I spent a lot of time in the kitchen, although less time than I used to, back in the days when the kids were in school and it felt like at least fifty percent of my one wild and precious life was spent procuring, preparing, and cleaning up after said procurement and preparation of food.
It’s not fifty percent in this season of life, but it’s still a hefty chunk of the day, and it’s because of this that I am a devotee of small kitchen appliances. As it should be abundantly clear by now, the coffee maker is the number one small appliance in my house – let’s not have a murder! – and the Vitamix, used multiple times a day by multiple people, is a close second. Tied for third are my stand mixer and air fryer, the latter being a dark horse. I did not expect such an item to take a place of importance in my life, but here we are. The last in this list is my food processor, which gets used three or four times a month, and of which I have burned through several over the past fifteen years or so. What can I say, I used to test a lot of recipes for YMC, RIP all my recipes.
If you have been keeping track, you will no doubt remember the Vitamix debacle of last June, which was resolved much more happily than anyone, least of all me, expected. And of course we all know about my recent coffee maker woes, which have also been happily resolved, luckily for my family and anyone who comes into contact with me. We also all know that things happen in threes, and so it should not surprise anyone that another one, as they say, bit the dust, and that one was the stand mixer.
Now listen. This is only a minor grievance. This run of small appliance deaths is not, truly, a tragedy. It’s not even tragedy-adjacent. It’s not like having one of the big three – fridge, stove, washing machine – die. It’s a mild inconvenience at worst.
Deep down, I knew it was coming. I have had this mixer at least since the kids were in early elementary school, possibly even preschool. I have put it through its paces at least twice a week for fifteen years or more. And three or four weeks ago, as I was mixing up some banana muffins, I heard a little snap.
Well, a broken whisk isn’t the end of the world, is it? I figured I could probably buy a new attachment, if indeed this model of stand mixer still exists. In any case, it still worked. Maybe not as efficiently as before the whisk snapped, but it still got the job done.
Then, last week, I was AGAIN making banana muffins with the broken whisk attachment, and when I unplugged the mixer the electric ground stayed behind in the plug outlet. I stared at it for a few minutes, looked at the broken plug in my hand, and then stared into space. Yikes! I might be able to work with a semi-broken attachment, but I am not willing to get electrocuted. My husband suggested getting the plug replaced, but I felt that was only a delay of the inevitable.
Well, as he said last year at this time, when I had the Great Closet Crisis of 2024, it is the best time for something like this to happen. I have said it before and I will say it again: it is WEIRD that Black Friday is a thing in Canada. Do not get me wrong, I am also HAPPY that Black Friday is a thing in Canada, but it’s still weird. Weirder still is that Black Friday is now code for “the entire month of November.” Soon it will be Black Friday on the day after Canadian Thanksgiving. And then it will be Black Friday In July, and after that it will just be Black Friday every day of the year. If every day is Black Friday, then is any day Black Friday? It’s a question for the shopping philosophers.
Weird or not, I gratefully purchased myself a discounted stand mixer, which arrived on Saturday, with plenty of time for holiday baking. That hasn’t been started yet, because there was a bigger project this weekend at the Boyhouse.
The tree is up! The season has shifted to full-on festive, and it’s all holiday music, all the time around here.
Weekly Reading
I have had no fewer than twelve library books out over the past couple of weeks. Every time I take some back, more holds have arrived. But I’m diligently working on the stack!
It’s A Love Story. This book is about the stories we tell ourselves ABOUT ourselves, and how we let those stories define us, for better or worse. There are some nice themes about family and open and honest communication, and about self-fulfilling prophecies, but it took me about a quarter of the book to get invested. I found the main character hard to like, but there was a nice redemption arc and, as it should, everything works out nicely in the end.
The Enchanted April. What a charming, delightful book! This book, written post-WWI, follows four women from London who rent an Italian castle for the month of April. The women are mostly unknown to each other, and seem to be unsuitable companions, but everything works out in the most charming way. This book was written in 1922 and spurred a tourism craze to the Italy! Many thanks to my friend Pearl for the recommendation (HI PEARL).
Everyone Is Lying To You. Thrillers aren’t my usual thing, but I enjoyed this page-turner about a tradwife, homesteading influencer whose husband is brutally murdered. Who did it and why? It’s a compelling story about a very weird side of the internet. It’s also an interesting commentary on the idea of comparing your life to those of influencers, and what really goes on behind the scenes. A good November diversion!
Here we are in the very last week of November! Where did the month go? I hope you all had a lovely weekend and are feeling less salty than Rexie, who isn’t a fan of having his bed moved, even if the “moving” is a total of three feet away. xo
The first of November marks the start of Tiny Secret Festive Season, and if you don’t know what Tiny Secret Festive season is, that’s because it’s something I made up back in 2019. I created the season to combat the subset of people who have things going on in their lives that make them mildly hostile to those people who find joy in early celebrations of the upcoming holiday season. I find it hard to believe that anyone is suffering harm or hurt from another person, say, taking advantage of mild temperatures to string up holiday lights, or grooving along to Last Christmas, or setting up their Christmas villages, but lo, there are many people who DO think this way, who DO think that November 1st is too “early” to be feeling festive.
And after one too many people telling me that it is disrespectful to think about Christmas before Remembrance Day, I took it upon myself to find joy in tiny, secret ways. No one can call you out for Tiny Secret Festive Season, because it’s tiny! And secret! And oh, so very festive.
For me this year, I am celebrating Tiny Secret Festive Season by wearing my Christmas bracelet and washing my hands with festive-scented soap, by practicing my Charlie Brown Christmas music on the piano and setting out my holiday tea towels, by drinking my coffee in Buddy the Elf mugs and using Vanilla Candy Cane foot cream. It brings me a little burst of happiness every time I see or think of any of those things, and if those are somehow disrespectful or harming someone, SO BE IT. I encourage everyone to celebrate Tiny Secret Festive Season! The more joy, the better.
Soap On The Water
Speaking of soap, I had an odd interaction at Superstore a few weeks ago, which feels like an evergreen comment. I ALWAYS have odd interactions at Superstore. The same day of the Soap Incident, I was in the pharmacy aisle looking for Advil, when a woman came up to me and started talking in a very upset way about the store renovations. And this is where I will say that I get it, I really do, when a supermarket is going through renovations, all is chaos. Who even can say where anything is anymore? I have spent many minutes just standing and staring around me, trying to figure out where, for example, is the hand cream or toilet paper. Anyway, this woman was complaining to me, because I have a face that says please tell me everything, I am desperate to listen, about the renovations, and she reached out and grabbed my arm. The cat food is now where Housewares used to be. Then she gestured in the general direction before saying, with INTENSE eye contact, That’s where you need to get your cat food now. And litter.
Okay! Noted. Not needed, but noted.
Anyway, back to the Soap Incident. I had finally located the aisle where the liquid soap is displayed, and I was looking at all the different kinds and scents, when a woman came up to me and started talking about the high price of liquid soap. And she was not wrong, the little “T” for tariffs on the display really do explain a lot. She was trying to do the per-100mL math on which bottle was the best deal, and I am good at math so I helped her, at which point she grabbed the remaining three bottles of cheap soap and put one in my cart. There you go! she said cheerfully.
We stood looking at each other, me with an unwanted item in my cart and in a strangely awkward situation. I am VERY fussy about hand soap, since I wash my hands a thousand times a day. I am fussy about scent and about moisturization, and I did not want this bargain soap. But the woman was beaming at me, so I did what anyone would do. I thanked her, pretended to look at something else, and then swapped it out when she had left the aisle.
It’s tradition for me to Buy Three Get Three Free holiday soaps at Bath and Body Works, but I am really trying to reduce my plastic consumption, so I’m using these bottles and refilling them. The white bottle and the bar soap were hostess gifts from last year’s holiday open house, and the other one was a Superstore buy. How could I possibly resist?
Hello Darkness My Old Friend
Speaking of gnomes, I brought a few small light-up ones out for the season.
Because look at when the sun sets now.
I have had a grievance with time change for decades now, as you are all well aware. And listen, it’s Canada. We just don’t get a lot of daylight from November to January. That said, as of yesterday the sun sets at 4:32 pm and a month from now, it will set BEFORE FOUR O’CLOCK. Having dusk start at 3:00 pm is really quite grim, so light-up gnomes are much needed.
Weekly Reading
The Joy Luck Club. I first read this in 2017, but honestly didn’t remember much except for the abandoned twin babies and the disastrous piano recital. I picked it up again because of my friend Engie‘s book club (HI ENGIE) – and it was even better than I remembered. I love this look at the complicated, often fraught, mother-daughter relationship, shown through four Chinese-born mothers and their American-born daughters. It’s beautiful and moving and shocking and wrenching and, ultimately, very satisfying.
The Favorites. I have a HARD time not writing Favourites. Anyway. ICE DANCE DRAMA! I love watching ice dance – remember Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir? National treasures. This book explores the wild world of ice dance through the eyes of a scrappy heroine who comes from nothing to be an Olympic ice dancer – BUT AT WHAT COST? You’ll have to read it to find out. Lots of drama, romance, intrigue, and SABOTAGE, as well as a nice redemption arc to discover what “winning” really means. It’s written in the style of a documentary, with interviews and also first person narration, which makes for a very fun and dishy read.
Since we are in the season, who would like to exchange holiday cards? Note that I say “exchange,” I only want to send one out if I’m going to get one back, hashtag holiday spirit. If we exchanged last year – or 2023, I give grace because of the postal strike – then you are already on my list, no need to respond! But if you’d like to be added, please let me know by the end of the week, November 7th. Send me an email with your address and we can be festive pen pals! Happy Tiny Secret Festive Season, friends! xo
I’m depressed all over again just thinking about it.
Listen, you all know me. I’m all about healthy choices and nourishing one’s body, I’m all about taking care of these rental houses for our souls, and yet. The thought of not eating cake, which is to me one of life’s greatest pleasures, is so incredibly sad that I can’t bear it. I can’t bear the thought of someone hating themselves so much that they would deprive themselves of a treat even once a year, on an occasion as momentous as one’s birthday.
And you might immediately say, No, Nicole, it’s not because she hates herself! It’s because she loves herself! She wants to be the best version of herself! and maybe that’s true. Maybe. But the pursuit of thinness at all costs – particularly the cost of an annual slice of birthday cake – is genuinely soul-destroying. It feels very much like self-loathing.
I think the thing I love about cake, other than its deliciousness, is that it is very much a Sharing Dessert. I suppose one could make a single-serving mug cake, but for me part of the joy of having cake is the passing around of slices, the communal enjoyment, the sharing of the moment.
A tradition in my little family is to have a big Sunday dinner, the kind that takes several hours to make and that always includes dessert. I decided in honour of my big birthday, and also because I love cake, that I would bake and/ or consume cake every weekend in April. Not only did I meet this low-stakes goal, I exceeded it! Here’s how it went.
The first week’s cake was a golden one, layered with salted milk chocolate frosting.
For the second week, I took a page out of my friend Sammi’s book (HI SAMMI) and baked a lemon angel food cake, topped with lemon drizzle. Sammi’s trick was to use an angel food mix and sub out some of the water for lemon juice and zest, and it worked like a charm.
The third cake was a mid-week one, and it was courtesy of Sammi herself! She hosted a birthday lunch for me, and she made a glorious flourless fudge cake with chocolate-covered strawberries, which are second only to cake as my favourite dessert.
I just love strawberries, and so the fourth cake was a favourite made by my mom when she was visiting (HI MOM); it’s an angel food cake with strawberry filling, topped with non-dairy whipped cream. Divine!
Last, but certainly not least, was my Nifty Fifty grocery store sheet cake, courtesy of my husband. Chocolate on the inside, vanilla icing and lots of it on the outside; I could not have been happier! There was plenty left over from the party on Saturday to have for Sunday dinner.
I think this Sunday we will take a little break from cake – I have another dessert in mind – but soon it will be Mother’s Day and I think that is a Cake Occasion as well. Have a sweet weekend, my friends. xo
After two solid weeks of festivities and celebrations, this morning I’m looking down the barrel of a quiet week of regular programming. We had our dear friends as houseguests this weekend, which always feels like a holiday, and then we hosted a barbeque for about thirty people on Saturday night.
It was such a great time with wonderful people, and I achieved my lifelong dream of having a Nifty Fifty sheet cake.
Friends, the weather here has been gorgeous, so much so that I actually planted my tomatoes, peppers, and basil. I know. I know! I’m walking on the wild side, danger is my middle name, etcetera. But the forecast is great and the worst case scenario is that I would have to cover the garden beds in the event of frost, which seems unlikely at the moment. My arugula, spinach, kale, and cilantro are all up; I was low-key fretting that my zucchini and butternut squash hadn’t made an appearance, and then suddenly they both burst into life. My zinnias have sprouted as well, and now I’m just waiting somewhat impatiently for my onions and nasturtiums. Why aren’t they up yet? I asked my son, who calmly reminded me that I had planted those seeds less than a week ago, and that they may need a little more time.
Is this about to become a garden-centric blog? Yes, probably. But isn’t it just amazing, isn’t it just AMAZING that you can put a seed in the ground and then it becomes a plant? Yes, I know this is how the horticultural world works. But still! It feels like a miracle every single time!
Speaking of miracles, Michelle (HI MICHELLE) had mentioned a book called Simple Abundance: 365 Days to a Balanced and Joyful Life. As soon as she mentioned it I knew I had to have it; usually I would start a 365 day book on January 1st, but a) I didn’t want to wait that long as I purchased the book in March, and b) I thought it would be fun to start it on my birthday. It’s a really wonderful book and I highly recommend it – along with Michelle’s blog, which brings me so much joy I cannot EVEN. Sometimes when I’m feeling glum or blue I will go to some of her dollhouse posts and just look at them until I feel better. I recommend this course of action for anyone who needs a little pep in their step these days.
Weekly Reading
In addition to Simple Abundance and a book that I will surely be talking about at length in the future, Radical Acceptance, I finished three books this week.
The Flatshare. This was such a fun, cute rom-com! A woman answers an ad for a flatshare – the trick is that she is only in the flat in the evenings and weekends, and he is in the flat during the day (he works the nightshift). So they go for a long time without meeting, only communicating via post-it notes. You know how it ends – happily! There is a great cast of characters and a lovely, chosen-family subplot. This was so enjoyable and fun to read.
Rental House. I really enjoyed this very quirky book about two couples who come from very different backgrounds: one is a Chinese immigrant, the other left his small town in the Blue Ridge Mountains, they both met at Yale. It really explores two sayings: a) you can’t choose your family, and b) when you marry a person, you marry their family. The first half was wildly funny and I couldn’t stop laughing. The second half was more poignant and moving. I found so much of it resonant, particularly the sense of duty that one can have to one’s family, while at the same time being exhausted by that sense of duty. Family of origin versus family of creation, how can they coexist? It was a great read.
Watermelon. The day a woman has her first baby, her husband tells her that he’s leaving her for another woman. This book starts off with a bang! After this shocking news, she goes back to Ireland to stay with her family, and all is going smoothly until her husband comes for a visit and attempts to reconcile. This is a long book but it doesn’t feel long, it’s a pretty quick and easy read.
Speaking of gardening, don’t you just love these wildly insane flowers? Our landscaper planted them in the fall, when we were in Italy, so I had no idea what to expect from them. At one point they looked like tiny coconut palm trees. I’m here for this weirdness! Have a wonderful week, friends. xo
It was a big weekend at the Boyhouse with lots of things to celebrate. Twenty-three years ago yesterday I was wearing this outfit:
Just swanning around Banff, like you do.
And then twenty-one days ago yesterday this guy made his entrance into the world:
Spiky hair, don’t care.
The truth is that ever since our son was born our wedding anniversary has been kind of eclipsed. He arrived at 11:55 pm, he couldn’t wait five more minutes? In any case, this necessitated a celebratory cake.
Yesterday was also Rex’s fourth birthday, but honestly, that is a lot of things for just one day. I mean, I kind of celebrate Rex every day, but I like to think of Rex Day as the day in October when he came to us. That said, I did buy him a dapper new collar.
Thoughtful Instagram pose.
If you have been reading this blog for a while, you might be thinking wait, didn’t you just buy him a new collar to replace the one that was destroyed at the kennel and yes, I did. I had ordered a collar from an Etsy artisan in Ukraine back in November, it took months to get here due to the postal strike, and it was a disappointment from day two, when the size adjustment wouldn’t hold. It was constantly becoming loose and twisted and although it was not cheap, I had to admit defeat. I chalked it up as a sunk cost and ordered another collar – from a Canadian artisan this time – and I’m very pleased with it. I like the plaid that reflects the Scottish ancestry of his last name, which is my last name, which is different from my husband and sons’ last name.
With my son’s birthday upcoming, last week I was digging out the sheet music for the song that most reminds me of his early infancy. Back in 2004, we didn’t have very many TV channels, streaming didn’t exist, and neither did YouTube or phones that weren’t actual telephones. I was always scared I would fall asleep during nighttime feedings – god, I was so tired – and would drop the baby, so I would watch whatever was on at two in the morning. Usually this was either an infomercial or MuchMusic videos, and I would generally choose the latter. If I Ain’t Got You by Alicia Keys was very popular at that time, so I probably watched that video five hundred times.
I only need to hear the opening bars to be transported back to that time. Nostalgia is a lovely thing, because I have a tendency to gloss over all the hard parts – the exhaustion, the crying, the uncertainty if I was doing anything right – and I focus only on the feeling of holding the baby and sniffing his head.
A recent episode on the Bad on Paper podcast focused on music, and one of the discussion questions was what song always makes you cry, at which point I realized something interesting: Landslide, always a sobfest in the past, no longer makes me cry. I used to not be able to get through half the song without dissolving into a puddle of sadness, but no longer. Am I dead inside? Maybe. But I think the truth is that anticipatory grief is worse than the grief catalyst itself, the empty nest. Then again, I still have a son at home.
I did go through a period in 2023 where everything made me cry, most notably Miley Cyrus’ The Climb. Crying to Miley Cyrus while on the Peloton is an image that neatly sums up my mental state at that time. I still feel strange when I hear there’s always going to be another mountain, but I don’t cry. I think the only song that currently has Cry Power for me is White Wine in the Sun; I start listening to it, nodding along and feeling seen – the hymns have nice chords but the lyrics are dodgy – and then, bam. I need the tissue box.
Another discussion question was what was the first song you remember liking, and that is an easy one for me to answer: Queen of Hearts by Juice Newton. I still love that song, and I still bounce around like one of the kids in Charlie Brown’s Christmas when I hear it.
I’m 100% one of the girls in purple.
I asked my son and husband if they remembered their first loved song; my husband’s was We’re Here For A Good Time by Trooper, and my son’s was, distressingly, Gold Digger. Only a really good mother listens to Late Registration on CD in the minivan while her two small children are absorbing every word.
I remember clearly the moment I realized I had made a grave mistake: I had taken the children over to my parents’ for the afternoon, when my not-yet-three-year-old son said to my mother Grandma, I ain’t got no money so I can’t get no hoes. I had barely recovered from that revelation when his not-yet-two-year-old brother yelled We want prenup! We want prenup! My mother, understandably, looked at me in confusion and asked what they were talking about, at which point I realized that there would be no more Late Registration in the minivan.
Weekly Reading
White Tears, Brown Scars. This very thoughtful and insightful book details the ways in which women of colour have been excluded from the white feminist movement. It is an account of lived experiences, with a lot of focus on Middle Eastern and Indigenous women, which is something we need to see more of. Those of us living in Canada are well aware of our dark past with regards to our treatment of Indigenous peoples. There are so many – hundreds? thousands? – missing and murdered Indigenous women that are omitted from news media, for example. This book also explores the reprehensible practice that Canada – and the author’s native Australia – had of taking Indigenous children from their families in order to assimilate them to white culture. Sexual violence affects all women, but this book shows how much more it affects women of colour, and the biases about such travesties. One thing the book didn’t touch on, but is something I think about a lot, is the large percentage of caregiving jobs that are performed by women of colour – nannying and childcare, eldercare and home care, cleaning and housekeeping – so that white women can thrive in their careers. It’s a very uncomfortable truth. Women of colour face not only the misogyny that all women do, but also racism. A small aside I found interesting is the note that there is a tendency to refuse to give women – all women – respect with regards to names and titles. The best example I can give is presidential candidates: women are referred to familiarly by their first names, men by both names or last name only. No one ever says “Al,” “Bill,” or “George,” for example. Just a little something to be aware of. This is an important book, and it is even more important today than it was when it was published five years ago. Thanks to Stephany (HI STEPHANY) for the recommendation.
Like Mother Like Mother. Someone recently asked if I would rather have a) a book with great writing and a bad plot, or b) a book with a great plot but bad writing, and every time, I will choose the first option. It will surprise no one who knows my taste that I barely need a plot, I just like good writing and well developed characters. So, this book is the b option. I thought the plot had a lot of promise – an intergenerational story of three women, one of whom writes a roman a clef about her mother, who is a very powerful newspaper editor, renowned for “bringing down” a corrupt president in the year 2018. I wonder who that president is modeled after? Anyway, the mother is heralded in the media world but is a really terrible and largely absent mother, who grew up herself without a mother. Themes of intergenerational trauma, etc., abound. The daughter goes on a quest to find what happened to her grandmother, it’s a whole thing. There’s nothing wrong with the plot. The plot is fine. The writing style, however, really didn’t do it for me. It’s choppy and uneven, and the reader is absolutely flooded with backstory, given to us through the least believable dialogue one can imagine. We skip timelines constantly, sometimes as much as three times in a single page. The characters are one-dimensional caricatures. It’s a book that tells, rather than shows, and I did not enjoy it at all. Additionally, the author acknowledges the “sources of several unattributed quotations buried in conversations.” WHAT. This is not a thing we do!
WHAT.
Joy For Beginners. I think the best way to describe this book is “cozy.” It’s a lovely read about a woman who, after cancer treatment, decides to embrace life and face her fears by rafting down the Grand Canyon with her daughter. She gives all her friends challenges to take on as well; we read about how they accept the challenge. There are a lot of insightful and relatable vignettes about womanhood as we go through middle age: marriage and divorce, motherhood and empty nesting, travelling and walking long distances. Thanks to my friend Laura (HI LAURA) for bringing this to my attention. Laura leads the book club for Melissa Gilbert’s Modern Prairie website and this is the book they discussed this month. No big deal, just mentioning that MY FRIEND is super cool.
I believe that the soul lives on long after our bodies die, and I think in a former life Rex was a lawyer. He is not allowed on the furniture, but he seems to think this is appropriate. Three paws on the floor – he’s found a loophole. Hope you all have a beautiful week! xo
One week ago today I finished the second draft of my novel. It was my goal in 2024 to write one draft, and now I have finished two, right in time to enjoy the holidays and a break before my revising and editing course starts in January. To say I’m pleased with myself would be an understatement. It’s something I’ve wanted to do my entire life, write a book, and I did it! My goal in 2025 will be to have a manuscript that I feel comfortable sharing with beta readers, so stay tuned.
In my recent Ask Me Anything, which is still open should you have any burning questions, Pearl (HI PEARL) asked What is the book you’re working on about? In its current evolution, it’s a story about a single mother in her fifties who becomes involved with a widower. Her ex-husband delivers some surprising news that affects their daughter, and our protagonist finds herself navigating a new kind of life.
Years ago when I was in yoga teacher training, I was talking to my friend Jo (HI JO), who was a very established teacher at the time. We were talking about teaching yin and she said something that stayed with me: If you want to teach yin, you really need to have a yin practice. Jo and I were and are both Ashtanga practitioners, and I took that to heart, teaching what I knew.
When I first set out to write this book, I had in mind a romance, but for middle-aged people. The thing is, though, romance comprises only about a tenth of what I read. To paraphrase Jo, If you want to write romance, you really need to read romance, and in that vein I would say my novel veers toward a character-driven literary fiction. I wanted to write the book I would want to read, and I am doing that.
Engie (HI ENGIE) asked What is the best year of your life? As you know, I suffer from recency bias, but I really do think that 2024 was one of the best years in my life, particularly coming on the heels of 2023, which was an absolutely crazy year of wild change and upheaval. I have had many wonderful years in my life, absolutely, but this past year was filled with travel and gardening, friends and family. My sons are both doing well and are establishing themselves, my husband is so relaxed and settled into retirement, everyone is in good health, I have a beautiful home and garden, and I wrote a book! Life is uncertain and things can change on a dime at this stage of the game, so I am living in the present and feeling gratitude for all these incredible gifts.
Another incredible gift in my life is, of course, Rex. When our beloved Barkley died in June 2022, I was extremely vocal about Never Again Having A Dog. Never! My older son gently said to me But Mom, we are a dog family, but no, I said. No no no. Well, we all know how that turned out, when Rex arrived to our home in October of that same year. Elisabeth (HI ELISABETH) asked Did Rex come to you named Rex? and the answer is yes. His full name is Tyrannosaurus Rex Stegosaurus, which should tell you a little bit about his original family. I would like to go on the record to reiterate that Rex was NOT a rescue dog. We were chosen by his original family – speaking of gifts, that one was massive – who were incredibly loving and caring but who could no longer keep him. He was a year and a half, and perfectly trained and already full-grown, and some days I cannot even believe my luck that we were chosen to be his family.
Engie (HI ENGIE AGAIN) also asked What’s the best thing about having a dog? I read in a book recently that getting a puppy is a one-way ticket to eventual heartbreak, and while that is technically true, the absolute joy of having a dog far outweighs that. There are so many wonderful things about having a dog, but the best is probably the feeling of love and joy that emanates from them. Dogs are so in the moment, they miss you the second that you are gone and are so happy the second you come back, even if you were just in the shower. They are just happy to go somewhere, as long as they go with you. We are just not worthy of dogs, honestly, they are such incredible creatures and I for one feel so lucky to have not one but two fuzzy balls of love in my life.
Of course one of the best things about having a dog is walking them, although I will say that while I adored and loved my sweet fuzzy Barkley to the moon and back, walking with him wasn’t exactly a joy, even when he was young. He had a terrible tendency to eat tissues that had been dropped on the sidewalk, and as an aside, do you have any idea how many tissues are dropped on a sidewalk in a semi-inner-city neighbourhood? It’s a lot. He knew that tissues were the only thing I wouldn’t remove from his mouth because god, how gross. From the time he was a puppy until the day before he died, I would have to be on the lookout for tissues and redirect him before he snapped them up and ate them, and I was only successful maybe half the time.
While I’m on the topic, once I was walking with him as a puppy – and the boys were little enough to be in the Chariot stroller, this is how long ago it was – and he snarfed up a CONDOM that was on the sidewalk. A condom. I had terrors as to what would happen if he actually swallowed it, because certainly it would be injurious to his little digestive system, and imagine having to tell people that your dog died because he ate a condom. So there I was prying a condom out of my puppy’s mouth while the little boys asked mama whatcha doin wif Barkley’s mouf and I was praying, friends, I was PRAYING that the condom was just used in a silly way by neighbourhood kids, like blowing it up as a balloon, and not for its intended use. I am pretty sure I used up an entire bottle of hand sanitizer after I fished it out of his mouth, as well as a year or two off my lifespan.
I was thinking about this when Michelle (HI MICHELLE) asked her question: I know you go out walking a lot, and I wonder if you’ve ever found anything interesting or strange that was dropped on the side of the road? Well, Michelle, how’s that for an answer? A condom on a busy sidewalk near the elementary school. Oh wait, I just horrified myself anew on a number of levels.
We did come across a dead coyote a couple of weeks ago, but I’m not sure if that counts as “interesting” or “strange” or even “dropped.”
One thing that I always find interesting is when there is a single shoe, which reminds me of a story of long ago. When I was in university, my friends and I were at an on-campus bar listening to live music, and one of my friends had brought her boyfriend, an incredibly nice but dull-witted fellow. The dance floor soon turned morphed into a mosh pit, and shortly after that the extremely inebriated boyfriend stumbled over to us, missing a shoe. Eventually we had to leave, with our one-shoed fellow, but before that I needed to stop in the Economics Society office to pick something up. I was the Economics Society president, hashtag bragging, and while I was in the office our Shoeless Joe drew all over the white board: a number of single shoes, with the caption “Have You Seen Me?”
Since that day, anytime I see a single shoe abandoned on the sidewalk, I think of him, walking home with one shoe on that snowy winter night.
Weekly Reading
The Wedding People. From start to finish, this book was an absolute delight. It was just perfect! It was so smart, and so funny, and so uplifting and life-affirming and heart-warming. The premise sounds a bit off: a woman heads to a hotel to kill herself, and finds that there is a six-day wedding going on at said hotel, and she is the only one there who is not part of the festivities. Themes of friendship, support, and happiness are interspersed with true humour and excellent Mrs Dalloway references. The backdrop is post-Covid, and there are some really interesting thoughts about the pandemic and what it did to all of us, and our relationships. A quote that really hit me: ‘”But life is strange, always thinking this one thing is going to make you happy, because then you get it, and then maybe you’re not as happy as you imagined you would be, because every day is still just every day. Like the happiness becomes so big, you have no choice but to live inside of it, until you can no longer see it or feel it. and so you start to fixate on something else – you want a child, and then the child is here, and that happiness is so big it begins to feel like nothing. Like just the air around you.” Until it is gone, of course.’
The Plot. There is an Alice Munro story called “Family Furnishings,” in which a writer takes details from a relative’s life and creates a story from it. It addresses the question about who can tell a person’s story. I think that most fiction writers take details and experiences from their own lives and the lives around them, and create from them new stories. I was thinking about that Munro story when I was reading The Plot. To whom does a plot belong? This book follows a washed-up writer who is a teacher at a writing residency; one of his students tells him the plot of a book he’s writing, and the plot has an incredible twist. A few years later, he finds out that the student had died without writing the book. So what’s a writer to do? He uses the plot to create a book that becomes a bestseller, optioned for a movie, etc. But, like the narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart, he starts to unravel when the heartbeat he hears is a troll on twitter, accusing him of plagiarism. It’s an interesting premise for sure but after a slow start I guessed the twists and could see the “surprise” ending coming, and I found the last couple of chapters terribly explain-y. Still, a solidly diverting read.
Piglet. This book is brilliant from a literary point of view, but whoa, is it ever uncomfortable to read. I think it needs to be interpreted symbolically, as in a woman wanting more, more, more, and never being really satisfied. Of course this is shown as excessive eating, and I will say the food descriptions are Off The Hook. If you, like me, enjoy a good food description, hold onto your hats. Or forks. It’s a very moving story about a woman from humble beginnings whose wealthy fiance tells her about a terrible betrayal by him, only two weeks before their wedding. In case you, like me, find yourself reading this and thinking that you missed something, no, you didn’t. The betrayal is never revealed to the reader, which is a Real Literary Choice. You know that couples therapy scene in Old School, where Frank is talking about fantasizing about a waitress’ panties? “Probably they’re just plain white cotton. But then I thought, what if it’s lace? What if it’s a thong? What if it’s something really cool I don’t even know about?” The Betrayal is like that. Probably it’s just adultery. But what if it’s something really cool we don’t even know about?
Santa Claus Is Going To Town On Me. Well, you knew this was coming. Heh. Of course I couldn’t let the holiday season pass me by without reading this, after it was mentioned by Bad on Paper. I mean, it’s basically porn, but with Santa. If you have ever wondered what Santa’s dick looks like, this is the book for you! You may be saying to yourself, omg Nicole, of course I haven’t wondered that, NO ONE NORMAL has wondered that, and that is probably true as I myself never thought about Santa in any kind of sexual way before reading this. But what has been seen cannot be unseen, friends. I can never think of Santa in the same way again (tinsel-like pubic hair). To paraphrase Jessica from Drinks With Broads, STOP MAKING SEXY SANTA A THING, HE SHOULD BE COZY. Anyway, the whole thing took me maybe 45 minutes to read and I discovered that a) Mrs Claus is dead, b) Sexy Santa prefers to be called Claus and is maybe Finnish, c) he doesn’t live on the North Pole but instead in some other planet, and d) he has no elves, Sexy Santa is a Lone Wolf. It’s a lot more plot than you might expect from Santa porn, honestly. Quote that sums up the entire book: “I’ve always hated Christmas, but this year will be different, because this year, I’m going to fuck Santa Claus.”
On that very unsettling note, I should end this very long post, which will be my last one until the annual Year in Review. Wishing you all a very happy holiday season! Your readership is a gift to me, and one that I cherish. xo
Let me tell you, there is NOTHING to make a person appreciate snow like moving to a place in which it snows very little from a place where it can snow literally any month of the year, and does constantly between October through May. Here, if it snows at the end of February the inhabitants are bemoaning the Winter That Will Never End, whereas for me, a nice snowfall and temperatures above zero feels like a Normal Spring Day. I am assuming that at some point my internal blueprint will modify and it won’t feel strange to have rain in November, but for now, this is where I am at.
Having the first REAL snowfall – one that sticks around for more than an hour – in mid-December feels like a Holiday Miracle of the first degree. It also makes me feel like sharing all the other Holiday Miracles and Favourites that I’m enjoying.
Nicole’s Favourite Things
O Tannenbaum
My tree esthetic – well, actually my entire Festive Decorating Esthetic – is, without a doubt, Chaotic Nostalgia. What it lacks in elegance and understatement it more than makes up for in visual interest. Putting the tree up is an Entire Family Affair, and I hope that continues, well, forever. Intellectually I know this may or may not be the case, but let’s not worry about things that have yet to happen. In any event, every year a pattern emerges: my older son likes to take his childhood crafts and place them in clear view of everyone, where all can perceive that he really had no idea how to draw a face when he was three, and my younger son puts all of his at the back of the tree, unseen by all.
We have been amassing our ornaments for decades now, and this year I brought home a couple from Rome. One was this cute little Santa:
The other was a pair of lovebirds, which I think very much signifies my semi-empty nest and a new era for my marriage. Is that a narwhal, the unicorn of the ocean beside it? Yes. That was our 2020 ornament. When everyone was buying mask-related Christmas decor, we were leaning hard into the narwhal. (Bye Buddy! Hope you find your dad!)
Last year my dear friend Michelle (HI MICHELLE) sent me a gnome of her own making, and it has a well-deserved place of honour on the tree, beside the little house I bought the year we got married, and Bob Ross. By the way, if you haven’t seen Michelle’s dollhouse decorated for the holidays, I suggest you drop everything and go over there. Right now! I’ll wait.
Michelle’s dollhouse, and her entire blog, are one of my Favourite Things, during the holidays and ALWAYS. She is a bright light in this dark world. Speaking of dark, the sunrise is currently at 7:50 am and the sunset is at THREE FIFTY SIX IN THE AFTERNOON. The daylight (“daylight”) hours are very grey and cloudy at least 80% of the time, and so I’m basically mainlining Vitamin D at this point. But Saturday is the Solstice, as well as our annual Holiday Hoopla Open House, and after that we will be enjoying that extra daylight, two minutes at a time.
Also on the topic of lights, we have a tree that allows us to toggle between coloured and white lights, and also has options for twinkling and wave-like changing. The little lights are not twinkling. They really aren’t because twinkling lights make me feel like I’m going to have a mild stroke, but I do switch the colours and whites daily.
It’s Puzzle Season, Motherfuckers
I love a good jigsaw puzzle, but I am oddly specific about the things I like. Mostly, I don’t like a puzzle that is too hard, but I do like one with a lot of different vignettes involved. My husband and son brought this back for me on their trip up north; how or why they were shopping for Jane Austen jigsaw puzzles in Dawson City, I don’t know. But it is probably my favourite puzzle I have ever put together in my entire life.
I was drying my hair and my husband came upstairs and casually mentioned that there was “writing on the back” of the interior puzzle picture, and did I know that? I practically shoved him out of the way to run downstairs to look, and lo, there it was, a guide to all of the characters and houses in the puzzle. I felt vindicated as I had guessed which was Pemberley, Donwell Abbey, etcetera, and I talked excitedly about it as my husband’s eyes glazed over. My son made the mistake of asking me about it and then had to back away like Homer in the hedge.
It’s Also Peppermint Chocolate Season, Motherfuckers
For the first time in my entire adult life I have a chocolate Advent calendar, and while it’s fun to be included in the guys’ daily December ritual, I have to say, it’s not the glory I thought it would be. It’s fun, yes. I like my After Eight calendar just fine, but I almost think it would have been better to just buy a box of After Eights and eat one a day. The chocolate to peppermint ratio is way off in my calendar but, as my son says, it’s more about the event than the actual chocolate.
But this sounds more like a Festivus grievance than a Favourite Things, doesn’t it? Poor Nicole and her slightly-strange After Eight calendar, which involves a lot of bus-shaped chocolates. Why buses? I don’t know. Anyway, it is a fun little ritual, AND my parents sent a Christmas parcel that features a whole tin of After Eights, so I am happy and festively minty.
I am also happy because I made the executive decision to add mint chocolate chips to dark chocolate chips while making my annual batch of peppermint bark and people, this is what we all need right now. Or, really, it’s what I need right now.
Do you want the recipe? Here it is: melt some chocolate, add crushed candy canes, spread it on parchment paper and chill until you’re able to break it into chaotically artistic pieces.
It’s Brussels With An S
I did not grow up in a family that ate Brussels sprouts, and so I was in my twenties when I was at a Christmas dinner that featured a bowlful. I was filling my plate with vegetables so as to disguise that I wasn’t taking much turkey; this was back in the day before I was completely vegetarian, but I didn’t eat much meat, and I didn’t think my hostess would appreciate that. I scooped out a generous helping of Brussels sprouts, and with the clarity of hindsight I realize that of the nine or ten people at the table, no one else was doing this. I perceived the reason immediately upon biting into the mushy, boiled sprout. Oh, I thought, trying not to gag, THIS is why people hate Brussels sprouts.
Fast forward many years and we were at my friend Sammi’s for dinner (HI SAMMI). She had roasted Brussels sprouts and I gamely gave them a try. Wow. It was an entirely different experience and one that made me low-key obsessed with this cute little cruciferous. If she knows I’m coming over, she air fries some with olive oil and balsamic. My air fryer is only good for small batches, so I do them in the oven if I want volume which, let’s face it, I usually do.
Tis The Season For Boozy Coffee
Not every day, of course, but it’s nice to have a warming cup of coffee and booze around the holidays. I used to love a Bailey’s, but that cream wreaks absolute havoc on my stomach, and the almond milk version that came out several years ago is no longer being made, probably because it wasn’t very good. My husband went to the liquor store for the components of an Aperol spritz and came back with this:
It’s DELICIOUS. It’s coconut based and so creamy and tasty; I envision myself sipping it in my pajamas over the holidays.
Extremely Specific Kelowna Favourite
The postal strike is, while not settled, over. Sort of. It’s a long convoluted story that is best explained by the BBC, but essentially it has been a month-long shitshow in which absolutely no one won, everyone’s unhappy, the whole country is worse off, our remote and northern communities were completely cut off as Canada Post was the only organization that delivered up there, Canadians are still awaiting important government documents like passports, and small businesses have been, for lack of a better word, fucked. If the aim of this whole shmozzle was to line the pockets of giants like Amazon while small businesses suffered in the one season they can count on to actually earn a living, well, level completed and achievement unlocked.
In order to combat this in my own tiny way, I’ve been trying to shop more locally. Mosaic Books is a gem of a store that takes orders and pre-orders – although it could not deliver anything during the strike, of course – and I was thrilled to see that it was busy and bustling when I went to pick up my own order. I ended up buying way, way more than I had ordered, but hey. I’m helping out a small business!
Bookstores are second only to drugstore skincare and makeup aisles as places that can transfix me for indefinite amounts of time.
Outfit of the Month
I bought this sweater in Italy, and I will likely tell you I bought this sweater in Italy until it falls apart. As well as being Bought In Italy, it’s also so incredibly soft and cozy. I have my usual mildly-cold-weather boots, my Infinite Fit Silver jeans, a bag I bought in Italy (I bought this bag in Italy) and a tote bag featuring tiny Babar the Elephant in yoga poses, gifted to me many years ago by my friend Monique (HI MONIQUE). A perfect outfit for holiday shopping at Mosaic Books, which is where I wore it.
I love the month of December, so dark and yet so full of light, too. I hope your December is full of twinkling (or not) lights, yummy things, and coziness. xo
