Happy New Year’s Eve, friends! I hope you have been having a lovely holiday season.
It’s time again for the Year in Review! These annual reviews are so much fun for me to do, mostly because I can hardly remember what I wore yesterday, let alone what happened last February. It’s a great exercise to see how things have changed over the year.
As I mentioned recently, 2024 was a really good year for me: lots of travel and gardening, time with friends and family, reading and writing. I didn’t have any illnesses or major losses, and so I am grateful every day. I know not every year can be like that, but for now I am just feeling thankful for right now.
One week ago today I finished the second draft of my novel. It was my goal in 2024 to write one draft, and now I have finished two, right in time to enjoy the holidays and a break before my revising and editing course starts in January. To say I’m pleased with myself would be an understatement. It’s something I’ve wanted to do my entire life, write a book, and I did it! My goal in 2025 will be to have a manuscript that I feel comfortable sharing with beta readers, so stay tuned.
In my recent Ask Me Anything, which is still open should you have any burning questions, Pearl (HI PEARL) asked What is the book you’re working on about? In its current evolution, it’s a story about a single mother in her fifties who becomes involved with a widower. Her ex-husband delivers some surprising news that affects their daughter, and our protagonist finds herself navigating a new kind of life.
Years ago when I was in yoga teacher training, I was talking to my friend Jo (HI JO), who was a very established teacher at the time. We were talking about teaching yin and she said something that stayed with me: If you want to teach yin, you really need to have a yin practice. Jo and I were and are both Ashtanga practitioners, and I took that to heart, teaching what I knew.
When I first set out to write this book, I had in mind a romance, but for middle-aged people. The thing is, though, romance comprises only about a tenth of what I read. To paraphrase Jo, If you want to write romance, you really need to read romance, and in that vein I would say my novel veers toward a character-driven literary fiction. I wanted to write the book I would want to read, and I am doing that.
Engie (HI ENGIE) asked What is the best year of your life? As you know, I suffer from recency bias, but I really do think that 2024 was one of the best years in my life, particularly coming on the heels of 2023, which was an absolutely crazy year of wild change and upheaval. I have had many wonderful years in my life, absolutely, but this past year was filled with travel and gardening, friends and family. My sons are both doing well and are establishing themselves, my husband is so relaxed and settled into retirement, everyone is in good health, I have a beautiful home and garden, and I wrote a book! Life is uncertain and things can change on a dime at this stage of the game, so I am living in the present and feeling gratitude for all these incredible gifts.
Another incredible gift in my life is, of course, Rex. When our beloved Barkley died in June 2022, I was extremely vocal about Never Again Having A Dog. Never! My older son gently said to me But Mom, we are a dog family, but no, I said. No no no. Well, we all know how that turned out, when Rex arrived to our home in October of that same year. Elisabeth (HI ELISABETH) asked Did Rex come to you named Rex? and the answer is yes. His full name is Tyrannosaurus Rex Stegosaurus, which should tell you a little bit about his original family. I would like to go on the record to reiterate that Rex was NOT a rescue dog. We were chosen by his original family – speaking of gifts, that one was massive – who were incredibly loving and caring but who could no longer keep him. He was a year and a half, and perfectly trained and already full-grown, and some days I cannot even believe my luck that we were chosen to be his family.
Engie (HI ENGIE AGAIN) also asked What’s the best thing about having a dog? I read in a book recently that getting a puppy is a one-way ticket to eventual heartbreak, and while that is technically true, the absolute joy of having a dog far outweighs that. There are so many wonderful things about having a dog, but the best is probably the feeling of love and joy that emanates from them. Dogs are so in the moment, they miss you the second that you are gone and are so happy the second you come back, even if you were just in the shower. They are just happy to go somewhere, as long as they go with you. We are just not worthy of dogs, honestly, they are such incredible creatures and I for one feel so lucky to have not one but two fuzzy balls of love in my life.
Of course one of the best things about having a dog is walking them, although I will say that while I adored and loved my sweet fuzzy Barkley to the moon and back, walking with him wasn’t exactly a joy, even when he was young. He had a terrible tendency to eat tissues that had been dropped on the sidewalk, and as an aside, do you have any idea how many tissues are dropped on a sidewalk in a semi-inner-city neighbourhood? It’s a lot. He knew that tissues were the only thing I wouldn’t remove from his mouth because god, how gross. From the time he was a puppy until the day before he died, I would have to be on the lookout for tissues and redirect him before he snapped them up and ate them, and I was only successful maybe half the time.
While I’m on the topic, once I was walking with him as a puppy – and the boys were little enough to be in the Chariot stroller, this is how long ago it was – and he snarfed up a CONDOM that was on the sidewalk. A condom. I had terrors as to what would happen if he actually swallowed it, because certainly it would be injurious to his little digestive system, and imagine having to tell people that your dog died because he ate a condom. So there I was prying a condom out of my puppy’s mouth while the little boys asked mama whatcha doin wif Barkley’s mouf and I was praying, friends, I was PRAYING that the condom was just used in a silly way by neighbourhood kids, like blowing it up as a balloon, and not for its intended use. I am pretty sure I used up an entire bottle of hand sanitizer after I fished it out of his mouth, as well as a year or two off my lifespan.
I was thinking about this when Michelle (HI MICHELLE) asked her question: I know you go out walking a lot, and I wonder if you’ve ever found anything interesting or strange that was dropped on the side of the road? Well, Michelle, how’s that for an answer? A condom on a busy sidewalk near the elementary school. Oh wait, I just horrified myself anew on a number of levels.
We did come across a dead coyote a couple of weeks ago, but I’m not sure if that counts as “interesting” or “strange” or even “dropped.”
One thing that I always find interesting is when there is a single shoe, which reminds me of a story of long ago. When I was in university, my friends and I were at an on-campus bar listening to live music, and one of my friends had brought her boyfriend, an incredibly nice but dull-witted fellow. The dance floor soon turned morphed into a mosh pit, and shortly after that the extremely inebriated boyfriend stumbled over to us, missing a shoe. Eventually we had to leave, with our one-shoed fellow, but before that I needed to stop in the Economics Society office to pick something up. I was the Economics Society president, hashtag bragging, and while I was in the office our Shoeless Joe drew all over the white board: a number of single shoes, with the caption “Have You Seen Me?”
Since that day, anytime I see a single shoe abandoned on the sidewalk, I think of him, walking home with one shoe on that snowy winter night.
Weekly Reading
The Wedding People. From start to finish, this book was an absolute delight. It was just perfect! It was so smart, and so funny, and so uplifting and life-affirming and heart-warming. The premise sounds a bit off: a woman heads to a hotel to kill herself, and finds that there is a six-day wedding going on at said hotel, and she is the only one there who is not part of the festivities. Themes of friendship, support, and happiness are interspersed with true humour and excellent Mrs Dalloway references. The backdrop is post-Covid, and there are some really interesting thoughts about the pandemic and what it did to all of us, and our relationships. A quote that really hit me: ‘”But life is strange, always thinking this one thing is going to make you happy, because then you get it, and then maybe you’re not as happy as you imagined you would be, because every day is still just every day. Like the happiness becomes so big, you have no choice but to live inside of it, until you can no longer see it or feel it. and so you start to fixate on something else – you want a child, and then the child is here, and that happiness is so big it begins to feel like nothing. Like just the air around you.” Until it is gone, of course.’
The Plot. There is an Alice Munro story called “Family Furnishings,” in which a writer takes details from a relative’s life and creates a story from it. It addresses the question about who can tell a person’s story. I think that most fiction writers take details and experiences from their own lives and the lives around them, and create from them new stories. I was thinking about that Munro story when I was reading The Plot. To whom does a plot belong? This book follows a washed-up writer who is a teacher at a writing residency; one of his students tells him the plot of a book he’s writing, and the plot has an incredible twist. A few years later, he finds out that the student had died without writing the book. So what’s a writer to do? He uses the plot to create a book that becomes a bestseller, optioned for a movie, etc. But, like the narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart, he starts to unravel when the heartbeat he hears is a troll on twitter, accusing him of plagiarism. It’s an interesting premise for sure but after a slow start I guessed the twists and could see the “surprise” ending coming, and I found the last couple of chapters terribly explain-y. Still, a solidly diverting read.
Piglet. This book is brilliant from a literary point of view, but whoa, is it ever uncomfortable to read. I think it needs to be interpreted symbolically, as in a woman wanting more, more, more, and never being really satisfied. Of course this is shown as excessive eating, and I will say the food descriptions are Off The Hook. If you, like me, enjoy a good food description, hold onto your hats. Or forks. It’s a very moving story about a woman from humble beginnings whose wealthy fiance tells her about a terrible betrayal by him, only two weeks before their wedding. In case you, like me, find yourself reading this and thinking that you missed something, no, you didn’t. The betrayal is never revealed to the reader, which is a Real Literary Choice. You know that couples therapy scene in Old School, where Frank is talking about fantasizing about a waitress’ panties? “Probably they’re just plain white cotton. But then I thought, what if it’s lace? What if it’s a thong? What if it’s something really cool I don’t even know about?” The Betrayal is like that. Probably it’s just adultery. But what if it’s something really cool we don’t even know about?
Santa Claus Is Going To Town On Me. Well, you knew this was coming. Heh. Of course I couldn’t let the holiday season pass me by without reading this, after it was mentioned by Bad on Paper. I mean, it’s basically porn, but with Santa. If you have ever wondered what Santa’s dick looks like, this is the book for you! You may be saying to yourself, omg Nicole, of course I haven’t wondered that, NO ONE NORMAL has wondered that, and that is probably true as I myself never thought about Santa in any kind of sexual way before reading this. But what has been seen cannot be unseen, friends. I can never think of Santa in the same way again (tinsel-like pubic hair). To paraphrase Jessica from Drinks With Broads, STOP MAKING SEXY SANTA A THING, HE SHOULD BE COZY. Anyway, the whole thing took me maybe 45 minutes to read and I discovered that a) Mrs Claus is dead, b) Sexy Santa prefers to be called Claus and is maybe Finnish, c) he doesn’t live on the North Pole but instead in some other planet, and d) he has no elves, Sexy Santa is a Lone Wolf. It’s a lot more plot than you might expect from Santa porn, honestly. Quote that sums up the entire book: “I’ve always hated Christmas, but this year will be different, because this year, I’m going to fuck Santa Claus.”
On that very unsettling note, I should end this very long post, which will be my last one until the annual Year in Review. Wishing you all a very happy holiday season! Your readership is a gift to me, and one that I cherish. xo
Let me tell you, there is NOTHING to make a person appreciate snow like moving to a place in which it snows very little from a place where it can snow literally any month of the year, and does constantly between October through May. Here, if it snows at the end of February the inhabitants are bemoaning the Winter That Will Never End, whereas for me, a nice snowfall and temperatures above zero feels like a Normal Spring Day. I am assuming that at some point my internal blueprint will modify and it won’t feel strange to have rain in November, but for now, this is where I am at.
Having the first REAL snowfall – one that sticks around for more than an hour – in mid-December feels like a Holiday Miracle of the first degree. It also makes me feel like sharing all the other Holiday Miracles and Favourites that I’m enjoying.
Nicole’s Favourite Things
O Tannenbaum
My tree esthetic – well, actually my entire Festive Decorating Esthetic – is, without a doubt, Chaotic Nostalgia. What it lacks in elegance and understatement it more than makes up for in visual interest. Putting the tree up is an Entire Family Affair, and I hope that continues, well, forever. Intellectually I know this may or may not be the case, but let’s not worry about things that have yet to happen. In any event, every year a pattern emerges: my older son likes to take his childhood crafts and place them in clear view of everyone, where all can perceive that he really had no idea how to draw a face when he was three, and my younger son puts all of his at the back of the tree, unseen by all.
We have been amassing our ornaments for decades now, and this year I brought home a couple from Rome. One was this cute little Santa:
The other was a pair of lovebirds, which I think very much signifies my semi-empty nest and a new era for my marriage. Is that a narwhal, the unicorn of the ocean beside it? Yes. That was our 2020 ornament. When everyone was buying mask-related Christmas decor, we were leaning hard into the narwhal. (Bye Buddy! Hope you find your dad!)
Last year my dear friend Michelle (HI MICHELLE) sent me a gnome of her own making, and it has a well-deserved place of honour on the tree, beside the little house I bought the year we got married, and Bob Ross. By the way, if you haven’t seen Michelle’s dollhouse decorated for the holidays, I suggest you drop everything and go over there. Right now! I’ll wait.
Michelle’s dollhouse, and her entire blog, are one of my Favourite Things, during the holidays and ALWAYS. She is a bright light in this dark world. Speaking of dark, the sunrise is currently at 7:50 am and the sunset is at THREE FIFTY SIX IN THE AFTERNOON. The daylight (“daylight”) hours are very grey and cloudy at least 80% of the time, and so I’m basically mainlining Vitamin D at this point. But Saturday is the Solstice, as well as our annual Holiday Hoopla Open House, and after that we will be enjoying that extra daylight, two minutes at a time.
Also on the topic of lights, we have a tree that allows us to toggle between coloured and white lights, and also has options for twinkling and wave-like changing. The little lights are not twinkling. They really aren’t because twinkling lights make me feel like I’m going to have a mild stroke, but I do switch the colours and whites daily.
It’s Puzzle Season, Motherfuckers
I love a good jigsaw puzzle, but I am oddly specific about the things I like. Mostly, I don’t like a puzzle that is too hard, but I do like one with a lot of different vignettes involved. My husband and son brought this back for me on their trip up north; how or why they were shopping for Jane Austen jigsaw puzzles in Dawson City, I don’t know. But it is probably my favourite puzzle I have ever put together in my entire life.
I was drying my hair and my husband came upstairs and casually mentioned that there was “writing on the back” of the interior puzzle picture, and did I know that? I practically shoved him out of the way to run downstairs to look, and lo, there it was, a guide to all of the characters and houses in the puzzle. I felt vindicated as I had guessed which was Pemberley, Donwell Abbey, etcetera, and I talked excitedly about it as my husband’s eyes glazed over. My son made the mistake of asking me about it and then had to back away like Homer in the hedge.
It’s Also Peppermint Chocolate Season, Motherfuckers
For the first time in my entire adult life I have a chocolate Advent calendar, and while it’s fun to be included in the guys’ daily December ritual, I have to say, it’s not the glory I thought it would be. It’s fun, yes. I like my After Eight calendar just fine, but I almost think it would have been better to just buy a box of After Eights and eat one a day. The chocolate to peppermint ratio is way off in my calendar but, as my son says, it’s more about the event than the actual chocolate.
But this sounds more like a Festivus grievance than a Favourite Things, doesn’t it? Poor Nicole and her slightly-strange After Eight calendar, which involves a lot of bus-shaped chocolates. Why buses? I don’t know. Anyway, it is a fun little ritual, AND my parents sent a Christmas parcel that features a whole tin of After Eights, so I am happy and festively minty.
I am also happy because I made the executive decision to add mint chocolate chips to dark chocolate chips while making my annual batch of peppermint bark and people, this is what we all need right now. Or, really, it’s what I need right now.
Do you want the recipe? Here it is: melt some chocolate, add crushed candy canes, spread it on parchment paper and chill until you’re able to break it into chaotically artistic pieces.
It’s Brussels With An S
I did not grow up in a family that ate Brussels sprouts, and so I was in my twenties when I was at a Christmas dinner that featured a bowlful. I was filling my plate with vegetables so as to disguise that I wasn’t taking much turkey; this was back in the day before I was completely vegetarian, but I didn’t eat much meat, and I didn’t think my hostess would appreciate that. I scooped out a generous helping of Brussels sprouts, and with the clarity of hindsight I realize that of the nine or ten people at the table, no one else was doing this. I perceived the reason immediately upon biting into the mushy, boiled sprout. Oh, I thought, trying not to gag, THIS is why people hate Brussels sprouts.
Fast forward many years and we were at my friend Sammi’s for dinner (HI SAMMI). She had roasted Brussels sprouts and I gamely gave them a try. Wow. It was an entirely different experience and one that made me low-key obsessed with this cute little cruciferous. If she knows I’m coming over, she air fries some with olive oil and balsamic. My air fryer is only good for small batches, so I do them in the oven if I want volume which, let’s face it, I usually do.
Tis The Season For Boozy Coffee
Not every day, of course, but it’s nice to have a warming cup of coffee and booze around the holidays. I used to love a Bailey’s, but that cream wreaks absolute havoc on my stomach, and the almond milk version that came out several years ago is no longer being made, probably because it wasn’t very good. My husband went to the liquor store for the components of an Aperol spritz and came back with this:
It’s DELICIOUS. It’s coconut based and so creamy and tasty; I envision myself sipping it in my pajamas over the holidays.
Extremely Specific Kelowna Favourite
The postal strike is, while not settled, over. Sort of. It’s a long convoluted story that is best explained by the BBC, but essentially it has been a month-long shitshow in which absolutely no one won, everyone’s unhappy, the whole country is worse off, our remote and northern communities were completely cut off as Canada Post was the only organization that delivered up there, Canadians are still awaiting important government documents like passports, and small businesses have been, for lack of a better word, fucked. If the aim of this whole shmozzle was to line the pockets of giants like Amazon while small businesses suffered in the one season they can count on to actually earn a living, well, level completed and achievement unlocked.
In order to combat this in my own tiny way, I’ve been trying to shop more locally. Mosaic Books is a gem of a store that takes orders and pre-orders – although it could not deliver anything during the strike, of course – and I was thrilled to see that it was busy and bustling when I went to pick up my own order. I ended up buying way, way more than I had ordered, but hey. I’m helping out a small business!
Bookstores are second only to drugstore skincare and makeup aisles as places that can transfix me for indefinite amounts of time.
Outfit of the Month
I bought this sweater in Italy, and I will likely tell you I bought this sweater in Italy until it falls apart. As well as being Bought In Italy, it’s also so incredibly soft and cozy. I have my usual mildly-cold-weather boots, my Infinite Fit Silver jeans, a bag I bought in Italy (I bought this bag in Italy) and a tote bag featuring tiny Babar the Elephant in yoga poses, gifted to me many years ago by my friend Monique (HI MONIQUE). A perfect outfit for holiday shopping at Mosaic Books, which is where I wore it.
I love the month of December, so dark and yet so full of light, too. I hope your December is full of twinkling (or not) lights, yummy things, and coziness. xo
In a very uncharacteristic move, last week I angrily unfollowed a Facebook account after a highly unsatisfactory and, for me, infuriating exchange. It is my general policy to not comment on anything I disagree with; rather, I merely scroll past or mute. It takes a lot for me to become upset enough to unfollow a page. This is not to say I have never done so – I certainly have – but it’s a rare occurrence.
Also last week I learned that some people have very strong negative feelings toward LED Christmas lights (HI SWISTLE, HI ENGIE). I do not share those feelings, and I don’t not share those feelings. I’m neutral on the topic, I suppose, although all of our lights are LED, so that would lead a person to believe that I am highly in favour. I just like lights, and as long as my husband, who is the purchaser of all things light-related, has our display up before December, I am happy.
But I think it’s important to able to have feelings about holiday-related things, or anything, really, and I acknowledge and support my friends in such discussions. If a person doesn’t like LED lights, then they should be able to have non-LED lights and enjoy them, I say, my eclectically vibrant lawn display notwithstanding. I support my non-LED friends in their endeavours, even if I only realized that this was an issue six days ago. I don’t share those same feelings, but I am HERE for you, friends.
I’ll tell you what I do have feelings about, and that is the song Last Christmas. I love that song. I love it in all its iterations, even the really weird ones that involve harmonicas and steel drums. I have an entire playlist dedicated to the original version and all its many covers. I love it unapologetically, and I am not ashamed to say I get hurt feelings every year, every single year, when the inevitable post about Whamaggedon, which involves gleefully AVOIDING any exposure to Last Christmas, comes to pass.
Listen. We all like what we like, we as a human race are not homogenous and we can enjoy different genres of music. I get it. I get it that what is a joyfully festive bop to me, what makes me sing and dance and feel like the Grinch after his heart grew three times and broke the little measurement box, is a song that is disliked by others. That’s fine! We like what we like. But what I’m saying is that just because I think that Paul McCartney’s Wonderful Christmastime is the worst holiday song ever written, that doesn’t mean I’m going to make up a game about it and post it all over the internet. Yes, the opening bars make my shoulders go up to my ears with tension and I wish I could rip off my own ears when I hear them, but I am not actively making fun of people who like it.
This leads to, of course, my angry unfollow. I know better, of course, than to engage in any kind of polarizing discourse on Facebook, but I found myself typing like Kermit the Frog, wondering if people hate joy and professing my love for Last Christmas. And the response to me, of course, was to lighten up, it’s just a fun little game.
And I should. I should lighten up. It is just a fun little game, it’s not a personal slight on my character, even if it does make me feel strangely bad about myself, like I’m some kind of Philistine kicking up her heels singing in the grocery store aisles. I know, I really do, that it is not rational, and has literally nothing to do with me; the people playing this game are not out to inflict pain on my emotional state. And yet. Feelings are feelings: some people feel strongly about lights, some people feel strongly about artificial Christmas trees, some people feel strongly about matching festive pajama sets, and I feel strongly about Last Christmas.
In my recent Ask Me Anything (I’m still accepting questions!) Suzanne asked: Outside of Grocery Carts Should Be Returned to Their Corrals, are there any hills you would die on? (HI SUZANNE, thank you for seeing me). There are a few, but one of them is that you shouldn’t yuck someone’s yum, including holiday music. To be honest, this is something I practice daily, and I struggle with sometimes, because I live in a house with people I love who eat meat.
Relatedly, Bijoux asked (HI BIJOUX): Is there any meat you miss? and the very simple answer to that is no. I absolutely don’t, and in fact, the more years that go by, the weirder and more repellent I find the whole concept. However, the men I love all love meat, and so I remind myself every day not to yuck their yums. It’s hard, and I don’t always succeed, particularly at this time of year when photos of turkeys in various stages of cooking abound, but I try.
Everyone is walking their own path, and I would explode with incandescent rage if anyone told me what and how to eat, and so I support them in their dietary choices, even if I disagree with them. And the fact of the matter is that every single one of us living on this planet impacts said planet in some way. I don’t eat our furry, feathered, finned friends, but I do eat grains and fruits and vegetables, and all those crops crowd out animal habitats and thus indirectly impact those innocent beings.
Of course, we all have value and bring positive impacts to the world, every last one of us, but the truth is that just existing negatively affects our environment, and, therefore, its animal inhabitants. No matter how environmentally conscious we may be, collectively we are damaging our Mother Earth. This is just a grim fact, and there is literally no solution except not to exist or, as in the movie I saw in the Sphere in Las Vegas, to be shipped off the planet via spaceship to a whole new planet which is just waiting for humans to fuck it up.
Let’s not do this. We are all just doing our best, hopefully, and my best includes not eating meat, but by no means does that make me, or any other plant-based person, morally superior.
But sometimes it’s hard to remember not to yuck someone’s yum. Did I mention turkey photos?
This brings me to another hill I will die on and that is that there are many sides to any story, and that people contain multitudes. I am always unpleasantly surprised to discover that a person whom I esteem as intelligent and broad-minded can only see people and situations in black and white and cannot see any other point of view other than the one they’ve entrenched themselves in. They cannot see why people might make decisions a certain way, or why people are the way they are.
Which brings me back to Last Christmas. Perhaps I am being close-minded about those people boasting about going all the way until the 24th without once listening to the happiest song on my holiday playlist. If I, a strident Bring Back Your Cart person can recognize that there are extreme extenuating circumstances in which that is occasionally not possible, surely I can cultivate a feeling of compassion and understanding for these people. Perhaps they had a romantic encounter one Christmas, and the next day that encounter was over, forever. Perhaps that romantic encounter was of enormous importance to them and yet, the following year, the other party failed entirely to even recognize them, indicating that the encounter was of minimal importance. Perhaps their heart had been, devastatingly, broken, and the only way they have found to heal this heartbreak was to search for community, for someone special, for someone else who shared such experiences. Perhaps this community all must avoid anything, but particularly a musical masterpiece, that reminds them of this incredibly painful period of their lives. Perhaps that is what Whamaggedon is all about, perhaps it is a community of people who do not want to be reminded of their hearts being given away, they are, we might say, once bitten and twice shy, and must keep themselves from such remembrances that are sparked via festive music.
Or perhaps they really are taking aim at me personally. Who can say.
Weekly Reading
The Girls From Corona Del Mar. You know the kind of book that you just sink into and then feel incredibly resentful about having to do anything that is NOT reading the book? That’s what this book was to me. What an incredible story of lifelong friends and their journeys. One of my least-favourite things in reading is when an author wants to highlight a social or political issue and is completely heavy-handed with it – but this book is the opposite of that. It showcases so many social and political issues in a way that is incredibly thoughtful and haunting. This book shows that we can’t ever really know a person totally, even with the deepest friendship, and that everyone is on their own journey. Now, for the funny part: one of the character’s mothers collects gnomes, so many gnomes, and is eventually beaten almost to death with one. I hope this doesn’t happen to me. This leads me into lots of content warnings for violence, death, death of a DOG, suicidal ideation, ideation about so-called mercy killing, the ethics around pregnancy, medical incompetence, child neglect, abuse, massive drug use, and the aforementioned gnome beating. That’s a lot of content warnings and normally that would make me steer clear, but not with this book. Despite all that, it’s such a beautiful and compelling read about friends, family, love, and moving through life as a terribly damaged person.
Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake. I am kind of neutral about Anna Quindlen’s fiction; I neither love it nor dislike it. Someone (who was it? was it you?) told me about this memoir, which is in the form of essays, something I genuinely enjoy. And there are many lovely, thoughtful essays in here about aging and mothering adult children, and life in general. Some of it was kind of dated (there is a whole section on politics that made me kind of sad and also like “just wait, Anna”) and she refers to “our generation” a lot, and “our generation” refers to baby boomers. I mean, she’s exactly my mom’s age, but I still think there was a lot that is resonant for women my age. It was interesting as her generation WAS the generation of women who were encouraged to Have It All, and it was fascinating to read about her experiences with Having It All. It’s really a memoir of life after fifty, and while some of it was truly wonderful to read – she has SUCH a talent with words – I’m still kind of neutral. I do love the title, though.
We are coming into the Holiday Home Stretch, friends! I hope things aren’t too stressful where you are. I have some work to finish this week and then I’m hoping to relax by the tree with some good books and yummy things. That sounds pretty good right about now. How about you? Tell me everything. xo
Five Star Books. I suffer terribly from both recency bias and an inability to remember when, exactly, events occur, and between those two things and the volume of books I read every year, I rarely can answer what were your favourite reads this year without referring to a detailed spreadsheet. For example, before I wrote this I would have said the absolute BEST books I read this year were Long Island Compromise and Margo’s Got Money Troubles, both of which I read in November, and the soon-to-be-reviewed The Girls From Corona Del Mar, which I read this week. But I had so many other five-star reads this year: Tom Lake, Games and Rituals, The Rachel Incident, Commonwealth, My Last Innocent Year, The Whispers, Happiness Falls, Sandwich, The Menopause Manifesto, Peacocks of Instagram, Leaving, Come and Get It, Summer Romance, A History of Burning. I realize that it’s only December 13 (hey, it’s Friday the 13th!) and there could still be some five-stars coming my way, but last year I wrote a similar post on December 8 and then only had one: How To Love The World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope. It gets a mention here because I missed out on it last year.
Five Star Re-Reads. I love re-reading old favourites, some of which have been read many times before. Sometimes I pick up these books because I don’t have any library books on the docket, sometimes I pick them up because I just read a string of bad library books and need a literary palate cleanser, and sometimes I just want the comfort of knowing I’m reading something that is going to be great. My five-star re-reads this year were Cat’s Eye, The Friend, Open Secrets, Early Morning Riser, Diary of a Provincial Lady, Amy and Isabelle, and Too Much Happiness.
Five Star Music. It is so exciting when Spotify Wrapped comes out; I love to see what I’ve listened to over the year, and to hear what other people have been musically obsessed with. My top artist has been the same for a few years: Aretha Franklin. I am, apparently, in the top 0.1% of listeners who also think that Aretha is the Queen. I wasn’t surprised to see that, and I wasn’t surprised that Whitney Houston was in the number two spot – also a queen, but with a lower-case q and with sadness about the disease of addiction – and that Alicia Keys and TLC were in the number three and four spots. Queens, all of them. I was, however, a bit surprised by my number five.
One of these things is not like the others! Well, I guess he was the King, and that goes with my musical royalty theme.
As for the top songs, well, my list was a surprise.
I would like to note that Dog and Butterfly moved from number one in 2023, and that I am in the top 0.01% of global listeners when it came to Linda Ronstadt’s Ooh Baby Baby. Either no one else plays that song, or I play it a lot, or both.
Five Star Podcasts. I subscribe to many, many podcasts, and I enjoy them all for different reasons. However, I would like to talk about the ones that I get extremely excited about, and desperately want to listen to immediately when new episodes air. The first is Were You Raised By Wolves, an etiquette podcast that brings nothing but delight and joy to my day. You may think that modern etiquette is a pretty dull theme for a podcast, and you would be in concert with my husband and sons, who think that my listening habits border on the insane. But it’s honestly so much fun, and the hosts have wonderful chemistry. I always learn something new and interesting, like it’s bad etiquette to pass the salt without the pepper. Who knew?
The second is Bad On Paper, a podcast about reading and writing. The hosts are in their thirties, and also have wildly different reading tastes from me. This was made evident when, on the rabid recommendation of one of the hosts, I read The Idea Of You, which was possibly one of the worst books I have ever consumed. But I do love listening to them. They do episodes on Obscure Erotica around Valentine’s Day, which is how I ended up reading Unhinged and Squeak, two absolutely insane books, one about a woman having sex with a sentient door, and the other involving balloon animals. They just released a Holiday Obscure Erotica episode, and I’m not saying I’m going to read Santa Claus Is Going To Town On Me. But I’m not NOT saying that, either.
I also love listening to The Girls Next Door, which I think I heard about from Stephany (HI STEPHANY). Truthfully, I tried to listen to them about a year ago and I turned them off in irritation. I just could not! I think that Stephany eventually wore me down with her enthusiasm. On her recommendation, I downloaded a very specific episode which I cannot for the life of me remember, earlier this year, and I was hooked from that moment on. It’s just a lovely little podcast full of friendship and fun; they just released an “80s Kid Christmas” episode and as someone born in 1975, I was here for that kind of nostalgia.
Do you like food? Do you like cooking? Do you like the general demeanor and energy level of the SNL skit Shweddy Balls? Then you’ll love Cookbook Club, where they soothingly discuss recipes they make from a specific cookbook, a different one every episode, alternated with cooking topics. If you ever want to hear a debate about whether white sprinkles belong in rainbow sprinkles, and if not, how to make your own custom rainbow sprinkle mix, then this is the podcast for you!
I prefer to listen to smaller, independent podcasts, but I need to tell you about a big exception: Heather McMahon’s Absolutely Not podcast. I have had to stop walking to bend over, put my hands on my knees, and make donkey-like wheezing sounds from laughing so much while Rex looks at me with concern. Possibly I shouldn’t listen to her on our walks.
Five Star Travel. If 2023 was the year of upheaval and change, 2024 has been the year for travel. In January we went to Mexico, in March to Las Vegas. In April and May we were in Ontario and Quebec, only to come home, turn around, and road trip to see my parents in Alberta. In August I went on a road trip with my parents from their place to southeast Saskatchewan for a family reunion, while my husband and older son were on their own road trip to Tuktoyaktuk, and we went for another road trip to Alberta in October for my dad’s 75th birthday. After that, we spent three weeks in Italy! All of our trips were wonderful in different ways, and I swear it’s not recency bias, but Italy was a very special trip of a lifetime.
The world is so big and interesting, there are so many places to go, there are so many books to read and things to listen to. I love hearing what other people also love, whether it be books or music or podcasts or travel. So let me know, my five-star friends, what you’ve loved this year. Tell me everything. xo
In September of 2022, my husband and I were at a farewell party for friends who were moving out of the country. As we were leaving, I was, as I am wont to be, getting emotional, and my friend asked if I would take custody of her Christmas cactus, as she couldn’t really take it with her. Of course, I said, tears in my eyes. Of course I will.
Now, I’m unsure if Denise (HI DENISE) was just trying to get me out of the house before I burst into sobs, but I like to think that she gifted me her Christmas cactus knowing it would be going to a good home. I am a verified Plant Lady, after all. This Christmas cactus was, she told me, seventeen years old, which was the exact age of my younger son, giving this custody arrangement even more gravitas. I clutched both Denise and the cactus to my chest and went home.
I named the plant Noelle, I repotted her in a new, larger pot with good drainage, I bought a special fertilizer, I talked to her and put her in the right kind of light exposure, and I started to refer to her as “your sister” to the boys. I love all my plants but Noelle has a very special place in my heart.
Noelle is now nineteen.
A few weeks ago I was looking at Instagram and several of my friends posted photos of their Christmas cacti in full bloom. Now. Let’s all remember that Comparison Is The Thief Of Joy, and that we shouldn’t compare our insides to someone else’s outsides, Instagram is life’s highlight reel, but I realized that in the twenty-six months of Life With Noelle, she hadn’t bloomed once. In fact, she has barely grown.
I thought about this for a while, and then ventured to tell my husband that I think maybe Noelle has reached a certain age, and that her blooming days are over. He replied that I could just put Noelle in the compost and get a new plant.
Well.
Even after almost 23 years of marriage, my husband was surprised, actually surprised, at the ferocity of my reaction. How dare. I could not believe that he would suggest I THROW OUT my beloved aged Christmas cactus, just because her blooming days are behind her? Would we, I said, my voice rising and breaking, would we do that to a PERSON? Just because they don’t bloom anymore?
My husband and son looked at me wordlessly, as I projected onto a Christmas cactus, then went back to eating dinner.
I have been identifying a little bit too strongly with Noelle lately, for reasons that are boring and stupid. To that end I pulled a book off my shelf for inspirational reading before my yoga practice.
This is a reread for me, and something struck me as I read through the pages. It was like I was viewing something at a distance, something that had been deeply meaningful to me at one point but was no longer so. It was like listening to Wish You Were Here or Landslide: at one point in my life I wouldn’t be able to make it those songs without choked sobbing, but now I can listen to them and appreciate them as just musically beautiful.
Curious, I went to look up when, exactly, I had read All Along You Were Blooming, and I finished it in April 2023 which was, as some of you may know, an absolute low point emotionally and mentally. Every single thing in my life was in upheaval: we had just sold our house and we were preparing to move to a different province, one son was graduating high school and the other was getting ready to leave for university, my husband was retiring, I was giving up all my yoga classes, MY ENTIRE HOUSE WAS A DISASTER OF HALF-PACKED BOXES. No wonder all of this spoke to me like an emotionally misunderstood fourteen-year-old girl hearing Pink Floyd for the first time.
Life is a journey, as I say almost daily, and meanwhile, while I currently feel like my blooming days may be behind me, I know that one day I will look back at this moment in time and want to slap my own face. To that end, I have reinstated my long-neglected Mirror Meditations, which I encourage all of us to do. Look on your face like it’s someone you love deeply! SOFTEN YOUR EYES, GODDAMMIT.
On theme this week I read a memoir, the thesis of which is you may be in your late forties, but you can still go to Paris and get fucked six ways from Sunday, which, you know, isn’t exactly relevant to my life or interests, but I guess it’s nice to know the option is there?
Weekly Reading
Prior to going to Italy, I put all my library holds on pause, and now the chickens have come home to roost. I started the week like this:
And now it’s this:
It’s been one step forward, two steps back LITERALLY as every time I return a book two or more are waiting for me.
The Christmas Orphan’s Club. ‘Tis the season to read Christmas books! This one is about four friends who celebrate Christmas together in New York City each year, and are coming to terms with one of them leaving for LA. I am about twenty years too old for the target demographic here and I could not relate less to the characters, honestly. But the book has a nice message about chosen family, the importance or not of a date on a calendar, and growing up. It’s a real moment in time – when friends are the most important thing in the world, and when those friends start building a life of their own – and that might be just your jam to read this holiday season. I mean, it’s not mine, but maybe it’s yours.
I’m Mostly Here To Enjoy Myself. I am the exact same age as the author of this memoir, but – other than our shared obsession with Laura Ingalls Wilder – our lives could not be more different. In theory this is fascinating to me, but in practice – i.e., in this book – it is less so. The premise of this book is that at age 46, the author spends August 2021 in Paris, a city she has spent many Augusts in. The difference this time is that she has just spent sixteen months alone in her 450 square foot NYC apartment, and is absolutely starved for contact. The lady is Down To Fuck. She is also down to be the recipient of Grazing The Watercress, as they say in French. This is how the book is sold, honestly, that not only is she getting laid and pleasured on her command, but she is also incredibly desirable at age 46. So. There’s lots that could be said about this sales pitch but there’s much more to it: a) the book contains a lot more than that as there is a good discussion about aging, b) the author has a really nice Parisian female friendship group, and you know I’m a gal’s gal, c) there are wonderful food descriptions, and d) the hookup app she uses is called Fruitz, which is amusing to me. I will say the most interesting thing about this book is the timeline: reading about that time in the pandemic brought back memories, not at all good ones. It felt weird thinking about that crazy time, and it was strange reading about someone getting her freak on when I was stressing about the kids going to school, would it be virtual school, etc. Well, the world is a wild tapestry.
Dear Fang, With Love. I admit I knew next to nothing about Lithuania; prior to this week I could not have pointed it out on a map. My son, however, told me that it was part of the Soviet Stack, along with Estonia and Latvia; it’s north of Poland and east of Finland. I also did not know how it was affected by World War II and the Holocaust, and this book explores that country’s history from the viewpoint of a father and his teenage daughter who are visiting it after the girl has a psychotic break. This is a strange but compelling book about mental illness, heredity, parental relationships, and youthful love.
A fantastic quote, and one that actually did resonate for me from I’m Mostly Here To Enjoy Myself, is “I have found that you can either talk about yourself, or you can write about yourself, but doing both is a bit much.” Relatable. Basically everyone I know is aware of this blog and most read it (HI EVERYONE) which means that I am very, very aware of the possibility of repeating myself when I am out and about. However, it occurred to me that I have some new readers (HI NEW READERS, thanks for being here!) and to that end I am doing an Ask Me Anything. Longtime readers may be thinking to themselves Good lord no, no, no, I already know too much and I can respect that! But if anyone – new or longtime or anything in between – has a question for me, now is your chance! Just click the link! Have a beautiful week, friends. xo
Aficionados of obscure Canadian bands from 1988 will certainly be singing along to that title: …shouldn’t be a problem. One day in your life, shouldn’t cause you pain. Because it’s one day that you might never be around here, and I’ll never ever see you again.
Well. That got a little dark for a minute.
My favourite day of the week is Friday, or, as I like to say to my sons’ extreme consternation, Fri-YAY. My older son says Mom in that certain way that our offspring have to say that we are unbelievably lame creatures, us mothers, whereas my younger son merely closes his eyes to indicate the psychic pain I cause him for using a term like Fri-YAY.
But it is a Fri-YAY to me, I save special treats for that day and I minimize jobs and chores, and here’s how last Friday, the final Friday of November 2024, went down.
3:56 am. I wake up and think about things until the clock strikes four, and then I get out of bed and stumble to the kitchen, where I start that pot of ambition. I drink two glasses of water, perform my morning ablutions, and get dressed in the clothes I have set out in the main floor bathroom the night before. I turn on the Christmas tree and get Rex out of his crate, which is a true highlight of my day, since he behaves as if it’s been years since we’ve seen each other. He’s like the Mary Oliver poem about starting the day in happiness come to life.
Friday is a great day in Rex’s life, because it’s Garbage Day. I grab my flashlight and coat and we go to the shed where the bin is locked up away from bears. As I drag it up to the road, he runs back and forth excitedly. After that, we go inside where I fill his food and water bowls, fill my own coffee cup, and start my laptop. This is my designated blog reading time, so if you’ve ever had an incoherent comment from me, probably the coffee hasn’t kicked in yet.
5:21 am. Yoga time! I read a poem first and then meditate on it while I practice.
This is followed by a Peloton ride.
7:15 am. The sun will be coming up in 15 minutes, which is perfect timing as I don’t like walking in the dark. I rehydrate and change my clothes, put on mascara and tinted lip balm, and we are ready to go! For a change I decide to hike up Knox Mountain. There’s no snow at our house but there is a bit on the mountain, and that adds many, many minutes to our walk, as Rex eats, rolls in, and frolics through the scant snow.
9:31 am. We finally get home and I am ready for breakfast. I make a smoothie, tidy up the kitchen, and decide that I cannot abide the state of the floors – side eyeing Rex – and so I give the main floor a quick vacuum and wash.
10:20 am. I shower and scrub out my shower – I do this while my hair mask is absorbing, hot housekeeping tip – and then moisturize, apply makeup, and get dressed. I practice my Spanish to let my hair dry a little before taking the blow dryer to it. I’m on a 1006 day streak!
11:43 am. I don’t usually write on Fridays, but I’m on a self-imposed deadline to finish my second draft before January, which is when my Revise and Edit course begins. I set my mental timer for twenty minutes, and after that I treat myself to reading a couple more blogs.
As Laura and Suzanne know, once the glasses are on, it’s Business Time. (HI LAURA HI SUZANNE). Does anyone remember the Flight of the Conchordes? When you get down to just your socks, it’s Business Time. Anyway, it’s not THAT kind of business.
12:21 pm. Lunchtime! Yesterday I had made a vanilla ice cream mixture and so I put that in the ice cream maker to churn while I eat lunch. I add chopped up Oreos and consider myself a contender for Mom of the Year. I read a chapter of my current book, which is Real Americans.
1:30 pm. I have a pedicure appointment at 2, but I need to stop at the library first. I do this and later discover after I left another of my holds came in. I had put all my holds on pause when we went to Italy, and I currently have eight library books at home, plus three at the library, plus TWO MORE in transit. Oops. I have a lovely pedicure, and come home to see my husband and son in the yard putting up the outdoor Christmas decorations. Rex is out with them too and he’s pretty excited to see me. He comes inside with me where I brush my teeth, call my mother, and then come back out to be a consultant for the decorations. Should the walrus and the penguin be together? Where does the llama go? Should the snowman go under the overhead vines as a welcoming committee?
3:59 pm. This is it. This is the day where the sun sets before 4:00. I’m mainlining Vitamin D at this point. We go back inside and have Cocktail Hour: first, a chilled shot of Limoncello to sip, reminding us of Italy, and then a glass of Chianti.
5:00 pm. A knock on the door, and it’s a delivery from UPS. My dear, sweet friend Elise has sent me a package and it’s absolutely incredible. Does she know me or what?
5:30 pm. It’s time to make dinner, and it’s my favourite, the one I could eat on repeat indefinitely: Greek salad with hummus and pita. What better day to have my favourite dinner? Since I (always) make dinner, the guys clean up the kitchen.
7:00 pm. While they are cleaning up, I change into my pajamas and do my dental and skincare routines. Then the three of us watch an episode of NYPD Blue. It is a ROUGH one. If you know, you know. After that we are all kind of silent, and I read a few more chapters of my book while my husband watches hockey and my son disappears.
8:47 pm. Bedtime! I’m calling it a day. A Fri-YAY.
Weekly Reading
To The Women. I have been reading these poems in the morning before yoga and let me tell you, this uplifting collection could not be better timed! has words of wisdom about body image, aging, and loving yourself more and more as time goes on. For those of us side-eyeing our wardrobe as it relates to our newfound perimenopausal tummy, this is a really inspirational look at aging.
The God of the Woods. About halfway through this mystery-thriller about a young girl who goes missing from summer camp is this quote: “She read Walden out of sheer boredome and found herself annoyed by Thoreau: his self-regard, his tone of superiority, the way he doled out advice so obvious as to be insulting. Here was a rich person playing, thought Louise. There were poor people far more resourceful and self-sufficient than he was; they just had the grace and self-awareness not to brag about it.” HELLO. Seldom have I felt so seen. I don’t think I’ve ever had my feelings about Thoreau encapsulated so well, so that boosted the book for me right there. But more interestingly, that paragraph basically sums up the whole book. It’s a foreshadowing and a thematic statement all in one and I AM HERE FOR IT. I love when authors leave little hints like that. Anyway, this is not my usual genre, but I picked it up because it’s so buzzy right now. And even though I don’t love mystery-thrillers, I really liked this, I found it a nice twisty entertaining read that kept me guessing until the end. Damn if I don’t feel bonded with Liz Moore right now, too. Living deliberately my ass.
Real Americans. This was an interesting reading experience, a book about three generations of Chinese-Americans that deals with wealth, class, assimilation, fitting into society, and, wildly, the ethics of genetic modification. It’s also about family and making the best choices given the circumstances. I really loved the first third of the book and then I liked it a bit less as it went on. As literature, it’s quite a remarkable accomplishment, spanning decades and generations and weaving historical events into everyday life. There are some interesting questions raised: what role does fate play in our lives, what does it mean to be part of a family, is wealth incompatible with living an ethical life? It’s a thought-provoking and very well written book.
Congrats to all my friends who participated in NaBloPoMo! I saw quite a few “day in the life” posts and was inspired to do my own – waiting until December, of course! I’m always a bit reticent to do these posts – is anyone really interested in the minutia of my life? – and then I realize that I myself am fascinated by them, so why not. Next up: an AMA! Happy December, friends. xo
