Monthly Archives: March 2020

Accidental Hoarding and Two Weeks In

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I was making my list for the grocery store last week; I am going out once a week to replenish our supplies and though I’ve always been a list-maker, I find myself being more vigilant in that area. After all, if I forget something I can’t just run out and grab it. I’m finding it fairly easy to keep social distances in the grocery stores; for one thing, they are very quiet right now, and there are x’s marked on the floor to show where we need to keep our carts to keep appropriately away from other people. Probably the best thing is that other people – in my experience – are really taking social distancing seriously so we are all stepping widely to give each other two metres of berth.

Anyway, I was making my list and I looked at the shelf where I keep the following: tea, bread crumbs, the very occasional box of crackers, Oreos – which I use exclusively to make homemade cookies and cream ice cream, and if you have never made that, it is WORTHWHILE – and taco shells. Tacos are an excellent Pandemic Meal, in my opinion, as I always have black beans on hand for me and ground chicken in the freezer for the guys. My younger son is in charge of making tacos when it’s Taco Night, and so I am always prepared with shells and seasoning. However, on this shelf was an open box of shells, less than half full. How could that be? On my big Pandemic Shop, I was sure I had purchased a few boxes of shells, specifically because of the aforementioned Excellence of Tacos As A Pandemic Meal. I wrote it down on my list, figuring that with everything else going on, I had simply forgot. I picked up three boxes at the grocery store, and then while I was putting groceries away, I saw three boxes of shells in the pantry downstairs. Ah! I had run out of room and put some dry goods on a shelf downstairs after the big Pandemic Shop. I must keep that in mind when I think I’m running out of pasta – I have a few boxes on that shelf – but meanwhile, I now have six and a half boxes of taco shells.

Is this hoarding?

I guess if anyone is in desperate need of taco shells, I can share, but last time I looked there was certainly no shortage. The shelves containing flour, pasta, and canned soup continue to be empty, and I have heard that yeast is very difficult to find. I haven’t tried as I still have some, and – taco shells aside – I am trying not to panic buy anything. I am trying to Make Do With What I Have, for the most part. Still, I saw something on twitter about making yeast out of dried fruit, and I am going to do that. Science, bitches!

Speaking of science, online lessons start this week, which will be interesting. In addition to this, I am teaching my yoga classes online – both live through Zoom and via YouTube videos. My husband is, of course, working from home and we are in a small 1960s bungalow. Do not get me wrong, I love our house, I feel fortunate to have a lovely home with a family that I love, but this is the week that things will get Interesting.

Happy Things This Week

As I mentioned, it was my son’s 16th birthday last Monday, and our anniversary as well. We went for a long walk in the natural area that is only a kilometer walk from our house. It was an absolutely gorgeous day.

I also made a strawberry cake with strawberry frosting and coconut whipped cream. It was delicious.

Yesterday I baked brownies and topped them with homemade ice cream and fudge sauce.

My friend Denise (HI DENISE) suggested the Houseparty app, and on Friday we had a wine date together with some of her friends. I highly suggest this if you, like me, are missing having actual conversations with people and seeing faces.

Things That Are Disproportionately Upsetting Me This Week

I don’t think I really need to say that I’m worried about illness and death of so many people, and worried about it hitting loved ones. I don’t think I need to say that I’m worried about the massive economic fallout from all of this; about ninety percent of people I know have either lost their jobs or taken pay cuts, small businesses are going to get decimated, who knows how all of this is going to get resolved and paid for. My sister-in-law is considered an essential worker right now and she is the person who checks in on my widowed, nearly 80-year-old mother-in-law who lives in isolation on two acres, and if you don’t think that’s worrying, well.

But sometimes the little things take on larger significance in my mind. The two things that have upset me in a completely disproportionate way, are that the spring plant fundraiser I had ordered from is cancelled, and all the hair salons are closed. I mean, of course. There is no WAY to physically distance yourself while getting your hair done, unless your hair therapist has metre-long arms with Edward Scissorhands-like hands. I mean, there’s just no way. It’s obvious that they should close AND YET. Well, I have purchased a couple of boxes of hair dye and although it has been well over two decades since I coloured my own hair, I am ready. I have been wondering for months if I should start growing out my hair, and I guess the answer is YES.

I guess the thing that is bothering me is that my hair therapist, who I love and have been going to for eighteen years, owns her own tiny salon. She is going to be just another of the small businesses affected and yes, if we all work together maybe it won’t be closed relatively long. But she’s the face for yet another business that is going to be hit hard by all of this and there is nothing that can be done, not really.

Pandemic Reading

Emma is SUCH a delight of a book.

CanLit! I read this in first-year university, and as you can see, I must have written a paper about the theme of blindness, and the stone angel as a symbol for Hagar herself. Seeing my notes in the book cracked me up. Ah, the earnestness of a first-year university student.

This was my favourite book as a teen; I read it many, many times. It’s a good Pandemic Book because it’s over 800 pages. I have shelves full of books, but having a longer read is a good idea, since who knows when the libraries will reopen. I have not yet finished it; it feels like a Project.

Stepping Out, Pandemic Style

After Steph (HI STEPH) mentioned that I had walked almost a marathon, I decided to make that my goal each week. I live in a neighbourhood in which it is very easy to Social Distance: wide sidewalks, space along boulevards, pathways. I am reluctantly Not Running right now, due to the time of year and the freeze-melt cycle which results in very icy sidewalks and pathways. But Saturday morning I speed walked – feeling like a 1990s speed walker or that Prancercize lady – and managed 8.5 km in 1:17, which I thought was pretty good.

Oooh, that 29.8 bothers me in a David Sedaris-like way. SO CLOSE TO THIRTY. Okay, no. Let’s not get Weird and Obsessive, or at least not any more than normal.

That’s it for me this week; how are you all doing? xo

Sweet Sixteen and One Week In

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Today is my older son’s 16th birthday and, coincidentally, our 18th wedding anniversary! We are obviously not celebrating the way we thought we would – in Mexico, with our friends, their son being my son’s birthday twin and one of his best friends – but it’s okay. Everything is okay. We are going to barbeque tonight – steak for the guys, mushrooms for me – with roasted sweet potatoes and homemade Caesar salad, plus a strawberry cake for dessert. It’s Monday night and we aren’t having pasta! A special day indeed.

I think the thing about having kids this age is that I can really clearly remember what it was like to be 16. I also feel like if this had happened when I was 16, I would not be quite as positive and cheerful about it as my kids have been. We talk a lot about kids being online too much but honestly, it’s great that they can still “see” their friends via Facetime and group chats. Maybe all this phone activity was just preparing them for social distancing and isolation.

My husband took my son out for his first driving lesson last night at the mall parking lot, thinking it would be very quiet since nothing is open in the mall, and also it was Sunday night. It turns out many people had that idea. There were lots of parents there with teens driving around in circles. It just reinforces that although we are all separate, we are all together too.

How are you all doing? We have had some good news this week, as regards the schools. Technically we are on spring break right now, but as of next week, online lessons will start for the kids; I was concerned that my younger son wasn’t going to have any direction in that regard and would start high school behind, but that looks like it will not be the case.

Here are the things we have been doing for this first week of isolation:

All Caught Up On Groceries

I did go out for groceries and prescriptions last week; I’m all stocked up. I wasn’t accounting for my husband to be eating lunches at home, so I had to buy quite a bit extra to make up for that. In the good old days – two weeks ago – he would just buy lunch downtown. Well, I’m all caught up now. I think that I will be able to just go out once weekly to get fresh produce and a few other things. It looks like grocery stores are marking the aisles to make it easy to keep your cart away from others and installing “sneeze shields” around their employees, like at a buffet. Also, with the initial rush of panic buying over, I feel like the stores will be quieter this week. It’s really interesting to me to see what has been cleared out of the shelves. First it was toilet paper and hand sanitizer, then I started noticing things like bread, eggs, and milk clearing out. Last week I noticed that the pasta, canned soup, and flour shelves were absolutely decimated. Fresh produce, though, is plentiful.

Barkley

I managed to snag an appointment at the local grooming place for Barkley. Normally at this time of year he gets groomed at the boarding kennel at the end of spring break. I was lucky to get an appointment as they are closing temporarily very soon. He was as matted and fuzzy as can be; he is now nice and clean – although it is a bit chilly still for him to have such short hair.

Extreme makeover!

Yoga Classes Online

I taught my first yoga class online and I’m setting up a series of YouTube videos for Gentle Yoga. It’s strange teaching to a laptop, but I’m visualizing all my regular students, which makes it fun.

I’m Walking, Yes Indeed

I was concerned about curtailing my usual physical activities. Keeping active is very important to me, not just physically, but mentally. However, with nothing but time on my hands, it’s pretty easy to get a LOT of exercise. Between my elliptical machine and taking lots of walks, I averaged over 17,000 steps per day last week. According to my Garmin, I walked 25.6 miles.

Don’t worry! Even though I have never seen so many people out walking in my neighbourhood, it is very easy to Social Distance. We all are stepping way out of the way when another person approaches and when I see someone I know, we talk from at least six feet away.

Reading

I’m doing a lot of reading. Fortunately I have several bookshelves full of good things to read.

I love short stories and I love Alice Munro. This is a really great collection, with a very interesting novella about Sophia Kovalevsky, a noted Russian mathematician in a time when women were not noted for being mathematicians.

Olive, Again was the last book I got from the library before it closed and I highly recommend it. It was, in my opinion, even better than Olive Kitteridge. Elizabeth Strout is an incredibly talented writer.

I’ve mentioned this many times before, but it never fails to make me laugh until I cry. Especially now, Stepping Out speaks to me.

As I mentioned before, my son is studying this in school and so I refreshed myself to have conversations with him about it. One of my favourites, I was able to talk to him about the character arc of Aunt Alexandra, who is one of the most interesting characters in the book.

If you have any books from your childhood lying around, I recommend you pick them up and read them. It is so interesting to reread childhood favourites – such a different perspective as an adult!

How are you all doing? Lots of love to you all. xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Self-Care During A Global Pandemic Edition

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Over the weekend, the situation changed hourly. By Sunday night, essentially everything was shut down: libraries, the gym, yoga studios, SCHOOL. School is – and I can’t think too much about this, I cannot think more than a day or two at a time right now – closed indefinitely. INDEFINITELY. Like I said, I can’t think too much about this. My kids are absolutely crushed; they are devastated about not seeing their friends, of course, but also worried about the academic implications. The high school is getting online learning going, and my high school student only has two core subjects this semester, both of which I personally excel at, math and English, so I will be able to help him as much as I can. He is currently reading To Kill a Mockingbird, which is one of my all-time favourites, so I am re-reading it now so we can have some good critical discussions. That, along with online math lessons, should be at least moderate to keep up with what will be needed in Grade 11, the important grade in terms of post-secondary early admissions.

The junior high, however, has stated that teachers CANNOT provide ANY school resources at this time, which, well. All of my son’s textbooks are online, so we can figure things out, and he is a very methodical worker so I’m hoping he will be able to self-learn. Of course I am here for his math and English as well – he is slated to study The Outsiders, which we have at home – but I’m unsure about the science and social studies curriculum. Well, we will get through. There will be a time after this, I keep telling myself. This isn’t forever.

The funny thing is that this week I had planned in my head to write a Favourite Things: Self Care Edition because of how busy this week always is, getting ready for spring break. It seems like an entirely different lifetime, doesn’t it? Like, normally I would be scrambling trying to fit in my bikini wax between classes, get the dog to the boarding kennel, and pack all the bags. I might even feel resentful that I am the key bag-packer in the house. OH TO HAVE THAT RESENTMENT.

Like I said, I can’t think too much about it. I can’t think about indefinite school closures, I can’t think about the escalation of cases and deaths, I can’t think about the massive economic fallout that this will have on everyone. We all have to take care of ourselves, and with that in mind…

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Self-Care During a Global Pandemic Edition

Daily Mantra

Every day I repeat to myself that there are many things out of my control, so I can only control what I can control. It’s like I’m basically repeating the Serenity Prayer to myself over and over. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. We can only control our own thoughts, our own movements, our own actions. I can’t control the schools closing indefinitely but I can help the kids with lessons every day.

Daily Yoga

Yes, the studios are all closed but I have a long and well-established practice that I can easily do at home. Even if you DON’T, now is the time to start. God, if there was any time to start a home yoga practice, it would be now. My studio is starting to offer classes online – I’ll be teaching one this week, stay tuned! – but of course there are also countless YouTube videos out there. My husband is benefiting from my I-Miss-Teaching state of mind, and I’m giving him mini at-your-desk sessions throughout the day. Roll out your mat, and breathe.

How do you like my home yoga studio? Squeezed in between the kitchen and the dining room table which is also doubling as my husband’s work-from-home station. Well, that’s the great thing about yoga, all you need is enough space to roll out your mat.

Keep Active

With the gym closed, and my treadmill running and spin classes obviously being non-existent, I am putting in extra efforts to keep active. I am lucky enough to have an elliptical trainer in my basement, and fortunately the weather is decent – so long daily walks are on the schedule. The sidewalks are still pretty icy so I’m not comfortable running outside, but I will revisit that later. In any case, daily activity is important. And so is fresh air! At least this didn’t happen in January, I think to myself. Right? Because the days are longer and the sun is stronger. Get outside, breathe the air, be active.

Nourish Your Body

Let me tell you, on Friday I was in Let’s Eat And Drink Whatever We Want My God This Is The Apocalypse mode, and that was fine for a couple days, but definitely not sustainable. For one thing, if I keep drinking a bottle of wine every night I would quickly run out of wine. For another, I don’t want to outgrow all my clothes because well, no shopping for a while. So I’m keeping up with my Eating A Rainbow meal plan, there seems to be absolutely no issue getting fresh produce right now so I’m making sure the boys are eating their usual mammoth amounts of fruits and vegetables, and, of course, I’m having my daily green smoothies.

 

Cue the choir of angels: look at that avocado. My mom gave me that cutting board for Christmas after my son destroyed one of mine crushing candy canes.

Green Smoothies

This deserves its own heading. I have said countless times before that I swear by green smoothies for health and energy. I have one every day; my favourite is this one, but if you don’t want to click the link it is a cup of almond milk, two tablespoons almond butter, a frozen banana, a whole lot of cinnamon, and like 8 cups of spinach.

Hydrate

The green smoothie is hydrating, but so is water. Whenever I say I drink 4-5 litres of water daily, the question that always arises is “Don’t you pee a lot?” I mean, I guess? I don’t really monitor how much other people pee, but I would guess I probably do pee more than normal. I have a pretty water bottle that makes me happy every time I fill it, and if you think that sound frivolous, have you met me? I’m all about frivolous. On that note:

Make Yourself Feel Pretty

If there is nowhere to go and nobody to see, it’s pretty easy to slump into a series of Pajama Days. If that’s your jam, great! But for me, that is very bad for my mental health. So, every day I shower, put on a nice outfit. I put on makeup, do my hair, and wear my jewelry. I have been having a series of great hair days lately; isn’t that always the way? Great hair days and no one to share them with. Well, I’m sharing them with you now!

For God’s Sake, Step Away From The Internet

Yes, it’s important to be informed and yes, things change on the hour. However, constantly refreshing your feed is NOT the best idea if you want to stay sane. Or maybe it is, maybe that’s how you feel in control; for me, I have to step away. I mean, unless I want to see people fighting on my facebook page about whether or not the virus can survive in a warm climate, or the usual Internet Divided which happens for literally everything – EVERYTHING – but just feels gross now, the teams divided into We Are All Going To Die versus We Are All Overblowing Everything. As usual, there is no middle ground, and so it’s really better to Stay Off The Internet. Or just check in once or twice a day. The news is not going to be good no matter how you slice it, so just check in with what you need and get on with your day.

The exception? Cute photos. Look at this guy!

I’m also reading a lot – the library is closed but luckily I have tons of books that I love and am going to re-read. My mom gave me The Testaments for Christmas, which I haven’t read yet. I am not sure I can read something of a dystopian nature right now, but soon. In the meantime I will be sharing my reading list with you.

Please note that these are things that make ME feel better. Maybe they will resonate with you, maybe they won’t. Just stay safe, stay healthy, and remember that yes, there will be a time after this. It’s not forever. xoxo

…and I scream at the top of my lungs, “What’s going on?”

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I am a person who really has to make a concerted effort to have just one or two backups of any given staple in my house, whether it be food, toiletries, or paper products. I have to work at not hoarding things, with the thought in mind that I can always buy it next time I’m here. So you can probably imagine my state of mind, and also the state of the pantry, fridges, and freezer right now.

Interestingly enough, as of yesterday my local Co-Op had toilet paper in stock, but I got the last two bags of round tortilla chips, and the chip aisle itself was pretty much decimated.

This is usually one of my most hectic weeks of the whole year, getting ready for spring break and all that comes with it. Suddenly I’m thrust into a quiet state and I hardly know what to do with myself. Our spring break trip to Mexico is, obviously, cancelled. Hence the extra avocados; if we can’t go to Mexico, I guess Mexico can come to us. Although – and I just realized this in a panicked way – I was going to stock up on vanilla on my way home at the duty free, and now I will have to buy expensive vanilla, all is ashes.

Anyway, I am very disappointed and sad, for the lack of a Mexican trip and also, disproportionately, the lack of vanilla. These are Princess Problems, of course, but I am still sad. Never mind all my groceries, I have a serious plethora of sunscreen that I stocked up on, as well as new bikinis and coverups. My son’s sailing trip has not yet been cancelled, but of course it will be, and I guess I will be donating the giant rubber boots I bought for him, because no ninth-grader is actually going to wear giant rubber boots unless he is actually on a sailboat on the west coast.

All that angst about the poinsettia fundraiser, all for naught.

I am also a person who has always washed her hands countless times per day; I open up doors in public places using the bottom of my shirt and I hand-sanitize after touching keypads or buttons. I have indoctrinated my kids to do the same; from the time they were little they knew to wash their hands after coming into the house, they would hold out their chubby little hands for a squirt of hand sanitizer in public places. So you can probably imagine my state of mind right now, not to mention the state of my hands. If you were to judge my age by my hands – as they say – I would be 102 years old.

Well. I’m trying very hard to be positive, thinking that we are all working together to mitigate the coronavirus, to “flatten the curve,” as they say, and at the very least, I will be spending a lot of time with my family. My husband’s office is closed, so he’s working from home. The schools have not yet been closed, and perhaps they won’t be, but in any event, spring break starts on Friday. I just read that the virus is not transmitted through sweat, so tomorrow I am going to go to the gym, and I’m feeling confident about my yoga classes.

Just as an aside, it’s minus twenty and snowing right now. It is a full fifty degrees warmer in Puerto Vallarta AND they have mango margaritas there.

Positive thinking, POSITIVE THINKING. I am going to get a lot of reading done, I have un-paused all of my library holds and I have a number of books at home that I was looking forward to reading on my beach chair. I will read them in my comfy chair at home! That’s almost as good. I remembered earlier in the day that today is Pi Day, and so I baked a cherry pie for the guys. I will never cease to be amazed at mathematics. Any circle in the world, any circle, take the circumference and divide by the diameter, and you get pi. ANY CIRCLE, ANY ONE AT ALL. Is that not amazing? Anyway, cherry pie. Together with that and the coconut chocolate cookies I made yesterday, we are awash in baked goods. Baked goods or not, we are luckier than 99% of people, I think.

Earlier in the week there was a lockdown at the high school, caused by a student who brought a gun to school; it was quite terrifying but ended up that the gun in question was an Airsoft one, and so everything is fine. The point is that we are all here and healthy. My beautiful friend Florence, of amazing hair fame (HI FLORENCE) said she was taking this opportunity – this forced quietness, this forced pause – to stop rushing around and just spend time with family. Given that my plans for the next week would have had me in a literal frenzy, I feel that I should take this time as a gift. It’s also an opportunity to practice loving-kindness towards ourselves and others, to remember the people who are not as fortunate as ourselves, and to eat any manner of delicious things and – as I have been doing – to drink a lot of wine. After all, I have a fairly full rack of wine, lots of gin and vodka, and if all else fails, I can figure out how to make my own mango margaritas. Although, that will require a trip to the grocery store and honestly, I do not think I have the stamina to do that again for a few days. But, sometimes, needs must.

Stay well, my friends. Wishing you lots of wine and yummy things, and, above all, health. xo

And I try, oh my god do I try, I try all the time

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…in this institution.

I’m not exactly praying for a revolution, per se, but honest to god, yesterday I took the quadruple whammy: time change, Mercury still in retrograde, the eve of the full moon, AND after somewhat of a hiatus, my Ladies’ Holidays arrived. What timing. There is nothing we can do about moon phases and planetary movement, there is little to be done about Ladies’ Holidays, and here we still are, many years after the war ended, still pretending that Daylight Savings is indeed saving daylight and energy. We all spring forward like zombies, for absolutely no reason whatsoever except that we have to do it, or we will be an hour late to everything in society.

THERE IS NOT ACTUALLY MORE TIME IN THE DAY. We do indeed have more daylight, but that is due to the revolution of the earth around the sun, not moving the clocks forward.

Anyway, I am trying, OH MY GOD DO I TRY, to not make Time Change Week a self-fulfilling prophecy, I am trying to be positive and pretend like it’s any other week, I’m trying to look on the good side – wow, it sure is light out when we are eating dinner! – but I just spelled prophecy with an F and well. Well.

It’s going to be a very hectic week, in any event. I have a meeting at the school for my younger son’s sailing trip, which leaves in three weeks. I mean, hopefully. Given that we can’t do anything about external circumstances. The point is, there is actually a parent meeting! We also had a last-minute fundraiser because – and this may or may not surprise you – the poinsettia fundraiser did NOT do as well as expected. Isn’t that strange, in the middle of a recession in Alberta, people aren’t clamouring for $40 arrangements right before Christmas. I cannot believe it either. Well, I leaned in HARD to this fundraiser as it was for Co-Op grocery and gas station gift cards; this is an actual useful fundraiser for things people might actually want. Maybe we can all use our Co-Op gift cards to stock up on toilet paper. They had it on sale this weekend.

Anyway, my lovely friends were more than generous for this fundraiser; I instantly blew past the minimum I needed to sell and ended up nearly five times that. My hope is that this fundraiser will be as wildly successful for everyone as it has been for me, and that the administration will take note and, perhaps, come to the conclusion that gift card fundraisers are the way to go, and the poinsettia one can stay in the trash where it belongs. Technically the future doesn’t matter for me, as I won’t be doing this ever again, but I like to think of myself as benevolently hoping for the next generation of sailing-trip parents.

God bless you all, for your tips about bra shopping and fitting, and sharing your similar anguish and bust-related woes. My friend Megan (HI MEGAN) sent me directions on how to measure myself for a bra, and let me tell you this: the size of my old bra was so incredibly wrong, it was startling. In fact, it was such an odd size that it qualified as a “specialty” one, which is how I ended up deciding to visit the specialty shop just across the street from the studio at which I teach. I had a class Friday at lunch, but I gathered all my mental strength and zipped over to the shop, giving myself a nice window of time before class. Or, at least, I thought it was a nice window of time.

When I related my tale to the lady at the shop, she tilted her head and said that at that store, they don’t do such pedestrian things as measure for bra size. As I looked at her, confused, she just said that I would try on bras until I found one I liked and that fit. Ooo-kay. She brought me the size I thought I was, which did not fit. Then she brought me another one, and it did not fit. Then she brought me the size of my old bras, and, unsurprisingly, that also did not fit. Twelve bras later, all different sizes and styles, none of which was even close to fitting, I found that I had ran out of time and had to get to the studio.

God, I hate wasting time. More than anything else, that makes me crazy. Well, it’s probably a good thing anyway, since the only thing I hate as much as wasting time is wasting money, and every single one of those bras were over $150. At one point – probably around Bra Eight – I would have paid all that and more just to end this hellish shopping experience and leave with something to show for my efforts. I guess on the bright side, if I’m going to wear the wrong size bra, at least I can do that with the ones I have in my lingerie drawer, at no additional expense.

I left the store with my self-esteem somewhat in tatters. I mean, who can’t get a bra that fits at a specialty bra store that specializes in hard-to-fit sizes? Me, apparently. I think I’ll try a non-specialty store in the hopes that I am not as special as I think I am.

Well, I tried. Oh my god, did I try.

All Panic, No Disco

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This week is a Costco week, and I happened to have a little bit of time on Monday morning to venture over there. I had seen the news about long lineups and store craziness, but honestly, from the photos I saw it just seemed like a regular day at my busy Costco. However, I have never been there at opening before, mostly because I only discovered a month ago that Costco opens at 9:00; I had always thought it was 10:00 and would time my arrival to be just shortly after that. Wow, people really get to the checkout quickly I would think, seeing lineups at 10:15 and assuming that all those people were power-shopping after their 10:00 arrival. Anyway, what I’m saying is I’ve never been to Costco at 8:55 before and it was an experience.

I don’t know if this is normal behaviour, or if it was Coronavirus panic, but carts were lined up awkwardly through the parking lot, waiting for the doors to open. Maybe this always happens; I don’t know. I turned to ask the lady beside me if it was always like this, but she was wearing a mask and latex gloves, so I felt she probably didn’t want me to strike up a conversation.

My friend Janet, of beautiful hair fame, (HI JANET) said she was at Costco and the greeters were wiping down carts with antibacterial wipes, but using the same wipe over and over. I’m not sure what we are doing here.

I have a natural tendency to overbuy things when they are on sale, and I have to really fight that tendency so as to not end up with an overflowing house. That said, I always – always! – have backups of important things like my most-used food staples, soap, toothpaste, dish soap, and – wait for it – toilet paper. I never buy it at Costco though, only Superstore when they have a sale or there are special PC points involved. So I was probably the only person at Costco on Monday morning without giant stacks of Kirkland toilet paper in my giant cart.

It was impossible not to notice. When I later heard that Costco ran OUT of toilet paper, I was completely unsurprised.

Well. I don’t ever think it’s a bad idea to be prepared for an emergency, and the great news is that Superstore still has plenty of toilet paper, people, plenty. I have been slowly and quietly putting a few extra things in my pantry and medicine chest like ibuprofen, vitamins, and, alliteratively enough, shelf-stable staples. If it’s all for naught, well, at least I won’t have to buy chickpeas for a while.

I am generally very good at cleaning out my cupboards; rotating canned goods and making sure they all get consumed. However, I was organizing things in my canned-good cupboard and I noticed a jar, way at the back. I pulled it out and it was a jar of olives, not the brand I normally buy, and in fact, I couldn’t remember ever buying them. They had pits, for one thing, and I always buy pitted. I looked at the top and people, they expired in 2013. Expired! How long does it take for olives to expire? When did I even buy these? We renovated our kitchen in 2012, I would have thought I would have discovered the olives prior to that. Who knows?

I had a friend over for tea the other day (HI T) and we were talking about my long-ago shopping challenge. I mentioned to her that, because of the shopping challenge and also when I Kondo-ed the house, I am a lot more aware of the things I buy and bring into the house. Other than, apparently, olives. But I am more mindful of what I buy; sometimes I am too mindful, as is the case with my ill-fitting bras. One of my exceptions to the shopping challenge was a new bra, because my old ones didn’t – and do not – fit properly. I finished that shopping challenge in 2018. Buying a bra was one of my 2020 New Year’s Resolutions.

My friend told me that I really should get on that resolution, that she herself had been bra shopping and, after being measured, discovered that she is a much different size than she thought she was. She and I wear the same size bra, or DID until she got fitted. Her new size made my eyes pop out of my head. Could I ALSO be that size? I know a number is just a number and a size is just a size, but I was wowed. And so it was with this thought in mind, plus her assertion about how much more comfortable she is in her bras these days, I decided to bite the bullet and go to the mall.

I probably wouldn’t have even gone to the mall had I not needed to purchase a birthday gift for a special soon-to-be-sixteen-year-old, but there I was, gift purchased, with thirty minutes to spare before I needed to leave for my afternoon class. I power-walked through the mall to get extra steps in, and circled around to the Victoria’s Secret. Well, to what WAS the Victoria’s Secret. The store was shuttered, with not even a sign remaining. How long has this been closed? I thought. I was just in the mall in January, and it was open then. Regrets, I have them. All this time, I have had a Victoria’s Secret five minutes away from my home, all these years, and now it’s gone. I could have been buying a bra anytime I wanted, and now, no. They probably had a closing out sale! I COULD HAVE HAD A DISCOUNTED NEW BRA IN MY (HOPEFULLY) NEW BRA SIZE! Don’t take life for granted, people. I took Victoria’s Secret for granted, and now it’s gone. Probably because I couldn’t even get it together enough to got shopping. I started humming You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone…

I stood there, staring, at the shuttered window with the song going in my head on a loop. I must have stood there for three solid minutes, probably looking like a lunatic, while another song came into my head, courtesy of the Evita soundtrack. So what happens now…where am I going to…

It goes without saying that I left the mall with my New Year’s Resolution still unfulfilled. Yes, I do know that there are other lingerie stores. Yes, I do know I could visit The Bay where I could get chided by an older Eastern European lady for wearing an incorrect bra size, before being steered toward the Olga line. But I’ve only worn Victoria’s Secret bras for the last decade, and I am feeling bereft. Yes, I do know that there are other Victoria’s Secrets in the general Calgary area, but I tell you this: if I didn’t go to a shop only five minutes away, there is no way I am going to get in the car and drive to the outlet mall outside the city limits, or, worse, to the mall in the south side of the city, to get to which I have to take my most-loathed-it-must-have-been-engineered-and-planned-by-a-group-of-drunks freeway.

No, I am going to just accept that I will probably wear my current bras when I’m in the nursing home. We are together for life, now. Me and my ill-fitting bras, together forever.

I’m not one to blame everything on planetary movement but

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Mercury is in retrograde! This, I think, explains a lot.

I do not tend to blame everything on external forces, but Mercury will still be in retrograde when time change occurs this coming weekend, so I feel it best to set my expectations for myself and the rest of the world quite low, as we all wander around in a fog of exhaustion, going back to school drop-offs in the dark with a general feeling of confusion.

My friend Hannah (HI HANNAH) noticed something in her dayhome the other day:

It’s true. Jealousy can be very automatic, and I think it’s natural, sometimes, to want what we do not – and in some cases, cannot – have.

Take, for example, my friends Florence and Janet (HI FLORENCE HI JANET). These two are the most supportive of friends, they are like the sisters I have never had. They are beautiful souls, hard working, and devoted mothers. They also both have the most naturally amazing, effortless hair, and I will admit: I covet. Their hair isn’t one of those things that appears to be effortless but actually takes a lot of effort, like natural-looking makeup. Their hair is literally effortless. I know this because Florence has stopped by my house after her morning swim on occasion, with wet hair, and over the course of a coffee her hair dries into this perfect, naturally wavy hairstyle, thick and shiny and beautiful. I mean, can you imagine? Janet and I practice yoga together every morning at 5:00 am, and every morning at 5:00 am she swans into the studio looking like a hair model, even though she literally just got out of bed. Then, she takes her long, thick, curly hair and whips it up into a messy bun, and she looks like she has had a team of stylists working on her, even though she put approximately ten seconds of effort into it. Again, can you imagine? Maybe you are a person with similar gifts, and if so, I envy you too.

So I will freely admit my jealousy about their gorgeous manes, but here is the important thing that I want to talk about: their perfect hair really has nothing to do with me. They are not shaming me with their beautiful hair. Their purpose in life isn’t to walk around with perfectly amazing hair and make the rest of us feel bad, they just HAVE perfectly amazing hair. I can be jealous of their hair and ALSO be proud and lucky to have them as friends. They, as it is popular to say now, lift me up, and I try to lift them up too. We lift each other up.

And I would repeat that for all of the women in my life who I call friends: we all lift each other up.

Therefore, what I am about to talk about does not in any way refer to my supportive network of friends, the ones near and far. What I am about to discuss is really more of a social media phenomenon.

I have mixed feelings about the saying No one can make you feel inferior without your consent because if someone is INTENTIONALLY being an asshole, that kind of absolves that person from blame. Saying or doing something with unkind intentions, well, that can hurt or make the recipient of such actions feel inferior, no consent required.

Intention matters, is what I’m saying.

Apparently there’s a new trend on TikTok, with mothers videoing bento box lunches that they have – I assume lovingly – prepared for their children. And, if you have ever been on that thing called the internet, you will not be surprised to know that there is a huge backlash about it. “Mom-shaming,” people say, “Must be nice to have so much time on your hands.”

Intention matters.

Two things: I have not, and I never will be, on TikTok, as the thought of anything like that is extremely unappealing. I am turning into my own curmudgeonly grandfather here, I have never even used Uber, not because I have issues with it but because I don’t really want to go through the process of learning something new. What’s wrong with a taxi? Second, I have not and never will – because my kids are teenagers – made a bento box lunch, mostly because my kids came home for lunch every day during elementary school. But I think that they are adorable and I kind of wish that I had. And if I had, maybe I would have taken a photo of it. After all, half my instagram feed is photos of baked goods.

Getting back to the point: a woman putting a video of her cute lunch on TikTok is NOT mom-shaming. Mom-shaming is a real thing, that’s for sure, but celebrating a cute lunch? That’s no more shaming than a person talking about an exercise class they had gone to or a book they have read. That’s sharing, not shaming, intention is what makes the difference. My reaction to a cute lunch/ exercise class/ book is my own issue.

That woman who videoed her lunch is not better or worse than the mom who throws a Lunchable in a bag and calls it a day, or the mom who slaps a piece of bologna between two slices of bread and calls it a day. We are all different, we all parent differently, but the common thread here is that we all do the best with the time and resources that we have, and honestly, if one feels “shamed” from watching something like this on the internet, then I would submit that the issue falls with the recipient of those feelings. I would like hair like Florence or Janet, but their beauty does not diminish me as a person. They are not walking around being naturally gorgeous to shame me, they are just walking around being naturally gorgeous.

It seems to me that the women who are the loudest and most vocal about Lifting Each Other Up only want to Lift Up the women who are similar to them in life journeys and circumstances. I will be your support person but only if you admit that you also find making lunches boring and terrible. I will be your support person only if you are just like me in every way and face the same struggles in the same manner as I do. If we are truly Lifting Each Other Up, then we need to do that regardless of one’s place in the journey of life or one’s circumstances.

Intention matters. We need to be able to celebrate accomplishments, beautiful things, and happiness. If someone posts about their new jean size, or a photo of themselves in a bikini, or a fancy cake, or a bento box lunch, we need to be able to be happy for the person posting, we need to be able to celebrate and lift each other up. If we are not, if we cannot, then some self-examination might be in order here. The intention of a woman proud of the way she looks and posting a flattering photo is not to shame the people looking at the photo, but rather to celebrate herself. This is what we all should be doing, really; celebrating ourselves and our beautiful friends. My knitting friends, Alana and Kourtney (HI ALANA HI KOURTNEY) showcase photos of their beautiful creations NOT with the intention to shame me, a person who literally cannot sew a button on a pair of pants without devastating results, but rather to celebrate their own accomplishments. I have many friends who write and publish books, and those are accomplishments to be celebrated; they have nothing to do with some of us who have been writing a blog since 2008 with nary a book to be seen.

If we are going to truly Lift Each Other Up, we need to do that. One woman’s gifts do not diminish another woman’s.