Category Archives: Books

People Who Watch People

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The world is such an interesting place, isn’t it? It’s wild that a person can go from this:

To this, in only a matter of hours.

It has been very grey and foggy this week, but it’s so mild and windless that I don’t mind it at all. Our snow is basically all gone, except for piles in parking lots and along the walking paths where it had been shovelled. Those piles are a source of great joy to Rex, who likes to roll and slide down them, and then starts to eat them. His penchant for eating snow is pretty cute, and so I’m trying not to be horrified when he shoves his face into filthy parking lot snow. I mean, he is a dog, so I am assuming his digestive system can handle it.

After what felt like a long run of books that ran the gamut between Good and OMG Boring, last Friday I read a really fabulous collection of short stories, entitled Today A Woman Went Mad At The Supermarket, and if that title does not pique your interest, then you are living a very different life from me.

Hilma Wolizer has been around and writing for decades – most of these stories were written in the 1970s, one as early as the 1966 – and so I am puzzled as to why I haven’t heard of her before this. All the stories are interconnected and deal with my favourite genre: ordinary, everyday things written in an extraordinary way. The last story has to do with the pandemic, written in 2020, and I mention it as a warning for anyone who is not in a mental space to read about the early days of Covid, specifically how it affected elderly people living in New York City.

The foreword of this book is written by Elizabeth Strout who, as you know, is one of my favourites and who also really writes the Slice Of Life books that I adore. In the foreword are two quotes from Wolitzer, which resonated with me so much and made me want to call her up and scream ME TOO into the phone.

Everyone’s face was fascinating to me, and I would wonder what their lives were like.

I don’t believe there’s such a thing as ordinary life. I think all life is extraordinary.

I cannot even begin to explain how seen I felt after I read that; I felt a deep kinship with this 90 year old writer.

On our trip to Mexico, I spent a lot of time by myself at the pool; I am the early bird of our group, so I would lounge around waiting for my husband and our friends to arrive, reading and soaking up the surroundings. I tend to chat with anyone within ten feet of me, but on this trip people were mostly swimming by me, or in large groups, and so instead of chatting, I’d just imagine what their lives were like. How long had that couple been married? What was it like to look exactly like the guy who talks about the O Face in the movie Office Space? What does the man swimming early-morning pool lengths do for a living? Where did that woman get that fabulous hat?

One afternoon I was reading while my husband and our friend were floating around in the pool, drinks in hand. They noticed a couple who was in the pool beside them; this couple was involved in what can only be described as An Extensive Makeout Session. The guys couldn’t believe I didn’t notice the couple, because, as I mentioned before, I am always people-watching, and so they were shocked I missed the estan caliente teenage-like making out and, if you will pardon the extremely crude expression, but nothing else comes close to describing this accurately, dry-humping that was happening in the pool right in front of me. How did you not see it? our friend asked, puzzled at my obliviousness. The guy got out right in front of you and he had a massive boner, how could you miss that? my husband told me, with his usual delicacy of manner.

How indeed?

Nevertheless, it wasn’t long before I started seeing this couple everywhere, though, and always in a similar state of semi-clothed in flagrante: in the lobby bar, standing next to the pool, in a single pool lounge next to the pool. From what I could see the man was probably in his fifties, and the woman a couple of decades younger. Their level of passion was truly inspirational, although if continued to completion, I would assume that there would be a lot of chafing and possible cystitis involved in this holiday.

I did, of course, wonder what their story was. I concluded that if they were married, it wasn’t to each other, and before long I had an entire Harlequin-like romance written in my head about them.

Speaking of marriage, my husband and I were wandering through the resort one night; our friends had gone back to their room, and we were enjoying the full moon and the music that was coming from a wedding reception being held nearby. One of the songs was Baby Got Back, which I love, but which also seems like a strange choice for a wedding reception. In any case, there we were, getting our groove on, when my husband was swarmed by a group of young women in an advanced state of inebriation. Josh! Josh! they squealed, to our bemusement.

It turns out that these lovely young women had mistaken my husband for an actor named Josh Duhamel, who I had never heard of before, but who has the distinction of being from Minot, North Dakota, which is not far at all from where I was born, in Saskatchewan. These girls were slightly disappointed that my husband was not the star of a Transformers movie, but were extremely sweet and cheerful. We saw you by the pool today! they said, then turning to me. We just thought he had gotten remarried! Well, that was cute, but there are two things that I found out later: Josh Duhamel used to be married to Fergie, of Black Eyed Peas fame, and is now married to a former Miss World America.

I do not have low self-esteem or lack for confidence, but I admit I did feel a bit strange at this exchange. The tables, they had turned. My people-watching had ricocheted back to me; me, with my giant sunhat and streaks of mineral sunscreen on my legs and bikini, with my slightly-bloated margarita tummy and fuzzy, out of control beach hair. Did these women really think that Josh Duhamel, one-time star on All My Children, left Miss World America for ME? Were they making up their own mental stories about people around the pool generally, and me specifically? I cannot imagine such stories would cast me in a very flattering light. Listen, I would like to believe that we live in a world in which women of all ages, visages, and bodies are embraced equally by ex-soap stars, but let’s be realistic. The most likely answer is that these women’s vision was blurred by unlimited day-drinking; in fact, I think that is probably my best-case scenario. Maybe they thought you WERE Miss World America, my husband ventured, to which I answered with a look only. He shrugged sheepishly. When a couple has been married for a few decades, sometimes non-verbal communication is the best kind of communication.

January 2023 Vacation Books, and Bookends

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In case it hasn’t been made clear yet, one of the great pleasures of my life is reading. I’m not even sure I would call it a pleasure, now that I think about it; it’s more of just an incredibly important part of my day. It’s the first R in REM Y REM, and you know that’s my recipe for living a balanced and healthy life. So allow me to rewind to my first sentence: one of the great pleasures of my life is reading on vacation. Is there anything more luxurious than devouring a good book beside some sort of cooling body of water? With an icy drink in hand and the sunshine making that icy drink all covered in condensation? I think not.

I read a lot in the past couple of weeks; there were a couple of hits but a lot of misses and mehs. That’s how it goes, sometimes, I suppose. Not all books are going to knock it out of the park, so to speak.

Dress Your Family In Corduroy And Denim. I like reading Sedaris in January, and I thought I’d revisit this book of essays that I first read years ago. I have to say that ever since reading Happy Go Lucky, I have been unable to find humour in his essays about his childhood and youth, given that I now know his mother was an alcoholic and his father was terribly abusive. It’s hard to read about his sister Tiffany, knowing she was sexually abused and later died by suicide. However, the stories about his adulthood, and more specifically, his life with Hugh still bring me laughter and joy – my husband asked what I was laughing about, reading Nuit of the Living Dead.

French Braid. What to say, what to say. Well, first, this is a very quick and easy read, and it’s entertaining enough. It follows a family from 1959 to 2020, and that family is not dysfunctional, exactly? But it’s not a close family. It reads like a series of vignettes about a family that is not close at all, with a mother who sort of seems like she never wanted to be a mother. For such a lightly-written book the subject matter is kind of heavy. There are three siblings who were not particularly close as children and the book details how they become much less close, not for any particular reason, and how all the cousins don’t know each other and you know what? It was weird to read this. If you know, you know.

The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. I’m trying to read outside my usual genres, which is why I picked up this cozy mystery about a – as the title implies – rare book in a special library collection that SUDDENLY GOES MISSING, right before the gala for library donors who want to see said rare book. The curator of the collection is suddenly incapacitated by a stroke, leaving his replacement to scramble to find it and you know what, this book was so boring I almost slipped into a coma writing this synopsis. Content warning for discussion of mental health, suicide, and also extremely unlikeable, flat characters.

Happy Place. Woof, you know you’re approaching a certain age when you identify strongly with the stodgy parents rather than the heroine. Anyhoo. This was a good book for the plane because it requires very little thinking: a story about a group of friends and a couple who is broken up, but pretending they are still together. It’s a cute light story about friends, love, and finding yourself. I didn’t love it but it’s a good light read.

Love Marriage. By the author of Brick Lane, which I loved, this is a pretty epic story about a woman and her family, her fiancé, and her job as a medical resident. Things start to fall apart in every area of her life, and there were some surprising reveals. I really enjoyed this.

The Man of My Dreams. This book follows a woman throughout her youth and into her 20s, detailing all her relationships including that with an emotionally abusive father, her loving family, friends, and boyfriends. The main character is so unlikeable that, even though there was a redemptive arc, I found I could t like the book. I loathed the main character so much it wrecked the story for me.

Quietly Hostile. I genuinely enjoy Irby’s style and humour and I enjoyed hearing her on a podcast talking about enjoying things that are often scoffed at. You know what that’s all about: you mention that you like a movie or book or TV show and someone says “Really? You LIKED that?” We like what we like, and I like that Irby stands up for what she likes. And I would say the essays in here that I liked, I really liked. Like, laughing hysterically liked; the QVC essay had me cry-laughing. I also loved the essay on rewriting Sex and the City; I did not know Irby is a writer on the reboot. Now, I only have watched part of the first episode, because I wanted to see the Death By Peloton part, but I was not at all impressed, and I haven’t felt moved to waste any more time watching it. However, that’s a little sidebar to say that while I haven’t watched the reboot, I have watched Sex and the City the OG in its entirety, and this essay was SO good. But in general in this book there was way too much talk of vomit, diarrhea, and urine for my liking and yes I know, I know that’s her signature style, so yes, that’s on me. One essay was honestly unbearably sad, and a few were great. A few just didn’t land for me, your mileage may vary.

On Our Best Behaviour: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay To Be Good. This was a pretty fascinating look at the societal and cultural pressures that women face, organized into the Seven Deadly Sins: the pressure to be always DOING something and to be productive (sloth), the idea that there is limited room at the table and that women should shut down other women (envy), the stigma against acknowledging our incredible abilities (pride), general body image and the idealizing of smaller bodies at any cost (gluttony), pay gaps and unpaid labour (greed), slut-shaming (lust), and the pressure to not be angry, to be nice, to please people (anger). There is also a chapter on sadness and one on the history of the patriarchy. There was a quote from Oprah that stood out to me, in response to a guest downplaying the book she had written: “Playing dumb, weak, and silly is a disservice to yourself and to me and to the world. Every time you pretend to be less than you are, you steal permission from other women to exist fully.” Wow, OPRAH. PREACH. I found this resonant as well: “Too many of us function as the prefrontal cortex for our children, letting our kids outsource their self-regulation to us, because it’s so hard to watch them struggle, even when struggling, as we know, is how we learn and grow.” What a great reminder! Lots of gems in this book. How many times have we looked at another woman who has what we want, and thought massively critical thoughts about her, her body, her morality, her personality? How many times have we felt we should lose weight and take up less space in the world? How many times have we dismissed praise and compliments, saying we aren’t as good as we are to show our humility? How many times have we denied ourselves desperately-needed rest so we could do one more thing, just one more, and to stay productive at all costs? How many times have we swallowed anger so that it goes inward, eating us up as stress, instead of expressing it, to show that we really are nice? I thought this book was so full of thoughtfulness and smart insights.

So as I said, some hits, some misses. My current read is EXCELLENT – more about that later – and I would like to mention the Cool Bloggers Book Club, hosted by Engie (HI ENGIE) starts on Monday! We are reading My Brilliant Friend, and you neither have to be cool nor a blogger to join the club. Just show up at Engie’s blog on Mondays in February to discuss the book.

Happy Friday, my friends! I hope you have a lovely weekend ahead of you. xo

Doctor Teeth and the Winter Mayhem

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We received a little blast of winter this past week: a couple of inches of snow, followed a few days later by some cold days, and by “cold,” I mean the low minus 20s. Friends, experiencing forty-eight years of Canadian prairie winters has prepared me for this moment. Never have I felt so hardy. I went to Costco the day after it snowed, and the parking lot was maybe a third full. The entire store was eerily quiet and when I went to check out, the cashier with the most gorgeous head of hair –the secret is Moroccan OIL oil, not the Moroccan oil shampoo, the OIL – told me in all earnestness that the day previous was beyond busy, as people prepared for The Big Storm. I blinked a couple of times, thinking about the two inches of snow and the temperature around zero. I felt not unlike Lieutenant Dan in the crowsnest of the Jenny, screaming “You call this a storm?”

My mother-in-law has, over the past six months, expressed amazed astonishment at my willingness to leave the house in even the slightest bit of inclement weather. I will take this at face value as a perceived compliment on my strength of spirit, even though I think it is completely unwarranted; she praised me for being brave for driving in These Conditions, These Conditions, again, being two inches of snow and slightly icy streets. In Calgary, if you didn’t go out when there was snow on the ground, you would never go out. Rex and I need our daily constitutional – I am not sure which of us need it more, to be honest – and so the streets shall be braved.

In addition to our daily walk, which is typically around six kilometres, give or take a little, Rex goes out a few times a day to do what we call Exploring. We have two acres of unfenced property, and let me tell you, the “unfenced” detail was cause for much concern on my part prior to and during the move. What if he chases an animal and get lost, what if he runs away, what if he goes onto the road and gets hit by a car. It turns out that all those worries, like most worries, were merely depleting my mental resources and were ultimately unfounded; dogs can be trained to obey property lines, even unfenced ones. There are dogs at all three of the nearest properties to us, and they all stay on their own properties, more or less, unless two or more dogs are out at the same time. In that case, all bets are off and a dog party will certainly ensue. I have looked out the window to see Rex in a cluster of dogs at the end of the grape rows, all happily wagging and sniffing. After a few minutes of this they all magically return to their own places.

Of all the things I should never have worried about, Rex running away would be top of the list. Rex likes to be within sight of me or, more preferably, within petting distance at any given moment in the day. In my recently Ask Me Anything, Engie (HI ENGIE) wondered what a day in the life of Rex was like, and, other than the Explorations, his day is my day. He gets up when I do, around 4:30, and hangs out with me while I practice yoga and exercise, he is in the kitchen when I’m cooking or in the office when I’m writing. If I’m folding laundry or reading he is directly at my feet. When I shower I will open the bathroom door to find him directly on the other side of it. He is my fuzzy shadow and I really love it.

That is why last Thursday was so strange, because he was at the vet all day getting a dental cleaning. No one followed me from room to room! No one lay down directly behind the rolling office chair, so I could stand up and sit down with complete impunity, with no worries that I would accidentally roll onto a fuzzy body part! I went into the pantry without anyone at my heels, hopefully looking at the container of freeze-dried liver!

Do not get me started about the ridiculousness of a professional dental cleaning for a two-year-old dog; despite the fact that for the past nine months I have brushed his teeth and given him a dental chew every single day without fail, he still had pretty massive tartar buildup. I think Barkley was eight or nine by the time we had to give him a cleaning, but here we are with Rex, age two.

It’s funny how seasons of life change. With the kids I went through years of toothbrushing instruction, semi-annual dental cleanings, and braces, my god, the braces. I spent so many years in the orthodontist office – or, in the case of the pandemic, the orthodontist parking lot – and I figured that once my children were grown, the only teeth I would need to think about would be my own. And now here I am, brushing my dog’s teeth with beef-flavoured toothpaste, checking his gums, and having earnest conversations with the vet about the dental genetics of different breeds. If you’re interested, poodles and terriers have, in the vet’s words, the Worst Teeth Of All. That was interesting to me, as my childhood dog, Spike, was a terripoo. I asked my mom if he had bad teeth, and she couldn’t remember. But then again, she said to me, we didn’t BRUSH dogs’ teeth back then. True enough.

Weekly Reading

Speaking of my mom, she happened to mention that it was minus 55 with windchill at her place, minus 42 ambient. It sure made our little blast of cold seem cute! But it was still a chilly weekend, so I lived La Vida Hygge, wrapping up well for our walks and spending the rest of the time puzzling, reading, and, obviously because this is my life, cooking. Some hits and misses in the book department this week; here we go:

More Myself. My son very thoughtfully bought this book for me for Christmas, knowing that I love a) Alicia Keys and b) memoir about women, specifically celebrity women. And I will say that Alicia Keys has had an incredible life; she is a talent beyond talent, a woman who has been writing, composing, and producing her own music since she was fourteen years old. Fourteen is also when she met Krucial, who was her first serious boyfriend. He was 24, and a father. I HAVE SOME QUESTIONS. In his (very slight) defense she told him she was 17 (still not cool, omg), so imagine his shock when, two years later they are LIVING TOGETHER and he discovers her real age. Which was sixteen. Good lord. The way she glosses over that detail in this book is really unsettling. Anyway, she is an incredibly talented woman who has also started a number of social justice campaigns as well as a charity that supplies antiviral medication to babies of women living with HIV, so that they do not contract the virus through breast milk. All great stuff, right? Well, let me tell you, despite the incredible wealth of material, this memoir is SO DAMN BORING. There is a part where she relates a conversation with Oprah, who tells her to keep her private life private, as her Stedman relationship going public is a huge regret for her. Alicia apparently takes this to heart because there is NO juice here. It reads like a matter-of-fact listing of her professional and personal accomplishments, completely devoid of any emotion or vulnerability. Even when discussing a nervous breakdown that led her to a transformative solo trip to Egypt, it was like “I was overtaxed and exhausted. I went to Egypt. It was a transformative experience.” As a memoir, it fails.

Games and Rituals. I really love everything this author has written, and this newest collection of short stories is no exception. This is my favourite genre: everyday, ordinary occurrences made extraordinary. This is Writing Goals right here! The sign of a really good short story is that it makes you think about all the backstory that isn’t there, the iceberg beneath the surface, so to speak. I loved it. There is one particular story about a woman and her elderly father that I will be thinking about for a long time.

Cat’s Eye. Recently Allison (HI ALLISON) mentioned her daughter reading her copy of Bluebeard’s Egg, and that set off a massive craving in me to read some Atwood. I wanted a novel, not short stories, and Cat’s Eye is perfectly suited to January: much of it takes place in the dreary, drab winters of Toronto. I have read this many times and every time I read it, it hits just a little bit differently. I find something new to identify with every single time I read this moving story about a woman who returns to Toronto, the city of her youth, and is confronted by all the myriad ghosts of her past. I have always found this book to be one of the most realistic when it comes to how young girls behave towards each other, the various cruelties that girls and women can inflict on each other, and the lifelong effects of the small and larger traumas experienced in youth. It’s about healing and understanding. It is a work of art, full stop.

Our winter blast seems to be waning and it looks to be a beautiful week ahead. I hope you are all staying warm and maybe also living La Vida Hygge where you are. xo

Live Your Life With Arms Wide Open

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I became a little bit obsessed with Hamilton in the summer of 2020. What can I say? It’s a pretty catchy soundtrack, and I had some time on my hands. The lyrics Look around, look around, how lucky we are to be alive right now became my mantra. Merely repeating those words in my head really helped centre and ground me over the subsequent months and years. While I was on one of my endless walks or runs, while I was in the garden or masking up to go to the grocery store, I would look at the world around me and repeat look around, look around, how lucky we are to be alive right now.

I have always been very moved and motivated by music. Even from a child, I could be moved to tears by a lyric or a beautiful melody. I remember feeling my heart swelling while in church, as a very small child, singing How Great Thou Art. Although I don’t go to church anymore, I strongly believe in a higher power – as they say in Desiderata, …be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him (HER) to be – and I still can feel that swelling while thinking of that hymn.

Last March, I was on the Peloton when a song was played, one I hadn’t heard for a long time. That time period, March into April, was one of the most emotionally difficult of my life. I was drained, stressed, exhausted, and my heart was cracked such that I was unsure if I could ever come back, if I would ever feel like myself again. I constantly repeated to myself my longtime mantra, borrowed from Allison over a decade ago, There will be a time after this. (HI ALLISON). I knew there would be a time after, but I wasn’t sure what I would be like in that time after. I just didn’t know. Can I handle the seasons of my life? I didn’t know if I could.

The song in question was Unwritten, and the lyrics seemed to say everything to me.

I am unwritten
Can’t read my mind
I’m undefined
I’m just beginning
The pen’s in my hand
Ending unplanned

Do you know the feeling when a piece of art or music just seems to see into your soul? Do you know what it’s like to encounter the absolutely perfect thing at the perfect time? That was this song, which I had long ago forgotten about.

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it

I thought about all the times I had changed over the course of my lifetime. Ending unplanned indeed. A younger me would never even recognize the woman I am now, or even believe that it would be possible to be me, the way I am. When I was young, and dissatisfied with myself, I found the idea of change exciting and invigorating. Any kind of change, anything new was thrilling and the harbinger of great things to come: a new adventure, a new outfit, a new lipstick, a new school. Anything new was a fresh new start, a chance at a different kind of life. You might be thinking to yourself, that’s a tall order for a new lipstick, but maybe you don’t remember what it’s like to be that age, or the life-changing magic of Revlon’s Love That Red.

Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips

Somewhere along the line in my life, change ceased to be exciting and invigorating, and instead became something exhausting and to be feared or avoided.

Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

But listening to this song, I realized that I needed to change my thinking in order to deal with all the other changes in my life. My perspective was off. I was holding on so tightly to my idea of myself and my life that I couldn’t see the beauty of transformation. I couldn’t see the possibilities in front of me, I could only see losses. I couldn’t move past what was cracking my heart.

I break tradition
Sometimes my tries are outside the lines
We’ve been conditioned to not make mistakes
But I can’t live that way

Some people choose a word or a phrase in January that will set the tone for the year to come, but I don’t do that. I tend instead to grasp onto phrases or concepts whenever they come into my life, such as Friluftsliv, Embrace the Season, and Hygge, and then I keep them with me forever. Back in March 2023, look around, look around, how lucky we are to be alive right now started to transform into live your life with arms wide open. What better way to live your life than with arms wide open; open to new experiences, new people, new ways to live. This became my theme for my year of change and continues to be my theme for my life now.

In my recent Ask Me Anything, Suzanne and Elisabeth both asked about Teenage Nicole (HI SUZANNE, HI ELISABETH) and what she was like. It’s hard to say, exactly, because Nicole at 13 was a very different person than Nicole at 16 or 19. The only similarities between these Nicoles would be that they all strived for good grades, played the piano, and loved books and music. I think the tween and young teen years are probably universally the worst in anyone’s life, particularly for girls. I was a very unhappy and emotional, and therefore difficult, young girl who spent a lot of time feeling unaccepted, unwanted, and unliked; those things were probably not true, at least not to the extent I thought they were, but that was my perception. I was highly negatively impacted by the diet and beauty industrial complex and was constantly dissatisfied by my appearance. I found a lot of solace in music, particularly the dreary and dark, and also in the line from Desiderata that hung on my grandma’s wall, the same Desiderata that hangs by my piano now: You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and stars; you have a right to be here. I remember reading that around age ten, and it meant so much to me then, sad little me; it means so much to me now.

But you can change your life, and I did. I remember the transformative feeling every summer of my teens, when I would decide what my fashion style would be for the coming school year, and with that fashion style, what would be my life. Was I working from the outside in, instead of the other way around? Yes, I was. But by the time I was sixteen, I had made many positive changes. I changed schools, I changed my clothes, I changed my friend group, I changed my after-school activities, and yes, I changed my lipstick, wearing Love That Red every day. Was it a bit much for 9:00 am math class? Probably. But a child of the universe does not back down when armed with transformative red lips.

And the point is, we can all make changes. We all have seasons in our lives that are more difficult, and I have so recently been through one of those. A lot of those changes were happening to me, but the biggest change I made was in my own mind, deciding to live my life with arms wide open, feeling the rain on my skin. Or snow.

Weekly Reading

Tom Lake. After months of having this book on hold, Santa brought me my very own copy. And I am so glad he did because I LOVED THIS BOOK. Oh god, I loved everything about this. This is a love story, and a warm cozy family story, it’s a tragedy and it’s an uplifting heartwarming story about the world. It is absolutely gorgeous. It made me want to have two sisters so we could braid our hair together, it made me wish I had worked in summer stock, it made me happy in every way. It concerns a story a mother is telling her daughters about her past – and isn’t that something? It’s something so ordinary and yet not, the life a woman has before her children are born, the life a woman has before the life she has, the adventures of youth and the coziness of middle age. I want to go back in time and experience this book newly, all over again. What a beautiful book.

The Beast Within. This is the second in the series about Disney villains, and it concerns the Beast. IS the Beast the villain? I guess so. Anyway, it’s his backstory, including a friendship with Gaston, and it’s okay. I didn’t like this that much but since I liked the Evil Queen book, I am going to continue with the series.

There is still no snow in town, and so my husband and I drove out to the mountains on Friday to try out our new cross-country skis; it was our first time on skis in 21 years, if you can believe it. Next up: learning to snowshoe! There are a few wintry days forecasted this week which will make it feel more like January. I hope you are all enjoying this start to the new year. xo

Holiday Reading and Roundup 2023

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Happy New Year! The house has been deep cleaned and de-Christmased, and life is returning to normal. During the holidays I cozily thought about leaving up the tree and decorations until January 6, the actual Twelfth Day of Christmas. Not to be a tiresome pedant, but the first day of Christmas is actually Christmas, not December 12, as is often assumed. Anyway, at one point I thought how lovely it would be to extend the Christmassy feeling all the way through Advent to the Epiphany, and then I woke up on January 1 with what can only be described as Big New Year’s Energy, and knew that it was all going down that day. I should know myself better; New Year’s is always when I want a fresh clean house.

Our houseguests left the morning of the first, and they were such a joy to have that I didn’t want them to leave. We had so much fun and laughter; we went for long walks and consumed lots of good food and wine, we played a game and watched a movie, we had espresso martinis in the afternoons and put together a 1000 piece puzzle in five hours. The boys watched a lot of hockey and football and the girls companionably read books together. I wanted them to actually move in with us and stay forever.

All the festivities went well: the open house was a success, Christmas dinner turned out very well, and Tuesday’s lunch turned into a very pleasant visit for the most part. I enjoy my husband’s cousins, particularly the couple who live in Calgary; we have always seen each other around the holidays and I was happy to continue that tradition. However, my ability to be a gracious hostess was severely tried when two relatives, who had said that very morning that they would not be able to make it, showed up three hours late, just as everyone was preparing to leave. At that point all topics of conversation had been exhausted, the food was all gone, as was a significant percentage of the content of our beverage fridge, and all the dishes had been put away. The result was fifteen people standing awkwardly in the kitchen for another full hour, making small talk which had already been made for three hours, while my soul briefly left my body. This was a highly unsatisfactory end to the festive season. Had the gathering ended by the specified time, I would have been pleasantly contented with our festive gatherings and my ability to be a hostess for nine out of the past eleven days, but as it was, by the time everyone left I was a bitter husk of my former self.

I didn’t have a lot of downtime during the holidays, but I did squeeze in some pretty decent reading. Without further ado, I give you:

Nicole’s Holiday Reading

Fates and Furies. This was an intense book about secrets, perspectives, and the multiple sides of every story. I have to admit I wasn’t sure about this for the first thirty pages, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to read about a slutty guy doing lots of drugs, but I wanted to give it a chance since the author was interviewed extensively in the courses I took this fall. I’m glad I did give it a chance, the story really picked up. It’s a poetically written book about a marriage and how it works; this is not a plot heavy book but wow, it’s gorgeously written and very complex.

How To Love The World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope. I read a little of this book each day pre-yoga practice for the past few months and it’s a beautiful way to start the day. Uplifting, lovely poetry about everyday things. A lot of the poems appeared to have been written in the pandemic, specifically during lockdown, so it definitely has that flavour.

Middlemarch. It is a bit surprising to me that I hadn’t read Middlemarch prior to this, what with all the women’s English literature that I love, but here we are. I’ll say that if you’re going to tackle an 837 page book, doing it in the holiday season while on a blogging and writing break is a smart idea. I liked it but found it tricky at first to keep track of all the characters. So many characters! So many. I spent a lot of time thinking wait, is he her brother-in-law, no, wait, who is this guy? and then flipping back to try to decipher. Perhaps I should have taken notes. I loved the statement about women’s lives during that time period, which is an endless source of fascination for me. By the way, do you like the bookmark? My younger son spent months working on, designing, and drawing bookmarks for me, and you will definitely be seeing them in future posts.

 The Book of Awakening. This is a book of daily meditations, and it is absolutely beautiful. The focus is on being present to the life that you are living right now, to bring in joy and contentment. That said, this is the third year that I have read a book of specified daily readings, and I am not going to continue that for a fourth. I found this with Rumi, with the Stoics, and now with this – the first month feels life-changing, then it starts to feel repetitive, and by the end of the year I’m a bit overwhelmed by all the daily lessons. Still, a brilliant book to come back to every once in a while. 

Maybe Once, Maybe Twice. I heard this book raved about on a podcast, Bad on Paper, saying it was a really unique and original romance, so I thought I would check it out. I have to say, it was a pretty fun read to start 2024! The concept is a bit weird, honestly, but stay with me for a moment: an aspiring musician realizes that she’s thirty-five and the clock, it is ticking. She wants a music career and a baby, but she’s working for her mom’s real estate company instead. Well, here she is, thirty-five, and she realizes that at two different points in her life she made one of those “If we’re not married by 35, let’s marry each other” promises, to two different men. Then, as she turns 35, they both come back into her life. What to do? So, what I’m saying is that premise was strange but if you can mentally get past it, it’s a pretty fun book about second-chance romance, with a really good best friend subplot, which I am here for. It really is an original concept and there are a lot of twists that you don’t normally see in a romance. 

I have lots on my TBR list, and a goal to get better at DNFing books that are a drag to me. We will see how that shakes out this year! I hope you’re all enjoying your start to January – I’ll just be over here, catching up on life! xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Winter Solstice Edition

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Happy Winter Solstice, everyone! How are we all doing, on the darkest day of the year? I will celebrate by walking in the dark this morning as Rex has a grooming appointment at 8. A clean and fluffy Rex will be a highlight of this dark day; will I be able to keep him that way until Christmas? Who can say. Likely not. But anyway, today seemed like the perfect day to talk about Favourite Things, so without further ado:

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Winter Solstice Edition

New Home For The Holidays

After twenty-three years in a pretty small house, in which we had to rearrange the furniture in order to fit our Christmas tree, it is pretty exciting to have a spacious new home as the backdrop for All Things Christmas. It has been so fun finding little spots for all my decor; my holiday decorating aesthetic can best be described as Everything Everywhere All At Once. I have little things in every corner and windowsill, and it all feels so Merry and Bright, without feeling Claustrophobic and Cluttered, which, if we are being honest, is how things started to feel in our old house by the time Santa magically slipped down the metaphorical chimney.

We do not have a fireplace in this house and the lack of a mantel was the cause of some anticipatory consternation on my part last year, but I think using pretty ribbon to tie the stockings to the staircase hand rails is even better.

Part of my aesthetic can also be described as Sentimental Mom, and so I proudly display this cute candle set that my older son took a bite out of when he was eight months old and teething.

The Charlie Brown Christmas tree is nestled among the old farm equipment we have on display and, more festively, the little stuffies that used to hang on the knobs of the boys’ dressers; for some reason, the boys don’t want this as part of their room decor anymore.

Where’s Salvadore?

Many of you will remember when Salvadore first came into my life, the guys would move him into different parts of the house while I slept, just like my very own springtime gnome version of Elf on a Shelf. A few weeks ago I brought the outdoor gnomes indoors for the winter, and Salvadore has been springing up in the strangest locations. I’ll wake up to him covered in a pile of bananas, or in the vitamin cupboard, or masquerading as a Christmas gnome.

He’s literally Gnome on a Shelf!

He thinks he’s a present. Aw, he is. He’s a gift to all of us.

Speaking of gifts, look what Michelle made for me (HI MICHELLE!)

You must – MUST – check out her gnome Christmas party. Just prepare yourself. You may just spin off the planet with excitement, if you are a person who is Gnome Obsessed. Even if you’re not, it’s the cutest little thing you’ve ever seen. Is Michelle’s dollhouse just an evergreen Favourite Thing? MAYBE.

The Moving Pictures

I don’t watch movies generally; I usually fall asleep during them because I have become my own dad. Christmas is an exception! We all have Christmas movies that we must – MUST – watch every year, and mine are Elf and Christmas Vacation. But I also love what I think of as holiday-adjacent movies; I always watch my all-time Favourite Movie When Harry Met Sally around New Year’s, and I like to watch Little Women around Christmas.

Which one, you might ask, the one from the 90s or from 2019, and which is the favourite? You may also remember that I tend to loathe film adaptations of beloved books and I don’t know if I had a more beloved book as a child than Little Women. These movies are the exceptions! I love both of them and, like my children, I love them equally but differently, and just as I do not have a favourite child I also do not have a favourite Little Women. The one from the 90s is a pure nostalgic joy. If I need pure happiness, that’s the one. If I need to cry, I need only to watch the scene where Mr. March gives Beth a piano.

But the 2019 version is a love letter for the hardcore book fans. I think you need to be a real fan of the book to love this movie the way I do. Visually it is so perfect. So perfect! The sisters behave like sisters, the Hummels actually look like impoverished immigrants at the end of the Civil War, and the scene where Meg is at the ball, cutting to the scene where she has a grim financial discussion with her husband is pretty much cinematic perfection. We all know that Louisa Alcott was pressured to “marry off” Jo, which was how the sequel to Little Women – originally entitled Good Wives, although now it is just considered the second part of the book – was written. I love how the ending reflects Alcott’s true experience, and that it shows that Jo’s writing was her real love. The book itself is subversive and so strongly feminist, and the movie even more so. This is becoming a deep dive into the movie, which I didn’t want it to be, because who has the time, but I just watched it again and I love it so much. I felt like standing on a vulva-shaped soapbox with my ink-stained fist raised after watching it. The only thing that is a tiny bit jarring is the appearance of Bob Odenkirk as Father, which, what a casting decision that was. It takes me out of the movie EVERY TIME. Why is Saul Goodman here?

Let’s not get started on how Alcott’s actual father was a useless piece of shit who was FRIENDS WITH THOREAU. A less-successful Thoreau, if you will. We all know how I feel about Thoreau – do not quote that man to me, do not do it – so you can probably deduce my feelings about Bronson Alcott. Well. Is this Favourite Things or is it an Early Festivus Post? Let’s move on!

Oh, Miraculous Food

If you have watched a specific one of my favourite holiday-adjacent movies, you will immediately recognize that line, and it is one I think of almost every dinnertime. Miraculous food! I will say – and this is not a Favourite Thing, so bear with me, here I am in Early Festivus Mode again – I had a not-small degree of angst about a month ago when I realized that for the first Christmas in my forty-eight years on this planet, if there is a special holiday foodstuff I want, I need to procure it for myself. I know. I KNOW. Forty-eight is pretty old to discover Regular Adult Phenomena, and to shrug off the Spoiled Daughter Shawl, but there it is.

Here’s the thing: I prepare wholesome, delicious dinners every single night. FROM SCRATCH. I bake all manner of lovely muffins, loaves, and cookies year-round, and then I start leveling up every holiday season. I enjoy doing and eating all of those things. But I just kind of wanted some favourites without having to make some myself.

Well, boo hoo, you might be saying, and you would be right. There have been some Linus’ blankets wrapped around my sagging tree, which I deeply appreciate, but for the most part I have made peace with this and have womaned up to reality. Christmas dinner is going to be a joint affair between me and my mother-in-law; it will be at our house, and my mother-in-law is going to provide turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and gravy, and since none of those are things I eat, I am going to provide side dishes such as Suzanne’s fall salad (HI SUZANNE) – with the addition of roasted chickpeas and dried blueberries, omitting the pomegranate – roasted broccoli, peas, and, naturally, kalettes. Hashtag kalette influencer. A widowed neighbour lady who has no family is coming for dinner and is bringing her signature German stollen, which I don’t believe I have ever had, and of course I have many sweets for us all to nosh on. There will also, needless to say, be wine.

Speaking of sweets to nosh on! I have mentioned my mint squares, and my gingersnaps and gingerbread. I made truffles, but I used mint chocolate chips for them and then dipped them in a mixture of melted chocolate and refined coconut oil. They turned out really well.

If you need a last minute, easy, fancy-looking treat, may I suggest bark? You don’t even need a recipe for this, although I will include some for Lisa (HI LISA). Here’s the deal: melt some chocolate. Stir in some crumbled up bits of things – Pretzels! Candy canes! Nuts! – and then spread the mixture onto a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet. Put it in the freezer for 15 minutes or so, and then break the pieces apart, put in a cute tin, and voila. Festivity.

Holiday Re-Reading

I have a giant pile of library books waiting for me, but I put them aside for a couple of days for these three holiday re-reads. The Holiday Breakdown is a delightful little book about a writer who drives cross-country to escape LA and her writer’s block, to help her parents with their ailing ski resort. On the way her car breaks down in what appears to be a town from a Hallmark Christmas movie. It’s a fun, sweet read.

I read Holidays on Ice every year BUT you may remember that I dislike Sedaris’ fiction stories, so I only read the essays, with the exception of The Cow and the Turkey, which is hilarious. I skip from Santaland Diaries all the way to Dinah, The Christmas Whore.

My good friend Steph (HI STEPH) mentioned that she reads A Christmas Carol every year, and I thought I should do that! It had been YEARS. I searched out my copy that is so old my name is written in bubble letters in the front. I forgot how incredibly witty and descriptive the writing is; obviously, it’s a classic for a reason. My husband and older son also read it this week; it was the first time for both of them. “Scrooge is a total incel!” my son commented, and once you see that, you can’t unsee it. Anyway, we celebrated this literary milestone by all four of us watching the Muppets Christmas Carol which none of the guys had ever seen. I KNOW.

Outfit of the Month

There is never a bad time for a little black dress; it’s appropriate for almost every going-out occasion, festive or otherwise. The truth is I probably have a dozen or so in different weights, lengths, and styles, but I really love this turtleneck sweater dress. Paired with boots that I believe I bought in 2010, it made a perfect outfit for my night out with the girls to a candlelight concert (HI SAMMI HI JOY).

I wanted to give a little reminder that I have an Ask Me Anything form, so if there’s anything you want to ask, now is your chance! It will be fun way to start the New Year. The New Year that is only eleven days away, my goodness!

On that note, Happy Holidays, my friends. I am taking a little blog break to focus on the festivities; I’ll see you on the other side. Take good care. I wish you all joy, rest, love, peace, and the most delicious of the delicious treats there are. xo

Poetry In Motion

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If I were a Mary Oliver or a Maya-type person, I would be sitting at my desk, crafting a moving poem about the beauty in the mundane everyday, about the ordinary suddenly becoming extraordinary, after a little tiny bird, a chickadee, flew right in front of my cart at Superstore in the middle of the bakery section. I gasped, I was so filled with wonder. I watched it flutter up, up, up, and perch on one of the high ceiling beams.

If I were Mary or Maya, (HI MAYA, yes I DID group you with Mary Oliver, deal with it), I would write about thinking to myself what a wonderful world, I would write about going placidly amidst the noise and haste that is Superstore ten days before Christmas, I would write about reveling in the natural world among us. I might somehow craft a poetic sentence about thinking that there were no more tiny tubes of decorator frosting in the baking aisle, but then finding them behind a box of carrot cake mix; I would talk about how they are actually kind of gross but they work great for decorating gingerbread men, which I did this past weekend with my actual grown-men children, and then I would write about traditions, my heart, and the many blessings that surround me. Somehow this poem would reach its apex with the little bird flying between the displays of Danish and cookies in their plastic clamshells, crossing my path and filling me with delight and all the warmth and wonder of the holiday season.

I would not, however, include in my poem what happened when I joined the checkout lineup, a short line with only one woman with a full cart behind a gentleman who seemed to be just finishing checking out. I would be tempted to include the detail of the man who lined up behind me with only a small basket of items, and how I, filled with the holiday spirit, insisted he go ahead of me, and then the woman in front insisted he go ahead of her. She and I were conjoined in that little joy that is spreading happiness to others by allowing them to jump the queue, and the gentleman was gracious enough to inform the cashier that he had received two Christmas gifts from these lovely ladies, who allowed him to go first.

Alas. The first gentleman, the one who had ostensibly been already checked out, had some issues. There was a problem with one of the prices on his bill, and then there was a problem with one of his items. This problem was such that customer service needed to be called, but it was ten days before Christmas, and customer service was slow to respond. I coped by talking to the woman in front of me, who informed me that the reason she had so many groceries was because she was a) hosting a dinner for thirteen that very evening, and b) hosting a dinner for 160 at her church on the weekend. While I digested that information, we talked about her pink hoodie dress, her boots, and the raspberry Bubly in her cart. She realized she forgot eggs; I told her I would hold her spot until she came back. My offer was not one of significance, because by the time she came back we were still waiting for customer service for the first gentleman; the one who we allowed to go ahead of us was still standing there awkwardly holding his basket, waiting. Probably he thought it would be faster if he just left and found another, less-problematic lineup, but likely he did not want to throw our unfortunately meaningless Christmas gifts back in our faces.

Twenty minutes later, it was the lady’s turn, and unfortunately for me, it turned out AFTER the cashier had gotten through half the items that the woman remembered she needed her items separated into two different bills, one for her own personal party and one for the church’s, and so everything needed to be voided and re-entered. At that point I had a really hard time remembering the little chickadee.

If I were a poet I would be able to craft a beautifully haunting poem about the wide variety of the human experience, but I’m me, and I can tell you, I was feeling pretty salty by the time I loaded up my car. I had to aggressively listen to a podcast on holiday decor on my way home and then equally aggressively put together my daily Advent dog-themed puzzle before I could settle myself down and regain a sliver of my holiday spirit.

Ah, life. Sometimes it’s like this:

And then sometimes it’s this:

Here we are, one week until Christmas, can we even believe it? Last week my older son wrote four finals in 47 hours, and so he came home for a few days to decompress before heading back to prepare for his last final, late this week. I used that opportunity to corral the troops into, as alluded to earlier, our annual tradition of gingerbread decorating.

There was some interesting creativity this year – not from me, never from me – and yet not a single one with anything obscene written on it. We are growing as people.

Weekly Reading

A Manual For Cleaning Women. Someone mentioned this book, and now I can’t remember who. Was it you? Anyway, I do enjoy a collection of short stories, particularly linked short stories, but I want you to know that the word for this isn’t “enjoyable.” These autobiographically-inspired stories are well written and incredibly moving, but holy moly they are gritty. This is a grim and gritty book about mining towns, alcoholism, poverty, and illness. Huge content warnings ahoy for pretty much everything but particularly infanticide (whew, that was a ROUGH story to read), graphic descriptions of the physical side of alcoholism, child abuse, sexual abuse, domestic abuse, and a really gross story about pulling out teeth. I’m not squeamish about teeth in general but this had me feeling queasy. So, yes, a talented author and excellently written, but DARK AND GRITTY. Possibly not the right thing to read in December, is what I’m saying.

But Have You Read The Book? After the last book, I desperately needed something light and fluffy and that did not require thinking. This was PERFECT. I have never been reticent about my general dislike for book-to-screen adaptations; there are only a couple that I actually enjoy. But who knew so many movies were book-to-screen adaptations! Certainly not me (Mildred Pierce, really?). Anyway, this is a fun little book put out by TCM that talks about 52 movies that were made from books. Of the 52 titles, I have read OR seen 25, and of those I have read AND seen only five (Little Women, Clueless (Emma), One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, The Godfather, and The Color Purple). If you’re a movie buff – or know one, this would make a great gift – this is a book you’ll enjoy, particularly if you love older movies. Birchy (HI BIRCHY) I’m looking at YOU.

Contemporary Canadian Women’s Short Stories. All the short stories in this collection were written by Canadian women, which, hello, checks a lot of boxes for me. This did NOT disappoint. Of course my favourites Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood are featured, both in stories that I have read independently many times, but I was excited to see stories from the two women who taught the online creative writing courses I took this fall. I felt like Buddy the Elf: I KNOW THEM, I KNOW THEM! (I don’t really but kind of?). As with any short story collection with a variety of authors, there were some stories I absolutely loved, and some I did not. A couple of stories were incredibly moving but the subject matter was so upsetting I had to take a break and do something else for a while. If you love CanLit and women’s writing and short stories, this is a marvellous collection.

I get asked a lot about books – here for it! – and I was thinking, maybe there are other questions my dear readers may have. To that end, I am doing an Ask Me Anything! If you have a question for me, please fill out this form; I thought this would be a fun thing to do post-holidays. I will answer pretty much anything, books included! Then again, you may be thinking god no, I already know too much, in which case, well, I understand.

I shall conclude with a small addendum from last Friday’s post. After writing I was slightly concerned that my memory of the alien Christmas movie was part of a fever dream of childhood, but IT WAS NOT. Dailycrossword (HI DAILYCROSSWORD) who, coincidentally, grew up in Alberta, also remembered that movie, called A Cosmic Christmas. As soon as I saw the photos I was instantly transported (cosmically?) back to it. I had misremembered part of the plot, which involved the theft of a pet goose by the town bully who – in a bullies are bullied plot point – stole it because he was hungry. Ah, pet slaughter for food. Again, so much to unpack. But the part about the human chain to pull the child out of the frozen lake and the aliens helping, discovering for themselves the true meaning of Christmas was accurate. Wishing everyone holiday spirit this week, and no falling through the ice into hypothermia-inducing water, metaphorically or otherwise. xo