Monthly Archives: April 2018

Royal Birthdays

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My goodness, I have so much to say, and I haven’t had any time to say it! First of all – Royal Baby! I was on Royal Baby Watch for exactly fifteen minutes. I was in my car coming home from yoga at 6:05 am, and I heard that we were Officially On Royal Baby Watch. I showered and when my husband came into the bathroom at 6:20 I excitedly reported the news.

Husband: She had a boy.

Me: What? No, that was George. She’s in the hospital now!

Husband: I just heard it on the radio. She had a boy.

Me: Oh.

As an aside, I’ve seen a lot of posts discussing the Duchess’ appearance mere hours after the birth of little Louis, and frankly, most of them are off-putting. The posts start out like this: can you even believe what she looks like? Then they move to this: you would look that good too if you had a staff. If this was a decision tree, one branch would then go to well, she looks amazing and the other would devolve into a bitter tirade against her life and the fact of her being photographed for all the world to see so soon after giving birth.

You guys, we talk so much about toxic masculinity and the patriarchy, and for good reason, but let us please remember that we should be lifting each other up, not tearing each other down, and in that spirit, LAY OFF KATE AND STOP JUDGING WOMEN ON THEIR APPEARANCES.

Of course I know none of us look like the Duchess immediately following birth, just like none of us have a staff of many to help us be photographed in a beautiful outfit complete with heels. But that doesn’t make our birth experiences any less valid or wonderful; we are all uniquely beautiful and special and this is a good time to be reminded of that.

This is what I looked like in the twelve hours following the births of my children:

None of us are married to the heir to the British throne, and our jobs are not to birth other heirs to the British throne. My job requires me to wear yoga pants and to obtain and prepare an obscene amount of food every day, but if it required me to put on a pretty dress and take my baby outside for photographs, I too would get my staff to make sure I looked good for those photos. Instead of focusing on how we all left the hospital in our weird hospital-issue mesh underwear and industrial strength sanitary napkins, with our mushy post-partum bellies sagging over the waistband of our maternity jeans, and our giant swelling breasts barely contained within our super-ugly nursing bras, let’s just enjoy those beautiful photos and take a break from all the gross lunacy in the world, and be happy that there is a baby in the news instead.

Speaking of the British throne, last Saturday was my birthday, which I share with none other than QEII herself. It was such a glorious weekend. For one thing, it appears that spring has finally arrived and the glacier in my back yard has receded to a mere blip of ice; the past week has seen me frantically cleaning up the gardens that are finally thawed and dry enough to work in, and the sun, my god, the sun. The sun is shining and I have been leaving the house in sweaters and light jackets. Yesterday when I went to teach a class I wore capri length yoga pants and shoes, SHOES. So all is sunshine and happiness around here; the birthday weekend was filled with good food, cake, wine, and lovely presents.

Including this gigantic wine glass from my parents. I love a wine glass that is nearly the size of my face, like oh, I’ll just have ONE glass of wine tonight. In case you can’t read it, it says “Queen of Everything” which is a very fitting way to end this royal post.

I remember waiting for the school bus…

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Two days ago I decided to take an enormous leap of faith and wash my calf-length, super-warm parka. I put it in the downstairs closet, along with my Sorels, and I hope that I haven’t cursed us all. I did leave out my other giant, but shorter, parka just in case. It’s my birthday in a couple of days and I keep forgetting, because there is still so much snow and ice on the ground that it doesn’t feel like it’s as late in the year as it is. Don’t get me wrong; snow in April is nothing new, and neither is snow in May. The difference this year is that we still have snow on the ground that was there in October; winter snow, as opposed to spring snow, as my dad helpfully differentiated for me the other day.

Well, I finished Prairie Fires and I am gratified anew to a) not be a pioneer, b) not be the mother of a crazed Libertarian who destroys all relationships, and c) to live in the modern age. I am also gratified that my plumbing and running water issues have – knock on wood a thousand times – been resolved. As I mentioned, the very good-looking young plumber had fixed a lot of things but the water filter was leaking, which required a visit from the very specific Water Filter Guy. The last time the Water Filter Guy was here, said Guy was an older, kindly gentleman who has since retired and left his clients to a new, Startlingly Handsome Water Filter Guy. Seriously, people, I opened the door and wondered if I was on hidden camera.

I always find it interesting, the career trajectories of other people. Was Startlingly Handsome Water Filter Guy always such? No, he was once a high school basketball coach. My own career has changed so much over the years; I find it fascinating how people find themselves in different lines of work. Of course, often the trajectory is more pragmatic, more about paying the bills and flexible schedules and so forth, but still.

School bus drivers, for example. It’s a flexible schedule and probably not badly paid – I have no idea, really – but you would have to be a special kind of person to be able to be in a large motorized vehicle with dozens of insanely loud children every day. Every morning when I drop the kids off at school I see the line of empty buses at the end of the street, and beside one of them is a driver, having a smoke. He wears shorts every single day, no matter what the weather is, with a ball cap and a hoodie, hood up. As I watch him smoke, I think of Otto the bus driver on The Simpsons. The guy just dropped off a bus full of junior high students, he NEEDS that cigarette, people. Obviously it cannot wait, his nerves depend on it. And who can blame him? Not me.

Last week I volunteered on a field trip for the Grade Eight Environmental and Outdoor Education class. Often their field trips are – obviously – outdoor based, but this one was to the climbing wall, and so it seemed to be more up my alley. I am a fair weather volunteer, and the weather has not, as I MAY have mentioned, been fair. I stepped on the bus and did a double take: the bus driver looked EXACTLY like Kid Rock.

Hat, hair, facial hair, clothing, everything. It was really uncanny. I started to wonder if it WAS Kid Rock, and if I should ask him to turn the stereo up and roll the windows down but sadly, I did not. He was pretty calm with the mass chaos on the bus, the hooligan grade eights, and so I was a little disappointed that he wasn’t driving the return bus. Rather, it was an older lady who was the female version of this:

 

Which, frankly, is completely understandable. It is the exact feeling I get when I’m driving a minivan-full of boys around. Flexible schedule or not, it would be – in my opinion – a terrible job, navigating traffic, the noise level, driving a huge uncomfortable bus.

Volunteering for junior high field trips is very different from elementary ones. For one thing, the bus situation – despite all this – is much better. The elementary school used to have kids three to a seat, even in the later grades, which meant that the bus would be hot, crowded, and extremely smelly, grade five and six students not being known for their excellent personal hygiene. Junior high kids, thank god, wear deodorant and brush their teeth, for the most part, anyway. Secondly, the volunteer gig itself mostly involves just existing, since the kids don’t need help with anything at all. I think the extra parents are just there for insurance purposes, because there is literally nothing to do but stare at the kids for several hours.

I took a few pictures though:

That’s my boy! I don’t tend to be a worrier, but there was a moment when I saw him at the top of the wall, knowing that he was being belayed by another fourteen-year-old who had just learned how to belay twenty minutes prior…well. All was fine. It was like the moment I had in Huatulco, when we took a local boat tour and snorkeling trip. We spotted two whales and some dolphins, and the boat driver – the captain, I guess? – sped out towards them. I thought, here we are, off the coast of Mexico, in a nine-person boat, heading off into the Pacific Ocean with a giant sea mammal nearby that could theoretically capsize this tiny boat, and no one outside our group knows where we are right now…

Anyway, as we all say it doesn’t pay to worry about what MIGHT happen. All’s well that ends well, and least said, soonest mended as Ma Ingalls was known to say, although this is a blog. Least said, soonest mended does not seem to be my mantra.

Get it on, bang a gong.

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Yesterday the 14-year-old got to bang this gong, signaling the removal of his braces:

Happiness has indeed arrived! For a little while, at least. The braces, which were supposed to be on for 18-20 months, lasted 26 months and if you don’t think that extra six months is a big deal, you are wrong. Of course, now he has a retainer and an appointment for a checkup in two months, which takes us to the exact same week the 12-year-old has an appointment to see if he’s ready to get his braces put on. I shall enjoy this two month reprieve from the orthodontist’s office greatly.

I really do love the orthodontist office: everyone is so lovely and professional, and they have all sorts of neat little things for the kids, the gong, for example. After getting the braces off, the kids get a gift pack full of the treats they aren’t supposed to have while under orthodontic care, but that my son has been enjoying this whole time. It’s a nice gesture, anyway. They have video games and saltwater fish tanks in the waiting room, kids spin a wheel to get prizes like gift cards for frozen yogurt or movie passes, and a couple times a year the orthodontist rents out a movie theatre for all the current patients to enjoy, popcorn-less though they may be. I really do like the practice except for one thing: their appointment reminders.

Here’s how it goes: I make an appointment at the office, and I receive a calendar sticker and not one but TWO emails confirming the date and time. Two weeks prior to the appointment I receive an automated phone call. Three days prior I receive another two emails; the next day I receive a text, and the day before the appointment another phone call. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that even for the least organized person in the world, EIGHT reminders for each appointment is too many. There is going to be an overlap with my kids and I am already sighing, thinking of the myriad reminders I am going to get. I won’t forget, I promise.

Do you have an old-school paper calendar? I have an agenda that everyone in the house calls my “Mom Book” and I write down absolutely everything, from the meal plan to appointments to yoga classes to general housekeeping/ baking chores that need to be done. Everything I do is written in the book and if it’s not there, I will be totally lost. I know many people rely on their phones but for me, it’s all about my paper agenda.

I’ve had a lot of things to write down in the last week – more than normal, even – because we had a furnace/ thermostat issue that snowballed into several plumber-related issues. Last week when it was minus 22 with windchill, no I’m not kidding, in April, I noticed that the furnace was kicking in at odd and seemingly random times. As well, our never-used bathtub was only getting cold water, and while it is never used, I would still like it to be working properly in the event that there is an issue with the always-used shower. Then, the day the plumber came there was an enormous water leak underneath our kitchen sink that was leaking into the basement, which turned out to be our water filter, which required me making a completely separate appointment with the water filter people. The single benefit to this, other than getting all these things fixed, is that our plumber is a very good looking and jovial young man, which made such an afternoon spent getting work done much more pleasant.

Well, at least I’m not pregnant in a covered wagon, I said to myself. It’s my new mantra since the following books came in at the library on the same day.

For those of you who loved the Little House books – not the TV show, that’s a whole separate thing – you will love these books. I am only partway into Prairie Fires, but I just finished reading about the Hard Winter. It made me feel badly complaining about Calgary weather; I am not, after all, living in an uninsulated tarpaper shack cut off from the rest of the world in a state of semi-starvation with no solution whatsoever. The thermostat wasn’t working, so we got it fixed! I didn’t have to start burning hay or anything to keep the family from literally freezing to death. If you ever want to feel good about modern life, these books are a good start. Do I have to cook cornbread over an open fire somewhere in Minnesota immediately after my husband inadvertently almost drowns us all? No? Am I pregnant and riding in a covered wagon for months and the only upside to that condition is not having to wash out rags used for my monthly visitor? No? Am I living miles away from a neighbour and worried about giving birth by myself in a tiny shack in the vast prairie with no medical care? No? Then probably everything is a-okay.

Lube, Oil, and Filter

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Something happened on vacation that was both eye-opening and a little unsettling: I was universally referred to as “senora.” Now, I don’t truly believe that an almost-43-year-old-woman SHOULD be referred to as “senorita” but it would be nice, is all I’m saying.

As a side note, the hostess for breakfast said brightly to me, “Hola, Senora Nicole!” and I was very taken aback since a) I did not tell her my name, b) the reservation for the resort was under my husband’s name and c) there were hundreds of people staying there, how did she know I was me? In fact, I asked her how she knew my name, and she said “It is your beautiful smile, Senora.” Which is lovely but still didn’t explain anything. The only thing I could think of was that she was at the karaoke party the night before and, well, I had a few numbers. If that is true, then a) my performances were memorable, and b) holy crap she must have worked a very long day as karaoke started at nine pm, and breakfast started at seven am.

Anyway, karaoke as an entertainment medium deserves its own post.

As I get older, I’m struck by how much more maintenance our bodies need; things that would have horrified me twenty years ago are now just part of my life and routine. I’m not even talking about things like facial depilation or constant root touch-ups, I’m talking about how, even after having had varicose veins stripped I have all new ones developing and have to wear medical-grade stockings on the plane so as to not die from a rogue blood clot, or, less dramatically, to not have sore and swollen legs after every flight.

People, you do not know glamour until you try to don or remove medical grade support hose in a public washroom. On the way to Mexico I wisely wore my sexy beige thigh-high stockings (pictured above) so when we landed in the 34 degree heat, I could remove them fairly easily while waiting for our luggage, “easily” being a relative term. On the way home, I had my full-length, pantyhose-style stockings to wear, but I did not want to die of heatstroke on the way to the airport. How hard could it be, I reasoned, to put them on in the airport washroom? The answer is: very hard. I’m sure the other passengers were wondering what exactly was happening in that stall on the left as I accidentally kicked the door, tipped over into wall, and inadvertently pushed my skirt – which I had removed to stand on to protect my feet from bathroom germs – out of the stall and into the middle of the bathroom. I emerged semi-victorious, with my pantyhose ending just a few inches from my bra line, wearing yoga pants to retrieve my skirt, noting that the other women were looking away rather quickly.

In the two weeks before our trip, I had three appointments set up, and all of them reminded me that while I feel very much like I am of the “Perennials,” I am indeed middle-aged. Although, I’m hoping to live a lot longer than 86, so maybe not quite middle-aged. In any case, these appointments were important and necessary, and please consider this your reminder to get them booked. For your reading pleasure, I have ranked them in order of agony, with 1 being the least and 3 being the greatest.

Mammogram

I know many women find mammograms painful and scary, and I would say that having the worst case scenario running through your head is the worst part. The first time I had one done, I was getting a lump investigated and not only did I have the mammogram but I also had an ultrasound on the lump, and I bit my lip the entire time to keep from crying. Now I get them done annually, and I find them to be not a big deal at all. There’s always the emotional “what if” factor, but in terms of physical comfort, I don’t have a problem with it at all. Perhaps it is my sad, deflated breasts, I don’t know. I do know that my doctor informed me that my breasts are dense. Dense! Let’s not belittle them. They’re just a little slow but otherwise fine. 

I have had great luck with mammogram technicians, who all seem young and perky and like they are choreographing the weirdest dance sequence ever. Okay now let’s lift! Lift here, yes, now turn away, your head too, okay, okay, now stay stay stay, oops, let’s lift again, and turn. Perfect! Stay! Yes! I have also – and here’s a hot tip for you – realized that if you have long hair, wear it up when you are getting a mammogram. Otherwise it can get in the way and things get even weirder in terms of choreography.

Another benefit is that you get to wear these saucy medical gowns!

Speaking as someone who has on more than one occasion – including very recently – put a medical gown on the wrong way, I appreciated the photos. But I did think it was a little odd; would people really not tie their gowns closed if they knew it was a single-sex change room? Is it only because it’s co-ed that we are supposed to not walk around with our breasts/ junk exposed? I mean, isn’t not flashing someone just a condition of living in a society? Well. If there is a sign – which was not there during my last appointment – there must be a reason.

However, I had some serious wardrobe malfunctions anyway. The gowns are in two sizes, depending on the colour, and the pink one they gave me is the larger size, which meant that even when I tied it as tightly as I could, the walk to the exam room led to a flapping open of the too-big gown, and some inadvertent exposure of the girls. At least it was just me and the technician, and so I was not called out for flouting the “close your gown” rules in front of elderly men or the like.

Pelvic Exam

I have had a history of doctors who couldn’t find my cervix and believe me when I say that is a very uncomfortable position to be in. I’m sure it’s there! I would joke, wincing with pain. After a very painful pelvic exam and pap that had to be REPEATED because the lab didn’t have enough “material to work with,” as it were, my doctor wrote a few notes down on my file and told me what to remind him of for the future.

I followed those directions and this past test was not terribly unpleasant, although I did feel awkward, while on the examining table, blurting out Don’t forget I need the LARGE speculum! The green one! Green for go!

The large speculum. My feminine mystique takes a bit of a beating.

Dental Scaling

By far my least favourite, I have to steel myself just to make the appointment for dental cleanings and checkups. For one thing, it takes so LONG. I suppose I could cut down on coffee consumption, but life needs to be worth living, and my god, think of the children. I have excellent dental hygiene – I brush several times a day and floss daily, I use a water pik, I buy extra whitening toothpaste – and yet, the sixty minutes of scaling feels like it says otherwise. In fact, the hygienist told me that my favourite floss, the one that I use daily and love, is “fairly ineffective but better than nothing.” For the record, it is that easy-glide dental tape, because I cannot stand the feeling of strands of floss between my teeth. To me it is akin to chewing tin foil. Shudder shudder forever.

You’ll pry my easy-glide dental tape out of my cold dead hands, I tell you. Remember that study that said that flossing was ineffective anyway? I thought about it but obviously did not refer to it to my lovely and skilled hygienist because a) I didn’t want her to think I was lying about flossing daily as it is important to me, apparently, to be well-regarded by the health care professionals in my life, b) I don’t want to walk around with food in my teeth so I won’t stop flossing, studies be damned, and c) I don’t want to seem like THAT person who quotes random and possibly inaccurate things they read on the internet. So, I took the regular non-easy-glide floss samples without comment, not wanting to flout the hygienist’s advice. At the very least, they can be donated to a shelter, and hopefully the recipient will not also view it as akin to a mouthful of foil.

Huatulco Heat

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Well, hello! I got back Saturday night from a blissful vacation in Huatulco, Mexico, where it is gorgeous and sunny and at least 32 degrees everyday, and there are unlimited mango margaritas to be had, to cold and snow and The Coldest Easter Calgary Has Experienced Since 1940. Well. That was a bit of a slap back to reality, oh, there goes gravity. From I’m a bit too warm in this bikini to I’m wearing all the clothes like Joey from Friends, but not commando.

Also in the past 24 hours I have done five loads of laundry.

But I’m not complaining because really, it was a wonderful and fun vacation with family and friends, and we did so many fun activities – a snorkel/ whale watching trip, jet-skiing, sea kayaking, drinking mango margaritas, karaoke…but more on that later. Huatulco is a very pretty little place in the midst of a national park, and so it is less commercial and busy than other places in Mexico. It was plenty busy, though, with Mexican vacationers on Easter holidays, which made it very fun – a busy resort is a lively resort, in my opinion.

Isn’t it beautiful? I was so ready for a vacation; this winter has been, as I have mentioned numerous times, relentless and – given that Today’s High Is Minus Seven – endless, and life has been, as it is wont to be, Busy. The month of March was particularly hectic, with the week prior to vacation crossing over from Hectic to Frantic. For some reason I thought it would be a great idea to schedule a dentist appointment for myself, an orthodontist appointment for the soon-to-be-braceless-child, teach several extra classes in addition to my regular ones, throw a birthday party for my now-fourteen-year-old, bake and decorate those cupcakes for the party, pack all the suitcases, individually measure out and package 20 meals for the dog as per the kennel instructions and get said dog to the said kennel, and get a wax and pedicure. Sure, the last two could probably have been omitted, but it was a beach vacation, and some things are just not negotiable. I also wrote up a couplet-rhyming treasure hunt for Easter eggs so as to be prepared for the holiday when we returned, which REALLY could have been omitted but I didn’t want to. In other words, I was more than ready to relax, read, and enjoy everything.

Speaking of reading, I finished a number of books on vacation. In A Sunburned Country is a fun read if you are interested at all in Australia. I didn’t think I was, but I ended up fascinated. I also read the very popular The Light We Lost but ended up being infuriated with the main characters. A lady on the beach was also reading that and mentioned that her friend had read it and cried throughout. Do you…find it sad? I asked her. No, not at all, I have no idea what is wrong with my friend. Well. Maybe she was in a different headspace than the two of us, but I found I kept mentally telling the main character that Gabe sucks, and dump him, and enjoy what you have with the guy who planned a weekend to Paris to propose to you, and who cares if he didn’t ASK YOU FIRST ENJOY THE SURPRISE. If you’ve read it I would love to hear your views on it. For me, I found myself becoming very angry, and not at all teary.

I also re-read Asymmetry, and it was even better the second time around, In This Moment, which was a perfect beach read, and this:

The author grew up in Calgary, which is something I really like in authors. I like to see if I can pick out the Spirit of the West, as it were. But it’s a really entertaining read, particularly the essay about the Perfect Skirt. I lent it to my friend to read on the plane home and she also devoured it.

I have much, much more to say, but the dryer just beeped, I need to pick up the dog – Barkley photos to come! – and regular life is calling me. The vacation is already taking on a dream-like quality, like I visited a different planet several years ago. Maybe that’s just the Reynaud’s relapse talking. xo