Category Archives: Food

All The Appointments; Twelve Weeks In

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Last week my son had an appointment with an allergist, and the skin prick test did not indicate that he is allergic to the food that we thought caused a reaction a few weeks back. The next step is a blood test, and I have to schedule my own routine blood test, along with my mammogram, and all three guys have eye appointments this week and I have a dentist appointment THIS AFTERNOON and honestly, that would be an overwhelming number of things to do in normal times, let alone now.

I phoned the dentist on Friday, thinking that it would be several weeks before I got an appointment – my husband has one at the end of July – and when the woman on the phone said he can see you next week, how’s Monday afternoon I jumped on it without thinking. I shall report back.

Part of this is fear of the unknown; the lab services place is a gross petrie dish normally, what will it be like now? I’m trying to think optimistically that it will be BETTER, not worse, but still. Someone mentioned to me that with all the mask-wearing and hand-washing, it seems like an eternity since anyone’s had a common cold, and that is true. I cannot remember the last time I was sick, and one of the best things to come out of all this is that people who are sick – coughing and sneezing sick – are not generally going out in public. It was always a peeve of mine, when the children were small, that kids would end up at preschool VISIBLY ill, while their parents would say things like he was vomiting all day yesterday but drank water this morning, I’m sure he’s fine, and oh, it’s just a little bit of sniffles while their febrile child curled up on the circle mats, interrupted only to cough chestily. Now there is enormous peer pressure to keep everyone home, with nothing more than a seasonal allergy sneeze.

Anyway. So many appointments! After only going to the grocery store weekly, this feels like a lively and very busy runaround. So many places to go and things to do. It’s a ridiculous feeling, given what my normal pre-Covid life would have been like in June, although also not ridiculous, because things take so long to accomplish now, and will there be lineups, and should I take a book with me.

How am I possibly going to get back to the regular world? Slowly, I guess.

This week would have been my younger son’s grade nine graduation, and the mother of one of his friends organized an evening last week where the whole gang got together for photos. In a couple of weeks he will go to the school to pick up his yearbook and his certificate, and then it’s goodbye to junior high, I guess. It’s a small thing but still a thing, to be a little bit sad about. Online lessons seem to be wrapping up this week; they’ve gone as well as possible for my kids, every day is a gift, let us not wish our lives away BUT I am looking forward to the day that they are NOT doing online school.

Pandemic Reading

Speaking of landsliding and the kids getting older and I’m getting older too, I read this collection last week:

This is an interesting collection as it was written in 1974, so Alice Munro fans can see the change in style and prose. There is also an underlying counterculture theme in most of the stories, shown in descriptions of hair and clothing, as well as marital dichotomy.

I read this story, The Spanish Lady, when the kids were small and I remember gasping at this paragraph. I dog-eared the book and, coming across it again, I gasped. It is such a perfect description of mothering small children, and it is also a perfect description of motherhood for me now: all that time of care and confusion that seemed as it would never end seems as if it never was. 

LANDSLIDE, OMG, LANDSLIDE.

I have two new David Sedaris books to read: Naked and When You Are Engulfed In Flames, but I’m saving them. For what, I don’t know. Do you do this too? Do you “save” books for a certain time? Anyway, I reread this one last week while I drank copious amounts of coffee – to be possibly slightly regretted this afternoon when I’m having my dental scaling – and green smoothies.

The world does not need to read or hear about a privileged white woman’s outrage about current events and subsequent journey towards understanding and compassion, so I will spare you my thoughts. What I will say is that I acknowledge my extreme privilege and the fact that I have had little to no barriers or disadvantages in my life, and I understand that the world is full of barriers and disadvantages to other women of different races and backgrounds. The entire system is set up with barriers and disadvantages, which makes the reading of this book that much more poignant. This book is an incredible work of art, dealing with two sisters: one who follows Fate as it is determined for her and enters into an arranged marriage and subsequent move from Bangladesh to England to be a dutiful wife and mother, and one who enters into a “love marriage.” It is a gripping book about fate, love, sisterhood, and taking charge of your own destiny. Women are amazing, the world over. The world is full of incredible, strong women who do amazing things, and I am constantly humbled by that.

Yummy Things

There is no way to segue from Brick Lane to Yummy Things, but here we go.

I planted this herb garden a few weeks ago – a few? I have no idea when – including transplanting my grow-op cilantro. It is thriving and I love it. I have many plans for drying herbs and making my own mint extract, and meanwhile I made my very first homemade mojito on Friday.

I added way too much lime but still, it was good.

I bake snacks several times a week, but this was a new record: I took these blueberry-raspberry muffins out of the oven at 4:30 on Friday afternoon, and by 2:30 Saturday there was nothing but crumbs and a lone blueberry in the snack box.

Proof that there is always one spinach leaf that refuses to be blended.

What’s Blooming

The Mayday bloomed two weeks ago and is all finished now, leaving behind a lawn full of petals.

The snowdrop anenomes are waving in the wind.

The biggest of the elephant ears were not blooming, and then suddenly they did.

The roses are still just sticks that are turning slightly green, the hostas are making their way upwards, and, as usual, the neighbourhood is full of beautiful tulip blooms while mine are nothing more than mysteriously flopped foliage.

Pandemic Fitness

Lots of walks and runs this week; I love looking at other peoples’ gardens this time of year. My husband and I have also seen a few coyotes, along with coyote PUPS, the sight of which had us nervously looking around for Mama Coyote. This morning we saw both, but happily Mama was eating what appeared to be a dead squirrel – yay Mama! – and was therefore too occupied to notice us.

Happy June, everyone! xo

A Very Fuzzy Birthday; Eleven Weeks In

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Every single time I water my outdoor garden containers, an incredible storm rolls in, complete with hours of pouring rain. It feels symbolic, but I can’t quite make the leap.

It has been a dreadful week for news, which I am not going to go into. The bright spot is that Covid cases are on the decline in Alberta, and that last week’s recoveries outweighed the new cases. We are still in Stage One of reopening, and for the Boyhouse, this means that we have been slowly getting back into the world with medical appointments. The guys all have eye appointments next week, and I had my annual physical last week; that was pretty exciting, to have a reason to put on a real bra instead of a yoga tank. Next up: blood work and a mammogram! I haven’t scheduled them yet because the idea of Doing Things is still pretty exhausting. Although, never have I ever gone for my physical and immediately just walked into the room, with no waiting, as happened last week. I should probably get all these things done while it’s still quiet. I’d like to get my dental appointments in too, but that seems like a bridge too far right now.

When you were a kid, how often did you go out for dinner? In terms of sit-down restaurants, for me, it was almost never. Occasionally we would get Dairy Queen dinners, maybe once or twice a month, but as for an actual restaurant, it might have been annually or semi-annually. I wonder if we are going to see a step change in consumption patterns; I wonder if restaurants are going to become the special treats they were for me, back in the Eighties. I wonder if shopping is going to change and we are going to buy new things for Christmas and birthdays only, and maybe Back to School, GOD HELP ME THERE HAS TO BE A BACK TO SCHOOL AT SOME POINT.

I wonder about travel, and how that will change, and what will be the impact on countries for which the travel industry has done more for their economies than any other industry combined. I wonder what will happen for my kids when they are old enough to fly the nest and get jobs; will they have careers, where will they go and what will they do.

Well. None of us know what the future will bring, and in the meantime, we celebrated a very fuzzy birthday this weekend. Barkley, a.k.a. Bokey, Bokey Boy, Boke Boke, Bokeroo, Barks, the Barkster, Barkles, Puppy, Puppy Pup, Mr. Fuzzy, Fuzzy Fuzz, Silly Billy, turned twelve. There is something very heart-wrenching about having a dog turn twelve; it’s a reminder that you don’t have much time left and every day is a gift. Hopefully we have lots of time left, and in the meantime, he enjoyed lots of treats, the slowest walk ever where we patiently allowed him to sniff Every Single Spot Another Dog Has Ever Peed On Ever, and a ton of attention which he didn’t understand but I’m sure he liked.

Pandemic Reading

My dear friend Taryn (HI TARYN) lent me this book MONTHS ago; I set it on my shelf and – shamefully – forgot about it. What a pleasure this was to read; it is one of the best books I have read ever. Linked short stories – my favourite – about a girl of Jamaican descent growing up in Toronto, with underlying themes about belonging, community, and mother-daughter relationships. It is so rich and wonderfully written; I can’t stop thinking about it. You could probably write an entire dissertation on every character in this book.

This was one of my favourite books growing up and I can really see why. It is the ultimate “Bloom Where You’re Planted” book; the underlying theme is that no matter your circumstances, you can be a princess. A princess is what you are inside, in the best way possible. In this case, being a princess means treating others with respect, politeness, kindness, and generosity, regardless of how they treat you. Sara is a very wealthy young girl who has been sent to boarding school, while her father goes back to his work as a colonel in India. He loses his fortune and dies – of jungle fever – and the mistress of the boarding school takes that opportunity to make Sara into a slave who lives in the attic of the school. Eventually, through serendipitous twists and turns, all turns out well. It is a children’s book after all, albeit one that deals with child malnutrition and exposure, and physical abuse. As any book written in the Victorian age, it is a product of its time, so in the background there are many ugly things like colonialism and a crushing class system; it shows the terrible way impoverished children – particularly orphans – were treated by society.

I have a theory that Burnett readers either love A Little Princess or they love The Secret Garden, but they can’t love both. It’s very true for me, I have tried many times to read The Secret Garden but I’ve never made it past the first chapter.

More Alice Munro! Love her.

Yummy Things

Because it was Barkley’s birthday, I baked these “pupcakes” (thanks Lyn for the name suggestion! HI LYN) for the humans in the family. While looking for these dog face sprinkles at Superstore, I noticed that cake mixes are the new thing to be gone off the shelves. The baking aisle has tons of flour, and even some yeast, but the shelves holding cake mixes were completely empty. Has everyone given up on bread baking and moved on to cake making? I fully support your baking journeys.

We are trying to support as many Canadian wineries as possible; my husband’s lifelong friend – and, in fact, the friendship goes back generations as their grandfathers and fathers were both grape growers and lifelong friends – is a winemaker at Vineland Estates, which makes the BEST Cab Franc you have ever had. Seriously, it is the best. It’s tricky to get wines through the provinces, but there are (legal) ways to do this, and, long story short, I now have three cases in my basement. Or, as our winemaker friend says, 36 days worth.

Supporting Canadian wineries! It’s a hard job but someone has to do it, so I shall take it on myself.

Pandemic Fitness

The May walk/ run challenge is now over, and I clocked 257.6 kilometres for the month – mostly walking, but lots of running too. I’m very happy with that.

Other things to be happy about: today I went to Costco and hardly had to wait five minutes to get in the store, they are handing out masks to unmasked people at the door, and I saw a woman wearing a mask adorned with sequins. Sequins! It was very Pandemic at the Disco, and I like it. Hope you are all having a good week, stay safe, stay healthy. xo

DIY Orthodontia; Seven Weeks In

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On Saturday morning, my “Born to Run” playlist started with Crazy Train and It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (and I feel fine), and ended with Don’t Stop Believing, and it felt all very symbolic.

Back when Calgary had the terrible flood in 2013, I remember a very strong feeling of dissonance. On the one hand, all the news was about the flood, showing footage of ruined homes and the downtown core underwater, familiar spots like the zoo and the river pathways obliterated. But then, I would step outside my house and everything was normal. It was a very strange feeling, this knowing that something was terribly wrong and yet in my bubble, everything was fine.

In a way, this is how the Pandemic feels. I’m hearing about people refusing to social distance, refusing to stay home; I’m seeing actual protests – people literally protesting – from the States over closures, people going to the beach, people refusing to wear masks in public. And it’s bizarre. Again, in my bubble, everything is fine. I go for multiple walks a day and I run a few times a week, and so I encounter many people out enjoying their constitutionals, and always, we give each other space. People – myself included – step into the street or cross the street to avoid going into someone else’s 2 metre bubble. Runners and cyclists – myself and my kids included – give at least two to three times the recommended berth when passing others. I do see people socializing, but at huge distances: friends having a chat, one person on their front step and the other on the sidewalk, friends having a drink together twenty feet away in a different driveway, moms in their minivans in empty parking lots, all parked ten feet away from each other. In the grocery store, at least eighty percent of shoppers have masks on, maybe more. Shopping is slow because each person waits until their fellow shoppers have made selections before approaching the shelf and making their own selection.

Sure, I have had the occasional person get too close to me in the past eight weeks, and I have seen the occasional people out walking together who don’t live in the same house, but by far that’s the exception. The vast majority of people are following protocol.

So I have hope that this will continue as Alberta starts slowly opening things up this week. I do not feel in any way ready to start going places, other than the grocery store and maybe also the garden centre, in a few weeks. Maybe.

The one thing I’m very glad of is that orthodontists are starting to reopen, and I feel that of all places, they will be able to keep things clean and sterile. My younger son is a month overdue for his appointment; just after it was cancelled one of his brackets started to loosen. I didn’t think that constituted an emergency, but the office was still open for phone calls. The nice lady assured me that indeed, it wasn’t an emergency at all and even if the bracket fell off his tooth entirely, he could just leave it dangling on the wire. If that bothered him, then I could just cut the wire myself and remove the bracket. I was extremely startled by that revelation and asked her with what I could cut the wire. The answer was even more disturbing: if I didn’t have wire clippers then toenail clippers would be fine. Just be sure to wash them first! she said perkily.

Well, yes.

I’m not sure at what point I would be desperate enough to poke around in my son’s mouth with wire clippers – or, god, toenail clippers – and I don’t think there is any level of sterilization that would make me comfortable with taking the tool that cuts my husband’s toenails and putting it in my son’s mouth to cut a metal wire near his throat opening. What could possibly go wrong. Apparently there are a number of YouTube videos that show how to take off your own braces and well. Thankfully, we are nowhere near that point. We can wait, thank you.

So I’ll be glad to get that professionally taken care of, whenever that should occur. The office is NOT taking phone calls at the moment; they were probably immediately flooded with calls the minute the news came out. I myself phoned and was greeted with a message to the effect that they are not making appointments and that THEY will call in the order in which our appointments were cancelled. Hopefully this will happen in the next month or so.

Today is cold and rainy but we have had a beautiful stretch of weather, so there has been much yard work accomplished along with some weird, adrenaline-fueled cleaning projects, like cleaning both fridges prior to the weekly grocery shop, washing the insides of the windows, and cleaning the kitchen cupboards – again. Apparently with everyone home all the time, things get dirtier than usual, who knew.

Pandemic Reading

Out of the blue I remembered one of my favourite Alice Munro stories, Tricks, that features a green dress. I haven’t read this collection for years; Alice Munro is one of my favourite writers and this might be my favourite collection of hers. Then again, every time I read Munro I think this is my favourite! so…

Judy, I love you, but I did not love this. It is, however, a very interesting timepiece about marriage in the 70s, the expectations for women, and swinging.

I studied this in first year university English – all the symbolism, all of it – and it’s very good. Hooray for Canadian literature.

Pandemic Fitness

A kind of negative aspect of my personality that not many people see is that I have a tendency towards competitiveness. I try to keep it on the down low. I joined a community group that is tracking kilometres walked or ran during the month of May and I am killing it. I already am at almost 28 kilometres for the month and it is 7:30 am, May 4.

Yummy Things

For dessert this week I made a chocolate mousse pie; I had baked peanut butter cookies earlier in the week and they disappeared pretty quickly. I haven’t been baking many cookies lately – I’ve been on more of a loaf/ muffin spree – and my sons requested my “classic OG cookies” which, apparently, is code for chocolate chip.

It’s been nice enough for drinks in the back yard as well.

May the Fourth

And it’s Star Wars Day! Here’s a flashback from 2015, me not practicing social distancing with Chewbacca:

He was so soft and silky! Happy Star Wars Day everyone! I hope your week is lovely and full of virtual soft and silky hugs. xo

Extreme Laundry Area Makeover; Six Weeks In

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We are adjusting. Or, we have adjusted. I feel luckier than pretty much everyone; my husband is still employed, my kids are old enough and motivated enough to do their distance learning lessons with minimal help from me, my kids get along with each other, we have a home gym, we are healthy, my parents and mother-in-law are healthy and self-isolating, unlike many of their generation, I am teaching zoom yoga, and it is spring. There have been shortages at the grocery store but they haven’t affected us, not really. We aren’t going hungry, that’s for sure.

But on the other hand, it’s been six weeks. I miss my parents, who I haven’t seen since late February. I have no idea when we will be able to drive eight hours to see my mother-in-law, who hasn’t seen her only grandchildren since Thanksgiving, and this “having no idea” is an awful feeling, especially as my mother-in-law is nearing eighty. I think I’ll always feel a bit sad for my son missing his big Westcoast sailing trip and his grade nine graduation. Every time he plays the drums or my older son plays the guitar, I think about their friends and their band. Sometimes I think about all those weekends where we were all just too busy to get together with people, and now we have nothing but time but no one can get together, and it’s sad.

My way of coping with everything is – not surprisingly, for those of you who know me – to keep a fairly rigid daily schedule. I write things in my day-timer every week, things I want to accomplish daily and weekly. I do at least one “big” thing a day, such as a special cleaning, teaching a yoga class, or grocery shopping. I write down my fairly unchanging meal plan and my incredibly detailed and long list for my weekly grocery shop. I write down when I’ll exercise and when I’ll clean the bathroom.

I still wake up at 4:30 in the morning and get up shortly after. I used to just be at the studio at five, but now I drink a few cups of coffee, do some writing or some reading, and then start my yoga practice at six, watching the sun come up, a little earlier every day. I have breakfast after that, wake up the boys, and go for a run or do some cardio on our elliptical trainer, feeling intense gratitude that my husband bought it five years ago. Then I shower, put on a full face of makeup, dress, and start on my to-do list for that day, such as it is.

Generally speaking, our house is clean and tidy; there are jobs that get done – mostly by me, but the rest of the family does some too – weekly, a few times a week, every other day, daily, and multiple times a day (dishes and kitchen counters, I’m looking at you). However, with this extra time on my hands I started on some bigger jobs that get done, but not often, and some jobs that pretty much have never been done. I’ve done things that get done maybe quarterly, like washing down the kitchen cupboards, or laundering all the duvet covers and blankets, or scouring the tiles behind the stove and the stove itself. I’ve done things that get done extremely infrequently, like washing walls and baseboards, and the springtime nightmare that is cleaning our tiny mudroom. I spent an HOUR scrubbing the wall of the downstairs bathroom that had a grossly thick layer of my hairspray on it, only to find out later that the way to get rid of hairspray on walls is to use a solution with shampoo in it, which seems obvious now.

The most gratifying job of all was one that had not ever been done, and that was to clean and organize the laundry area. You know how you keep something a certain way just because you’ve always kept it that way, even though it no longer makes sense? The garbage can was kept behind the washer in an inaccessible way, so that the children, when they were toddlers, would not get into it, those children who are now teenagers. This led to inevitable missing of the garbage can whenever someone emptied the lint trap or the downstairs Roomba or – in the past few years – threw out the elastics from their braces. The floor was filthy with dust, dirt, and discarded elastics.

Here’s the before. From this picture, it doesn’t look that bad but…

All the rarely-used poisonous items were up on the high shelf, away from those same toddlers. However, the frequently used laundry detergents were next to the inaccessible garbage can, meaning I had to contort myself every single day when I did my laundry just to get the Gain or the coldwater detergent. 

This is the space behind the washer, underneath the shelving. LOOK AT THE DIRT AND DUST ON THE FLOOR. It was a disaster.

Here is the after (those are scratches on the painted concrete, it’s actually really clean):

Infrequently used items switched with the frequently used ones, so I can easily reach what I need to do a load of laundry. What a concept!

Garbage can in an actual accessible place! Novel!

I did this in early April and I still get excited looking at it. It was the most satisfaction I’ve ever gotten from a job around the house, since Kondo-ing everything.

This week I don’t have any big indoor plans, most of my jobs are going to be of the yard work variety, since it is glorious, glorious spring around here.

Pandemic Reading

We watched The Godfather before my birthday so I dug out my old copy. I first read it when I was pregnant with my younger son, so 15 years ago. I remember being in the waiting room at the doctor’s office for my checkup, and hormonally sobbing when reading the line “I don’t wish for his mother to see him this way…look at how they massacred my son.”

My younger son is reading this for English, so I reread it to discuss with him. I know everyone loves this book, but for me it’s just okay. “Why don’t you love it, is there too much action for you?” my son asked me and yes, that’s probably why.

This was my Friday night read. God, I loved this book and I still love this book.

Celeste Ng is one of the greatest writers of our time. This book is just so beautiful, and heart-breaking, and rich.

Yummy Things

Superstore had litre containers of whipping cream on for $1.97 this week! The only catch was that the expiry date was the next day. However, I bought two containers and in the space of 28 hours made cookies and cream ice cream, peppermint fudge ice cream, and vanilla gelato with cherry swirl. I also baked a cherry pie this weekend.

My husband ordered me a case of wine; this winery is on what used to be his family’s vineyard. His grandpa worked to own the land, his dad took over and was instrumental in bringing Riesling grapes to the Okanagan, which wasn’t wine country back then, and the property was sold in 2004. The Riesling is still amazing, and my husband had helped plant a lot of the vines, back in his youth.

Pandemic Fitness

With the arrival of spring I’ve been doing a little more running, slightly less walking, and basically enjoying being outside.

I hope you are all having a lovely week and are staying safe and healthy. xo

Excuse Me, I Moustache You a Question; Four Weeks In

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Up until last Thursday, all three of the male members of the Boyhouse were sporting moustaches. These are Dark Days.

They all just stopped shaving when they stopped leaving the house; I think my husband’s last day in the office was March 11 or 12, and the boys were last at school March 13, so it had been a while. My husband’s was a beard, which he shaved into a goatee, and then into a moustache, the style of which can only be described as a mix between that of an old-school cop and a serial killer.

Possibly in part because he values intimate relations, the moustache has been shaved. The boys, however, have assured me that they are going for it for the duration. There is nothing quite like the teenage moustache; I will leave it at that.

They both had haircuts before everything shut down, and my older son had complained at the time that his was much too short; by the time all this is over, he is going to look like Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy, and my younger son is going to look like Shaggy from Scooby Doo. My husband was flipping channels the other day and we watched the end of The Karate Kid – the “OG version” – and it occurred to me that Shaggy could go for a Johnny look – all he’d need would be a bandanna. Johnny, you’re a cream puff.

Well, I’m a strong believer in Body Autonomy, even when it comes to moustaches. Let your fuzzy flag fly, boys. I’ve always thought hair arguments between parents and their kids are silly; hair is the easiest thing to change and is so temporary.

In other, more exciting news, I have a new coffeemaker! It’s a new version of my old Cuisinart; thank you to Samantha (HI SAMANTHA) for the suggestion of pouring pre-measured water into the receptacle right before pressing the power button. Even with this new, hopefully non-leaking coffeemaker, I am going to continue with this practice. Actually, because I tend to be in auto-pilot before 5:00, I have been filling the pot with water the night before so even if I just press the power button without filling the receptacle, I’m not going to start a fire or anything.

But back to the Coffeemaker Hunt. My husband suggested Visions Electronics, which struck me as a very odd suggestion. I associate Visions with televisions and sound systems, but they also sell a wide variety of appliances. This magnificent creature was on sale for $100 off, so how could I refuse? They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, and with an extra $5 off for curbside pickup.

Only an hour after placing my order I had a message from customer service saying that they actually did not have it in stock at the store in question, and so they could refund me OR send it to me via courier at no additional cost to myself. It was not a difficult decision. What was difficult was the number of times I anxiously refreshed my email to see when it would be shipped. Too long, didn’t read, I have a coffeemaker.

First cup with the new coffeemaker!

How was your Easter weekend? Although it was snowy and cold, which was frankly quite depressing, we had a lovely one. We watched Top Gun on Saturday night, which, as you know, is one of my top three favourite movies.

Why WOULDN’T you wear tight jeans to play beach volleyball?

Easter morning, I packaged out the Costco box of Lindors in paper bags and hid them in the house, according to the clues that were written in poetry form. I reused last year’s poems but the boys didn’t remember and they still don’t know where we keep the honey.

It has been many years since we did a puzzle together. I’m pretty sure the last one we did would have featured very large pieces and Lightning McQueen. Three weeks ago or so, Co-Op had a number of puzzles on sale by the cash register for $2.99; when I brought this Friends one home the boys were a bit confused. What were the OTHER choices? Well, boys, the other choices were Anne Geddes babies and Frozen 2, so let’s enjoy Friends. It was actually really fun, even with all of us randomly yelling out “We were on a BREAK!”

Pandemic Reading

My parents gave me The Testaments for Christmas and I’m so glad I was too busy reading library books to open it until now. It was really nice to have something new to read. I had just reread The Handmaid’s Tale around Christmastime in anticipation of receiving The Testaments, but hey. I have time on my hands. I read it again this week so it was very fresh in my mind. The Testaments was great, and I loved how the stories went together, but – and I realize this is an unpopular opinion – I kind of liked the open-endedness of The Handmaid’s Tale. But it was definitely an exciting and fascinating way to finish things.

Pandemic Fitness

Despite the snow, it was a good week for walking. The snow just helped with the leg workout, I guess. I’m hoping to start working running in again, once the paths are not terrifyingly icy.

Yummy Things

I count it as a win that I didn’t eat all the Mini Eggs, and instead used them for this:

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. Hang in there, everyone! xo

Smizing and the harrowing quest of obtaining food

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Yesterday as I did my early morning yoga practice, I noticed that my husband hadn’t closed one of the blinds in the living room. I watched as the sky slowly lightened, and then changed to an array of orange, red, and pink as the sun rose. It was gorgeous. It felt like a little bit of hope.

This glorious feeling lasted until I went to the grocery store.

I pride myself very much on my positive, can-do attitude, but I will tell you this: yesterday while I was at Superstore, I found myself thinking I don’t know how much longer I can do this. Intellectually, I know I will get used to it, just like I’ve gotten used to everything else. But yesterday, if it wasn’t disgusting and probably virus-ridden, I would have just curled up on the floor at Superstore and cried.

As it was, I got home from groceries and sat in the kitchen, staring into space for a long time. It was the next best thing to crying in public.

What a grim and depressing errand it has become, just obtaining food for the week. I used to really enjoy grocery shopping, and now it feels like the most soul-destroying Sisyphean task ever, because we are going to eat the food I have purchased and I am going to need to repeat this again and again. I was trying to describe it to my husband and kids, none of whom have been anywhere since mid-March, but it’s almost impossible to describe to the non-designated-shoppers of the family. It’s hard to describe the feeling of despair that pervades the store.

I was talking to my friend Shari (HI SHARI) and she said, when I said how drained I was from shopping, “Is it because everyone is silent and no one is looking at anyone?” and I think that sums things up nicely. A huge part of my grocery experience is smiling at people, chatting with people in the produce section, peeking at other people’s carts and asking them if they’d ever tried that brand of frozen pizza before, and was it good? I’ve never bought a frozen pizza, but for some reason I really like asking about them. Now we are all avoiding each other and if someone comes into my six-foot bubble, I feel panicked and anxious. I try to smile at people but I look like this:

And guys, I’m not good at Smizing.

I was in the baking aisle for coconut and raisins – off-brand flour is available, but yeast is not – and there was a young girl there with a list. She looked so upset; I guess my Smize worked, because she asked desperately if I could help her. She reached her list out to arm’s length and I peered at it. She pointed to “raisins (bulk)” and asked me, with a heavy accent, what that meant. I had to explain to her that there was no bulk anymore, but the raisins were close by. She was tearful. My mom gave me this list and I don’t know where things are and no one will talk to me.

It’s funny, because we all have this feeling of togetherness when we are not together – which is good! we should NOT be together – but in the few common areas that are left, it’s like we are all the walking dead and this is the apocalypse.

I kept thinking of all the many, many materials I have read on the world wars; every single one of them, when the wars started, assumed that it would “all be over by Christmas.” Then it would be all over by summer, and then things just stretched on and on.

Wow, I can’t even go there.

On a lighter note, I discovered that you can actually buy – this is something that is actually for sale – peeled hardboiled eggs. What an age we live in. Now do not get me wrong. This is not something I WOULD buy, as even as a child I would cry a little when eggs were served, unless they were scrambled. And hardboiled eggs in particular smell like farts to me. But if they are your thing, fumbling around peeling them could be a thing of the past!

Speaking of eggs, this weekend is Easter! I always write a list of clues – I still have last year’s, so I am going to reuse it – and then the boys go and find the treats hidden away in various places in our house. I bought a box of Easter-themed Lindors the last time I was at Costco, and I’m going to separate them into little paper bags. My mom sent me money to buy the boys the kinds of treats she usually gets them, and yesterday I did that at Superstore. We usually do a crazy egg hunt in our back yard, using these pressed-paper eggs that I usually buy at Walmart and that we decorate before-hand, but Walmart hasn’t been on my radar for my once-weekly shopping trip, so we will do without this year. Probably for the best since this is what my yard looked like on Tuesday:

And the forecast is similar for the weekend. Well, that’s Calgary for you. Send me photos of your grass, flowers, etc. I will live vicariously through you.

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I wrote this post early in the morning, and then paused to do my yoga practice. I watched the sun rise again and it occurred to me – not for the first time – that every day is a new beginning and so here we go. Happy Easter, friends, and I hope there is some chocolate in your future. There’s definitely some in mine. xo

One foot in front of the other

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I have discovered what I am going to be like, when I’m older and retired and with an empty nest. I am going to be one of those older ladies taking Brisk Daily Constitutionals. Yesterday as I bundled myself up in my long winter coat, earmuffs, legwarmers, and boots, I asked if anyone would like to join me. Didn’t you already go for a walk? All I can say is there are a lot of hours to fill.

Why would anyone be bundling up so much, this first week of April? Yesterday was minus 23 with windchill and I seem to have adopted the Nordic attitude that There Is No Bad Weather, Only Bad Clothes. I am part Norwegian after all. Also, desperate.

This cold snap, along with Everything Else, has put me in a low mood this week. My younger son was supposed to be on the West Coast sailing trip this week, the trip that he has been looking forward to and working towards for two years. He is not the only disappointed person in the world, certainly, but I would feel much, much better if we had some sort of reassurance from the school administration that we will get back some part of the two thousand dollars we paid for him to do so; not to mention I sold $2300 worth of grocery gift cards in the last-minute fundraiser. I have no idea how much funds were actually raised from that, but it’s not nothing. He is a trooper, and his stoicism in the face of this disappointment – and the fact that he will very likely not have a grade nine graduation – makes me feel teary-eyed. Also, who knows when he will get his braces off. WHO KNOWS. He had an appointment next week and we were really getting close to the end; obviously the appointment will be cancelled because the office is closed.

Ah well, in the grand scheme of things, these are minor; we are here and healthy. I decided yesterday, in the frigid cold, to go out for groceries. My friend Denise (HI DENISE) had told me that Costco now strictly limits the number of people in the store and so there is a lineup to get in; people are allowed in when others leave. I figured that it would be a great opportunity to go, since it was MINUS 23 WITH WINDCHILL. Who would be insane enough to go to Costco? Who indeed.

The lineup snaked past the liquor store and into the parking lot and reminded me, for all the world, like lineups at Disneyworld, albeit about fifty degrees colder. At Disneyworld, the lineups go back and forth so it looks like it is much shorter than it actually is; since people were practicing social distancing the line did move faster than one might imagine but it still took fifteen minutes, standing in the cold, to get in the store. I started to imagine I was actually AT Disneyworld. I was at least as excited when I got near the entrance as I would have been to ride on Everest or the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, if only to warm up my frozen hands.

Is there a Frozen ride?

It has taken me YEARS to train myself not to overbuy non-perishable food items; it has taken me YEARS to mentally accept that yes, I can visit the grocery store any time I like and I do not have to buy every little thing I might need in the next month for my pantry. YEARS OF TRAINING, GONE. Now I am back to my old mental state where I need to buy everything, because who knows when I will be back.

The guys helped me bring in my haul and after we all scrubbed our hands like we are stars on Grey’s Anatomy, I stood in the kitchen and just stared at the food. I was incapacitated by the sheer volume of it all. Where does it…go. How do I…put it away.

It felt like a metaphor. Every single time I see a headline or someone brings up to me how long we are expected to keep social distancing and isolating – months and months – I start to get a very panicky feeling. I can’t do this, I can’t do this for that long, I just can’t do it. It’s like going for a long run or a spin class, the first five minutes feels like an eternity. Almost every time I go for a run – or a spin – I think there’s no way, THERE IS NO WAY I can keep this up. And then, I do. I think, just hang on, one more song, okay now this is a good song, I can keep going.

So I can’t think too far ahead. I can’t think months or months. I can think, this is what I’m doing this week. This week isn’t so bad. 

One foot in front of the other. I looked at the groceries and thought, okay, first let’s get the frozen food in the freezer. Okay, the cream and yogurt has to go in the fridge. Let’s put the bananas on the counter. It took a while but eventually everything got put away in its proper place.

Masks are the new lipstick, don’t you know?