I guess it’s the price I have to pay for travelling, but I am just getting over a head cold. This is the first time, other than our brief bout with Covid, that I have been sick since October 2018, when I came down with the flu exactly one week before my scheduled flu shot. I had a good run of good health, but sheesh, I forgot just how irritating a cold can be. There’s no way out but through, I thought as I dug out my Neti rinse and nighttime Advil. Well, my tissue usage is now approaching normal, I can laugh without it ending in a coughing fit, and although downward dog still makes me feel like my sinuses might explode, a Peloton ride no longer makes me feel like my lungs are on actual fire and has me mentally going over signs you may be having a heart attack.
So, books! I haven’t had a book update in – checks blog – OVER TWO WEEKS, IS THAT RIGHT? No wonder I have so many to go through! Here we go!
Beautiful Country. I was absolutely not prepared for this. Wow. This is a memoir of a woman who was brought to New York at age 7, and who lived an illegal and undocumented life there. I was not prepared to read about the abject poverty, the complete lack of health and dental care, the hunger and malnutrition, and the absence of clothing and hygiene, experienced by a small child. She’s not alone of course. I just wasn’t prepared to read about it, nor the sweatshops her parents worked in to eke out a meager existence, living in constant fear of deportation. Her parents were professors in China, fleeing a system in which they could not speak freely. Professors, turned sweatshop workers, for very little. This is a terribly sad story, and it’s one that happens every day. The author herself is incredibly inspiring and a wonderful writer.
Marrying The Ketchups.Lisa (HI LISA) recommended this and I’m so glad she did – it’s perfectly light and lovely, with a big dash of hopeful optimism. It centres on a large family and their restaurant, and the story begins after three things happen: the patriarch dies, the Cubs win the world series, and you know who wins the 2016 presidential collection. It follows the adult grandchildren and their lives and relationships and it’s so REAL I felt like I knew them personally.
I Miss You When I Blink. Elisabeth (HI ELISABETH) mentioned this book and as soon as she said “memoir” and “essays” I was 100% in. I like a good memoir and I like a good essay! The author is a woman who seemingly had it all and believed with enough hard work comes happiness. Instead, she found herself longing to make a change. It’s part mid-life crisis, part charming anecdotes, and part self-deprecating humour. Some essays resonated, some didn’t, but I do love different perspectives as well as the acknowledgment that “one person’s more-sad doesn’t cancel out another person’s less-sad.” Truth!
Interpreter of Maladies. I actually recently read the title short story recently, as it was featured in David Sedaris’ collection Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules. This is a fantastic collection of stories about Bengali people living far from home, and their experiences as immigrants and in going back to India. I loved it!
Confessions of a Prairie Bitch. WHOA NELLIE!!! I listen to a podcast called Gen X, This Is Why, where they recap Little House on the Prairie episodes, and this book was mentioned. Of course I had to read it – who didn’t love to hate Nellie Olson? This memoir was so much fun to read. I was shocked to learn that Alison Arngrim had an incredibly traumatic childhood full of sexual and physical abuse, but she has overcome those traumas to become a children’s activist, as well as an AIDS activist. These are heavy, heavy topics, but she writes with a lightness and humour that is impossible to resist. Her behind-the-scenes stories about Little House are so wonderful. Mary really WAS snooty and awful, and Carrie really couldn’t speak well! It’s a great book and I recommend it to all Little House fans.
Mindy Kaling: Nothing Like I Imagined, Essays. There are six of these essays but I didn’t want to post every photo. Just know that these are lovely, light essays by a beloved celebrity.
The Namesake. This book. THIS BOOK! This was just incredible. What a beautiful story about identity, change, assimilation, and the many directions life can take us. I don’t know if it’s this time of year or what, but I found I was identifying so strongly with one of the characters near the end of the book that I had to just stare out into space, teary-eyed, for a long while. This is a gorgeous book and I really didn’t expect it to take the turns that it did.
There! I’m all caught up on my “books read,” and maybe some of those will appeal to you as well! More to come on Monday. xo
I have noticed throughout my life that whenever I secretly judge something, it always comes back to haunt me. I’m not talking about things I judge loudly, like not returning a shopping cart, but things I silently think that I will never do myself. I have long since abandoned such thoughts about parenting in particular, because I have learned that all I have to do to curse myself is to think I would NEVER let my kid do that or similar, and the thing happens.
One thing I have silently judged for as long as I can remember is people who travel with only carryon luggage; not the people with slim and light bags, but the people who take the maximum size possible and then jam that suitcase into the overhead compartment, leaving no room and no little inconvenience for the people around them. For god’s sake, I would think, meanly and with great resentment as I was forced to squash my tiny bag under the seat in front of me, Just pay the $25 and be done with it.
Well, here we are, in the summer of 2022, and the resounding chorus from anyone who has travelled is that a) their luggage got lost and was never found, b) their luggage was lost but was returned to them on the last day of vacation, rendering it essentially useless, and c) they waited for an hour to get their luggage at the airport terminal, while exhausted and already late due to a delayed flight. C is the Best Case Scenario.
My husband and I just got back yesterday from a long-anticipated trip to Mexico. We had a family vacation there planned in March of 2020, which turned into – after vaccines became available and we were so optimistic for the future – one for March of 2022, which would have coincided with both our 20th anniversary and our older son’s 18th birthday. We cancelled that trip in January 2022, what with everything going on, and it was lucky we did, as my son tested positive for Covid the day before we would have been due to leave. We decided to turn it into a vacation for just the two of us, and I have much to tell you about. First, though, luggage.
I am a notorious overpacker. For one thing, we have the kind of credit card that gives free checked luggage with every flight, which exposes my just pay the $25 thought process as privileged and tone-deaf. In any case, even before the free luggage benefit, I’ve never given it a second thought. Six black tank tops? Why not! Five pairs of shoes? Sure! When we travel by car, we take my minivan, which is generally stuffed full. But I will tell you this: the only thing that makes me feel more anxious than travelling without a giant suitcase full of my favourite things from home is LOSING that giant suitcase full of my favourite things from home. Therefore, given all the Lost Luggage Drama that has been a trademark of this summer’s travel, and with a lot of encouragement and tips from my friend Janet (HI JANET) I was determined that I could do it. I could do it! I could! I could go Carryon Only. Here’s how a terrible, spoiled overpacker ate her own words and went to Mexico with only a carryon suitcase and a smile.
Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Carryon Only Edition
Hold Me Closer, Tiny Toiletry Bottles
The biggest thing holding me back from taking only a carryon is, of course, toiletries. It will not surprise anyone to know that I use a wide variety of liquid-form toiletries and hair products on a daily basis, and, of course, that is something that is very restricted in carryon luggage.
Aside from the fact that I have an environmental issue with those tiny plastic bottles of toiletries, they seem to be following in the footsteps of lemon juice and popcorn, in that they are very hard to find right now. I don’t know what the Trial and Travel section looks like in your local drugstore, but I have visited a few in the past month and mine are largely empty swaths of space, interspersed with the occasional basket containing tiny bottles of Pert Plus and mouthwash, a few brands of tiny toothpaste, and, strangely, mini-spray-deodorants.
Janet clued me in to companies that sell little refillable bottles for exactly these purposes, and so of course I bought a few sets. I even found one that had little tiny SPRAY bottles, so I could fill them with my hair products. I did buy couple of tiny toothpastes, because what are you going to do, but most of my other products I just squeezed into the little bottles. Sunscreen was the biggest challenge but my favourite Ultra Sheer Neutrogena sunscreen is in a smallish bottle anyway, and I figured we could probably just buy sunscreen, if push came to shove.
My husband is a person who can travel with almost no toiletries; he’s happy to use whatever the hotel or resort supplies, which feels like a risky business to me, but which also meant that he could take a few of my things in his luggage.
I couldn’t decide between the pretty little silicone bottles or the ones with the case, so I got both. But check out the labels that came with them:
Are we bringing our own sauces with us? If so, it’s good that there is a label for it; we would hate to confuse a condiment with a body wash, and vice versa.
Waterproof Mascaras and the Wipes That Love Them
I don’t wear waterproof mascara very often, but it’s a must in Mexico, what with the humidity and the swimming. I recently bought the waterproof version of Maybelline’s Great Lash mascara in a fit of nostalgia; I used that mascara exclusively in my junior high years entirely due to an article in Sassy magazine about the Fancy Hollywood Makeup Artists who swore by it. You know what, it is a really good mascara; there is a lot of bang for the buck here.
When I use waterproof mascara at home I use a liquid remover with a microfibre cloth, but that seemed like a ridiculous waste of liquid packing space, so I decided to buy makeup remover wipes. I know! I know. They are environmentally terrible, but this is a special occasion and I promise I won’t do it again. It is well documented that I love Neutrogena everything, and so I bought these wipes and gave them a trial run before I left. They do the job perfectly; not a trace of mascara was left on my lashes, and no irritation around the eye area either.
Gleaming The Packing Cubes
My friend Kim (HI KIM), who travels a lot, mentioned packing cubes in a Facebook post as being “life-changing,” and so of course I investigated, and bought myself a set in a very pretty blue. Kim was RIGHT. Such a simple thing and yet it kept my little suitcase perfectly organized; I don’t tend to unpack when we are in vacation, choosing instead to literally live out of my suitcase, and these cubes made it so easy to find what I needed each day. Swimsuits in one cube! Dresses in another! Underwear in a third!
Plus, the set came with a dirty laundry bag and a little makeup bag, which I used for my very-pared-down-for-the-trip makeup items.
Compression Digression
If you have known me for any length of time, you know all about my circulation issues. If you’re new, hi! Welcome! Also, I have circulation issues! These issues crested into “the worst case of varicose veins I have ever seen on such a young woman,” as the surgeon who stripped them back in 2011 said; that stripping should have been the end of it, but I am a special flower who has developed new ones, to the alarm of my current physician. Too long, didn’t read; I wear compression stockings or calf sleeves a lot, but particularly when travelling to ward off blood clots and, I guess, death. The compression stockings I wear for flying are pretty hard-core; they take significant effort to put on and take off, and they look exactly like something my grandma would wear. Thick, “nude” stockings, what could be more stylish?
My husband: You can barely tell you’re wearing them!
Me: silently wonders if my husband is losing his vision.
The ones I wore for the flight to Mexico were thigh-high, as opposed to my full-on pantyhose stockings, which I wore on the way back, because I wanted to be able to easily (or, “easily”) peel them off in the airport bathroom to shove into my bag when we got to our destination. Wearing a skirt meant this was easy to do, and as a bonus the skirt also hides the invariable bulge at the top of the stocking. Vanity should have no place in this situation but it does.
Canadian friends: I have found it to be a terrible pain to buy medical grade stockings here. If you want anything more than light grade knee-highs, a prescription is needed, which I have, but then it’s a matter of getting measured at a pharmacy, and ordering them, and it’s just a pain. Easier and cheaper – even given the exchange rate – is ordering them from the US; I like this website.
Kindle The Reading Fire
I am going to preface this by admitting that I used to say I would NEVER use an e-reader, never. I like books! I like pages! My husband bought a Kindle back in 2012, and it has sat unused for the past several years in a drawer. Last year, a very lovely friend (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE) sent me her very wonderful manuscript to beta-read, and the best way for me to read it was on an e-reader. It turns out that, like many other things I said I would never enjoy, I really liked reading that way. Don’t get me wrong: I still much prefer paper books. But with limited luggage and also reading outside with sunglasses as opposed to reading glasses, the old Kindle (with large font) was just the ticket. I loved how I could load it up, and pop it into my bag.
The only problem is that a ten-year-old piece of technology is very SLOW when it comes to uploads. I think if we are going to travel more I am going to put a new Kindle on my Christmas list.
Safety, Measurements
When flying, there are so many safety measures in place, and those two words made me think of the two posts that I read this month that really stayed with me, but in very different ways.
Erin (HI ERIN) wrote an incredible piece about the meaning of safety in childhood, drawing on her own experiences, and it is very powerful and moving. I found myself holding my breath while reading, and reminding myself to breathe through the difficult parts.
As I thought about people, myself included now, I guess, shoving their carryon luggage in the overhead compartments and maximizing every last inch of space, this hilarious post about the meaning of an inch popped into my head. I think we can ALL relate.
I have so much to talk to you about! The flight! The trip! The books I read! The leaving of my teenage children to their own devices for five days! But those things will have to wait, as I have much to do to catch up on life! Soon. I promise! xo
This week, the first after getting home from vacation, has been so satisfying. I’ve been getting Back Into Routine, crossing things off the to-do list, and gardening. My neighbour very kindly checked the house and watered the garden while I was gone, but of course there was much to be done after two weeks away. I have harvested one zucchini, and there are many, many more tiny ones on the plants, which grew so big that Salvadore was completely hidden; I had to move him to a different bed in order to enjoy his gnomeiness. I have two little peppers on my plants, and I had my first of many pea and tomato harvests.
I like to leave the house nice and clean when we leave for vacation as it makes reentry so much nicer; I make especial efforts to ensure the garbage and compost bins are empty and that the fridge only contains long-dated items. Unfortunately, and inexplicably, the jug of milk was something I forgot to deal with before leaving, and there was what can only be described as a science project in the three inches of milk left in the fridge. Ew. Chunky.
On that note, let’s get back to The Big Project. Previously on The Big Project, I had cleaned out my clothing closet and made a few rules for future shopping. This is, I feel, the easy part. It’s the rest of the house that will require some serious effort and also, is kind of boring. I like clothes! I am a bit daunted by other household items.
The next step in The Big Project, that I haven’t yet taken, is to go through my kitchen and donate my excess containers – the kids really do not need tiny snack containers at this stage of our lives – and to really assess the pantry situation.
And what a situation it is.
I have been working my way towards having Just One Backup of staple food and cleaning products, although I do make an exception for things I tend to need multiples of: canned beans and chickpeas, for example, for weeks in which I would need more than one can, or dish soap, which I appear to go through at an alarming rate. I have successfully gotten down to one backup of each of coffee and the various oils, vinegars, and sauces I use regularly, one bag each of flour, sugar, and rice, and one container of vitamins for each person in the house (we all have different brands). I still have a few extra nut butters and jars of vegan mayonnaise and salsa, as well as sundried tomatoes and, weirdly, mustard, but I’m sure we will get through them in due time. Tissues and toilet paper I purchase in large multipacks, and I try to have just one of those in backup.
Small digression: I was visiting with my husband’s aunt – who lives alone – a few weeks ago, and she told me that in the early stages of the pandemic she would purchase a large package of toilet paper every time she saw one available, not unlike me with twenty-five pound bags of flour. At one point she looked at her stockpile of toilet paper and thought oops. That stockpile of toilet paper lasted her a year and a half. I think we can all understand this. For reasons unknown to me, I have enough boxes of ziploc bags to last until I have headed for The Home or shuffled off this mortal coil, whichever comes first. I rarely use ziploc bags but somehow have a number of Costco three-packs in my pantry, in a variety of sizes, which must have been a Pandemic Purchase, but I cannot for the life of me recall my thinking on this matter. I may just give them away on our community Buy Nothing page. Either that, or I’ll leave them for my possible future grandchildren to discover upon my demise. Oh look, here’s Grandma’s wedding dress and…seven hundred ziploc bags. Huh. Will ziploc bags even exist fifty years from now? Who can say.
No matter. I have been working hard to not purchase things of which I already have backups (or, in some cases, several backups), and mostly, I have done well. I am trying to get back to my pre-pandemic consumption patterns and it is a Journey.
However, I have confessions to make. Friends, I am sorry to tell you that my Just One Backup vow has failed miserably in three notable areas: lemon juice, popcorn, and dried fruit. The last item, I give a pass – the dried fruit I love (strawberries and something that is cheerfully called Fruit Medley) is only available a couple times a year at Costco, and so I stock up when I can. This is my very valid excuse for having ten bags in my pantry at this time; it will last me for months, hopefully until the next time they come available.
As I mentioned briefly a little while ago, there was a strange blip in the lemon juice world, or at least, in my lemon juice world. Suddenly, there was no lemon juice anywhere. My brain immediately went from let’s just pick up one backup to PANIC PANIC PANIC. Let us refer to the lessons from the Minnesota Starvation Experiment as a precedent for the weird obsessions we get when something is not available to us. When I found store brand lemon juice, I bought it. When I found tiny little environmentally-disastrous plastic squeeze lemons, I bought them. My mom saw lemon juice at her grocery store and bought me two bottles. I now have seven bottles of lemon juice in my pantry and a few weeks ago it was back, available at Costco. Even with seven bottles in backup, I had a really hard time NOT buying the two-pack at Costco, and I know many of you can empathize with this. I especially feel bereft as it has not been available at Superstore this whole past month, and I noticed it was not there last week when I was at Costco. What if I can never buy it again, what have I done seems to be my thinking.
The other item that has been very difficult to buy recently is popcorn. Popcorn! Boom Chicka Pop has been largely unavailable for a few months now, so I have snapped up substitute bags here and there when I could. I am sorry to say that on my last trip to Superstore there was neither Skinny Pop nor Lesser Evil available, proving that I have indeed cursed us all by supporting ridiculously-named companies that apply moral values to food products. I currently have twelve (12!) bags of popcorn of various flavours and brands in my pantry, so it’s probably good that it’s currently unavailable. I mean, we all love popcorn but twelve bags is pretty excessive. WE JUST NEED TO WORK OUR WAY THROUGH WHAT WE HAVE, PEOPLE.
You may notice I haven’t mentioned the elephant in the room – sriracha. The sriracha shortage is a little unsettling, but not as unsettling as the environmental reason for the shortage. In any case, two of us here really like sriracha, and I have half a large bottle in the fridge with NO backup, but I think with careful rationing we should easily be able to make it into September, when it is supposed to become available again. We have two bottles of chili garlic sauce, and that should be a decent substitute, should we require one.
So I do need to go through the Very Full Pantry to see if there’s anything to be donated – ziploc bags! – and I vow not to purchase anything else until I am down to the last backup (but what if lemon juice and popcorn become instantly available, WHAT THEN), but I do have a food-related success story to share. I have cleaned out my freezer! I have discarded all freezer-burned items or items of questionable origin! I also have a dead freezer.
About a month ago I came home from the lake and my husband greeted me with the following: Nicole, you have to go look at the freezer. It won’t stop beeping and the temperature is rising. People, my freezer, my ten-year-old freezer, DIED. Without warning. As you might imagine, it was very full, and so I jumped into action. Fortunately we have a bar fridge-sized freezer from our early-marriage-child-free days, and after plugging it in we ascertained that it still works. I rearranged everything in the two fridge freezers and between those and the tiny freezer I managed to save most things, the exceptions being anything that I couldn’t recall purchasing or that was fuzzy with frost.
This is where I’ll mention that my mother-in-law still has the chest freezer she got as a newlywed in 1962, and it still works, although it probably uses more power than anything else in the house combined. STILL. Ten years, and I guess that old freezer is going to end up in the landfill? I don’t know what will happen to it when the New Freezer Delivery Guys take it away. I hope it will go for parts or something, but who would know. WHO WOULD KNOW.
Nonetheless, I’m counting this as a win. When my new freezer arrives, I am going to put nothing in it that cannot be consumed within a few months, mark my words. It’s a chance for a Fresh Start and I am not going to throw that away.
Weekly Reading
Children Playing Before A Statue Of Hercules. This collection, curated by my much-loved David Sedaris, is comprised of his favourite short stories and the proceeds of which go to an educational charity in NYC, which made me glad that I received this as a Christmas gift, rather than borrowing it from the library. If you love short stories like I do, you will not be disappointed. It is really excellent and it contains a few authors that I had never heard of, let alone read. One of my own favourite authors, Alice Munro, is featured; the story chosen isn’t my number one favourite, but it’s so good. Granted, as Sedaris says in the introduction, how can you choose just ONE Alice Munro story? Anyway, I loved this; every story is unique but they are all linked by the theme of class structures and societal constraints due to them.
Thick. This was such a powerful and important collection of essays about being a black woman in America. The author is an esteemed academic and her brilliance comes through in her writing, which is very thoughtful and readable, in addition to being very well researched. An important read for anyone, to be sure, but particularly for a very privileged white woman, like myself. I will be thinking about these essays for a long time to come, particularly one about her experience with prenatal and maternal “health care” that ended in a breathtakingly tragic way.
I am hoping to start on my cull of excess containers (and ziploc bags!) and organization of the pantry this week; will I, though? That remains to be seen! I hope you are having a lovely August so far. xo
I got a lot of reading done on my recent vacation, and as always, I wanted to share that with you.
Enough Already. I enjoyed this easy-to-read memoir by Valerie Bertenelli, in which she describes coming to terms with her body and appearance. I think the lessons she learns will resonate with all women; namely, you’re not going to be magically happy when you lose those mystical ten pounds, if you’re not happy now. I guess I didn’t remember that she was a Jenny Craig spokesperson at one point, and had posed in a bikini for People magazine; her self-worth has been tied to her appearance for her entire life. That’s what happens when you grow up on national television, I suppose, but I also think that most – if not all – women could relate to this. Anyway, it’s a book about self-care, learning to love yourself, and nourishing your soul, and you all know THAT IS MY JAM. So I did like that a lot. It’s also kind of a love letter to Eddie Van Halen, which is really interesting. Apparently their relationship improved a lot AFTER their divorce, and they remained loving friends until his death. There is not much about her second husband, but it kind of felt like they might have been separated or divorcing while she was writing this book, much of which takes place during the early days of the pandemic. She includes some recipes, and I had no idea she had her own cooking show and cookbooks. It’s a nice easy read with some great life lessons in it.
Plucked: A History of Hair Removal. Hair removal and the history thereof is a topic that I am genuinely fascinated by, and this did not disappoint! I always wondered, watching Downton Abbey, if the girls’ smooth underarms in their sheer dresses was historically accurate AND IT WAS! Underarm and lower leg hair removal was all the rage at the time. In fact, depilatories were popular in the nineteenth century for facial hair, although they contained arsenic and often led to disfigurement, illness, and death. But they effectively removed hair! I also have always wondered about trends – how did we go from the groomed 50s to the here baby, there mama, everywhere daddy daddy hair of the 60s and 70s, to the shaped yet gloriously luxuriant lady shrubbery of the 80s and 90s to the Brazilian of 2000s. It’s a journey! It was just so interesting, all the political and societal implications of hair growth and lack thereof, plus the absolutely horrifying lengths that people have gone to in order to become smooth and hairless, and not just the arsenic-laced depilatories. I loved the acknowledgements too: the author dedicates the book to her mother, who “…attuned me to the mystery and beauty of being alive; I, in turn, offer a few lines of dedication in an academic monograph on hair removal. So it goes.”
Jameela Green Ruins Everything. This was such a good satire about, of all things, ISIS and terrorism. You wouldn’t think it would be funny and informative, given the subject, but here we are. I admit I almost didn’t make it through the first chapter, because it dealt with woman-on-woman dislike, dating back to high school, and I hate that kind of thing. I hate it. Can we all just move past things that happened in high school? Can we all just stop judging appearances and being threatened by others’ successes or being happy with others’ failures? COME ON. Anyway, once I moved past that chapter, that little theme mostly dropped out, and I’m glad I didn’t quit. It was very entertaining! Plus, the author lives in Regina and is the creator of Little Mosque on the Prairie, which – true confessions – I have never watched, but I like when I see a Canadian woman be successful, particularly a Canadian woman of colour from the Prairies.
Swimming Home. I have only ever read Levy’s memoirs; this is the first of her novels I’ve read, and it was compelling, dark, rich, and surprising. It’s the kind of book you could analyze for days, if you were in an English class. Major trigger warning: suicidal ideation and depression.
Calories and Corsets. I always think of diet culture as being a fairly recent phenomenon, but it sure isn’t. This is a very interesting look at the history of diet culture, and the “fixes” that have been in place to achieve the popular figure of the day. It’s also a good reminder that “quick fixes” are harmful to our bodies and that there are just so many factors that go into our outer appearances.
My Name Is Lucy Barton. Back in April, I bought Strout’s latest, Oh William, and I have been mentally saving it for vacation. Before reading it, though, I wanted to reread the two books that come before it: this one, and Anything Is Possible. It is not a series exactly, but it deals with the same characters and their lives. It has been a few years since I read the first two, so I thought I would go for a refresher. My Name Is Lucy Barton is just SO good. Imagine being able to write like Elizabeth Strout! It’s breathtaking. I’ve read this three times and I can’t even describe it; there’s no plot to speak of, but the character development is so layered and nuanced. The main character is in the hospital and is visited by her mother, and through their conversations around people from “back home,” we get a very intense picture of Lucy’s previous life, one of poverty and abuse, and that does NOT sound appealing, but it actually is a very excellent and thought-provoking book.
Anything Is Possible. While My Name Is Lucy Barton deals with Lucy and her life in New York, this book deals with the people mentioned by her and her mother, in small-town Illinois. Again, this is not a plot-driven book; it is more of a series of vignettes that are all interconnected. If the theme of Lucy Barton is mothers and daughters, this would be more about people who leave and people who stay, and the secrets that we all have and the traumas, big and small, that inform the way we live.
Oh William! Finally! The long-awaited Oh William! This book is an exploration of the relationship between Lucy Barton and her former husband, William. They discover some things about William’s past and the little turn in the “plot,” (there is, again, not much of a plot), was something I didn’t see coming but I have been thinking about a lot. This did not disappoint, and as always with Strout’s writing, it is beautiful and so very thick and nuanced. One of the themes is safety; who do we feel safe with, how do we create a life with other people. Of the three books, Lucy Barton is my favourite, but I really enjoyed the other two as well.
None of these books were what I would consider Beach Reads, but most were quick reads and I liked them all. Have you read anything good lately? xo
Longtime readers may remember the great Life Changing Magic I experienced, back in 2016, accomplished merely by Tidying Up. I Kondo-ed my entire house that year, section by section, and then followed that with the No-Shopping Challenge of 2017-18. The two experiences, together, really changed my consumer behaviour for the better. I became incredibly mindful of all purchases, but particularly clothing purchases. I bought clothes and shoes with intention. In terms of household items, I established a routine wherein I would have one backup in storage of all food or cleaning staples, and when I used that backup, I would add the item to my shopping list. This worked really well for me. Nothing expired or got freezer-burned, my clothes were all pieces that I loved, and I didn’t have a cupboard full of useless products, bought on a whim.
Then the pandemic hit.
I know I don’t have to tell you how it affected my personal consumer behaviour, because it probably affected yours in the same way; the mere idea that there could be a shortage of an item was enough to make me panic and buy that item whenever it was available, no matter that I already had a backup of that item, or, in some cases, several backups of that item. At one point I had one hundred pounds of flour in the house – four twenty-five pound bags, I just kept picking up a bag every time it was available – and although I do indeed bake a lot, that is really too much flour for a family of four. It was at that point I told myself that I could not buy any more until I had used up the last backup, and I kept to it.
Flour wasn’t the only thing I panicked about; I still have a lot of baking powder and, bizarrely, cream of tartar. I could make enough play-dough for every preschool program in the city at this point. My freezers were all full and so was my pantry, and I realized that all my good and reasonable consumption patterns had taken a turn.
I definitely needed a reset when it came to purchases, particularly in the area of groceries and household products. At the beginning of the pandemic, I bought some non-hippie cleaning supplies when they became available – remember how we couldn’t get things like Lysol? – and because I usually use my natural, hippie, probably-isn’t-effectively-killing-germs-but-they-smell-nice cleaners, I still have those bottles, unused, in my cupboard.
Then I read The Curated Closet and, looking at my own overflowing closet, it was like a little light went off in my head. Time for a project, and not just a project, but A Big Project. I needed to Change My Life, again.
I started with what can only be described as a mix between the Kon-Mari method, the Curated Closet ideology, and Swedish Death Cleaning. I apologize for referring to my own eventual demise two weeks in a row, but I promise you I am not planning to shuffle off this mortal coil just yet. However, I did have a what am I keeping this for moment while looking at some of my things, remembering when my grandma was moved into long-term care from her apartment. In cleaning out her apartment, there were so many items that, sadly, no one had use for. I want someone to use the things I have, even if it’s not me using them.
One of my friends was collecting linens and the like for a couple of charitable projects of her own, and so I made the plunge and donated four full sets of old towels and three blankets that I was keeping for no particular reason. Well, there was a reason for the towels: my thinking was that in case our basement ever flooded, I would have extra towels to mop up the water. For context, this has never happened, and we have lived in this house for 22 years. Our basement got slightly wet near a single window back in 2005, the summer I was pregnant with my younger son, and that was due to an enormous amount of rain and a malfunction of our eavestroughs. Those eavestroughs have long since been fixed, and being our basement didn’t even get a drop of water during Calgary’s 2013 flood, I felt that four extra sets of towels, particularly ones that are never used, were just too many towels.
After that, I had momentum going for me. I tackled my closet and dressers, and believe me, that is a task in itself. I tend to buy quality, non-trendy pieces that last a long time, which means I have many things that are over a decade old, but still are in great shape. I have been the same size for probably fifteen years, but my body shape has changed, if that makes sense, so some of those items, while they technically fit, did not feel good at best or felt unflattering at worst.
I made a vow to keep only pieces that I love and that make me feel, if not gorgeous, at least cute. LOVE means different things, right? The love I feel for my husband and kids is different from the love I feel for a glass of cabernet franc, or for coconut milk ice cream. Similarly, the love I feel for a fabulous black dress is different than the love I feel for a cute old tee, emblazoned with the words Shine On, that I wear when I am gardening. But the key to cleaning out my closet was I wanted nothing in there that I didn’t love or that I didn’t feel fabulous in. Can you feel fabulous in yoga pants and a sweatshirt? I think you can, because I do, albeit in a different way than when I’m in a dress and heels. Different costumes for different activities! Gardening clothes are different from workout wear, and both are different from going-out clothes, but different doesn’t mean better or worse. Right? My body shape is different, but that doesn’t mean it’s any better or worse than five or ten years ago.
In an effort to show the clothes I love some love, I bought a big set of velvet hangers, got rid my mishmash of plastic and wire hangers – NO! WIRE! HANGERSSSSSSS! – and took every item out of my closet and dressers. When I wasn’t sure about something – a dress I hadn’t worn for years, for example – I tried it on and if I didn’t feel spectacular, I put it in the donation pile. If I felt meh about a piece, I put it in the donation pile. I thought, if it doesn’t Spark Joy or I don’t Love It, it goes. The hardest part was getting rid of sweaters that were expensive to start with, even if I had gotten a lot of wear out of them. But there were some that I just didn’t love anymore, for whatever reason, and I thanked them for their service and hoped they found their way into the closet of someone who would love them.
Fortunately for me, in the middle of this the Kidney Foundation happened to call to see if I had any donations; this was their haul, three of those bags being from my sons’ cull of their respective closets.
One of the rules from The Curated Closet is to carefully examine your wardrobe, identify gaps or needs, then – and only then – make careful, measured purchases. I have to say, in a completely honest way, that I have no gaps or needs, even after this massive cull. You guys, I have a lot of clothes. It’s ridiculous. I am not going to go on another No Shopping Year, mostly because if I do I fear my mother will disown me and my husband will leave me, but I have made a few rules for the next year, starting May 27, which is when I began The Big Project.
No quick purchases. If there is something I think I need in the clothing department, I am going to wait at least a week to purchase it to see if I can be without it. Chances are I already have several similar items in my closet; i.e., my twenty black sweaters and thirty-two black tees in a variety of sleeve lengths and fits.
Socks and underwear are exempt from Rule #1. Those items can be purchased whenever required.
Seasonal essentials are somewhat exempt from Rule #1; I have many, many pairs of gloves and scarves and hats, but should I require something that will allow me to live my vida hygge, or friluftsliv, I shall not hesitate.
Decent footwear is vital to my well-being, and if any of my current sandals, shoes, running shoes, or winter boots wear out, they can be immediately replaced.
If it doesn’t make me feel fabulous, it doesn’t belong in the closet. This means new purchases, yes, but it also means I need to assess my old favourites from time to time, as my body changes with perimenopause.
So here I am, almost two months into the Rules already, and I have kept to them so far! The next step is dealing with the pantry and household goods; stay tuned.
Weekly Reading
Hooked. This was so interesting; the cover somewhat suggests one of those weird lecture-style books about the dangers of food, but it was not like that at all. Instead, it’s a smart and well-researched book on the nature of addiction, the role memory plays in our eating lives, and corporate manipulation. There is a lot about the processed food industry, and a sideline about the famous McDonalds lawsuit. I was excited to read about Indra Noori and PepsiCo, whose memoir I had recently read. Noori famously worked towards bringing healthier choices to PepsiCo, and was lauded for it by everyone BUT Wall Street. That was a detail that was not in her memoir, and apparently one of the reasons she stepped down in 2018. Investors, apparently, wanted more of those crazy unhealthy multi-product items on the menu.
Tacky: Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have To Offer. I put this on my library hold list for a reason, but for the life of me, I cannot remember what that reason was. Did I hear about it on a podcast? Did I read about it in an interview? In any case, it was very, very different from what I was expecting, which was, as it says on the cover, “…a masterly ode to unfettered, unrestrained, and unrepentant joy.” I’m pretty sure I would not use the word “joy” to describe this collection of essays. I was expecting joyful discussion of tacky pop culture, and each essay did circle back to a different piece of pop culture, that’s correct. The author is many years my junior and so the pop culture in question that shaped her youth were things that I vaguely remembered from my twenties and thirties and, in the case of Guy Fieri, my forties. I suppose it’s because of my age that I had that not-unfamiliar motherly/ big sisterly feeling of alarmed disappointment when I read about her frankly quite horrifying and unhealthy exploits. Honey, you deserve better than this, I thought constantly, along with For the love of god, make better choices. So I’m not the desired demographic. I will say that each depressing essay was extremely well-written; the author is a talented essayist, even if I find the content disturbing and sad.
Heart Talk. I am including this in my weekly reading, although I have been reading it, one or two pages at a time, for months, before my yoga practice in the morning. It was a lovely way to start my practice; it’s such a gem of a book about self-care and self-love. Perfect pre-yoga reading!
I hope you are all having a lovely summery week, friends! I am going to leave you with photos of “the twins,” taken on my morning run when I was up at my parents’ place last week. Aren’t they sweet? xo
This is not new information, but I am a strong believer in karma. I really do think that our actions have reactions, and that we get back what we send into the world, for better or worse. How many times have I thought I’d never do THAT and then I find myself in that exact situation, doing exactly that which I have disparaged? The answer is many. Many, many times. I have also said or done things that I have regretted, and that negative karma came right back to bite me, many times in my life.
Related to karma, a subset of karma, if you will, is Cart Karma. I think there are two things most associated with me as a person: the song Landslide, and my incandescent rage at people who do not return shopping carts to the carrel. Well, incandescent rage might be extreme. It really depends on the time of the month and what else is going on in my life at the time; my feelings range from mild irritation to disgust to despair for all humanity to incandescent rage.
When I die, may that be many decades in the future, I want my obituary to request that in lieu of flowers or any kind of charitable donation, my final wish is for people to just return their carts to the carrel. If we all did this, the world would be a much, much better place.
Also, I want Landslide to play at my funeral.
My disgust for non-shopping-cart-returners is so well known that even people I don’t know well send me memes or articles about shopping carts. Last week my dear friend Hannah (HI HANNAH) sent me this article, and it was a Very Satisfying Read. As Hannah said, I love that science basically proved that some people are dicks. Listen, I have All The Empathy for young mothers who have screaming children and for whom every second counts and maybe, maybe, maybe sometimes that means that they don’t return their carts. I give those women a pass. But I think that those women are in the extreme minority, as per my observations in the field. In fact, I have never seen a person with screaming children leave their cart askew, but I believe that they exist.
Most of my shopping is done at Superstore which, happily for my mental state, employs coin-operated shopping carts. You had better believe that even the most dedicated non-shopping-cart-returner will take their cart back to the carrel to get their dollar. I mean, children could be melting down, bombs could be going off inside their car, a tornado could be touching down in the parking lot, and they would still retrieve their loonie. No one in the history of the world has ever not returned a coin-operated cart. I know we would all like to believe that we all naturally want to work together towards the Greater Good, but if parking lots are any indication, Adam Smith was right. We need the Invisible Hand of the coin-operated shopping cart in order to achieve the social benefits and public good of an organized parking lot. Without external financial motivators, all devolves into utter chaos and disorder. It might be disheartening, but it’s true.
My general grocery routine is to visit Superstore weekly, right at their opening time. As I have said, this is good for my mental state, even if Superstore is constantly going through weird and unexpected shortages, that may or may not be pandemic-related. An example very relevant to my life: it has been very hard to get popcorn lately; Boom Chicka Pop has all but disappeared from the shelves, and so I have resorted to Skinny Pop and the ridiculously and kind of offensively-named Lesser Evil. I know. I know. I probably brought the Boom Chicka Pop shortage on myself for purchasing such a stupid item that applies a moral valuation to food, which I am against on principle. But needs must, sometimes.
Every two or three weeks, right after my Superstore visit, I head to Costco which, happily, has an opening time exactly one hour after Superstore. The later I get to Costco, the more disorganized the parking lot is, so for my own psychological health I try to get there as close to nine as possible. But sometimes, it doesn’t happen.
Let’s circle back to Cart Karma. Cart Karma, for those unfamiliar with the concept I have been broaching lo these many years, is that if you rescue a stranded cart from the parking lot, you will have a great shopping experience. I know it’s just one cart among many, but like the story of the child throwing starfish back into the sea, you might not be able to save them all but you can save THIS one. I remind myself of that every shopping trip, as I look in despair at all the carts stranded in parking spaces and awkwardly shoved onto the medians. I can save this one. It can feel overwhelming, but every cart we save makes a difference.
A few weeks ago, this is what I saw:
Even for Costco, this was a new low. You will notice in the background a cart in the parking space: that’s standard. But this, this is in the middle of the ROADWAY where people DRIVE. People driving into the parking lot would have to maneuver their cars around it, and I am not going to live in that kind of world. There were many unsaved carts to choose from but I chose this one. NOT ON MY WATCH, PEOPLE.
I saved that cart and I had a great shopping experience: no lineups, no crowds in the famously-crowded produce section, almond butter at a much-lower price than normal which is notable because everything else is much-higher, and my favourite dried strawberries were available. Dried strawberries are only available a couple times a year, and so even though I am trying not to overstock my pantry, I stocked up. (My husband, later, looked at the receipt with puzzlement. “You spent $58 on strawberries? What…kind of strawberries?” For the record, it was six bags of strawberries and that should last me a solid six months.)
Let us compare that shopping trip to the one before that. I don’t know, I was just exhausted to start out with. It took over ten minutes to just get into the parking lot, as the lineup for the gas station – selling gas at a ten cent discount – snaked through the entrances and precluded anyone from pulling in. By the time I got into the parking lot, with a trunk full of perishable and frozen items from Superstore, I just felt defeated. Faced with all the carts, I slipped into despair for all of humanity, and I couldn’t pull myself up enough to save a cart. I felt like the weight of the world was on my cart-saving shoulders, and I just couldn’t. I walked past all the many stranded carts (pick me, Nicole, pick me!) and took one from the lineup at the entry.
And I had a Very Poor Shopping Experience. Proof! Cart karma works! There were no berries in the produce section, there was no lemon juice – did anyone else notice the blip in Real Lemon supply? – and the lineups were insane. I also had a very strange run-in with a man while I was in the lineup.
It happened when I had been in line for at least eight minutes, and I was next up at the cashier. I was standing the requisite six feet back, giving the fellow in front of me plenty of room to unload. My phone pinged with a text, and I glanced down to look at it. I could hear the man behind me say, somewhat aggressively, “Move your CAAAART.”
Startled, I turned back to look at him, my eyes wide. He gave me a quick smile and said “You know, like that Ikea commercial! Move the caaaaar!” He laughed, like it was a joke, giving me a hand signal that is the Universal Sign of “Go, go.”
Two things: the Ikea commercial in reference is “Get the caaaaaar!” not “Move the caaaaaar!” and also, the fellow in front of me was still unloading and we are in a point in time where we do not crowd other people or bump their legs with our carts. What a time to be alive. Still startled, I nodded politely, and moved my cart forward less than one inch, in the Universal Sign of “I acknowledge your statement, but I shall not acquiesce to your request in any meaningful way.”
This was when I realized that my Cart Karma was lacking, and I had to do something to change it. I turned around and said, in the sweetest possible voice, “You know what, why don’t you go ahead of me? You have so few things and I have so many.” Let me tell you, the look on this gentleman’s face, this person who had behaved rudely but tried to pretend he hadn’t, was worth the price of admission. It was the picture of shock. I insisted he unload, as I moved my cart backwards. He thanked me several times as he unloaded, thanking me again as he wheeled his cart away. I smiled behind my mask, thinking about heaping coals of kindness on my enemy’s head.
It was worth the extra few minutes; by the time I got back to the parking lot I was in a gloriously good mood, despite my lack of lemon juice, and I made every green light on the way home.
Weekly Reading
Sorrow and Bliss. This was a very intense and moving book about a woman living with a hereditary mental illness; the author note states that this is a fictional mental illness, and it is referred to in the book as ____. I found this book compellingly readable and extraordinarily written, but I’m not going to across-the-board recommend it due to trigger warnings all over the place, notably suicide and pregnancy loss. If you’re okay with these topics though, I think you’ll like it. Ultimately, it’s a hopeful book, although it’s a bit of a roller coaster. It really shows how mental illness affects everyone involved, and I found my emotions were all over the place when I read it.
Heating and Cooling. Sometimes I am just blown away by talent, and this was one of those times. This woman can WRITE. I am always amazed at the depth that someone can write, in very few words. I say this after I wrote 1500 words about shopping carts. This book though. It’s a collection of “micro memoirs,” some of which are only a paragraph or two long, and the author conveys a novel’s worth of thought into each one. Absolutely incredible.
The Last Story of Mina Lee. And with that, my streak of incredible books came to a thudding halt. This wasn’t terrible. But neither was it particularly good. It had so much potential – a first generation Korean woman explores her late mother’s stories and life, discovering secrets and finally coming to understand her. It had potential but ultimately fell flat for me.
Also something that sadly fell flat for me? The Elvis movie. I wanted to LOVE it, and it was interesting enough but way too long and with not enough music or details about Elvis’ life. There was SO much detail about Colonel Parker, who was essentially criminal, and I guess that was the point of the movie. But I wanted more Elvis and Priscilla! I will have to look out my old, falling-apart edition of Elvis and Me, I guess. Have a beautiful week, friends! Save a cart! xo
Thank you everyone for your kind words and love on Barkley’s passing. I miss him dreadfully and the house feels so strange, like something’s missing. Probably because something is missing. Because I did a lot of the Dog Care and Maintenance, I am finding myself automatically going to do things – check the water dish, mop up around the water dish, let the dog out, take him for a walk – and then stopping, realizing. It’s a very strange and sad feeling.
This past week was the first week of summer, as the boys had finished exams on the 20th and 22nd of June. We had some beautiful warm days interspersed with cold, incredibly wet and rainy days, which isn’t atypical but it does increase appreciation for sunshine. One of the warm days was Monday, and that was a very lucky thing as I had some very special company that day: relatives from California were road-tripping through Calgary and they were stopping by for lunch.
My cousin Nikki (HI NIKKI) and I are the same age, and we were pen pals back in the late 80s and 90s. Did you ever have pen pals? I had a number of them and several years ago I found a box full of correspondence. What a treasure. It seems like such a strange notion now: we would write letters, asking each other questions and telling anecdotes about our lives, and then a month or six weeks later, we would get a response. Now, of course, we can get instantaneous responses and feedback on photos, we can ask a question and feel piqued if someone leaves us on “read.” But there is something so special about written correspondence. I wrote to so many people that I would get stationary every Christmas and birthday, and at one point I even had monogrammed stationary, courtesy of my grandma, who was a recipient of many letters and who had a vested interest in my stationary supplies.
Nikki and I hadn’t seen each other for nearly thirty years, which seems crazy. I was thrilled that the day was warm and beautiful as there were sixteen people, and my house is small but my backyard is big. Two days after this, I was driving to the grocery store and the heavens opened. Just getting from my car to the store, my jeans were soaked and my shoes squelched for the entire trip. I was very thankful, despite my gross discomfort, that the rain didn’t decide to come on Monday.
We went up to the lake for the long weekend to visit my parents, as per our Canada Day tradition. It wasn’t warm, by a long shot, but it was Warm Enough, and it was sunny, so we spent the day on the boat, and the boys went paddleboarding a few times.
I am trying to do more Fun and Interesting Things, YOLO and all that, and so I told the boys that if they jumped into the water – which, I will tell you, is not warm by any stretch of the imagination at any time, but especially this year with the long winter and cold spring – I would too. Here’s my face when they both jumped:
Well, a promise is a promise, Lieutenant Dan.
It was, I will say, refreshing.
We bustled to make hay/ get all our fun outdoor activities done while the sun shone, and then later that night as we played dice, the heavens opened, again, and almost four inches of rain fell throughout the evening and night. A good lesson to seize the moment, I guess, and also a good reason to pour another glass of wine.
Weekly Reading
Girl Gone Viral. This is second in the Modern Love series, and it’s a cute bit of fluff; a romance between a wealthy woman and her bodyguard. I have now read all three – and you do not have to read them in order, I certainly didn’t – and I think the series gets better as it goes on, which is a bit rare, I think. Don’t get me wrong, it’s mind candy, but it’s cute mind candy.
The Maid. I am by no means a book snob – see above! – but it is very rare that I feel that a “buzzy” book lives up to the hype. This one sure did! I loved this story about a non-neurotypical woman working as a maid in a hotel. She finds a dead body, and becomes central to the investigation. Part whodunnit, part treatise on friendship, family, and the differences that make up the world, it’s a really great read. I didn’t want to put it down, and I was incredibly charmed by the smart writing and the complex character development.
Euphoria. This was such a fascinating and complex novel, inspired by real events in the life of Margaret Mead. It follows three anthropologists in New Guinea in the 1930s, and there are so many layers to the plot and characters, but in such subtle ways. I love that, I don’t like being “hit over the head” with details; I love when authors explore plot points in a way that makes you think. In fact, I woke up in the middle of the night last night, and thought “ohhhhh, that’s what happened.” I will be thinking about this for a while.
Our first week of summer was certainly marked with deep sadness, and today is supposed to be another cold and rainy day, but we are grabbing every moment of sunshine we get. I hope you have sunshine, wherever you are. xo
