Monthly Archives: November 2018

Buddhas, Black Friday, and Bikinis

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I’m torn between not wanting time to go any faster than it already does, living mindfully in the moment, savouring every day, and also counting down the next three weeks until Christmas vacation. On the one hand – mindfulness! On the other – hoo boy, am I looking forward to the break.

Were you on the edge of your seat, wondering how the white chocolate fudge turned out? Well, wonder no more! IT DID NOT GO WELL.

I was so optimistic until the time came to cut it; it was not dissimilar to cutting into a thick pudding. Which is to say, it was messy and weird. Again, how? How did this happen? How do two things that become solid when frozen become a non-Newtonian fluid when mixed together? Why do I need a degree in chemistry to make fudge? At any rate, I was very disappointed. By this time, I had sunk approximately $15 worth of ingredients into that little pan, and I was loathe to throw it out. It’s like throwing $15 in the compost bin. I put the pan back in the freezer and took the dog for a walk.

Taking a walk is great for generating ideas, isn’t it? The little loop Barkley and I walk takes about thirty minutes, and it is good thinking time for me. It’s also a good way to practice mindfulness and notice my surroundings. For example, there is one house on our loop that has a Buddha statue on their front step; it’s not just any Buddha statue, either. There is a jagged edge where the head used to be. This headless Buddha has been there for many months, and the strangest thing is that the head sits on the drain spout directly beside its decapitated body. To my inexpert handywoman eye, it seems like it would be easily fixed with some Gorilla Glue, but no. I can’t help wondering why. It cannot be unnoticed by the residents of the house. Is it some kind of statement? Mere laziness? We may never know the answer.

In any case, as I was walking, I wondered why I was so attached to the idea of little squares of fudge. Practice non-attachment, Nicole. I came up with the idea of rolling the fudge-like-substance into little balls and then dusting with cocoa powder, like a truffle. I tried later that day and it was incredibly messy and oddly difficult, but it somewhat worked.

They did not hold shape particularly well, but my younger son assured me that they were delicious and that he would volunteer as tribute to eat the entire thing, if no one else wanted them. Always willing to sacrifice, that’s him.

I made a coffee date last Friday with a colleague of mine; we both had a brief window of time and she had an appointment in my quadrant of the city. For those of you who I have had actual coffee dates with, you already know that I never have any clue about cool and interesting coffee shops. I never know where anything is and I’m always at a loss to suggest a venue. But for this coffee date, I suggested the Starbucks at a nearby mall; my colleague’s appointment was just down the hill from it, and I live about five minutes away. Normally I do not set foot in the mall after mid-November, but I thought 10:30 on a Friday morning, how bad could it be?

It was Black Friday.

Later, when I was relating this story, a friend (HI ALANA) said to me How could you not know it was Black Friday? Didn’t you get all the emails? Well, yes. My inbox had been exploding over the past week, and yet I never made the connection between the mall and Black Friday. Neither did my colleague, which is how I ended up circling the road-rage-filled parking lot, trying to find a spot, and having to allow an extra twenty minutes to leave the parking lot, so that I wouldn’t be late for my class.

It’s ridiculous, really. Black Friday ISN’T A THING IN CANADA. Well, I guess it IS a thing now, no matter how much I deny it. The parking lot was similar to Christmas Eve or Boxing Day, with the exact kind of panicked, I must buy all the things attitude that one might see on those days. It was insane. The only upside is that I got to see all the pretty Christmas decorations that were not up when last I was in the mall, such as a gigantic sparkly moose.

And as much as I deny the existence of Black Friday, I am not made of stone. The endless barrage of emails from various retailers wore me down, and I actually clicked on the one from La Vie En Rose. I was in the market for a new bikini, anyway, and they had absolutely ridiculous prices. The one I fell in love with was obtained for a mere $22. Twenty-two dollars! Of course, my husband looked at the photo and pronounced it “ugly” and that the “embroidery looks old-ladyish.”

Well. I do not think it’s UGLY but he may have a point in terms of old-ladyish-ness. A few years ago I realized that triangle-and-string bikinis were really not suitable anymore, for a few reasons, most notably that they were no longer flattering – hello, gravity – and also they were not providing the, shall I say, coverage that I think is appropriate for a woman my age who is the mother of two teenage boys. Since I refuse to wear one-pieces for the same reasons I refuse to wear rompers or jumpsuits, more modest bikinis are my new jam. The key word here is COVERAGE. I don’t want to end up dressing like Stacy’s Mom.

Speaking of teen boys, this week I took them to the dentist for their cleaning and checkups. They are still going to the same pediatric dentist we’ve been patronizing for a decade. It occurred to me for the first time that perhaps it might be time to switch dentists; not because I have any issues with the actual dentist practice, in fact, it’s the opposite. I love their whole office. However, I thought maybe it was time to move on when I looked at my sons and their feet hanging off the small purple dental chairs, their heads popping up above the headrests. I asked the dentist at what point should we say good-bye to them, and he said that he sees kids up to age eighteen. I pictured their future six-foot-plus frames squished into the child-sized dental chairs.

The thing is, their office is so convenient. It is literally a three-minute drive from my house, and approximately that long from their school. They had an 8:00 appointment and both were back at the school by 8:25. I mean, you can’t buy that kind of convenience. Maybe I will keep them there until they are 18, their deep voices will be a change from the usual high-pitched screaming that is de rigeur in any given pediatric dental office.

I think we’re going to make it after all

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A few months ago I offered to bring desserts to a Christmas party on December 1; I love making holiday-themed sweet treats and I always, without exception, make more than even my family with two teen boys can possibly eat. Or, should eat. In any case, I happily offered and two days ago I realized with a start that December 1 is next weekend. How did that happen? In my mind it’s still September. Well, kind of. It feels like this fall has flown by and now I am in full-on Christmas treat-making-mode, going through massive amounts of coconut milk, chocolate, and peppermint extract.

Yesterday I made two different kinds of fudge to have in the freezer; I decided to make a white chocolate fudge with dried cherries and almond slices, and I followed the base recipe from Kraft Canada, thinking that it couldn’t go wrong. Well. I guess I can’t really blame Kraft because I DID alter the recipe slightly – instead of using condensed milk I used full-fat coconut milk which, in my defense, has worked as a substitute every single time before. Even as I was making it I thought it didn’t seem quite right, it seemed too thin and liquidy. After a full 18 hours in the freezer, it was still soft and certainly not set in the least, which begs the question: why? I mean, if I put coconut milk in the freezer it would be solid. If I put white chocolate in the freezer, it would also be solid. WHY DO THE TWO TOGETHER NOT WORK?

That is how I found myself scraping the strange soft, and cold, mixture into a saucepan at 7:00 this morning, adding white chocolate like there was no tomorrow, based on the theory that more solid matter could only make it more solid. It’s science, bitches. My kids watched with interest; the younger one was particularly invested in the process and kept suggesting other things we could try. I find myself, this morning, obsessively checking on it, as if the state of the fudge is much more important than it actually is. Maybe I’m projecting my emotional state on the fudge? Maybe I’m compensating for something in my life? I don’t know. As it stands it seems to be firming up, but will I be able to cut it into squares, and if not what do I do? Who knows. I am full of regret. Why would I substitute when I’ve never made this before? White chocolate isn’t even vegan so I can’t say I was trying to make a dairy-free version. I was just being too lazy to buy condensed milk, I guess, like I haven’t spent two full afternoons this week grocery shopping. I most certainly could have picked up a can.

Yesterday when I was in the checkout line at Superstore, the cashier handed me the little “this till closed, please use next register” sign to put behind my groceries. I love when that happens! It felt like payback for the week before when I made a decision between two lines and chose the one that had only two men, both with maybe a dozen items each. This will be fast, I thought happily, as I was in a hurry. If this was a movie, albeit a very boring movie, some very dramatic music would start playing, foreshadowing disaster. Grocery store disaster. The first gentleman kept trying to pay with cards that didn’t work, which took several minutes and a special customer service supervisor to resolve. The second gentleman seemed fine, until he pulled out his giant Samsung and started price-matching everything. EVERY SINGLE ITEM. I know it’s their policy to price match but MY GOD PEOPLE. Things got a little tense when it appeared he could NOT price-match his already-discounted meat because it was the wrong kind of meat and by this time I started spiralling into despair, as I watched five – FIVE – people go through the other lineup, the lineup I could have been in if I hadn’t smugly assumed that two men with small amounts of groceries would not actually take twenty minutes. An older lady behind me had started unloading her groceries, and when it appeared we weren’t going anywhere anytime soon – customer service again had to be called with regards to the discount meat – she said to me in a heavy Eastern European accent, What have I done to deserve this? What indeed. I considered asking her if she was the type to leave her cart in the parking lot at Costco, but refrained. After all we were both in this together, I with my good cart karma, and also it was Superstore, not Costco.

I just checked on the fudge again. I think it might be okay. We might be okay, everyone. xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Revisiting My Youth Edition

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I know you were all on the edge of your seat, waiting to see what would happen when we went to our doctor’s appointment last Friday. Would the scheduled time be incorrect again? Would I be berated by the long-suffering office receptionist for missing my appointment? Would I actually see the doctor?

Well, all was smooth, you will be happy to know. We were in the waiting room by 1:55. Of course, we waited for a while to see the doctor, but I wasn’t too concerned about that: we all had books and phones and weren’t really doing anything we wouldn’t have been doing at home anyway. I got a TEENSY bit of stink-eye from the receptionist, but I guess I would be annoyed if I thought I was a no-show as well. The boys were having standard checkups, but I was there to ask the doctor about a little white dot that had been on my face for – get ready – three and a half years. I had been fairly unconcerned about it, but lately people had – strangely enough – been commenting on it, including one concerned friend who related a long and detailed story of a similar thing she had which turned out to be a form of skin cancer, and my own mother-in-law thinking that I had Caesar salad dressing on my face. Well, I’d rather neither of those things be assumed, but the doctor assured me it was simply a calcium deposit, and within five minutes he had removed it. Five minutes! After three and a half years! I guess in future I might look into these things earlier, before people think I a) have cancer, or b) am an absurdly messy eater.

The Before

 

The After

I finished my Christmas shopping this week, which is neither early nor late for me. Some of you (HI JAN) have asked how this is possible, year after year, to complete the shopping in early November. I could write an entire post on that but let me assure you it is not because I am following that article that has been going around, “The Gift of Death;” after all, our family “adopted a senior” this year and I don’t think a printout of “The Gift of Death” would be appropriate. What I will say is that I do schedule in a couple of two-or-three hour chunks of time to go to physical stores and then I just power through; the rest I do online.

The reason I always finish my shopping early is because going to the mall in December, as my sons would say, harshes my mellow. This backfired on me slightly, however, since one of my time chunks that I had scheduled was this past Monday afternoon. A Monday afternoon in November is assured to be a quiet time at the mall, correct? Well, not if that Monday is November 12 and half of the city is also crowding into the stores that have – ridiculously – Black Friday specials and the like. Black Friday is not a thing in Canada. Anyway, I managed to get everything done, even if the parking lot crushed my soul, as cars were parked haphazardly for no reason, it wasn’t even snowing. The lines are there for a reason! They aren’t friendly suggestions.

Back to Monday. I had gifts to shop for but I also had ME to shop for. Which brings me to…

Nicole’s Favourite Things – The “Revisiting My Youth” Edition

Everything fashion-related reminds me of my long-lost youth lately, and not always in a particularly good way. These styles are not flattering, people.

Ah, but we all wore such unflattering pants back in the day, with our tight, tucked-in tops or bodysuits or crop-tops. Well. I shall leave the youth culture to the youth, when it comes to pants like these. To me, all this needs is a tapestry/ denim vest to complete the look, but then I am not the target market here. I revisited my youth this week in any case, in what I hope was a good way.

Your Mama Wears Army Boots

A large issue with not buying any clothes for a year, and buying very minimally in the years prior to that, is that everything seems to be wearing out at the same time. Specifically, winter boots. My favourite pair of winter boots died this week, literally died. I bought them from Sears – Sears! – maybe four or five years ago, and they were worn extensively through our very long winter seasons, so it is no surprise that their death was imminent. I stepped in a puddle and my foot was absolutely soaking wet; on further investigation it appeared that the sole had become detached. Since I was going to the mall anyway, I thought I’d shop for some boots. I found, and fell in love with, these:

Hello 1990s! There is a photo in my high school yearbook of people who were all wearing this style of boots, but Doc Martens. Back in the day I would have worn them with babydoll dresses; now I wear them with yoga pants and flowy black sweaters. Hey, you have to move with the times!

Speaking of babydoll dresses…

Le Chateau

The other thing I needed to buy for myself was a dress for my husband’s work party. Yes, I have many, many black dresses that would be appropriate, but I have worn them all many, many times. I wanted something new and fresh. First I went into the Bay, which was having a (Black Friday?) sale on dresses. It took me some time to even locate dresses in my size, let alone dresses I liked, but I finally ended up with three in the change room. I texted my husband to see which he liked best, to which he responded that he really had no idea since my hand was largely blocking the dress. My mirror selfie game is not strong, I will give him that. However, the expressions on my face are my favourite part of these gems:

If we were going by my facial expressions, it would be The Horror! But really, I was just trying to figure out how to capture the moment on camera.

I wasn’t in love with any of them, but I was going to settle for the third. Then I thought, did the one-year shopping challenge teach me nothing? NEVER SETTLE. To be honest, I wasn’t super comfortable in it; for lack of a better word, I felt a bit exposed and just a teeny bit slutty, and not in the way I want to be. I put it back on the rack, thinking if I didn’t find anything else, I would come back to it.

I started to wander through the mall and I came across Le Chateau, which I hadn’t set foot in since I was a teenager. God, how I loved that store. My all-time favourite teenage outfit came from that store:

It was a tiny black tube skirt with a swingy, A-line top, with little daisies attached to it. I would wear the hell out of that outfit now, if the skirt was longer. Or if the skirt were yoga pants. Anyway, I hadn’t been in Le Chateau forever since I have always associated it with my long-lost youth, but I will change that now because people, they have some great clothes in there. If I didn’t wear yoga pants five days a week I would stock up. As it was I found the perfect dress, but I will post a photo later, when I’m all dressed up with somewhere to go. Suffice it to say that my husband thought it was the best dress he’s ever seen me in, and given he’s seen me in a lot of dresses over the past twenty-two years, I think that says something.

The Body Shop

I remember when The Body Shop came to Calgary – I was around 13 and it was like a revelation to me. Against Animal Testing before Against Animal Testing was cool! All the interesting products! For years after that, all my babysitting money – and later, my Pizza Hut money – was spent on things like grapefruit skin toner, strawberry lip balm, and peppermint foot cream. Every Christmas I would be thrilled to receive one of their baskets containing Satsuma or Vanilla bubble bath, a little scrubby, and the useless glycerin soap that came with everything.

Oh, how I loved The Body Shop! And then…I just stopped shopping there. I don’t know why. Maybe I was too busy futilely trying to find an eye cream that made me look decades younger, and I haven’t taken a bath for years (I SHOWER, PEOPLE, DON’T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT). But I stopped in and I’m so glad I did. They still have awesome gift baskets that are perfect for the ladies on your list, and they also have interesting new products like this:

I am an absolute sucker for things that claim to illuminate, even, and revitalize. I bought it for myself, along with a couple of gifts. But the results from this face mask will be the subject of another post. Stay tuned! xo

Corrections

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A few days ago I was making a new acquaintance, a lovely woman who turned to introduce me to her friend. “Have you met?” she asked, and I opened my mouth to answer, but before the words could come out, her friend indicated that we had never before met and it was a pleasure to make my acquaintance. I closed my mouth, smiled, and echoed the nice to meet you too sentiments.

The thing is, over the past decade, I have met that same woman at least a dozen times, and every single time we have had a similar encounter. In the past, I would have mentioned that we met before, detailing the whereabouts and mutual friends, but each time this woman indicated that the meetings left no impression whatsoever and I was a complete stranger to her. This week, though, I mentally shrugged and went along with it.

Who knew I was so unmemorable?

It reminded me of how my next-door neighbour called me Michelle for the first twelve or thirteen years that we lived side-by-side. I was recounting this to a friend who asked why on earth I wouldn’t have corrected him. I did. I did correct him, but after the first several years I just gave up. I am Michelle now. Oddly enough, he now calls me by my actual name, which is nice, but a little unsettling after all these years of responding to Michelle.

Sometimes it just doesn’t pay to correct people.

When I make appointments, be it for doctor, dentist, hair salon, or bikini wax, I always have a very specific date and time in mind. I do not call to make an appointment until I check my calendar carefully and decide which of those specific dates and times would work. I don’t have the kind of job where I can easily switch things around; I have classes at certain times, and I work around that. Back in the summer I called to make appointments for the boys and myself for the doctor. I booked Friday – two weeks ago – at 2:00.

As I was driving to the appointment, my phone rang. (Please spare me your concern, I have Bluetooth.) It was the doctor’s office.

Me: Hi! We are on our way to you right now!

Doctor’s Office: Well, your appointments started at 1:00 and you missed them completely.

Me: What? Oh. I…had written them down as starting at 2:00?

DO: ONE O’CLOCK.

Me: Okay…will the doctor still see us today?

DO: No! He has a VERY full clinic this afternoon and cannot possibly accommodate you when you are THIS LATE! *insert deep and irritated sigh*

Now, when I speak to my children utilizing the tone of voice that the doctor’s office was using on me, it means that my children are In Need Of Correction, and They Are Not Only Very Wrong, But Also Kind Of Stupid. I save this Very Sharp Voice for Problems And Idiocy, and I don’t use it lightly. Therefore, I can tell you that I felt Very Small and also Very Stupid, in addition to feeling Kind Of Defensive, because I knew I wasn’t in the wrong. I teach on Fridays until 1:00 and I would have never made an appointment at that time, since I do not have a magic teleporter. But I also knew that really, there was absolutely nothing to be done. It didn’t really matter who was in the wrong (NOT ME) because the result was the same: we wouldn’t be seeing the doctor that day.

I took a breath, thinking this was a good time to Model Good Behaviour to the kids who were in the backseat listening to this exchange. I apologized for the mistake, and asked what could be done. Could I reschedule? I could and I did, not without some consternation in my mind.

I spent some time, as I made a few turns to go back home, being annoyed not only at not getting the appointments, but also for being Spoken To Sharply. No one likes to be made to feel like they screwed something up, especially when they didn’t. But then I started to think of it a different way: it was a gift. After a very hectic few weeks where I barely had time to sit down, I was given a free afternoon. I could go home and read a book! Have a glass of wine! Do nothing! I had been given the gift of time and after all, what did a few weeks’ difference make when I had made appointments in the summer?

Yesterday I had a call and a voice mail on my cell, which rarely happens – who calls anyone these days? But there it was, for the first time ever since becoming a patient in 2011, a reminder call from the doctor’s office. I have never had a reminder call before but I probably have “FLAKE” written on my file now. Well, it’s probably for the best. That way, if such a silly thing ever happens again, I can reschedule the appointment without being made to feel like I wrecked the doctor’s entire afternoon and everyone has been Highly Inconvenienced by me and my flaky ways.

As I said, it often doesn’t pay to correct people. In fact, I might go out on a limb and say it rarely pays to correct people. In this case there was absolutely nothing to be gained by it, I got a free afternoon out of it, and we still have appointments, albeit a few weeks later than planned. Now, here’s the true test: what time will I see the doctor this afternoon? Will it be 2:00? Or will he be, as he usually is when I go to see him, running significantly behind schedule? Stay tuned!

Hello November!

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Yesterday a friend asked me how much Halloween candy I had eaten while waiting at home for Trick or Treaters, and I will tell you this: zero. My secret? I buy the candy that I don’t like, which is for me a giant box with a mixture of those little Kit Kats, Coffee Crisps, Smarties, and Aero bars. The new young couple down the street – who reminds me of my husband and I many years ago – came by with their two little ones. This is their first Halloween in the neighbourhood, and the woman told me enthusiastically she had bought 100 little bags of chips and hoped that would be enough. I was loathe to tell her that we have never had more than 20 Trick or Treaters, and that she would be munching on chips for some time to come. See, that is a mistake I would never have made – it’s not that I don’t buy hundreds of tiny chocolate bars, it’s that I would never buy that many potato chips, for the simple reason that I cannot resist them. For me, salty beats sweet any day.

Next year I think I’ll buy full size chocolate bars, because I want to feel like one of those fancy ladies; a princess distributing largesse to the populace, as it were.

Thursday after classes I took the Halloween decorations down, with the help of the boys. Normally this is something I would leave to my husband but a) it’s completely dark by the time he gets home and b) today is supposed to be a “rain/snow mix” which would be a bit disastrous for our animatronic thingamagigs. Electric shorting out might add to the creepiness though:

The kids went Trick or Treating with all their friends; I was very happy to see them come back candy-laden and happy, with no one commenting on their giant statures. Does it seem to you that EVERYTHING is a divisive topic nowadays? You name it, everyone has a STRONG and IMMOVABLE opinion on it. Teens trick or treating is definitely one of them. I am of the camp that would give candy out to literally anyone who comes to my door; they could be in university – hell, they could be senior citizens and they would still get a handful of Kit Kats from me. As for my own kids, they can Trick or Treat for as long as they want as far as I’m concerned.

So here we are in November, and I for one am happy about it. Our house was hit by an absolutely deplorable virus, and I seemed to have gotten the worst of it. I recovered enough to be on my feet but the residual exhaustion has been something else. It’s been a week of just setting one foot in front of the other, and occasionally bursting into overwhelmed, exhausted tears. Today I’m finally starting to feel like myself again; I spent some days last week wondering how on earth I usually had the energy to do my normal day-to-day things. Here’s how poorly I felt: I haven’t had a sip of wine in two weeks. Dark times, people.

This morning, after napping all yesterday afternoon and sleeping ten hours last night, I felt well enough to return to my usual Saturday morning spin class. You know how they say the first time back is the hardest? I certainly hope that’s true. All during the class I kept looking down at the little orange warning on my bike: Over exercise can result in serious injury or death. Death! It seemed like a terrible portent. Usually I am filled with all sorts of personal-best goals during the class; this morning my aim was to just make it through without death. If I have a choice in the matter, I would rather not Meet the Maker while wearing sweaty padded leggings.

Fortunately, I am still here to tell the tale.

The kids are in that teenage phase where every morning, they seem taller than the day before. This has resulted in them completely outgrowing their single beds; my older son in particular is several inches longer than his bed, which has led to some uncomfortable nights. We decided to buy them both extra-long-full-size beds, which is more complicated than you might think, given we live in a 1960s bungalow. There has been much jenga-like moving of beds, and there were twenty-four hours when the new beds were delivered into the front entry, in which the entire entryway and front door were completely blocked off. The chaos of this has not added positively to my mental and emotional state this week, but the final result is extremely satisfactory. At one point I looked at all the wrappings and cardboard and craziness and repeated to myself the only way out is through over and over. Happily, after much rearranging and quite a bit of purging, things are looking up! The only problem is that I lay down on one of the beds and damn, it is way more comfortable than my own bed. The only thing keeping me from surreptitiously bed shopping is the thought of going through all this chaos again so soon. Maybe I’ll feel well enough for a glass of wine tonight, to give me some courage. Let’s hope!