Category Archives: Festivities

All Of The Lights

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Weekly Reading

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

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

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

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

Wrapped, Rapped, Rapt

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Last Friday I woke up to the lightest dusting of SNOW, and people, I do not think I have ever been so excited by such a meteorological event. The first snow, IN DECEMBER! This is incredible to me, and also it felt so special and festive, even if it didn’t even cover the grass and disappeared by mid-morning. It snowed lightly throughout the weekend, though, so I may be able to use my new skis very soon!

I spent many hours last week grocery shopping and wrapping gifts and packing parcels to be mailed. So many hours, people. Any week that I visit Costco AND Superstore is going to feel exhausting, in the grocery shopping department, but whoa nelly. I think I’ve mentioned before that the Kelowna Costco is the busiest in Canada and second-busiest in North America, right behind the one in Maui. How they measure this I do not know, but having visited both many times I believe it. In any case, this past week it seemed worse than usual, in that it was almost impossible to move the cart as there were people literally everywhere, and then the lineup went two-thirds of the length of the store. She died the way she lived, standing in line at Costco. On the plus side, I had a nice conversation with two ladies, one with regards to the giant stuffed bear in her cart. Have you seen those? One bear fills an entire cart and costs $150; she was telling me that it was for her grandchildren but that she kind of wanted to keep it for herself. This was extremely understandable. “Touch it!” she said to me a little intensely, but I did as she said.

The other lady was also very intense, about the role of ingredient substitutes such as artificial sweeteners or keto-friendly bread in our society. I didn’t disagree with her opinions – after all, I myself am not a fan of those or meat substitutes – but her level of disapproval was, shall we say, heightened. Costco shopping can be a fraught time, emotions run high.

I generally like all manner of holiday-related jobs, such as baking or treat-making or decorating or what have you, but there is one festive job that is at the very bottom of my list, and that is gift-wrapping. I strongly dislike gift-wrapping, possibly because I am so abjectly terrible at it. I might be the worst gift-wrapper over the age of five. I don’t know why I am so bad, but I am: I’m always cutting the paper too big or too small, and then I am trying to either repair the gaping strip where the ends don’t meet or, alternately, folding up huge wads of paper on the sides. There is no in-between. I use far too much tape and somehow I always manage to tape strands of my own hair onto the gift itself; perhaps the stress of wrapping makes my hair fall out, I don’t know. And this is if the gift is in a box, which is the best-case scenario. If it’s irregularly shaped, forget about it. You might be thinking to yourself gift bags exist, which, indeed they do, but we are tear-open-the-gift-wrap people around here, and I also have four rolls of Costco wrapping paper purchased years ago and I still haven’t used them up. I might take them to my grave at this rate, the grave I’m working myself into by standing in line buying such things as giant rolls of Costco wrapping paper.

Anyway, one of the best things about having a newly-retired husband is that I can delegate such jobs to him, and he is happy to do them. I can’t outsource all my wrapping to him, though, which means all the gifts directed to him will be a jumble of wrapping paper and tape.

I don’t know how you get through the various drudgeries of your day, like gift-wrapping, but I mostly listen to music or podcasts. Spotify Wrapped came out this week and it turns out that I, as my friend Nicole said (HI NICOLE), am an actual teenager.

You guys. I am in the TOP ONE PERCENT OF SPOTIFY LISTENERS. Now, in my defense I did spend many hours this year packing and cleaning and moving and unpacking, but still. 93,784 minutes is a lot of minutes. My peak day was July 18, which checks out. That was moving day and I drove eight hours listening to podcasts, then spent another couple of hours unpacking the car and organizing things, so 643 minutes sounded about right.

I’m always a bit surprised when Spotify Wrapped comes out, to see what my top song was. For several years running it was, inexplicably, Midnight Train to Georgia, but this year it was Dog and Butterfly by Heart. Who could have guessed? Certainly not me.

The interesting thing about my top artists is that Wilson Phillips made it in there. There is only one song that I listen to of theirs, and that is Hold On. I feel like that says a lot about my mental state for the first half of the year. I had no idea I listened to that much TLC, but otherwise, I’m not terribly surprised.

I seem to be missing something in my brain – probably because it’s filled up with song lyrics – that allows me to create any kind of visual art. If, for example, you asked me to draw a car or a dog, I would be completely unable to. It would almost seem as if I had never in my life seen a car or a dog, but had only received a verbal description. Here’s a…tire? A dog has…a tail? It’s really bad and probably somewhat related to my inability to wrap gifts with any kind of normalcy. This past weekend we went to a party and I was asked to bring a veggie plate. My beautiful friend Sammi (HI SAMMI) sent me a few photos of Christmassy veggie plates, to see if I wanted to try to recreate one. I was a little nervous – as I said, this is not my forte – but after looking at the photos, and with strong encouragement from my husband, who suggested I try the absolute easiest one, I did it!

My husband, thankfully, made the star. I know I’ve seen a star shape but…?

Weekly Reading

I had a DNF this week; it was I Have Some Questions For You. I had started reading the e-book in September, and it just wasn’t captivating me, and I ended up not finishing it by the time it was due back at the library; I put it back on hold and thought I would finish it later. Well, it came in this past week and after another chapter or two I thought life is too short and I cannot waste any more time on this. This could be because I had just finished the below book.

The Invitation. By the time I got to this book, I was on a four-book meh streak. I thought this might break the streak; it’s a story about a woman in a loveless marriage having a one-night stand, and then the two lovers being inadvertently thrown together on a yacht in 1950s. Friends, it did not break the streak. Five meh books in a row.

You Could Make This Place Beautiful. Finally! The streak of meh books was broken! Thank god. I don’t think I could have taken another one (my DNF was right before this one). Anyway, I loved this author’s earlier book, Keep Moving. I read it in the thick of the pandemic and whoa nelly, did it ever resonate. What I didn’t know (or maybe I forgot?) is that she wrote Keep Moving while going through an absolutely terrible divorce, and this book, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, is about that divorce. Her prose is absolutely gorgeous and can I just say that a toxic marriage and dreadful divorce make for very good writing material – as one of her friends said, at least you’re a writer so all this material isn’t wasted. Isn’t that a silver lining? I love dark humour and I loved this book. 

Shelley: Also Known As Shirley. I first read this book in 1987; I was at my grandparents’ house, bored, and helped myself to my grandma’s paperback collection in the basement. I had never seen or heard of any movie Shelley Winters had been in, and in fact I didn’t even know who Shelley Winters WAS. But I have always been interested in women’s and girls’ stories only, and this was one of the few books about a woman. Well! You can see how many times I read this book over the years, because it completely fell apart. I haven’t read it for a long time though, and so I thought I’d revisit it to see how it holds up. IT HOLDS UP! This is one juicy autobiography, and wow, did she ever live an interesting life! As a child she lived in tenements in Brooklyn; when she was about nine her father’s haberdashery shop burned down and he went to prison in Sing Sing for arson. It was a wrongful conviction, so he got out after about a year but sunk into a deep depression. By the time Shelley (then Shirley) was 14 she dropped out of school, got her working papers, and organized a strike at the Woolworth’s she worked at, which led to all the Woolworth’s in the five boroughs being unionized! She became a model, acted in Broadway and off-Broadway plays, was discovered by Harry Cohn and ended up in Hollywood. Oh, and she got married to a man who was in the air force. He came home from the war and they got divorced, and this all happened by the time she was NINETEEN. If that wasn’t enough, she had so many interesting friendships and affairs, going on a publicity tour to Europe while engaged to a costar, and ended up meeting and marrying Italy’s biggest star, Vittorio Gassman while she was there. Later they had an absolutely explosive divorce while starring in an Italian film. This book HAS IT ALL. Wow, what a fun, star-studded read!

I know I talk about Costco with exasperation a lot, but here’s where it pays off: it’s kalette season again! I consider myself to be an unpaid Kalette Influencer; if you see them, just know that they are a life-changing vegetable that is here for a good time, not a long time. So have a good time, the kalettes won’t shine every day! xo

Cognitive Dissonance, Coney Island, Cows

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I have been having such a strange cognitive dissonance for this entire month. My brain knows it is November. The short amount of daylight indicates it is November. And yet my body seems to think that it is the end of September; perhaps, at best, the beginning of October.

I blame the weather. There is no snow, it is very mild, and there are still leaves on some of the trees. After a lifetime in Calgary, in which November is firmly a Winter Month, I’m finding it strange to still be in fall. I have to keep reminding myself of the date, and that December is THIS WEEK.

I did kick it into high gear last week, finishing my cards and making a few festive treats:

And of course, this happened:

I love our style of tree decorating, which is crazy and maximalist. Putting up the tree is a Whole Family Affair around here, and it’s always so fun to see all the ornaments that we have amassed over the years. It was especially fun this year, with finding places for decorations in the new house.

We add at least one new ornament to our tree each year and it usually says something about our lives. When the boys were little my parents would also give them ornaments that complemented their then-current obsessions, which means our tree features everything from tractors to Star Wars characters. It’s a fun trip down memory lane, is what I’m saying, and although it wouldn’t win any decor awards, I love it so much. When it comes to Christmas decorations, more is more, in my humble, festive opinion.

I was delighted to discover a Christmas store in Maui – sadly, I have no idea if it is still there, as it was on the main street in Lahaina. Anyway, I purchased an ornament for the whole family and one specifically for Rex.

Speaking of Big Silly, he was temporarily sporting a new look this week.

Poor puppy! I’ll spare you the details but he had a bit of an infection on the top of his paw, and although he was clearly in no pain and has his usual level of Big Energy, wearing a giant cone was an adjustment. He could not fit into his crate with his cone on, he constantly bumped into everything, and we are all realizing how often he affectionately smushes his face into our legs, as we now had a cone enthusiastically nudging our bodies dozens of times a day. Usually his frantically wagging tail is what accidentally knocks things over, now we have been constantly on guard for both ends.

It’s like living with the big guy at the party wearing a lampshade on his head, all the time. We took him for his one-week follow-up, and he bounded out of the car and enthusiastically jammed his cone against the window of the hair salon next to the vet, to the immense merriment of everyone inside. Then, he pulled enthusiastically to get in the actual vet, and if you’ve never had to corral an excited 97 pound dog in a small waiting room space who has noticed friends, there are dogs here, ahhhhh, never mind that those dogs are sick and scared and not at all interested in being greeted by him, well, you don’t know excitement. “Rex has arrived!” the cheerful receptionist said, speaking volumes. He jumped onto the scale, over and over, remembering how he got treats to be weighed, and we should all be so enthusiastic when faced with such an opportunity.

In an only somewhat futile attempt to keep his paws clean, I have been avoiding the dog park and the adjacent Golden Mile this week, instead walking him along Lakeshore Road and up through the urban landscape that is beside one of the main thoroughfares in the city.

Am I even living in a city? I don’t know anymore. There are cows down the street from the library, people. Do not get me wrong, I love that there are orchards and vineyards and livestock in the city limits, I do love it. It’s so pretty and peaceful, even if Rex does think that the myriad fields with cows and horses are full of friends to play with and bark at, which makes it quite a bit less peaceful.

Weekly Reading

Sure I’ll Join Your Cult. I had heard about this book on a podcast and it sounded quite funny. Well. Sometimes a person is a great oral storyteller but it does not translate to the written page. This is ostensibly a comedy memoir about the author’s mental health struggles, but it was so damn depressing I barely could read it.

The Dead Romantics. This book is a creative mix of love story, ghost story, and family story: a girl who grows up in a funeral home and who can see ghosts goes home for her father’s funeral, where she falls in love with…a ghost. It’s not my taste at all, and honestly, I thought it was too long, and it dragged for me, but I give it points for originality. 

Thankfully Rex’s paw healed by the time we put the tree up, and so the cone has been removed. Not that he seemed to mind it; whenever we’d say “You need to be a flower now!” he would sit at our feet and wait for us to put his cone on. However, a cone and a Christmas tree seemed like a recipe for Festive Disaster, thankfully averted. I did briefly get him into his Santa outfit, before he pawed the hat off his head and tried to eat it. I hope your week felt equally festive and included delicious, non-hat things to eat. xo

Five For Friday: The Small Grievances and Their Associated Upsides Edition

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  • At the end of October I always head to Bath and Body Works to purchase festive hand soaps for Tiny Secret Festive Season, and this year was no exception. I prefer regular liquid soap to the foaming variety for reasons that are mostly hard to articulate, with one exception: foaming soap never seems to pump nicely, instead I seem to always have to apply what I consider to be excessive force just to wash my hands. The result of this is that the soap often shoots out wildly, in the best case scenario into my sink, in the worst case scenario onto my sweater. As I shopped for my soaps this year, I noticed that all the soaps were of the foaming variety; when I asked the salesperson about it, she directed me to one small shelf near the back, where the selection was very small and the bottles themselves very bland, and not festive at all. According to her, foaming soaps outsell regular by twenty to one, and so the company has now focused the majority of their festive soap effort on foaming. Rather than buy a sad, pine-scented hand soap – I love pine trees, but I don’t want pine-scented hands – I gave in and bought the foaming soaps. The scents are glorious – Coconut Snowball! Twisted Peppermint! Winter Candy Apple! – and I’ve mostly mastered the pump-without-spraying-my-sweater, but not entirely. I’m learning and growing as a person.
  • Despite all this festive hand-washing, last week my husband and I succumbed to the cold-like viral sickness that has been going around. I was, pardon my indelicacy, desperate for my Neti rinse, but I could not find my squirt bottle nor the giant Costco 200-pack of Neti salts to go with it. I looked everywhere, but sadly concluded that those items must have been part of my Insane Moving Purge in the spring. I wasn’t comfortable sharing indoor air with anyone, so instead of going to the drugstore I ordered a new bottle and salts from Amazon, which I thought was a one-day delivery, but it ended up being three. As soon as it arrived I ripped the package open and showered the sinuses I love with love, if you know what I’m saying, and it was such a relief. I washed out the bottle and then went to put it under my bathroom sink, where I found my old bottle, partially hidden behind my hair products. I was very annoyed, thinking this whole time I could have been Neti-ing. However, I had noticed on the package that the company recommends replacing the bottle every three months and at that point, I’d probably had my old bottle for at least eight years, so it was probably for the best. Although, doesn’t it seem like an environmental disaster to throw out a perfectly good bottle every three months? That seems like an excessive reaction, and a ridiculous waste. I’ll probably keep this one for another eight years, I have not died from not replacing my Neti yet.
  • This might be a uniquely Canadian problem right now, but has anyone else noticed the sugar shortage? About five weeks ago there was no brown sugar at Superstore, and then there was no white sugar, and this lasted up until this week. I mentioned this to my mother-in-law who had NOT noticed, but then she called me in a panic to say that the workers at the Rogers’ factory were on strike. Ah! No sugar tonight! This explains why I could buy a giant bag of imported brown sugar in the international aisle but not in the baking aisle. I think the strike is now resolved but sugar is, of course, slow to get back to its regular supply level. I was at Costco and they had the giant ten kilo bags; an older couple was there with two carts, one of which was completely full with sugar, and they were working on filling the other one. Should I be hoarding sugar too? I thought. Maybe? Is this like 2020? The woman noticed me looking at her, lost in my own thoughts, and I startled myself back to reality. “You must have a lot of baking to do!” I said in the most pleasantly normal voice I could, trying not to sound accusatory like I know what you’re doing, you hoarder. “We have a lot of JAM to make!” she said, and I wondered if she had some kind of jam home business, or if it was all a cover to profiteer on the sugar black market, like we were in Europe in World War II. Either way I grabbed a bag, which I technically didn’t need, but let us remember Lessons From The Pandemic: if you see it, maybe buy it. Within reason, of course, let’s not forget how I ended up with six boxes of expired cream of tartars in 2023, and I don’t even use cream of tartar.
  • I have been talking about the nightmare that is time change for twenty years, so I won’t bore and depress us all with its history, how it makes no difference with energy usage which is WHY it is touted to be still in existence, and how everyone is just fucked up for a week twice a year, including, importantly, the pets of the world. JUST PICK A TIME AND STICK WITH IT, I DON’T EVEN CARE. What I did not realize is how early it gets dark here; it is completely dark at 4:30 pm. I even thought I was maybe hallucinating a little, due to time change and my brain fog from my lingering sickness, but no, a check of my weather app tells me that the sun sets at 4:21 pm. What will happen in December? Well, there’s nothing for it but to embrace my inner Dane and get Hygge with it. I have my light-up gnome and electric candles, so I can participate in the Danish Hygge ritual of candles without the fear of scary actual candles burning my house down.
  • I have been so looking forward to a women’s weekend retreat that was to take place next weekend. I haven’t been away by myself since my YMC days, and I was so excited as my friend Sara (HI SARA) was teaching the yoga sessions, and in addition to that there was going to be snowshoeing, lovely meals, and a comedy night. I was hoping to meet other snowshoeing women in the area, and did I mention it was a weekend of meals someone else prepared? Bring your swimsuit for the hot tub! the website said cheerfully. DONE AND DONE. Then, earlier this week, I got a notification that the weekend was cancelled, or, technically, postponed until 2024. And this after my husband bought me a new headlamp so I could take part in the Night Snowshoe Adventure. Well, I did get use out of the headlamp when I walked Rex before sunrise a few weeks ago; the completely unlit path was a little terrifying even with the headlamp, and I kept waiting to get murdered or for us to get attacked by wildlife, but perhaps wildlife could smell Rex and kept out of our way.

Happy Friday everyone! I hope you have a great weekend. xo

Conversations With Strangers

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Last Wednesday marked the beginning of Tiny Secret Festive Season! If you’re new here, welcome! Everyone is welcome in the Boyhouse. Also, if you’re new, you may be wondering what even is Tiny Secret Festive Season. The short answer is that it is something that I have created to enjoy the Christmas holiday spirit in the face of those who think that November 1st is Too Early to start being jolly. Generally in Canada “Too Early” can be defined loosely as “Anytime Before Remembrance Day, You Disrespectful Bitch” all the way to December 1st. In the US, the consensus seems to be “Before US Thanksgiving.”

But why should there be time restrictions on Being Jolly, I ask, and so Tiny Secret Festive Season was born. Now, if you are a person who is in agreement with the Too Early sentiment, well, you are still welcome here but just know that I am keeping it a secret from you, hence the Secret part of Tiny Secret Festive Season. On the other hand, if you’re a person who likes to mimic Costco and start your Holiday Jolliness in July, well, that’s not really Tiny, is it? You’re still welcome here, in fact, I salute you! But that is not what Tiny Secret Festive Season is.

The key is that one must incorporate small, festive items into everyday life, so on the outside one is just living a regular everyday life. But on the inside! Secretly there are small things that are making our Inner Elf feel known. For me, that means a) festive hand soaps by the major-use sinks, b) wearing my Christmas bracelet every day, c) using Vanilla Candy Cane foot cream, d) hanging holiday-themed tea towels on the oven door, e) playing holiday music for my daily piano practice, f) wearing holiday-themed pajamas, and g) using Christmas napkins at the dinner table.

In other festive news, we had not two but THREE Trick-or-Treaters on Tuesday! I gave my husband a meaningful look as I dropped a few assorted full-sized bars in the little girl’s pillowcase; the lesson, people, is to always buy extra candy. I think this is a lesson not just for Halloween, but for life. Now, was I a little surprised to get a knock on my door when I was in my pajamas with no makeup on and a face full of night cream? I was. But I overcame them, in the spirit of the holiday.

Speaking of which, I do think the myriad night creams and serums are working, in that my skin is softer and more, dare I say, radiant, but there is nothing in this world that is going to fix my raging case of Bitchy Resting Face. It’s pretty bad, friends. Several years ago I was at a get-together with friends from high school, who I hadn’t seen since those days, and a man looked at me and said that I looked disgusted with everyone. I replied with surprise that this is just my face in repose.

One area in my life that happily appears unaffected by my Bitchy Resting Face is that people, particularly strangers, are apt to talk to me very openly about a wide variety of topics. Maybe I give out an aura that I want to know everything about them, which is true, I do. People are endlessly fascinating to me. I think that small talk is a wonderful way to connect to people in this shared human experience, and it often, for me, leads to incredibly involved discussions about someone else’s life. I think that people are often very lonely, and just want someone to listen to them, and when I die I hope my photo evokes conversational memories for the populace. Oh hey, that’s the woman I talked to about my eyelashes and how I was using that new L’Oreal Telescopic mascara while we were in the security line at the airport.

Eyelashes are definitely a hot topic of conversation for me these days – are they real, if not, what mascara are you using – and much preferred to the one I once had about the occasional utilization of Smooth Move tea on days that a person is, shall we say, backed up. This conversation took place after a yoga class, with a young yoga student who was just in my class. I generally do not want to talk about bowel movements – I am even grossed out by the poop emoji, do NOT text me with that thing – but I guess I am happy that I’m a safe space for such discussions, and also that I am clearly just a regular gal. Also, I should probably not be so squeamish; after all, as the children’s book says, Everybody Poops.

I can talk to pretty much anyone about a wide variety of topics, is what I’m saying.

Sometimes, looking back, I have no clue how lighthearted chitchat turns so intense. In the last two months alone things have escalated. I don’t know how the piano tuner got on the topic of how his wife died of cancer only four days before their thirty-third anniversary, but I was happy to hear he’s found love again in the shape of his colleague at the middle school they have both worked at for twenty-five years. I’m not sure why the woman with the cute Labradoodle at the dog park tearfully told me that she yelled at her children that morning for losing their shoes and then cried after school drop off, but I’m glad our dogs could play together while I assured her that parenting IS hard. I’m still a bit worried about the cashier whose dad was in the hospital with what they thought was a gall bladder flare; he’s ninety-six and she was waiting for The Call. I felt badly for the older gentlemen couple on the walking path who just got back from two weeks in Paris in which they never got over their jet lag and also stayed at a very high priced, but inconvenient location, dissuading them from going to Europe ever again.

Possibly the most interesting conversation with a stranger of late was at, of all places, Superstore, and in this case I actually DO know how one topic segued into the next. I complimented the cashier on her Tree of Life necklace, which led, immediately and startlingly, to how she wanted to turn into a tree when she died, as opposed to being cremated. We briefly touched on the unsettling environmental impact of cremation, at which point I, having recently heard a science podcast on the topic, brought up the idea of human compost, and with that, we were off to the races, unfortunately for the people behind me in line who were listening to this grim topic of What To Do With Our Bodies When We Die. We both agreed that we believe souls can live on, and maybe we’d both return as birds to visit the flora that our composted bodies were nourishing. I contemplated this beautiful idea as I wheeled my giant cart away and I didn’t notice my 16-pack of Kleenex had fallen off the bottom of the cart and was lying in the middle of the parking lot until another woman called my attention to it. Another opportunity for small talk and human connection, but after discussing usage of my future corpse I was not equal to it. I thanked her, picked up my Kleenex and went home.

Weekly Reading

Sweetbitter. I typically dislike books in which the protagonist is a very young mess of a woman (SEE BELOW), with vast amounts of drug use, description of the aftereffects of drug use and drinking (SO MUCH VOMIT), and bad choices in general. Typically I avoid those books but there was something really captivating about this story of a young Ohio woman who lands in NYC and starts a job as backwaiter at a very upscale restaurant. If you’ve ever worked in a restaurant the scenes of stress and conflict during a shift will resonate, even if the restaurant in question was Moxie’s in the 90s, and not an expensive NYC place in 2006. Nothing really happens, and yet everything happens. It’s a compelling read.

Really Good, Actually. SPEAKING OF HOT MESS YOUNG PROTAGONISTS. I have to say, this book was quite a ride. At first, I found it absolutely delightful and so very clever – lots of smart pop culture and literary references, like the “soft animal of her body loving what it loves” while she ate hamburgers, for example. Then, midway through I thought “wait, is this the whole book?” Then the delight really took a turn into “wow, if this woman was in my life I’d never speak to her again.” As an example, there is a scene in which her dear friend and her fiance have decided to adopt a dog, and instead of being happy for this turn of events, she says “We all know a puppy is just a down payment on a dog funeral” which, hey hot mess protagonist, just go fuck yourself. I found myself warming to the her a bit near the end as she tries to redeem her sorry self, but in a cool, detached, “If I saw her in the grocery store I’d maybe have a polite conversation about seasonal vegetables” way. It’s yet another book about a hot mess of a young woman going through a divorce, is broke, and her thesis as yet unwritten. It’s very readable, but kind of like Train Wreck Readable, and tl:dr; I am probably, yet again, too old for these books. But fun fact: the author was one of the Schitt’s Creek writers!

Happy November, everyone! How are you doing? It rained here for a few days and I cannot even express how novel that is to me. Rain? In November? It’s not snowing? Well, as they say, it’s hard to hold a candle in the cold Gnomevember rain. xo

Social Butterfly and Boxes, Boxes, Boxes

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Nothing motivates a person so much as having a firm deadline, am I right? The past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of cleaning and decluttering, donating and packing, and squeezing in as many social visits as I possibly can. And speaking of motivation, nothing lights a fire with regards to actually scheduling social visits, as opposed to the old “we should get together sometime soon” like leaving the province. I feel very popular these days! A woman, who I had not seen since 2019, dropped by my house for a surprise visit, which is not my favourite, and said that even though we hadn’t seen each other in years, she’s sad that I’m leaving because she thought that I’d just always be here, in this house, anytime she wanted to see me. That made me feel less popular, and more boring and staid, although I guess I’m morphing into some unpredictable wild child, leaving the house I’ve been in for twenty-three years.

I think that old trope about friends coming into your life for a reason, season, or lifetime is very true. A couple of weeks ago we had friends over for dinner – our last dinner party in our house. These are friends that are more like family, friends for life; we regularly share meals and vacations, and we have that rare unicorn of a situation where the kids all get along AND the adults all get along. It seems with couple friends that this isn’t always the case, but all eight of us love each other and enjoy each other more and more with the passing years. I found a very special package of napkins that I had bought years ago and I thought why am I saving these, let’s use them!

There’s even a drink recipe on the back.

Our older kids share a birthday – they are only two hours apart in age – but their youngest just celebrated her 17th, so I decided to make her a cake in her favourite flavours, peanut butter and chocolate. This is a cake I had made before, and, as an aside, my son reminded me that I had a goal to make every single cake in this book and I have only made two, so I need to get moving on that. In any case, I had made it before, so I was very confident in the final product.

And at this point I will say I am not a person who gets stressed about having dinner guests. I am generally a very relaxed hostess who just wants everyone to have a full glass of whatever they want, and the rest falls into place. I think I inherited this trait from my mother, who wouldn’t blink at having twenty people over for a meal and who I remember hosting many enormous holiday meals in a completely calm manner, including, when my brothers each got married, hosting fifteen and twenty-eight houseguests, respectively. When I was a kid, I could invite any friend over for any meal with zero notice, and she’d just ask me to go grab some more potatoes. So I tend to be pretty calm and I figure the food will be fine, and people are here to visit anyway.

But I did want the cake to be nice for our girl, and I was sure it would be. I was humming around the kitchen, and thought the cake was chilled and set enough to have the springform pan’s sides removed. At this point in the movie of my life, ominous music would start playing. I cheerfully removed the ring and, friends, it was a disaster. Immediately the top ganache started breaking apart and the weight of it made the fluffy filling, for lack of a better word, explode in a slow-motion manner. At that moment my husband came inside from checking the barbeque and I could only scream “The cake! The cake!” in the manner of that guy from Fantasy Island when he saw the plane. He hurried over and together we jammed the springform sides back on as the peanut butter filling spread everywhere. I was in a low-level state of Cake Panic. I never really worry about what I am serving my guests, for better or for worse, but I did have an image in my mind for my favourite girl, for our last of many dinners and visits in our house. After we had jammed the sides of the springform back on, I put it in the freezer, and this was the end result:

The birthday girl, bless her heart, thought it looked Really Cool That Way, Nicole, and it was honestly really delicious. I think the freezing actually improved the whole cake, all around, and I am going to remember that for next time. Freeze BEFORE removing the sides.

Speaking of my mom, I visited my parents for a couple of days and the guys joined in for the Canada Day holiday. I was reminded of a conversation my friend Tara (HI TARA) and I had, lo these many years ago, about visiting our parents. At the time we both had very tiny babies and equally tiny toddlers, and life felt as chaotic as that sounds. I recall mentioning to Tara taking the boys over to visit my parents and marvelling at their house as an oasis of peace, tidiness, and calm. It was like this whole other world, that wasn’t awash in diapers and toys and tears, and my mother would be calmly putting together a balanced meal, whereas I would have one child in the Baby Bjorn and another at my feet, trying to figure out how to cobble together a half-decent meal before the baby needed feeding and the toddler needed bedtime. Tara nodded and said “It’s like finding out how the other half lives,” and I felt that, again, at this time in my life, deeply as I was at my parents’ house this weekend. There aren’t boxes and donation piles everywhere! There are no endless to-do lists and balancing eating everything in the freezer and cupboards with are we running out of coffee, omg. I mean, this is what my front hallway has looked like for a week and a half, waiting for a donation pickup:

And the basement seems to have exploded:

But I had a great time at my parents’, even though one evening we were under a tornado warning. My mom and I popped over to my friend Merry’s lovely little store, original home of Salvadore the Gnome. Merry’s Mercantile carries giftware and clothing as well as a ton of wonderful vintage items, and one of the first things I saw was this:

GRIMACE! Is it a sign? I did not buy him, nor did I buy the cookbook by the 80s TV star Wok With Yan, although I was very tempted.

I was also tempted to buy a bandanna for Rex that stated “I’m the reason we can’t have nice things,” but, as appropriate as that is, I did not because I figured he would probably, ironically enough, destroy it. Merry did mention she had one last garden gnome who needed a home, and the last time I heard that phrase I ended up with a 95 pound ball of love, so of course I took the gnome home, although he’s going to be in a box for a little while. There will be a time after this! At one point boxes will not be my life, and Gustaf the Gnome will be presiding over a garden patch.

Weekly Reading

Tuesday Nights In 1980. This was a really good book about the NYC art scene in 1980, which is something I do not know much about. It deals with an art critic who has a special ability to see the world in colours and flavours, a fledgling artist from Argentina who is about to hit the big time, and a woman from Idaho who is trying to life the artist life in the gritty city. It took some turns I really did not expect, and is a compelling story about, thematically enough, chosen and blood family.

Unraveling. I think Jamie (HI JAMIE) had recommended this book, and to be honest, the premise did not sound promising. Starting in 2020, the author decides to write about making a sweater from scratch, and I do mean from scratch. She learns how to shear a sheep and does so, then washes, cards, and spins the wool. She makes her own natural dyes and colours the yarn, finally knitting it into a sweater. Pandemic projects, am I right? But the point was to show how much labour goes into the making of a sweater, and it was honestly fascinating. The book takes many sidebars to show just how much traditional labour – generally women’s – went into the making of textiles and clothing. The most fascinating example was one I had heard before, which is that the most valuable item on a Viking ship was the sail. The amount of labour that went into one sail is estimated to be two women-years of work. In medieval times, women of all classes would spend the majority of their time spinning and weaving, and the word spinster meant a woman untethered by husband or children, who could spend extra time doing these very important and valuable jobs. Having a spinster in the house was not a burden but instead was valuable. The book also goes into the absolute environmental disaster that is our textile and clothing industry, and questions why we think so much about what we put into our bodies, but not at all about what we put ON them, from an ecological point of view. Once you know this, you really can’t un-know it, and I have been thinking a lot about the impact our consumer choices have on this world. It’s really shameful and we have to do better as a whole and as individuals. I’ll be thinking about this for a while. This was a really thoughtful, interesting, well-researched and well-written book.

Now that I’m back from “where the other half lives” I need to get back to reality. Back to boxes and everything else, and I hope you all have a much-less hectic and stressful week than the one I am facing. Be well, friends! xo

Happy Galentine’s Day!

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It’s February 13, and you know what that means!

Happy Galentine’s Day!

I don’t know what it’s like in your house, but in mine, Valentine’s Day is kind of a non-event. Not a total non-event; we do celebrate with cookies:

And cake:

But other than baked goods and the tank top decorated with a bee and the words Bee Mine that my husband gave me one year, we really don’t celebrate it around here. If you know me at all, you would know that the bee top won me over for years to come, although I am still waiting on the I Choo-Choo-Choose you card.

So there’s no big romantic dinner (on a Tuesday, are you crazy?), and wine mid-week disrupts my sleep; my husband and son have pollen allergies so floral bouquets are a no-go as well. I could really get down with heart-shaped chocolates, although I usually like to buy them discounted on February 15. What can I say, I’m half-Scottish. We spent Friday night watching a special on Super Bowl commercials, and Saturday watching only the funny parts and fast-forwarding the rest of Old School, so who’s winning at romance now?

I do like to lean into the idea of GALENTINE’S Day, though. Last year at this time I vowed I would host a Swistle-style Galentine’s party (HI SWISTLE), but I remembered that vow only a few days ago, so that was a no-go. Next year, maybe. Instead, I put together a bunch of silly classroom cards for my Monday afternoon ladies, and taped a strawberry Lindor to each one. If you have never tried a strawberry Lindor, my goodness, you are in for a big treat. If you like fruity chocolate, that is, which I do.

For Christmas I received a new Garmin watch, and one of the new features on it is a “Body Battery,” which uses metrics like heart rate, stress levels, and sleep quality to measure the body’s energy reserves throughout the day. I am OBSESSED. I used to focus on Steps and Intensity Minutes, but now it’s all about the Body Battery, baby. Well, I still look at Steps and Intensity Minutes, but other than hitting my daily goals, I don’t really care much. With the Body Battery measurement, it’s fascinating to me to see my energy levels go up and down, and what affects them. If I read for an hour, what happens? If I walk for an hour, what happens? It’s not like I need data from a watch to tell me that I’m tired or refreshed, but it’s nice to have that confirmation, if you know what I mean.

Here’s the reading after a decent sleep:

And a not-great-but-not-terrible sleep:

And here’s a Friday night sleep, after I’ve had a couple of glasses of wine:

Oops! Well, the cost/ benefit analysis still comes up in favour of Friday night wine, as it is a treat I look forward to, but everything has its price, I guess.

In terms of batteries, and recharging them, I sometimes think of people in this way. There are people who I feel literally energized after talking to or visiting with, and there are those who I can feel my battery draining away in their presence. It’s not that I dislike those people, or never want to see them, but I do limit my time around them, and bring awareness to myself and how I’m feeling when I am around them.

In a Charge My Battery move, I signed up for my friend Sara’s (HI SARA) yoga event at a local art gallery. This is the first led yoga class, not taught by me, that I have attended since 2018. Sara has a thriving online teaching presence, but every few months she has an in-person event and the stars lined up for me this weekend, and I was able to attend.

Let me tell you, what a treat it was. My daily practice and, obviously, the classes I teach are all set by me; I flow through my own cadence and breathwork and asana. What a treat it was to follow along with the nourishing, delicious class of asana Sara put together! If you’re local – or even if you’re not, because she’s online! – you should really check out her classes. Rumour has it that her sweet dog Alton is always on or near the mat during her online classes.

I’m sure this guy would love to be on my mat too! But he’s still sleeping when I’m practicing.

Weekly Reading

I didn’t really make any New Year’s Resolutions, or choose a word of the year, or what have you, but after reading that nightmare of a book back in late December and regretting the time wasted in reading it, I have decided to just…not finish books if I don’t want to. Generally I push through, thinking maybe it will get better, and you know what, it rarely does. Why am I wasting my time? NO MORE. So far this year I have picked up and then immediately taken back to the library four books. The first was Something Wilder, by Christina Lauren. I have liked and not liked their books in the past, and I read the prologue and the book jacket before deciding that this one was not for me. The second was The Opportunist, which I had picked up on a whim at the library, and by the first chapter I was completely irritated by the characters. The third was a book that is actually quite good, but that I realized I had read before, in August 2020, which is When You Read This. Does that happen to you? I will start a book and by the first or second chapter I will think wait a minute…and then I’ll check my spreadsheet and see that yes, I’ve been there and done that. So, there was nothing wrong with When You Read This, but if I’m going to reread something, I want it to be on purpose. The final Did Not Finish Or Even Start was Matthew Perry’s memoir. I do not, as a rule, enjoy addiction memoirs, and by flipping through it casually I could see that it was ENTIRELY about his addictions. Also, after reading a paragraph here and there I saw that it was trying really hard to be funny, and I decided not to waste my time.

Anyway, I had some real winners this week in the reading department. In what can only be described as Library Kismet, all the books that came in on my hold list this week were romances. Does the library know it’s Valentine’s Day? Maybe!

The Bodyguard. Well! This was just the most delightful read! It was exactly what I needed this week. The plot, while a little silly, is just so much fun and I am 100% here for it. It follows a woman who works as a specialized bodyguard, and she is put on duty to guard a Chris Hemsworth-like movie star from a stalker, as he has moved to Texas to be near his ill mother. He doesn’t want knowledge about the stalker to add stress to his family, so the bodyguard needs to be undercover; she has to pretend to be his new girlfriend. PEOPLE. I AM HERE FOR THIS. I think we all know what happens in romance books when there is a pretend relationship – SHIT GETS REAL, Y’ALL. I can’t say enough about this cute book, because although, like I said, the plot is a little silly, the theme is REALLY good and heartwarming, and the epilogue, my goodness, the epilogue. A delight. The narration and dialogue are really funny, too. If you need a pick-me-up, go get yourself this book, stat.

In A New York Minute. Oh my gerrrrrrd this was SO MUCH FUN TO READ! I am dying! It’s such a good romance – it starts with the worst day ever: a layoff, a sweaty subway ride, a wardrobe malfunction to end all wardrobe malfunctions. Listen, while carrying the box from her desk after being laid off, her dress catches in the subway and completely rips down the back, leaving her as exposed to the New York commute rush as wearing a hospital gown. And someone is live-streaming it onto Instagram stories. A stranger comes to her sartorial rescue – but the two are opposites. OPPOSITES YOU GUYS, I THINK YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN. It’s such a romp and I never say this, because I generally deeply dislike when books are adapted for the screen, but if this was made into a movie, I’d watch it. The happens to be cohost of one of my fave podcasts, Forever 35. If you love joy and happiness and warm fuzzy feelings, I recommend both book and podcast! 

Nora Goes Off Script. Well, with this, I am 3/3 for incredible romance novels this week! This was so good; a screenwriter’s home is the set for her movie, and the leading man stays on for a while after to rest and recharge. He settles into her routine as a single mom, and they end up having an affair. This takes twists that I did not see coming, and was a delightful mix of “I am woman hear me roar” and heart warming romance. Oh, and by the way, the screenwriter is a Hallmark-movie style screenwriter who makes it big with a different style of script, and I was here for it. A Hallmark-type-book with a twist, about a Hallmark-movie-writer with a twist! I loved it. 

Happy Galentine’s Day, my friends, and may your Valentine’s Day be filled with self-love and battery recharging. May your February 15 be filled with half-price chocolates. xo