Category Archives: Fashion

Taco Tuesday and Toasters

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Last Friday, I came across a Jimmy Kimmel clip and realized something quite shocking: in the world of emojis, “eggplant” is code for “penis,” “peach” is code for “ass,” and “taco” is code for “vagina,” which makes all those recipes I’ve posted, complete with cutesy emojis, kind of offensive. When I realized this, I heard from one person who went so far as to say that she had NEVER seen anyone use those particular emojis for the food which they are modeled after. In other words, all those Taco Tuesday posts take on a very different meaning from what I had intended.

I feel like one of those old people who use “LOL” as “Lots of Love!” and who horrify their children by saying they want to Netflix and Chill with the whole family. After all, it was a mere six months ago when my dear friend Allison (HI ALLISON) tipped me off as to the Netflix and Chill meaning, and who really knows what hip new saying I will find out is a horrifying double entendre in another six months. After all, I’ve been using eggplants and chili peppers all over the place ever since such emojis were made available to me.

In other exciting news, we got a new toaster this weekend. I had been waiting for my old toaster to die for years. I hated it immediately; it was so finicky with the dial that the slightest movement would take the bread from the “dry bread” stage to the “completely burnt and inedible” stage within seconds. Toasting one slice of bread only was a complete act of faith, and the “Cancel” button never worked, so that when I could see the toast going into the “OMG it is going to burn” stage my only option was to unplug it. When it died this weekend I actually cheered. The great satisfaction I have for our new toaster is matched only by the satisfaction I got from getting it 40% off on Bay Days, and makes me think that I probably could have done this sooner.

I read a piece this weekend entitled “Memo to parents: Your adult children don’t want your stuff.” The premise was this: we all have our own style and tastes, and limited space, and we don’t want to fill that limited space with your “heirlooms.” The whole piece gave me massively mixed feelings; as someone who lives in a small bungalow that is entirely filled with my own furniture and artwork of my own taste, I understand the author’s point of view.

But on the other hand, it really made me sad. It made me sad to think about people of my grandparents’ generation, saving up to buy something good and lasting, and then have no one want it. And I get it, I really do, but I still think it’s sad. People are not their things, and the world is about more than just possessions, but still. I have a few things that belonged to my grandmothers, and I treasure them very much.

In terms of our old toaster, I held onto it because I didn’t want to waste money on a new one when the old one still worked, however substandardly, but I also knew that it wouldn’t last forever. Things are made to be disposable now, more’s the pity. My mother-in-law still has the chest freezer that she had when she was first married; they just celebrated their 54th wedding anniversary. Back then, things didn’t get thrown out. Now, we are lucky if our washing machine lasts more than five years, or if our dishwasher doesn’t need to be replaced twice in a decade.

Part of what I think is sad is that there is a huge disconnect in thinking between generations. Back in our grandparents’ day, you took pride in your possessions, and you assumed you would pass them on when you died. Part of that was because our grandparents didn’t really have much in the way of “stuff.” Today, we have way too much stuff, and we take great joy not in passing it along to beloved family members, but getting rid of it in trash bags at the Goodwill. So it is an entirely new way of thinking, in this world of more, more, more.

Of course, the dark side of taking great care of and pride in your possessions is the propensity to not use it. I was thinking of this when I read my friend Swistle’s (HI SWISTLE) post about using the “good stuff.” How many of us have boxes of things that we never use because they are too precious? I have my grandmother’s china, a full set, that was given to her on her 40th anniversary. It was saved for me, the only granddaughter on that side, and given to me at my wedding shower. It is absolutely precious to me, it is beautiful, I love it, I am happy to have it, and yet, I never use it. Each piece is carefully wrapped up and stored.

This. This is ridiculous. Why DON’T I use it? I should not need an occasion to use the beautiful china. Sure, I don’t have the cupboard space to store it properly, but wouldn’t it make an everyday dinner kind of special, and worth the effort? I don’t even need to worry about it getting broken because I cannot remember the last time one of my children broke a plate or anything. And if it did get broken, at least it would be used and enjoyed.

But here’s the thing: life is brief and fleeting and we shouldn’t waste it eating substandard toast, so to speak. My husband has given me two beautiful diamond rings; one is an anniversary ring for our tenth, and the other is a solitaire for my 40th birthday. They are fancy and yet I wear them almost every day, taking them off only for gardening or rolling out cookie dough or similar. They make me feel happy and sparkly. If we have pretty clothes, or expensive shoes, or a gorgeous handbag, why should these things hide in our closet when we could use them every day and make ourselves feel fabulous? What are we saving these things for? If our generation is indicative of future generations, no one will want these things when we die so we might as well use them now. How sad would it be to die with boxes of super-fancy soap and unused guest towels? So let’s agree to drink the wine, use the truffle oil, and set out the china for pizza night. Or Taco Tuesday.

When I am 41, I shall wear purple.

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Here’s a PSA for you: the Alberta government no longer sends out renewal notices for car registration or driver’s license updates. Now, this is a bit of a moot point for me since I haven’t received a renewal notice for YEARS. Each time I go to the registry office, they tell me it was returned because of “address unknown,” and yet, my address is correct in the system and always has been. This is a mystery that has never been solved. Address correct. Postal code correct. Renewal notice received? No. At one point I had the hypothesis that perhaps it was delivered to the wrong address, and the recipient decided not to drop it at my house but instead marked it “Return To Sender.” However, this has happened too many years in a row, for that and only that document, and so I think that hypothesis is incorrect. But what is the answer? No one seems to know.

In any case, it doesn’t matter now. A friend emailed our circle to remind us that renewal notices are no longer mailed out, which was a timely reminder for me. Both my license and registration were about to expire, and so today I popped over to the registry office – where the lady helpfully mentioned that my renewal notice was returned as “undeliverable” – and took care of business. Mercy, I forgot how awful it is to get a driver’s license photo. Passport photos are worse, to be sure, but my new driver’s license photo makes me look like a cross between the crypt keeper and Lizzy Borden.

I’ve been a bit tired this week, which is hell on my undereye circles. In retrospect it would have been better to get a photograph done after a great night’s sleep, but what can you do. Fortunately it’s in black and white, so my grey roots will not be as obvious.

Speaking of grey roots and undereye circles, my birthday is coming up! Last weekend we went to my parents’ house to celebrate, and my mom took me shopping as a birthday gift. Among other things, she purchased me a flowy, long, beautiful, PURPLE wrap. It’s very pretty, and did I mention it’s purple? I know. I KNOW. I wore it yesterday on a field trip, and I had a few girls tell me that “my purple cape was very pretty.” Aw! My boys, as well, had nothing but compliments for it, and they are not the kind of kids who notice what I’m wearing at any given time. I’m trying to wear colour slightly more often, even if I do feel like a bit of a peacock when I wear something other than black or grey. I did wear a black top underneath the wrap, in an attempt at normalcy.

And yes! That’s two field trips in five days, which includes the weekend. The field trip was the same as the one last week – the Police Interpretive Centre – so at least it was interesting and engaging. It was almost exactly the same in content, but this class forewent the “Bullying” module in favour of the “Drugs” one. I worried that it might be a bit old for the class, but it turns out it wasn’t at all. It was “scare them off of drugs” without being nightmare-inducing.

The field trips are done for the year now, which means I did it! Some of you may recall that this was my goal for the school year; since giving up my responsibilities as School Council/ Parent Association chair, I had decided I would volunteer more in the classroom and on field trips. Every opportunity that arose I took it, and I’m so glad I did. I’ve realized that Grades Five and Six are actually fun to go on field trips with: they mostly stay on task, they stay together, and they are fairly responsible. No one tries to run away or get separated from the group, everyone makes an attempt to complete the assignment at hand. And I even get my ego stroked with compliments on my outfit! It doesn’t get much better than that. Mental note: for next year’s field trips, wear purple wrap.

KonMari FAIL

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Here’s a little tidbit about me that some people (read: my husband) find quite un-endearing: I have a really, really hard time spending money on non-essential items. What often happens in my house is that my husband will suggest a purchase, and no matter how minor, I rail against it. Spotify, for example. Why would we need Spotify, I argued passionately, We already have Sirius! Or the Roomba. We don’t need a Roomba, we have a vacuum!

Well, over the course of our marriage, my husband has learned to just make the purchase, which I subsequently fall in love with. Like, I cannot imagine how I actually did workouts before without Spotify. And Roomba? Roomba, as I’ve mentioned before, is now my favourite child. Everyone in the house talks about Roomba as if he is a living, breathing person who exists only to clean our floors. Great job, Roomba! we all say as Roomba whirrs around. Oh, Roomba, you got into the cords again! we will gently chide him as we see an extension cord pulled out from under the bed. Even Barkley has learned to live with Roomba, even though his tail was once almost vacuumed, causing him to now watch warily when the whirring starts.

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It naturally follows that if a person has a hard time spending money on non-essential items, then that person should have – in theory – a fairly empty closet. Right? Well, it appears that clothing is essential and that I have far, far too much of it, if my exploding closet and drawers are any indication.

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The “yoga clothes and beach wear” portion of my closet.

The problem is that I like clothes, and I buy quality, long-lasting clothes, which means I have a lot of clothes. I mean, I have yoga pants from 2008 that still look fantastic, I have classic black dresses purchased between 2011-2014 that are always in style, and I have very well-cared for sweaters from the now-defunct but much loved Jacob.

Everyone has been talking about the KonMari method of tidying up; yesterday was a PD day and I was looking for a project, so I thought I would re-organize my closet. Although I am a very organized (read: anal) person in general, my closet was getting a little small and cluttered. Now, I knew the rules: if an item was used and brought joy, then it could stay. Otherwise, it would get purged.

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How much beach wear is too much beach wear, when one does not live anywhere near a beach?

Do you know, all of my clothing brings me joy?

Reader, I couldn’t bear to part with a thing yesterday. I regularly comb through my dressers whenever I get a phone call asking for clothing donations for this charity or that one, and I usually can gather a good solid garbage bag full. But perhaps I’ve gone to that well too often, or perhaps yesterday was the wrong day to go through my things, I don’t know. All I know is that after putting everything in a giant pile, I ended up neatly rolling everything up and putting it back in the closet. I found a couple of unused containers and I rolled each bikini piece together, Kondo-like. (Who needs fourteen bikinis, mostly black? I DO. I need ALL the black bikinis.)

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It’s marginally neater!

 

So that was a bit of a fail. Not only did I go through my closet, but I also cleaned out my dressers and the same thing occurred; I couldn’t bear to part with any items at all. Well, on the upside, everything is now neatly put away. On the downside, I still need to deal with my shoes and boots, and that, my friends, is going to be a test.

Pajama Pants and Formal Day

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Yesterday – January 28 – was so mild that I wore my “light” winter coat and, after a trip to Costco, drove home with no gloves on. Those of you who know me, and have noticed my giant, purple, Reynaud’s-stricken hands know that this is indeed something worth commenting on. We’ve had so few really cold days this January that it feels like a victory, albeit one I had no control over.

It’s been a long week, hasn’t it? My husband was travelling for business earlier in the week, which always seems to make the week drag by, so I’m extra glad it’s Friday. It’s also a Spirit Day at school: Formal Day. Wear your best formal wear! Given that my boys are ten and eleven, their first instinct was to do the absolute opposite and show up in jeans and a t-shirt. I am of two minds of this: one the one hand, I don’t particularly care if they don’t want to participate but I don’t really want to encourage an attitude of mockery, since that seems like it is direct opposition to the intention of Spirit Day. On the other hand, they wear jeans and t-shirts every single day. Their options are limited; their “formal wear” is limited to a single pair of khakis purchased in 2014 for my brother’s wedding and never worn since, and in fact are probably miles too short by now anyway. So jeans and t-shirts it was, although they each threw on a button-up shirt over the t-shirt and Jake put some gel in his hair, so as to be extra fancy.

Speaking of non-formal clothing choices, I’m sure we’ve all heard about the U.K. principal who called out parents wearing pajamas to school drop-off. There seems to be quite the uproar about this.

Hey, I’m not telling anyone what to wear. The Fashion Police – like unicorns, the Yeti, and benefits to adopting Daylight Saving Time – are an imaginary construct. No one is actually going to arrest you for your clothing choices, especially if you aren’t planning to get out of your car. Personally, I rarely, if ever, notice what someone else is wearing unless I find myself coveting their outfit. Case in point: at last week’s School Council meeting, one of the teachers had on this fabulous flowy black tunic worn with these terrific ankle boots, and the second the meeting was over I ran over to her to find out where she bought them. I will always notice your gorgeous scarf, your beautiful necklace, your rocking shoes, but I probably won’t notice your sweatpants if you’re doing the school run. I admit that I noticed a stoned-looking fellow wearing gigantic purple Hammer pants in Costco yesterday, but that may have been attributed to the matching scarf jauntily thrown around his neck or possibly the giant cart filled entirely with toilet paper and frozen pineapple.

Let your freak flag fly, right? And if your personal freak flag is wearing sleepwear outside of your house, well, I have no issue with that. Personally, I have never worn pajamas outside the house because my pajamas are all adorned with things like hearts, coffee cups, and owls, and also it really doesn’t take a lot of effort to put on pants. When I was first a stay-at-home mom, I realized that it was very bad for my mental state not to have “night clothes” and “day clothes” because it gave some shape to those blurry, foggy days. I was never one to not shower for days; in order for me to be psychologically sound, I needed my daily shower, makeup, and clothing, and if that meant I had to put the baby in a bouncy chair in the bathroom and sing to him frantically over the noise of the water, I would do it. If it took me three hours to prepare to leave the house, what with feedings and soothing and diaper changes, well, I would take three hours to prepare. There is no shame in doing what you have to do, people, and if what you have to do to remain sane is wear your pajamas all day, I will support you.

I think that people get upset about edicts like this because it feels like a judgment on them as people and as parents. Saying “You shouldn’t wear pajamas to drop off your kids, put on some pants.” can be loosely translated in mom-guilt-language to “You are a mess and you’re going to screw up your kids and I bet you kicked a puppy yesterday.” Yes, pajamas are to me “at-home only” clothing, but there are exceptions. I mean, I admit I felt a little strange one Saturday morning when I was in line at Wal-Mart behind a man wearing pajama pants with a Papa Smurf motif, but that was more because the stench of vomit and cigarettes emanating from him was making me feel a bit nauseous. That has nothing to do with his Papa Smurf pajama pants. Not all Papa Smurf pajama pant-wearing people reek of vomit and cigarettes – although maybe the odour would be less in different pants. Non-vomited on pants. I don’t know. All I’m saying is that if I see a mom with a baby strapped to her body holding the arm of a limp and screaming toddler while trying to get her first-grader to class on time and that mom is wearing pajama pants? NO JUDGMENT HERE, ONLY DEEP EMPATHY. Papa Smurf-pajama wearing man whose smell is making me dizzy? Maybe a teensy bit of judgment. Hey, I’m human.

I also admit to feeling very uneasy when I see the elderly woman a few doors down walking down the street in her pretty blue flannel snowflake-motif pajamas. I worry a bit that she is wandering; as far as I know she’s in sound health, but what if she isn’t? When I see those snowflake pants, I watch carefully out the window, checking to see if she comes back to her house, breathing a sigh of relief when she does.

Good mothers put on pants before they leave their house AND ALSO good mothers burn out of the house in their pajamas to get the kids to school on time. Some mothers live in yoga pants and other mothers live in work dresses. It’s not about pajamas, it’s not about what you wear. Clothes can be fun or functional, or both, but they don’t determine your worth as a person.

Lessons to learn.

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When the boys were babies, it was so fun dressing them in ridiculous little outfits; tiny sweater vests, wee little golf shirts, khaki pants and those teensy running shoes for their fat, unused feet.

Come to think of it, I dressed my children like miniature Chandler Bings.

Anyway, when they were small getting them out of their precious little footie pajamas and into their outfit of the day was a great joy for me. If we were going out, I’d coordinate both their outfits and sometimes even my own, because a lonely, overwhelmed, stay at home mother of two under two entertains herself any way she can.

As they got older, I noticed something. I noticed that the selection of boys’ clothing was much, much smaller than that of girls’ clothing. What this meant was that a lot of the time, the boys would have the exact same outfit but in different colours, not because I was trying to coordinate them, but because that was what was available to me. Shoes, especially, were difficult: frequently the boys would have the exact same pair of shoes, and I would put coloured stickers inside them to indicate which pair was for whom.

This year I took the boys to Mountain Equipment Co-Op to get fall jackets. There were two styles available, and only one style had their sizes, which has resulted in the boys wearing the exact same jacket to school. They don’t mind this at all, but I find it kind of strange to see them walking together in their identical jackets.

All of which is to say that shopping for boys is a utilitarian experience. My children in particular live in jeans and t-shirts: long-sleeved for winter, short-sleeved for warm weather. When I shop for them I do it online; I show them the colours of t-shirts available and they choose a few. One of my favourite stores to shop online is Old Navy – they almost always have a discount code, they have “slim fit” jeans for my beanpoles, and their clothes are pretty durable. I normally order things in bundles a few times a year; this system works well and we are all happy with it.

But this week I realized that the boys had outgrown a good number of their jeans, or – in the case of one child who climbed over a fence and got his back pocket caught on the chain link – had a massive hole in the seat. They still had a few pair thanks to some bulk shopping I had done last spring, but they were desperately in need of a couple. I didn’t have time to wait the 7-10 days for free shipping, so yesterday, I ventured into the mall to buy some more.

As they say in Pretty Woman, Big mistake. BIG mistake. HUGE.

Old Navy online: easy, fast, organized. Old Navy physical store: a disorganized, soul-crushing experience.

First of all, the boys’ section is the smallest in the entire store. It’s tiny, and there are piles and piles of clothes stacked everywhere. And the jeans. THE JEANS. There is no sizing order, so I needed to dig through piles to find size 10 and 12, and because I wanted “slim fit” I had to dig even more. Finally I found a pair of slim fit size 12, but when I picked it up, it was clearly not what the tag said. I read the label actually inside the jeans and discovered it was a size 12 “husky fit” into which I could have fit two of my children. A solid fifteen minutes of going through every pair of jeans on the shelves, I found two pair in the appropriate sizes. Then I went to the cashier.

People, the cash register and surrounding area reminded me of a yard sale gone awry. There were clothes everywhere, stacked around the register, behind the register, and surrounding the “line up starts here” shelving. There were two girls working and they both looked extremely harassed. I felt sorry for them as they slowly worked their way through the lineup. Each person took forever to check out, and when it was my turn I discovered why: they were taking down and confirming email addresses for every single person in what appeared to be the least efficient process ever. I tried to bypass it – I’m already on your mailing list. I am! – but the girl would have none of it. Because I generally don’t want to make someone’s day harder, and I’ve worked in retail, I submitted to the process, feeling badly for the eight people behind me in line.

I don’t know why some lessons need to be re-learned constantly. The lesson for this week: shop online.

Also known as banana hammocks.

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I had so many plans for this last week of summer vacation – the pool! the zoo! the amusement park! – and the weather has been beautifully warm. It would be a perfect week for all those things! Unfortunately, the city is hidden in a giant cloud of smoke, courtesy of the wildfires out west. The air quality is so bad that we’ve been housebound for days; five minutes at the dog park on Monday, and we all had burning throats and eyes, and Mark was wheezing a bit. It doesn’t smell exactly like being downwind of the world’s largest campfire anymore when I open the back door, but the boys and I just walked down the street to get their hair cut, and now I have a screaming headache. Well, maybe tomorrow will be better. Hold on for one more day, and all that.

Over at Throwing It Back, Hannah wrote about Pump Up The Volume, and it has thrown me into a flurry of nostalgia for movies of my youth. Oh, how I adored Christian Slater. Oh, how I loved that movie. Isn’t it interesting how movies back in the 80s and 90s would never be made today? Think about Heathers: accidental murder, suicide becoming trendy, and homophobia. Oh boy! Just last night my husband and I were talking about Vacation. Can you imagine that being made today? Family road trip ends with enraged man holding Wally World employees at gunpoint so that he can ride all the rides. Well, possibly this movie would be made today but it wouldn’t be a comedy. It would probably star Nicholas Cage and end with the promise of a sequel; a pumped-up and tattooed Clark Griswold, looking like Robert DeNiro from Cape Fear.

Side note: I do know that there is a remake of Vacation – I haven’t seen it yet, although Chris Hemsworth in his underwear is enough enticement, really. I feel fairly sure there isn’t the “holding employees at gunpoint” plotline though.

Meanwhile, the boys and I are still tucking in for our daily episode of Downton Abbey. All this re-watching of it had me puzzled about – of all things – underarm hair. While discussing plot lines of feudalism, estate planning, male heirs, and rape with the boys, I have been secretly thinking about underarm hair.

Nicole says: Well, the reason that note is so important is that Lady Mary actually didn’t have any rights to the Abbey, because she’s a woman. I know! But that’s the way things were back then. Everything went to the boys.

Nicole thinks: They are all wearing sleeveless dresses. Was shaving a thing back then? Or did they all just let it all hang out?

After literally YEARS of wondering about when shaving underarms became a thing, I finally remembered that there is this handy thing called the Internet, and on that Internet is this handy thing called Google, and I could probably stop wondering and get some answers about this very important issue.

The great thing about the Internet is that there is not only a Wikipedia article for practically everything, there is also a website or blog for every single thing. I found a whole article devoted to when women started shaving their underarms, and indeed, it was in the 1920s when sleeveless dresses became popular. Hooray for Downton Abbey and their attention to detail.

Interestingly, leg shaving wasn’t really a thing until the 1940s, what with women wearing longer skirt lengths until that time, which makes sense. Apparently, bikini waxes were first popular with Muslim women in North Africa and the Middle East, when brides would get all their body hair removed pre-wedding night. I had no idea. And here I thought waxes became popular with the rise of the string bikini.

Speaking of which, my friend Candace over at Life in Pleasantville posted a discussion about Speedos, which spurred a comment along the lines of if we say anyone can wear a bikini, why can’t anyone wear a Speedo? This is an interesting point. Why indeed? On the beach in Maui, I would estimate 95% of women are in bikinis, and I think that’s awesome. Rock that bikini, sister, I would say if anyone asked. I celebrate women of all shapes and sizes embracing their figures and wearing any kind of bathing suit they feel comfortable in. And yet, my first response to a man wearing a Speedo is revulsion.

Is this a reverse sexism thing? I don’t know. I mean, there was an incident in which I was sitting by the pool and an older gentleman in a green Speedo bent over in front of me and I got a full glimpse of his testicles, which was disturbing. As much as I want to be open minded, I do not actually want to see a strange man’s testicles. And yet, I have accidentally flashed a nipple while swimming, so the same could be said about me. Maybe I disturbed someone’s inner peace that day, in the same way that gentleman very innocently did to me.

So what is it about Speedos that get us ladies all riled up? Not everyone is flashing their testicles, although the suits do leave very little to the imagination. Of course, bikinis – and, for that matter, most bathing suits – do as well, hence the popularity of the bikini wax for those itsy-bitsy bikinis. Why do we hate Speedos so much? I can’t reconcile my to-get-a-bikini-body-put-your-body-in-a-bikini self with this. In the extremely unlikely, hypothetical event that my husband buys a Speedo, I would burn it, and yet if he did the same to one of my bikinis, it would be mur-diddly-urder around here. HYPOTHETICAL SITUATION, MY HUSBAND WOULD NEVER BUY A SPEEDO OR BURN MY BIKINI.

I don’t know. Maybe I need to work on my open-mindedness. Om shanti.

NEVER AGAIN

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My husband has taken three consecutive weeks off of work this summer. Such a thing has never happened before. The result was we spent five days at the lake with my parents – during which we left the kids for a night and road-tripped to Jasper, just the two of us – then after less than 20 hours at home, we left again for ten days with his parents. It was a lot of fun, but I am definitely glad to be home again, not the least because I put on jeans this morning and had to jump around just to get them on. I have Post-Vacation Too-Tight Pants Syndrome. Thank goodness for long shirts, is all I can say at the moment. Who knew that averaging four drinks a day over a two week period would cause weight gain and bloating?

We got home yesterday, and I was a bit distressed at the state of my garden; the city had been hot and dry while we were gone, and my plants were a bit crunchy. We put the sprinkler on for a few hours, rotating it carefully around the yard, when a gigantic thunderstorm hit and we received several hours of steady rain. The garden is no longer crispy.

This vacation marks the first time ever that I have under-packed, and I shall never do it again. I packed three skorts, a few tank tops, two beach dresses, and some bikinis, along with a pair of knee-length yoga pants and some very light t-shirts. I figured the weather was going to be too hot to need pants or sweaters, and things are pretty casual on the vineyard. Wouldn’t you know, the first two days were cooler than normal, rendering my light pants-less wardrobe insufficient, AND we got invited to a fairly dressy function, to which I wore a striped beach dress and sandals dating from 2009. Never again will I travel without my usual five pairs of shoes and little black dress just in case. Packing light is not for me. NEVER AGAIN.

I was largely unplugged for the vacation, save for a few things I had to do for work. I did, however, witness outrage about the killing of Cecil the lion, followed by outrage about the outrage, followed by photo memes that dealt with the following: a) why should we be outraged by a lion’s killing when there are so many human rights violations in the world, b) photos of farm animals captioned “If I was a lion, would you care about me?”, and c) photos of fetuses captioned “If we were selling lion body parts, would you care?”

HONESTLY PEOPLE. Mass outrage and then mass outrage about mass outrage and then MEMES about mass outrage about mass outrage showcases everything that is wrong in the world today. I love the internet and I certainly do not want to go back to the days of the rotary phone and looking things up in the Encyclopedia Britannica, but this – what my friend Swistle calls The Giant Internet Hand of Spanking – is one of my least favourite things. And to top it off, there is an election coming up. Two elections, if you happen to have friends in both the US and Canada. God help us all.

I don’t know how you feel, but the prelude to an election makes me long for the days when you didn’t really know where acquaintances’ political sympathies lay, unless you noticed a campaign sign on their front lawns or a pointed letter to the editor in your local newspaper. To me, politics is just too intimate to discuss; I find conversations about elections to be awkward and uncomfortable, not unlike someone telling me about their partner’s proclivity for porn or their own fantasies of being the girl in 50 Shades of Grey. These are things that I don’t want to know, it’s information that I just don’t want to have. Just like I don’t want to hear someone’s husband’s name and the words “loves anal” in the same sentence, I don’t want to know anyone’s voting preferences, unless we are very good friends, and then it is okay but I still prefer not to talk about it. I prefer my Facebook feed to be filled with photos of pets, kids, vacations, and what you ate on the 30 Day Shred. More puppies, less politics – maybe I should make it a hashtag.

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