Category Archives: Birthdays

Miner Miner Forty Niner

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Yesterday was my birthday, and I turned 49. My last birthday in my forties! I have really loved my forties, and I hope this last year before I can say that I’m nifty and fifty will be just as great.

I love birthdays. This isn’t news to anyone who has known me even tangentially – I love my birthday, of course, but I love everyone else’s too. I mean, it was the day you arrived on the planet (and blinking, stepped into the sun). I hope we all have THAT song running through our heads now. Mind songs aside, birthdays are a wonderful time to celebrate people for just existing; you don’t need to do anything, you just need to be here.

I get more ponderous about life than I typically do around my birthday, which is to say very ponderous indeed. Years ago, in one of my senior yoga classes, a student said something about how this aging thing is for the birds, and another countered with at least we’re on this side of the grass. I would say that not being dead is a pretty excellent part of aging; that sounds sarcastic, but just last week I heard that a very beloved and popular yoga teacher in Calgary passed away at age 52. This is just one more example in a long line of examples of people I know whose lives have been cut too short, and I for one will never not be grateful for just being here.

I was listening to a podcast the other day, and the interviewer said something that really stuck with me: When we say “I don’t feel old,” what we are saying in essence is “I don’t feel irrelevant,” or “I don’t feel invisible.” The language that we use around aging is absolutely fascinating to me, and I thought about this all week. Our culture uses very positive language around youth, and negative language around aging – “antiaging” products to obtain a “youthful” glow, for example – and I don’t want to subscribe to that. Let’s put a little pin in that for now.

Something that is very interesting to me is how we ascribe a certain look to a certain age; for example, one will frequently hear the refrain “She doesn’t look X years old” or “She doesn’t look a day over X.” But how do we know what X looks like? There are just so many variables. Let us never forget that Rue McClanahan was 51 when she played Blanche on The Golden Girls. So who is to say how old someone looks? There are no rules anymore.

A key characteristic of being young is being unaware of the beauty that is present in ourselves, merely by being young. It is a fact of life that one does not realize just how beautiful they are simply by possessing that special glow of youth; instead, we realize it much later, at some point in the future. We are just so socialized to be constantly unhappy with our physical appearance: our weight, skin, hair, clothes, and features are all subject to criticism and are a source of deep unhappiness. How many of us were satisfied with our looks at 16, 18, 22? I would say probably none. And yet, and YET we were all beautiful, in the way that the young are always beautiful, and in twenty years we will be looking at photos of ourselves as we are right now, thinking how young and beautiful we look. I mean, why wait the 20 years? Why not appreciate ourselves right this minute?

I have been having a bit of an epiphany over the past several months; I have tried to condition myself to really lean in to the physical signs of aging. After all, I’m in a different life stage, no different from when I was pregnant and was constantly fascinated by and in admiration of my own body. Now I’m just on the other side of the fecundity spectrum, and why should that not be a time of fascination and admiration? Have I started developing jowls, and do I have loose skin under my chin that can only be described as a wattle? Yes. But short of surgery, there is nothing to be done about it, so why not appreciate my kind of melting face? Sure, I’m discovering why ladies of a certain age prefer elastic-waisted pants due to my figure becoming rectangular, and sure, my neck is rivaling Nora Ephron’s, but this is my stage of life, and I am just going to lean all the way in. Look at my beautiful grey roots!

Okay, maybe I’m not leaning THAT far in. I’m still going to colour my hair. I’m still going to use my retinol creams, my products to prevent hair thinning, all my makeup. But the point is I’m on the right side of the grass, and I’m not going to waste one more moment of my wild and precious life being unhappy with my looks.

A few months ago, someone – with, I’m sure, the best of intentions – told me, very helpfully, that every Thursday at Shopper’s Drug Mart is Seniors’ Day, and I could therefore receive a 20% discount on all purchases. I am not exactly sure what my facial expression looked like, but the person quickly said not to worry, the definition of senior is someone over 55, not 65. Now listen, there is nothing stigmatizing about being over 55, but a person wants to actually BE over 55 to be assumed that they are over 55, even for those of us working on our positive language around aging. It took me a moment, but I managed to say that I was not actually eligible for this discount, and then the conversation took what can only be described as a weird and awkward turn: they started to guess my age, going backward from 54. I stopped them when they got to 51 and said I was 48, at which point they said “Oh wow, really?”

So.

Maybe that’s when my epiphany started. Because believe you me, this conversation was not at all pleasant to me at the time, but looking back on it, it’s pretty funny. It’s also interesting, circling back to stigmatizing language, and how we assign an age a person looks versus the age that they are. This is what 49 looks like!

It looks different for everybody, of course – one woman’s 49 is another woman’s 55, evidently – but I for one am celebrating another turn around the sun.

Weekly Reading

The Whispers. I could NOT put this book down. Wow, what an incredibly told, compelling story about a child who suffers an accident and his mother who feels intense guilt about that accident. There are so many twists and surprises, and an intense, gloriously satisfying ending. This book is a real statement on the incredible complexities of motherhood, about neighbourhoods and relationships. I read and enjoyed this author’s first book, The Push, but let me tell you, this book leaves that one in the dust. It is SO well done and I am obsessed with it. What a ride!

Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock. I’m very mixed. On the one hand, the author’s research and intelligent points about time – how it’s measured, what is a clock and where did it come from, how do we utilize our time – are impressive. On the other hand, the writing style is very thick and tedious to me. It was a drag to read, honestly, and I don’t feel like what I got out of it was worth the time it took to read this. It was a slog.

Pete and Alice In Maine. When I heard this premise, I thought “Lucy By The Sea!” But friends, this is definitely not Lucy By The Sea, even if it is a story of a couple whose marriage is in trouble who flee New York with their two young children to their summer house in Maine, in early 2020. Now. A couple of things. It is a very real portrayal of the actual things people went through – children suddenly isolated from their friends, the inability to get toilet paper, the massive fear and sudden loathing of other people who are not behaving in the same way we are. So it is very realistic, except for the dialogue, which is ridiculously unnatural. Ridiculously. Every time a character spoke, it took me out of the story. The characters are all completely unlikeable – maybe a commentary on how people were at that time, I don’t know. The social commentary is pretty heavy-handed too. The ending is ambiguous which I usually like, but in this case it just seemed abrupt and strange. All in all, not an enjoyable reading experience for me, but who knows, maybe it will work for you.

I had a really wonderful birthday; we planted the garden, with the exception of tomatoes and peppers, I had a nice morning hike with Rex, and then the guys and I went out for dinner, coming back home for an epically delicious cake afterwards. I am so lucky.

In other news, I am taking a bloggy break for a couple of weeks, and when I’m back I will have lots of adventures to share with you! I look forward to catching up with all of you then, and so for now, take care of yourselves, my beautiful friends. xo

Various Views on Vegas

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Fly High Free Bird

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

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

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

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

My Milkshake Brings The Instagrammers To The Yard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Glory Days, They’ll Pass You By

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

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

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

Let Me Eat Cake

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One of the things I was most excited to do when I moved here was to restart cross-country skiing; I love it but, sadly, for one reason or another, have not skied in twenty years. Now that I don’t have children in school or classes to teach, I have been eager to restart, and because ski technology has changed significantly in my prolonged off-season, not to mention that my feet have gotten bigger, my husband and I went to the local outdoor store to procure new equipment.

We were immediately helped by a nice, knowledgeable young man named Brett, who showed me some skis that he thought would be appropriate. When it came to sizing them, he measured against my height and then casually asked my weight. I replied, truthfully, that I really didn’t know. I have not weighed myself since August 2020, when I read Your Body Your Best Friend; even at the doctor’s office, I have turned around while being weighed and asked not to be told the number. Brett suggested that if I didn’t know my weight, I could just step on the scale, that one, right over there!

“Oh, I’m not stepping on a scale,” I said, and my husband laughed. “That’s a dangerous question!” he said to Brett, and what was so interesting to me is that Brett looked completely puzzled as to why a woman would hesitate weighing herself not just in public, but ever. Like, he was genuinely nonplussed. Why would weight be any different than boot size or height; this was value-neutral information used to select the appropriate ski equipment.

Honestly, it’s aspirational. I cannot imagine being in a mental place where knowing my weight didn’t cause a steep descent into utter madness, regardless of what that weight is. I cannot imagine just knowing my weight without some kind of insane moral value judgement, the way I feel about my height and the size of my feet and hands. In the end we compromised; Brett told me the weight range in kilograms for the skis I was looking at, and I was able to tell him that I thought I was within that range.

I am still a little depressed about the Weight Watchers book I read last week, friends. I don’t know if it was because I read it just before my Ladies’ Holidays when I was already in a fragile emotional state, but wow, did it ever bum me out. The idea that we are living in a society that essentially wants women – sure, men are subject to weight judgements too, but let’s face it, it’s mostly women – to take up less space and to always be hungry or, alternately and concurrently, not hungry but guilty and full of shame, just made me so sad. The thought of all these millions of women who have been weight cycling their entire lives, just futilely dieting and gaining and back again, and then made to feel shame about it, made me feel like wrapping up every one of them in a hug.

The author herself, and most likely, millions of other women, seemed to have two modes when it comes to food: restriction and the accompanying obsession with food (did we learn nothing from the Minnesota Starvation Experiment?), or shame about eating and the accompanying obsession with food. Restriction and shame, those seem to be the options. There was no joy whatsoever.

I learned something unsettling this week, and it has to do with Ozempic. I know there is a lot of discourse around this drug, and I am not going to touch on that. What I am going to tell you is something that I did not know, and that is that while Ozempic has been used very effectively for fairly significant weight loss, once a person stops the drug the weight is regained. The only way, apparently, to maintain the weight loss from Ozempic use is by continuing usage of Ozempic, indefinitely. The thought of people staying on a drug that is probably not tested for extreme long-term usage – how could it be, when it’s relatively new? – for the rest of their lives just to maintain an arbitrary Ideal Weight has me upset on a macro level. What are we doing in our society?

Once you open your eyes to the insidiousness of diet culture, you can’t not see it everywhere. Conversations about skipping dessert to be Good happen everywhere, or thoughts like I want to eat a lot at this event so I won’t eat all day to prepare abound, women everywhere are thinking I ate those cookies yesterday so today I’ll skip lunch. Whole swaths of food are demonized as Bad, every time you turn around it’s something different: oils, sugar, carbs, whatever some so-called expert has decided to pick on. Food is fuel, of course it is, but it is so much more than that. Food needs to nourish our bodies AND our souls; it is nutrition and it is community, it is family and it is joy, it is culture and tradition. When we reject these things, we are rejecting little parts of ourselves. Of course we need to make choices that are best for our bodies, of course we do, but our physical bodies are only one part of us.

What upset me the most from that Weight Watchers book was somewhat of a throwaway line, and that is that Jean Nidetch said that being thin needs to be more important than any food, and suggested this life hack: on your birthday, every birthday, for the rest of your life, bake a cake, cut the cake, serve the cake, but DO NOT EAT THE CAKE. Now, I probably would not have noticed this line at all if she talked about pie, which I loathe, or even something I feel neutral about, like doughnuts. I don’t dislike doughnuts but I never feel like eating one, and so if someone told me that there would be no more doughnuts or pie for the rest of my life, I’d never blink an eye. Done and done! But cake! We all know how I feel about cake. The thought of slicing a cake and not eating any on my own birthday, ever again, is the saddest food-related thing I can think about.

Maybe it’s because I’m 48 and although I hope I have a little more life ahead of me than behind me, likely that is not the case, but I just refuse to spend even one more minute like this. I refuse to think that if I have that, then I shouldn’t have this. The fact is that I genuinely do not think about my weight at all anymore, unless I’m in a ski shop and they ask for it, but it’s taken work to get here.

On the subject of cake, it was my husband’s birthday, and so we spent the weekend feting my Shmoopy. Obviously there needed to be cake involved, and for this special occasion, we went with carrot. It was delicious.

Weekly Reading

Falling. Let’s say you’re on a plane. The pilot discovers, after takeoff, that his family is being held hostage and he is given one of two choices: crash the plane, killing everyone on board, or his family dies. What’s he going to do? This is an entertaining thriller of a book, although probably not recommended for anyone who, you know, has a fear of flying. I don’t, so it didn’t bother me BUT I could not stop thinking about the author. The author, get this, is a former flight attendant who WROTE THIS BOOK WHILE WORKING THE RED-EYE. That’s right, as the passengers slept on overnight flights, she wrote a book about terrorists threatening every person on board and the pilot’s beloved family. What kind of a warped and twisted mind does that? I don’t know but I’d love to be her friend. Imagine getting your little bag of pretzels or Celebration cookie from a seemingly-innocent flight attendant who is imagining your death. Actually, given how some people behave on planes, this is kind of a reasonable response. Thanks to Stephany (HI STEPHANY) for the recommendation (listen to her podcast, The Friendship Paradox!).

Daughter in Exile. I think this is an incredibly honest and accurate book about what it is to be an illegal immigrant in the US; this story follows a young, educated Ghanaian woman who gives up her job at the Thai embassy in Senegal to go to America with her boyfriend, who turns out to be a cad, uninterested in her when he discovers she doesn’t have wealth. Stranded in America, pregnant, she struggles just to survive, the people around her in equal measures helping her and also taking advantage of and hurting her. I’m sure this is very realistic, with one awful thing after another happening to her, but it is very hard to read. I guess it is just a slice of life. I can’t say I enjoyed it; I did not like the writing style and I found the dialogue to be pretty stilted and unnatural. I think, however, it was a very eye-opening novel to the immigrant experience. 

The Woman in the Library. This was SUCH a fun and entertaining read! It’s a murder mystery with clever parallel story lines – a mystery being written, and a beta reader reading that mystery. Very fun indeed!

We took advantage of a beautiful weekend, and having my son home for my husband’s birthday, to take our annual family photos. Would you like to be included on my holiday card list? All you have to do is include ME on yours! At the risk of sounding like a Christmas Asshole, I am only interested in card EXCHANGES, so if you too love sending out holiday cards, and want one from me, let me know! If you sent me a card last year you are already on the list, never fear. In any case, have a lovely week, everyone; hopefully there will be cake or something delicious involved. xo

Dog and (Social) Butterfly

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Although I have seen all of the Feuding Dog Park Men separately a few times, I have not seen them all together since The Incident, and I’m able to give them a nod and closed-lip Mona Lisa smile without being drawn into conversation with any of them. I did, however, get knocked off my feet by a large hound who, inexplicably, came running full speed into the back of my knees. I actually had some air time before landing on my left hip and right elbow and I am going to be grateful for my sons for nagging me about strength training, because I broke nothing. My hip still hurts, a few weeks later, but my doctor’s warning about osteoporosis was not for nothing; I guess my bones aren’t crumbling, thanks to my loathed-but-practiced strength routine and, probably, calcium-rich smoothies. The owner of the hound, a slow-moving elderly man, was horrified and apologetic, and Rex will not let the hound get within ten feet of me. When that dog is at the park, Rex is by my side, barking and growling if the dog gets too close.

Other than that, Rex is very friendly and playful with all the dogs we meet, particularly a three-legged doodle delightfully named Trio, and an actual trio of Bernese mountain dogs. His people! He’s halfway to being part of the group! Also, imagine what that owner’s house, back yard, and monthly dog food bill looks like. God bless, is all I can say.

Speaking of his people, we saw Rex’s doppleganger, Willie the other day, and it was just as cute as the first time. Rex’s social life has been very good of late.

A loose goal that I had created for myself on moving here and starting a new life with very few constraints or commitments was that I would say yes to everything I could, in terms of social engagements and new experiences. So far, this has really paid off in meeting new people, reconnecting and deepening my existing friendships, and generally making my life a lot fuller and more fun.

The past ten days have been a whirlwind of social activity, including a Girl’s Night at my house, a party at which I went in knowing zero people but ended up having a great time, and a mid-week visit from my parents. Having houseguests, sandwiched by parties, has been very fun and feels like a holiday, with big meals and lots of wine and dessert. Now, am I tired today and possibly in need of a cleanse and a liver detox? Yes I am. Do I desperately need to catch up on regular life, including massive amounts of laundry? Yes I do.

After these years of pandemic living followed by several months of packing and moving stress, I feel like my social life, along with everyone else’s on this planet, has taken a massive hit. I recently stumbled across an article about how having kids ruins your social life, and it felt like reading about a whole different world, one I could barely remember, with small children and playgrounds and simmering resentment between parents and non-parents. Clearly I am not the demographic for the original piece, which was written by, I believe, a woman in her thirties living the New York child-free lifestyle, ruing the changes in her friendships, but I read the entire article nonetheless, with interest similar to that of a social anthropologist examining an exotic group of people.

I do think that having children does vastly change one’s social life, for the simple reason that it is very difficult to go anywhere or do anything with small children, but in a way it actually improves one’s social life, as it is so easy to meet people when you have similar-aged children. If I was a woman, like the article’s author, going out five days a week in New York City, clubbing and eating at new restaurants, having leisurely boozy brunches on Sunday mornings, then I would absolutely agree that children wreck everything. Imagine paying for a babysitter for all those parties and taking small children to a fancy brunch; that would be nightmarish and expensive. However, even in my twenties I wasn’t a person who went out clubbing five days a week and now, close to fifty, the idea of going clubbing at all sounds dreadfully exhausting. Maybe if the club started at 2pm and ended at 7 I would be interested, but I’m fairly sure no such thing exists outside of nursing homes.

All of which is to say it isn’t my children that have suffocated my social life; if anything, the vast majority of my Calgary friends were ones who I met simply by having kids in the public school system; there was always a committee or school trip that needed volunteers, and of course, I was friends with the moms of my kids’ friends. So I did wonder what would happen, moving here, when I didn’t have school aged kids or a yoga studio or any of my other Meeting People Situations to rely on, that I have had my whole life. I wondered if I would have a hard time meeting people but so far this has not been the case; I have already met so many fun and interesting people who have been open and welcoming. Perhaps they too are tired of Lame Pandemic Social Lives and are willing to embrace new people; it sure feels that way.

Weekly Reading

Hello Beautiful. I do not have sisters, so I have always been fascinated by sisterly relationships and dynamics. I also love a book that has complicated families and strong female characters, and I did like this book. However – and this is a Me Problem, not necessarily a This Book Problem – it is a modern retelling of Little Women, and I am NOT a fan of the modern retelling of anything, particularly when it comes to a beloved-by-me classic. I have read Little Women a few dozen times; it was a very formative book for me as a child, and I have reread it many times as an adult. And so I will say that this coloured the book for me, and not in a positive way. I felt like it tried to draw too many parallels to Little Women in too many obvious ways, although I did like the portrayal of the parents. Louisa Alcott’s father was much loved by her but famously useless; he was a friend of Thoreau (do NOT get me started on that guy, I cannot EVEN with Thoreau), and he burned through their money, necessitating Louisa’s very hard and constant work so he could basically Find Himself, and I felt that the fictional portrayal in Hello Beautiful was spot on. I also liked that the author took Marmee’s hidden anger and unhid it, in the portrayal of the girls’ mother. Overall I liked this book but didn’t love it, however, your mileage may vary.

My parents’ visit was timed to coincide with my younger son’s 18th birthday. I am officially a Mother of Adults, which makes me feel very Adultish myself. Landslide, etcetera. I read somewhere, years ago, that adolescence exists to help kids make the break into adulthood, but I think it must also exist to serve mothers too. I really loved – and still love, both boys are still in their teens – the teen years, and it’s an extremely satisfying feeling to know that I’ve shepherded them all this way and now I can step back. I mean, I guess I have been gradually stepping back throughout their adolescence, but it feels different now. Your children are not your children is something I think about a lot, especially these days.

So it truly feels like a whole new chapter, and there is more news to come after this week, which is going to be so hectic and busy. More about that later, and in the meantime, I hope you all have a beautiful week. xo

Social Butterfly and Boxes, Boxes, Boxes

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Nothing motivates a person so much as having a firm deadline, am I right? The past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of cleaning and decluttering, donating and packing, and squeezing in as many social visits as I possibly can. And speaking of motivation, nothing lights a fire with regards to actually scheduling social visits, as opposed to the old “we should get together sometime soon” like leaving the province. I feel very popular these days! A woman, who I had not seen since 2019, dropped by my house for a surprise visit, which is not my favourite, and said that even though we hadn’t seen each other in years, she’s sad that I’m leaving because she thought that I’d just always be here, in this house, anytime she wanted to see me. That made me feel less popular, and more boring and staid, although I guess I’m morphing into some unpredictable wild child, leaving the house I’ve been in for twenty-three years.

I think that old trope about friends coming into your life for a reason, season, or lifetime is very true. A couple of weeks ago we had friends over for dinner – our last dinner party in our house. These are friends that are more like family, friends for life; we regularly share meals and vacations, and we have that rare unicorn of a situation where the kids all get along AND the adults all get along. It seems with couple friends that this isn’t always the case, but all eight of us love each other and enjoy each other more and more with the passing years. I found a very special package of napkins that I had bought years ago and I thought why am I saving these, let’s use them!

There’s even a drink recipe on the back.

Our older kids share a birthday – they are only two hours apart in age – but their youngest just celebrated her 17th, so I decided to make her a cake in her favourite flavours, peanut butter and chocolate. This is a cake I had made before, and, as an aside, my son reminded me that I had a goal to make every single cake in this book and I have only made two, so I need to get moving on that. In any case, I had made it before, so I was very confident in the final product.

And at this point I will say I am not a person who gets stressed about having dinner guests. I am generally a very relaxed hostess who just wants everyone to have a full glass of whatever they want, and the rest falls into place. I think I inherited this trait from my mother, who wouldn’t blink at having twenty people over for a meal and who I remember hosting many enormous holiday meals in a completely calm manner, including, when my brothers each got married, hosting fifteen and twenty-eight houseguests, respectively. When I was a kid, I could invite any friend over for any meal with zero notice, and she’d just ask me to go grab some more potatoes. So I tend to be pretty calm and I figure the food will be fine, and people are here to visit anyway.

But I did want the cake to be nice for our girl, and I was sure it would be. I was humming around the kitchen, and thought the cake was chilled and set enough to have the springform pan’s sides removed. At this point in the movie of my life, ominous music would start playing. I cheerfully removed the ring and, friends, it was a disaster. Immediately the top ganache started breaking apart and the weight of it made the fluffy filling, for lack of a better word, explode in a slow-motion manner. At that moment my husband came inside from checking the barbeque and I could only scream “The cake! The cake!” in the manner of that guy from Fantasy Island when he saw the plane. He hurried over and together we jammed the springform sides back on as the peanut butter filling spread everywhere. I was in a low-level state of Cake Panic. I never really worry about what I am serving my guests, for better or for worse, but I did have an image in my mind for my favourite girl, for our last of many dinners and visits in our house. After we had jammed the sides of the springform back on, I put it in the freezer, and this was the end result:

The birthday girl, bless her heart, thought it looked Really Cool That Way, Nicole, and it was honestly really delicious. I think the freezing actually improved the whole cake, all around, and I am going to remember that for next time. Freeze BEFORE removing the sides.

Speaking of my mom, I visited my parents for a couple of days and the guys joined in for the Canada Day holiday. I was reminded of a conversation my friend Tara (HI TARA) and I had, lo these many years ago, about visiting our parents. At the time we both had very tiny babies and equally tiny toddlers, and life felt as chaotic as that sounds. I recall mentioning to Tara taking the boys over to visit my parents and marvelling at their house as an oasis of peace, tidiness, and calm. It was like this whole other world, that wasn’t awash in diapers and toys and tears, and my mother would be calmly putting together a balanced meal, whereas I would have one child in the Baby Bjorn and another at my feet, trying to figure out how to cobble together a half-decent meal before the baby needed feeding and the toddler needed bedtime. Tara nodded and said “It’s like finding out how the other half lives,” and I felt that, again, at this time in my life, deeply as I was at my parents’ house this weekend. There aren’t boxes and donation piles everywhere! There are no endless to-do lists and balancing eating everything in the freezer and cupboards with are we running out of coffee, omg. I mean, this is what my front hallway has looked like for a week and a half, waiting for a donation pickup:

And the basement seems to have exploded:

But I had a great time at my parents’, even though one evening we were under a tornado warning. My mom and I popped over to my friend Merry’s lovely little store, original home of Salvadore the Gnome. Merry’s Mercantile carries giftware and clothing as well as a ton of wonderful vintage items, and one of the first things I saw was this:

GRIMACE! Is it a sign? I did not buy him, nor did I buy the cookbook by the 80s TV star Wok With Yan, although I was very tempted.

I was also tempted to buy a bandanna for Rex that stated “I’m the reason we can’t have nice things,” but, as appropriate as that is, I did not because I figured he would probably, ironically enough, destroy it. Merry did mention she had one last garden gnome who needed a home, and the last time I heard that phrase I ended up with a 95 pound ball of love, so of course I took the gnome home, although he’s going to be in a box for a little while. There will be a time after this! At one point boxes will not be my life, and Gustaf the Gnome will be presiding over a garden patch.

Weekly Reading

Tuesday Nights In 1980. This was a really good book about the NYC art scene in 1980, which is something I do not know much about. It deals with an art critic who has a special ability to see the world in colours and flavours, a fledgling artist from Argentina who is about to hit the big time, and a woman from Idaho who is trying to life the artist life in the gritty city. It took some turns I really did not expect, and is a compelling story about, thematically enough, chosen and blood family.

Unraveling. I think Jamie (HI JAMIE) had recommended this book, and to be honest, the premise did not sound promising. Starting in 2020, the author decides to write about making a sweater from scratch, and I do mean from scratch. She learns how to shear a sheep and does so, then washes, cards, and spins the wool. She makes her own natural dyes and colours the yarn, finally knitting it into a sweater. Pandemic projects, am I right? But the point was to show how much labour goes into the making of a sweater, and it was honestly fascinating. The book takes many sidebars to show just how much traditional labour – generally women’s – went into the making of textiles and clothing. The most fascinating example was one I had heard before, which is that the most valuable item on a Viking ship was the sail. The amount of labour that went into one sail is estimated to be two women-years of work. In medieval times, women of all classes would spend the majority of their time spinning and weaving, and the word spinster meant a woman untethered by husband or children, who could spend extra time doing these very important and valuable jobs. Having a spinster in the house was not a burden but instead was valuable. The book also goes into the absolute environmental disaster that is our textile and clothing industry, and questions why we think so much about what we put into our bodies, but not at all about what we put ON them, from an ecological point of view. Once you know this, you really can’t un-know it, and I have been thinking a lot about the impact our consumer choices have on this world. It’s really shameful and we have to do better as a whole and as individuals. I’ll be thinking about this for a while. This was a really thoughtful, interesting, well-researched and well-written book.

Now that I’m back from “where the other half lives” I need to get back to reality. Back to boxes and everything else, and I hope you all have a much-less hectic and stressful week than the one I am facing. Be well, friends! xo

Birthday Weekend!

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I am a person who likes to have little treats and things to look forward to every single day. Sometimes these treats are very simple parts of my everyday life, for example, when I wake up, I think “oooh, coffee,” or “yay, it’s pasta night!” I spend time choosing a scented lotion to apply after my shower, every day I text or message or see a friend, and even on my busiest days I squeeze in some time to read a book. These are all just tiny joys that brighten a regular day.

Fridays are my favourite day of the week, and I always try to fit in lots of happy little things on Fridays. Last Friday was my birthday, which happens to be my favourite day of the year, and so I decided I would just make it a day full of lovely joyful things: coffee and reading and yoga, an energy-boosting Peloton ride with a fire playlist, a long walk with Rex, which is always a joy, even in the falling wet snow.

Spring!
Putting my best face forward but deep down, what no one could see, is that my sock came off inside my boot.

Earlier this week I came across some videos from when the kids were small; it was very nostalgic and sweet, and I had that bittersweet feeling that accompanies the end of an era. Look at how cute they are, I thought. They called me Mama! It’s so easy to gloss over the physical exhaustion of caring for a 2-and-3-year-old, it’s easy to forget messy mealtimes and meltdowns and night wakings when faced with a tiny voice saying “Mama go yo-yoga! Cheese! Not bathtime yet Dada!” But even as I look back on that sweetness, on the cusp of yet another era ending, I have to tell you that it is really wonderful, having adult and almost-adult children. My older son was working Friday evening so he treated me to brunch; we had a lovely visit and I had the most amazing avocado toast.

For my birthday dinner that evening, my husband and younger son brought me takeout from my favourite Lebanese place; as usual I raved over the food and also as usual, my son asked plaintively that if I love it this much, why don’t we eat there more often? It’s a good question.

As I usually do on Fridays, I had a few glasses of some lovely red wine, and I also treated myself to a couple of episodes of NYPD Blue.

The birthday weekend really began on Thursday, with gifts and a family viewing of Seinfeld, my choice of episode; I chose the one with Keith Hernandez (“I’m not DRIVING him to the AIRPORT!”), and didn’t end until cake and a dinner I did not make nor clean up for on Sunday.

It’s been a bit of a busy week for me, so it was nice to wind things up on Friday. I’ve been in constant cleaning and decluttering mode and it’s exhausting. I am no minimalist, but I do a big Kondo-style declutter every few years, and so I did not think, prior to this past month, that I had a lot of stuff. I also, if you had asked me a month ago, thought that I had a very clean and organized house, but after this extreme iteration of decluttering and cleaning, I am now of the opinion that we are a family of disgusting swamp monsters who are wallowing around in our own filth and over-consumption.

I know this is not a popular opinion, but in general I find cleaning to be a very soothing and satisfying job. I took yoga teacher training with a lovely woman who owns a small cleaning company, and we once had a long discussion about this exact thing. There’s something so great about stepping back and admiring the results of your hard work. I was really feeling it after the past few weeks; giving things away on the Buy Nothing page, scrubbing and scouring little corners of the house that have been neglected, and generally raising the bar on the overall cleanliness of the house. I was so pleased with myself, even if no one else noticed that I’d scrubbed the tile ceiling of the shower or the areas behind the toilets.

Here’s a little tidbit about Rex: in the last six-plus months since he came to us, he’s become very well-known at the dog park. Everyone there is very indulgent, as a nearly-100-pound dog runs in circles around them and then, with certain receptive people, comes in for a pet. “Hi Rex, yes, hi there.” He is laughed at constantly in a gentle way, as he will take a run and then barrel roll in the grass or snow or leaves, depending on the season. He’s always rolling around joyfully, and it’s very cute, and then he shakes it all off.

Earlier this week I had let him outside; it was only five minutes later he barked to come back in. This is what I was greeted with:

What happened.

I have never seen him in such a state before; he had dry grass everywhere from his eyebrows to the tip of his tail and it took some significant brushing and six sweeps of the floor to deal with. Six sweeps of the previously spotless floor. Was he trying to bring me more cleaning satisfaction by bringing in a yard’s worth of dead grass? Or perhaps reminding us to not neglect the yardwork, with all this inside work? What a good boy.

Weekly Reading

I had some very good and interesting reads this week, one fiction and two non.

How Not To Drown In A Glass Of Water. The structure of this book, about a woman who, after 26 years, loses her factory job, is quite interesting. This is in NYC in 2009, the woman is in her fifties, is not a US citizen, and neither reads nor writes in English. The book is made up of one-sided conversation, as she goes to a 12 week career counselling program after losing her factory job. Through these interviews, her life is revealed: her early life in the Dominican, her struggle to pay bills, her relationships with her son, sister, and the people in her building. In a way this book made me think of Olive Ketteridge, as the narrator is unreliable and deeply flawed, but also with a good heart. There were a few parts that made me a bit breathless with the reveal; it’s a very real book. It’s a fascinating look into what it means to be a community member, and how the financial crisis affected vulnerable populations.

The Body Liberation Project. How much of diet culture and toxic wellness ideology is steeped in racism? A lot. This important book explores the connection and is incredibly uplifting and inspiring, to bring joy and love to our physical bodies and whole selves. As a white, straight-sized, cis woman who has immense social, economic, and health privilege, I have to say much of it is uncomfortable to read. But discomfort is where growth begins. Being an ally in anti-racism doesn’t mean performatively posting video and memes and black squares on social media. That’s less than worthless, according to the author. We need to learn and do better, and not try to explain to other white people why hashtag Black Lives Matter. We need to listen. Sometimes we need to just be quiet and step back. Lots of learning and thoughts from this very excellent book.

Token Black Girl. This was fascinating and, for me, really eye-opening and informative. I don’t think I’ve read a memoir with this POV before. The author us an affluent Black woman who grew up going to elite schools and activities with nearly all-white populations. She began working in the fashion industry, and her experiences in our world of structural racism and white supremacy seem shocking and, if you’re wondering how to change things, overwhelming. I learned a lot reading this young woman’s story, about fashion, beauty, and the struggle to fit in to a society that at its core undervalues Black people. It was a really great read. Also, after reading about what lengths she and other women go to for their hair, I will never complain about my own locks again. Well, I probably will, but I will try not to.

I have an interesting and somewhat complicated week coming up; I hope you all have a beautiful week filled with wonderful things. Maybe even some cake! xo

Boyhouse Year In Review 2022

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Happy Almost New Year! I hope you have all been having a restful and restorative week! I have been enjoying myself immensely; lots of sleep, puzzles, books, food, and wine. We spent a few days at my parents, which is always fun, and involves games and food and more wine.

As is usual at this time of year, I’ve been reflecting a lot on the year that’s passed and the year that is to come. One of the biggest benefits to having a blog is the ability to look back, and wow, have we come a long way since this time last year. Late December/ early January were an absolute low point; things were dismal. Happily, on our Roller Coaster of Life, things have been more up than down; so let’s take a look at what happened in the Boyhouse in 2022.

January

The New Year started off pretty bleak and grim, with winter break extended and all diploma exams cancelled, and to distract myself from complete despair I talked about my concepts and mantras I try to live by every day, the kids did go back to school and I decided to stop reading the news, I talked about actual quantifiable goals that I work towards every day, I talked about how much I hate filtered photos, how I actually thought about Botox, and how I was unfriended by a high school acquaintance not once but twice, and I had a roller-coaster of a week that included new neighbours, a cancelled trip, a mouse in the house, and a possible hoarding issue with macadamia nut milk. This month’s Favourite Things were of the Hygge variety, appropriately enough.

February

I talked about all the fun physical changes that come in one’s forties, including but not limited to moustaches and chin hair, I had massive gratitude for all the Galentines in my life, I showed you a Week of Winter Outfits (spoiler: lots of sweaters and legwarmers), and I talked about automatic car starters and marital mismatches. I also told you all about the daily choices I make to show myself some love.

March

All Covid restrictions were dropped, and I went to Costco and lost my mind, it was exactly two years since the pandemic started, and we celebrated my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary, two years and one week in, we got Covid, and we eventually recovered enough to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary with a Banff getaway, and my son turned 18. While we were isolated, I talked about the things that made my recovery happier.

April

I talked about the juxtaposition of my desire to wave at every neighbour and my reluctance to talk to them and hear insensitive comments about Barkley (god, that was hard for me to read), there were many signs of spring in my life, Salvadore came into my life and brought so much gnome-related happiness, we had a massive snowstorm and I scheduled appointments like a boss. It was my birthday and I talked about 47 things I love.

May

I was absolutely exhausted from the neighbour’s construction, our internet went out for seven hours and somehow we all survived, we had a lot of snow and I went to the garden centre, I shared my Week of Spring Outfits, and my son had his high school graduation ceremony, dance, and banquet, none of which I thought would happen, and I am eternally grateful. At that point I stopped my Weekly Covid Count. I also shared with you my makeup routine, and included my 4:00 am bare face.

June

I lived on the edge and planted my tomatoes slightly early while the construction guys listened to Dick in a Box, I had a weird medical mystery, my midlife crisis manifested in me giving Salvadore an actual bubble bath, and I confessed to having Low Level Shame about ghosting my long-time hair stylist. I also joined my husband in Banff for a Fancy Conference. Well, I was there for the Fancy part, he was there for the Conference part.

July

On June 30, we said goodbye to Barkley, and we were all brokenhearted. We started off the summer with some visiting relatives from California – including my teenage pen pal – and our usual trip to the lake for Canada Day, I found solace in hiking, my garden, and cooking, and I also snapped at door-to-door solicitors, I talked about Cart Karma, I started a Big Project and Curated my Closet, and in the face of a Calgary Heat Wave, I shared my Week of Summer Outfits. It was also the Ten Year Anniversary of Nicole’s Favourite Things!

August

We went on vacation, I read a lot, I vowed to have Just One Backup of everything in the house and kind of failed, I got all nostalgic, my husband and I went to Mexico where I spoke broken Spanish and sang karaoke, and I read a lot more. Notably and for the first time ever, I travelled with ONLY carryon, and I can never go back, proving that YOU SHOULD NEVER JUDGE.

September

Life has its ups and downs, and to that end there were mice in the house and the boys drank our expensive Patron mixed with Dr Pepper, on the same day I cleaned my kitchen with a toothbrush, the Queen died, my son turned 17 and when I went grocery shopping I realized I had some kind of Psychological Long Covid, and I thought about house staging and photo filtering, and showed photos of my unstaged, unfiltered home. My son went backcountry camping and to distract myself from thoughts of giardiasis I talked about a variety of Favourite September-Related Things.

October

My son did not get giardiasis, but we had a number of run-ins with local wildlife, one of my students introduced me to the concept that Gratitude Is The First Step To Joy, and I listed off some of the things I am grateful for, Rex came into our lives and has brought us so much happiness, I shared my Week of Fall Outfits, I talked about body changes and the concept of “flattering” when it comes to clothes, and I prepared for Halloween like a crazy person. I also celebrated all things fall-related!

November

I rapidly shifted into Winter and Tiny Secret Festive Season, we celebrated our one-month Rex-aversary, I finished my Christmas shopping, I joined all the cool kids in doing a Day in the Life post, I revealed my longtime desire to join a flash mob, and my son decided to join the throngs of men who observe Movember. I talked about Christmassy favourites and just regular favourites.

December

We all started Advent calendars, and mine was a puzzle one, I went to an actual holiday party with actual people and actual fancy clothes, I answered your questions about the holidays, I took the car in for servicing and it was a huge ordeal, I revealed my favourite childhood gifts, and I celebrated my girlfriends. On Festivus I talked about my favourite holiday things and also how I jerry-rigged the furnace.

It has been quite a year! 2023 will be a year of change for me; I’m not great with change, and I love my life as it is, but change is part of life, so here we go! Time to jump in. Happy New Year to all of you. Thanks for being here on this journey with me. xo