Category Archives: Birthdays

Sweet Sixteen and One Week In

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Today is my older son’s 16th birthday and, coincidentally, our 18th wedding anniversary! We are obviously not celebrating the way we thought we would – in Mexico, with our friends, their son being my son’s birthday twin and one of his best friends – but it’s okay. Everything is okay. We are going to barbeque tonight – steak for the guys, mushrooms for me – with roasted sweet potatoes and homemade Caesar salad, plus a strawberry cake for dessert. It’s Monday night and we aren’t having pasta! A special day indeed.

I think the thing about having kids this age is that I can really clearly remember what it was like to be 16. I also feel like if this had happened when I was 16, I would not be quite as positive and cheerful about it as my kids have been. We talk a lot about kids being online too much but honestly, it’s great that they can still “see” their friends via Facetime and group chats. Maybe all this phone activity was just preparing them for social distancing and isolation.

My husband took my son out for his first driving lesson last night at the mall parking lot, thinking it would be very quiet since nothing is open in the mall, and also it was Sunday night. It turns out many people had that idea. There were lots of parents there with teens driving around in circles. It just reinforces that although we are all separate, we are all together too.

How are you all doing? We have had some good news this week, as regards the schools. Technically we are on spring break right now, but as of next week, online lessons will start for the kids; I was concerned that my younger son wasn’t going to have any direction in that regard and would start high school behind, but that looks like it will not be the case.

Here are the things we have been doing for this first week of isolation:

All Caught Up On Groceries

I did go out for groceries and prescriptions last week; I’m all stocked up. I wasn’t accounting for my husband to be eating lunches at home, so I had to buy quite a bit extra to make up for that. In the good old days – two weeks ago – he would just buy lunch downtown. Well, I’m all caught up now. I think that I will be able to just go out once weekly to get fresh produce and a few other things. It looks like grocery stores are marking the aisles to make it easy to keep your cart away from others and installing “sneeze shields” around their employees, like at a buffet. Also, with the initial rush of panic buying over, I feel like the stores will be quieter this week. It’s really interesting to me to see what has been cleared out of the shelves. First it was toilet paper and hand sanitizer, then I started noticing things like bread, eggs, and milk clearing out. Last week I noticed that the pasta, canned soup, and flour shelves were absolutely decimated. Fresh produce, though, is plentiful.

Barkley

I managed to snag an appointment at the local grooming place for Barkley. Normally at this time of year he gets groomed at the boarding kennel at the end of spring break. I was lucky to get an appointment as they are closing temporarily very soon. He was as matted and fuzzy as can be; he is now nice and clean – although it is a bit chilly still for him to have such short hair.

Extreme makeover!

Yoga Classes Online

I taught my first yoga class online and I’m setting up a series of YouTube videos for Gentle Yoga. It’s strange teaching to a laptop, but I’m visualizing all my regular students, which makes it fun.

I’m Walking, Yes Indeed

I was concerned about curtailing my usual physical activities. Keeping active is very important to me, not just physically, but mentally. However, with nothing but time on my hands, it’s pretty easy to get a LOT of exercise. Between my elliptical machine and taking lots of walks, I averaged over 17,000 steps per day last week. According to my Garmin, I walked 25.6 miles.

Don’t worry! Even though I have never seen so many people out walking in my neighbourhood, it is very easy to Social Distance. We all are stepping way out of the way when another person approaches and when I see someone I know, we talk from at least six feet away.

Reading

I’m doing a lot of reading. Fortunately I have several bookshelves full of good things to read.

I love short stories and I love Alice Munro. This is a really great collection, with a very interesting novella about Sophia Kovalevsky, a noted Russian mathematician in a time when women were not noted for being mathematicians.

Olive, Again was the last book I got from the library before it closed and I highly recommend it. It was, in my opinion, even better than Olive Kitteridge. Elizabeth Strout is an incredibly talented writer.

I’ve mentioned this many times before, but it never fails to make me laugh until I cry. Especially now, Stepping Out speaks to me.

As I mentioned before, my son is studying this in school and so I refreshed myself to have conversations with him about it. One of my favourites, I was able to talk to him about the character arc of Aunt Alexandra, who is one of the most interesting characters in the book.

If you have any books from your childhood lying around, I recommend you pick them up and read them. It is so interesting to reread childhood favourites – such a different perspective as an adult!

How are you all doing? Lots of love to you all. xo

Boyhouse Year In Review 2019

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The cold and dark at this time of year practically demands cozyness during the winter holidays. We’ve all been sleeping late and letting the days unspool slowly, with no real big goals or activities. The first couple of days of winter break, I did nothing except read and watch movies, slowly increasing my activity levels as I felt myself become restored.

Self-reflection and striving for improvement is always a good thing, I think. It’s good to look back on the year and look forward to the new one dawning. This year, Christmas has felt different; for one thing – and this will surprise many of you – I have not yet taken down my tree or decorations. Usually I pounce on it shortly after Christmas, but it still stands there merrily, and I have made no move to change things. Christmas cards are on every surface in the living room, and I have no urge to pack them away and dust those surfaces. Maybe I’m subconsciously trying to slow down time in a Landslide-type way? I don’t know. All I know is I have the strong urge not to rush anything and to be present, which is my goal for this and every year.

My husband booked tickets to see the new Little Women movie Saturday night, and so last week I set aside my library pile to re-read the books. I say “books” because I include Good Wives as a separate book, which I’m sure could be the cause of many really boring arguments. Anyway, I’m glad I re-read them because the new movie is so true to the books; as well it is very cleverly shot and the characters are shown as being far more complex than they are in the usual heart-warming adaptations. It’s a little dark in places, which is quite true to Louisa May Alcott’s life; she had quite a dreadful, impoverished, and difficult life.

Has anyone seen the movie yet? I need to talk about it. Specifically, I need to talk about the juxtaposition of the scene of Meg at Sallie Moffat’s ball and the scene where she and John are discussing finances and her purchase of $50 worth of silk. And every other little thing about the movie.

Near the end of the movie, Amy has a line in which she says that writing about things – specifically, domestic, everyday things – is what makes them important. Is there anything better description for a blog? Here are the things that were important to me this year:

January

I talked about life’s little luxuries, someone told me that I reminded him of Charlene Prickett, and in an eerie bid of foreshadowing, I rescheduled my son’s appointment to get his braces on, which turned out to be very serendipitous. My older son also went winter camping and I wrote about cozy things.

February

I discovered that Johnny Rotten’s name came from his gross dental health and scheduled myself a dental cleaning (also, he’s still alive – who knew?), I started my Eating a Rainbow series in which I discuss my completely rigid meal plan, and my son’s orthodontist turned out to be an actual criminal. It was also the coldest February on record, so I had to search for my inner sunshine.

March

I had more than usual time-change-related-exhaustion, I cleaned my oven, and while traveling to and from Puerto Vallarta, I was seated beside the World’s Worst Airplane Seatmates. Literally. I also made a Seinfeld-themed birthday cake for my Seinfeld-obsessed son.

April

I went into full-on spring cleaning mode, including, weirdly, booking a Pap test, I got a Garmin watch and went into full-on David Sedaris mode, and I celebrated my birthday! I also talked about my trip to Puerto Vallarta and how I finally realized my dream of ziplining.

May

I bought a scrunchie, I took my son to his drum lessons and met his unintentionally-hilarious drum teacher, and I badly injured myself only two days before my first road race. Also, Barkley turned 11!

June

I applied to renew my sons’ passports, and met David, the employee with the most zest for his job and pride in his work that I have ever seen, government or not, I replaced the battery on my Daylight Magnifying Mirror, and my sons decided to give me even more grey hair by racing around in abandoned shopping carts. I also, weirdly enough, volunteered to make mini-cupcakes for the teachers.

July

I had an empty nest for a week, I hiked with the kids and listened to them talk about Li’l Pump, and we got two days of nice weather so I carped the diem. I also went to a concert and got dressed up in my Stampede Wear.

August

We discovered the term “girl’s blouse,”the kids watched The Shining and thought it was a comedy, and I found a moth in my water glass. My husband took the kids to Alaska and I was home alone for TEN DAYS so I hiked a lot with my friend.

September

The kids went back to school – my older one started high school! – I spent far too long wondering if I should grow my hair long, and I wondered what it would be like to be followed by the paparazzi. Also my younger son turned 14 and we hosted many, many teen boys at our house for a barbeque.

October

I re-read The Handmaid’s Tale and realized I am less a Handmaid and more a Wife or Martha, I became low-level outraged about crappy fundraisers (POINSETTIAS, I AM LOOKING AT YOU), and it was Halloween! I also got reading glasses.

November

I got excited about Christmas and continued to be low-level outraged about poinsettias, I got more excited about Christmas, and I – un-Christmaslike – read Helter Skelter. Shudder. The decorations were put up, and are STILL NOT TAKEN DOWN WHO AM I.

December

More outdoor decorations were purchased and displayed, including a Christmas walrus, I broke out the decorative tins, and my son broke my cutting board by crushing candy canes with a rubber mallet.

2019 – that’s a wrap! Happy New Year to all of you. xo

Passionate about poinsettias

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Every week, every single week, without exception, there is a day in which I think next week things will slow down and I won’t be so busy and even though I know it’s not true, it somehow keeps me going. I am currently in the pre-long weekend am I going to have a nervous breakdown? frame of mind. Why is there always so much to be done? Why is there a leak in one of my winter tires that is causing me to re-jig everything in my schedule so I can take the tire to the shop on the Thursday before the long weekend? Why did I think it was a good idea to add three more things to my to-do list when I should have subtracted five? Why am I the only one to care about gifts and cards for in-laws’ birthdays?

This last one I know is a bit of a sticky issue for many of my friends. Many – most? – of my friends are of the school of thought that spouses should be responsible for spouse’s family members birthday/ Christmas/ whatever kinds of cards and gifts. However, a) I do love my in-laws, and b) I like to ensure that people in my life should be celebrated on their birthdays. Putting a and b together means that c) I find myself responsible for cards and gifts, because the thought of people getting no cards and no gifts makes me sad, which is what would happen if I did not take responsibility for that task.

Marriage is all about harmoniously splitting up life tasks, isn’t it? Car things are strictly a Blue Job around here, which is why my husband put the winter tires on my car, and then realized that one of those winters has a leak in it. That tire was residing in the back of my car, waiting for me to drop it off at the tire shop, which is fortunately very close to one of the studios that I taught at today. Normally that would be a Blue Job too, but due to the long weekend and also it being Winter Tire Season, it falls to me.

Speaking of Winter Tire Season, we had a couple of very nice days around here, after the snow melted. Here is my back yard Monday at 12:30 pm (bonus Barkley shot!)

And here is my back yard Tuesday at 12:30 pm.

In other words, we are back to snow and absolutely dreadful frigid temperatures, which is depressing. Thank god for bobby pins, because a bun is the only possibility for my hair in this weather.

While I’m complaining about things, I will bring up a huge pet peeve of mine: crappy fundraisers. Last night I went to possibly THE MOST boring meeting ever for my younger son’s spring sailing trip on the west coast. Literally, all information at that meeting could have just as easily been emailed out, and would have saved me sitting in the gym listening to the principal, whose passion for this experience is both admirable and manic, talking about how the numbers have dipped and how we should all be pressuring other kids to join in. Listen, the pressure for kids to participate in this activity is insane; my older son did not participate as he went on the big Quebec trip back in eighth grade, but he was subject to constant pressure from the principal and a number of teachers. I wanted to say but did not that perhaps the reason numbers have dipped is that our province is in a recession, and has been for several years, and depending on what the next few weeks bring probably will be for years to come, and perhaps not every single parent in the school can afford to send their kids on a completely optional trip. Mystery: solved.

But the fundraising. The fundraising. I do not have a problem with fundraising using things that people actually need, want, and consume. The gift card fundraiser, for example, is fantastic. I also love the Growing Smiles campaign, which involves good prices on bedding plants, herbs, and vegetables, with quality products. The fundraiser the school has decided on, however, is my most-loathed one: the Christmas poinsettia fundraiser. I have an enormous problem with selling crap no one wants to my friends and family. I have also been pressured to buy poinsettias by all my friends for years and years. NO ONE WANTS THE POINSETTIAS. Each student is supposed to sell TWELVE POINSETTIAS AND YES, I AM YELLING.

Apologies to those of you who actually do like poinsettias. Let me know, I can hook you up with some overpriced flowers.

When it was question time, I asked how the raised funds were dispersed and if there was a fee for those “unable” (read: unwilling) to participate in said fundraiser. I received the highly unsatisfactory answer that twelve poinsettias were the minimum, and after that, the cost of the individual trip would decrease. The cost, by the way, decreases by about $5 for every poinsettia sold, after the first twelve. The principal started to move on but I felt the need to ask what would happen SHOULD a student sell less than twelve. It turns out that the school cannot actually levy a fee if one doesn’t fundraise, but they do suggest a “donation” to the tune of $150. DONE. I will be more than happy to do so if it means I don’t have to harass everyone I know to buy poinsettias.

Who knew I was so passionate about poinsettias?

Wow, I am in a MOOD. That mood was just exacerbated by the fact that I broke a nail opening up a bag of dog food. How did that happen? I’ve been taking biotin for my hair and nails and now I feel betrayed. I feel betrayed by Big Biotin.

Argh, I can’t end on such a complainy note. Oh! I know! The birthday party for my dad was a huge success; the worms and dirt were popular with the younger crowd, including my own kids who somehow managed to eat both layer cake and cupcakes, in addition to consuming about half a turkey between them. And speaking of which, Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. xo

Leaning in to the Sexy Librarian Look

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You people who don a cozy sweater and scarf and then head off apple picking, whilst sipping your pumpkin spice lattes and kicking around leaves? I envy you. Well, not the pumpkin spice latte part – pumpkin spice is NOT my jam, I am, as we all know, a mint chocolate girl – but the rest feels so idyllic and fanciful to me. What must that be like, I think. Imagine going apple picking. Imagine leaving the house in a cozy sweater and scarf. Imagine not digging out legwarmers and winter coats on the last weekend of September.

When I went to upload and name these photos, there were a dozen already named some variation of “Snow September” which is a bit depressing. My husband had the weather channel on for a few minutes on the weekend, and there was a reporter there who was on the streets trying to get an interview with passers-by. She was over-the-top dramatic about SNOW! In September! and kept trying to drum up some kind of enthusiastic dramatic response from the people walking by in their parkas and toques. Can you BELIEVE it? I mean it’s September! she kept saying, and every single interviewee shrugged and was pretty complacent, albeit not particularly happy. Who is this woman? I thought. Where did she come from? She’s obviously not local. Accepting weird and appalling weather in a stoic and martyr-like way is part of our cultural identity, along with day-drinking and cowboy hat-wearing in July.

Things are starting to melt; all the trees that had turned colour before the snowfall are completely decimated now, while many trees are still completely green-leaved, in stark contrast to the snow. As I walked Barkley, with trees dripping all the melting snow on my head, I thought it felt like spring. Spring! The fact that green leaves and thick, wet snow feels like spring to me is a very sad testament to this hellhole I call home.

But enough about the weather! I have much more important things to talk about. For one thing, I picked up my new reading glasses yesterday and I’m really going to lean in to my new look, the Sexy Librarian.

Have you ever worn reading glasses? They are really quite bizarre. As I had Mr. Magoo-strength glasses, and then contact lenses, from age 11 to 25, my experience has been that when you put on glasses, everything becomes clearer. With reading glasses, the book you are reading becomes clearer, it’s true, but everything else is completely blurry. I mentioned this to the fellow helping me fit the glasses, and he said “That’s why you always see people looking up OVER their glasses.” Aha! Now I understand.

My new look:

My husband kept looking over at me while I was reading last night.

“It’s just so strange,” he said, “I just haven’t seen you in glasses in so long.” Maybe he really likes the Sexy Librarian look, maybe he’s waiting for me to slide off my cardigan, whip off my glasses, and shake my hair out of the bun.

He’ll have to wait on the bun thing; that baby is held in place by many – MANY – bobby pins. On that note, you will be all happy to know that I had a hair appointment and my Hair Therapist and I agreed that we would start “putting length on,” which, given I can’t stand split ends and get my hair trimmed every five weeks, will take a while. Probably it will be another 9-10 months before we really see a difference, but I have been taking biotin lately, so maybe it will be faster than I think.

Now I can be one of those people who are constantly looking for where they left their glasses!

This side table is normally stacked with library books, but a few days ago I finished my stack and had no holds come in, a rare thing. I decided to re-read The Handmaid’s Tale; I last read it about twenty-five years ago and let me tell you, it reads very differently for a woman of 44 than it did a woman of 19. For one thing, I do not remember being much horrified by the – spoiler alert – Removing Child From Parents storyline. I also find that I have different empathy for the different characters. While it is not IMPOSSIBLE that I could find myself pregnant at this age – EXTREMELY UNLIKELY but not impossible – I am much closer to being a Wife than a Handmaid. Or, given my enormous load of domestic chores, a Martha.

Speaking of which, it’s my dad’s birthday today – Happy Birthday, Dad! – and we are having a big family party on the weekend. I am in charge of bringing the cake, or, more accurately, cakes, as there will be about 25 people there. I’m bringing cupcakes for the little ones, and they will be – on my five-year-old niece’s strong suggestion – worms and dirt. Worms and dirt! I haven’t made those since my bake sale days, god bless. I am sure I will have many cake-related photos to show you by this time next week. On that note, I have many Martha-like duties to complete before I can settle back down with my reading glasses and The Handmaid’s Tale, so I must sign off. Plus, I picked up four holds at the library this afternoon so there will be a lot of Reading Glasses Duty in the next three weeks. I just hope my husband can contain himself. xo

To grow out my hair or not grow out my hair, that is the question.

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I love being a woman, make no mistake about it, but sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be a man. I know, objectively, that men do feel concern about their appearances, just like the rest of us. I’m sure men harbour feelings of dissatisfaction with their looks; perhaps they look ruefully in the mirror, noticing thickening waists or thinning hair. But one thing I know for sure is that they do not spend a week every four to ten weeks wondering if they are getting their period or if they are as hideous as they think they are.

It’s just not fair, is it? As if it is not enough that we spend that week bloated and exhausted, irritable and emotional, but we also apparently develop vision issues that cause us to look in the mirror with self-loathing, or, at the very least, Extreme Dissatisfaction. If you polled ten million women on the week before their periods, and asked them to rate on a scale of one to ten their satisfaction with their appearance, only one woman would say Very Satisfied, and that woman would be Giselle Bundchen. The rest of us would oscillate between Somewhat Dissatisfied and I Hate Everything Especially My Stupid Hair.

As a note, I do NOT Hate My Hair. In fact, as my layers have grown out over the past ten months, I have felt Very Satisfied with my hair, for the first time ever. My hair therapist is a brilliant woman who has made this Life Journey with me not only painless, but very pleasant. However. HOWEVER. This past week – pre-ladies’-holidays – I have going back and forth in my mind about – get ready – possibly growing my hair long. Or longer. You would not believe the amount of brain power and energy I have put into trying to answer the question Should I grow my hair longer or should I keep it this length? I feel like I could put this to a team of debaters at the high school. Resolved: Nicole’s Hair Should Grow Another Three Inches.

It’s not like the consequences are particularly dire either way. Intellectually I know that a) I like it this length, and so if I left it like this I would be happy, b) if I grew it longer I might like it like that too and as an added benefit, would require fewer bobby pins to put it in a bun, and c) if I grew it out longer and I DIDN’T like it, I could have it cut back to this length. In all cases, the end result is Happiness and Being Very Satisfied. And yet it feels like a Major Life Decision That Will Affect Everything And Possibly Have Disastrous Results. For the amount of thought I’ve been putting into this, oscillating back and forth between Grow Longer and Status Quo, I could have penned the Great Canadian Novel, written a mathematical proof for game theory from first principles, and finished an entire book of Sudoko puzzles.

I probably would even have energy left over to figure out how to change traffic behaviour around school zones, which would be the most complicated thing of all. I breathed a sigh of relief when I no longer had children at the elementary school; people would pop out from between parked cars or buses, kids in tow, to jaywalk right through traffic to get to school, rather than use the clearly marked, patrolled crosswalk less than twenty metres away. Cars would stop in bus zones or do u-turns in the middle of traffic, to much honking and distress. Harried drivers would speed through said marked, patrolled crosswalks nearly missing pedestrians and my children, who were school patrols. At least, I thought, when I got to junior high things would improve. Reader, they did not. The junior high is on a hill and there are still people parking in bus zones and doing u-turns, but on the hill it is so much worse. A friend witnessed one woman taking a u-turn in the middle of winter and then losing traction, she slid sideways down the hill, narrowly missing several parked cars before hitting a snowbank, which was thankfully high enough to protect the people on the sidewalk. Not to mention that school starts at 7:50, and so it is dark much of the year. There’s nothing like wondering if a kid dressed all in black is going to pop out in front of you as you careen down an icy hill.

Now that my older son is in high school, the only real hazard appears to be the teens themselves, travelling in herds across the street, heads down, looking at their phones. I seem to have more patience for them than I do the weirdly illegal driving maneuvers.

Speaking of sons, the birthday party on the weekend was a huge success. All of his friends are really great kids and they all seemed to have a good time. I find it much easier to have a houseful of teen boys than younger kids, that’s for sure. At one point they all headed to 7-11 for Slurpees and I could have really done without the information that there were more shopping cart races, and I could have REALLY done without one of my sons showing me a VIDEO they had taken of said races. I had to do some deep breathing, thoughts of concussions and broken teeth and everything else in between going through my head. Om shanti. There are only so many times you can bring up CONCUSSIONS and BRAIN INJURY and WE SPENT MANY THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS ON THOSE TEETH AND IF YOU BREAK THEM I AM GOING TO BE VERY UPSET.

That reminds me of when I was just a sweet young thing at the bar, and a friend of my then-boyfriend was dancing with a very attractive girl. This friend ended up being punched in the mouth by that girl’s boyfriend, and as a result, he lost one of his front teeth. Being twenty-one and toothless was bad enough, but this guy had braces in his teens, so imagine how his poor mother, a single mom who would have scrimped to pay for braces, must have felt. In a small-world coincidence, I ran into this guy only a few years ago, at junior high orientation night. He had a full smile so I guess the tooth implant worked out in the long run.

My main activity this weekend – other than post-party stress about shopping cart races and extreme relief that no kids were concussed and/ or left toothless – was baking. I baked cupcakes for the party and then a fancy layer cake with strawberry filling and chocolate ganache for his actual birthday dinner. They turned out well!

Hope your week is just as sweet as birthday cake, friends. xo

Reality Bites

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My husband got home from work and turned on the television. I heard familiar music and turned to look at the screen.

Me: That’s weird. What kind of football is on Tuesday nights?

My husband: Um, Monday Night Football. It’s Monday.

Who among us has not woken up Thursday morning, thinking it was Friday? It is rare, for me at least, to be that confused about the day of the week so early in the week. It felt like an ominous sign.

I think we are all there this week; it’s the week that we go from the frying pan to the fire, so to speak, and for me things have been hectic. Full school schedules! Lunches! Being An Involved Parent And Listening To All The Stories! I have picked up two new classes for the fall and while I love them so much, it has required an even higher level of organization to just keep things running smoothly. I was thinking about writing a whole series of posts on getting organized, and I may still do that, but the main takeaway is WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN. It’s all about the list, baby.

Did you ever read Still Alice? I maintain that it is the most beautiful and terrifying book I have ever read. For weeks, maybe even months after I read it, I would have low-level anxiety every time I went to the pantry and forgot what I was looking for. I no longer have this panic, but I can’t help but compare my endless lists to Alice’s sticky notes and Blackberry reminders. It is just a good coping mechanism, it does not mean I have early-onset Alzheimer’s. 

As an aside, I had told my mother about this book when I had first read it, and not too long ago she said that she had taken it out at the library and “wondered why I recommended it to her, it was so sad.” Mom, I said NOT to read it!

Wednesday is now my designated Get Everything Done Day and last weekend I realized, with a start, that I was running dangerously low on wine so today I went to the liquor store after buying ALL THE GROCERIES at Superstore. They had one of their crazy specials in which a very tasty Shiraz was on sale for – get this – $8.98 a bottle. I immediately stocked up with two cases, justifying my purchase with the thought of the eleven teenage boys who will be at my house on the weekend for my son’s birthday party. This is what I looked like fourteen years ago:

I was clearly not drinking any wine at the time.

Fourteen years, and this is what I look like today:

I kid, I kid, except not about the lipstick and there is a strong possibility that I will get reading glasses soon. Back in 2000, I had laser eye surgery and it worked perfectly, but at the time they mentioned that I would likely need reading glasses sometime in my forties. Reader, at age 25 I had no concept of what it would be like to be in my forties, except “old.” Now in my forties, I consider “old” to be anything north of 80, and I’m sure when I hit 80 that line in the sand will move again.

Speaking of awkward, let’s file this one under Things You Couldn’t Do Even If You Tried. I always wear silver sleeper hoop earrings; I never take them out except for fancy occasions when I replace them with larger and slightly more ornate silver hoop earrings. The other morning I was taking off my yoga top in preparation to shower and somehow got the spaghetti strap caught in my earring, which apparently opened and closed just to accomplish this, like a Venus flytrap. It wasn’t until I went to drop the top on the bathroom floor that I noticed that, instead of dropping, it was heavily hanging off my ear. It is not easy to open a sleeper hoop with one hand while supporting the weight of a yoga top so as to not rip the aforementioned earring right out of ones earlobe with the other. However, I did it, and I felt like I could easily take on the world, which is why I ended up taking my car for an oil change. I am woman, hear me roar. People, for those of you with flexible schedules, apparently 12:30 midweek is a perfect time to get your oil changed. There were literally no other cars and the entire process took less than twenty minutes.

I know everyone the world over is in love with fall and yes, I do like cozy sweaters and boots and all that, but honestly, mostly I just feel cold. I know that in a few months 8 degrees will be considered an amazingly happy turn of events, but right now it just feels cold. Even in the sun the air is sharp, not that we’ve seen the sun much lately, it’s been so cold and grey and damp, which is a bit depressing, particularly if you find yourself thinking of the fleeting nature of time and how there are not that many back-to-school days left in your future. OR MAYBE THAT’S JUST ME. Perhaps that’s why I’m eating my apple-flavoured feelings; possibly the best thing about fall, in my mind, are McIntosh apples. There were some “orchard run” Macs last week at Superstore, but they have since disappeared, so I’m waiting in eager anticipation. My mother-in-law always talks to me about apples and how she makes them into pie filling and applesauce, which is always sort of horrifying to me – it’s a waste of an apple! I would never put an apple I liked in pie. Of course, she lives in the land of orchards, whereas I am in the middle of the Prairies, and so I view things differently. Fall is also the season where everyone in the city who has crabapples or ornamental apples are now trying to give away the excess, which is always kind of funny. No one wants them. No one. I’m sorry for your luck of having a crabapple tree, but for the love of god please don’t try to give them to me. That isn’t real fruit, I am sorry, people. It’s like a much kinder and fruitier version of multi-level-marketing; everyone avoids eye contact and makes excuses about not having time to go to the party. xo

Blasts from the past

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Today I learned that there is a place called Babyland General Hospital, and it is a destination for those who really, really love Cabbage Patch Kids; there are tours available and Cabbage Patch Kids up for adoption. Admission, says the website, is free and you can see Mother Cabbage on display beneath the branches of the Magical Crystal Tree. Did you know that each Cabbage Patch Kid is the result of Mother Cabbage being pollinated by “fanciful Bunnybees” and if you happen to visit Babyland General Hospital, you can “witness the birth of a hand-sculpted Cabbage Patch Kid.” Who knew?

Frankly, I am a bit curious about the birthing process as it was my understanding that each Kid was just plucked from the garden, like an actual cabbage. How very wrong I was, apparently. And who knew there was one massive Mother of all Cabbage Patch Kids?

The world is a marvelous place, full of interesting twists and turns. You never know what the day is going to bring and what you might learn.

For example, this week I learned that people still use film in cameras. I know! I was surprised too. I was picking up prints at London Drugs and there was a sweet, friendly girl beside me who had several canisters of film to be developed. She and I started chatting when I expressed my amazement at her old-school method of photography; she told me how excited she was to get the film developed as she had no idea what photos were actually taken. Remember back in the day when you’d take film in to be developed? Half the roll would be no good as the photos would be bad quality, or someone would have their eyes closed or head turned. The other half would be photos you didn’t remember even taking, particularly if it took you a long time to actually take the film in to the developer. “Get the camera!” would be the chorus whenever something noteworthy would happen, but often it came too late and the photo opportunity was gone.

Now we have carefully curated selfies and dramatically filtered photos of our dinner to fill our creative needs, and no one ever says “I wish I had brought a camera!” as our cameras are ever-present in our hands and back pockets.

I don’t miss those days of the film camera, I love being able to capture important moments in an instant, like when my mom and I were sitting on her deck this week and the resident eagle flew overhead and perched in his favourite spot in the yard:

Or, just as interestingly, when I was making myself some lunch and came across this cherry tomato:

Without my phone, important moments like this would be missed, and eventually forgotten. The memory of that sexy tomato would just fade into oblivion.

I was having coffee with a good friend this week (HI NICOLE) and she was impressed that I actually print out photos and put them into albums. I try to do this every few months, but generally it becomes a thrice-yearly labour of not-exactly-love. What a tedious job it is to upload, crop, and adjust the lighting on hundreds of photos, and then arrange them by approximate date and put them into albums. Yet I persist, mostly because one of the things I love to do when I visit my parents is to peek at our old albums; group photos where half the people are unflattered by the camera or the lighting is bad or my dad took the photo and no one at all is even aware he’s taking a picture and so every person is turned the wrong way. Oh, the memories! Each photo that features myself is a fantastic timepiece; take, for example, this photo of me on my thirteenth birthday:

Everything about this is great, but my hair in particular is tremendous. Also of note is my mother’s spoon collection on the wall – remember when people would collect spoons? – along with the serenity prayer in cross-stitch and a “God Bless My Kitchen” plaque. The brown fridge! The decorative fake fruit and flowers in the background! Tacos for dinner! The next photo is photographic proof that I have always enjoyed a pink birthday cake:

And so I print out photos so that my own kids can, in the future, take a trip down memory lane by paging through the photo albums, to remember the chilly day we biked around the lake and discovered that the town has followed in the lead of many places by adding comically large novelty Adirondack chairs for fantastic photo ops. Tiny people in huge chairs! What fun.

Don’t you love when you meet people who are just so in love with their lives that they glow? In talking to the girl with the film, it was revealed that she works for the Alberta parks division, and lives in a little hut in the mountains, far from wifi or cell reception or people or anything at all, in Peter Lougheed Park. “It’s so amazing!” she said to me. “When I come into the city it feels crazy, and I’m so happy to get back to my job! It’s just the greatest!” Shine on, you crazy diamond. It was a brilliant reminder that we are all so very different, and also that I love meeting people so wonderfully happy. I mean, to me it sounds nightmarish, and if I was in a similar situation I would either end up like Jack in The Shining or I would just wither away to nothing. A furry, grey-rooted nothing. There’s a place for everyone in this jigsaw puzzle that is life.

Speaking of The Shining, the boys rented it from the library to watch with their friends one afternoon at our place. As they were planning the viewing, my husband and I talked about how terrifying we found it, to their bemusement. “We’ve seen clips on YouTube and it seems really lame,” was their response. Well! I have to say that they are actually correct; the movie does NOT hold up well. “That wasn’t scary, it was just weird,” their friend said after the credits rolled and the lights were turned back on, adding that it should have really been a psychological thriller instead of a horror film. Was it not?

Well, I’m not going to re-watch it to find out; the few scenes that I did see did seem pretty dated and silly. I put the book on hold at the library though, as I’ve never read it. I will report back! Meanwhile, have a lovely weekend, everyone. xo