Monthly Archives: January 2015

Be the change you want to see in the world

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We all have our triggers; those little things that cause us to feel like raging against the machine, those issues that have our blood pressure soaring and our heart rates pumping. In my case, this is seeing shopping carts left carelessly in the parking lot. Extra steam for carts left carelessly when the corral is right there, such as in the Costco parking lot. This enrages me no end; people who are too lazy to take those extra few steps to return their carts, instead causing inconvenience for other shoppers and extra work for the store staff.

But be the change you want to see, right? If there is something wrong in the world, start by changing yourself. The man in the mirror, etcetera. So a few weeks ago, I felt the rage when I was at the Co-Op and saw carts scattered randomly around the parking lot. I took one with me to do my shopping. My friend Alice (HI ALICE) calls this Shopping Cart Karma; if you take a cart back to the store, you will have a good shopping experience. I did, in fact, have a good shopping experience – a cashier opened up a new line and I was the first in the line – and so after I took my groceries to the car I decided to ramp up my karma, and I took back four other carts to the corral. I even caught an elderly man in the act of pushing his cart to the side of his parking stall; I plastered a crazy-lady smile on my face and said, possibly a bit too loudly, “I’ll take that for you!” I walked through the parking lot with a train of carts, which is actually much, much harder than it looks, especially in the snow.

This act of cart-returning has yielded great grocery shopping experiences ever since, which means that Alice is a genius. Yesterday I went to Costco and not only were there brilliant deals – I got a life-changing dish rack, for example – but the fellow who packed my cart was, quite literally, the single greatest cart packer ever. That man knew what he was doing. He created layers, the boxes he used were perfectly leveled so they were ergonomically easy to remove from the cart, and all spare spaces were filled with various dry goods. I was so impressed I complimented him three times and also commented about it to the people who checked my carts as I left the store. I was one step away from screaming “Congratulations, Costco, on such an upstanding employee! This man deserves a plaque!” That may have been overkill, though.

I bought so many things that it took a solid forty-five minutes to bring everything in from the car and put everything away. I walked up and down the stairs so many times that I regretted not carrying my phone with me; my stair climbing stats would have been through the roof. Alas. My life-changing dish rack, though. This is probably a sad commentary on my housewifery, but it is a thing of beauty. I actually had to rearrange my kitchen countertops because of this item, which turned out to be for the best. The kids came home and actually oooed and aahhhhed a little about it. I have a VERY FANCY BEAUTIFUL DISH RACK AND I LOVE IT.

Speaking of fancy things, today is Fancy Day at school. Fancy Day. Here’s your one chance, Fancy, don’t let me down. It’s a Spirit Day, meaning the kids get points for participating; in this case, it means that students are supposed to dress “fancy”. Not to be all gender-specific, but this seems like a much more girl-centric Spirit Day than others. My children went to school in jeans, t-shirts, and button up shirts, which is their definition of “very fancy”. Hopefully they get points for that.

Believe me, I’m not complaining. Fancy Day is far better than Dress As Your Favourite Story Book Character Day or Dress As What You Want To Be When You Grow Up Day, both of which are ridiculous, in my opinion. How many of us have story book character costumes at our disposal? Certainly not me. And while I found it hilarious that one of my friend’s sons wore regular clothes and said he was dressing up as a stay-at-home dad, in general that day is not easy to come up with a costume idea either. Besides, one of my sons wants to be an engineer and the other wants to be a commodity trader, and the clothing choices for both of those are really up for interpretation.

The next Spirit Day is Wear Your Toque Inside Day which at first struck me as lame and “we’ve run out of ideas”. But on further reflection, I believe that it is in lieu of Crazy Hat Day, one of my most-loathed days. Why must we make hats crazy? So I acquiesce to Wear Your Toque Inside Day, which will cause me absolutely zero extra effort and which has the added benefit of keeping kids warm, unlike Crazy Hat Day, when children are likely to wear sombreros or giant Cat-in-the-Hat creations or fascinators in whipping wind and blizzard conditions. All hail Wear Your Toque Inside Day!

In December, the school was collecting socks and toiletry items for the Drop-In Centre, and tied in Funky Sock Day. Everyone wear your funky socks! I assumed they meant “funkily decorated” and not “unwashed for weeks” and so I asked the kids what they wanted to do. Mark took a pair of light grey socks and drew smiley faces all over it with a marker. Jake looked at me, and looked at his socks, and said “I really think my socks are funky enough. I mean, they have a blue stripe on them so…” he trailed off and I nodded in agreement. As someone who only has plain black socks, I am fully in support of a blue stripe counting as funky and different.

All that time spent searching, and it was right there in front of me.

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In further Adventures In My Back Alley, last week there was a dead rabbit. Now, my neighbourhood has a lot of big jackrabbits running (hopping?) around, and their numbers are exceeded only by the squirrel population. We are overrun. Anyway, given the large jackrabbit population, it is rare to see a dead one – they are quite street-smart, these rabbits – and so it is notable that there was a squashed one 100 feet away from my garage. I don’t know what was more upsetting, the squashed carcass or the massive flock of magpies eating it. It was quite distressing, since I drive past this carnage several times a day on my way to school, activities, groceries, etc. Then, one day, it was completely gone. Is it possible the magpies carried it away? Or is one of my neighbours much more strong-stomached than me, and felt it was his or her duty to the neighbourhood to clean it up? In any case, it’s gone, leaving only a stain on the ice behind.

It’s like a gross suburban nature show. I’m sort of surprised no one has made a reality series based on carrion and scavengers.

In much nicer news, I realized that my phone has a “Health” app on it. I know. I know. It’s all very five years ago, but I’ve spent some time in waiting rooms in the past week, and so due to extreme boredom I actually looked at the Health app. It features a step counter, which immediately made me feel inferior. Apparently, in order to keep up with my competitive nature, I need to start carrying my phone everywhere now. My steps are too low! If I walked 10,000 steps but the phone wasn’t there to capture it, did it really happen?

Speaking of Health, I’ve had lots of appointments lately, which makes me want to write a whole series of posts about Women’s Health. For example, last Friday I had a colposcopy, and the first thing I did was inform the gynecologist that the last time I was there, her partner couldn’t find my cervix, so I just wanted to let her know that I have a mysterious, hidden cervix. I used the words “cavernous wasteland” and I was talking pretty quickly because I was nervous, and feeling slightly exposed, what with my feet in the stirrups and no pants and anticipating a high level of discomfort. She listened to me, frowning, and looked at my chart. She looked at me, then at the chart again, and said “But I don’t have anything like that written down. Usually I note down any issues.”

I used my ujjayi breath, trying to stem the panic as she started the exam. “Huh.” she said, “Here’s your cervix. It’s…not hidden. Don’t worry. You’re not a wasteland.”

So that was relieving. Regarding womanhood, and women’s bodies, I found this very interesting, about changes in the “ideal female body” over the past 100 years. One conclusion that I think we can draw is that the “ideal female body” varies vastly from decade to decade, and we should all say “fuck it” and just celebrate our bodies the way they are. Right? Also, reading this I learned that I have the same bra size as both Jean Harlowe and Farrah Fawcett, which strikes me as gratifying, in a very strange way.

I told my husband this, since he was a big fan of Farrah back in the day, but he was less interested that I anticipated. “Isn’t she dead? How do you know her bra size?” Oh, honey. Just let me have my five minutes of weird same-bra-as-a-1970s-poster-girl moment.

I will now leave you with this photo, of Barkley dressed as an elderly lady who is judging you.

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Barkley is disappointed in your choices. He thinks you are wearing too much lipstick, and your skirt could be longer. He thinks that ladies do not talk about their cervix.

Middle Sister

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Wow, what a week! It wasn’t a bad week, just a very long and hectic one. On Wednesday afternoon I wrote “liquor store” on my Thursday to-do list, which is kind of telling. I dropped the boys at their karate class and hot-footed it to the liquor store. I browsed around a bit, and noticed that a wine I like was on sale. I opened up a case to make sure it was the type I wanted – for whatever reason I didn’t see the information on the case itself. The cashier looked at me strangely, and said, in a bit of a snippy voice, “That wine is on the display! You can just take a bottle!” I smiled sweetly and informed her that no, I wanted the whole case, which caused the entire lineup of people to swivel around to look at the wino in aisle 2. What?

After hauling my case into the car, I texted a friend a photo of a cute bottle of wine that I saw.

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The Wild One! That’s me! Even though I went to bed before eight last night.

Isn’t that the cutest? I texted it to my friend because she has three beautiful girls, and I feel a particular kinship with the middle one. I am a middle child myself, although I don’t have sisters, and so I decided to go back into the liquor store and pick up a couple of those bottles.

Nothing says “stability” like going back to the liquor store 90 seconds after leaving it.

Anyway, I was in line to pay for the three more bottles of wine I had somehow picked up, when I overheard the conversation from the other lineup. An older man was paying with cash, and the cashier asked him if he had five cents, so as not to have to give him a pile of change. He didn’t. “Oh! I have five cents!” I blurted out to this complete stranger, as I dug through my wallet for a nickel. As he was leaving, he said to me, “Thanks again, young lady, that was very kind.” Now, I don’t know how kind it is to give someone five cents, but it was worth many times that to hear the words “young lady”.

It was nice to hear, since I watched myself on the local television program I was on this week. I realized, suddenly, why I am so wrinkly. Not only do I talk with my hands, but I really talk with my face. I am like a female Jim Carrey, but without the…well…most of Jim Carrey. I have a lot of expressions, is all I’m saying. Also, my mouth is huge. I laugh and smile a lot with all teeth showing. This isn’t a bad thing, just an explanation for the forehead wrinkles and smile lines.

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This is WITH filters.

It’s been freakishly warm here – I am certainly not complaining; any day in January that is not minus 30 is a win, as far as I’m concerned. But it has been ABOVE ZERO for a few weeks now! Someone suggested that perhaps this is due to my recent boot purchase. Hey, if I knew I could alter weather patterns via my clothing purchases, I would have bought ALL THE BOOTS years ago. Who knew I had so much power?

Ma’am, that is not a bunion.

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Today has been one of those crazy-hectic days that make me feel that if I stop moving, all will be ashes. Do you know what I mean? I am quite proud of myself, though, because this morning I managed to exercise, shower, have breakfast (and several cups of much-needed coffee), and get the kids to the dentist, all before 8 am. Please, no one try to talk to me after 8 pm tonight, though, because I will likely be in a semi-coma.

So, it’s been that kind of day, and I have exactly 10 minutes to write this post before picking up Mark for a podiatrist appointment. I cannot say the word podiatrist without giggling, thanks to my friend Janet (HI JANET). The other day I was complaining about a gynecologist; my scheduled gynecologist was sick, and I had to settle for her partner, who could be best described as “ham handed”. The man couldn’t find my cervix with a map and compass. He actually kept complaining about it; my mysteriously hidden cervix, which really made me feel like I was some kind of cavernous wasteland of womanhood. I mean, I’m pretty sure my cervix is at the end of my vaginal canal. I HAVE a cervix, it has to be in there somewhere. Isn’t that, to quote Miss Cornelia, just like a man? I don’t know about you, but if there is a missing item in my house, my house full of boys, then it is up to ME to find it. Maybe it’s a testosterone thing. Men in general seem to be lacking the ability to find missing household items; either that, or it’s a wretched learned behaviour. In any case, having a male gynecologist jabbing his speculum aggressively in my nether regions is unpleasant at best.

In any case, I was telling Janet (HI JANET) about this un-fun experience, and she suggested that perhaps the gynecologist was really a podiatrist, and was just too embarrassed to say anything. This is awkward, but ma’am, could you please put your underwear back on? That is NOT a bunion.

This morning I was listening to the radio, and there was a commercial about New Year’s Resolutions, Weight Loss, and Quitting Smoking via hypnotism. They were advertising for Raveen. Remember Raveen? I clearly recall Raveen commercials of my childhood, probably while watching The Price is Right. It seemed weird to me that Raveen would still be performing hypnotism, so I looked it up when I got home. People, Raveen died in 2013. What is up with the radio commercial? Is there a Raveen Junior? Is Raveen helping people from beyond the grave? I don’t know.

In any case, my ten minutes is up and I need to go to the podiatrist – or maybe the gynecologist, who knows? – so I hope you all are having a lovely day! xo

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For local people, I will be on Shaw Trending tomorrow morning from 10:00-11:00 am, on Channel 10. I’ll be talking parenting: free-range, helicopter, and toboggan hills. If you’re around, I’d love it if you’d tune in!

Nicole’s Favourite Things: Homemade Eye Makeup Remover

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Regular readers and people who know me in person know that I am not an “au naturel” type of girl. Unless I’m deathly ill, I put on makeup and do my hair every single day. I have done this so long that I have it down to a science. I could fairly reliably “put my face on” without a mirror, if I had to. I mean, that wouldn’t be ideal, but I COULD do it.

Some people switch up their makeup looks regularly, but I do not. I’ve worn the same basic eye makeup since I was in junior high, so it’s safe to say that I’ve gone through my share of dark brown eyeliner pencils and black mascara. I never wear eye shadow and I don’t play around with different colours of eye makeup. Black mascara. Dark brown eyeliner. The end.

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Typical daily eye makeup.

 

But the other day I inadvertently DID switch it up. I opened up a new package of my favourite mascara – Maybelline “The Falsies”, if you’re wondering – applied it, and went about my day. It wasn’t until bedtime when I was washing my face that I noticed something different. The mascara did not wash off with my normal cleanser.

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Eye makeup after washing with normal cleanser. Eye liner is gone. Mascara remains.

I looked carefully at the tube of mascara, and, sure enough, it was labelled “Waterproof”. Dammit! I was so busy figuring out if I wanted “Blackest Black” or “Very Black” or “Black” that I didn’t notice I had purchased the waterproof version of The Falsies.

Side note: there is no notable difference between Blackest Black, Very Black, and Black. They are all black. Just pick one and stop dithering about it.

I was annoyed for several reasons: I didn’t have another mascara to switch to, I didn’t have time to run to the drugstore to replace it, it was a brand new tube and I feel massive guilt about throwing out something brand new (you may as well throw MONEY in the trash), and I did not have any eye makeup remover in the house.

SPOILER ALERT: I DID have eye makeup remover in the house, but I didn’t know it at the time!

I thought that if I just went to bed, eventually the mascara would wear off. I tried washing it off the next morning, and I probably aged my poor undereye skin twenty years by doing so.

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Look at the bags under my eyes! I should probably sleep past 4:30 am sometimes.

After washing several times, even using a soft cloth to scrub, I still had mascara on my lashes, with the added benefit of smeared mascara under my eyes, exacerbating my undereye circles.

Necessity is indeed the mother of invention. This country was built on innovation, hard work, and strength of character. My ancestors did not live in sod houses on the prairie for nothing. As a child, my dad used to get paid to pick up rocks out of the wheat field, and he was GLAD to do it, goddammit. We are a sturdy folk and if I cannot stand up to the struggle of waterproof mascara, then all is lost.

Let’s cut to the chase; if you want to make your own eye makeup remover, look no further than your own kitchen cupboards for the magical ingredient: Coconut oil. Oh, how I love the coconut. Coconut oil is really an amazing thing; it’s delicious and great for cooking but it is also wonderful for moisturizing and hair masks. Since I have quite processed, fried hair, I will sometimes rub a little into my orange straw-like tresses and voila! I feel like a low-end hair model. It absorbs nicely without being greasy, which is nice if you’re uninterested in getting acne or oily hair. It also removes waterproof eye makeup and moisturizes the thin, delicate undereye skin as a bonus.

Steps To Homemade Eye Makeup Remover

1) Take 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon coconut oil.

2) Using your fingers, gently rub it on your eyelashes.

3) Rub for 30-60 seconds, until your eyelashes feel soft and mascara-less. 

4) Use your regular facial cleanser to wash off the residual oil.

5) Rinse and pat dry.

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See? This is my face after coconut oil and regular face wash. NO MASCARA. It’s a miracle, a tropically-scented miracle!

That’s it! Easy, economical, and very effective.

The joys of tween boys.

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Tweens, am I right? Parenting tweens is – I’m discovering – a funny business. There’s the newly found need for space, the sudden interest in girls, the need for me to tell the kids to GET OUT OF THE SHOWER, IT’S BEEN TWENTY MINUTES. There’s some emotional outbursts, although from what I can glean from my friends with daughters, the emotional outbursts that occur in my house are like a peaceful ocean wave compared with the Lieutenant Dan Fighting With God During Hurricane Carmen of Girl Emotions. Or, say, my Ladies’ Holiday Emotions. So, essentially what I’m saying is that if there is an emotional outburst, it’s more likely to come from me than anyone else, but I am finding that the tween years are slightly more emotional than the robot-level of emotion displayed by the boys in years past.

I will tell you the greatest thing ever about parenting tweens, at least in my house: they like to talk about what they are doing in school, and this translates into some very interesting and entertaining conversations. For example, today we were chatting about myths, and I told them the story of King Midas. They were fascinated; at first by the level of greed, and secondly about all the ways you could destroy the world with such a power.

Speaking of destruction, Mark has been learning chemistry at school, which makes me happy because I loved stoichiometry back in the day. Jake is a bit jealous about the chemistry unit, and has mentioned a few times that he cannot wait until he can take chemistry, so he can make experiments that blow up. Godspeed and wear your protective goggles, please. Anyway, Mark has been enjoying everything about chemistry: the periodic table, litmus papers, and the like. The other day, we were chatting about various fruits, and Jake reiterated his dislike for the following: fresh pineapple, oranges, and lemons.

Me: Jake, you really don’t like acidic fruits!

Mark: Jake’s just a basic kind of guy.

THAT’S MY BOY.

Mark had brought home his creative writing journal, and in it was an assignment in which the students use creative words to describe a person.

me

Orange hair is mentioned TWICE. Well, I cannot very well deny that it is true, given that any time I’m photographed in front of our burnt-orange walls, my hair fades into the background.

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I like that my son sees me as friendly, and I like his description of my clothing and jewelry, but is it strange to take exception at “wears pink lipstick”? I associate pink lipstick with either the frosted pink of the 1960s or the neon colours of 1987. Either way, it’s not a look I want to embrace. Nevertheless, I can hardly think that he will take well to my lessoning him on the different shades of lipstick in my purse – tween boys do have their limits, and I’m guessing he won’t be amenable to learning the difference between “pink” and “shell”.

Boots and songbooks: where have you been all my life?

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It’s cold here, but not unusually so, by which I mean today was -22 without windchill and that is the coldest it has been all week. The rest of the week sat around -15 without windchill, which is certainly par for the course for January in Calgary.

My usual morning routine is to drop the kids at school and then meet friends at the off-leash with our dogs. (Who’s a good doggie? Who’s a GOOD DOGGIE? Barkley’s a good doggie!). After our dog walk, I couldn’t feel my feet, which is something that’s been occurring more and more often lately. Lest you think I was underdressed for the weather, this was my outfit: turtleneck sweater underneath a thick wool sweater, jeans, thick woollen legwarmers, two pairs of socks, ankle length parka with hood, earmuffs, gloves underneath thick mittens, and my Joan of Arctic Sorel boots.

Remember when I bought those Sorel boots, years ago, and how it was a revelation to me? They no longer are the godsend they once were. I don’t know if it’s a factor of lots of wear or if my Reynaud’s and circulation issues are just getting worse, but in any case, I’ve been really suffering lately. After spending most of the day in foot agony post-walk, I decided that it was high time for new boots. And I went to MARK’S WORK WEARHOUSE.

End times are nigh.

I went into the store and spoke to the very young male associate. I informed him that I wanted the warmest pair of boots available. These are pretty warm, he said, to which I responded, No. I want your WARMEST pair. Whatever your warmest pair is, I will take them.

I came home with marginally ugly but OMG MAGICAL boots.

snowqueen

They are called Snow Queens, which makes me feel regal.

I feel like my life has changed, with one trip to Mark’s Work Wearhouse. Previously my trips there have been only to purchase Christmas gifts for my father-in-law.

In other where have you been all my life news, I had ordered a piano song book and yesterday it arrived. It may be the single greatest song book of all time.

songs

Look at that lineup! And it doesn’t even tell the whole story.

I’ve been playing the piano for almost thirty years – I was quite serious about it for many years, but now I just play for fun.

Digression: how many of us were into something like a sport or an instrument in a very serious way, but now as adults we say “now I just do it for fun”? I have friends who were competitive figure skaters, gymnasts, divers, hockey players, and swimmers, as well as those of us who spent hours daily at an instrument. Question for another day: was it worth it? Are the intangible lessons from that kind of discipline enough to outweigh the time, money, and energy spent? I like to think so, but honestly I am not sure. Thoughts? In any case, I was very happy to be able to spend hours a day at the piano, back in the day, and I’m very happy now to be able to play. I wish my kids had some interest in playing, but they can barely summon up the wherewithal to play their recorders.

Anyway, for the past few years I’ve been feeling a little stale at the piano. Other than Christmas music, my general repertoire was Fur Elise, followed by New York State of Mind or Piano Man, ending with Solfeggio in C Minor. Occasionally I’d plunk away at something new but would be mostly bored.

I tell you this: my new songbook has revitalized every feeling I’ve ever had about piano. Because look!

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OMG

I had initially ordered the songbook for Don’t Stop Believing, but THIS was the first song I chose. I played it for my husband last night, who was nonplussed.

Mr: I don’t even know what you’re playing.

Me: It’s Islands in the Stream!

Mr: *goes back to reading about the NFL*

So that was disappointing. However, as I flipped through I saw the music for Stairway to Heaven and started to play.

Mr: Now THAT’S a good song.

Other gems: Wish You Were Here, Open Arms, Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong, and EYE OF THE TIGER. I’m not sure how that will translate to piano, but ever since I heard that guy play Sweet Child of Mine on the accordion, I’ve been inspired to think outside the music box. Heh. Music box.