Author Archives: Nicole Boyhouse

Hey, did you hear Michael Jackson died?

Posted on by
I know. Shocking isn’t it?

Kidding, of course, I’m not THAT out of touch – you’re out of touch, I’m out of time, but I’m out of my head when you’re not around – but I do find it very difficult to relate to people I saw interviewed on the anniversary of his death, whenever that was. I saw tearful people confessing that they had a hard time accepting it, that they had to move on but sometimes it’s just hard to get out of bed, and I thought, really? I just cannot relate to that at all. I mean, perhaps if someone very close to me had died, but Michael Jackson? I mean, I like to car dance to Billie Jean as much as the next person, but I cannot really say that celebrity deaths affect me in a particularly emotional way. Or any way, really. Usually, when I hear a celebrity died I either immediately assume it’s due to a drug overdose, or I am confused because I thought that person already passed away (i.e., my thoughts on Dennis Hopper’s death).

However, MJ’s death (can I call him MJ? I’m not even really a fan) did mean that there is one less celebrity alive who I actually recognize. I was at the hair salon today, getting my inch of grey roots covered (“The hair is actually white, not grey” my stylist informed me) and of course I read that hair salon staple, People magazine. I would guess that at least ninety percent of the people in People are, at best, vaguely recognized by me. The other ten percent comprise people I recognize, but somewhat wish I didn’t, i.e. Mel Gibson. How’s THAT for a nutjob? I heard the transcript from one of his infamous phone calls on the news and I could barely understand it, so bleeped out was the conversation. It was like watching an episode of Hell’s Kitchen, the bleeps so numerous I actually was not able to get the gist of the conversation, such as it was, except that it rated pretty high in the crazy and angry category.

Speaking of celebrities: apparently there’s a baseball player named Corey Hart? When I saw that, at first I was confused: are people listening to Corey Hart again? Perhaps I should look out my Boy in the Box record. Ah, but it’s someone else. Not the Corey Hart whose glossy face lined my rosebud papered bedroom in the eighties. Canadian girls who were teenagers in the eighties: I just heard that Corey Hart married Mitsou! Remember her? I thought he was supposed to marry me. Along with Corey, I also had well-within-wedlock fantasies about Tom Hooper from the Grapes of Wrath and, just to round out the musical Canadiana, Jim Cuddy!

Alert! Gratuitous photo of me and Jim Cuddy, twenty years after crush was first established.


If you are thinking that you’ve seen this photo before and that maybe I should give it a rest: join the club founded and chaired by my husband.

Another crush of my youth, strangely enough, was the long-dead Jim Morrison. Remember Denis Leary’s bit about the Doors movie? “I’m drunk, I’m nobody, I’m drunk, I’m famous, I’m drunk, I’m f***ing dead. Big fat dead guy in the bathtub, there’s your title.” Thank goodness I got over my thing for troubled, alcoholic, tortured artists, in order to marry my non-alcoholic, non-tortured, although long-suffering husband. It’s MAGICAL being married to me!

So here’s the question for you: who did you have a crush on in your youth? Do you still find said crushes attractive?

Octopuses or Octopii?

Posted on by

I’ve spent whole chunks of the day staring out the window at the sheets of rain pounding my already hail-flattened garden, popping Vitamin D capsules in an attempt to stave off a grey sky and petal-less flower induced depression, avoiding the front window where I have a clear view of my shirtless neighbour’s yard, where he had, inexplicably, piled a very large pile of topsoil on his lawn several weeks ago, this pile of topsoil having turned into an unsightly mud mountain.

Mark, very cheerily, announced this morning that the great thing about rainy days is that we don’t have to put on sunscreen!

That’s true, and that’s one way to look at things. Putting sunscreen on the kids is not what it once was: essentially chasing them through the house, with a handful of SPF 45, shrieking at them to hold still and wrestling them to the ground while applying it to a child who apparently has mistaken sunscreen for boiling oil and is screaming appropriately. Now, the boys do allow me to apply sunscreen in a painless, tear-free way, but not without a constant stream of complaints and sighing. I do like Mark’s look-on-the-bright-side approach.

Because I am evidently a masochist, I like to visit a website called Rhythm of the Home. It’s such a lovely website, with inspiring crafty ideas, which I have no hope of recreating. Really, the rhythm of my home is much less melodic. The rhythm of my house is more based on Dinosaurs: Meat Eaters Chomping the Plant Eaters, or Bakugan Battle Brawlers versus Ben 10 Aliens, or Mom I Accidentally Destroyed Something. However, I occasionally strive to be a crafty, artistic mother, and I know what you’re going to say. Enough already, Nicole. Enough. You will never be that crafty, artistic mother. And you would be right.

I saw this craft, making a yarn octopus, and I thought it looked fairly simple, fairly straightforward. So this morning, in anticipation of the need for rainy day activities, I bought some yarn and some felt. My parents popped by for a visit this afternoon and my mother spied the giant ball of yarn and looked at me quizzically. “Are you going to try to KNIT something?” she asked calmly and clearly, the way you might speak to someone in a hostage situation.

Here is the result of my best effort in octopus making.

Mark named his Moppy. Jake named his Bum.


I asked Jake if I should make a face on his octopus. He said, “I don’t really think you should. I like him with no face.” I feel judged.


Moppy and Bum, getting ready for their Heart and Soul duet.

There goes the garden

Posted on by

Q: What’s better than a good friend?
A: A good friend who has kids that get along with your kids.

Today a friend and I took our kids to an amusement park, which my poor deprived children had never visited before. In fact, not only had they never visited that amusement park, which is located less than thirty minutes from my house, they had never in their lives visited any amusement park. One huge benefit of depriving your children of childhood delights is that they are incredibly excited to finally partake in them. They were so! thrilled! with all the various rides and games and cotton candy, which they had never before tasted. Since coming home, they have incessantly discussed the roller coaster, the log ride, and have eaten their way through a giant bag of cotton candy. They also enjoyed the little airplane ride.

So we had a fabulous time, until the sky turned black and the thunder started. We left the park for home, and returned just before this happened:

What’s that on the ground? Hail.


That was my pretty new rosebush.

Slightly Warmer than Average Wave!

Posted on by

The whole continent, it seems, is having a heat wave, and meanwhile it has been slightly warmer than average in Calgary. I’m certainly not complaining, mind you, I’ll take slightly warmer than average over unbelievably cold with gale force winds, which was the case earlier in the week, when I met my best friend and her four kids at the playground. We ended up staying all of ten minutes before the rain started and the boys and I began our cold, windy, and wet walk home.

But now it’s lovely and warm and we have been spending our days outside. I saw this article and wondered if, perhaps, this explains why my neighbour persists in shirtlessness, regardless of the weather conditions. Sadly, I think it is unrelated to the noise level and has more to do with the intrinsic belief in the kind of sexuality that can only be expressed through the wearing of nothing whatsoever but cut-off sweat pants and gigantic running shoes. But even writing this I know that I am being hypocritical: if my neighbour resembled someone in one of those Diet Coke commercials, I certainly would not be complaining about it. However.

Yesterday I forayed inside in search of heat-resistant snacks, and was treated to some words every mother loves to hear: “Mom, I pulled the thing off the blue thing outside? And it exploded.” Ah. Explosions. I went out to see our mister/sprinkler, missing the screw that makes it a mister, shooting water into the air not unlike a fire hose. The mister is now a high-pressure instrument of water torture. And because I subscribe, apparently, to a very high level of energetic parenting in the summer, I relaxed on the deck with a book whist said water torture instrument was vigorously employed. The boys took turns stepping into the line of fire, so to speak, and then taking their umbrellas into the line of fire, and then shot streams of water onto the trees, which the trees probably appreciated. I looked up from my book only occasionally to ask them to turn down the water if it started to go into our neighbour’s yard.

My lovely, elderly next door neighbour is very tolerant of the boys and their shenanigans. I think perhaps she is a little hard of hearing, which works well for neighbourly relations. This did not stop me from becoming completely smug while we chatted over the fence and she complimented me on the boys. “I never hear them fighting!” she said, “They sure get along well. I don’t ever hear crying!” Which is true, they rarely fight or cry, especially outside. I straightened my shoulders proudly. At that exact moment of pride, the back door flew open to reveal a sobbing, hysterical Jake, naked except for a t-shirt. Tears streamed down his face as he screamed that he needed to use the bathroom, but there was a spider in the toilet, and he didn’t want to eliminate on it. And with that, I excused myself from the conversation and went to flush a spider.

Welcome to the world!

Posted on by

I have a brand new niece! She was born yesterday and although I haven’t met her yet, her pictures are pretty cute! My mother informed me today that she thinks the baby looks like me, when I was a baby, and I am both flattered and deeply skeptical. I mean, she’s one day old. Most one day old babies look pretty much the same, colouring and the existence or otherwise of hair notwithstanding. Also, I am completely skeptical of family resemblance claims unless those claims come from some non-emotionally invested third party. I don’t know how it is in your family, but in mine, discussions regarding who the baby looks like are wrought – wrought! – with emotion and bias. Similar features can be imagined, or, alternately, refused to be acknowledged, depending on the family member who shares said features.

I have a very bizarre example. My older son is the spitting image of his father. This is universally acknowledged, with the exception of one member of my husband’s family, who did not see the resemblance at all. Instead, this person persisted in comparing my son to another family member, at every single opportunity. I cannot say why, but this bothered me to no end. I have since made peace with this irritation; children look the way they look and that has nothing to do with the little people they are.

That said, I just got grumpy thinking about it.

But back to the important news – my new niece. I’m very excited she’s here, and I’m looking forward to shopping for baby gifts. Do you think she’s too young for a bikini?

(Bikinis are size 0-3 months, from Gap and Old Navy)

DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, or What I Did On My Summer Vacations

Posted on by

So the other shoe dropped.

The weather suddenly turned, the sky grey and the wind chilly, and I felt like perhaps this was my own doing; like I had expressed passionate emotions to an indifferent date; I was like “Let’s spend our lives together, I love you, baby” and the weather really just wanted to be friends, saying, “You’re a nice girl and all, but I’m not really ready for commitment right now.”

Then the kids. Holy smokes, the kids. By Friday I was vacillating between thinking that I was possibly the Worst Mother Ever or, alternately, that I had given birth to the Worst Children Ever. Looking back on it, I am pretty sure that it was not them, it was me. We were all having an off day but hoo boy! I was bitchy. I was bitchy and completely despondent and overwhelmed about things that are not really overwhelming or despondency-inducing. Like folding laundry. Or packing for our overnight trip to my parents’ cottage. Packing a small amount of clothes and toiletries – for one night! – was pushing me over the edge. I was also slightly enraged that I Am Always The Person Who Packs, this rage despite the fact that I would never, never allow my husband to pack anything other than his own personal effects.

Fortunately Saturday found me in a non-bitchy state of mind and we had a very fun time at my parents’ cottage. THIS is my idea of camping: plumbing, hot showers, and a kitchen, with a fridge full of delicious things and also coolers. Their cottage is very close to the Lutheran Bible camp I went to as a child, and you can hear the bells ringing, calling the children to meals, chapel, and vespers. The bells, along with the cool weather and the late-night sunsets, really take me back to those days of lanyards and campfires and swimming in the icy cold lake. One year I memorized the lyrics to Parents Just Don’t Understand at that camp; I still get it stuck in my head when I hear someone say “Here’s the situation.” (“My parents went away on a week’s vacation and they left the keys to their brand new Porsche! Would they mind? Mmm. Well. Of course not.”)

Speaking of pop culture from when I was thirteen, I read today that Darryl Hannah had turned down the role of Vivian in Pretty Woman because she thought the movie was “degrading for the whole of womankind. They sold it as a romantic fairytale when in fact it’s a story about a prostitute who becomes a lady by being kept by a rich and powerful man.” And here come some words I never thought I would say: Darryl Hannah, you’re my hero. That is EXACTLY how I have always felt about that movie. Even at thirteen, I found that movie offensive and terrible. I could go on and on how Pretty Woman epitomizes everything that is wrong with society, but I will spare you the diatribe, as I’m still fairly relaxed from my night away, despite the fact that I Am Always The Person Who Unpacks. But that’s a whole other story.

Happy (almost) Birthday Canada!

Posted on by

Since in our house, birthdays must always be marked by cake, I am in the process of making an angel food cake with strawberry cream filling, the colours a nod to our lovely, lovely flag. My mother-in-law made this particular cake for me eleven years ago, and it instantly became my favourite dessert. All other desserts can just go home, for all I care. We don’t need you here.

We’re getting into our summer groove. The first few days were a bit strained, as they can be when your kids have spent a month with non-stop exciting end-of-school events and suddenly it’s the end of school and the days are just waiting to be filled. We seem to have gotten over the hump, as it were, and have been having the kind of days one just loves to write about. Trips to the playground! Picnics! Bike riding! A sunny afternoon at the wading pool! It feels all wholesome, and happy, and like I could do this for the rest of my life. Of course, now that I’ve written it, I can almost see the other shoe dropping, so to speak.

Never mind. The weather has been sunny, warm, and dry, my very favourite weather. It’s my happy weather. I love this weather so much I want to take it for a ride in my Chevy Camaro, park on a hill overlooking the city, slip in an eight-track of Bob Seger’s Night Moves, and get it pregnant. Then, because I sincerely do love and respect this weather, I will marry it and help raise our little weather babies, and we will grow old together, sipping our glasses of iced tea and rocking in gliders on our veranda, watching our little weather grandbabies play on the grass.

Wow. That last sentence is what happens when you enjoy a Smirnoff cooler whilst blogging.

Oh! But there is other exciting news in our house, in addition to my peculiar weather fantasies. Mark lost one of his front teeth, and the result is quite hilarious. I kind of love when kids get those awkward dental situations, a mix of giant teeth and giant gaps and teensy baby teeth. His tooth was crazily loose, and I told him about kids in my day getting their teeth pulled via the string-on-the-doorknob method. He and Jake were horrified, and asked if that had happened to me. No, I replied, I would have cried way too much. Drama queen would have been a polite way to describe the kind of kid I was. I promised Mark I wouldn’t ever try to pull his tooth, a promise I somewhat regretted when I watched him suffer through dinner. Later he actually bumped his mouth accidentally, and cried and cried as he watched the blood drip from his mouth. Just do it, we encouraged him, pull it out! And he reached in and actually pulled out his own tooth! My big big kid. I smile every time I see his giant, gappy grin.