Category Archives: Hello Calgary

Three Teens In The House; Sixty-Three Weeks In

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As of yesterday, I now have three teenagers in the house!

Sorry, the photo is a little fuzzy.

Every week that Barkley is still wagging and sitting at my feet as I make dinner is a good week. He’s pretty slow these days – his big lump trips him up quite a bit – and he has Old Man Selective Hearing as he bolts up from a dead sleep when he hears me take the carrot peeler out of the drawer, but somehow can’t hear me when I tell him not to walk through my garden, squishing the hostas, but he still gets excited to eat, go for our slow-boat-to-nowhere walks, and receive daily eyedrops.

Speaking of good weeks, THE BOYS WENT BACK TO SCHOOL, HALLELUJAH, THE BOYS WENT BACK TO SCHOOL.

With the boys in actual, in-person school and my husband in the actual, in-person office, it’s just the two of us at home, and I cannot remember the last time that happened. One of us is happier about it than the other, I will leave it to you to guess who is who.

I think it would be impossible to overstate the positive impact on the household energy that going back to school has had. The boys LEAVE, and then around 3:30 both Barkley and I excitedly await them COMING HOME. They come home, sit at the kitchen island as I prep vegetables for dinner, and talk to me about their day. This is a thing that didn’t happen when they were at-home schooling – the coming and going, obviously, but more importantly, the talking. They were becoming more withdrawn by the day, crouched over their laptops in their room for hours on end, socializing with their friends online for the hours they weren’t working. My younger son is in gym class, and I think there’s not much sadder than an extrovert who loves gym doing burpees alone in his room and then watching a video about making healthy choices. Now, they are literally beaming with happiness when they come in the door, full of stories about their day, their classes, their friends. I chop vegetables and they talk about taking lacrosse, the English class short story presentations, upcoming matches in WWE, and Wings Paul McCartney versus Beatles Paul McCartney.

For the record, we all agree Wings Paul McCartney is superior to Beatles Paul McCartney, because although the Beatles were more innovative and creative, Wings is more fun to sing along to.

They only have about three and a half weeks of school until finals start, but I am so happy they can finish the year off this way.

Outfit of the Week

The sun came out! The sun came out! It was an amazing week for gardening; even though it’s not quite June I put all my herbs in pots and also took a deep breath and planted my tomatoes, peppers, basil, and cucumber plants, all of which really should wait until after the magic date of June 1. I mean, that’s tomorrow, so it’s not a huge stretch (IT IS JUNE TOMORROW, PEOPLE). Will I yield actual peppers and cucumbers in a Calgary garden? It’s unlikely. However, in the words of a young family friend whose brother challenged her to wear a stuffed banana on her head for their entire road trip vacation, I will probably fail but it will be fun to try.

Anyway, gardening calls for gardening clothes!

I love my Kindness is Magic tee; it came from the Yoga Shala back in the day. I always feel happy when I slip it on. Kindness IS magic, you never know when someone needs a smile – or a smize, it’s mask life – or a kind word. I’m wearing it over a yoga tank, because who wants to wear an actual bra while gardening? Not me. Now, a little note about the jeans and shoes:

THOSE LITTLE MUFFINS. That photo is from 2008, and those are the same shoes and jeans. Do I hold onto things forever? Apparently. The jeans have developed holes in the knees and the shoes are really only good for around the yard, but I cannot quit them.

Pandemic Reading

Swimming Back To Trout River. This was an absolutely beautiful book spanning the years between the Cultural Revolution in China and the 1980s, spanning the lives of four interconnected people, some who left China and some who were left behind. It’s very nuanced and wonderfully written; ostensibly about a girl whose parents send for her to come to America, but it’s so much more.

Uneasy Street: The Anxieties of Affluence. This was an absolutely fascinating book about people who have benefitted greatly from rising economic inequality in America. The author interviewed fifty people in New York City, which, as we know, is a totally different planet when it comes to wealth. In fact, NYC is the most economically inequitable city in North America; the median income is $52K, but the people interviewed either earned at least $250K (most of them much more) per annum, or had millions in amassed wealth (either through earnings or inheritance), or both. All of them owned apartments in NYC which, whew, that alone is a huge financial asset. There is just SO much in this book; from entitlement to parenting with wealth, to who holds the power in the family (guess what, it’s usually the man), to being secretive about income and possessions, to gender division of labour. You will not be surprised to know that in heterosexual couples with children, the woman ALWAYS is in charge of the emotional labour, even in the case where the woman earned $1.2M per year, over ten times what her husband earned. She was the person to stay home with the kids when they were sick, to make appointments, to know what the homework was, etcetera. GOOD TO KNOW. Some other interesting points: nearly everyone in the study hid the cost of their purchases from the people who they hired, such as their housekeeper, and the people who came from working class families of origin tended to be very silent about their lifestyle. As one woman put it, how could she really talk about her problem of which private school to send her children to, when the cost of the private school exceeded her brother’s annual income. Another thing that really struck me was, for the people who earned a lot of money (versus those who inherited), there was a high level of anxiety that it would all disappear. This was written after the 2008 crash. One man who had a few million in assets and a $2M annual salary said that his fear was that he would lose his job, and therefore health insurance, and someone would get sick, with cancer or something, and all that money would be gone. This is something that I, as a Canadian, never consider. I was talking to my husband about this book, and he mentioned that a friend of ours – who is a pretty high-rolling financier – knew many people who committed suicide after the 2008 crash. I guess if your lifestyle reflects your income, and you lose that income, things can really derail. Almost none of these people considered themselves to be wealthy, despite NYC brownstones and houses in the Hamptons. They all said they were pretty much “middle class, maybe upper-middle class.” Their attitudes towards money, especially inherited money, was pretty fascinating. It’s a very thought-provoking, interesting read.

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies. This was, on the surface, a very juicy collection of short stories, some of them quite scandalous. Each story has so many layers, though, and the writing is very nuanced and powerful. I really enjoyed this. Short stories are one of my favourite things and when they are done well – as this collection is – they are kind of mind-blowing.

Have a great week, everyone! I hope things are blooming for you, inside and out. xo

Do You Want To Build A Snowman; Sixty-Two Weeks In

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Today is the Monday of the Victoria Day long weekend, which is essentially meaningless to me.

But not for long! Tomorrow the boys go back to school, and I am so happy about it. They’ve been coping just fine over the past five weeks, but it just feels so unhealthy to have them sitting in their rooms, in front of their laptops, for hours each day. It feels unhealthy because it IS unhealthy, and I am just going to be grateful that at-home learning has been the exception for them, rather than the rule this school year. I really feel for parents of younger kids who need actual supervision with their schooling, particularly those who are trying to work from home or worse, having to go to work and figure out child care. What a mess.

Anyway, tomorrow we are back in business!

What a dreary week we have had. It started off so beautifully with sunshine and actual warm temperatures – what passes for heat, even, in this city – and then we got snow.

It’s melted now – and now it’s just raining – and I am happy to report my garden is just fine. Many years ago, when I first started gardening, I joined the Calgary Horticultural Society, which had a chat group. This was around 2000-01, so that was the height of internet communications at the time. Anyway, in this chat group there would always be that one person who would take great pride in growing plants and flowers that were not at all suited to Calgary’s climate, and it always seemed like a waste of effort to me. I mean, you do you, gardening lady, but for me, I think the key to successful gardening is to plant what actually thrives in your climate. In Calgary, if you plant flowers in May, you had better make sure they can take the snow and frost. For the record, the formerly snow-covered petunias and pansies are thriving.

There’s a metaphor in there somewhere.

Outfit of the Week

After a brief foray into the world of short sleeves, we are back to Sweater Weather! I think that it’s Sweater Weather in Calgary for at least ten months of the year, possibly eleven, depending on the weight of the sweater. So we are in Sweater Weather, but Light Sweater Weather, which brings us to the Outfit of the Week:

This is a typical teaching outfit – yoga pants and tank with a long sleeved top underneath a sweater. I always keep a long sleeve top on when I go to the community centre to teach as it’s cold there even when the heat IS working. Thanks to zoom yoga, I am a packhorse when I go: I take a speaker, an iPad, a block to hold up the iPad, and a bag of yoga blocks and straps. Since the heat debacle, I also now take a spare pair of legwarmers JUST IN CASE. Not pictured: my mat and my giant handbag that holds all my regular going-out-of-the-house stuff, plus a water bottle. It’s a workout just getting from the parking lot to the community centre.

I wanted to give you a close-up of the bags. They are just too cute. My friend Monique (HI MONIQUE) gave me the Babar Yoga bag, which holds all my blocks and straps, and the Everything Happens For A Riesling bag came from Tantalus Vineyards, which some of you may know is on the site of my husband’s family’s former vineyard and winery. My husband actually planted some of those Riesling vines that yield my favourite white wine, way back in the day.

Oh, and do you love that mala? I sure do. My friend Amy (HI AMY) made it and it’s so beautiful and meaningful to me.

Pandemic Reading

The upside of the return to snow and lack of gardening duties is that I had some extra time for reading this week, which is good, as I’m still working through my giant pile of library books and TWO MORE JUST CAME IN SOMEONE HELP ME I HAVE A PROBLEM.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. This was a nice palate cleanser after the psychological trauma that was The Push. Nothing life-changing here, but it was a fun, old-timey Hollywood read about love, romance, and family. It was also a good reminder of how things have changed for the LBGTQ+ community; things can always improve, of course, but I have seen such a sweeping change in my lifetime, and I see how inclusive my teens and their circle are, and it gives me lots of hope for the future.

How the Penguins Saved Veronica. Oh, this was just delightful. What a lovely, sweet little book about a crusty octogenarian who is looking for someone to leave her millions to. She becomes interested in penguins and travels to Antarctica; along the way she connects with the grandson she didn’t know she had. Just an absolute sweetheart of a book.

The Last Thing He Told Me. I am not usually one to pick up mysteries, but this was very fun and absorbing. It was a bit of a complex story involving white collar crime, a secret past, and different kinds of love.

Oh, I loved this book! Eli is in a relationship with a woman his family considers inappropriate, so his mother arranges a marriage with Afi. Afi happily agrees to this as it will raise her widowed mother out of poverty; Afi leaves her village to live in luxury in the city. What she doesn’t realize is that the other relationship didn’t end and Eli has no intention of ending it. This was an absolutely fascinating book; the juxtaposition between rural, traditional Ghana and modern, urban Ghana is incredible. What a book!

Time to gear up for a week that’s sure to be exciting in the Boyhouse; hopefully with more sunshine than last week! xo

Ups and Downs; Sixty-One Weeks In

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Good News/ Bad News

The bad news is that, with the latest lockdown restrictions, lineups to get into Costco are back.

The good news is that I was there right at opening and so the lineup moved quite quickly, and, more importantly, there are no shortages of anything that I could see. The fact that there are no shortages, and there haven’t been for many months, has motivated me to use up all my stockpiled pantry staples in a way that is deeply uncomfortable for me. This week alone I used up the last of my stores of the following: spaghetti, chickpeas, and taco seasoning. That’s right: there are none of those items left in the house. I felt a little Pandemic At The Disco at using up the last two cans of chickpeas, but I did some deep breathing and reminded myself that I could simply buy more this week, there is no chickpea shortage, and there has never been a chickpea shortage. It’s a whole mindset change and I do not know how long it will take me to get over it.

What’s Up, Doc

Perishables, however, are another matter. If you have small children – particularly, it seems, boys – and you despair of their picky eating habits and you wonder if it’s okay that they seem to survive on air and the occasional strawberry yogurt, I am here to hug you and say: wait until the teen years. My god. Every Wednesday I find myself playing Tetris with my two fridges, using up every square inch of space as I put away the groceries, and then one week later, both fridges look like they belong to Old Mother Hubbard. This week I went to Costco AND Superstore, and after a solid three hours of driving, shopping, standing in line, unloading and putting everything away, I stood at the fridge for a moment and realized something: I forgot to buy carrots.

You may be thinking, so what, but let me tell you: carrots are right up there with bananas as a produce staple in this house. We go through four pounds of carrots a week, and buying carrots is a reflex for me, one that apparently was broken this week. I have no excuse; I bought sweet potatoes and ginger root, both of which are in the same aisle as the carrots. Carrots were, as they always are, on my paper grocery list. I didn’t know what happened but I did know that this could not stand.

But I’ve already been to two places today, I thought to myself. Then I thought of May (HI MAY) and her comment about measured decisions in a low-risk way that don’t totally abide by the rules does not mean we are on the slippery slope to anarchy. I put on my mask and boots, grabbed my purse, started my Garmin, and speed-walked over to the local Co-Op where I grabbed a bag of carrots and an avocado (I am not made of stone, Co-Op avocados are second to none) and walked back home, all in the span of thirteen minutes and thirty-six seconds.

Important Garden Update

I am so excited to tell you that all the vegetable seeds I have planted have sprouted! I go out to look at my new garden boxes at least twice a day to check their progress. Little green shoots! It’s so exciting. Not only that, Saturday was Pick-Up Day for the flowers, herbs, and veggies I bought for the Growing Smiles Fundraiser – the BEST fundraiser there is, in my humble opinion – and, well, let’s just say my trunk was full.

We are not out of the woods yet in terms of frost and snow, but I rolled the dice and planted some pansies on a beautiful Friday morning in various spots in the front yard. Pansies, it seems, can withstand anything except heat and drought, which isn’t really an issue in May in Calgary. I am enjoying their happy little faces every time I go up my front walk.

Oh! Oh! Another upside to having teenagers who go through hundreds of dollars of groceries a week is that I always get the “free” gift with $300 purchase at Superstore, and this week’s gift was flowers!

Our gardening season is so short here that I am going to squeeze every last moment of pleasure out of it.

LFG

This week vaccine eligibility opened up for the age 12+ group, and let’s fucking gooooo. I chose not to spend my entire Monday refreshing a screen to get appointments, and so when I went to book – the day AFTER bookings opened – I got them in at the end of the month in Red Deer, the small city ninety minutes north of us. Huh. Well, road trip, I thought, and then later that week my friend Nicole (HI NICOLE) mentioned that she was able to get her kids in at the pharmacy down the street from me. LFG. I HAD phoned them the previous week and was put on “an email list” but no email ever came and, you know what, it’s a pandemic, things happen. I popped in to the pharmacy – IN PERSON – and got them appointments for YESTERDAY, which means all four of us have had our first shots, and I am SO relieved and happy. PLUS my parents got their second shot, which fills me with immense joy. Steps forward.

OOTW

I mentioned to Swistle (HI SWISTLE) the other day that choosing a mask to wear is the best part of wearing a mask. I mean, it’s certainly not the wearing of the mask that is the great part. But choosing a mask and coordinating it with your outfit, well, that’s fun. And sometimes, sometimes the mask coordinates so perfectly that it becomes part of the Outfit of the Week:

Just look at that match!

That’s a very, very old Lululemon tank – I’ve had it since at least 2010 – under a light Gap sweater that really, really requires something like a tank underneath, unless I want to be obscene and horrify myself, my children, and everyone around me. Fortunately I rarely wear a bra anymore, only tanks under tops, so it works. Those leggings are also at least a decade old; I know some people have much to say about Lulu but their quality is unmatched.

Pandemic Reading

A Short History of Nearly Everything. I loved Bill Bryson’s The Body so much that I immediately put A Short History of Nearly Everything on hold, without looking into what it was about. I figured it would be human history, and I eagerly looked forward to ancient civilizations, the Roman Empire, the Renaissance, etc., up to modern times. So imagine my dismay when I opened the nearly 600 page book to discover that it’s literally a history (a short one) of nearly everything – i.e., the universe – and well over half the book deals with cosmology, astronomy, geology, and physics, subjects of which I have low interest. Eeep. Luckily for me, Bryson’s incredible writing made such topics engaging, accessible, and entertaining. It’s an excellent book that can make such dull – to me – subjects fun. Next time you’re having a bad day, just be glad you’re not the guy who sailed from France to India to watch and calculate the transit of Venus, only to a) miss it, b) wait eight years for the next one and have the sky cloud over and miss it again, c) contract dysentery and suffer for a year, d) get almost shipwrecked on the way home, e) get home after 11 1/2 years, having accomplished nothing at all, only to discover your family assumed you died and they plundered your estate. Or the people who spent nine years trying to measure the earth at the equator, and just before finalizing their results got scooped by another team doing the same thing at the poles. According to my friends who are actual scientists, this is something that happens a lot: you spend your entire career working on something and you a) get scooped, i.e., someone gets the results before you do, b) get your results disproved, or c) never get the results at all. Well, I’m glad that is not my career of choice.

The 4% Fix: How One Hour Can Change Your Life. I have enjoyed all of Karma Brown’s novels – especially Come Away With Me and Recipe For A Perfect Wife – so I was eagerly looking forward to her first non-fiction book. I was not disappointed! There is so much good stuff in here, from the time suck that is the Internet and my phone to prioritizing and focussing, this book is really great and motivating. The key that Brown focussed on is getting up early, so I feel seen and validated. I get up at 4:30 every day, and have for well over a decade. I started early rising when the kids were small, to practice yoga. It was literally the only time I had to myself in those days and it made me a better mother: more patient and happier, as I had my time before anyone woke up. Brown likens a day to a cake sliced in 24 pieces, and by getting up and using that first hour, you’ve served yourself first. I LOVE that concept. It really resonates for me. This book is about working towards your goals and if I’m being honest, I’m a bit goal-less at the moment. But I like to think my early morning yoga practice ultimately led to my current job as a yoga teacher. So maybe I’m not so goal-less? With or without goals, I really liked this.

The Push. Well, Allison warned me. (HI ALLISON). Allison warned me but did I listen? No. This is a crazily disturbing and absorbing book. She said “I thought The Push was well written and I wish I’d never read it and that I could erase it from my brain” and that pretty much sums it up. I am not generally a Psychological Thriller type, and this is a very well done Psychological Thriller in that I couldn’t put it down, but also, I kind of had nightmares after reading it.

And here we are, Monday morning after a very restless Sunday night sleep. I hope you have a week ahead of you that has way more ups than downs. Be well, take care. xo

Dented Self-Esteem; Fifty-Nine Weeks In

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That’s A Dent To The Self-Esteem

I was asked if I wanted the seniors’ discount last week at Shoppers, so perhaps my skin-care routine isn’t working the way I had hoped.

The worst part is that I didn’t even get the discount. After the woman said “Are we doing the seniors’ discount today?” in the pleasantest voice, unaware of my dented self-esteem, I hesitated and said “Um, sure,” at which point she looked at me suspiciously and told me, sternly that I needed to be 55 plus. The only thing that would have been more awkward about this exchange is if she asked for proof of ID, and I would have been exposed as a liar for a discount that I never asked for in the first place, while a lineup of people idled behind me. I mean, it’s only ten percent, what price my dignity here? How badly do I want that extra $4.50?

Why did you ASK then? I did NOT say, but thought, because kindness is important even when a person is implying that you are nine years older than you actually are, and working in customer service is difficult at the best of times, and we have been in a global pandemic for fifty-nine weeks. I admitted that no, I was not 55, and then the woman proceeded to ask three times if I wanted a bag, which I did not, and I took my Advil and my nail polish remover and left the premises, only a little bit shattered.

Two things: I worked as a waitress for years while in university, and I never ONCE asked if a person required the seniors’ discount. I applied it only when asked, or if someone was obviously an octogenarian, or if they were regular customers who always asked for the discount. Believe me, with a last name like MacPherson, I will ASK for my ten percent off at Shopper’s the second I am eligible. The other thing is that I was at the garden centre a few weeks ago and I overheard the cashier asking the couple buying fertilizer for proof of age in order to get the discount. These people were 80 if they were a day. Apparently the garden centre has problems with people claiming the seniors’ discount who aren’t actually seniors, which, well. I love a good discount so I am not going to criticize, but it was odd to see this elderly couple dig for their driver’s licenses, and my paranoia about being asked for proof of age is based on real-life experiences.

Not In Our Lifetime, Clifford

My husband has a new toy:

He’s wanted an espresso machine for years, and after working from home for so long, and the Starbucks down the street closing, AND a highly-rated model going on sale at Costco online, he finally purchased one. He’s really missed his afternoon Americano and his latte and what have you, and meanwhile I am happy because I can drink my morning pot of coffee in peace, without someone trying to pour a cup at 8:00 am and finding there are only two ounces left in the pot, leading to the question did you drink all the coffee? Of course I drank all the coffee, by 8:00 am I’ve been up for hours, I am a quantity-over-quality girl when it comes to my pot of not-strong black Kirkland Signature. Anyway, he loves his new toy, I love my copious amounts of weak coffee, we have marital harmony, all is good.

Sometimes when we get an item like this in our house, I think of a conversation between my grandparents, years ago. My grandma had bought a bread machine, and my grandpa wondered if the machine would pay for itself in cost savings, by making bread at home instead of buying it. My grandma replied Not in our lifetime, Clifford, which should be embroidered on a pillow somewhere. Not in our lifetime, Clifford pops into my head when I think of the vegetables I am hopefully going to harvest from my new, not-cheap raised beds. Will they pay for themselves? Not in our lifetime, Clifford. Will the espresso machine pay for itself in homemade Americanos instead of Starbucks runs? Well, Starbucks is pretty expensive, so MAYBE in our lifetime, Clifford. But probably not.

Bananas for Bananas

The only complaint I have about the espresso machine is that it takes up space on the countertop that used to be where I kept the bananas. This might seem insignificant to most of you, and from Sunday through Tuesday it’s not a huge problem, but on grocery day and beyond things get a little crowded.

What can I say, we go through a lot of bananas in this house. I’d say we average 25 a week, depending on the season and what other kind of fruit is in the house. Twenty would be the absolute minimum, although we have gone as high as 35. Anyway, after reading Suzanne’s blog about bananas (HI SUZANNE) I had a craving for banana “nice cream.” Usually I blend together frozen bananas with cocoa powder and almond milk, and top it all off with homemade magic shell, but I was jonesing for a little chocolate-peanut butter action.

People. I blended together frozen bananas with peanut butter and almond milk, then stirred in mini Reece Pieces, and swirled the whole thing with homemade chocolate sauce and it was like a choir of angels burst into my kitchen and started singing.

Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back Into The Water

I got my period for the first time in a very long time; it had been so long since I’ve had a Ladies’ Holiday that I was actually wondering if that was it, if I was entering the Change of Life. My period tracker on my Garmin app kept cheerfully reminding me that it was almost that time, and to make sure I log my symptoms, and I kept having to adjust the calendar, until I wondered if the app was going to blow up and uninstall itself.

The weird thing is that I had absolutely zero warning; I was as taken aback by its sudden appearance as a young teenager who wears white pants to school and doesn’t carry supplies in her backpack. In the days prior I didn’t feel like stabbing anyone for not putting the empty toilet paper roll in the recycling, even though it’s RIGHT THERE, I didn’t have breasts swelling out past my tank tops and bras, I didn’t have to surreptitiously use my sons’ acne medication, I wasn’t even a little bit emotional. I mean, I heard Landslide on the radio and I did NOT burst into tears. Am I a robot now? You might think the moderate craving for peanut butter and chocolate could be correlated with the upcoming Ladies’ Holidays, but I make a big Sunday dinner with dessert every week, and every week that dessert is just what I feel like having, and so I think any correlation would be coincidental. Anyway, I was startled to wake up to Aunt Flo knocking at my door with her suitcase in tow.

The excitement I felt at the possibility of entering my Next Stage of Womanhood probably goes against my feelings about being asked about the seniors’ discount, but emotions are complex, and here we are.

Outfit of the Week

The snow has melted – for now – and I was able to get a bit of gardening and yard work in this week. This week’s outfit features a t-shirt I bought in Maui for FIVE AMERICAN DOLLARS back in 2016, or possibly 2015.

You cannot expect a lot for five dollars, but this top has served me well. The only thing is that it’s quite short, and so I always wear a tank top underneath as this is not 1993 and I am no longer a person who wears crop tops, no matter how fashionable they may be right now. The tank top and jeans have made appearances on OOTW before; and those shoes are my designated garden shoes because they have a flower design on them. Dress for the job you want, people, and the job I want is to work in my back yard.

Pandemic Reading

Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club. This was highly recommended to me by a friend (HI TARYN) and the writing really is excellent; the characters are complex and intertwined. It is also literally the saddest book I have ever read in my entire life, and I’ve read some doozies. Like, this blows Of Mice and Men completely out of the water, in terms of sadness, and that is my measuring stick. HOO BOY. It is as bleak, dismal, depressing, dark, and gritty as February in Newfoundland, which is where this book takes place.

Brave New World. Ugh. My older son is studying this in English and so I pulled out my own copy to reread and discuss with him. I last read it when I was a teen and now remember why I haven’t read it since. I know, I know, it’s an important book, but to me it’s a total snore. Me: I don’t like this book. My husband: why, was it written by a man? Why yes. I remember when I first read this, back in the 90s, I was puzzled as to why they refer to women as being “pneumatic.” I looked it up in the dictionary and it didn’t make sense. People, I was 46 years old before I discovered, as my son says, that they are referring to her breasts. And ass. Of course they are. Male writers, am I right? I know, I know, it was incredible for its time, satire, the dangers of population control and consumerism, etcetera, but ugh all the same. Oh! The only other thing I remembered from this book – other than the puzzling pneumatic statements – is the saying “Spending instead of mending” which isn’t even correct. It’s “ENDING instead of spending,” which, my way makes more sense.

The Mothers. Now THIS is a book! This was an excellent read about friends, secrets, and the different definitions of mothering. It was so good; I liked Bennett’s The Vanishing Half but I think this was even better. I highly recommend it.

Happy May, everyone! May your week be filled with sunshine. xo

I Am Not Throwing Away My Shot; Fifty-Eight Weeks In

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Thank you everyone for the lovely birthday wishes; it was a beautiful day. It was the rarest of Calgary spring days: warm and sunny, and without the gusting winds that often accompany warmer temperatures. I filled the day with all my favourite things, and had two slices of cake, and all is wonderful. Along with thoughtful gifts from my parents and the guys – and chocolates in the mail from my longtime friend Elise (HI ELISE) and my favourite wine from my favourite winemaker, my friend Brian (HI BRIAN) – my “big gift” was this addition to my garden; the guys have been putting together the raised beds and filling them – three truckloads of dirt – over the past month.

Yes, that’s snow, and I can’t wait to start planting, but wait I must. You know, it’s Calgary.

The biggest gift of all, though, was getting an appointment to get my first Covid vaccination. The vaccine rollout in Canada has been so slow and so plagued by supply issues that my hope was I would get vaccinated in the fall, and – because it’s Canada and second shots are coming a full FOUR MONTHS after the first – was just crossing my fingers I’d be fully vaccinated by Christmas. The bar, it is low. But then last Monday the government announced that they were opening up AstraZeneca vaccines for people in the 40 plus category.

For those of you not in Canada, here is what’s happening; AstraZeneca (AZ) is considered to be the, how shall I say this, bottom of the barrel vaccine. It’s somewhat less effective than Moderna and Pfizer, the other two available vaccines (BUT STILL VERY EFFECTIVE) and there is a very small risk of blood clots. Older adults were refusing the AZ vaccines, which led to a huge glut, and so with cases spiralling out of control, vaccine eligibility was opened up to people 40 and over, whereas previously it was only for older adults, people in health care, and people with high-risk health issues.

My friend Cathryn (HI CATHRYN) tipped me off that a pharmacy near us was doing the vaccinations, so I booked an appointment for this coming Friday, and then the next day she texted me to say that her appointment was cancelled due to supply issues for pharmacies. You guys, there was a huge glut of vaccines, and then after opening up eligibility to the 40 plus group, there was an almost immediate shortage.

Gen X, I love us. We spent our unscheduled and unsupervised youth hanging out at the smoke doors or 7-11, with packs each of cigarettes and birth control pills in our bags. Of COURSE we are going to take the unwanted vaccine. Just shoot us in the arm, please, thanks. Good enough.

All through the last fifty-eight weeks I’ve felt like this whole pandemic is a weird sociological experiment, and the vaccine rollout has only strengthened that feeling.

Anyway, after Cathryn told me about the cancellation, I managed to snag an appointment at the massive Alberta Health clinic at the convention centre downtown, the very next day. The appointment was for 11:50 and I wasn’t supposed to be there more than five minutes prior to my appointment, but I had taken the train and, due to my nervousness about being late paired with my semi-unfamiliarity with the train, was there at 11:15.

Side note: the train, my god, the train. Public transit squicks me out at the best of times, but during a pandemic? Ugh. Going downtown was fine, but coming back there was a fellow passed out, maskless, lying down on one of the car benches, and another fellow, staring out the window and rocking, with his mask hanging onto his ear. Addiction is a terrible thing, and this pandemic certainly has not helped those suffering, but also, being inside a train with maskless individuals whom I am loathe to approach was nerve-wracking at best. Also, the station going home is in the most desolate part of the city; I felt like I was in a weird apocalyptic movie.

Anyway, I needn’t have worried about being early. The lineup was like one at Disney World, winding through plus-15s and various rooms throughout the convention centre, all very well organized and spaced out. All told, it was a 50 minute wait to get through the line into the actual clinic, and then another five minutes until I was processed. I didn’t mind. It’s been so long since I was around people, and I was just so grateful to have the chance to get my vaccine. There were hundreds of people there and almost all of them were on their phones, with the notable exception of one guy, who had brought a Rubix Cube, and so I spent my 55 minutes people-watching. There were so many cute outfits to look at, and also, there were “fun facts” posted on the wall every twenty feet or so, so I spent a lot of time thinking about them. Did you know that walnuts, cashews, almonds, and pistachios are NOT considered nuts? Technically, they are seeds. I know that peanuts are legumes, so what ARE nuts? I spent a lot of time thinking about this. Macadamia? Brazil nuts? What else is there? Also, a blue whale consumes half a million calories in one mouthful, and the French-language Scrabble champion of the world is from New Zealand and doesn’t speak French. He just memorized the French dictionary for the tournament in which he was crowned.

I love looking at other people’s clothes. So many of us matched our masks to our outfits – once we were in the clinic we were made to swap out our fancy masks for disposable medical ones though – and one lady really killed it with her long purple dress with a coordinating scarf AND mask made from the same material. Madam, I salute you. Some people were in pajama bottoms or sweatpants, some had gorgeous boots, and the woman in front of me had a gorgeous Prada bag. I spent so much time thinking about clothes, what constitutes a nut, and shuffling from floor marker to floor marker that before I knew it, I was being squirted with hand sanitizer and given a medical mask.

The nurse who administered my shot was named Lovejoy, which brought me even more happiness than I thought was possible. Lovejoy! She wished me a happy belated birthday, gave me my shot, and sent me to the waiting area. I felt so well for the rest of the day that I kind of wondered did I get a shot, was this all a dream, but then I woke up the next morning with a very sore arm. Well, like an idiot, I slept on that arm, which is silly but we cannot control our sleep selves. It was easily controlled with Tylenol, and I was fortunate to have no other side effects. As of right now, my arm is sore like a bruise when I apply pressure, but otherwise is just fine.

Outfit of the Week

This week’s outfit is the one I wore to the vaccination clinic. My mom gave me this old-school library stamp tee for my birthday; it was really too cold for a short sleeve, so I paired it with a black cardigan (naturally), jeans, and tall boots.

Prior to my shot I had a cute coordinating mask, but you’ll have to be satisfied with the medical one.

If you get a shot and don’t take a selfie featuring your bandaged upper arm, are you even vaccinated?

Pandemic Reading

Homegoing. Some people are just so talented. Yaa Gyasi is one of those people. I loved her Transcendent Kingdom, and Homegoing is her debut novel. This incredible book follows the lineage of two half-sisters, one who lives a life of luxury in the Cape Coast Castle in Ghana, and one who ends up in the dungeon of the castle, sold into slavery, headed for America. An absolutely epic, fantastic book.

The Knockout Queen. Back when the libraries were open, several weeks ago, I picked this up on a whim. Then, I put off reading it because so many of my holds came in, many of which I had been waiting a long time. When I finally picked it up, I was blown away. It is just so good. I immediately put all the author’s other books on my “to-read” list. I can’t tell you much about it without giving things away but it follows two best friends who have secrets. It’s SO well-written, and disturbing, and witty, and original.

And Every Morning The Way Home Gets Longer And Longer. Backman is very hit and miss for me, but this little novella about dementia is very sweet and sad.

Kindred. This was written in 1979 and would have been a very important book of the time, illustrating the monstrosities of slavery from the viewpoint of a modern Black woman. However, I can’t say I enjoyed it as I dislike time travel as a literary device. I just can’t suspend my disbelief in order to lose myself in the story, especially one of such seriousness and importance. If you like time travel, you’ll love this. It was fine, but a bit flat for me.

All in all, it was the most amazing birthday week; we are one small step closer to hugging our people. Sending you all love and virtual hugs. xo

Two Steps Back; Fifty-Six Weeks In

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My older son gets terrible hay fever – May is the worst month for him – and although I’m hopeful that his outdoor-mask-wearing habit will help, I am fully stocked up on the allergy medications that, over the years, we have found to work for him: daily doses of Reactine, plus the Walmart store brand allergy sinus pills when needed.

Until last week, I had set foot in Walmart exactly once during the pandemic, and that was back in August to purchase school supplies. I did manage to get the last bottle of the pills in question:

My husband asked me to pick him up a bottle of nighttime Advil while I was there and, well.

So we are in the “third wave” of the pandemic, and it’s hard not to feel despairing about it. We were doing so well! And now we aren’t. We are back into mini-lockdown mode, and for those of us who have been stringently Following The Rules throughout, and then some, it is Very Frustrating.

I have created my own Coping Mechanisms, apart from the all-important one of severely limiting my time on my phone, looking at news and social media; I can tell when I’ve been scrolling too much, I get fidgety and anxious and snappy and have difficulty focusing on anything. Other than putting my phone away, I have found that for my mental health, I have been doing a lot of the following: reading, playing piano, and exercise. I already tell you what I read every week, there’s not much to say about playing piano except that I like it, and so today I am going to talk about exercise.

I realize that the subject, at the best of times, can be fraught; if you are a person for whom this is true, or if you just think the subject is unbearably dull, skip ahead to this week’s outfit – new bum warmer! – or to the reading list, as there are a couple of good titles this week.

I think the key to maintaining a regular exercise program is threefold: choose things you actually enjoy, a time of day that works, and then make it a habit. I find that once I establish a habit it feels wrong to miss, and also according to my watch I am on a 371-day streak, so I can’t break it now. I am, and always have been, a Very Early Morning Person, and so I finish my yoga practice and cardio workouts before 8:00 am every day, later on weekends.

We are all so different, and that is wonderful! I have friends who love to swim, and to do bootcamp or HIIT workouts, and play racquet sports, and practice barre and Pilates, none of which are things I personally want to do. Sure, barre and Pilates intrigue me in a I should really try them kind of way, but let’s face it: my Peloton app has those classes, some are as little as ten minutes long, and I have never once tried one, which is an answer in itself. My daily movement involves yoga, cardio, and walking.

Yoga

I have been practicing yoga since 2007, and it is really more of a mental health boost than a physical one. Don’t get me wrong; yoga is great for strengthening and stretching those muscles and keeping the joints healthy, but the mental benefits cannot be discounted. My daily practice has changed a lot over the years; it’s Ashtanga-based but gentler, it’s slow and stretchy and meditative. On weekends my practice is more yin-based, and a few times a week I sit in meditation for as long as I can, time permitting. With the pandemic, I now have coffee and read a poem or two before I start. I also have been reading a fabulous book that I recommend to everyone called Wake Up To The Joy In You. It is a book of weekly meditations, and when my mind wanders during my yoga practice I bring it back to my breathing and the focus of the meditation for the week.

Welcome to my studio!

Early morning yoga has been my “me-time” since the kids were very small, and it’s still my favourite time, even now. I love practicing in my dark, quiet house before anyone even thinks of waking up. Although, with teens, and me in perimenopause, it seems like it’s only a matter of time before they are going to bed when I’m getting up.

Cardio

Where yoga is more for mental health, cardio is definitely more physical; I think it’s so important for heart and lung health. Hopefully I won’t end up like Jim Fix. I LOVE a good sweaty cardio workout – I love that Dripping With Sweat feeling, and also that My Lungs May Explode feeling – and I am fortunate to have a home gym at my disposal.

I feel pretty!

I do cardio six days a week, varying in length and activity to keep things interesting. Now that it’s not a skating rink outside, I am running as well as spinning on my Peloton or using my elliptical trainer. The variety in activity keeps me engaged, and I have some excellent motivational playlists that I use for running or elliptical training – I am a person who is very motivated by music. I find nothing pushes me up a hill like a good blast of Eye of the Tiger or Crazy Train. I am also a person who gets a “runner’s high” after any kind of heart-pumping cardio; you should probably send thoughts and prayers to my family who are subjected to my rapid-fire chatter after cardio at 7:30 in the morning.

Walking

A few years ago, when I injured my hip, one of my seniors said to me “RUNNING? Why would you RUN? What’s wrong with walking quickly? You get to the same place, it just takes a little longer.” I love running but he is absolutely correct. Walking is, in my opinion, a very underrated exercise. Where yoga is more for my mental health and cardio for physical, I think walking is the perfect mix of both. I love being outside, even when the weather is terrible, which, let’s face it, it’s Calgary, the weather is terrible most of the time. Most of my walks are Shmoopy Walks, with my husband, but when he’s not available I put on my headphones and groove to the Hamilton soundtrack, or walk with a friend. The occasional physically distanced walk is my only social life these days, so I treasure them. Plus, there are always lovely places to go, regardless of the season.

Until the pandemic, my walks consisted of short Barkley walks, and so one thing I am grateful for this past year is rediscovering of my love of walking, and not the kind of walking where I stop every twenty feet for Barkley to sniff a shrub for two minutes, and where I have to be on High Alert so he doesn’t eat discarded tissues on the ground.

On that note, what is with all the discarded tissues? My friend Sue in Fredericton (HI SUE) has been picking up discarded disposable masks on her daily walks – more than 600 in a single week – and while I see the occasional mask, it’s not to that extent. However, I see DISCARDED TISSUES everywhere, and I have to be fully alert or Barkley will snap them up and eat them. I will do pretty much anything for my dog but I will not remove someone else’s used tissue from his mouth, be better, people.

Anyway. All of this is to say is that I have rediscovered my love of walking, sans Barkley. (He gets walked too, don’t worry, it’s just not something I include as exercise, due to the slow-boat-to-nowhere pace.)

Outfit of the Week

Speaking of terrible weather! Spring in Calgary is so weird and variable; one day might (MIGHT) be quite pleasant, and the next day snow and gusting wind. I have not been buying clothes this year; it’s not a rule or anything, just a resolution to appreciate my wardrobe, and also, it’s not like I have a bustling life outside of my home. However, I made an exception to buy just one more bum warmer from My Cozy Buns, the local woman who repurposes thrifted sweaters. Look how cute!

It goes with almost everything in my wardrobe! Black! Grey! White! I’ve paired it with yoga tank and leggings – naturally – plus a long sleeve tee. I later put on a sweater because, Calgary In Spring, and I need layers.

Pandemic Reading

What an incredible writer, what a compelling read. This is one of my favourite types of books: related short stories. All these stories are conversations, between women, in different times and places. It was a thought-provoking, unsettling, at times very disturbing read. I liked it but you might not. Themes of rape, power, being a woman are throughout.

In the past few years I’ve become interested in the role of trauma and how it affects our physical bodies. My friend Monique (HI MONIQUE) recommended this to me, about racialized trauma. It is a book intended for healing trauma, using somatics and mindfulness, not just in people with black bodies, but those with white ones and people in law enforcement. It is written with great compassion and wisdom. As a white bodied woman, at times this was a very difficult and uncomfortable read, which makes it all the more important. It promotes healing and understanding for the one and only race – the human race. A vitally important book for all of us.

If you don’t live with wrestling fans, or you are not one yourself, you may not know that this weekend was The Event of the Year, Wrestle Mania. (Me: I thought the Royal Rumble was the Event of the Year. Boys: No, Mom, that is the SECOND biggest Event of the Year. This is the biggest.) This weekend has been looked forward to with great anticipation for MONTHS.

(Thanks to Marion (HI MARION) for sending this, I really feel it.)

What I’m trying to say is that if you have a house full of very loud chaos – not to MENTION the Masters’ and all the golf updates – then this is a good book for you. It’s fine. It’s a time travel book that has some fun pop culture tidbits from the 80s to today. It’s a book you don’t want to overthink and it isn’t challenging in any way, so good to read while people are yelling “USO! USO! USO!” or “HE’S GOING TO USE THE SWING!” or “Look, Mom, it’s Edge!” You don’t need to concentrate, it’s not a bad book, it’s a light weekend read, and also, the one guy I kind of like in the WWE lost.

Life in the Boyhouse, am I right? Also, this is the reason I am rarely sad when celebrities die; I often think they are already dead. Like Hulk Hogan!

Have a beautiful week, my friends, and it is only 363 days until the NEXT Wrestle Mania, Jesus take the wheel. xo

Costco, Then and Now; Fifty-Three Weeks In

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One of the best things about having a blog is being able to look back to see what was happening at any given month in the past; I always think in the moment that I’ll remember something forever, and then I’ll find myself wondering if that something happened in 2018 or 2017, only to find out it was 2012. To the archives! I’m finding this to be helpful during The Pandemic because time has lost all meaning, and I’ll think something just happened and then I’ll realize that event was in July. Similarly, things that seem years away just happened in December. I can’t tell if this time warp feeling is strictly Pandemic Related or if this is a Natural Result of Getting Older.

Last week I was at Costco; I go there every two to three weeks, right after my weekly shop at Superstore. Because of the restrictions with regards to numbers – stores are currently required to have no more than 15% capacity according to fire codes – I go right at opening. When it’s a Double Shop day – Costco AND Superstore – I aim to be at Superstore for opening at eight, and then zip over to Costco for opening at nine. It feels like I’m in some kind of race to the finish when I do this but there are many benefits: a) everything is DONE and generally put away by eleven, b) there are almost never any errant carts left in random places in the Costco parking lot so early in the day, thus decreasing my impotent cart-rage to almost zero.

While I was at Costco, I couldn’t help but compare and contrast my experience with Costco Trips One Year Ago. It feels like a weird fever dream: lining up in the parking lot for an hour just to get into the store, not unlike a ride for Disney World but much less fun, whole categories of items completely unavailable, the feeling of fear and panic everywhere, people just getting used to the whole social distancing concept and mask wearing. The simple act of getting groceries had turned into a nightmarish, harrowing event that would leave me drained and exhausted for the whole day.

Meanwhile, last week I sauntered through the aisles with my giant cart, humming to myself, noticing things like the availability of every kind of flour you can imagine, a shelf full of the giant boxes of yeast for $5, and while I didn’t walk through the paper product aisle, I assume that there was as much toilet paper and paper towel as anyone could need. I wondered idly if the people who left Costco a year ago with whole carts full of toilet paper are still using their supply. The one thing that was on my list but unavailable was, strangely, Worcestershire sauce. I’m guessing this is not a pandemic thing.

Everything is just so much better. Grocery staff seem like they are no longer stretched to the limit, trying to cope with ever-changing rules and stressed-out customers. With the ubiquity of hand sanitizer, I actually feel LESS appalled at the thought of touching things in stores than I ever have. I have always been a person who uses the bottom of my shirt to open door knobs, and now I feel like there are LESS germs on public surfaces due to our constant sanitization; everywhere you look people are squirting sanitizer in their hands from all available dispensers. People are politely giving distance to other shoppers, and I haven’t had to line up outside the store since last spring. Costco does not allow anyone in the store without a mask on, but still I was pleased to see all masks worn properly. I was thinking just as I left I didn’t see one nose today! but alas, I thought too soon. As I was heading for the door a man came in with a mask below his nose – why is it always older white men…oh wait, I know why – and I looked him straight in the eye. I smiled – smized – and gestured to my own mask, miming pulling it up. And you know what? HE PULLED UP HIS MASK. IT WORKED. If I had known that a smize and a gesture might actually change someone’s behaviour I would have tried it months ago.

Outfit of the Week

Full disclosure: this was not my planned OOTW, but I was having a really good hair day and felt like the moment needed to be captured.

This is a Nicole Signature Outfit; yoga pants and tank, layered with a long-sleeve tee and a long drapey sweater. This sweater is quite light, a nod to the lovely mild weather we have been having.

Hair close-up! In these times, so few can witness our good hair days. Thank god for the internet and the ability to selfie.

Pandemic Reading

Yes, I know it’s March, but library holds come in when library holds come in, we cannot control them, serenity now. In any case this was a delightfully sweet, silly, and satisfying read, not unlike watching a holiday Hallmark movie.

Is it weird to put this on a blog? Maybe. This was a fascinating book about paying attention, society, and connection.

This page spoke to me – bringing humanity to the people around us. Rather than viewing others as an inconvenience, viewing people as actual people, with lives and hopes and dreams and realities that we are unaware of.

“…firecrackers setting off other firecrackers in a very small room that soon gets filled with smoke. Our aimless and desperate expressions on these platforms don’t do much for us, but they are hugely lucrative for advertisers…” – this put into words uneasy feelings I have been having about social media and outrage.

Such a perfect way to say that we need to be happy and thankful for the things we have.

Speaking of thankful, I was able to run this week and it was glorious. The sunrises have continued to be beautiful, and we have a birthday and anniversary celebration coming up this week. Enjoy your week, my friends. xo