Monthly Archives: July 2019

My body is a temple

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Let’s Talk About The Weather

Here we are in the last full week of July, and we are actually having a summer! A whole week of summer weather, which, as we all know, is all relative considering other places in the world. For example, on Wednesday it was 31 degrees, which would be considered just a run-of-the-mill summer day in many, many places, but in Calgary it was the hottest day of the year. A couple of days in a row like that and it would be all over the news, HEAT WAVE AND HEAT WARNINGS IN EFFECT. Sadly for the reporters who were probably eager to encourage people to hydrate and stay cool, it was only a one-day event; yesterday was cool and windy, with some rain to boot.

Am I really talking this much about the weather? Yes. I wonder what it would be like to live in a place in which summer was just summer, and not some crazy, who-knows-what-will-happen-it-could-snow-tomorrow season. Would I just stop appreciating the beauty and warmth of summer days? As it was, every spare minute I had I was out in the garden or reading on my outdoor glider, looking up to smile at my flowers and at the tiny little birds who seemed to be playing a game on my yarrow. These tiny birds would alight on top of my yarrow, which is not sturdy enough even for their weight, and so it would slowly sink to the ground. Then the birds would flap around and do it again. Over and over, they appeared to just enjoy riding my yarrow, which was the most adorable thing I think I have ever seen.

Okay, maybe not as adorable as Barkley, but pretty close.

The Circle of Life

Speaking of birds, this morning I looked out the window to see a number of magpies on my garage roof. This is not an unusual sight, but what was different is that one of them had something in its beak. Something that once was alive that now, presumably, was dead. I think it was probably a baby robin, since I could spy what looked like bird feet sticking out. I recognize that there’s a food chain thing going on here, and no one is lamenting the robins eating worms or what have you, but still. Poor baby.

It reminded me of watching the new Lion King last weekend; I guess the magpie excrement will somehow feed the worms that will feed the robins, or something. It also made me think of a local radio personality who is always proclaiming that she is an animal lover, but also is a meat lover, and well. Circle of life, I guess. No judgement over here; I became nearly hysterical when I realized we have mice in the garage. Or, a mouse. I assume that there are many mice but only one has been spied. My husband assures me they won’t get in the house but what if they doooo. 

The Weather Changes Everything

I was so excited by the warm summer weather that I changed my weekly meal plan! I know! I couldn’t believe it either. I have a piece of advice for anyone who is tired of their families not enjoying the meals put on the table: deconstruct everything. It works really well in my household. For example, I made a big batch of pasta salad with sauteed chicken on the side for the guys. Only the pasta is dressed, and then I set out all the vegetables and edamame and everyone can add what they like to the pasta. I make sure to have a little extra dressing to drizzle on top of the extra vegetables.

On that note, I made something totally different on Monday; I am sure I got the original recipe from Suzanne (HI SUZANNE) but I can’t find it now. In any case, as is my wont, I changed the recipe quite a bit to accommodate my family and the things I had in the house. It’s a Thai quinoa salad, and it was a huge hit. I, of course, completely deconstructed it (NO ONIONS FOR ME THANKS) and it turned out well. Here’s what I did:

Cook up 1 1/4 cups quinoa, and 1 1/2 cups edamame, and let both cool.

Pulse a huge amount of broccoli (that’s as exact as I can get) in the food processor until finely diced.

Chop up some red onion and a pepper, grate a few carrots.

Make a dressing: the original one seemed small so I just extrapolated by using 1/4 cup each rice vinegar and Bragg’s soy sauce, 3 tablespoons each lime juice and sesame oil. It seemed tart so I added a tablespoon of brown sugar, and a big clove of minced garlic, along with some grated ginger. It still seemed a bit tart so I splashed a little extra sesame oil in it.

Set everything out, with some peanuts, and let everyone go to town.

Things That Are Happening

A Welcome-to-High-School newsletter popped in my inbox a couple of days ago; HIGH SCHOOL. I remember how very exciting it was to be in high school, landslide, sunrise, sunset. It’s hit me that really, there aren’t many summers left before the kids are grown and will not have leisure to hang out with me or travel with us as a family and HOO BOY.

Deep breaths.

I Have Never Felt More Seen

A while ago the boys and I were card shopping for one of their myriad friends’ birthdays. As an aside: I used to dread birthday parties for the simple reason of trying to choose a gift for children I didn’t know well, but what the boys and their friends do is just give each other money. It’s brilliant in my opinion, but it does seem like a zero-sum game as they all seem to pass along the same exact amount for every party. However! I like it.

Anyway, we were in the card store and I happened to come across this, which is an illustration of ME and why I do not even WALK DOWN the chip aisle at the grocery store:

It’s like the card people looked inside my very soul.

Carpe the hell out of the diem

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Summer in Alberta: if there is a decent day, weather-wise, you had better carpe diem because you have no idea what will happen next. This is an important lesson I’ve learned in my lifetime. I took the boys up to my parents’ place on the lake because there was a single nice day – Wednesday – in the forecast this week and I wanted to get lots of outdoor activities done. And indeed, we did; we biked, paddleboarded, and boated all before three o’clock in the afternoon, when the kids collapsed for some downtime after all the forced fun, and I had margaritas on the deck with my parents. Sure enough, the storm rolled in shortly after that. Carpe diem.

The boys fake-posing for a thoughtful, instagram worthy-photo.

So much fun is exhausting.

Speaking of bikes, I was feeling very I-am-woman-hear-me-roar because prior to heading up to the lake I put the bike rack on the car all by myself. Now that I’ve written it down it doesn’t seem like much of an accomplishment but believe me, it was. I am not at all mechanically-minded so it took me some time to figure out how a ratchet worked – I kept accidentally loosening the bolts – but I did eventually figure it out. I AM WOMAN HEAR ME ROAR AND WATCH ME LIFT THIS GIANT HEAVY BIKE RACK AND ATTACH IT TO MY VEHICLE.

We returned home yesterday and I took my older son with me to get groceries at Superstore. No sooner had we pulled into the garage when an enormous hailstorm started. I’m thankful we didn’t get home ten seconds later or the van might have been damaged; as it was my gardens were pretty much flattened:

WAH. Even this morning, there is still hail on the trampoline and it is quite chilly outside. The first person to complain about any heat in this city – if, indeed, any heat shows up this summer – is going to get a serious side-eye from me.

So it has been an eventful week in the Boyhouse; last Friday my husband and I went to see Zac Brown perform, which is always a good show. We had gone three years ago and although our seats were amazing this time around, I didn’t enjoy the show QUITE as much as I did back in 2016. Still, an absolutely fantastic performance and as an added bonus, I got to dress up in my Stampede wear:

A note about that bandanna: it dates back from my working days, back in 2000 or so. I was in Houston on business and some colleagues had taken me to The Taste of Texas, a restaurant that – among other things – allows you to go to a deli-like counter to choose your own meat to be cooked, and if you broke the record for eating a certain number of ounces of meat, you got your steak for free and had your photo put up on the wall. Obviously, those benefits did not apply to me, but I did get a bandanna tied around my neck for my inaugural visit to the restaurant. I don’t remember what I ate but it was probably a salad or some other dish that would have been disappointing to all the people around me.

Zac Brown played for a solid two hours and it was nearly midnight before I got home, exhausted and with swollen, cowboy-booted feet. I didn’t make it to my usual Saturday morning spin class and so I had a plethora of energy. My husband took the boys to the gym for their usual workout, and I started to clean the kitchen. I thought I would wash all the cupboard doors, which then had a snowball effect: by the time they got home I had cleaned the fridge and scrubbed down the shelves, polished all the granite and wood furniture in the house, cleaned the oven, wiped down every appliance, scrubbed the baseboards, and washed the floors. Fueled by coffee and without spin to contain me, I headed outside and gardened for a few hours, pruning shrubs and weeding, before taking the dog for a walk. I guess when I need to get things done around the house I should skip spin class.

I still don’t know who Li’l Pump is

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Stampede week is always full of strange things; it is the nature of living in a city with a ten-day party going on. Usually there are at least a few people passed out in the green space behind our house or in the alley, which incites my personal grim game: Dead or Drunk? I usually try to note how long someone is lying there and in what position, hoping to determine from a distance which one it is. Happily it’s always been Drunk, although I once called the police as a fellow was passed out in his parked car behind our house for several hours. It was a bit too long for my comfort, but it turns out he was just sleeping one off before driving home, which is the responsible thing to do, I guess.

But this week – perhaps due to the cool weather – there have only been one or two such episodes, although the week itself has not been without incident. For example, I was walking Barkley and a fellow asked me for a light. Then, perhaps to clarify, he said a cigarette lighter? No sir, I do not. I didn’t think I fit the profile of a smoker, but my husband thought perhaps the gentleman was trying to strike up a conversation with me, nifty number that I am. Forty-something suburban mom, walking her labradoodle, wearing a t-shirt with Namaste written on. Then shortly after that I noticed a fellow riding what appeared to be a ten-speed bike locked into the most difficult gear possible, pumping his legs with serious effort on our perfectly flat street. Maybe he was getting exercise as I saw him five minutes later on the street going in the other direction. Of note: he was wearing a down jacket and a toque, and although, like I said, it has been cool, it is not THAT cool.

Speaking of labradoodles, I had dropped Barkley off at doggy day-care on Wednesday; when I came to pick him up the girl told me that there was a chocolate doodle gang that day. Apparently there were three nearly-identical brown labradoodles at the day-care. Two things: a) it definitely WAS Barkley I picked up, and b) I really enjoyed her usage of the term “gang.” That must have been the cutest, most non-threatening gang ever: immensely fuzzy gang members who are constantly pressing up against peoples’ legs in order to get extra pats and snuggles, all of them obsessed with food.

I used the doggy day-care because I had decided that the boys and I needed a day in the mountains, and what a fun day it was. We hiked up Sulphur Mountain, a 5.5 kilometer hike with 744 meters of elevation gain; Barkley is too old and arthritic to even consider such a thing. Frankly, I was concerned that I was too old and arthritic for such a thing, but it turned out great; my hip held up perfectly with no pain whatsoever. The boys impressed me with their cardio strength and enthusiasm, even if they did talk constantly about YouTubers, lame video games, and how much Li’l Pump sucks. Who’s Li’l Pump was my question; I said I was too old to know these things, to which the boys answered that I was LUCKY and they wish they were too old to hear of Li’l Pump. I still have no idea, but I do know that when we are hiking we need not worry about bears as the boys make enough noise talking constantly to keep all wildlife away.

Sulphur Mountain – for those of you who are not local – is a very popular tourist destination as there is a gondola, which makes it a strange experience for hiking. While we were hiking, we saw other hikers maybe every 10-15 minutes, it was – other than the Li’l Pump discussion – quite peaceful. Then, at the top of the mountain, there are literally hundreds of people milling around, all of whom rode the gondola up. The views are among the best in the valley, and so it’s obvious why. We rode the gondola down the mountain – I wanted to make sure I didn’t overdo it on my hip, and I also thought the boys would enjoy it – with a very nice gentleman visiting from Barrie. He couldn’t BELIEVE anyone would hike up when there was a perfectly good gondola. He was going on a helicopter tour the next day, then to Calgary, and then – bizarrely enough – to Grande Prairie. I hope he had friends to visit up there or something, as it seems like not the greatest tourist destination.

We had a quick soak in the hot springs after our hike; it was quick because the boys had imagined something like the original Cave and Basin, a natural spring in a dark cave, not thinking about the impact millions of nearly-naked tourists would have on such a place. They were disappointed that it was just a pool, but hotter, and one they couldn’t really swim in. Well, I enjoyed it anyway.

Other important things of note: my roses FINALLY started to bloom. This is very late, even by Calgary standards, so I’m enjoying every second of these beauties. Hashtag: stop and smell the roses.

Also of note: remember the passport renewal saga? I have been in low-level anxiety that the one passport would be rejected due to the printer ink, and that I’d have to go through all this bureaucracy a second time, but happily, David the government agent is still error-free. The passports arrived this week, much to my great relief and also amusement, because as I mentioned in my other post, my children look like teenage thugs. Both were in great need of a haircut at the time, and that alongside their psychotic resting faces, well. If you saw them in their photos, you would cross the street, is all I’m saying.

Speaking of haircuts, I took this out from the library and we watched it last night.

I was surprised how well it held up, considering it’s not any kind of award-winning film. Plus, it’s only about ninety minutes long which is perfect for me.

Tonight my husband and I are going to see Zac Brown at the Stampede grounds, so party on, me. Party on, everyone. xo

Empty Nest

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The week following the last day of school has been certainly mixed, weather-wise. We have had the occasional cool-but-sunny day interspersed with many cold-and-rainy days; the weather is never predictable in this city but so far summer has been completely missing. As is our tradition, we went up to my parents’ house for the Canada Day long weekend. We luckily had some time on the paddle boards, and I had a beautiful long bike ride, before the storm rolled in. Today I finally broke down and turned the heat on; it’s so cold and rainy, I’ve been wearing my winter-weight thick sweaters and fuzzy slippers for the past few days, and have had to remind myself that yes, indeed, it is July. It certainly brings new meaning to carpe diem, as who knows when another nice day might come around.

My hostas are happy but all my other plants are literally drowning, especially the ones in planter pots. They are all leggy and droopy; hopefully the sun will come out sometime. July in Calgary is often a disappointment. The sole upside is that I do not have to listen to people complain about “the heat” when it gets above 25 degrees. At this point I would be excited if the temperature exceeded ten degrees.

The boys stayed up at my parents’ place for the week, so I’ve had an empty nest. Any time that the boys are not here I am amazed anew at how much more time I have on my hands. I’ve been afraid of changing because I’ve built my life on you. On Wednesday, I went for an 8 kilometer walk before going to Superstore AND Costco, with a yoga class in between, all things I would never do with the kids at home. Even though they are teens – actually, BECAUSE they are teens – I find it very important to spend as much time at home with them as possible, despite the fact that they really only “spend time” with me while they are eating. I remember many years ago, before kids, a coworker had told me that she went part time when her children became teenagers. People think their kids need them less at this age but actually, they need them MORE. I think that’s a very true statement.

Back to a small detail: I went to Costco and Superstore ON THE SAME DAY. It felt like one of those CrossFit workouts, between the actual shopping and then up and down the stairs to put all the things away. At both stores, I had a person in line behind me with much fewer items than I had in my giant cart. As is my wont, I offered to let them go ahead of me and both refused – the teen boy at Superstore told me he didn’t mind waiting, as he stood there with only a container of two-bite brownies. The older gentleman behind me at Costco looked aghast and said, “Oh, no! Ladies first. I insist. Ladies first!”

I guess we all have extra time on our hands this week, the better to spend in line buying groceries; we certainly aren’t spending a lot of it in the gardens or doing yard work.

Enough about the weather, a topic which is boring and depressing to us all. After a bit of a dry spell in terms of really engaging books, I’ve been reading My Name Is Venus Black, and is it ever excellent. I started it yesterday and am almost done, since I am finding it hard to put down. I highly recommend it. I also read Small Fry by Lisa Brennan-Jobs, who is Steve Jobs’ illegitimate daughter and I honestly had no idea how much of an asshole Steve Jobs was. I didn’t really know anything about him; I told my husband a bit about the book and he was surprised that I didn’t already realize what a wretched human being he was. I asked the kids if they knew anything about him, and they replied that of COURSE they knew he was awful, everyone knows that. When I pressed them – how did they know – my younger son just stared at me and said, “Um, this thing called the INTERNET?” I’m not sure if I would recommend it to you or not; it depends whether you would like a reminder about how some people are the absolute worst. I mean, most people are doing their best to be good people, I’d like to think. However.

Today marks the beginning of Stampede week – I shall refer you to my older posts about dressing for the Stampede without looking ridiculous and my subsequent purchase of cowboy boots. While I’d like to be one of those women who pairs cowboy boots with sundresses, I decidedly am not. I did pull them out this morning to take a few photos with which to promote my yoga classes during Stampede week, and I couldn’t figure out why the left boot felt so awkward. It’s not like I wear these boots often – or ever, really – and so it seemed strange that the lining would be rumpled up, which is what it felt like. I reached in and discovered a Nerf dart lodged in the toe.

Even with an empty nest, the boys manage to stay in my day-to-day life. They are home tomorrow, so I’m going to enjoy this day of relative leisure before they return and I get back in the laundry/ baking/ cooking groove. Have a lovely weekend! xo