Category Archives: Embrace the Season

That’s The Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be

Posted on by

Many years ago I was in the playground with a friend and our children; she had an older daughter who at the time was in first grade, and so was not at the playground but instead in school. My friend said something to me that has stayed with me for years. Her daughter, she said, “…has a whole life now that I don’t know about, there are so many hours a day I don’t know what she’s doing or who her friends are. It’s just a whole life separate to me.” At the time, my children were 3 and 4 and it would be difficult to overestimate how deeply those words affected me. My life and my children’s lives were so intensely intertwined: they were in preschool three afternoons a week, it was true, but I knew every child that they knew, I knew those children’s mothers and where they lived, if they had a playdate I went with them, every single moment of every day I knew where they were and at least approximately what they were doing.

Life continues on its trajectory and here we are. It was university Reading Week, and my older son came home for it which was, of course, delightful. Fifteen years after that playground conversation, and my son has a life that I only vaguely know about. He makes his own appointments and does things that I have no idea he’s doing, like snowboarding and rock climbing, I only have a very cursory idea about his schedule and classes, I don’t know any of his friends, and I have seen where he lives only once, for three minutes, while he moved in. His entire life is completely separate from me.

Well, that’s the goal, isn’t it? Fly, little birdie.

A few years after the playground conversation, I was speaking with the grandmother of one of my son’s friends. She was a lively and vibrant woman who took care of her grandchildren while their parents worked. I was telling her that I was nervous to leave the kids with my parents for three nights while my husband and I went away for his birthday. I’d never left them for so long before, and I felt anxious and guilty.

She patted my arm and said it was good to do these things, after all, she said, time goes fast and one day I’d be looking across the table and it would just be my husband. She told me that she remembered exactly when that happened, she said Oh, it’s you. Hello.

That isn’t quite the case here yet, but I can see it in the distance.

Marriages and long-term partnerships are so interesting and, snowflake-like, no two are the same. I was thinking a lot about that this week while reading Carly Simon’s memoir. Now listen, I have always been a fan of James Taylor, but I think that after reading this that I kind of hate James Taylor? He sounds like an absolute nightmare to be married to; I mean, to be fair, he was an addict, addiction is a disease, but also he was one of those guys who really wants a mommy in his wife – he is Sweet Baby James, after all – and who seems to have deeply resented the time and energy Carly spent on their children, particularly their very young son who was very ill with a kidney deformity. That’s probably all I need to say to paint the picture, but of course, he was also having affairs six ways to Sunday, and whenever Carly would confront him with this, he’d say “It has nothing to do with you.” OH REALLY, JAMES TAYLOR. I mean, he had to get tested for chlamydia a number of times during their marriage, so it kind of does have something to do with her? What was incredible to me was that Carly took to heart something her father said, which was that the true meaning of being rich was being able to give, and not being concerned about receiving. If that is the case, then Carly Simon was incredibly rich in her marriage, and even in 2015, decades after it ended, she still writes about him with love.

Getting back to James Taylor and his many venereal diseases, I was really puzzled by something: how was it working? And by “it” I mean his penis. I am no expert here, but he was whacked out on heroin much of the time, and so how was he having sex with all these women? I assumed that there would be performance issues associated with so much drug use, but here he was, contracting the clap left and right.

I am loathe to imagine this, honestly. James Taylor and his skeevy 70s moustache and greasy hair is not someone I want to picture intercoursing, as Detective Mettavoy once said in NYPD Blue and I have been waiting all these years to repeat. But I guess I am loathe to imagine anyone in a sexytimes situation; recently Stephany (HI STEPHANY) commented that no one talks about long-term partnered sex, and it’s true, no one does. I’m not going to delve into my own details about intercoursing here, mostly because my mom and several members of my extended family read this blog and I would like to have our future interactions not shadowed by extreme awkwardness. But I would like to circle back to my initial thought about marriage after the kids are grown and out of the house; this is the time to shine, in that department. Hello, it’s you.

Weekly Reading

Boys In The Trees. As mentioned above, this is a VERY juicy memoir written by Carly herself, and it is beautiful and lyrical, as could be expected from such an esteemed poet and songwriter. I knew going in that she had a stutter as a child, and her mom encouraged her to sing instead, which helped immensely, but what I didn’t know is she developed a stutter after being sexually exploited as a small child by the teenage son of a family friend. This exploitation went on for years and probably explains a lot about her later life. Also something that explains a lot: she was third born after two sisters, and she was “supposed” to be a boy named Carl, disappointed, her parents added a “y.” Do not even get me started on how enraged I am at the idea of “trying for a boy/ girl,” I have to actually do some ujjayi breathing just at the thought. Anyway, her parents did have their longed-for (RAGE RAGE RAGE) son after Carly, but they didn’t want him to GROW UP GAY in a house full of females (MORE RAGE) so they hired a male companion to teach him manly things. Where was her father, you may ask? He was busy. You see, Carly grew up in incredible wealth and privilege – her father is the Simon of Simon and Schuster! She grew up in New York and summered in Connecticut, spending a few weeks a year in Martha’s Vineyard, where, as a child, she met a young James Taylor WHO WAS ALSO GROWING UP WITH IMMENSE WEALTH AND PRIVILEGE. Honestly, I had no idea. Anyway, this male companion ends up a) fucking her mother to the point that she had an adjoining room with him while her father was just on another floor of the house, and b) spying on Carly and her sisters as they use the bathroom. So perhaps all of this explains Carly’s mellow attitude towards her nightmare of a husband, later on. There are many juicy details about the many sexy notches in her belt later in life, notably Warren Beatty, who really knew what was what in the bedroom, and Mick Jagger, with whom she had EXPLOSIVE chemistry, and who also sang backup on You’re So Vain. Who knew? Here’s what she had to say about that song:

Aha! So it’s more of a compilation of vain men. God, I love that song. Long-time readers will recall that this is my go-to karaoke song.

Hagitude: Reimagining The Second Half of Life. Speaking of birdies flying and the nest becoming empty, my friend Laura (HI LAURA) said the other day that she felt like when she became a mother, something shattered in her creativity, and now, as her daughter is away at college, she is at a stage where she is picking up those shards and putting them back together, rediscovering her creativity. I thought of that image a lot, reading this book. This is an interesting time of life for a woman. “…what we should be doing during menopause is gently and consciously letting go of one period of our lives, and slowly and mindfully easing the progression into another.” So says the author of Hagitude, an uplifting book drawing on European mythology about the elder period of a woman’s life, the vitality and meaning that can come from becoming a crone, a hag, a wise old woman. This is a dense book full of imagery and reclamation.

Here we are in the last week of February! Time just keeps its forward march, and here Friday is actually March. I’m hoping for a lamblike start to the month for you all, in every way. xo

People Who Watch People

Posted on by

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

To this, in only a matter of hours.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How indeed?

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

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

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

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

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

Doctor Teeth and the Winter Mayhem

Posted on by

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Weekly Reading

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

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

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

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

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

Live Your Life With Arms Wide Open

Posted on by

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Weekly Reading

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

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

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

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Winter Solstice Edition

Posted on by

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

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Winter Solstice Edition

New Home For The Holidays

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

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

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

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

Where’s Salvadore?

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

He’s literally Gnome on a Shelf!

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

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

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

The Moving Pictures

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

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

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

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

Oh, Miraculous Food

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

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

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

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

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

Holiday Re-Reading

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

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

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

Outfit of the Month

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

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

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

Five For Friday: The Charlie Brown Deep Dive Edition

Posted on by
  • I’ve been noticing this little tree on my morning walks, and it reminds me of Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree. I feel like it would tip over with the addition of a little red ball, and although I dislike 90% of the actual television program, I really resonate with the symbolism of the tree. I wrote back in December 2020 that sometimes we are the tree, sinking under the weight of the season and all the various performative pressures that are placed mainly on women in our society to create a certain jollity and magic. Sometimes, though, we are Linus’ blanket, seeing that our friends are bending under the symbolic red ornament and are ready to snap, and we wrap those friends in our metaphorical blankets, propping them up so that they are suddenly and somewhat improbably able to not only face the season, but they grow all new branches and stop dropping needles and are able to withstand the weight of not only that one red ornament but an entire treeful, including a star on top and many layers of tinsel. I aim to be a Linus’ blanket but I have definitely been the tree at times.
  • I cannot watch that show anymore. I find it so incredibly mean-spirited generally. However, I really do like the railing against the commercialization of the holiday, despite the fact that I definitely purchase many gifts at this time of year and I always will. Who knew that 45 years after Charlie Brown Christmas and the complaint that Christmas had become too commercial, Tim Minchin would release what has become one of my favourite and most resonant Christmas songs, White Wine In The Sun, which includes one of my favourite song lyrics ever: I really like Christmas…And yes, I have all of the usual objections to consumerism, to the commercialization of an ancient religion, to the Westernization of a dead Palestinian, press-ganged into selling PlayStations and beer. But I still really like it. If that line does not resonate with you, please do us all a favour and simply skip it because you certainly will not like the rest of the song, and I really cannot face any more public loathing of my favourite holiday songs. I will not have it, people! I will not have my go-to-holiday-stress-cry-therapy song besmirched by anyone. So just don’t listen.
  • Speaking of music, the Charlie Brown Christmas has, hands-down the best Christmas album in the history of time, in my humble opinion. Second to that is Michael Buble’s, and a distant third is Harry Connick Junior’s When My Heart Finds Christmas. I dare you to find three more uplifting and Holiday Spirit Consciousness Raising albums.
  • I also really like Snoopy, and I strongly identify with the little dancing girl with the straight dark hair and the pink dress. That is my dancing style and also was my aesthetic back in the day.
  • On the topic of Media I Consumed In My Childhood That Seemed Normal But Was Really Weird As Fuck, there was an animated movie I recall, entitled The Small One. It had to do with a donkey who was too old and frail to be of any use, and so the owner’s son had to take it to town and sell it. There was no question keeping it, as it would do nothing but eat without contributing at all to the household income. The man who offered to buy it – this is a bit fuzzy in my mind, but bear with me – was abusive and was going to essentially work the donkey until it died, and then use it for glue, like poor old Boxer from Animal Farm (RIP Boxer). Somehow either the donkey escaped or he didn’t, but he ended up in the hands of Joseph, to carry Mary to Bethlehem, showing that a seemingly-worthless animal can actually be a vital part of a most-worthy task. How a crippled old donkey could possibly carry an enormously pregnant woman on a long journey is a question no one asked, but also there is a lot to unpack here. This children’s program about animal abuse, the lack of choices for those experiencing extreme poverty, and the role of those deemed unworthy in our society was probably shown to me at Sunday School, although it could have been in regular school, the public school system not being so inclusive of other religions at the time. Another animated holiday movie I do remember clearly seeing at school had to do with aliens landing on earth and everyone being mean to them for being different, because symbolism needed to be heavy-handed back then. The movie climaxed with one of the neighbourhood children falling through ice on some kind of body of water, and the aliens helped to form a human/ alien chain to pull that child to safety. We are all one. I will not try to look up anything more about this, as I have had a lifelong phobia of aliens in media, the blame of which can be placed directly on E.T., but I clearly recall the grasping of hands and one of the local anti-alien bigots hesitating a moment before allowing his hand to be taken by an alien. Then everyone got anal probes. Just kidding! I believe it ended with the aliens leaving, which would seem to be going against the probable theme of welcoming people from other cultures, but again, it was the 80s. Things were different.

All Of The Lights

Posted on by

Out of respect for accuracy and to the scientific community in general, and to my friend Chris (HI CHRIS) in particular, I will not say the days are so short right now. A day is always twenty-four hours, whether we are in December or June; however, I will say whoa, there is really not much daylight right now. I mean, of course! Next week is Winter Solstice, which is NOT THE SHORTEST DAY OF THE YEAR, but it is the day with the least amount of daylight.

It is DARK, friends. Hello, darkness, my old friend, one might say. One also might say that it’s time to turn on all of the lights, maybe not the cop lights and definitely not the strobe lights, but absolutely the Christmas lights.

As you all know, when it comes to outdoor seasonal decor, my husband likes to really embrace the season in question. He gifted many of our Halloween decorations, but you can bet we brought every single Christmas item with us across the provincial line.

Yes, that IS a gnome on the top of the deck steps.

Candy Cane Lane has become Candy Cane Line, below the overhead grape rows.

My husband wanted to take out this shrub, can you imagine? It is the perfect receptacle for the sparkly balls, and as a bonus, not one has blown off the branches, causing me to find it in a neighbour’s yard or down the street, like in previous years.

He plugs them in around 3:30 in the afternoon, because the sunset is now at 3:55 pm. I, however, turn on the Christmas tree when I get up at 4:30 in the morning, and leave it on all day, because CHRISTMAS.

It has recently come to my attention, via Elisabeth (HI ELISABETH) that some people have strong feelings about white lights versus coloured lights, and I am glad I do not have to make such a serious and life altering decision, as our tree has the ability to have both. I mean, it’s like having to choose a favourite child; Sophie’s Choice, vis a vis Christmas lights.

My husband has allergies to pollen and to evergreen needles, and so we have always had an artificial tree; to me, this is a huge bonus because it can be up for extended periods of time without worry about drying out or spontaneously bursting into flames due to drying out, or, less dramatically, dropping needles. I have enough to do with regards to my floor cleanliness due to my giant dog who constantly brings in the outdoors, without worrying about my Christmas decor adding to my workload.

Speaking of Elisabeth, it’s that time for the annual Secret Santa Mug Swap – thanks to San (HI SAN) for organizing the swap! – and this year I received a lovely package from her on December first! Talk about being incredibly organized, and also, does she know me or what:

IT HAS SPROUTS ON IT. The chocolates were delicious, of course, and the sweet little bear is hanging out on my tree next to the weird paper angel my older son made when he was in preschool, that appears to have three eyes and no discernable mouth. In other words, a place of honour! Just to illustrate my sons’ different personalities, my older son insists on having that angel in the most visible spot on the tree, but my younger son will place his youthful self’s handicrafts in obscure corners facing the wall, so they are technically on the tree, but no one can see them.

I have much to say about books this week, so without further ado:

Weekly Reading

Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle. My friend Hannah (HI HANNAH) told me about this book, and wow, is it ever good. If you’ve been feeling emotionally, mentally, or physically exhausted, this is the book for you. It walks through stress cycles and how to deal with stress in a healthy way, body image and our society, and how to rest in a way that is restorative to YOU, as an individual. Interestingly, it talks about the importance of physical touch and human connection for combatting health issues from stress; this came out before the pandemic but it sure explains a lot about the individual experiences from that time. My only complaint is that I didn’t read this a year ago when I really needed it. Particularly if you are a person who likes to please others or if you are a person who takes on the emotional weight of the household and feels that you are responsible for other people’s moods and happiness, this book would be incredibly resonant and helpful.

Shelley II: The Middle of My Century. Well. In 1989, after I had been obsessively rereading Shelley, Also Known As Shirley for two years, Shelley Winters published a second autobiography. At that time, I saw it in the bookstore (probably Coles) and for some reason I didn’t buy it then. I was only 14 and on a limited babysitting budget, so I probably spent my money on something really good like Thin Thighs In Thirty Days (the upshot of that book, in case you’re interested, is to do a lot of leg lifts and develop an eating disorder). Anyway, I didn’t buy Shelley II, considered buying it for a while, and then I kind of forgot about it. It has been out of print for a long time, and recently I became re-obsessed with the life and times of Shelley Winters. I actually saw a copy of this book on Thrift Books, bought it, waited with much excitement, reread the first one in preparation, and…was extremely disappointed. In the foreword she says that talk show hosts only ever wanted to talk about her many love affairs after the publication of her first book, so THIS book would be different. Womp womp. Girl, that is what I am here for! Spill the tea! There is a lot here about the Actor’s Studio and the Method – interesting, yes, but my god, so much detail and none of it sexy – and also about her explosive second marriage and subsequent divorce, AGAIN to an Italian actor. Lots of toxic detail, almost zero sex. I have to tell you, with all the discussion about every play she was in during the 50s and 60s, and her travels from New York to California to Europe and back, it was pretty repetitive and boring. Who knew that it could be so boring after such an incredible first book! Well, maybe that’s why it’s out of print. I found myself liking her a lot less after reading this and I kind of wish I hadn’t. I wish I had just left this book to my imagination. 

Fairest of All. I have had a monthly date with my dear friend Nicole (HI NICOLE) since January 2018. We have not missed a month in SIX YEARS. It used to be coffee dates, and then during the pandemic it was phone calls and, later, dog walks. Now it’s phone calls again. Nicole Is the Mary Bennett to my Charlotte Lucas, and she knows my book taste better than anyone in the world. In fact, if I need advice on whether to pick up a buzzy book I ask her and she gives me a straight answer (yes to Happiness Falls, no to Station Eleven). Anyway, I was lamenting a run of bad books and she told me about this YA series that she had gotten for her kids but read herself; they are Disney fairy tales from the villain’s point of view. HELLO! This one centres around the Queen in Snow White and IT IS FUN. It takes less than two hours to read, it’s a fun and unusual retelling, and I am going to read the whole damn series.

I hope you all have a wonderful week, filled with light in this time of dark. xo