Author Archives: Nicole Boyhouse

Come to think of it, Superman is a douche

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There is this strange phenomenon I’ve noticed this winter: no matter what the weather is like at all other times of the day, it will surely become much, much worse at school pickup time. I’m not sure what it is about the 3:30-4:00 time slot, but lately it’s been nothing but gale force winds, snow, and icy cold. It’s a wee bit depressing to be standing out in the playground, bundled up like I actually am in the Arctic, watching kids walk backwards because the wind and snow in their faces is just too much.  Also, my finger-that-was-nearly-and-unknowingly-amputated-whilst-carrying-groceries is now doing this alarming thing where it spontaneously goes numb, and the cold is just not helping that. 

Today the sun came out – thank goodness – and although it’s still woolly mammoth cold and we have had snow on the ground since October and we probably will have snow on the ground for weeks to come, spring IS coming.  I think.  No, it is.  One day I will put on footwear that are not boots, and a top that is not a thick sweater layered over a long sleeved shirt, and I will wear a coat that is not big and puffy.  One day.  It’s coming.

Meanwhile, this morning Jake used the word “douchey” to describe Superman.  I was both impressed by his apt description and startled by the inappropriateness of a seven year old usage of the word.  We had a rather involved discussion about the time and place to use a word such as “douchey”; i.e., not at school.  It’s true, though.  Superman is a bit of a douche.  I’m more of a Batman girl myself.  Or Wolverine. 

When you live with a housefull of boys, these are things that actually come up in conversation on a semi-regular basis: the ranking and ordering of favourite superheroes and WHY, what foods lead to the most odorous of intestinal gas, which Pokemon character is the fastest and which is the strongest, and how double light sabers are far superior to regular light sabers.  And, apparently, how douchey Superman is.

One of my husband’s colleagues was in a Superman movie when he was a kid, and we recently watched a clip of it on youtube.  “Superman was here!” a woman exclaimed to Clark Kent, who looks totally different from Superman because he is wearing glasses and regular clothes.  Dude, at least all the other superheroes have some sort of mask on. 

Speaking of the Man of Steel, I’m in a bit of a swoony mood this week because Saturday is my wedding anniversary!  We will have been married for eleven years, and the traditional gift for eleven years of marriage is steel!  So I will be looking forward to the receipt of my new car, a la The Price is Right.  A NEW CAR!  Kidding, I will not be receiving a new car for my anniversary, but I may be receiving a piece of steel, if you know what I mean.

Some euphemisms just don’t work.

This week, in anticipation, I have been using my favourite set of dishtowels, because I am a total hausfrau who celebrates life events via dishtowel usage.  Remember this set I bought from anthropologie, that was likely meant for a wedding shower gift but I bought for myself because it’s so awesome?

This makes me as happy as a material item possibly can.  It makes me happy every time I look at it.  I am living happily ever after, I smile to myself as I polish an apple.  Not everything from anthropologie is so awesome though.  I get the catalogue in the mail, and this was on the very last page:

anthropologie.com

If you have been searching for that elusive blue toile romper, look no more!  It can be yours for only $168. 

anthropologie.com

Old lady comfort outfits, represent.  All this needs is a white cardigan with a tissue in the sleeve to complete the look.

Maybe I need an outfit like that.  I was looking swoonily at our wedding photos, and was struck, as I often am, at how very young I looked:

Eleven years later, and I look like this:

advanced style


Marriage has aged me!  Or maybe it’s all the talk about superhero douchery.

The toll of shopping at Costco

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Congratulations to Maggie, for winning the random draw!  I picked up the prize yesterday on my trip to Costco.  Can you spot it in my minivan?

No, silly, it’s NOT the case of tetra pak almond milk.  Nor is it the giant family size package of Snapea Crisps – those are ALL for me, family size be damned.  I don’t share my Snapea Crisps (although, this isn’t a point of contention in my house.  I am the only person who appreciates their snacktacular attributes.)  You’ll just have to wait and see, Maggie!

A few weeks back I was shopping with a girlfriend and she reached into her bag to pull out her wallet, when something popped out and fell onto the floor.  We both reached for it and started laughing hysterically when it became apparent that said object was an o.b. tampon.  You’d think we were in junior high, gauging by our level of merriment.  Although, truth be told, if that had happened in junior high, we would have probably died of embarrassment.

I thought of this incident with amusement yesterday while shopping in Costco.  I was in the feminine products aisle, and the gigantic boxes of Tampax Super were stacked underneath the gigantic boxes of Tampax Regular.  I selected a box of Regular but I also needed Super – SUPER!  I know, my feminine mystique is going to take a bit of a beating here – and so I tried to shimmy a box from beneath the flats of Regular.  Slowly and nightmarishly, all the Regular tampons started to tip over onto me.  Now, as a person who has a (probably irrational) fear of being crushed to death in a warehouse setting, this was a bit alarming.  I tried to push the boxes back but several still tumbled to the floor.  Fortunately for me, a box of Super also fell to the floor so I had only to replace the gigantic scattered Tampax boxes and wheel my giant cart away, relieved that I now possessed a two year supply of tampons and that I probably would not have to endure narrowly missing death by tampon crushing until early 2015. 

There are a few more humiliating ways to die – I’m thinking specifically of death via heart attack while on the toilet, Elvis-style – but death by crushing in a warehouse would be one of the worst.  Especially, somehow, death by crushing by giant pallets of tampons.

I actually really like grocery shopping, but the loading up of the van and the unloading of the van and then the putting away of the groceries are big negatives to me.  You may be saying to yourself why don’t you get your kids to help? but they are generally in school when I shop (see also: why I like grocery shopping) but even if they weren’t, the baskets that I load the Costco offerings in are probably half their body weight.  Yesterday was cold and snowy and grey, and by the time I had unpacked my giant cart into the van, driven home, and started to bring the groceries into the house, I was pretty cold.

Slight digression: remember, people, that I have what is called Raynaud’s Syndrome, which is characterized by poor circulation and cold, somewhat painful, purple hands and feet.  By the time I reached home my hands were numb and cold, but since that is their normal state in the winter, I kept calm and carried on.

Once everything was neatly put away, everything in its place, I washed my hands.  Hmm, I thought, my right index finger sure must be cold.  Even the warm water isn’t helping.  Then I looked at my right index finger, which was enormously swollen, purple, and had a giant dent in it.  It started to feel like it was going to explode.  Huh.  I realized that I must have pinched it somehow, bringing in the baskets of groceries, but my hands were so numb I didn’t even realize it was happening. 

If that isn’t reason enough to move to a warm climate, I don’t know what is.  I am a Delicate Flower who needs warmth and sunshine to bloom, people.  Or at least for me to not accidentally and unknowingly injure myself.  It’s still pretty painful today, but what was more alarming is that I was typing away this morning and it spontaneously went completely pins-and-needles numb and tingly.  And I tell you this: do not google these symptoms or you may think that you have somehow become gangrenous or the like.  Is my finger going to fall off? you may nervously ask yourself.  Fortunately I have feeling in my finger now, thanks to me turning up the heat and anxiously washing the floors, on the belief that moving around might increase circulation.

Last night while I was waiting for the boys at karate, I tried to take a picture of my finger.  I discovered that a) it is very hard to take a picture of one’s right hand when one is right handed, and b) I’m not going to become a hand model any time soon.

There’s an old adage that you can tell the age of a woman by looking at her hands.  By this picture, one might think I’m one hundred years old.  The waiting room at the karate dojo DOES look a lot like a nursing home.  I’m just watching my stories, dearie.

Lego, Eyelashes, and an IMPORTANT QUESTION

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This morning Jake was playing with his Star Wars Lego when I heard a frustrated yell.  The back window had fallen out of his Palpatine’s Arrest set, and when he tried to fix it, a couple of other pieces came off.  There was no time to figure things out before school, and so I decided I would try to fix it before he came home from lunch.

This is not, by any means, the first time I had attempted to build or fix Lego.  I will start by saying that I am not gifted in the Lego area.  I can barely build a simple box house, and those Star Wars sets are very complicated.  This is probably somehow related to my complete inability to catch a ball without flailing my arms and shrieking.  However, I remembered where all of the instructions manuals were kept, and so I flipped to what seemed to be the appropriate page and bravely began.

Shortly after that, I burst into tears. 

Happily, when Jake got home at lunch and I showed him my attempt, he said cheerfully that I did a great job, and he didn’t really need the window to open anyway.  He never really used that window anyway!

What a sweetheart.  I have a School Council meeting tonight, and I have a feeling his dad is going to be kept busy fixing the window.

Speaking of bursting into tears and having to subsequently fix my mascara, the other day I was shopping and saw a display for a mascara called “The Falsies”, and although the word “Falsies” makes me think of bra-stuffing, I was intrigued.  I had read a few reviews about this mascara and I thought I should try it.  I am going to have amazing, traffic stopping eyelashes, I thought, although to be honest I’m not sure how eyelashes would stop traffic, especially if a person has light sensitive eyes and wears sunglasses all the time, as I do.  Nonetheless!  I have a few girlfriends who regularly get false eyelashes applied – the kind that last for a few weeks – and they look amazing.  So amazing that when I’m talking to them I get completely distracted by their eyelashes and forget what we are talking about.  I’m like one of those guys who can’t take their eyes off your breasts, but with eyelashes.  I briefly thought about getting them myself but decided against it.  Although I’m high maintenance that is a line I just cannot cross, so this mascara called out to me.

Isn’t it funny what you think buying a product is going to be a glorious, life changing experience?  I get that sometimes.  A new pair of panties equals a new lease on life!  New lipstick?  Transformative.  I am a new woman because of this scented hand cream!  So I could hardly wait to try out my new mascara which would give me false lash glam instantly. 

People.  Building hopes up too high can only lead to disappointment in the end.  I wish I could say I was fluttering my enormous eyelashes at you right now, but I’m not.  I mean, the mascara is fine.  Possibly slightly better than my regular mascara.  There is nothing inherently wrong with the mascara, although there might be something wrong with me in falling for the advertising.  I tried to take a picture of my eyes, but have you ever tried to do that?  I looked like I was preparing to make my own tinfoil hat, or that I lived in a small apartment with one hundred pets who were all named Pookie.  So you will have to take my word for it; my eyelashes look nice, but not LIFE CHANGING.  Certainly not traffic stopping.  No one is going to become distracted by my eyelashes while talking to me.

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Some of you know that I’m currently working on a cookbook, filled to the brim with lovely vegan and vegetarian recipes.  It’s an exciting project, and now that Justin Timberlake is singing the praises of coming on down to Veganville, I hope it will be a popular project as well.  Nothing like a little advertising by JT.  In any case, I realized I have a very biased and warped view of the world since I have so many vegetarian and vegan friends; it’s like I live in my own little meatless bubble.  As my husband said to me the other night, most people actually eat meat, Nicole.  Not everyone loves beans as much as you do.  I’m beginning to realize this is true!  So my question for all you meat-eaters is this: how often, if ever, do you cook/serve/eat meatless meals?  If never, why not?  Please leave your answer in the comments.  Maybe we can make it a giveaway!  Random person will win a prize!  Prize to be determined, I promise it won’t be a can of beans, or a tube of mascara.

Don’t masquerade with the guy in shades.

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This morning I was driving to the yoga shala, and the radio was playing Sunglasses at Night.  Boy in the Box was one of my favourite albums back in 1985, and so I turned it up and sang along.  I pulled into a parking stall, still singing.  You’ve gone to bed with a guy in shades, oh no.  Then I turned off the car, went into the shala and did my practice.  An hour and a half later I got back into the car, turned it on, and Sunglasses at Night was on the radio.  Again.  At the exact same part of the song as it was when I turned the car off.  You’ve gone to bed with a guy in shades, oh no.  I sat motionless for a moment, feeling like I was in some surreal universe.  Where am I?  Did I actually GO into the shala?  Did I record Sunglasses at Night on a CD and not realize it?  WHAT IS HAPPENING?  It was, I should mention, the same radio station, which means that a hit from 1985 was played twice in less than a two hour period.  Very strange beginning to the day.

Speaking of strange and also going to bed with a guy in shades, I heard George Michael’s I Want Your Sex on the radio the other day.  Feel free to make a comment about the nature of the radio stations I listen to at this time.  Anyway, I clearly remember when I Want Your Sex came out and how terribly shocking it was at the time, back in the day before Eminem and Nate Dogg wanted a bitch with double-D’s to fuck in the back of a Hummer truck, or Rihanna was looking for a guy to go downtown, or even when Nelly wanted someone to fuck him good AND suck him good.  George Michael was scandalous back in 1987, but here’s the thing: I find the expression I want your sex to be very strange indeed.  You want my…sex?  Is this something anyone has ever said in the history of time?  I mean, until Bruno Mars recently intoned that your sex takes me to paradise.  Bruno, do you mean having sex with you takes me to paradise?  Because that would make a lot more sense.

You can tell that it’s Friday, can’t you?  Suddenly things are getting X-rated around here.  Unrelated to my strange thought processes spurred by hits from the mid-to-late eighties, it’s International Women’s Day!  International Women’s Day, and I just typed an entire paragraph about inappropriate song lyrics.  Anyway, it turns out I’m going to be spending International Women’s Day evening with a couple of my favourite girlfriends, who are coming over to taste test some new recipes.  One of them is chocolate pudding made out of cauliflower.  I know what you’re thinking, but it is actually pretty good, and it’s not just me saying that – Jake told me it was not bad, which I consider to be a win, given he was aware of the ingredients.

This is not to say my kids don’t like vegetables; they do, just not cauliflower.  Does anyone really like cauliflower?  I like it roasted, but other than that, it is a pretty lame vegetable.  It doesn’t even have a pretty colour and YES, I realize I am focussing on appearances, but it doesn’t taste great either.  I like vegetables that are beautiful inside and out, if you know what I mean.

I had something lovely to say here about inner and outer beauty, but Patio Lanterns just came on the radio, which may be the worst song ever written, other than Might As Well Go For A Soda, and so now I have lost that train of thought.  Patio Lanterns, for the love of god.  Is there a worse song?  Because right now even Macarthur Park seems awesome.

In any case, have a lovely International Women’s Day, let’s celebrate each other and how far we’ve come.  xoxo

Mildly Annoying Things

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You know when it’s the week leading up to your ladies’ holiday, and you feel all raw and emotional and sad things are unbearably sad and mildly irritating things are making you ragey and you’re reading the Diary of a Wimpy Kid with your children and you didn’t realize how very mean spirited and awful it is, and it’s two days until your hair appointment and your hair looks and feels like orange straw, but with grey roots, and you have impotent rage about the impending time change and your husband thinks time change is “no big deal” and it’s “crazy to get all worked up about it” and Monday is a new moon and Mercury is in retrograde and why don’t we keep snack food in the house, omg, want snacks right now?  That’s the kind of day I’m having.

I realized yesterday that Barkley is going to be five soon, which means he is approaching doggie middle age, and I myself am approaching human middle age.  Or maybe I’ve already reached middle age, although I hope not.  I have an ultimate goal of being one of those sweet yet crazy little old ladies in the nursing home, wearing tons of lipstick which will bleed down into the lines around my mouth, and I will colour my hair orangey-red, and I will wear so much Chanel No. 5 that everyone will know I was in a room twenty minutes after vacating it.  I will wear jaunty little silk neck scarves in bright colours to hide the wrinkles on my chicken neck, and will paint my nails to match.  I will force the cafeteria in my nursing home to offer a vegetarian option and I will always have a bowl of hard candies in my room.  I think that would be fun, but I envision myself to be in my nineties, or late eighties at the very least, and so I do not think I have technically hit middle age yet.

Speaking of being an old lady, I do not want to be one of those mean ones who ram their shopping carts into people at the grocery store or complain about the lineups to the cashiers, and so I will blog about the things that have been irritating me today.  Although, technically, they aren’t irritating me so much anymore since I went to my beautiful friend’s restorative yoga class this afternoon so I’m actually feeling pretty relaxed.  Still.  Here is a list of the mildly annoying things on this sunny, blue-and-white day:

1) It snowed for about ten hours straight on Sunday; there is about a foot of snow on the ground.  This is nothing unusual since March is typically a snowy month.  However, by the level of complaints about the snow, you would think we were all living in the tropics and it suddenly and unexpectedly turned into the Arctic.  Also, the city road crews did an amazing job cleaning up the streets, all things considered, and yet the complaints about the city road crews were endless.

2) Because of the snow, I am dropping the kids off at the front of the school after lunch, rather than the alley.  First, people dropping their kids off for afternoon kindergarten park in the alley like they’ve never seen traffic before; they double park and park on blind corners and leave their cars and it is – in good conditions – a mess.  And so I tried to just avoid the situation by dropping off the kids in front of the school, but then my zen state was ruined by witnessing three people jaywalking with their small children across the busy street.  People: darting out between parked cars into traffic and expecting said traffic to stop for you is not a good lesson for your kindergarten aged child.  THEN one of those small children got stuck in a snowbank on the side of the road.  There’s nothing quite like watching a parent standing in the busy street trying to dislodge her child from a snowbank, meanwhile the younger siblings are darting around ON THE STREET.  I’m having heart palpitations just thinking about it.  It’s the same visceral reaction I get when I see pictures of babies on those Bumbo seats sitting on elevated surfaces.  Get the baby off there before it falls and breaks its little neck!!!

3) My friend Nan wrote about this today, but whenever anyone mentions the Paleo Diet I immediately picture that person with a club and wearing animal skins, hunting down sabre-toothed tigers and the like.  I find diet trends – when they are spoken about with fervour as they often are in the born-again dieter – to be annoying in general.  I mean, awesome if you’re into the Paleo Diet or low-carb or gluten-free or whatnot and it works for you.  What I find annoying are the attempts at conversion.  Hey, I’ve been a vegetarian for years and I have never once said anything derogatory about my carnivorous friends.  Particularly since I live with four of them (I am counting the dog).

4) The boys have another make up karate class today.  The oversharing, overly talkative woman will be there.  That right there should be enough but now she’s talking to ME.  God help us all.  She told me that outdoor sports – like spring soccer – are the only way to REALLY teach children about sports, and while I agree that there is something character building about playing soccer with snow on the ground, in the howling wind and sleet, I am ecstatic that my children are not playing this year.  I can’t wait to see what we will talk about tonight!

Speaking of which, I must go get ready to pick the kids up and head to the dojo – they got new belts this weekend!  White with the yellow stripe!  Excitement all around – and so I will sign off, feeling much better about everything.  What would I do without you to listen to me, dear readers?  I guess I would turn into Mean Old Lady.  xoxo

Nicole’s Favourite Things, Aloha Edition

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The book fair is done!  All loose ends are tied up; everything is finished until next November, when I will be relating my book fair sob stories once again.  For those of you who have asked WHY I do this to myself, over and over like one of those fifty-shades types of girls, well, I ask the same question of myself when I find myself photocopying, cutting, and sorting 420 draw forms, or answering “The posters are five dollars.  Yes, that one is five dollars too.  They are all five dollars” a thousand times, or handling all that warm, sweaty money.  The answer is, of course, that my kids tell me that they are so excited I’m in the school doing the book fair, and when I walk down the halls I get random hugs from children, and the school librarian tells me how happy she is to be ordering more books for the learning and literacy program and the ESL students.  I even got thank you cards made for me by a couple of students, which makes the memory of sorting through the reorder forms fade significantly.

This week is flying by; book fair, make up karate classes, and, of course, readjusting to regular life after vacation.  Yesterday my girlfriend who was volunteering with me asked me to tell her all about our vacation, and I had that far-off feeling that I was on another planet some time ago, and now the memories are all that remain.  I’m trying to keep that aloha feeling going, so without further adieu I give you…

Nicole’s Favourite Things, Aloha Edition

As always, my favourite things are just things I love and I think you might too.  These posts are never sponsored, I received nothing for free, and I was not compensated by any companies to write this post.

Lulu Bands

Not to be confused with lululemon, these are essentially ponytail holders that don’t damage your hair and don’t leave those annoying ponytail bumps in your hair when you take out your ponytail. 

 
I know what you’re thinking: what is that, a scrunchie?  Is this 1990?  But no, they are not scrunchies, they look cute and non obtrusive in your hair, and you don’t need to worry about breakage, which is especially important for us fine-haired girls with over-processed, brittle hair.  I’m wearing one in this picture – see?  Not scrunchie-like at all.

  
 
 
Cheap Pedicures
 
Normally, the term “cheap pedicure” gives me visions of gross things like foot fungus or similar.  I prefer to go once or twice a year to more expensive spas to get pedicures; where I live prices of these kind of services (and everything else) are fairly inflated, and so generally getting a pedicure doesn’t even cross my mind.  However, I failed to recall the priniciples of supply and demand.  In Maui, there seems to be a nail salon on every block, and the prices are insanely low.  How could I resist?  Plus during my pedicure I got to sit next to an older gentleman from Arizona who talked to me about dog breeds and golf.  You just can’t buy that kind of entertainment.
 
 
 
Old Navy Swimwear
 
Last summer I bought some bikinis from Old Navy for $5-8 a piece.  A steal!  I also bought some skirts during the Boxing Week sales for $8 each, and they are cute, wrinkle free, and super comfortable.  Their regular prices are not bad, either, and there is usually some kind of online discount to take advantage of.
 
 
Cute skirt, and perfect for travel.  Also – Fern – shout out to my grandma!  Love you, Grandma! 
 
Sunglasses
 
My husband has always hated my old sunglasses.  He’s had a vendetta against them for years.  So, on this trip, we popped into a Sunglass Hut where I was helped by the most flamboyant man ever.  This guy knew his sunglasses, and he fitted me out with these lovely things:
 

as well as a set of aviators so I can pretend I’m actually in Top Gun.  Can I just give a shout out to that flamboyant man?  He gave me a totally mouth-turned-down frowny face every time I tried on a pair of glasses that didn’t suit me, shook his head, and said “Um, NO.”  I kind of fell in love with him a little bit, especially when he told me that his “friend” was in town from Las Vegas, and they had some champagne on the beach watching the sunset.  He also said, when I told him we were leaving soon, “Well, being in paradise doesn’t pay the bills, am I right?”  Truth.

Coconut

We were on holidays!  And so the freezer in our condo was kept well stocked with all sorts of frozen treats.  I was feeling a bit sorry for myself as the boys ate sundaes and ice cream sandwiches, meanwhile the rice milk ice cream I had purchased for myself tasted exactly like sadness.  Then I discovered So Delicious Coconut Milk products, and OMG people.  OMG PEOPLE.

I used to think that I disliked coconut; it turns out I dislike artificial coconut flavour and also shredded coconut, the texture of which resembles old dried-out dental floss to me.  GOD BLESS THE COCONUT.  I use coconut milk in my cooking and baking, coconut oil, and now I am a coconut milk “non-dairy frozen dessert” convert.  Speaking of coconut, the one thing I regretted from our last Maui trip was that I didn’t bring home any coconut scented lotion.  “Really, you REGRET not buying a bottle of lotion?” my husband said, confused at my use of the word regret.  Yes!  I regretted it!  So I made amends to myself:
 

 
I’m wearing it right now and I keep sniffing at my coconuty hands.  Smell my finger!  Really, it smells like coconut. 
 
Side note: the more times I type coconut, the weirder the word looks to me.  Anyone else have this experience?
 
Speaking of smells…
 
Routine Natural De-odor-cream
 
I know, I know, I’ve extolled the virtues of Routine De-odor-cream before, but here’s another plug.  It’s all natural deodorant, my friend makes it, and it WORKS.  I spent my mornings at the beach, my afternoons doing my yoga practice and then going to the pool, and even with all that hot sun and sweating and activity, I STILL SMELLED FRESH.  My very favourite is Sweet Jane, but I took Lucy in the Sky with me to Maui, thinking the lavender would be a bit, um, fresher.  I was right!  I did not smell in the least like a feral hippie.  So, if you’ve ever been concerned about using natural deodorant – as I was in the past – FEAR NO MORE.  This product really works.
 
 

Ah, it was a great trip.  Now we are into March, my goodness, and it’s Friday!  Which means wine time, also one of my favourite things.

 
 


Back to life, back to reality.

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The house is SO QUIET.  I had gotten used to a certain level of excited chatter all day long and now the kids are back at school and my husband is back at work, and it’s just me, with not even the dog for company as he is at the groomer’s.  Back to reality, I guess.  As the very flamboyant man who sold me a pair of sunglasses in Maui said, “Being in paradise doesn’t pay the bills!”  Truth.  I had also gotten used to being warm.  What is this thing called a sweater?  Jake stood at the top of the stairs for two solid minutes this morning, unmoving, until I reminded him that he needed to put on his coat and boots before we left the house.  Coat and…boots?

I’m kind of tired this morning because I actually watched the Oscars last night.  I stayed up past 10:00, which is like 2:00 in the morning for normal people.  I recorded the show so I could watch it in the same manner my husband watches the Superbowl – starting late and then fast forwarding the parts I don’t like, such as the speeches, the commercials, and the honorary awards.  Basically I just watch it to see the presenters and what people are wearing and to get glimpses of Hugh Jackman being his usual awesome self.  Doesn’t he just seem like a great guy?  Who else would run over to help someone who had tripped up the stairs?  Who else would excitedly applaud when the other guy won?  Who else looks like this?

 
 
RAWR.  Or this:

The lady will have two tickets to the gun show, please.

Speaking of attractive men, if it wasn’t bad enough that the Oscars ran overtime and foiled my plans for an early bedtime, I ended up having a minor after hours debate with my husband.  The topic? Resolved: Bradley Cooper is attractive.

Me: I just don’t think he’s very good-looking.

Husband: If you polled one hundred women, ninety-eight would agree with me. 

Me: I don’t see it.

Husband: You’re wrong.

Me: It’s not like he’s George Clooney.  THAT is an attractive man.  He even looks good in a beard!

Husband:  It’s GEORGE CLOONEY.  One hundred percent of women think he’s attractive.  You can’t compare them.

Me:  Bradley Cooper’s hair is weird.

Intellectual late-night conversations are where it’s at in my house.  And by late-night, I mean 10:05.  It’s probably good that my husband is back to work and I will only see him for a couple of hours a day at best, given where our conversations go when we’ve actually spent time together.  What’s next, a disagreement about Halle Berry’s shoulder pads?

My neighbour picked up my mail for me while I was gone, and so I was very excited to see the eclectic collection of magazines and catalogues that had amassed.  Canadian Living and Golf Digest, together at last in traditionally-defined gender roles, magazine style.  The anthropologie catalogue together with the Sears Fun in the Sun edition.  Hoo boy.  So many floral dresses and horse sweaters, but at massively different price points.  Spoiler alert: post forthcoming. 

In any event, it’s shaping up to be a busy week what with me running the school book fair – yes, again – karate makeup classes – I sure do hope that woman is there again, can’t wait to hear what she posted to Facebook this week – and the usual day-to-day activities.  What have you been up to, dear readers?  Anyone watch the Oscars?