Category Archives: Damn Hippies

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Sweat, Baby, Sweat Edition

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This is the truest statement I have ever seen. It’s this week! This week is summer! Celebrate!

Calgary gets approximately 5-10 days of warm weather per year – and by “warm,” I mean above 25 degrees Celsius – and those 5-10 days are not always consecutive. Once the temperature hits 25 – and let’s recall, people, that Calgary is essentially an urban desert and we don’t really get humidity – within hours people will be complaining about the heat. The one-to-two days that we get 30 degrees or over? You may as well have thrown the city into an actual inferno. Everyone is dying of the heat.

Not me, though, I love it. I’m sure our friends to the south – actually, our friends everywhere except maybe Iqaluit – are hysterically laughing at our definition of HEAT.

Anyway, summer is here! This week feels festive and holiday-ish, and so I’m doing things like switching up the weekly meal plan – enchiladas on a Tuesday! Pasta salad on a Wednesday! What’s next? Who knows! – and spending as many hours as I can outside.

Which brings me to…

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The “Sweat, Baby, Sweat” Edition

Deodorant

This cracks me up. I know a surprising number of people who either wear Tom of Maine-style deodorant or eschew it altogether, which, in my humble opinion, is the same thing.

I know, I know, aluminum, chemicals, etc., but I have a solution for you if you are not a fan of the antiperspirant/ traditional drugstore deodorant. Longtime readers will remember me talking about Routine Deodorant; it’s been in my Favourite Things several times over, it is made locally – in fact by a friendly acquaintance of mine whose kids went to my kids’ elementary school – and it honestly works. I remember when she used to sell her deodorant in the school playground; now it’s renowned internationally. I mean. How can you not be excited about something like that? I love when women I know really make a name for themselves; let’s celebrate and lift each other up and shine on, you crazy diamonds.

Anyway. Routine! For the most part, when I hear “natural deodorant,” I think “feral hippie,” but this is something that honestly works. My favourite scents are Whoa! Blackberry Betty and Cat Lady.

If you want to know if they REALLY work, this is what I look like after my workout:

Note the drips of sweat on the floor:

Can I just briefly tell you how much I love my new Peloton? I LOVE MY NEW PELOTON. I feel like I’ve joined a cult, I’m so excited about it. I just did a “70s Ride” and it was awesome.

After I took these photos I sniffed my own armpits, and they still smell lovely. ACTUALLY LOVELY. Plus, since it’s a deodorant it does not inhibit the actual sweat itself, which I like, and which feels healthier.

HOWEVER. Not always do I want to have soaking wet armpits. For example, when I’m teaching or otherwise around people (I mean, I might be around people sometime in the future?). In this case I have to shout out for Nivea Black and White. This is an actual antiperspirant, and it is the only one I have ever found in the last three and a half decades that does NOT leave white residue on my black clothing. Since I wear black clothing most days, this is important. I can also go for a walk in the “heat” of the day, in full sun, and still smell like actual flowers.

Skirts

All right, that’s probably enough about how I combat body odor. Onto clothing!

The last time I wore actual shorts for anything other than exercise – and even that is rare – was probably 1997 when I was super into crop tops and Daisy Duke-style denim shorts. That’s right, I rocked those.

Since then I’ve never found a pair of shorts that fits correctly, or looks good, or is comfortable. Sure, I could probably dig out those Daisy Dukes – and if you’re a short-short kind of gal, go you! – but honestly I feel like that ship has sailed. However, one cannot always wear pants. My go-to, then, is the kind of skirt that has little shorts built in underneath; I can do all my normal day-to-day activities without traumatizing my children/ people on the street who would rather not see a 45-year-old woman’s thong underwear.

This photo was taken two years ago in Vancouver. That skirt is one of my favourites. I buy them from Lululemon – I know, I know, haters going to hate but their stuff lasts forever, I have things still from 2007 that are still going strong – and for day-to-day purposes I buy them a size bigger and in the “tall” length. I am 5’7″ and I like to have a little extra length.

I do have one skirt that’s in my actual size and regular length, which I use for running on warm days. It makes me feel like I’m running in an actual tutu, which is quite motivational. Look at me, I’m a ballerina.

Yoga Mat Cover

If you practice yoga, and find your hands slip during downward dog, may I suggest a mat cover? I always practice with one, due to hand slippage, but also because it’s much easier to clean. Just throw the cover in the wash when it starts to get sweaty! I like the ones from Manduka or Lululemon that advertise that they get sticky when wet; they work the best, I think.

My early morning practice studio! A little squishy but it works.

Water

I drink an average of 3-4 litres of water a day, depending on my activity levels. That, along with my morning pot of coffee, makes for a lot of bathroom breaks, it’s true. However, I like to be hydrated and I find if I don’t drink that much water, I get headachy and bloated and tired.

An easy way to drink that much water is to have a pretty water bottle to drink from. This one is from S’Well, which maintains the water temperature for something insane like 24 hours. I prefer my water at room temperature, so I fill it with our not-cold water filter tap.

Anyway, isn’t it pretty?

White Wine

You all know I’m a big red wine drinker, but when the temperature goes above 25 degrees, and that happens on a Friday or Saturday, I break out the white wine. Well, sometimes I do. This is a shout-out to Tantalus, which I’ve talked about before, and if you are interested in my husband’s family history, go read this post.

Photo is from March, at the start of this pandemic. Ah, what a crazy four months it has been.

Well, that’s it for me. I am going out to enjoy the summer for the next three or four days that it lasts! Catch you on the flip, lovelies. xo

Lots of Adventures; Seventeen Weeks In

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Dental Adventure

I had a dental cleaning scheduled for Monday afternoon and I was a bit nervous, due to the thought of having someone’s hands in my open mouth but you know what, all my nerves evaporated when the hygienist came into the room in full hazmat gear. Mask, face shield, hair covered, medical gown over all her clothes, and gloves.

Apparently there are “Marches To Unmask” going on around the country, and I keep reminding myself that it is very bad karma, very bad karma indeed, to wish ill on the participants, especially to wish a deadly Covid outbreak that would occur as a result of those marches. Bad karma, and therefore I am NOT wishing it to happen.

It is also wrong and bad karma to I hope a giant anvil drops from the sky and squashes every single marcher. However, if my dental hygienist can cheerfully don a hazmat suit every time she cleans someone’s teeth, certainly we can all put on a mask to get groceries.

I’m really leaning into the pretty mask thing; it’s taking all of my willpower not to order a different mask for every day of the week. There are so many cute ones to choose from! Lean in! Make it work! Match it with your outfit! They really bring out your eyes.

Costco Adventure

Speaking of groceries, the exciting news in my life is that there are no longer lineups to get into Costco. In fact, last week I went to Costco and Superstore and a) almost everyone was masked, particularly in Costco where they give you masks at the door if you do not have your own (super cute and outfit-matching one), b) there were no shortages of anything that I could see or was shopping for, and c) I am finally getting back joy in grocery shopping. It no longer feels like a grim and possibly deadly task; it feels like the happy, food-obtaining job that I have long enjoyed.

Friend Adventures

We saw our dear friends, who are more like chosen family (HI GUYS) this week for the first time since February, and it felt joyful and wonderful and almost normal. Well, except I wasn’t able to hug them; god, I miss hugging. The book I just finished reading talks about the importance of touch to our physical and mental health, and there was some study done about the optimal number of hugs a day; my family is getting the brunt of my unspent hugs. HUG MEEEEEE.

I also saw my dear friend Lyn (HI LYN) for the first time in a long while, and she is NOT a hugger, so I am sure she’s getting joy out of not being physically affectionately attacked by me.

Actual Mountain Adventure

I went on a beautiful hike with my very good friend Janet (HI JANET); we went to Lake Louise and hiked the Plain of the Six Glaciers, along with a little detour up to Lake Agnes, for a total of about sixteen kilometres and lots of elevation. It was an adventure; there had been a snowslide across the path and we had to go over it, discovering after the fact that it was completely hollowed out underneath. Oops. At the Glacier Lookout, there is an outhouse, and when I was using it I heard a great loud noise and felt a lot of wind. This was the culprit:

If you’ve ever wondered how they empty outhouses in remote mountain locations, wonder no more!

If you don’t strike a yoga pose when you are hiking in the mountains, are you even a yoga teacher?

Lake Louise is usually chock full of tourists at any given time, but the cold drizzly morning, and our early start, meant I actually was able to get a people-free photo.

The top of that mountain, the Big Beehive, is where my husband proposed to me, lo these many years ago. Aww! Shmoopy.

Pandemic Reading Adventure

You guys, the library is open, not just for curbside hold pickups, but actually open! I think I need an intervention:

I read a real variety of books this week, variety being the spice of life, etc.

Suzanne (HI SUZANNE) recommended this as a fun, light read, and it really was. Fun fact: the wardrobe budget for Clueless was only $200,000 – think of all the costumes! – and so they thrifted or made all the clothing in the show. Another fun fact: the actor who holds Cher up by gunpoint was essentially called an hour before to get the job. The original actor was being a dick about getting to the set for the call time so they fired him and just started phoning random actors they knew to play the part that afternoon. Remember my last post and all the talk about luck and timing?

This is the last of the Lives of the Saints trilogy; you may recall that I LOVED Lives of the Saints, but the second book I actively loathed. Why would I even bother reading the third, you may ask? Well. It’s a trilogy. I kind of had to. You get me. Anyway, it was not as good as the first but much better than the second, and because it’s Nino Ricci there is a gross, disturbing, and frankly disgusting plot line. However, I’m still glad I read it. I had to finish the trilogy, don’t judge.

My lovely friend Twyla (HI TWYLA) recommended this to me; with this type of book, I take what I need and leave the rest. I mean, I’m not going to stop using shampoo, drinking coffee, wearing a bra, or vaccinating. I’m highly unlikely to start smudging with sage or burning salts. But here’s the thing: I am a big fan of modern medicine, I love modern medicine, but I also am a huge proponent of complementary and preventative medicine; I truly believe in mind-body connections and that negative thoughts and the inability to forgive and let go can be toxic. If we have learned nothing else from Star Wars, it’s that anger and hatred lead to death. Well, everything leads to death, probability of death equals 1, we are all on a journey to savasana, but it would be nice if that journey was as long and as healthy as possible. Anyway, what I really liked about this book was the theme of self-love and self-care, and to practice loving-kindness towards yourself first, and also to others. What we send out in the world is an echo, and it comes back to you. It’s all about karma!

On that note, I am sending you all thoughts of loving-kindness, I hope you have a week full of wonderful adventures and much joy. xo

Luck Be A Lady; Sixteen Weeks In

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This past week, among other things, I read a book recommended to me by an old grad school friend called Success and Luck. As the title suggests, it explores the role luck plays in individual – and collective – success, success being defined here as the financial or economic type. Yes, there are many definitions of success in the world, it’s not all about the money, we could talk for days about how we measure material success but there are other WAYS to define success, I know, I know, but the book is written by an economist, was referred to me by an economist, and hell, I AM an economist, technically, although I haven’t worked in that field for many years.

Anyway, the role of luck is something I think about often, and so this book was fascinating to me. Every single job I’ve ever gotten has had an element of luck and timing to it, and each one of those jobs – from my very first as a library page to my job as a quantitative analyst on a natural gas trading floor to my job as a yoga teacher – has shaped my life. I am qualified, hard-working, and smart, but so are many people; luck and timing have so much to do with everything. The book wrote about actors who ALMOST didn’t get the parts that essentially made their careers: Al Pacino as Michael Corleone, Bryan Cranston as Walter White. Where would they be without those roles? Al Pacino could have landed minor supporting roles to supplement waiting tables, Bryan Cranston would have gone down in history as the guy who played the dad on Malcolm in the Middle.

But jobs aside, sometimes I will think of things that have happened in my life that almost DIDN’T happen, and how that would have changed everything. It’s like that urban myth of someone stepping off the sidewalk and suddenly a car careens into that spot; if that person hadn’t stepped off the sidewalk they would be dead. A butterfly flaps its wings and an earthquake occurs.

So much of our lives depend on things that happened before we were born; WHERE we were born, for example, and who to, and who they were born to, and so one ad infinitum. Of course we can make our own choices, and to some very limited extent, our own luck, but the world is a rich tapestry, people, and I can’t stop thinking about it.

Speaking of which, my husband recently saw the movie Into the Wild, and is now reading the Jon Krakauer book of the same name. Have you heard of this? A young man from a very intellectual and wealthy family leaves everything, burns his identification, and without telling any of his family members, changes his name to travel across the States, ultimately landing in Alaska, where he starves to death. Hoo boy. There are so many things about this story that bother me no end: the man wants to live off the land, essentially, and just be one with nature. Thoreau-like, if you will, except as we all know, Thoreau’s mother was always leaving him food and doing his laundry, and his little cabin in the woods was owned by a friend, and in fact Thoreau himself benefitted much from aid from friends and family. It’s funny how our baser needs must be taken care of before we can reach these higher intellectual achievements, and we could talk forever about how women have supported men in those achievements but it doesn’t typically work the other way around, a room of our own, a woman’s work is never done, et cetera, but let’s return to the story at hand before I digress too much.

Anyway, this man who died in Alaska: it turns out that he was about thirty- five kilometres away from the nearest town, that’s ALL. When he finally figured out that living in an abandoned bus, completely unprepared, with no food and no axe and no common sense, wasn’t what he wanted to do, when he figured out that being around other people is actually a good thing, he wasn’t able to cross the river that, three months earlier, had been largely frozen over and not swollen with snowmelt runoff. However, if he had explored less than two kilometres in either direction, he would have found places to cross, where he could have eventually made it back to the highway and, probably, not starved to death. There would have been no story, other people who died trying to find the old abandoned bus after the story became popular would still be alive, Sean Penn would have had one less movie under his directorial bibliography. A butterfly flaps its wings.

Pandemic Reading

Someone had recommended Conviction to me; I cannot remember who it was but I want to thank them. Not my usual type of book but I enjoyed it very much.

If you are looking for a cute, predictable, fluffy romance, this series is for you! It’s nice to just enjoy mind candy once in a while.

Late to the party but I can see why this was so popular. What a well-written and wonderful book. Talk about the role of luck and fortune; this book is full of it.

Pandemic Fitness

This weekend I got on my bike for the first time since last summer, and went riding with my older son. Things were a little muddy due to the torrential rains we have been having, but that just added to the fun.

Case in point: the boys and I went on a little Canada Day hike/ walk to the natural area near our house; it was awesome, yes, but we probably should have brought raincoats, looking at the sky. The heavens opened on us on our way home, and we were absolutely soaked.

Speaking of Canada Day, I will leave you with a photo of Barkley, festively dressed for the occasion.

Have a beautiful week! Here’s to being lucky. xo

Strange Things Afoot In The Boyhouse

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Somebody’s Got a Case of the Mondays

In general, ever since I quit my Monday/ Tuesday morning teaching job at a studio across the city, I very much enjoy Monday mornings. I like having the time, before my Monday afternoon class, to organize things from the weekend, time to write and time to bake things and run errands and, sometimes, even sit down to play the piano. However, today feels like the most Monday-ish of Mondays, and not in a happy way. I feel like I could possibly blame this on a combination of the greyness of the day and my menstrual cycle, but let’s face it: at this age who knows what a menstrual cycle actually is. It’s like the cycle piece of my Garmin app is about to self-destruct from frustration about the lack of any predictability. How can I blame my period when it could be anywhere from three weeks to three months? Maybe I’m just a crabby bitch.

It’s The Last Week of February

I said to one of my students last week that it feels like it was just New Year’s, and now next week is March. MARCH. I logically know that there are 24 hours in every day and 7 days in every week, but it still feels startling, how fast time goes. I also acknowledge that, for most people, January and February go by with snail-like speed, but I honestly cannot believe how fast the time has gone. NEXT WEEK IS MARCH. Which brings me to…

What Is Going On With The Principal?

My younger son is going on a West Coast sailing trip at the end of March, directly after Spring Break. He’s flying out to the coast, and sailing on a tall ship for five days. It will be a great experience I’m sure, and yet I cannot help but worry that we have had no parent meetings for this trip since the one in October, in which the principal showed us a video of the trip he took in 1999, told us to pressure other kids into going on the trip, and brought up my much-despised poinsettia fundraiser. I have no other information, other than a pack list obtained from my son. The kids have had weekly meetings to go over important learn-to-sail-what-to-do-if-there-is-a-man-overboard but there has been no other information emailed out. I mean, I don’t even know what flight he is going to be on or any of the times. This, from a principal who is kind of famous for sending out many, many emails.

Last week the kids made sandwiches for a shelter, which they do every year, and for which they rely on parent donations of sandwich items and plastic bags. We received the email about this the evening before the five-day weekend, for items to be received on the morning the kids got back to school. A little notice would have been nice, particularly since I had already done my shopping for the week and had to make a special trip just to obtain my required sandwich bags. In addition, there was no reminder email about booking parent-teacher conferences. It’s so out of character, I’m wondering if there is a serious issue with the principal, or if he’s preparing for retirement or something. Have you seen him? I asked my son. Is he still…around?

Speaking of parent-teacher conferences, the booking process is all online, which I love. Bookings opened at 7:00 am last Tuesday, and at 6:58 I was at the computer, obsessively refreshing my screen. I like to book all the teachers one after another, and I wanted a specific time, so I was happy that my obsessive-refreshing paid off. I realized with a start that this was my last parent-teacher conference booking ever, which did not at all make me feel mournful and Landslide-y, but instead incredibly joyful. As god is my witness, I will never be obsessively refreshing the conference-booking-site again.

Seriously, though. Why no parent meetings? March is a short month, school-wise, with March break and the annual musical theatre performance…there are not that many days available for a parent meeting. What is going on.

Am I Actually Karl Lagerfeld?

I have been successfully doing the February Clothing Challenge, where I wear a different outfit every day. I started to take photos of each outfit to keep track, but became extremely bored of it, mostly because even when I’m wearing a different outfit daily, my outfits are all very similar. I mean, how many photos do I need of me wearing yoga pants and tank underneath a long-sleeved tee with one of nine drapey black cardigans? Sure, sometimes I wear one of ten black non-cardigan-sweaters, and sometimes I – crazily enough – wear a sweater/ cardigan that is grey or cream, and on non-teaching days I wear jeans, but honestly, I feel like I am one of those people who wear basically the same thing every day.

I used to see those articles about people wearing the same clothes every day, and I would think that was gross – because I had the mistaken idea that they were literally wearing the same exact clothes daily – and also boring. But I guess I am one of those people, along with Karl Lagerfeld, Mark Zuckerberg, Simon Cowell, and the late Steve Jobs. Well, no one has accused me of being particularly exciting or of living on the edge, so I guess I’ll just keep on keeping on.

Why Does Autocorrect Want Me To Yell At You?

Ever since I got my new phone, it does the strangest thing: when I start typing a name, any name at all, it autocorrects the name to all capitals. Let me be clear: I’m not misspelling the name, or not usually, anyway. This has been irritating as I either have to delete and retype the name, or I send the text or message in a way that looks like I am yelling at the recipient. Why is this happening? I really don’t know and I don’t know how to fix it. I guess what I am saying is that if I send you a text and you think I’m yelling, I’m not. I swear.

Well. I feel less crabby now that I’ve written all this down; I guess it’s time to go out into the grey, cold day. Happy Last-Week-of-February, everyone! xo

Brass Monkey, that funky monkey

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All high schools in the city, it seems, have a reputation or something that they are known for. Some schools are known for their excellence in fine and performing arts, some schools have fabulous vocational programs, some schools excel at sports. The nearby Catholic high school, for example, has won the city championships in football pretty much every year since its inception. Our high school has a reputation for academia, and the demographics in the school reflect that.

So it was with interest that I attended Math 10 Parent Info Night on Tuesday. We are a very mathematically-inclined family, and even though I couldn’t imagine what the info night would cover – I already had the course outline, complete with weighting for each unit, test schedule, and information about notes-for-purchase and the required graphing calculator – I wasn’t going to miss it.

It turns out that, hilariously, in addition to a discussion about different streams of math and the various avenues available for academic assistance, the math department felt the need to give a somewhat prolonged lecture with an underlying message to parents to just calm the fuck down. It was priceless.

I consider myself to be, in many ways, a very strict parent. I have high expectations for my children in terms of academic performance, work ethic, and general behaviour, but in that crowd, I looked like a lax, overly permissive hippie.

My son’s math teacher got up to speak; he is an older, very formal gentleman who is of Ethiopian descent. He began with a very long story about how he is actually a physicist, he loves teaching high school math but his first major was physics. This went on for some time, causing me to tilt my head and think where is he going with this. Eventually he revealed that his daughter, in high school, was struggling in physics. More than struggling, she was suffering. And so, after some discussion with the teacher, he withdrew her from physics. In the car on the way home she sighed with relief and said “I didn’t think you would let me drop physics.”

At this point the teacher appealed to the parents, saying that he did not know WHY she would think that she had to take physics, just because HE was a physicist. That was HIS dream, not hers. I half expected him to start reciting Your children are not your children, but instead he stated that, as parents, we may have dreams of our children being engineers or doctors or what have you, but there are many, many different paths to success in the world.

He concluded by saying, with much pride, that his daughter is now a high school band teacher. I smiled, and looked around at my fellow parents, expecting a certain smiling reaction to a man who has revealed with pride and joy that his daughter chose her own path, one that has led to success.

The room was silent. All the parents were leaning back in their chairs with their arms crossed, and a look of bemusement mixed with horror on their faces.

Well.

After that the presentation opened up to a Q and A session, which was equally ridiculous. One mother kept pressing to see what SPECIFIC grades a university engineering program required for entrance, a question literally impossible to answer. A father asked which math stream was appropriate for a student who has career aspirations of being an astronaut. Sir, if your child is going to obtain a PhD in Astrophysics, probably that child should pursue the more RIGOROUS math stream?

At that point I booted it out of there, and when I got home and relayed the story my son pointed out that I did, indeed, look a little bit like a hippie with my yoga pants and mala, which seemed a bit aggressive on his part. It’s not like I was wearing Birkenstocks or sporting leg and armpit hair.

I do very much value academics, but I am also very happy that my son is taking drama this semester. I played Amanda Wingfield in our high school production of The Glass Menagerie, and I can still do a mean Southern accent. I also played – bizarrely – Shelly in Grade 11 when our school did Buried Child, and if you do not know this play, I suggest you google it and sit in awe that a high school actually put on such a thing.

Anyway, the current unit in my son’s drama class is lip-synching, and he and a friend have chosen Brass Monkey as their assignment.

As a slight aside, during the week the boys work out in the “dungeon” after school; they alternate days and if I didn’t already know their workout schedule I would be able to ascertain it based solely on the playlist blasting from the basement. My younger son’s playlist is almost entirely Guns and Roses, interspersed with some dreadful death metal and – strangely enough – Elton John. There’s something weirdly unsettling about having Tiny Dancer follow Mr. Brownstone. My older son’s playlist is similar, except that it is Van Halen with Led Zeppelin, with the occasional Michael Jackson tune.

I am not judging, here, my own workout playlist is similarly eclectic, with everything from Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock to the Pointer Sisters to Jimi Hendrix to Eminem.

Because of the impending Brass Monkey performance, my son has been working out to the Beastie Boys exclusively this past week, and let me tell you this: if I thought having Honky Cat in my head for six days straight was bad, it was NOTHING compared to Brass Monkey. Honky Cat, at least, has lyrics that I know and are varied. Now I just keep mentally yelling Brass Monkey, that funky monkey, Brass Monkey junkie…over and over in my head.

Yesterday my son was working out and I was inspired. I ran down the stairs and screamed at him “WHAT’S THAT NOISE?”

He stared at me for a moment – I’m not a screamer, especially not for no apparent reason – and then it dawned on him. “Mom, you’re just jealous, IT’S THE BEASTIE BOYS!”

It was as proud a moment as could be. I felt like his math teacher, beaming with pride and joy. I also felt like this:

Well, this Cool Mom is off to do some cardio and maybe I’ll add the Beastie Boys to my playlist today. Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! xo

I took the restrictor plate off the Red Dragon; this thing’s not exactly street legal *

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This morning, a complete stranger gave me a very kind compliment, right out of the blue. It brightened up my already-pretty-bright morning, and I’ve been smiling all day, thinking about it. I’m a person who loves to randomly compliment people, from people I love to people I’ve never met. If you think something nice, why not say it? There is basically no downside to it. I say “basically” because although I cannot think of a time when I’ve been met with a cold shoulder after saying something kind, I’m sure those things happen. However, the risk is much smaller than the reward: go for it!

On that note, something I am very thankful for is YOU, the reader. I’ve been writing this blog for – wait for it – eleven years now, and some of you have been with me since the beginning! That’s pretty spectacular, and so are you.

I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving weekend, or, if you’re not Canadian, a lovely regular weekend. We spent it at my mother-in-laws’ place; we boarded Barkley and flew out, and I am so glad we did for a number of reasons, the biggest one being this guy:

That bad boy walked right past our front window and ambled down into the grape rows. Eeeee. Less alarmingly, we also saw a herd of deer and a bobcat, heading in exactly the same pathway, ostensibly to go get water below the vineyard. I felt like we were in a reality nature show, albeit one in which I looked around every time I left the house.

Since we flew, we rented a car, and I think the rental company profiled my husband as a divorced, middle-aged white man.

Two out of three isn’t bad, I suppose. Hilariously, the radio station was tuned to the local classic rock station and the very first song, the very first one, was Raise a Little Hell, followed by Don’t Fear the Reaper. All that was missing was Whitesnake, which I kept hoping to hear all weekend but alas. You cannot have everything in this life.

We had a nice weekend and I read this incredible, funny, and insightful book:

It is so rare that a trilogy gets better with every subsequent book, but the Rosie one does. I highly recommend it.

We got home on Monday and it’s been a slog ever since, a slog of classes and laundry and groceries and trying to get on top of every little thing. There are so many details in life, isn’t there? For example, the kids no longer want to go to the pediatric dentist – which, well. The tiny purple chairs hardly hold them anymore and it is a bit ridiculous, silently getting cleanings while mass hysteria reigns in the other tiny purple chairs. However, the pediatric dentist is the most conveniently located of all, literally across the street from the high school. After asking for recommendations in that building in the community Facebook page, I am faced with many recommendations, only one actually in that same professional building. My question also sparked a small argument about the thievery or otherwise of a certain local dentist. Ah, community Facebook pages. Never change.

I had no classes to teach today so along with my usual Wednesday errands, the researching of possible dentists, ordering eye drops for the dog, wondering about the Winter Boot Situation, and paying numerous school fees and bills, I decided to wash my duvet cover. Washing the duvet covers and blankets is something that is done seasonally in this house, but today I thought I’d go for the glory and wash the actual duvet as well.

Why do we always make life difficult for ourselves? Why would I think this is a good idea? We bought this washing machine SPECIFICALLY because it claimed to be able to Handle A King Sized Comforter, but it really is blatantly untrue, and the more often I could remember that, the better my life would be. After being stalled out three times on the spin cycle, due to An Unbalanced Load – An Unbalanced Load, the title of my memoir – I finally gave up and put the very wet duvet in the dryer, where it spent three HOURS being dried, even after turning it and rearranging it every twenty minutes. I think next time it would be easier to just buy a new duvet. Or, more rationally, to take it to a laundromat. BUT I DON’T WANT TO.

I seem to have some kind of disorder in which if I have more than an hour of time unaccounted for I feel the need to fill it with ridiculous things, like washing a king-sized duvet. This is something that probably could have waited, but until when? If not now, when? In any case, I am going to have a nice, fluffy, clean duvet by the time the day is over. I just hope it will be nice, fluffy, clean, and DRY.

On the positive side, there are only five more days until this ridiculously stupid election is OVER. My husband and I voted in the advance polls, and I was confused to see a candidate with the party “M.L.” I thought and thought, and couldn’t figure it out. What is the M.L. party? I asked my kids who are, of course, studying it in school and my older son gleefully answered that it was, even more ridiculously, the Marxist-Leninist party. Well! There was also a Libertarian candidate so I suppose they balance each other out.

My husband always asks one of the kids to label his bottles of shampoo and conditioner, so he doesn’t make the tragic mistake of conditioning first, I guess.

Speaking of hair products, I’ve been using the Mark Anthony ones for a while now, and may I suggest the Bamboo Volumizing line for those of you with similarly fine hair? It’s a miracle product:

My hair stayed like that all day! Plus, I have to mention my sweater, which my husband gave to me as a present and which I ADORE, although I tend to get the teeniest bit nervous with light-coloured anything. Well, that’s what aprons are for!

* If you know that quote, I salute you! Enjoy the rest of the week, lovelies. xoxo

One Thousand

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Can I Get A Witness

I can hardly believe this, but this is – get ready for it – my ONE THOUSANDTH POST. One thousand posts. Can I get a medal or something for this? Very few people old-school blog anymore, but I am glad to have this diary of my life over the past – get ready for it – DECADE. Of course, I could have just kept a regular diary, but what would have been the fun in that? It’s nice to have a witness to this everyday life. Can I get a witness?

The Winner, In A Landslide

As I’ve mentioned before, I often think of the Soundtrack of My Life; it occurred to me the other day that there are songs that are inextricably associated with other people, in my mind. For example, my friend Hannah (HI HANNAH) is linked forever and always with Some Kind of Wonderful, and so now that I have asked if I could get a witness, I will be a) singing that all day, and b) thinking of her. For fun I asked Facebook friends what song reminded them of ME and it was a very interesting experiment. A friend who knew me way back in elementary school mentioned Corey Hart (HI MELISSA), a friend from high school reminded me that we always sang Hello City when we were together in chemistry class (HI TRACY), a friend from university mentioned Total Eclipse of the Heart, the Old School version (HI ALICE), and there was a nice mix of interesting music from friends made in the past decade (HI EVERYBODY). The most common song, however, was Landslide, which is both unsurprising and apt, given this time of year.

This Is Me In Grade Nine

My BFF, who I met in grade nine, (HI TARA) said what reminded her of me was Light My Fire, stemming from that period in which I was obsessed – OBSESSED – with The Doors, and also wearing all-black-all-the-time. Well, my interest in listening to The Doors has certainly diminished to zero, but my all-black fashion statement largely remains.

This is me in grade nine, baby. Yes, my love of black and also excessive jewelry has remained, nearly thirty years after the fact.

Speaking of which, I have had This Is Me In Grade Nine stuck in my head for days – DAYS – because the start of school has ushered in a new era: my oldest is, indeed, in grade nine. I am assuming the same will be true next year at this time as my youngest will be there as well. Usually I have Back To School, Back To School, To Prove To My Dad That I’m No Fool from Billy Madison stuck in my head for days; this is preferable. I got a red leather tie and a pair of rugger pants, I put them on and I went to the high school dance.

This is further proof that my brain is needlessly filled with song lyrics and if I could just channel that brain power I could probably work for NASA.

Dogpression

Barkley knows what packed backpacks in the kitchen means, and he does not like it. Now that we are four days in, he has come to weary acceptance, so long as he can come along for school drop-off.

Winter Games

I have been using the silent house and also the free time before my new registered classes start next week to get a few menial, tedious, and annoying jobs done. These include but are not limited to calling the cable company to order a new remote, necessitating me looking up serial numbers and account numbers and clearing up last name confusion, registering myself and my husband to vote in the upcoming provincial election so as to not have to wait for an enumerator, and calling a certain government agency to ensure an issue that was not caused by anyone in this household but instead someone who we actually paid for their services and still makes me irritated to think about it has been cleared up. (Spoiler: it hasn’t!). Yesterday I was on hold for what seemed like an eternity, only to be redirected a few times before getting the correct person for the job, who ended up completely unable to help anyway. The interesting part of this story, at least to me, was that while I was on hold, the theme from the Calgary 88 Olympics was played. Two things: a) that really took me back in time, and b) is it just me or does that seem like a strange choice of music? The rest of the music was pretty neutral elevator-Kenny G-type music, and then wham! Bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah BAH BAH!

It’s Just Like New Year

September feels like a much milder form of January, doesn’t it? Everyone with their fresh starts and getting back to the gym and making crazy school lunches with bento boxes? I personally have a couple of resolutions for September and on, and one of them is to not use my phone when the boys get home after school. I instituted a “no screens” rule for myself and the boys, although it has since been amended to “no screens until homework, physical exercise, and something creative has been done.” For me, though, it’s no phone at all, unless someone texts or emails me. It’s really helping me be more present, which is an ongoing goal of mine, and also allows me more time to read and play the piano. In fact, it’s given me so much more time that I feel a twinge of shame about my (former) phone habits.

Only 1255 Pages To Go

I have had A Suitable Boy on hold from the library for some time, thanks to a recommendation from my friend Mary-Lynn (HI MARY-LYNN). Imagine my surprise when I went to the library to pick it up and discovered that it is almost 1500 pages long. Hoo boy. I have been keeping a spreadsheet of all my books read, in an attempt to be more like my bibliophile friend Allison (HI ALLISON), and so far this year I have averaged one book every 3.5 days. This is going to mess me up big-time. To add fuel to the reading fire, two more of my holds came in yesterday, so if anyone needs me, I’ll be over there, reading. I know, I know, it’s the journey, not the destination, but I like my current book-to-day average.

I Love Your Pictures

A few months ago, someone had posted on Facebook about how sick they were of seeing photos of other people’s kids, and no one cared, and just keep those photos to yourselves, you terrible attention whores. I’m paraphrasing, but only slightly. Then a friend told me that someone told HER that seeing back-to-school photos was the worst, and if your kids weren’t in kindergarten, then nobody cares. You terrible attention whores.

I am taking this opportunity – this One Thousandth Post opportunity – to say that I CARE. I love seeing all your photos, of your kids, of your pets, of your fancy drinks, of your houses, of your vacations. I love your selfies, your outfits-of-the-day, your bikini shots, your workout shots, your nature shots, I LOVE IT ALL. I want to see MORE updates about your lives, not less. What else are we on social media for? Outraged political updates? I think we have enough of those. After all, look how well all those political posts pre-US-election turned out.

I mean, I even love seeing photos of what you had for dinner, so long as it’s not already digested. Which brings me to this travesty:

You Know How I Feel About This Emoticon

People, this is a bridge too far. TOO FAR.