excited and relieved and the teensiest bit annoyed that the head contractor wanted to come and pick up the final cheque immediately, without us being able to test things out.  Hey buddy, I’ve been waiting anxiously for the past three weeks to get these things installed, maybe you can wait a day or two until we’ve actually used the shower?  I don’t know.
The shower doors were supposed to be installed last Thursday, but at the last minute I was informed that there was a fire and kiln explosion at the manufacturer, and the upshoot of that alarming information was that our doors were not ready.  I moped for a second and then decided to seize the day and head to the zoo with the kids. 
I bought my first zoo pass when Mark was a baby, on the advice of my friend who had a one-year-old daughter and hence was my muse for all things mama.  At first, I would meet up with friends and enjoy wandering around the exhibits, all of us pushing our strollers while our babies napped or cried or chewed on their stroller toys.  Later we would get together more sporadically with our double strollers, all of us looking like zombie hunchbacks.  Eventually going to the zoo became really fun as the kids walked, and chose favourite animals, and played in the picnic areas. 
The zoo has a penguin display now, and although we waited in line during spring break for ninety minutes, this time we chose to just peek at the outdoor display and leave the waiting to others.
The boys wanted to walk through the dinosaur park, and I took the same picture I’ve been taking for the past couple of years.  There’s nothing like looking at old pictures to realize that the kids have grown – OMG! – and that time is flying and next thing you know they will be calling me once a week on Sundays.

In other news, the kids seem to have been stretched. 

Jake’s favourite animal at the zoo has always been Foggy the hippo.  Foggy is one of the oldest hippos alive – he will be 47 this year! – and his birthday is only two days after Jake’s.  Jake feels a deep kinship with him. 

Check this picture out from two years ago:

Jake’s longtime favourite colour is orange, in case you didn’t notice.
Mark prefers the Canadian Wilds part of the zoo.

But he also loves the dinosaur park, as he did two years ago:

I forgave the shower door people their kiln fire and explosion, since we had such a great day after all.  I especially forgive them now that we have shower doors that fit properly! 
“Hey Mom, we’ve been playing in this tree ever since we were little!”  Yes, you have, my sweeties.

Be Kind, Change the World

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A few weeks ago, I picked up We Need To Talk About Kevin from the library, on the recommendation of a friend.  I took it back today, 90% unread.  Over the past couple of weeks, I would pick it up, read half a page, and put it down again, upset and unnerved.  Upon telling him about it, my husband – like my friend’s husband – asked why I would ever want to read such a book.  The answer, as I took it back today, is that I don’t.

When tragedy strikes, some people take deep breaths and hug their children more than usual.  They think about the first time they were allowed to go to a movie by themselves, they think about how they take their good fortune, their family, their very lives for granted.  They vow to do something good for the world; sometimes they even follow through.

Other people, people I don’t like so much, use tragedy as a platform to politicize, or to push their own personal agenda, or – and this is the worst – to sell or market their own products.  As an example, I know someone who, the day after the tsunami in Japan, referred to the tragedy as Mother Nature unleashing her wrath about our collective mistreatment of the earth.  If that wasn’t enough, he then began touting his product that would counteract any negative effects from possible radiation exposure.  TELL ME MORE ABOUT THIS MIRACLE PRODUCT.

I think we can all agree that the days immediately following a tragedy are not appropriate for politics or – god forbid – sales.  

Fuck it.  I AM going to push my own agenda.  That is this: be kind.  Live the change you want to see. 

When I was pregnant, and due before my firstborn would be eighteen months old, I fretted to a girlfriend about the logistics of getting around with two very small children, especially with the long winter looming in front of me.  After giving me some practical advice in the areas of infant carriers and double strollers, she patted my arm and said “Don’t worry.  You’ll be amazed at how helpful perfect strangers can be.”

Her words turned out to be very true.  Countless doors were held open for me as I struggled with the heavy and awkward double stroller, and once someone helped me navigate that same stroller, impossibly stuck in the snow, through a slushy parking lot.  Strangers offered to return my grocery cart for me; they carried my takeout coffee to my car while I wrangled the little ones into their car seats.  A woman smiled at me and said I was doing a good job as I held back tears, holding a screaming, colicky infant in one arm and a tantruming toddler in the other.  Every single one of those acts was almost effortless for the givers, but for me they would change my day; each act was a gift to me, a beam of sunshine in what I would later recognize as one of the most difficult periods of my life, that first winter that I was an exhausted and overwhelmed mother of two children under age two.

All these years later, I remember those moments perfectly.  Those gifts of compassion and kindness inspire me every day to look with compassion and kindness on the world.  There is so much sadness and anger in the world, but we all have the power of choice.  We can all make a choice to make someone’s day a little brighter, with a smile or a hug, an encouraging email or phone call, a kind word or a compliment. 

There is a tenet in yoga called ahimsa, which literally means non-violence or non-harming and stems from the belief that all living things are connected.  I believe this is true and I believe that we all have a responsibility toward each other, to treat each other with kindness, to spread positivity and good energy.  Think of the amazing power in that!  A small gift of compassion can have a snowball effect; one person truly can change the world for the better.

In light of the tragedy in Aurora, remember this: the best way to deal with terrible tragedy is to do something good for the world.  Start with yourself.  Be kind.  Be well.  xo  

Nicole’s Favourite Things: Summertastic!

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When we were in Maui, the boys wrote in their journals every day, in order to show their class when they got back.  Mark’s was ridiculously and tediously detailed (“Mom, do you remember what I had for breakfast yesterday?”), while Jake’s simply wrote out the major activities of the day.  In other words, the majority of his daily journal entries read as follows:

I went to the beach in the morning.  I went to the pool
 in the afternoon.  I ate ice cream.  It was good.
Not, perhaps, riveting, but accurate.  This is what blogging feels like in the summer sometimes, like a mix between some kind of glorified scrapbook of activities – SUMMERTASTIC! captions, along with photos of us at the pool, again, or at the zoo, one more time, everyone smiling and sunshiney – and a tedious listing of details about how I made ginger cookies out of beans.  
By the way, the bean-based cookies are pretty fabulous. 

I’ve been thinking for a while about writing posts about things I love, in a non-sponsored way.  I thought it could be like a meme for bloggers, and a fun discussion in the comments about products, fashion, and food that we love.  In the theme of SUMMERTASTIC, I propose the first of such posts be My Favourite Things, The Summer Edition.  Care to join me?   It will be like the O List, but without the bazillion dollars and free stuff.

Nicole’s Favourite Things – Summer Edition
Favourite Summer Beauty Products
My hair, since I started Operation Grow It Out, and also since I’m getting old and have been colouring it for so many years I barely remember what it was like before, is QUITE dry and brittle.  In the summer, I like to walk around hatless, all footloose and fancy free, and my poor, processed hair takes a beating from the sun.  I love Herbal Essences “Hello Hydration”.  I buy it in humongous jugs from Costco, and it works much better than any super-expensive “hydrating” salon product I’ve ever tried.  Once I accidentally bought the 2-in-1 shampoo/conditioner, and it wasn’t until I noticed I had the softest hair ever that I realized I was double-conditioning.

Giant jugs.  Hehehe.
Just because I walk around hatless does not mean I am all casual about sun damage.  I wear sunscreen year-round, but I really pile it on in the summer.  I like Neutrogena’s Ultra-Sheer Water Light face sunscreen – it’s even good for those of us who are still considered “acne-prone” decades after our teen years.  You know those people who say things like “I don’t know HOW I got sunburned, I put on sunscreen.”?  I am not one of those people.  Here’s the trick: put sunscreen on after your shower, naked, in front of a mirror.  It’s the only way.  I use Neutrogena’s Ultra Sheer Body Mist to spray my back and shoulders, since I tend to wear tank tops that expose a lot of skin in those areas.  Then I use Hawaiian Tropic on the reachable parts of my body.  It smells so nice and summery, I think.  For the rainy days in which there is no sunshine – like yesterday! – I love Bath and Body Works Body Lotion in Forever Sunshine.  Get it?  I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day…


Speaking of cloudy days, how about a body wash that practically FORCES you to have a Happy Time?  I use body wash instead of shaving gel, because it seems to work better and leave my skin more hydrated.  I read this manifesto about not shaving the other day and embracing my natural self, but my natural self is a yeti, or at the very least, a fair-skinned, dark haired lassie who belongs – apparently – in the Highlands, and my body seems to think that growing hair will keep me warm and comfortable.  Long story short, I shave/wax a lot, and this body wash is marvelous as a shaving aid.

You’re going to be happy, dammit!

Favourite Summer Fashion

I wear a lot of tank tops, and my favourites are those with shelf bras.  So I can be braless!  But not in an alarming, scare-the-neighbours, depressingly deflated hippie-chick sort of way.  But these tanks – from Lululemon – keep everything in, the straps don’t slip, and they are long enough for my liking.  They are a bit pricey, but I have tanks that I bought five years ago that are still in mint condition after much washing and wearing.  The caveat here is to purchase in a colour that I don’t tire of (black).

See?  Braless, and yet…not.

It’s no secret that I hate shorts.  I loathe them.  For years, when my varicose veins were rivaling those of bedridden senior citizens, I wore nothing except capri pants in the summer.  This summer, now that my scars are (mostly) healed, I am rediscovering my love of skirts.  Skirts are so cool and fun in the summer, but I also like to not be concerned that I am going to obscenely flash someone at the playground, or that I can sit crosslegged without my children requiring therapy.  Check this out! 

It’s a skirt (please ignore my apparently filthy mirror)
But it has SHORTS built in underneath!  It’s a miracle of skirt engineering.

Favourite Summer Food

My very favourite snack in the summer:

Delicious summer berries!  I try to eat berries until I’m sick of them, because, well, ’tis the season, but I never, ever get sick of them.  I used to eat them with vanilla yogurt, but sadly dairy products are causing me to break out like an extraordinarily awkward teenage boy, and so I just eat them as-is.  I add a little sugar and I barely miss the yogurt. 

My favourite summer meals:

Thai noodle salad!  I created this recipe!  It’s pretty yummy and I crave it all the time.  Recipe is here.  My other favourite is actually a year-round favourite, but it really is better in summer, what with seasonal veggies and it being a cold salad: GREEK SALAD (recipe here).  Feta is my concession to dairy consumption.  Maybe goats are better than cows in the whole dairy department?  I don’t know.  All I know is I don’t want to imagine life without feta.  I can’t.  I won’t!

Now it’s your turn: tell me, dear readers, what are your favourite things in the summer?  Share in the comments, or share on your blog, if you’re a blogger.  I chose fashion, beauty, and food, but that could be because I’m shallow.  You can choose any category.  Make yourself feel like Oprah at Christmastime!  Tell me all.  xoxo

I’m not dumb but I can’t understand how he lifts me in the air just by raising his hand

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It has CONTINUED to be summer around here, which is leading me to wonder where I am and to also SEIZE THE DAY, so there has been lots of swimming and outdoor activity around the Boyhouse.  There has also been lots of discussions about Star Wars. 

My kids talk about Star Wars all the time.  In the mornings, they play Star Wars Wii, and then the rest of the day, no matter what we are doing, they talk about Star Wars Wii.  They talk about the Star Wars movies and the Clone Wars and they spew out facts to me in a very intense way.  Jake spent his allowance on books about the Clone Wars and now they quiz me about bounty hunters and padawans and other things that I cannot remember because I have no more room in my brain.  Children, my brain is already filled with every song lyric ever written, I cannot make room for Star Wars.  Also I appear to have a mental block about it, to their frustration.  Mom, that’s Count DOOKU.  He’s bad.  No, that guy is a Jedi!  Jedis are GOOD.

They like to watch YouTube videos about Star Wars and then act them out while watching them, which is both cute – especially when Jake is Anakin turning into Darth Vader, the intensity with which he does this – and also a bit alarming.  I mean, isn’t there a whole subculture involving live action role playing?  I sure hope my kids don’t turn out like these guys.  But, I guess if they did, I wouldn’t have to worry about becoming a grandma prematurely, if you know what I mean.  Silver linings everywhere, people.

On Thursday we were stuck at home, waiting for the shower door people to install our shower doors.  Have you noticed I haven’t been talking about our renovations for a while?  That’s because they completely stalled two weeks ago.  The contractor kept teasing me with shower door installation dates.  I cancelled dinner guests, I waited at home, I cleared my schedule, only to find out that the doors were not yet ready, and they would be installed another day.  I kept looking at the bathroom, so close to being finished and yet so far.  But on Thursday, they were certainly going to be installed, I was assured.  And so while we were waiting I dressed the children’s stuffies in their own clothing – hilarity ensued – and watched fan videos of Weird Al’s Yoda on YouTube. 

Sometimes I look at my daily activities and feel a deep sense of whatever the opposite of accomplishment is.  As an aside, this video is deemed to be the best version, by both me and the boys. 

The shower door installation people did show up, but I sensed something was wrong when I heard a lot of arguing in a language I did not understand, plus a number of panicked sounding phone calls.  Any time I walked past the bathroom, the installers would fall completely silent and stare at me.  It was quite unnerving.  Finally one of them handed me his cell phone, and the man on the other end explained that the shower doors were cut incorrectly and so they would be reinstalled next week.

Sigh.  The Dark Side is looking pretty good right now. 

Fruit Salad, Yummy Yummy.

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We’ve been experiencing SUMMER here in YYC.  The days have been sunny, and warm – hot even.  Of course, this is relative.  The highest temperature of the week is 30 degrees Celsius, which is 86 degrees Fahrenheit, which – when compared with my friends down in Virginia, where the tarmac at an airport melted in the 105 F heat, plus 90% humidity – seems more pleasantly warm than scorching.  However, according to local newscasters, this is a heat wave!  And we’re all going to melt! 

This is my very favourite kind of weather; in the rare occasions that it does get this warm, I get a crazy case of carpe diem: Must.Spend.Every.Possible.Minute.Outside.Before.Snow.Comes.  Fortunately, being a lady of leisure, I can do this.  For example, on Sunday we spent the whole afternoon lounging beside our backyard pool:

Unfortunately some armed thugs stormed the yard:

The dog retreated to the safety of the deck:

And I got a (relative) suntan!

Yesterday the boys and I spent the whole afternoon with a friend and her two sons at the local outdoor pool and it was so hot that I actually voluntarily got in the water.  That never happens.  Fortunately this guy biked over to the pool, and things got even HOTTER:

Sadly, this is untrue – the pool was filled with moms and kids.  The happy shrieking was enough to keep the wildlife away:

WHERE ARE THE ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVISTS?  Won’t anyone think of the poor baby lions?

But I realize that, although I love the heat, there are people who do not.  For them, I give you tips on keeping cool, even if you do not have a backyard pool and/or local outdoor pool at your disposal, like I do.  Here’s an idea: pour yourself a cocktail with lots of ice and run a nice, cool bubble bath:

Or maybe take your sailboat out onto the water:

Aiee.  Tan lines. 

Don’t worry about cooking dinner.  Fruit salad will do just fine.  Don’t forget the pineapple.

ALL of these men were featured in issues of Playgirl from the 1970s.  As my friend Beck said, how were any of us born if that’s what the desirable dudes looked like back then?  It truly is mysterious.