Category Archives: Empty Nest Travel

Boring Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

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I remember exactly what I was doing when I realized it. I was on the couch, with two babies in my lap, watching Sesame Street. What you must remember is what Gen X mothers were like, back in the early 2000s. Our generational Meh Attitude completely morphed into something else when our babies were born. We became laser-focused on the task at hand, the task of raising our now Gen Z children to be future stars of the world, and screen time was not a part of that process.

At the time, the expert recommendation was no screen time at all for children under two, and so any time I collapsed on the couch with my one-year-old and my newborn, colicky baby, I felt a deep sense of guilt and wrong-doing. It would only be a few years later where small children would be pacified with iPads in the grocery store, in waiting rooms, in restaurants, but that was not part of my reality, not at all. My generation was the one with the Baby Einstein board books and activity toys, it was the generation that actually put thought into whether black-and-white toys were more intellectually stimulating than colourful ones, and screen time was akin to neglect at best.

But my god, I was tired. I was tired and lonely in only the way you can be when you are surrounded by crying, needy little beings all day long. Someone was always crying, it seemed, someone always needed something, and it took a solid two hours to prepare to leave the house. And so sometimes I would succumb to the siren song of PBS Kids and watch Sesame Street.

And it was then that I realized that I really identified with Bert.

It was a startling, St Paul on the road to Damascus feeling, akin to the day I realized I wasn’t Jo March, I was Amy, and I wasn’t Elizabeth Bennett, I was Charlotte Lucas. Sure, I don’t have a paperclip collection, nor an interest in pigeons, but I did show everyone I know the photo I took of a blue heron.

I would have liked to think I was a wildcard like Grover, or a good time like Ernie, or even a secretive, mysterious Snuffalupagus, but no. I’m Bert. I like the colour grey, particularly in clothing and home decor, I enjoy oatmeal very much, and, most of all, I love what other people might term Boring Stories.

During the pandemic, when I started posting all the books I read on Instagram, I received a nasty message from a woman who berated my literary choices. She had bought – bought! – several books that I had raved about, and was sorely disappointed in every last one of them. How could you even like these? she wrote. Literally nothing happens! They are the most boring books I’ve ever read in my life!

Well. If you know me at all you know I’m a big fan of character-driven literary fiction. It’s true, I don’t love a thick plot or a lot of action. One of my favourites is Diary of a Provincial Lady, and nothing at all does happen in that book. Literally, nothing.

The same is true in my choice of podcasts, and nowhere was this more apparent than when I was road tripping with my husband this past week. He likes Things To Happen, I don’t, and so we end up with a happy medium of comedy podcasts and celebrity interviews. A current favourite of mine is Cookbook Club, where the hosts sound like the Schweddy Balls ladies on SNL, and are apt to take a five-minute digression about rainbow sprinkles and whether white sprinkles should be included in a rainbow mix and should we all just create our own rainbow sprinkle mixes? If I were to play that in the car with my husband, he would be liable to drive us off a cliff just to end the suffering.

We did not drive off a cliff, obviously, but we did have poor driving conditions for at least seven of the nearly ten hours that we spent in the car on Tuesday. The least of it was rain; we also hit snow in Rogers’ Pass and through the Jasper Parkway, plus fog most of the way, but mostly in Saskatchewan Crossing.

We were visiting my parents; it was my dad’s 75th birthday, and so there was a nice big house party with my aunt, cousins, and uncle. I had a great time visiting, playing dice poker, eating and drinking. I also enjoyed the sunrises over the lake:

And of course, walking in the fall foliage.

Rex is a really great traveller, and was so well behaved when we stopped for an overnight with our friends in Calgary.

We came home on Saturday and although the conditions were better, the drive was so long and slow due to road construction and single lane traffic. The views made up for it though.

Even still, I am feeling slightly resentful having to get in the car after all that driving. The only thing I miss about Calgary, other than friends, is the ability to walk anywhere in my neighbourhood. I have to drive to walk the dog, and yesterday Rex and I were not super excited to get back into the Subaru.

Speaking of Calgary, we drove through that old neighbourhood, and I expected to be very emotional, but I was not moved at all. Did my soul leave my body without me knowing it? The old house looks the same, other than the garden being a shambles, but it wasn’t sad to me at all. I guess I’ve really moved on.

Weekly Reading

Speaking of boring books, I read some that were boring TO ME, and both of those were memoir. Typically I love memoir but these just did not hit. However, I read a really excellent novel this week, so I guess things even out.

On Being Human. As I was reading this, I kept thinking that this seemed familiar, this memoir of a yoga teacher who discovers that she has had lifelong hearing loss in adulthood. Well, I discovered the reason I found it so familiar: I read this in December 2019. Obviously it wasn’t all that memorable. I am kind of annoyed with myself for spending time reading this not once but twice. To be fair, I did enjoy reading about her childhood and yoga journey, but I was just not in the mood to read chapter after chapter of self-loathing, name-dropping, and her experiences with creating a brand via Facebook. Wow, was it repetitive. If I pick this up again in five years, thinking it looks interesting, please remind me to drop it.

Good Material. A stand-up comedian is going through a breakup, and it’s devastating to him. Suddenly he is an apartment-less, emotional wreck who discovers that being single and 35 is different than being single in his 20s. This book is written almost entirely from the male point of view, which is not usually something I read, but which was entertaining and very well written. The point of view switches near the end and really shows that there are two sides to every story, at the least. The book ends in January 2020, which is a really interesting choice by the author – we know that things are doomed, but our characters don’t. I really enjoyed this book, it is so well-written and uniquely thought out. 

More Please. A couple of years ago I swore off millennial memoirs, on account of me being just a bit too old to appreciate them. This is a Me Thing, not a Them Thing – I’m just not in the right stage of life. However, I heard this woman speak on a podcast and was impressed enough to pick up her book – and I wish I hadn’t. It was so repetitive and boring, not saying anything new or interesting. The good news is that it only took me a couple of hours to read. 

Before we left on our road trip, we took our annual family photo. It’s interesting; we are not a family who fights or bickers, but when it comes to family photos, we all suddenly hate each other. Historically, that is, because somehow we took the photo with absolutely no conflict whatsoever. It was a red-letter day. Anyway, this photo will be our Christmas card, and if you are a person who also likes to send Christmas cards, let me know, and I will add you to my list. Very important caveat: I am only interested in a Christmas card exchange; I get hurt feelings if I send a card and don’t get one back. If we exchanged cards last year, you are already on my list! If you’d like to be included, message me in the comments and we’ll exchange addresses. Have a beautiful week, everyone! xo

Don’t It Make My Pink Jobs Blue

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In grad school I had a copy of the Feminist Manifesto, along with a poster of a fish riding a bicycle, taped to the walls of my office, and I feel that says everything you need to know. I am firmly a Rosie the Riveter woman at heart, and yet in the past two and a half decades, I have become a little lazy and complacent. My husband is an incredibly handy person, and so I have just let all jobs requiring handiness to slide into his corner; in theory I do not believe in gendered division of labour, but my practice seems to tell a different story.

Right now, my husband is on a weeks-long trip with my older son, and is mostly out of cell phone range.

In the past week since he has been gone, I have dealt with a non-working air conditioner along with a weird communication problem with the air conditioning people, I have learned about the issue with the air conditioner and how to keep it working until the part for the permanent solution arrives, I have destroyed and cleaned up an ant infestation, and I have resolved an issue with our water filtration system. All of these situations arose the second he left town, and really could not wait until his return. Particularly the ants.

Actually, dealing with the ants was the easiest of all. After using the shop vac and some seemingly useless ant traps, I overcame my distaste for harsh chemicals, and committed what can only be described as chemical warfare on my baseboards. It was ant carnage. Typically I am a person who saves insects and puts them outside, but a colony of ants taking up residence in my kitchen is an entirely different story. Once I saw a few of them on my countertop it was an all-out war.

The problem with the air conditioning means that I am checking the heat pump every morning for error messages, and happily it has been working. Less happily, while checking the heat pump I heard a beeping alarm and figured out it was coming from the water filtration system, something I know basically nothing about. I started to low-level panic, but I remembered what my cousin Cory’s wife Barb said to me last weekend when I told her about my complete ineptitude regarding vehicular maintenance: You know, Nicole, there is always a user manual.

YES. I am a smart woman, I thought, I can figure this out. I found the user manual. I discovered that the UV lamp and something called a quartz sleeve needed replacing. There were many pages of steps to do so, and I am extremely poor at doing anything requiring mechanical ability or hand-eye coordination, but my younger son is very good at those things. If there is one thing I can do, it’s read, and if there are two things I can do, it is to dictate and delegate. I thought he could do the work and I could read the directions and talk him through it.

We just needed the parts.

I searched the product’s website and found a local distributor. I called, and talked to a lovely fellow named Brent, who assured me that they did have that exact UV lamp in stock, and yes, they were open all day. I cheerfully said I would come by and pick it up, and oh, by the way, did they have this quartz sleeve thing? At this point, Brent interrupted me, in a voice that was tinged with what can only be described as alarm, to ask if I was a “mechanical kind of person.” Probably he wouldn’t ask a man that, but believe me, I was happy he did, because he said it was a “pretty complicated fix” and that many had tried, but not many had succeeded in replacing the quartz sleeve. The uptake of this whole conversation was that this was a service he could provide, and am I free Tuesday? I sure am, and knowing this was a service I could pay for would have saved me twenty minutes of conversation, but I was relieved that this precluded me probable crying bouts and possibly a having flood or contaminated water.

Speaking of floods, the family reunion took place in a campground, and my parents, along with other relatives, had secured the services of a company that rents trailers; the company sets it all up, and all you need to do is show up. Perfection! I was sleeping in a bunk bed, which I haven’t done since I was at actual sleepaway camp, and, predictably, I fell out of it on the first night. I was climbing down to use the bathroom at 3 in the morning but my foot got caught up in my sleeping bag, and I ended up falling on the floor with a dramatic bang. My mother sat up, screaming What happened? She was right to be alarmed, not because I was hurt – I wasn’t really – but because so many things had already gone wrong with our little trailer. She probably thought the whole thing exploded or something. Prior to my tumble, the handle broke off of what we learned the hard way was a non-working fridge, slicing my finger as it broke, we discovered that the water heater and shower were both non-functional, and, probably relatedly, the water in the trailer was slowly leaking out of the bottom, resulting in an enormous puddle underneath. Do you know your trailer is leaking? every single person asked us, but fortunately, the aforementioned Cousin Cory, a seasoned RVer, managed things. Cory also thought that the loud bang in the night was someone breaking into his storage container, and so he was pretty happy that it was just me, falling out of bed. By the end of the next day, every single relative, including small children, had asked me if I was okay after my fall, so news travels fast.

Coming home to the ant situation was actually better than the biting fly situation we had at the campground. If ever you want to be protected from biting insects, please sit beside me. I am a magnet for them. Everyone else is safe around me. My lower legs, and my ankles in particular, look like I have a mix between the chicken pox and leprosy. I guess my foot fetish Only Fans page will have to wait another day.

On the topic of feet, Rex was absolutely filthy by the time I picked him up from the boarding kennel; his white paws were a gross shade of beige. He was pretty grubby going in, but after a week of playing with all the other dogs, the situation was dire. This is not my first dog boarding rodeo, so I had the foresight to book him in a few days after his return, and he was so beautifully clean for three hours, at which time he went rolling in the dusty dry grass. I knew the gig would be up after his walk the following day anyway.

As Rex repeatedly rolled around, getting dirty, I was busy in my garden, which, in my absence, had gone completely rogue. I had picked all the zucchinis before I left, and still, this was waiting for me on my return:

That was from one day, and I have picked multiple zucchinis since. I am overwhelmed by zucchini, and also tomatoes:

Also: my first red peppers!

The greens are all done for the year, though, and so I am going to replant in a week or two when it’s not so hot. I’ve always dreamed of having a “fall garden” so I hope this works.

Weekly Reading

I Capture The Castle. I had never even heard of this book until Engie (HI ENGIE) suggested it for the Cool Bloggers Book Club, which I highly suggest you join! You neither have to be cool nor a blogger, but you should probably read the book. I won’t put my thoughts here – I usually read the books on schedule but I had this from the library and it had to go back, so I raced through it – instead, I will be commenting at the book club. I will say that it was absolutely NOTHING like I expected, and also, I am happy to be alive in the year 2024. Look around, look around, how lucky we are to be alive right now.

No One Tells You This. The author of this book is the creator of the excellent podcast Wilder, which I totally recommend, but that’s not why I picked this book up. I heard her speaking on another podcast, and she told an anecdote about her mother, who had struggled with her weight her whole life. The author went to see her when she was dying of Parkinson’s-related dementia, and was taken aback by how terribly thin she was. The author’s mother was excited – so very happy – about her newfound thinness, in the face of her imminent death, and this was so poignant and moving that I knew I’d have to read it. “Look how thin I am! Can you believe it?” she says over and over. This is a very engaging memoir of a single, childfree woman in the year after she turned forty. Two parts especially of note: when she is a waitress, and tells a coworker she’s envious of a starlet who walks in. “‘Oh no’, she said, turning to me sternly, ‘don’t you think that. She has plenty of her own problems which are just as terrible to her as yours are to you.'” She also talks about her friends: “It was only fifteen years later…that I understood that sometimes saving someone simply means opening the door, letting them in for a deeply mundane holiday celebration, and asking absolutely nothing of them other than that they take up the space you’ve made for them.” It was a beautiful story of a woman working through her own life.

Speaking of a woman working through her life, last week felt like it was three months long, dealing with so many issues. Let’s hope that this week is much more smooth, and that you all are gliding through August with style! And hopefully not broken air-conditioning. xo

Five (Plus Two) (So, Seven) For Friday: The I’m Back, and With Books Edition

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  • I’m back from a solo trip to a family reunion that happened over the long weekend. First and foremost, it was great. There’s something so special about being around people who you have known your whole life. I loved seeing all my cousins, I loved meeting distant relatives I had never met before, and I loved spending a lot of time with my parents. However. It was a lot of travel to get there and back, and when I say “a lot” I mean a total of three flights – one of which was cancelled, rescheduled, rescheduled again, and then delayed two and a half hours – and fifteen hours in the car, with my dad driving. Fifteen. Hours. In the car. I first flew to Calgary where I was met by my parents for a two hour drive to their place, where we stayed for a couple of days until driving eleven hours over two days to the reunion in Saskatchewan. After the festive weekend, my dad drove me two hours to Regina where I flew home, first connecting in Calgary, whence the delay. The good news is that it wasn’t my first flight that was delayed, and also that I left Calgary before an enormous electrical storm with hail shut the whole airport down and caused massive plane damage. In other good news, I did not revert to sullen teenhood after spending so much time in the backseat of my parents’ car; I had worried that I would start angstily staring out the window listening to gloomy music on my Walkman. I did, however, pop my earbuds in a few times to drown out Helen and Morty Seinfeld in the front seat, but instead of listening to The End or Goodbye, Cruel World, I listened to podcasts; mostly about skincare, but also to my new obsession, Dear Prudence.
  • I was reminded of the book I had recently read, entitled Wellness, in which one of the characters makes a lot of money by suggesting that air travel be made as miserable as possible, and so even a slight upgrade to the experience would lead to satisfied customers. Wow, did that resonate. After my flights home got cancelled, rescheduled to arrive at midnight, and then rescheduled for daytime but downgraded from a 737 to a prop plane, I paid a marginal fee for a seat upgrade and was unreasonably excited when I got unlimited vegan snacks.
  • Do you have a special travel treat? Mine is a Subway sandwich, which I only ever get while travelling. For decades my Subway order has been the following: avocado, tomato, lettuce, green peppers and pickles on whole wheat, with house sauce and mustard. Once I discovered I’d be in the Calgary airport for several hours, I decided to seek out Subway for lunch; there was one in the international terminal, which I had just frequented in May. I walked across two terminals only to discover that it has GONE. After staring at the blank wall space in which it used to reside, I congratulated myself for getting my steps in before turning around. I found a little wine bar that served avocado toast, and even though it was 2:00 in the afternoon, and I famously have trouble with swelling during air travel, particularly when alcohol is involved, I enjoyed a couple of glasses of Malbec. No regrets.
  • I read Come and Get It, and it was one of the best books I have read all year. I mean, this book could be a MasterClass on how to craft complex characters and compelling storylines. I could NOT put this down! This author is a master at creating flawed, yet deeply relatable characters that the reader becomes incredibly invested in, and the story – which deals with three college roommates, their RA, and a writer – is just so good. I kept thinking of the adage “it’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up,” because each character makes mistakes and end up in webs of lies of varying degrees, with varying consequences. I could relate so much to all of the interiority of all of the characters. I read this author’s first book and liked it fine, but this absolutely blew it out of the water for me. Oh, and fun fact: when I was a young teen I wrote a series of semi-autobiographical angsty short stories (possibly after long car rides to Saskatchewan?), and the main character (ME) was named Nichelle. I thought that was a clever, made-up name, but one of the mothers in this book is named Nichelle. I have NEVER seen that before! ARE WE ON THE SAME WAVELENGTH?
  • I really expected to love Thrity Umrigar’s latest, The Museum of Failures, as I have really enjoyed most of her work, but, well, no. This book deals with families, secrets, and how things aren’t always as they seem. The theme of “hurt people hurt people” pervades the book and typically I find this very moving. I did not, though. For some reason I just could not connect with or become invested in the characters and story. Maybe it was the wrong timing for me, I don’t know. It just dragged and was flat for me.
  • On the other hand, I did not think I would enjoy Yours Truly as much as I did! This was a very cute, easy reading romance and I was one hundred percent here for it. One of the characters has social anxiety, which is quite foreign to me, as I am not an overthinker about social situations at all. I felt it was a great insight into the minds of some of my anxious friends. It was just a lovely, funny, feel-good book and I think it a perfect summer read! Plus, it features a three-legged Bernese mountain dog named Lieutenant Dan, which probably bumped the whole reading experience up at least half a star.
  • I love reading a book that takes place in a location where I have been! Hotline is the story of a single mother in 1986-87, who escapes the terror in Lebanon to come to Montreal. It is a touching story about the immigrant experience; although qualified as a French teacher she takes a job as a hotline operator for a diet food company, and ends up becoming involved in her clients’ lives. Living in Calgary, I always marvelled at the people who came from warm climates to live in such a harshly cold one, and wondered what that would be like. The author paints the picture very well, of finding appropriate clothing, of figuring out Canadian culture, of navigating French/ English ideas, and of coming to terms with the fact that her education and experience don’t count for much in this new place of ice storms and strange food. 

It’s been a somewhat bumpy reentry in the homefront, but I am feeling more organized and that I have gotten my feet back under me after some unexpected complications and situations. More on that later, but for now, I’m going to enjoy my Friday. It’s a little hot for Malbec, but I see margaritas in my future. I’m looking forward to catching up with everyone! How are you all? What did I miss? Tell me everything. xo

What Have I Become?

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One thing I didn’t realize would happen, with a retired husband and children no longer in the public school system, is that long weekends don’t really register for me anymore. Every weekend is a long weekend, therefore no weekend is a long weekend.

This is not to say that the Canada Day weekend was really affected by the school system, but since the school year finishes at the end of June, July 1 always felt like the big start to summer. We have a young houseguest – our dear friends’ son, who is himself a very good friend of my sons’, particularly my oldest, with whom he shares a birthday – and when my son mentioned he was coming, I thought oh yeah, I guess that IS a long weekend.

Personally, living in this beautiful climate, I feel like summer started weeks ago, so this holiday feels like a bit of a non-event. Interestingly, though, since Kelowna is very much a tourist town, I have noticed things like increased traffic and a lot more beach-themed items for sale in shops and stores. My new favourite bookshop was displaying all the beach reads, Ogopogo stuffies, and such items that are beloved by tourists, like a new cookbook written by my husband’s family friend, which pairs wines from the Burrowing Owl winery with menus using seasonal, local produce.

Speaking of which, I am still working my way through Julie’s cake cookbook, and this weekend, in honour of our guest I decided to make chocolate stout cake, with the single Guinness I had left in the fridge. I had more, but my son and our guest decided on Friday night to make stout floats using some of the homemade ice cream in the freezer. We didn’t have vanilla, so they improvised with mint and reported that it wasn’t very good. You don’t say? Mint and Guinness are NOT a winning combination? Colour me surprised. Well, the cake WAS very good, although it completely sunk in the middle. I did wonder why Julie had indicated that the batter was to be divided between two loaf pans; I thought that sounds silly, I’ll just pour it into an 8×8. Joke’s on me. Well, it tasted great, even if I flipped it over to hide the sunken middle.

As everyone who knows me even marginally knows, I love being outside. In good weather, particularly summer, I have low-level feelings of resentment for every moment I spend indoors. I think this is partly due to living almost my whole life in Calgary; if the weather is good, you had better enjoy it, because it could abruptly end at any moment. Any time the weather is nice, I just want to spend all my time outside.

At night, though, I like a bed, and walls, and the incredible modern inventions of running water and flush toilets, and so I am not a person who has incorporated camping into my life. Imagine telling our foremothers that, instead of hauling water from a well or creek and then heating it painstakingly on the stove, which has been fueled with wood chopped by hand, just so someone could take a stab at being some semblance of clean, that we have clean water at our fingertips, and not only that, we can choose the temperature? Imagine how exciting that would be for them, and then imagine telling them that we shall eschew this modern miracle to go hang out in the woods and be swarmed by mosquitoes at every turn?

So my stance on camping has historically been a negative one, but my husband found a loophole in my “bed, walls, toilet, and running water” argument by purchasing a camper. I am sure he’d love it if I said “our camper” but really, it’s HIS camper. I’ve been very pleased that he has used it with the boys, and was a bit startled to be asked to go with him and meet up with another couple this past Friday.

My first instinct was to Shut This Shit Down, but after a calming meditation, I realized that a) this was not in keeping with my current Live Your Life With Arms Wide Open mantra, b) the other couple was being really kind and welcoming, and were proposing so many accommodations and fun activities for me, c) sometimes marital harmony is preserved through compromise, and d) it was only for one night.

And you know what, friends, it was actually pretty fun! My friend brought an extra kayak and lifejacket for me, knowing that would be something I would love, my husband packed lots of wine and coolers, and my friend’s husband brought an entire cake and encouraged me to eat two pieces. I felt like the subject of Tonight’s The Night, but in a non-sexual way; like I was a terrified virgin who needed smooth jazz, soft words, and some wine to get things going.

Several of my camping friends, on hearing the news, congratulated me enthusiastically, saying that I would love my new life as a Happy Camper. I would not go so far as that; I cannot with any honesty use the word “love” and “camping” in the same sentence, but it was pretty fun. I did love the kayaking and the walks the girls did with the dogs while the guys went fishing, I did love the cake and the wine and sitting by the fire until I was overcome with mosquito bites.

The happy result as far as my husband is concerned is that I have agreed to go annually, on my one night only condition. I know! What have I become? Someone who is dousing themselves in witch hazel, that’s what.

Weekly Reading

One Star Romance. I expected this enemies-to-lovers book about a man who rates a woman’s debut novel one star, and then the two of them find themselves as best man and maid of honour at their friends’ wedding, to be a light and fluffy read. It was not! It was so much more involved: it is a romance, for sure, but it’s also a book about friendship and family and growing up. I really liked it! It definitely took me by surprise, it’s a very clever and thoughtful book with some great character arcs.

1000 Words: A Writer’s Guide To Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive Year Round. I heard this woman being interviewed on a podcast; she created the 1000 Words of Summer, which is a motivational group for writers. The key is to write 1000 words a day for two weeks in the summer. This was intriguing to me because 1000 words a day, four to five days a week was exactly how I wrote my first draft. This book is about the craft of writing, but is mostly meant to be motivational and inspirational, including short essays from a number of very accomplished authors.

What did I just say? First draft? I had a goal, very quietly kept close to my chest, of writing a first draft of a novel in 2024, and on June 5, I completed that goal! I finished the reread last week and am preparing for the second draft now. I will have much more to say about it, I’m sure, in the coming weeks.

Happy Canada Day, friends! Here’s to July! I hope you all have a beautiful week. xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Four Province Edition

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I know we all say this every single month, and probably will say this every single month until we shuffle off this mortal coil, but can you even believe that it’s the end of May? Technically, I guess, we refer to the specific month that we are at the end of, not specifically “May.” However, it does feel like every time a month ends no one can believe that the month is ending already, because life is but a time-lapse video of pages flying off a page-a-day calendar, so rapidly that we cannot even, we cannot EVEN. And so it is that Saturday is June, and it’s time once again to talk about my Favourite Things.

This month feels especially fleeting, as I was travelling for almost half of it, and the other half seems to have been spent frantically catching up on all the things I missed while travelling. When I think back to our trip, it feels a bit blurry and fuzzy, like I just woke up and am half-remembering a lovely dream I had. It just seems like it was so long ago already!

The last day of our trip, we drove from Montreal to the Ottawa airport, where we flew to Calgary and then on to Kelowna so, as my husband pointed out to a Very Tired Me, we were in four provinces over a 14 hour period. It’s just like one of those old Bust Loose! European tours in which the clientele visit 9 countries in 8 days, but without the alcohol poisoning and casual sex.

Side note: I never did one of those tours as a youth (or as an older person, I hasten to say) but stories, I have heard them. Hey, if you did, I would love to hear about it! I love stories about my friends and their wayward youths, they are my favourite! And here are the rest of my Favourites, for the month of May.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Four Province Edition

I’m Glad We Were Here Together In Our Nation’s Capital

I used that line from Forrest Gump – god I love that movie, no apologies – many times when we were in Ottawa, both in my head and outwardly, the latter only a few times, as my husband is pretty tired of hearing me talk about the Lieutenant Dan character arc, which inevitably follows any quotation. (I was supposed to be Lieutenant Dan. You are STILL Lieutenant Dan). We are here, in our nation’s capital! I texted the boys, who probably just rolled their eyes as they pressed “like” on my message. Anyway, when it came to Ontario I loved seeing Allison (HI ALLISON) and the Parliament buildings, but my Favourite Thing about the province was – wait for it – the Niagara wine region!

Every once in a while, I will read an article about the dangers of alcohol consumption in general and the negative effects of it on a woman in perimenopause in particular; I will wake up in the middle of the night after a couple of glasses of red wine drenched with sweat, and I will briefly consider a wine-free life. But you know what? I love wine. In fact, I Fucking Love Wine. All week I look forward to Friday when I crack open a bottle and pour myself a nice glass as an end-of-week treat. I especially look forward to it when I know I have a bottle of my Very Favourite Wine, Vineland Estates Cabernet Franc.

I have already discussed how special that winery is to me, but I don’t think I can reiterate enough how delicious this wine is. It is not available for purchase in BC, for long, boring, stupid reasons, and so we had some cases shipped home, including some white and rose. I am not typically a rose gal, but Vineland Estates makes an absolutely wonderful one, so maybe I’ll get myself a Rose All Day tee to wear while sipping.

If Only You Believed In Miracles, We’d Get By

I grew up in the Lutheran church, and let me tell you a little something about Lutherans: they are a very practical, prosaic people. They are not interested in wasting resources on external ornamentation or frivolity, to say the least. There’s going to be a cross, and a couple of stained-glass windows, and maybe a painting depicting the Crucifixion and a banner sewed by one of the ladies in the congregation, but that’s pretty much it.

The first time I remember being in a non-Lutheran church was when I was sixteen, and that non-Lutheran church was St Paul’s Basilica in the Vatican. Go big or go home, I always say. I remember being absolutely overwhelmed with the incredible, excessive beauty of the Basilica, and so began my lifelong interest in visiting historical cathedrals. You might think that I should have saved something as momentous as St Paul’s for later in life, but sometimes life is mysterious and the road is long and winding.

On our trip to Quebec we drove the extra 30 km outside of Quebec City to visit the Basilica of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre. It’s one of the biggest churches in Canada and has the reputation for miracles, attracting pilgrims from all over. The front of the church has a display of crutches, canes, and walkers that were left by pilgrims who did not need them anymore.

Now, I am not Catholic, nor have I even attended a church service in many years, but I do believe in a higher power and I do believe that sometimes, things happen that cannot be explained by our practical world, and maybe those things are miracles. I mean, who knows? The power of the mind is very strong, and while I wouldn’t rely on miracles, I wouldn’t reject them either. Of course, I am a person who, in the vein of Mary Oliver, thinks that seeds sprouting, flowers blooming, and the sun rising and moon falling are pure, everyday miracles, so I might not be that discerning. But just because science or logic can explain something doesn’t mean it’s not miraculous, and, in an opposite vein, sometimes miraculous things happen that cannot be explained by science or logic. In any case, no one builds a church like the Catholics, and I felt myself in awe of the beauty.

Across from the church is a hill, and there are life-sized Stations of the Cross built into it beside a memorial chapel. Walking through the Way of the Cross, I thought of my grandma Fern and missed her terribly.

Eat, Drink, and Be Merry

One of my very Favourite things to do when I visit my parents – other than eating, drinking, and spending time with them – is going to Bentley, Alberta, which is home of Merry’s Mercantile. My friend Merry (HI MERRY) has a wonderful little boutique that is filled with absolute happiness, and it changes all the time: she sells clothing and home goods, gifts and cards, retro treats and vintage goods. Salvadore the gnome came from there, and my mom and I drive out whenever I’m visiting. This time we took my aunt as well, and had a great time. Something always speaks to me in her little shop, and this time it was this mug:

I mean. Was it made just for me? It feels like it. I also bought a matching one for my aunt, which says “Because I’m a fucking lady, that’s why.” What can I say, it felt right.

And just because we are talking about Merry’s Mercantile, I thought you would all be interested to see Salvadore in his new environment. Finally, he’s finished with the Menopause Manifesto!

Inch By Inch, Row By Row

On my birthday, we planted the seeds for the garden, and everything is up and growing, with the exception of the oregano, which I have since replanted. My very first harvest was last week, and it was cilantro! Longtime readers will remember my indoor cilantro garden, which I no longer have – and I have missed fresh cilantro so very much. It feels like an absolute gift to just go out and cut some at a whim.

We also have so much kale, spinach, and romaine lettuce already. We had our first kale harvest on Sunday, and another of kale and spinach on Tuesday, and you can barely tell that I cut it, we have so much in the garden. It’s all salads, all the time around here now.

Outfit of the Month

I am so proud of myself for travelling for two weeks with only a carryon. As a former overpacker, I feel like I have made a significant shift in my life, and as god is my witness, I will never check a bag again, if I can help it.

Let me tell you about this coat: it is a workhorse. I bought it from Lululemon when my children were in preschool, and I think it still looks pretty great. It’s waterproof and lined, so it was perfect for this trip which was relatively cool and sometimes rainy.

I mostly wore it with jeans, a black top, and Skechers, which were perfect for walking around. Since we were outside touring around most of the time, almost every single photo of me is in this coat. I hope it lasts me forever.

May was such a fun month, but I am looking forward to a quieter existence for June. We will be sticking close to home, which, although he is a good traveller, I think Rex will be happy about.

What have you loved this month? Tell me everything. xo

She’s Here! She’s There!

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She’s every-fucking-where! I was channeling my inner Roy Kent over the past three weeks, metaphorically speaking, of course. I did not somehow obtain massive celebrity due to my sudden ability to play football at a premier level. I was, however, on a three-province tour, and I really hope you are humming the words three province tour to the tune of the theme from Gilligan’s Island.

My husband and I have long toyed with the idea of driving across Canada, but after we moved here, reality set in. People, I do not have the bandwidth for a weeks-, or maybe months-long road trip. I don’t think my husband does either. I don’t want to be away from home that long, for one thing, and for another, I do not want to be in a vehicle for an extended period of time.

But I do want to see more of our beautiful country; I feel like I have experienced so little. Other than Western Canada, which I have definitely seen a lot of, I have been to Toronto, and that’s pretty much it. My husband and I talked at length about how to see Canada, and we decided we would fly to parts unexplored, and then drive to where we wanted to go. As we all know, I am not the trip planner in this relationship, and so my husband got busy figuring out the logistics of it all.

One of the drawbacks to moving to Kelowna is that the airport is pretty small, and direct flights are not always available, and so it was the case for our flights to Ottawa. However, we are let’s make the best of it kind of people, and so we took advantage of our flight through Calgary, turning it into an overnight to spend with friends before embarking to our capital city. The first leg of our trip we were hosted by friends, spending three nights with them and doing some light touring. The absolute highlight for me was the afternoon I got to spend with Allison (HI ALLISON)!

Allison and I have been friends for probably fourteen years, but we haven’t seen each other in person for a decade. She’s the kind of warm, wonderful person with whom it is easy to just pick up where we left off – of course, we chat at least three or four times a week, so “where we left off” is pretty recent. I arrived at her house starving, having toured the Diefenbunker for two hours – apparently memories of the Cold War from a tour guide who actually was stationed at the Diefenbunker in the 60s really works up an appetite – and she had freshly-made guacamole, freshly-baked biscuits, apples, and, of course, snack mix.

After Ottawa, we drove to the Niagara region, and by “we,” I mean “my husband,” while I navigated. Some of you may remember that my favourite wine in the world is Vineland Estates Cabernet Franc; well, the head winemaker at Vineland is my husband’s lifelong friend Brian (HI BRIAN), and, in fact, the friendship goes back three generations as their dads and grandpas were also friends and grape-growers in the Okanagan. Brian put us up in his gorgeous guest house and toured us around the vineyard and winery, showing us the special wine cellar and also the block of Pinot Meunier, the cuttings of which plants came from my late father-in-law decades ago. Isn’t that a special thing?

You can’t go to Niagara without going to Niagara-on-the-Lake, and I was so excited to see all the beautiful tulips in bloom. I had hoped to see tulips in bloom in Ottawa, which had come from the Netherlands as a gift to Canada for our country’s service in World War II, but it was slightly too early for them. But Niagara-on-the-Lake did not disappoint!

And of course, you can’t go to Niagara without going to Niagara Falls. What a wild ride that was, literally.

Niagara Falls is so funny. I did not expect to see giant dinosaurs at a mini-golf course, many fun houses, carnival rides, and wax museums alongside one of the natural wonders of the world, but here we were. We took the boat into the falls area, and then went on a guided walking tour, which ended up behind and underneath the falls.

After Niagara we headed back to Ottawa for a night; my husband thought we would take the TransCanada back just for a different driving experience, and whoa, we were not expecting an undivided two lane highway with an 80 km/hr speed limit. Well, it was pretty, if slow.

This leg of our trip was the start of our CP Hotel experience – I am a big fan of the fancy CP Hotels, and the Chateau Laurier was incredible. I mean, if it’s good enough for my birthday twin, QEII, as well as Princess Di and the Queen Mum, I guess it’s good enough for me.

We wandered around the Parliament buildings and the Rideau Canal all evening.

The next day we headed to Quebec City, and friends, I was not prepared at all for how much I was going to love Old Quebec.

Once you enter the old fortification walls to Old Quebec, it’s like being transported to a little cobblestoned town in Europe. We stayed at the Frontenac, which is right in the middle of everything, and we spent all our time walking around those beautiful streets, to the Citadel and the Plains of Abraham, taking breaks for amazing food and to warm up on the Gold Floor of the hotel, which we had splurged on.

After Quebec City we headed to Montreal, where we stayed at the Reine Elizabeth, took in the light show at Notre Dame and had the most amazing dinner.

Not to brag, but I won the medal for Top Student in French in 1988; I have not, however, used those skills since about 1990 so I had to brush up a little before we ventured into Quebec. I can generally understand French if it is written or spoken very slowly, but my conversational skills are, shall we say, poor. Having grown up in Alberta, I had this outdated idea that Quebecers would be very dismissive of English-speakers’ attempts at French, but nothing could have been further from the truth. Everyone we met was SO kind and lovely, and seemed to appreciate my non-skills. Desolee, je parle francais tres mal.

We were able to visit with my husband’s cousins, who live in Montreal, and, despite pouring rain, gave us a little walking tour. The next day we drove back to Ottawa – a total of 2390 km driven – and then flew through Calgary back home. It was a super long day and, honestly, I was pretty exhausted.

If that wasn’t enough driving, though, we were home two days before we were on the road again. This time we took Rex with us and drove nine and a half hours to visit my parents. It was my mom’s birthday, and my beloved Aunty C was visiting as well, so we all had a great time together.

We drove the Icefields Parkway, rather than through Calgary, and we ran into some traffic.


After flying across the country and driving 4000 kilometres, I am ready to be home for a while! I have so much more to say, stories to tell, and books to talk about – and the garden, you guys, there is so much happening in the garden, I cannot EVEN – but this week is going to be all about catching up on life! And also on my blog reading; I currently have 194 unread posts, which I will be getting to hopefully in the next few days! In the meantime, I missed you all. Tell me what’s going on! Give me all the details. xo

Various Views on Vegas

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Fly High Free Bird

The soul-crushing airline industry has completely ruined my idea of what is normal and what is not. To me, flight departure and arrival times are completely nebulous, an approximation at best. I just assume that no flight will ever take off or arrive on time, ever, which is why I will do almost anything to avoid flight connections. So you can imagine my surprise when not only did our flight to Vegas was on time, but so was our flight home. We arrived home at 4:00 pm, which meant that I could pick Rex up from the boarder’s, rather than waiting until the next day. “Our flight got in early!” I excitedly said to the woman at the boarder’s, and my husband reminded me that no, it wasn’t, but it was on time. I guess I just assumed 4:00 could mean anything from 5:00 to midnight.

We had booked these flights before I became incredibly spoiled by our recent, premium seat flight to Mexico, but we did have the exit row, which is quite comfortable for me and my swollen, badly circulated, here-are-the-warning-signs-for-blood clots legs. On the way there I was seated beside a lovely Australian woman who had been rerouted to Vegas in the strangest way: she was heading for Calgary, where she would connect to go on to Houston, but as she was driving to the airport she was notified that her Calgary flight was delayed for over ninety minutes, and she would miss her connection. Back in the day there were many flights from Calgary to Houston, but apparently not anymore, and so she was flying to Vegas, of all redirections, and then getting an evening flight on a different airline to Houston. It sounded exhausting and reinforced my deep distrust of airline connections.

On discovering that the woman was from Australia, the fellow in the window seat struck up a conversation, and continued the conversation for the entire three hour flight. I was in the happy position of being in the aisle seat, so I could eavesdrop easily but I could also just read my book. The conversation almost entirely consisted of his recounting of The Times He Got Drunk In Australia, along with one horrifying description of the Time He Tried To Barbeque Kangaroo Meat.

I had a brief conversation with this young gentleman when he arrived to his seat, and that conversation was about the Superiority Of The Airport White Spot as a Drinking Destination. “Their liquor license starts at 6:00 am, and there’s no difference in the price of a beer at the airport versus the White Spot on Harvey,” he said, “And no one has to drive because we are all getting on a plane!” He has a point. The flight attendant came by with the drinks cart and when he asked for a beer, she told him there was Molsen and Coors available. “The Silver Bullet!” he said happily. It was just after 9:00 am. I lost sight of him after deplaning but I feel sure he had a great time in Vegas.

My Milkshake Brings The Instagrammers To The Yard

For the second year in a row, St. Patrick’s Day completely fell off my radar and I didn’t realize until just before we left that we would be in Vegas for that occasion. I assumed that all of the pubs would be very busy, but either there is just a glut of pubs or people were partaking in the festivities elsewhere, because every pub we passed seemed pretty quiet. People were definitely partaking in festivities somewhere, as dramatically demonstrated by the fellow in a tall green hat and a shirt emblazoned with “Pat MeCrotch” falling into the elevator with us, followed by his apologetic wife, who was wearing a gigantic glowing green necklace made up of shamrocks and the words “Kiss Me I’m Irish.”

In any case, my husband and I had a lovely lunch at a pub at the Venetian, which is near the Sphere. We had tickets for the 2:00 show, and so we leisurely sat at the bar and had some really great pub food, including a vegan falafel burger. This was the type of pub that had a whole page of the menu dedicated to extremely decadent and extravagant milkshakes: the rims were coated with frostings and sprinkles of all sorts – Fruity Pebbles! Jimmies! Oreo crumbs! – and then topped with ice cream or whipped cream, with some kind of large baked good on top of THAT – a strawberry Pop Tart! A jelly doughnut! A cinnamon roll! – and then THAT was topped with, somewhat anticlimactically, a cherry.

I saw one such milkshake being delivered to a woman, around my age, sitting alone. It was bright red, with a slice of what appeared to be cheesecake on top, and I was filled with curiosity as to how someone would actually consume this. Would there be a side plate? Would this person just pick up the cheesecake and eat it with her fingers? I watched out of the corner of my eye to see what would happen.

First, the woman took several photos of it, which, well, is relatable. Then she started taking selfies with the milkshake, including one in which she was holding the cherry with a big, wide, open mouthed smile. I waited to see what would happen with the cheesecake slice, but then it was apparent that she was videoing herself with this milkshake – I could see her talking. Was this an Instagram reel? Was she posting on TikTok? I kept waiting for her to eat the cheesecake, or at least sip from the milkshake, but she just kept filming.

My husband chided me for creepily watching someone not-consume a giant milkshake, but to be honest, I didn’t think it was any creepier than watching an Instagram reel of a person I don’t know, the creation of which was more than likely what was happening. All I was missing was her handle. I never did see what happened with the milkshake because she still hadn’t partaken in any of it by the time we left to go see the show. I hope she enjoyed it.

Mars Ain’t The Kind Of Place To Raise Your Kids

As I alluded to before, we went to see Postcard From Earth at The Sphere in Vegas. The Sphere, in case you don’t know, cost two billion dollars to build and the outside consists of thousands and thousands of lights. It is really a feat of technology and engineering, the inside filled with all sorts of technological wonders. During the movie, the seats move and vibrate – no, not THAT kind of vibrate – and there is wind and scent and it’s a real sensory experience. I cannot even describe how amazing it is.

I loved 85% of the movie, which is about the glory of nature and our mother earth, the ways in which we honour her and the beauty of nature. It also shows how we have abused her, and how she is protesting via climate change and crisis, and I was on board with all of this, one hundred percent. We are in a climate crisis, I think that much is obvious, and it is our doing, as a global population. This, I think, would have been a great place to give the viewer practical information about the changes we all can make on individual and corporate levels.

However, this is where the movie took a turn. The solution to the climate crisis, said the movie, was for everyone to leave earth in order for it to heal. So, everyone on earth got to get into a space ship and go to another planet, presumably to fuck that one up as well, although that thought was left unstated.

Now, I know, as the man behind me said to his sobbing child who did not want to go to space, Daddy, it’s just a movie. But really? THAT is the thesis regarding the solution to the climate crisis? For us not to be here? Honestly, the film should have a warning on it for anyone suffering depression or extreme climate anxiety, because the thesis is that the world would be better WITHOUT US IN IT. Surely there could have been a better conclusion than that, but since space travel for seven billion people is exactly not a practical tool, the implication is that it’s just better if we don’t exist anymore. You can’t find a hotel room with a balcony or a window that opens in Vegas, so you’d think they would know that your existence is the problem isn’t maybe the best theme for a movie in that particular location.

Obviously there are no clear answers or quick fixes to the climate crisis, but maybe there could have been a lesson here about mindful, reduced consumption rather than let’s go to Saturn, it will be fine. Perhaps stop using single use plastics, or don’t buy into the fast fashion industry, or, maybe, don’t go to Vegas.

Las Vegas is probably right up there with the Disney resorts when it comes to environmentally disastrous tourist destinations, and I found it incredibly ironic that this movie would be shown in a two billion dollar, electronically powered, round theatre. It felt like getting a lecture from Leonardo DiCaprio about the environment just before he boards his yacht with all his buddies. So thanks, but no thanks, on the suggestion of flying to space and never coming back to earth ever again.

Glory Days, They’ll Pass You By

If you can believe it, I have been a mother for twenty years! Well, twenty years and two days.

It was a bit of a hectic weekend, what with cake baking and guests and a funeral and feeding people and just general life, but it was lovely all the same. And now we are looking down the barrel of a really normal week, albeit one in which we are busy gearing up for gardening season. Preparing to garden in March will never not be a novelty to me, after so many years of snow and ice.

I have many books to tell you about, but it will have to wait until later. I hope you all have a beautiful week, the first full one of spring! xo