Author Archives: Nicole Boyhouse

The slow slide from Mother to Crone *

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“I actually can’t believe it,” my husband said to me last night. “You actually ARE stepping back from things at the school.”

It’s true. This week is Book Fair, and for the first time since 2009, I am not spending all day every day at the Book Fair. I have a lovely co-coordinator (HI HAYDEE) who is going to take over when I leave the school, and we are each doing half of the shifts. Therefore, today, when I normally would be repeating “The posters are five dollars. That one too. They are all five dollars. No, that’s not nail polish. It’s a highlighter. The posters are five dollars.” over and over, I am in front of my computer, doing work – and writing this. I’ll be repeating those phrases on Thursday, of course, but as of right now I’ve had an incredibly productive day.

Last Friday was the Family Dance, and again, for the first time I was not intimately involved with the arrangements. In fact, I did virtually nothing whatsoever except donate a batch of cupcakes topped with cookie crumbs and gummy worms.

wormsanddirt

Is there a child alive who does not enjoy worms and dirt? I think not.

It turns out that all these years of bake sale-ing, I’ve been doing it wrong. Children don’t care if you create something with all natural, organic whole ingredients. They don’t care that you lovingly made dye-free frosting or used organic coconut oil to make caramel corn. They want pizzazz! They want style! They want candy on cupcakes, and they don’t care if the cupcakes came from a mix and the frosting came from a can. Realizing this was a revelation to me. I slapped these babies together and they were gone as fast as they were set out. We are all winners in this situation.

But back to the dance: for years I’ve been very involved, assisting the organizer and arranging the bake sale table, and volunteering for every shift for the entire night. This time, my husband and I went with the kids and paid the family rate, I clapped my hands and said “It’s my jam!” to my embarrassed husband when the DJ played Bust-a-Move, and then we ensured the kids each had money to spend and we booked it out of there. Yes, during the Family Dance my husband and I walked up the street and had a drink at the pub, coming back 30 minutes before the last dance. WINNING AGAIN.

It seems that I am starting the slow decline from Enthusiastic Young Mom Who Is Involved to Tired, Embittered and Cynical Pre-Menopausal Woman Whose Children Are Going To Junior High. I mean, I’m not there yet. I’m definitely not totally embittered and cynical and the kids are not yet in junior high. Yet, I can see myself going down the slope from I’m going to rejuvenate the School Council and we are going to have the best year ever! to I’m just going to make some cupcakes from a goddamn mix and throw some fucking gummy worms on them. But, you know, in my trademark cheerful and happy way.

I need to keep that cheerfulness and happiness, because I sure don’t want to turn into a Bitter Old Crone. Remember the Potato Lady? The old lady at the Co-Op who I witnessed yelling at the produce manager because she wanted a three pound bag of potatoes, not a five pound bag of potatoes, and goddamn if she was going to weigh those potatoes herself? And the produce manager was so kind and patient, it was kind of inspirational for everyone?

SHE IS BACK. I repeat, THE POTATO LADY IS BACK. I was at the Co-Op on Saturday, and I heard a shrill, old-lady voice aggressively ask one of the produce stockers where the manager was, and when he’d be back. The stocker left and returned with that same, patient produce manager, and because I am nosy, I listened in on their conversation while intently looking over the red peppers.

People, it was almost the same exact conversation from six months ago. The Potato Lady had an issue with the bags of potatoes, the five pound potatoes were too much, the very kind produce manager agreed to choose and weigh the potatoes for her, did she want Yukon Gold or red potatoes? And I wondered if maybe, maybe the Potato Lady does this regularly – maybe even weekly –  to get special service in the potato department, in a Squeaky Wheel Gets The Grease kind of way. Perhaps the Potato Lady is incredibly crafty; maybe she loves getting attention from the much-younger produce manager. Maybe it makes her feel young and beautiful to have a man bring her potatoes, rather than having to choose her own.

And then I thought, maybe that will be me one day, except that I don’t really like potatoes. Maybe I will be using all my wiles – but hopefully not shrill and aggressive ones – to get special attention from the men in my life, the men being the produce managers and the long-suffering interns at the nursing home. Maybe one day I will be wearing my bright lipstick bleeding into my lip lines, asking the produce manager to reach that kale for me, wink wink, and while he was at it, could he help me choose a zucchini? Not that one, the BIG one. And then the produce manager will go home and crack open a beer and shudder at the implications.

In any case, I think the produce manager has earned an entire crown of heavenly stars for his kind and patient behaviour. He’s going straight to the same place as the marketing people at Starbucks who designed the 2014 holiday cup, complete with snowflakes and ice skates.

*many thanks to Allison for letting me borrow the term “Mother to Crone,” even though she doesn’t know I’ve borrowed it yet. (HI ALLISON I LOVE YOU)

The mall in early November is glorious.

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Ahhhhhh. I JUST finished the last thing on my “to-do” list for the week – other than writing this post – and I feel the way you do when you’ve been on your feet wearing super high heels all day, and you get home, and you take them off. It feels exactly like that. Ahhhhhh.

This week has been very busy with deadlines – baking, photographing, and writing – and preparing for next week’s book fair. I was kind of running a bit behind on Wednesday, what with one thing and another, but I thought if I buckled down enough Wednesday afternoon, I would be back on track. Wednesday at 11:52, not 3 minutes before I was leaving the house to pick up the boys for lunch, I got a phone call from the school. It was one of my children, who said he wasn’t feeling well. On further questioning, it turns out that he had thrown up.

CUE OMINOUS MUSIC.

I immediately went into batten-down-the-hatch mode, recording when each subsequent barfing episode took place (only twice more), spraying doorknobs with bleach and washing my hands until they started to crack. So far – SO FAR – no one else has gotten it, and the sickie recovered very quickly, but my to-do list took a bit of a beating, which is why I feel so relieved to actually accomplish everything I needed to this week.

Plus, did I mention it’s book fair next week? A stomach flu is really going to cramp my style.

Today I went to the mall to do some Christmas shopping, and although I’m not one hundred percent done, I’m pretty close. Before you say how can that be on your to-do list this week, well, it is. For my own mental health I need to have my shopping done by mid-November. After mid-November, the mall turns into the seventh circle of hell, what with the parking lot road rage, and the crowds and the horrible people, and the completely defeated seasonal staff.

The mall in early November is a very pleasant place to be. The feeling is festive and happy. People smile. The clerks and cashiers have not hit the “I hate everyone” wall that everyone who has ever worked in customer service hits. Some of the stores play Christmas music, but many are still on the regular radio stations, which had me humming along to “Brian Wilson” this morning. “I love this song!” I said to the sweet young thing at one store. “It reminds me of being sixteen again.” She blinked a couple of times, probably a little unsure what to say – maybe wow, that’s a long time ago, or, my mom likes this song too! – but she just smiled and said, “I like it too!” Bless you, child.

I have reached the stage in my life where, when asked by the cashier at Bath and Body Works if someone had helped me with my selections, I reply “Oh yes, that cute little girl with the blonde hair! She was very helpful.” CUTE LITTLE GIRL. She was probably twenty if she was a day and I just referred to her as a “little girl.” I think I’ve turned into my own grandmother, and next thing you know I’ll be asking for Isotoner slippers for Christmas.

I saw the sweetest thing today. I was behind an elderly couple on the escalator at The Bay, and the old man groped his (presumably, although not positively) wife’s bum. She smiled at him and said – wait for it – “Oh, YOU.”

I was so close to either dying from the cuteness or high-fiving both of them, but, of course, I did neither. It just made me so happy, and I hope it makes you happy too. Have a great weekend everyone!

Monster Mash Aftermath

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So how was Halloween? My husband got home from his business trip on Friday, and so Saturday was a whirlwind of activity: in addition to the usual Saturday morning karate/ workouts/ grocery shopping, we carved pumpkins and the boys helped my husband put up the finishing touches in our yard. The front yard was filled with giant ghouls, skulls, and gravestones, as well as a number of animatronic motion-sensored ghosts, spiders, and shrunken heads. It was very spooky! In the words of a tiny Ariel who came to our door, “Your house is TOO SCAWWY.”

pumpkins

The pumpkins weren’t the scary part. Can you tell which is mine?

In fact, we only had eight trick-or-treaters, which is really average for our old-people street, but of the eight, one refused to climb our steps, and two of them cried in terror. A tiny, nervous Minnie Mouse accepted my offerings of a giant handful of chocolate bars, at which inopportune moment an animatronic spider and shrunken head began to descend, cackling loudly. Minnie Mouse burst into tears and started screaming for her daddy, while her older brother rolled his eyes at her and said, “It’s just PEE-TEND.”

The upside to only having eight trick-or-treaters is that when my kids go out, they really clean up. All the people in our immediately neighbouring houses dote on them, and so they came home loaded down with candy and chips. Oh! So many chips. It is TORTURE. The only reason I haven’t eaten them all is that the kids really love them too, and know how many they have. It’s hard to be a chip thief under those circumstances, which is good news for my pants.

Their haul was the best I’ve seen in a long time – a huge variety of candy, and no random handfuls of unwrapped peppermints like last year. Also no ecstasy or razor blades! I have always thought that was an urban legend anyway – who would spend money like that to put in trick-or-treat bags? – but then someone told me she once found a rolled joint in one of her kids’ bags, so I guess it could happen.

I related the story of the worst item I ever received on Halloween to my kids. I was about six years old, and dressed as a mouse. At one door, a man – who I now recognize was most likely inebriated – came to the door, laughing hysterically. When I said “Trick or Treat!” he told me to hold on for a moment. I was brought up to be very polite to adults, and if an adult told me to hold on a moment, I would wait. Wait I did, for several minutes until the man came back to the door, still laughing, and handed me a banana.

A banana! My husband, who grew up in a fruit-growing region, said the worst houses were the ones that handed out apples. But I say a banana is way worse. For one thing, there’s no chance it would survive the walk home, in a pillowcase filled with candy, bumping my legs the whole way. For another thing, it’s a banana.

After trick-or-treating and discovering no joints nor bananas, we headed to a party at a friend’s house. I had thought long and hard about my costume, and I was so excited about it. I drew a P on a plain shirt, and then coloured one of my eyes black with an eye liner pencil. A black-eyed pea! I was just overcome with the cleverness. Except that it was a total bust. Not one person got it, and in fact, it seemed like some people weren’t even sure if they should comment on my black eye. At first I wondered how shitty I look in daily life – I mean, how big are my undereye circles? – but then I realized that NO ONE WANTED TO MENTION MY BLACK EYE IN CASE IT WAS AN ACTUAL BLACK EYE.

blackeyepea

I AM A BLACK EYE PEA

“I tried to warn you it wasn’t a good idea, but you didn’t listen,” my husband said to me. “And now people are looking at me weird.”

I posted this photo and I got everything from politely startled comments about my husband to an actual hashtag #batteredwife. Now, I was shocked for a couple of reasons: a) that people would think that dressing up as a victim of domestic abuse was a socially acceptable idea, and b) that people would think that I THINK dressing up as a victim of domestic abuse was a socially acceptable idea.

In any case, it was a bust, and for the Costume Family Dance on Friday, I’m definitely digging out my non-slutty pirate costume or my witch’s hat, because I just can’t go through that again.

costumes

At least everyone understood their costumes.

All work and no play make Nicole scream at telemarketers

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Last November 1, my husband took the kids to Walmart and for about $100, came home with a minivan-load of Halloween-themed exterior decorations. You all know me, come November 1 I’m really more of a Buddy the Elf girl, and so I didn’t really pay much attention to what they had purchased.

You guys, my yard. My entire front yard is filled with gigantic creepy scary things. There are 20 foot decorations swooping from the trees, across the grass. There are things hanging in every tree and shrub, there are severed hands and tombstones in my garden, there are skulls jammed alongside the withering elephant ears and hostas. Every time I look out my front window I have heart palpitations:

spooky

I have a feeling our poor mail carrier is less than pleased with having to dodge this on the way to the mailbox. Not to mention there is a plastic dead rose stuck in the mailbox.

In what can only be described as a brilliant move on the administration’s part, today is a PD day. What with the full moon, the lead up to Halloween, and the upcoming time change and subsequent darkness just after school pick-up time, it’s been kind of a shitty week. My husband has been travelling for work all week, and the kids (and me) have been missing him. EMOTIONS HAVE BEEN RUNNING HIGH.

Let’s turn this day around! I cheerfully said to the children several times this week, but really, it was ME who most desperately needed to turn the day around. MY GOD PEOPLE. Things hit a massive low on Wednesday afternoon; the boys were emotional, I have been crazily busy with work and volunteering, and I just wanted to squeeze in a quick workout on the elliptical trainer before making dinner. That’s all. I just wanted 30 minutes to be able to sweat out some of my frustrations while the kids told me about their day, but the crying outbursts of “I miss Dad!” necessitated me stopping the machine, getting off, and snuggling with them for a few minutes. Things had settled down, and I was about halfway through when the phone rang. It was marked Private Caller, which I don’t normally pick up, but because of my husband travelling I did.

Regrets. I have them.

A few months ago we had a nasty telemarketer who called for my husband, and left a name. “Oh, he knows me,” the guy assured me, “He’ll definitely want to talk to me.” Puzzled, I called my husband to tell him that Steve Fredericton called, and of course, he had no idea who it was. Later, when “Steve” called back, it was just some telemarketing idiot.

Fast forward to 4:45 on Wednesday afternoon, when I jump off the elliptical trainer and grab the phone. It was for my husband.

Me: He’s not home right now, may I ask who’s speaking?

Asshole on the phone: It’s Dave Draper.

Me: Dave…Draper? What number are you at?

AOTP: He knows my number.

Me, bathed with light and complete understanding of the situation: Really. He knows your number?

AOTP: Oh yeah. And he’s really going to want to talk to me.

Me: REALLY. Why? What is this regarding?

AOTP: I have a really great proposal for him. So, when can I call back?

Me, apparently snapping: You want to know when to call back? You want to know when is a good time? NEVER. NEVER FUCKING CALL BACK YOU MOTHERFUCKER.

Kids, listening to the whole conversation: Mom? Are you okay? Mom? Who…was that?

Believe me when I say I have never done anything like that in my life. Usually I have sympathy for telemarketers, and am polite: after all, it’s a crappy job and I imagine these telemarketers, just trying to put food on the table. I usually listen to all the spiels and politely say I’m not interested, thank you. But for some reason, this pretending you actually know my husband when you do not scheme just doesn’t work for me. Also, since I fell for it once I’ve been a bit more on edge.

Well, that was the low point. Yesterday was pretty bad too, since I was busy all day and yet somehow managed to accomplish next to nothing. I volunteered in Mark’s class for an art project, but it turned out that they really didn’t need volunteers, so my morning was wasted. Then I attempted to get some work done in the afternoon, but I had computer issues and all the photos I had taken didn’t turn out the way I wanted them to. The one thing I accomplished was a quick trip to Superstore while the kids were at karate. I was unloading my beans and pizza sauce at the cash register, as the fellow in front of me unloaded his items. He had a fresh whole chicken in a plastic bag, which somehow burst apart, sending the chicken right in my path. SALMONELLA FOR EVERYONE. It was not as low a point in my week as screaming at a telemarketer in front of my children, but it felt close.

Things can only go up from here, right? My husband is on his way home, I have all day to re-photograph some food, the kids are happy, and by this time on Sunday, I can start thinking about Christmas! Have a great weekend everyone, and Happy Halloween!

Maybe Pumpkin Spice Potato Chips really are a thing.

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You know those moments in parenting where you just don’t know how you got here, and you just can’t believe this is happening? I had one of those yesterday when Jake came home from school, completely excited about this cool new game he wants to get called Dungeons and Dragons.

I just don’t know where to go from here.

In other news, did you know it’s almost Halloween? Holy moly, did October speed by. Remember when I said that I was just swimming and swimming until October 18, and after that things would settle down? Hardy har, it seems to me that I forgot about, you know, LIFE. Not that I would say I’m any busier than anyone else – we’re all busy – but let me take this opportunity to say two words: BOOK FAIR. Yes, Book Fair Number Fifteen is rapidly approaching, and although – thank god – I have a co-coordinator who is going to take over one entire day for me, it’s still a bit of a thorn in my side. Yesterday I felt like I had things under control: I had made up a schedule for all twenty-six classes to visit the fair twice over a two-day span – the fair itself is taking place in the staff room, thanks to our overcrowded school situation – and the volunteer spots had started to fill out. Then I had an email from the principal informing me of a little glitch in the schedule that I had been unaware of, and although she immediately offered helpful solutions, I just sat and stared out the window for a few minutes. I could actually feel myself deflate.

But this is my fourth-to-last fair, so I’ve been cheering myself on like an aerobicize instructor from the Eighties: and four more, and three more, and two more…

So here comes November, with the book fair and Christmas shopping to avoid the fiery hell that is the mall in December, and the ordering of Christmas cards, and the baking of many festive treats so that they may be photographed and published asap. Speaking of which, I’m going to digress for a few minutes to tell you to read my Meatless Mummy column over at Yummy Mummy Club, for all your meatless (and decadent holiday baking) needs. I’m also going to point out that I have a joint project with Hannah and Allison, called Throwing It Back, for all your nostalgic-for-the-eighties-and-nineties needs. So if I’m not writing here, I’m over at one or both of those places, writing about chickpeas and rolling your jeans. This ends my public service announcement.

The best thing about November, in my opinion, is that it marks the end of the Reign of Pumpkin Spice. I know, I know. Everyone loves pumpkin spice. Everyone except me, apparently. I know I’m in the minority on this one, and truly, I don’t care that much – let your freak pumpkin spice flag fly, people – but the end of the Reign of Pumpkin Spice marks the beginning of the Reign of Peppermint, which is my favourite thing ever. Bless you, peppermint flavouring.

Is it me, or has the pumpkin spice trend officially gone over the top? Driving back from Sylvan Lake, the orange-hued Kubota dealership outside of Red Deer had a sign saying “We ARE Pumpkin Spice,” which made me laugh, a little. I would have taken a photo had I not been hurtling down the highway. In the grocery store was this display:

PumpkinSpiceOreo

Hey, I’m not judging. I’ve tried mint Oreos and they were pretty amazing, and that’s coming from someone who doesn’t even like Oreos. I’m just wondering if we’ve reached peak pumpkin spice popularity, or if next year Lay’s will come out with Pumpkin Spice Potato Chips, or maybe Pumpkin Spice Doritos. Maybe McDonald’s will come out with a Seasonal Pumpkin Spice McRib. Maybe these things have already happened, I don’t know. As an economist, I kind of want to graph out the trends and the market share of Pumpkin Spice What Have You in September and October, and the growth in popularity over the past few years. Perhaps I should; perhaps I should apply for a grant to study the ubiquity of pumpkin spice and its effect on cancer, or something. There could be a whole correlation-versus-causation debate, like the one currently heating up over bacon and other smoked meats.

MAYBE THIS IS A NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING IDEA.

Speaking of cookies, yesterday I went to make Halloween-shaped sugar cookies for the kids’ classroom parties. While I was in my flurry of travel, a few weeks ago, I decided to make some of my mom’s never-fail sugar cookie dough to throw in the freezer for this exact reason. I was trying to be on the ball, and I would have been, if I hadn’t been so caught up in packing/ unpacking/ trying to fit work in/ etc. I remember clearly throwing together a banana bread for the kids’ snack, and then whipping up a batch of sugar cookie dough. At the time, I thought the dough felt odd, but I thought no more about it, until yesterday, when I rolled out all the shapes and thought the dough seemed rather soft.

I took my first batch of ghosts out of the oven, and they had all spread together to make one giant obese ghost. The pumpkins were just the same. My never-fail dough had failed. In hindsight, I think perhaps I was so busy multitasking that I only added two out of the three required cups of flour. I managed to whip up another batch, which worked perfectly, and the kids were only too happy to eat the batch of flat misshapen cookies. All is well in my world again.

cookie

Frankie Says Relax, Van Halen Says It’s 1984

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Last night when my husband was watching football and doing what we have been doing for the past 78 days – flipping the channel when a political commercial came on, which was approximately every ninety seconds – it occurred to me: after tonight, no more political commercials. My god, this entire campaign has been very bad for my psyche. At this point I’m like Winston at the end of 1984: completely broken. I almost – ALMOST – don’t care who is elected, just don’t let the rats eat my face, if you know what I mean. Enough with the negativity.

I don’t want to talk about the election, but I want to say one thing: someone on my Facebook the other day said I just voted! Go vote everyone. Unless you’re voting Conservative.

pulpfiction

In other words, make sure you exercise your democratic right to vote, as long as you vote the way I do, otherwise fuck off. That’s a great message, thanks. THE RATS ARE GOING TO EAT MY FACE.

To be clear, I don’t care how you vote or who you vote for. I’m not using this blog to endorse one party over another. I just hate this kind of shit, you know?

Bah, I shouldn’t let what is – ostensibly – a joke bother me. If I let myself get worked up about political messages on Facebook, next thing you know I’ll be a person writing outraged letters to IHOP because of their advertising practices.

Anyway, this is my week to semi-relax after a hectic month. I just have a regular amount of work to do, and that’s it. It seems miraculous. I threw a party for my husband’s birthday on the weekend, and it was a lot of fun. It was crazy-hectic getting ready for it though, because I was not home for five of the seven days leading up to it, and it’s kind of hard to organize things that way. But a good time was had by all, although we ended up with MORE beer than we started with, and most of the guests were drinking beer all night. Magical. Anyone want to come over for a beer? We have a few. We also have this awesome wine gift bag that I kind of want to frame, or something:

winebag

Maybe I’ll carry my water bottle in this everywhere, I love it so much.

I’m taking this quiet-ish week to start preparing for the book fair. Woo. This will be my fifteenth fair, which makes me feel like I’ve rocketed right into the old age home. The difference is that I now have a co-coordinator who is going to take over when I’m gone, thank you thank you thank you. I am so thrilled with this turn of events that I want to shower her with wine and chocolates and many many hugs, but I’m slightly afraid of coming on too strong.  

To end things on a fun note, remember when I got a message from the “passionate and romantic” Birky Tony, wanting to get to know me better and to put a smile on my face? Well, apparently my lack of interest in poor Birky means that maybe I’m a man, because I got the following message from one Omelchenko Anastasiya:

Hi! I am looking for a mature, gallant experienced man with various interests, so, we have plenty to talk about. I like to reveal myself gradually. I am peaceful and do not suffer from depression. I am a confident woman. But most importantly my dignity as a woman is my beauty. I can talk about anything but I am also a good listener. I like sport, traveling, cooking, communication with friends. Do not try to look perfect, I need a real man. Let’s get to know each other better? Regards, Anastasiya.

Lots of options. If only I was a mature, gallant, experienced man who was looking for a non-depressed, dignified woman who likes communicating with friends, I could stop trying to look so perfect all the time.

Just keep swimming…

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YOU GUYS. It’s been a whirlwind of activity around here. We took a four day weekend to see my in-laws’ over the Thanksgiving holidays, which was great, except that I had one day after returning home to get my bearings, and then leave for Toronto. I flew out of Calgary Wednesday morning, and then flew back home Thursday morning. I got home in time to make dinner and take the kids to karate, and now today I’m trying to catch up on laundry and prepare for a party I’m hosting at my house tomorrow night for forty people. I’m completely swampled, as a friend I used to work with and I would say. (HI CARMEN).

Ten days or so ago, I mentioned my travel plans and party plans and my day-to-day work to a friend, saying I was feeling a bit overwhelmed and exhausted by it all. She said that when she feels overwhelmed by life, she thinks of Dory: Just Keep Swimming. So until everything is cleaned up Sunday afternoon, that is my motto: just keep swimming. Yesterday when I got home I was so tired that it seemed too much to fill out Mark’s swim forms for school; holding a pen seemed like an effort that I didn’t want to make, but I just kept swimming. Like a shark, if I stop, I will die. Or, to be less dramatic, not want to get up off the couch ever again.

Oh, but the trips were very very good. My in-laws are well, and I ended up taking home about forty pounds of apples, in addition to the ones my dear mother-in-law had sent to me via Greyhound bus a few weeks ago. We are apple-licious around here. I mostly have McIntosh apples because they are my favourite, and I just smiled and nodded when my mother-in-law sang praises of my beloved Macs: they are perfect for pie and applesauce, she said. Ha! Pie and applesauce my foot. I’ll be eating every one of these apples, just the way nature intended, and I won’t even have to share because no one else really likes McIntosh apples. Not to mention that apple pie is an abomination, in my humble opinion.

applebottom

Apple bottom!

The trip to Toronto was great too. It just so happened that the annual Yummy Mummy Club meeting was the same day as the deciding game for the Blue Jays, and the meeting room was right beside this:

CNTower

The CN Tower!

Very exciting! When the Blue Jays won, you could hear the “woo-ing” from the streets, and when our meeting/ party was finished near midnight, there were still many fans wobbling around. On my flight to Toronto, I was sitting next to a young man who was heading out for the game. He was very nice and as we chatted I mentioned how exciting it was when the Blue Jays won the World Series. It turned out that during that exciting time in baseball, he wasn’t yet born.

All that celebrating must have been something, because the next day our flight was delayed since our co-pilot had called in sick. I BET YOU’RE REALLY SICK, BUDDY. We were sitting on the plane for quite a while, waiting for the replacement to make his way through the gigantic Toronto airport.

As an aside, Calgary is a city of over 1.1 million people, and yet I felt like a complete country bumpkin as I made my way through the terminal. My sweet friend and YMC colleague Katja (HI KATJA) had very kindly offered to pick me up at the airport and drive me to the meeting with Jeni (HI JENI) the Editor-in-Chief, who is also a wonderful friend. I stopped off after deplaning, to wash up and fix my makeup and brush my teeth, assuming that I would be able to just pop outside to meet her. I ended up walking twenty minutes through the terminal, weaving in and out of the throng of people, up and down stairs. Fortunately I was not late to meet her, but I did feel silly that I didn’t realize how big the airport (that I’ve been to twice before) is. I was just happy I was wearing low heels, and counted it as my steps for the day.

Anyway, as we waited for the replacement co-pilot, I wondered how the flight was going to go. The flight was completely full and there were quite a lot of the “under two” set. The couple beside me had with them little Arlo, who was a twenty-three-month-old butterball. He was just adorable, but the wait was going on and on and I hoped – for the parents’ sake, not mine, I couldn’t care less about crying babies so long as they’re not my own – that he would be okay. Things weren’t looking promising at first, because he was HOT but he did NOT want to take his sweater off. In fact, taking his sweater off was the WORST THING EVER. But being HOT was also THE WORST THING EVER. Arlo had a snack and then slept on his mother’s chest for a while, and after that he was just fine.

Toddlers, am I right? So cute and yet so exhausting. He showed me his trains, and his Thomas lift-the-flap book, and he told me about feeding ducks and that they quacked at him, and I almost died of the cuteness. He even sat on my lap for a few minutes to look out the window. He also spent a lot of time running down the aisle with one of his parents in tow, which reminded me of how physically draining it is to have a toddler, not to mention how physically draining it is to TRAVEL with one. I’m drained enough this week!

All of which is to say I’ve got to go keep swimming, at least for another 48 hours. Wish me luck!