Monthly Archives: March 2024

Recent Reads

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March has been so busy, and full, and fun, and I am surprised we are still in it. Typically, the months fly by so quickly I hardly realize that we experienced a month, but for some reason I feel astonishment that it’s still March. Two weeks ago I was packing for Vegas, and that feels like two months ago; our houseguests left on Sunday and that feels like it happened three weeks ago.

Part of my cognitive dissonance is that March in Kelowna feels a lot like May in Calgary, but with less daylight and snow. We got back from Vegas and I excitedly thought It’s almost my birthday!, forgetting that a) my birthday was at that point five weeks away, and b) we hadn’t yet celebrated my son’s March birthday.

I’m not complaining; time goes so quickly that it’s okay for once that March has felt like it’s several months long. I realized, though, that it’s been a while since I talked about books. In the past couple of weeks, I have read five really great books! And one real dud. One of these books was a reread, two were translations, and all of them were novels.

The Friend. I first read this beautiful book about a woman who, while grieving the loss of a friend due to suicide, finds herself in possession of that friend’s Great Dane back in April 2019, on the strong recommendation of my dear friend Suzanne (HI SUZANNE). And back then, in April 2019, I liked it a lot. I saw this on the shelf at the library and thought, hey, why not a reread? After all, this is about a woman in sudden possession of a big dog, and I myself also have been in sudden possession of a big dog. It is also about grief; the loss of this woman’s friend and literary mentor becomes very conflated with the care of the big dog. This book is very literary and has a lot of detail about the writing process and the general attitude that all writers seem to have, which is a lot of doubt about the worth and usefulness of their own writing, as well as numerous wonderful references to literature. But let me tell you how differently this book hit me, this read around. In April 2019 my life was considerably different than it is now, big dog notwithstanding. I was a very busy yoga teacher who was training for a road race, I had kids in junior high, it was a year pre-pandemic, life was ticking along nicely, and, importantly, my dear Barkley was still alive and very healthy. None of those things are true now. I was so incredibly moved by this book on so many levels this time around; not only did I like it a lot, I absolutely loved it, and it resonated so much with me. Anyone who has lost a friend, particularly to suicide, will find this incredibly poignant and moving. And anyone who has had an elderly dog, well, let’s just say I found myself devastated in a way that no book has devastated me before. If you know, you know. I considered not telling you that part, but as my son (who made me this bookmark, among others, for Christmas) said, It’s a book about a dog. Those never end well. Truth. That said, this book is absolutely beautiful and completely unforgettable, even if I kind of forgot what happened the last time I read it.

Whereabouts. This book is a novel, but it almost reads like a series of very interconnected short stories: each short chapter is a vignette into itself. It is a story of a woman living a solitary life amidst the bustle of an unnamed city, and it’s exactly the kind of thing I love: such an ordinary life, with all these extraordinary details. This is very much an internal development book, so if you’re looking for a thick plot or page turning action, then no, this is not the book for that. But it’s a gorgeous book of prose about an internal journey of a woman on her own. Fun fact: this was the first book Lahiri wrote in Italian and then translated to English. This language facility fascinates me!

Commonwealth. True confession: for the longest time, I had this book conflated with another from a different author, with a similar but different title, similar but different cover, and I did NOT like that book at all. So for the longest time, I thought “I love Ann Patchett…except for Commonwealth.” Then I read an essay by her that talked about Commonwealth as the most autobiographical of all her novels, describing the plot, and I realized that I HAD NEVER READ IT AT ALL. So I had to rectify that, obviously. This is SO good. It’s the story of a blended family and all the changes and gains and losses in life. It was breathtakingly good, and I was captivated by the Big Plot Twist in the story. I think anyone who wants to write or does write is VERY aware of how the people in their lives will take the fictional-but-based-on-people-you-know characters, and the Big Plot Twist was pretty amazing. I loved this so much.

An Available Man. When Edward’s wife is dying, she tells him that they will ALL come out of the woodwork now, and by ALL she means women. This is a book about a widower who is navigating the world without his wife, and whose stepchildren put out a personal ad just for him. It’s a really good read, with a delightful look into relationships and life. 

Breasts and Eggs. Have you ever wondered how a book gets on your library hold list? I know I put it there, but why? Did someone recommend this? If so, I am giving that person the side eye. Translations can be so tricky and I really feel like something was lost in the translation. Actually, I am going to be generous and say that something was definitely lost in the translation. This novel about two sisters, one who gets breast implants and one who considers donor-conceived pregnancy, two things that are viewed with a different lens in Japan, really fell flat for me. It read as clunky, repetitive, and way too long. I did not enjoy this and I kept reading to see how it would tie together. It…didn’t? Listen, I get that there are massive cultural differences between North America and Japan, particularly around donor conception, but wow, every chapter seemed to just reiterate the debate around it, in a terribly clunky way. Honestly I should have DNFed.

Mrs. Quinn’s Rise To Fame. This was such a sweet (literally! It’s about baking) and heartwarming book about a 77-year-old lady who enters into a televised baking competition (think The Great British Bakeoff). Listen, there are no surprises. There are no big twists. There is a reveal about a secret but I guessed it within the first third of this book, and you probably will too. Everything in this book is just lovely and cozy, every character is delightful, and if you need a pick-me-up escape from the fiery hellscape that is the world sometimes, I cannot recommend it enough.

I just picked up a giant STACK from the library yesterday; three holds came in and I was enticed by the lure of the “library recommends” shelf, and so I have four interesting books just waiting patiently for me to finish the one I have on the go right now. Is there anything more exciting than a good stack of books? Well, yes, probably, but there is nothing quite as cozy and joyful. Have you read anything good lately? Any duds? Tell me everything. xo

Various Views on Vegas

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Fly High Free Bird

The soul-crushing airline industry has completely ruined my idea of what is normal and what is not. To me, flight departure and arrival times are completely nebulous, an approximation at best. I just assume that no flight will ever take off or arrive on time, ever, which is why I will do almost anything to avoid flight connections. So you can imagine my surprise when not only did our flight to Vegas was on time, but so was our flight home. We arrived home at 4:00 pm, which meant that I could pick Rex up from the boarder’s, rather than waiting until the next day. “Our flight got in early!” I excitedly said to the woman at the boarder’s, and my husband reminded me that no, it wasn’t, but it was on time. I guess I just assumed 4:00 could mean anything from 5:00 to midnight.

We had booked these flights before I became incredibly spoiled by our recent, premium seat flight to Mexico, but we did have the exit row, which is quite comfortable for me and my swollen, badly circulated, here-are-the-warning-signs-for-blood clots legs. On the way there I was seated beside a lovely Australian woman who had been rerouted to Vegas in the strangest way: she was heading for Calgary, where she would connect to go on to Houston, but as she was driving to the airport she was notified that her Calgary flight was delayed for over ninety minutes, and she would miss her connection. Back in the day there were many flights from Calgary to Houston, but apparently not anymore, and so she was flying to Vegas, of all redirections, and then getting an evening flight on a different airline to Houston. It sounded exhausting and reinforced my deep distrust of airline connections.

On discovering that the woman was from Australia, the fellow in the window seat struck up a conversation, and continued the conversation for the entire three hour flight. I was in the happy position of being in the aisle seat, so I could eavesdrop easily but I could also just read my book. The conversation almost entirely consisted of his recounting of The Times He Got Drunk In Australia, along with one horrifying description of the Time He Tried To Barbeque Kangaroo Meat.

I had a brief conversation with this young gentleman when he arrived to his seat, and that conversation was about the Superiority Of The Airport White Spot as a Drinking Destination. “Their liquor license starts at 6:00 am, and there’s no difference in the price of a beer at the airport versus the White Spot on Harvey,” he said, “And no one has to drive because we are all getting on a plane!” He has a point. The flight attendant came by with the drinks cart and when he asked for a beer, she told him there was Molsen and Coors available. “The Silver Bullet!” he said happily. It was just after 9:00 am. I lost sight of him after deplaning but I feel sure he had a great time in Vegas.

My Milkshake Brings The Instagrammers To The Yard

For the second year in a row, St. Patrick’s Day completely fell off my radar and I didn’t realize until just before we left that we would be in Vegas for that occasion. I assumed that all of the pubs would be very busy, but either there is just a glut of pubs or people were partaking in the festivities elsewhere, because every pub we passed seemed pretty quiet. People were definitely partaking in festivities somewhere, as dramatically demonstrated by the fellow in a tall green hat and a shirt emblazoned with “Pat MeCrotch” falling into the elevator with us, followed by his apologetic wife, who was wearing a gigantic glowing green necklace made up of shamrocks and the words “Kiss Me I’m Irish.”

In any case, my husband and I had a lovely lunch at a pub at the Venetian, which is near the Sphere. We had tickets for the 2:00 show, and so we leisurely sat at the bar and had some really great pub food, including a vegan falafel burger. This was the type of pub that had a whole page of the menu dedicated to extremely decadent and extravagant milkshakes: the rims were coated with frostings and sprinkles of all sorts – Fruity Pebbles! Jimmies! Oreo crumbs! – and then topped with ice cream or whipped cream, with some kind of large baked good on top of THAT – a strawberry Pop Tart! A jelly doughnut! A cinnamon roll! – and then THAT was topped with, somewhat anticlimactically, a cherry.

I saw one such milkshake being delivered to a woman, around my age, sitting alone. It was bright red, with a slice of what appeared to be cheesecake on top, and I was filled with curiosity as to how someone would actually consume this. Would there be a side plate? Would this person just pick up the cheesecake and eat it with her fingers? I watched out of the corner of my eye to see what would happen.

First, the woman took several photos of it, which, well, is relatable. Then she started taking selfies with the milkshake, including one in which she was holding the cherry with a big, wide, open mouthed smile. I waited to see what would happen with the cheesecake slice, but then it was apparent that she was videoing herself with this milkshake – I could see her talking. Was this an Instagram reel? Was she posting on TikTok? I kept waiting for her to eat the cheesecake, or at least sip from the milkshake, but she just kept filming.

My husband chided me for creepily watching someone not-consume a giant milkshake, but to be honest, I didn’t think it was any creepier than watching an Instagram reel of a person I don’t know, the creation of which was more than likely what was happening. All I was missing was her handle. I never did see what happened with the milkshake because she still hadn’t partaken in any of it by the time we left to go see the show. I hope she enjoyed it.

Mars Ain’t The Kind Of Place To Raise Your Kids

As I alluded to before, we went to see Postcard From Earth at The Sphere in Vegas. The Sphere, in case you don’t know, cost two billion dollars to build and the outside consists of thousands and thousands of lights. It is really a feat of technology and engineering, the inside filled with all sorts of technological wonders. During the movie, the seats move and vibrate – no, not THAT kind of vibrate – and there is wind and scent and it’s a real sensory experience. I cannot even describe how amazing it is.

I loved 85% of the movie, which is about the glory of nature and our mother earth, the ways in which we honour her and the beauty of nature. It also shows how we have abused her, and how she is protesting via climate change and crisis, and I was on board with all of this, one hundred percent. We are in a climate crisis, I think that much is obvious, and it is our doing, as a global population. This, I think, would have been a great place to give the viewer practical information about the changes we all can make on individual and corporate levels.

However, this is where the movie took a turn. The solution to the climate crisis, said the movie, was for everyone to leave earth in order for it to heal. So, everyone on earth got to get into a space ship and go to another planet, presumably to fuck that one up as well, although that thought was left unstated.

Now, I know, as the man behind me said to his sobbing child who did not want to go to space, Daddy, it’s just a movie. But really? THAT is the thesis regarding the solution to the climate crisis? For us not to be here? Honestly, the film should have a warning on it for anyone suffering depression or extreme climate anxiety, because the thesis is that the world would be better WITHOUT US IN IT. Surely there could have been a better conclusion than that, but since space travel for seven billion people is exactly not a practical tool, the implication is that it’s just better if we don’t exist anymore. You can’t find a hotel room with a balcony or a window that opens in Vegas, so you’d think they would know that your existence is the problem isn’t maybe the best theme for a movie in that particular location.

Obviously there are no clear answers or quick fixes to the climate crisis, but maybe there could have been a lesson here about mindful, reduced consumption rather than let’s go to Saturn, it will be fine. Perhaps stop using single use plastics, or don’t buy into the fast fashion industry, or, maybe, don’t go to Vegas.

Las Vegas is probably right up there with the Disney resorts when it comes to environmentally disastrous tourist destinations, and I found it incredibly ironic that this movie would be shown in a two billion dollar, electronically powered, round theatre. It felt like getting a lecture from Leonardo DiCaprio about the environment just before he boards his yacht with all his buddies. So thanks, but no thanks, on the suggestion of flying to space and never coming back to earth ever again.

Glory Days, They’ll Pass You By

If you can believe it, I have been a mother for twenty years! Well, twenty years and two days.

It was a bit of a hectic weekend, what with cake baking and guests and a funeral and feeding people and just general life, but it was lovely all the same. And now we are looking down the barrel of a really normal week, albeit one in which we are busy gearing up for gardening season. Preparing to garden in March will never not be a novelty to me, after so many years of snow and ice.

I have many books to tell you about, but it will have to wait until later. I hope you all have a beautiful week, the first full one of spring! xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Viva Las Vegas Edition

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One of my very Favourite Things about air travel is the insane cultural whiplash you can experience in only a few hours. It’s pretty incredible, when you think about it. One moment one is involved in their sleepy little life, and the next moment one is on the Vegas strip, being bombarded with sights and sounds and lights and people. And then? Back to the sleepy little life.

We had an absolute blast in Las Vegas; we got back on Monday and things have been smoothly puttering along since then. We have houseguests arriving today, but not for a happy reason: our friends from Ottawa, who we will be visiting next month, are here for his father’s funeral. What this means is that we have our anniversary, two birthdays, and a funeral, all on the same day. Well, we celebrated our anniversary in Vegas, really, and my son is spending his Saturday night 20th birthday NOT with his parents, and I have always vowed that Rex’s special day shall be October 10, the day he came to us, and NOT on his actual birthday. I only have so much bandwidth, people.

But Vegas! As I mentioned before I am a non-gambler, and yet this is my fourth time in Vegas. There are many things to do in Vegas for people like me, but of course, gambling IS the main event there. I find it fascinating and wild to walk through the casinos; it’s exciting, seeing people at the craps tables, and also depressing, seeing people glassily hitting the spin button on the video terminals at 7:00 in the morning. One thing that was very surprising to me is that all of the casinos allow smoking. It’s been so long since I experienced cigarette smoke indoors that I found it kind of shocking. There was a lot of pot smoke too, and while I dislike cigarette smoke I absolutely loathe the smell of pot. It makes me feel actually nauseous, but happily the casinos do have great ventilation systems and unless a person is right beside someone smoking, it’s not noticeable, to me anyway. Another thing I noticed was that there were many fewer cocktail waitresses bringing free drinks to the gamblers, with the exception of the people at the card tables. Vegas in general is insanely expensive, much more so than the last time we were there, in 2015.

Speaking of that last trip, prior to it I had stayed healthy and virus-free for months leading up to it, which is remarkable considering I had elementary-school-aged kids at that time, and the morning of our trip I woke up with a head cold. Back then I doped myself up with cold medication and that, with the addition of a lot of alcohol, led to me having a prolonged and dramatic nosebleed in the middle of one of those super-expensive shops at Caesar’s Palace. I had to make a run down the fake-marble floors to the washroom, where people averted their eyes at what they assumed was a cocaine-addled hot mess. It wasn’t my best moment, and so I wasn’t super excited to wake up last Tuesday with a sore throat and general malaise. Not wanting history to repeat itself, I kicked it into High Gear, Tender Loving Personal Care-wise, and did almost nothing but sleep and eat for the days leading up to our flight and I am happy to report that I was mostly recovered, energetic, and, crucially, public nosebleed-free for the trip.

Was that too much information? Perhaps. Anyway! I have much to say so I will start with all of my Favourite Things.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Viva Las Vegas Edition

This Flower Loves Flowers

We stayed at the Bellagio, and arrived around noon on Friday, and it was absolute mayhem. There were so many people everywhere, and I noticed this amazing indoor garden, but the number of people there made it impossible to move through it. Happily the crowds are almost non-existent in the morning hours, and so I was able to walk through and admire it all.

The garden was a tea party theme, and all the flowers were spring ones. I am delighted to tell you that two of my girlfriends were there recently, and the themes change with the seasons; my friend Megan (HI MEGAN) was there when it was Lunar New Year-themed, and my friend Karin (HI KARIN) was there at Christmas to see the Nutcracker theme. I love thinking that this is someone’s JOB, to create a new garden regularly, and in the morning I watched the grounds crew replanting and watering, and it just seemed to me to be the loveliest occupation possible. Am I excited to get started on my own gardens? YES I AM.

Food, Miraculous Food

Right next to the garden was a delightful breakfast and lunch place called Sadelle’s, a gorgeous place that had the most incredible avocado toast. We went there every morning for breakfast and every morning I ordered this:

For our anniversary dinner we went to another restaurant in the Bellagio called Harvest, and let me tell you, it was absolutely incredible. They had a full, separate vegan menu that was so divine that my husband ordered off of it. We had other great meals too, including a falafel pita at this crazy little hole-in-the-wall place that was to die for.

This drink was called You Broke My Heart, Fredo, so of course I had to order it. Times two. It was delicious albeit expensive, although probably pretty average for Vegas prices. I mean, don’t apply the exchange rate or think too hard about it, is the moral of the story.

Show Me The Way

We went to see Cirque de Soleil’s KA, which was absolutely incredible. In 2015 we went to see O, which I think is actually a better show, but our seats for this were perfect and the performers were acrobatically swinging right above us at times. The breathtaking strength of the performers has to be seen to be believed.

We also went to the Sphere, which is a pretty amazing work of technology and engineering. The show we saw there was Postcard From Earth, about which I have much to say, but for brevity’s sake will tell you that it is an incredible experience and is absolutely stunning.

Not So Still Waters

The Bellagio has a famous water and, if you see it at night, light show that happens…well, I don’t know how often it happens. It seems like it happens every half hour, but it could be more frequent than that. There is music playing, often some old school Elvis or Frank Sinatra, which I am HERE for, although my husband and I had a great conversation on what life would have been like for those two specific performers prior to the days of the 24-hour news cycle, social media, or, you know, feminism. Pardon me while I separate the art from the artists here, because I do love that music, even if the performers themselves were pretty suspect.

I also loved the water show both during the day and at night:

It’s a gorgeous hotel and I’m so glad we stayed there.

A Miracle of Chocolate Engineering

Speaking of fountains, the Bellagio also is the proud home of the World’s Largest Chocolate Fountain, which impressed me to no end and which my husband probably does not want to hear about ever again. But you guys! It’s the World’s! Largest! Chocolate! Fountain!

You might be wondering if I partook in any of the chocolatey delights, and sadly, the answer is no. There was a glorious patisserie and gelato assortment, but all of it was very dairy-heavy. Whomp whomp.

That’s It! You People Have Stood In My Way Long Enough! I’m going to Clown College!

Remember the episode of The Simpsons when Homer goes to Clown College, and then he admires himself whilst wearing the requisite pants? Homer incessantly talks about how comfortable the pants are, while Krusty yells that the pants are supposed to be baggy. Baggy!

This is how I felt in my new plane pants.

I know, I know, I JUST talked about skinny jeans and the horror that are wide-leg pants, but we should all know that I cannot be trusted when it comes to advertising. To be completely honest, I really wanted a pair of pants to wear on the plane that would be cute, stylish, and, most of all, comfortable. As some of you may know, I have some pretty serious circulation issues that require the wearing of full-length – up to my bra line, people – medical grade compression hose for any flight over about an hour. My hose are “nude” and I only need to put on a patterned housedress with white open-toed sandals to display the reinforced toe to become my own grandmother. Anyway, a fun little side effect of my myriad circulatory issues is that my legs also actually swell up on planes, even with the compression hose, which makes any non-yoga pants to be very tight and uncomfortable.

So I was on the search for new travel pants and Lululemon had these on clearance; it’s a risk, buying pants online, but I have what is known as a “Sweat Membership” at Lulu, and one of the many perks is that I can return clearance items. Full-length, they look like frumpy palazzo pants from 1996, but I cuffed them and added boots and a close-fitting top, and I think it worked!

By the way, “kale salad” on that sign was only an advertising gimmick. There was no kale salad.

Outfit of the Month

Speaking of boots, having the right footwear is so important in Vegas.

Those heels are normally very comfortable, but after 20,000 steps and a day of walking and a couple of You Broke My Heart, Fredos, wearing them made me feel like Lotus from The Good Earth. Except with giant swollen feet. So not at all like Lotus, but I was walking like Lotus with tiny, painful steps, and I ended up carrying my shoes and classily walking in my stocking feet after dinner, through the casino, and back up to our room. Huge shout-out to Sheertex stockings, because they are still intact after all that abuse.

What I am saying is my little Sorel boots are the unsung heroes of this trip. So comfortable, so grippy, so cute, they held up for miles and miles of walking, and I did not have sore feet for even a minute with them on.

I bought this Lululemon rain coat when I moved to Kelowna: it’s unlined, which is a completely impractical item while living in Calgary, because when it rains, it’s freezing and probably raining sideways. But in Kelowna it can rain and still be warm, so this coat is perfect. It was also perfect for Vegas, because look at this forecast:

It was actually warmer in Kelowna than in Vegas, which wasn’t actually as bad as that sounds; I find cooler weather to be better for walking around and exploring. The Sorel boots are also unlined and waterproof, which was perfect because, as Vicki, our world-weary Uber driver originally from Oregon said, Vegas has no drainage and can flood with less than an inch of rain. It’s true, there were giant puddles of standing water everywhere. The sun came out when we were leaving, and our other Uber driver, Vernon said that he hadn’t seen a nice day like this in months. Months! The day we were leaving! Ah, well, one cannot control the weather. Vernon, in case you’re wondering, was originally from Miami but has lived in Las Vegas for twenty-eight years, and the only thing he misses about Florida is access to his eleven grandchildren. When I said wow, eleven grandchildren, how nice, he talked for a while about how his two sons make choices, and he does NOT have an opinion on those choices, but one of his daughters-in-law practices a religion that will not allow her to get her tubes tied, and he doesn’t know why and he doesn’t WANT to know why, it’s not his business, but yes, ma’am, he misses his grandchildren. It was a ride. A literal ride!

People are SO interesting, and I have a lot of people-watching to tell you about – we were inadvertently there during St Patrick’s Day, and there were thematic green clothing items and shamrock headbands as far as the eye could see – but it will have to wait until later. In the meantime, if you’d like to tell me your Vegas Vacation Stories, or any story about your favourite things this month, I would love to hear them. xo

Gardeners and Flowers

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Before she was part of the Real Housewives franchise, Carole Radziwill wrote a really excellent memoir entitled What Remains, which I have read many times. There is a part in the book where she and her husband’s cousin, who is none other than JFK Jr (spoiler alert, everyone dies around her), have a discussion about marriage. They have a theory that in a successful marriage there is one Gardener and one Flower; it’s possible a marriage could work with two Gardeners, but never with two Flowers.

I have thought about this theory approximately one million times since first reading this book in 2006.

I am, of course, a literal Gardener; it’s almost actual gardening season around here, and we have SO much to do, to plan, to plant. But I have always believed that, in the Carole Radziwill and JFK Jr context, I am also a figurative Gardener. I am a nurturing, mother-hen type of person who likes to make sure loved ones are special and cared for. That said, my husband is not really a Flower, so I have always thought that we are one of those double-Gardener marriages.

Except sometimes, I think I am a Flower, or, at least, I’m turning into one.

The area in which my Flower-ness becomes most apparent is in travel, or more specifically, travel planning. I love to travel, I love to see new things and have new experiences. I love it all! What I don’t love, however, is dealing with the logistical details. I am capable of dealing with logistical details – I can and have in the past booked flights and hotels and activities – but I find it boring and tedious.

Someone who does not find it boring and tedious, and, in fact, who shines at travel planning is my husband. The man can spend hours researching places to go, things to see and do, and, importantly, how to physically get there. He loves doing it and so over the course of our marriage I have just stepped back to the point where I have ceded all control.

I am completely a Flower. We are now at the point where I only barely know not only our travel itineraries, but I also barely know where we are going. If anything, this attitude of just being along for the ride increases my enjoyment of travel exponentially. I’m like Rex going for a car ride; I’m just excited to be going somewhere, it doesn’t hardly matter where.

Now that my husband is retired and the kids are grown, we have so much flexibility for travel, and to that end we have a few big trips booked for this year, plus some smaller ones, and one of those is coming up this weekend. My husband and I are going to Las Vegas.

I am a complete non-gambler – I do not enjoy it in any way – but Las Vegas is just so much fun; this will be my fourth time going and I am very excited. Needless to say, I did none of the bookings and had nothing to say about the actual itinerary, other than to enthusiastically say “That sounds fun!” every time my husband brought up an idea. My husband has booked us a few shows, and other than that, I don’t know what we will be doing. It doesn’t matter! I’m just excited to go!

So clearly, I am a Flower.

One of my earliest memories is one of complete and utter emotional devastation upon learning that flowers die in the winter. To be fair, I was an incredibly sensitive and dramatic child and I probably experienced utter emotional devastation daily, if not more bi-hourly. However, I have a very clear memory of devastation about the fate of flora during the winter, winter being a very long season in Calgary. How or why this occurred to me, I don’t know, but I would guess that there was a book about seasons involved; I clearly remember my level of hysteria that my dad tried to quell by telling me that the flowers come back again in the spring. This was small comfort indeed, because of a Very Big Idea that Very Small Nicole had, and that is that when I grew up, I wanted to be a flower.

I was probably three, and so I had no concept of symbolism or anything else, and I obviously had only the most tenuous ideas about what constituted growing up. I genuinely thought it was an interspecies free-for-all, and that becoming an adult meant that you could literally morph into any kind of animal, vegetable, or mineral.

So you can imagine my devastation when I realized just how brief my life on this mortal coil would be after achieving adulthood. I guess I believed that my life would follow this rough trajectory: I would be a child, I would go to school, I would be grown up, I would immediately change from human to flower form, and then I would die. I would die in the winter, thus missing Christmas and a visit from Santa.

I don’t know at what point I realized that my anxiety about an instantaneous winter death was unfounded, but eventually I went on with my little human life, enjoying flowers for what they were and not as a mirror of my future self.

Weekly Reading

An Elderly Lady Is Up To No Good. This was an absolutely delightful little book of connected short stories about a murderous little old lady. It is very clever and quite hilarious. It is translated from the Swedish, so there are many wonderful Swedish tidbits in here, and one made me genuinely squeal out loud, thanks to Were You Raised By Wolves. Do you listen to that podcast? If not, why not? Do you hate joy? The podcast is a beam of light in this dark world. Anyway, there is a little line in this book about Christmas Eve, and one of the characters mentions that the “children will have watched Donald Duck.” I knew EXACTLY what they were referring to, thanks to Were You Raised By Wolves, and if you don’t know, look up their Kalle Anka episode. Obviously it involves Donald Duck, but it is so much more. It is PURE delight, and so is this book. 

Dual Citizens. In the past six months, I have been made aware of a conversation in the writing and publishing community about the role of prologues in novels, and the current thinking seems to be just DON’T. I didn’t really think about it too much prior to these past six months, but now I really notice when there is a prologue, and what, if any, value is added. And I will say that the prologue – and epilogue, for that matter – in this book not only does not add to the book, but they actively subtract from it, in my view. Particularly since there seems to be a strange discrepancy; in the prologue the character is going into labour at 38 weeks, but later in the book she is said to be “overdue.” So that actively took me out of what is otherwise a really wonderful story, with incredible writing and prose, about two sisters and their narcissistic, neglectful mother. There are some interesting character arcs and a message about understanding others as we gain life experience. Some of the imagery is a little heavy-handed and slightly unbelievable – sleeping with wolves, really? – but this is a really excellent character-driven novel. I guess we can excuse the prologue.

Is anyone else totally exhausted from the time change? I SURE AM. Other than “Lose A Precious Hour Of Sleep” day, it was a lovely weekend. We attended a surprise birthday party for my friend Joy (HI JOY) and, unrelated to that, I made another cake from Julie’s You Are Human And You Need Cake book, and I took Rex for a nice long Sunday morning hike. It was an attempt to change my attitude when I can’t change the circumstances, the circumstances being the ridiculous ritual of shifting the clocks hither and thither semi-annually for absolutely no reason. ANYWAY. This Flower is heading for bright lights and (relatively) late nights, and will see you on the other side. Take care, my beautiful flower friends. xo

Five For Friday: The Ask Me Anything Edition

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Thank you to everyone who submitted questions for my Ask Me Anything! Today I have quite a variety to answer; I love how different these all are.

  • From Bijoux (HI BIJOUX): As I like to travel, what would be your Canadian not-to-be-missed sights? I considered putting off answering this question until May, when I will be back from a trip to Ontario and Quebec; I am sure there will be many not-to-be-missed sights that I will discover. Then I thought that no matter what I see on that trip, my number one answer will not change, and that is the Canadian Rockies in general, and Banff in particular. I think there is no place on earth quite as beautiful and as special. The town of Banff is very expensive and touristy, it’s true, but that is because it is so beautiful and special. The Canadian Rockies are an absolute feast for the eyes in every way; the colours, the mountains, the trees.
Prairie Mountain, Kananaskis
Lake Louise
Lake Agnes
Me and Lake Louise
Hiking in Kananaskis
One foot in Alberta, one foot in BC, which seemed to be the theme of 2023
Simpson Pass
Galatea Lake
The iconic Banff Springs – worth the splurge, I swear
View from the Banff Springs
  • From Kate (HI KATE): Do you plan to teach yoga in your new town? Do you ever go to a studio class, or only practice on your own? I don’t currently have plans to teach; we have a lot of travel planned this year, and so I did not want to commit to any classes, only to have to find substitutes. I would be willing to teach one-off or event-style classes, but I don’t want a firm commitment. I also get extremely attached to my students and I miss my Calgary ones so much; I’m not quite ready for that again. As to the second part of the question, the short answer is no, I don’t go to studio classes. For thirteen years I did practice at a studio; I practiced Mysore-style Ashtanga, which is very individual and student-led; there is a set sequence of postures that each student practices at their own pace, with a teacher available to assist and also to teach the next posture in the series. My friend Lucas (HI LUCAS) made a video of this practice at our studio back in 2012, and if you watch the video, I am in the bright pink pants. At about the 2:20 mark, you can see the wild backbends I used to be able to do. Anyway, I was so grateful to have this kind of daily practice established because when the pandemic hit, I continued with it, just at home, and without a teacher. One or two days a week I take a restorative or yin practice, again, at home. I did take one led class last year, as my friend Sara (HI SARA) was giving a special class at an art studio; I enjoy this kind of thing once in a while, but generally I prefer a practice which is more of a moving meditation than a led class.
From 2015
Practicing in what is now my kitchen, before it was my kitchen
A fancy studio shot, 2019
Another studio shot, 2019
Current yoga setup
  • From Steph (HI STEPH): Do you think you will eventually work again or are you and and your husband both retired for good? This question also answers Coco‘s question (HI COCO) who asked what does your husband do? Steph’s is a very interesting question, because I always think of “work” as the days when I worked in an office, on a trade floor, which I quit in 2004 after having my first baby. Of course, I have had various little jobs, including teaching yoga, since then, but I guess I don’t think of them as work that one retires from, exactly. So the answer to that question is never say never! I have a few ideas and projects, but whether or not they will result in any monetary compensation remains to be seen. I can confidently say my husband is definitely retired; he is enjoying the retirement life immensely. Currently, he is in his workshop building me cedar garden beds, so I can also say we are both benefitting from his retirement.
Work in progress
  • From Elisabeth (HI ELISABETH): What is your least favourite food item in the world? No contest: celery. I loathe celery. Everything about it is disgusting to me: the smell, the taste, the weird stringy texture. I clearly remember a kid bringing ants on a log for shared preschool snack, and the absolute horror it inspired in me. I love peanut butter. I love raisins. WHY MUST WE PUT THOSE DELICIOUS THINGS ON A PIECE OF THE DEVIL’S GREENERY? Close second to least favourite food: onions. I don’t mind onion flavour, so a dehydrated onion flake or onion powder is fine. But the texture of onions, particularly raw onions, gives me a full-body shudder. Not as bad as celery, and if there was a gun to my head I’d probably eat one, but that gun would have to be loaded. Obviously I don’t eat meat or seafood ever, and I don’t like to eat eggs either, although if an egg is in a baked good that you presented to me – especially if that baked good was a cake – I would eat it.
My husband made me this for Christmas!
  • From Engie (HI ENGIE): Do you think aliens exist? I am an Alien Agnostic: I just don’t know. I don’t see any reason why they couldn’t exist. The universe is big, and no one has the answers, so why not? As an alien aside, I have always had a terrible fear of E.T. I was seven when E.T. came out, and all of my little gal pals both loved the movie and loved E.T. as a concept; they were all getting E.T. stuffies and shirts and backpacks, and the horror, the horror. He’s so cute they’d say, while I would try not to cry. Look at him hiding in the stuffed animals, they would say, while I would panic, thinking about my own stuffed animals and what I would do if there was an alien among them. I have never once seen the movie the whole way through; I always have to stop it before curling up in the fetal position in a corner. I have a real visceral reaction to the whole thing. Many years ago my husband gently tried to get me to face my fears, saying in a calming voice “It’s really a nice movie, E.T. just wants to go home to his family!” and at that I started crying uncontrollably, and he probably wondered if he should return the ring, or just go ahead and face life together with a grown woman with E.T. trauma.
My Cheer Bear, without an E.T. I believe in the power of the Care Bear stare!

Mind Over Matter

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I was so nostalgic the other day when I saw a woman with two young children in the produce section. It brought me back to grocery shopping with the boys, something I genuinely enjoyed: counting out the apples, picking out strawberries, pretending to tickle them with cucumbers. I smiled at the warm memories and then was jolted out of them when I saw them again at an adjacent checkout line to mine, where one of the children was hysterically screaming and the other one kept saying “Mommy, I need to go potty. Mommy, potty. MOMMY.”

The little girl kept screaming and screaming, her shrieks and sobs echoing through the store. The old lady in front of me in line turned to me. “That kid needs attention! She’s been bawling for this whole time I’ve been here!” she said sharply, and I was actually relieved because in the millisecond before she spoke I thought she was going to say that the child needed a spanking or something, and then it would have been a whole thing. As it was, I didn’t love her tone.

I looked up to see the mother, carrying her still-screaming daughter and pushing the cart full of groceries and her son towards the really gross public washroom. I looked at the old lady and said mildly, “Wow, that mom has her hands full. I feel for her. It’s hard to be a mom.” And then I smiled, and did not break eye contact, in an only slightly-psychotic way. The woman gave a little huff and turned back to her groceries.

In my semi-recent Ask Me Anything, Suzanne (HI SUZANNE) asked Besides people who don’t put their shopping carts away, what are some of your top pet peeves? Suzanne knows me well and rogue grocery carts are definitely number one on my pet peeve list, followed by the statement of opinions as facts, particularly, or maybe even exclusively, negative opinions. Also on my list is when people judgmentally cannot empathize with the plights of other people, tied with the inability to feel joy in other’s happiness or success.

I think this last point has to do with the patriarchy in which we all reside, which dictates that there is only so much room at the table, that a limited amount of women are allowed success in the same area, that life is a zero-sum game in which to succeed, someone else must fail. And honestly, it makes me sick. It makes me even more sick to think that I have, on occasion, bought into this idea in the past, and I have had to work to overcome it.

As an example, back when I worked for YMC as a vegan food blogger, there was an independent Canadian vegan food blogger who, at the time, was achieving great success. She was publishing cookbooks to many accolades, and I will tell you now that I did not feel a glow of happiness for her success. I could appreciate the beauty of her cookbooks, I talked about them positively to my friends, yes, but secretly I harboured many negative thoughts about them. They’re too complicated! I would think. There’s too many obscure ingredients! I would also think, ominously, She’s not THAT great.

Recently I read On Our Best Behaviour, and the section about Envy really recalled those feelings. The author suggested that rather than make envy a poison that eats away at us, women could use the feeling to light the way to the things we want in the world. Instead of tearing each other down – even mentally, maybe especially mentally – we could use envy to our benefit. I’ll have what she’s having.

And the truth is, if I had really wanted that kind of success, I would have had to sacrifice a lot of time, money, and energy to get it, and those sacrifices I was not at the time willing or able to make. That woman worked really hard to get where she was and perhaps if I had channeled all my energies the way she did, I could have had a chance at a similar level of success. But I didn’t, and that’s perfectly fine.

San (HI SAN) asked what is your best personal quality, and right now I think that it is my ability to see myself clearly and make changes when necessary. I think we all are much more malleable than we think we are, and if we want to make changes in ourselves and in our lives we can. It is a fallacy to say this is just who I am, this is just my personality, because although we are all born with personalities and tendencies, and our life experiences exacerbate those personalities and tendencies, for better or worse, we CAN change things we don’t like.

I think it’s pretty common to have a who does she think she is, she’s not that great feeling towards other women. After all women – particularly, I think, of my generation and older – have been indoctrinated since infancy to instinctively dislike and discount other women who are prettier, younger, thinner, or more successful, in whatever metric “success” is measured, and honestly, it’s really distasteful to me, especially when it’s inside me. I don’t blame myself or anyone else; we were raised in a society that made us believe that life is a finite pie and we all have to compete for our slice. I have worked very hard to overcome that conditioning; now when I see a woman who is thriving I automatically think Wow! She’s incredible! rather than She’s not THAT great, and I’m proud of that, to answer Engie’s (HI ENGIE) question what is something you’re proud of?

Elisabeth (HI ELISABETH) asked what was the best and the hardest decision you made in 2023 and this question stumped me for a while. I experienced a great deal of change in 2023, but all of the decisions relating to those changes came much earlier. I realized the answer the other day, when I thought about how I dealt with the changes. There was a months-long period last year when I genuinely thought I might have a nervous breakdown. It wasn’t until I made a mental shift wherein I said to myself that this is my life, I choose how to respond to my life, and, to quote Desiderata, whether or not it is unclear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. That decision, to choose how to respond to everything out of my control, was the best decision I could have made. It was also the hardest, at least the hardest to achieve.

Weekly Reading

Roman Stories. Right off the bat, I have to tell you that I am absolutely fascinated by and in total admiration of people who not only speak more than one language, but write in it too. Jhumpa Lahiri, an author I deeply admire, moved to Rome, learned Italian, wrote these stories in Italian, and then translated them to English. I mean, what. How. Anyway, I love short stories and these are so good, showcasing the ordinary but extraordinary lives of people living in Rome, a variety of people from a variety of backgrounds. She mainly focuses on the immigrant experience in Rome, and the daily hardships, big and small, that people face in everyday life.

My Brilliant Friend. Another Italian book, this one courtesy of Engie and the Cool Blogger’s Book Club. I voted for this book as a friend had read it and loved it; I cannot say I loved it, but I did have a pretty interesting experience with it. At first, I found it hard to read; I think that if you read this book at face value, it is a terrible slog, at least in my view. But if you read this as a symbol of post-World War II Italy, it becomes a very interesting tale of a nation’s growth. Each character I thought of as a symbol of a part of Italy: Elena, education and scholastic achievement, Lila, the fashion industry. The neighbourhood in Naples where the book takes place is dominated by the grocer’s family, symbolic of Italian food exports, and by the owners of the bar/ pastry shop, who symbolize, in my view, the mafia. There is also the gentle Antonio – the automobile industry – and the Sarratore family – arts and poetry. I found that reading this book in this way, with an eye to symbolism, was interesting, whereas when I did not read this way, it was boring and confusing. As it was, I was incredibly grateful for the list of characters at the beginning of the book, because there was no way I could keep them all straight and remember who everyone was and how they were connected. As it was, even up to the end I was thinking wait, who’s Ada? Who’s Nino again? And those were pretty main characters, the fact that I was constantly forgetting who they were and what they were doing there is telling.

The Five-Star Weekend. After her husband dies suddenly, an Internet famous woman decides to host what’s known as a five-star weekend: a girl’s weekend with four friends from different stages of her life. Pandemonium ensues, as would be expected with five women with secrets, various pasts, and current stresses. Listen, let’s not overthink this. It’s just a fun, light, fluffy beach read that will probably make you hungry with all the food descriptions. Next beach vacation I’m downloading more from this author. It’s candy in book form, in the best way. 

Thank you to everyone who submitted questions to my Ask Me Anything; I am in the midst of answering them all, and I welcome anyone who still has a question to submit it. In the meantime, have a beautiful week, friends. xo