Category Archives: Hello Calgary

Comfort Reading

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Last week I received a notice in my mailbox that on Friday – Remembrance Day – there would be work going on with our street’s sewer system, and between 8 and 4 we were all to drastically minimize our water usage. Our home sewer system could hold a small amount of drainage, but any extra use of water would result in our system backing up and sewage flooding our house. If there is a more effective way to discourage people from allowing waste water to go down the drain, I do not know what it is. Sewage flooding our house.

Two things: Does it seem strange to anyone else that major sewer work was scheduled on Remembrance Day? It seems kind of disrespectful, and also, kind of inconvenient being that the boys were home from school, and there was much panic from that corner, should someone in the house need to defecate. What to do! What to do! The boys came up with all kinds of solutions, including possibly walking over to the swimming pool and fitness centre specifically to use the washrooms. But, inconvenience and preteen panic aside, it seemed to me to be mostly disrespectful.

Secondly, in the manner of you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone, I really didn’t realize how much of my daily tasks result in waste water going down the drain. No washing dishes, no laundry…well, I guess that’s mostly it. Oh, no rinsing vegetables and fruit either. Is that really what takes up the bulk of my day? In any case, I seemed to have a lot of time on my hands.

Slight digression: while Christmas shopping last week, I saw a number of signs advertising “Remembrance Day Sale! 25% off everything in store!” Which…what? Remembrance Day SALE? What’s next? Lest We Forget, Buy One Get One Half Off? We Remember And We Have Great Deals In Store?

Moving on.

I have been comfort-reading for the past week. Has it been only a week? Anyway, for the past week I’ve been reaching for those warm, fuzzy, feel-good books on my shelf. My usual go-to is Diary of a Provincial Lady, but I had read it recently, so I am devouring my childhood favourites Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom. I have always loved Louisa May Alcott, and I probably have read those two, plus Little Women, fifty times each. LOVE.

I do admit to seeing them through very different eyes these days. If you have ever read anything about Alcott’s life, you will know that her father was very close with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, and he eventually left his teaching career to study philosophy. By that I mean that he walked away from a paying job to ONLY study philosophy and, I suppose, “live deliberately,” which resulted in, of course, financial ruin for the family. Alcott’s writings managed to get the family out of debt, along with a roof over their heads and food on the table. Thanks, Father. Reading Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom, which centre around a beautiful, kind, philanthropic heiress, is a little sad when you think about that.

But they are great books, even if one of the central themes in Rose in Bloom is which cousin will Rose marry? I mean, it’s not even a subtle underlying theme; it is discussed often and in great detail. Guys, they’re first cousins, maybe you want to look outside the gene pool, rather than focus on keeping her extensive property in the family? However, weirdly incestuous courtships aside, there are some really nice warm and fuzzy messages in there, which is why it is one of my comfort books. For example:

“Ah! But we do know, and if our silence and civility have no effect, we ought to try something else and not encourage wickedness of any kind…Each must judge for herself. I shall follow Aunt Jessie’s advice and try to keep my atmosphere as pure as I can, for she says every woman has her own little circle and in it can use her influence for good, if she will.”

Of course, this conversation was about shunning a certain young man who was “wild” and “fast” – meaning, I guess, that he drank and was a little too handsy with the ladies – but I think that it can be applied in a broader sense. We should all follow Aunt Jessie’s advice, except maybe about the part about getting it on with one of our cousins.

Being Unikitty*

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This morning I woke up feeling disheartened and stunned, but I’m taking this opportunity to practice compassion and understanding, even when I don’t understand, really. And, in the words of Eckhart Tolle: Accept, then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.

We can change the world one step at a time. And with that, I will focus on what has been going on in my own world, over the past few days.

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It is Day Three – DAY THREE – of having Please Come To Boston stuck in my head, and honestly, I don’t even know what to do anymore. It is taking over my life. How long will this continue?

Other than that, I have been KILLING my to-do list lately. November is the month I like to get the majority of my Christmas jobs done – shopping, cards, etc. – so that in December I can focus one hundred percent of my festive attention on baking things and watching Christmas specials and movies. In the past few days I’ve done the following: had our family photos taken and edited, ordered Christmas cards, put together and ordered photo calendars for the boys’ grandparents, finished Christmas shopping. I know! My schedule is pretty hectic over the next few weeks and so I was extremely motivated to get it all done.

Next week is the Book Fair. Have you noticed I haven’t even mentioned the Book Fair? Well, that’s because I have passed the reins to the amazing new coordinator (HI HAYDEE) and so I’m not even a little bit stressed. I only have two Book Fairs left, so I wonder if I’ll start getting emotional when the kids ask how much the posters are, or if they can eat that delicious looking eraser. I will keep you posted.

We have been having beautiful, absolutely unseasonably warm weather, and I love it. Any day in November that it’s not snowing or freezing is a day I will enjoy. Winter is long enough here, so I love any respite we get. If the obese squirrels busily scrounging in my yard are any indication, we are in for a long, cold one. I feel like Pa Ingalls, looking at an extra-thick muskrat den and then deciding to lay in an extra supply of hay. Barkley seems to think, even more than usual, that these pudgy little beacons of productivity are there as his personal buffet, and I have to be very vigilant with him. No one wants to clean up a squirrel corpse – or at least, I THINK no one does – and I especially do not want to deal with the digestive fallout associated with squirrel eating.

It is a glamourous life I lead.

Speaking of glamour, I have had so much spam and telemarketing phone calls lately. Several times a week my inbox is subject to really gross sounding pornographic emails, and I get at least one porny/ do-I-want-a-job-as-a-secret-shopper text a day. It’s probably a sign of our poor economic times that someone is always calling or knocking on my door. I never answer the door, by the way, unless I can clearly see it’s one of my neighbours. There is no upside to answering the door; at the very least someone is going to use pressure tactics to ask for money, and at the worst, I could get murdered.

But the phone calls I have been getting lately! I had one fellow phone me TWICE IN THE SAME DAY. I don’t know if he was just going through the phone book, or what, but he asked for both Mrs. My Last Name and Mrs. My Husband’s Last Name, which are obviously not the same last name. I always know it’s a telemarketer when I get Mrs. My Husband’s Last Name, but I will admit that I always, always, always hand the phone over to my husband when they ask for Mr. My Last Name. Yes, you MAY speak to Mr. My Last Name! I will say giddily, while my husband rolls his eyes at me and answers the phone with his “what the fuck do you want” tone.

Anyway, this guy who phoned me twice was representing a painting company, and he wanted to know if I wanted my house painted. Inside or out, he was happy to do either. Now, as far as cold-calling potential customers goes, this one strikes me as bizarre. Who makes a decision about house painting over the phone? Who doesn’t look for a recommendation from a friend, or at least on Facebook, for something like that? Besides which, would you really say yes to someone who called you to ask if he could paint your house? Does it not seem extremely imprudent to give out your address to someone who has called you on your landline because he allegedly has a painting company? Recipe for disaster/ being murdered/ getting robbed if there ever was one.

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*Title inspired by my friend Maya (HI MAYA), the original Unikitty.

Keep on keeping on, my friends. xoxo

God Bless The Bus Drivers

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For weeks, it seems like everyone around me has been sick with this weirdly debilitating cold that’s been going around. Everywhere I go, there’s coughing and sneezing and nose-blowing. So far I’ve been able to stave it off with my signature trifecta of near-obsessive hand-washing, over-the-top vitamin intake, and homeopathic hoo-ha. Today Jake is home with it and I feel an impending sense of doom, like my healthy days are numbered. In the meantime, I will continue to scrub my hands like I’m going into surgery, all the while downing weird concoctions with a side of Vitamin C.

Things feel a touch gloomy because it’s completely dark and snowy outside, although I’m pretty relieved that the snow held off until today. Yesterday Mark – along with the entire Grade Seven body – went to the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, which was, from all accounts, EPIC. It meant a four hour round trip on the bus, however. God bless those parent volunteers, is all I can say. Not to mention the teachers and bus drivers.

Mark told me that a few kids screamed hysterically, in that Grade Seven Humour kind of way, every single time they saw a dinosaur statue, so we should have all probably invested in ibuprofen stocks prior to this field trip.

In any case, yesterday was warm and sunny so it really was a good day for a field trip. I took under-the-weather Jake for his own field trip, to Superstore, for groceries, pumpkins, and Halloween candy. Somehow we have ended up with 250 little chocolate bars, which will surely be more than enough for the eight to ten Trick or Treaters we are sure to have.

Speaking of which, the guys set up all the decorations on the weekend, and although they haven’t yet put up the animatronic ones, I have noticed a number of people stop and look at our creepy, creepy house. I have gotten used to it, but at first I was pretty startled every time I would go to the living room and see this out the front window:

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Gah! There are two of those guys in our front yard.

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Not to mention zombie dogs:

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A number of bats:

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In this house, we bury our secrets:

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And we hope no one is arachnophobic:

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At least we have pity for the poor mail carrier who has to make his way through all our festive creepiness. He only really has to deal with this guy, swinging in front of our mailbox.

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This is the first year that I haven’be been really involved in the creation of the kids’ costumes. They are making some kind of weird mash-up (a MONSTER MASH, perhaps? It was a Graveyard Smash!) of old costumes and by old, I mean things they wore when they were in first and second grade. I’m not one hundred percent sure what the result will be, but most likely they will be wearing their parkas and toques to Trick or Treat anyway.

I wonder what the reaction will be to them Trick or Treating. Most of our street is filled with elderly people who have, by and large, known the boys since they were small, and they usually give out tons of candy. However, I know some people have a problem with older kids Trick or Treating, particularly those whose costumes are somewhat suspect. Personally, I don’t even care if someone is dressed up or not, or is a toddler or nearly-legal. I have 250 chocolate bars in my house, and you can be damned sure that I am going to give away as many as possible. Especially since one box contains Wunderbars, which are one of the greatest chocolate bars ever invented, in my humble opinion. I don’t need that kind of temptation just sitting around in my cupboard.

At least I had the fortitude not to buy Rockets! That would have been debilitating in every way, and since sugar is bad for immunity, I would be sure to be on death’s door by next week. As it is, I JUST sneezed! Time for an orange and some more of that weird echinacea tea. Have a great weekend, everyone! Happy Halloween. xo

Howard/ Nicole The Duck

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One benefit of keeping an old school blog for the past eight years is that I can easily see patterns in my own life. For example, every single fall I feel like I’m careening off the rails a little bit, in terms of busyness, and yes, we are all busy and tired and whatnot, no one wants to hear about how busy we are, but it is nice to see a pattern and recognize that I feel this way every year.

In related news, October is almost over, and I feel like it should still be mid-September. But no. Sometimes I feel like I’m a duck, gracefully gliding through the water on the pond, but what is not visible to the eye is my pair of little feet-flippers going like mad, just to keep gracefully gliding.

All is good, it is, even though I have bags under my eyes that require their own postal code. Several months ago I wrote something for YMC called “Confessions of a Pulled-Together Mom” and I braced myself for the blow-back. I was expecting trolls to come out of the woodwork to criticize my vanity at the expense of neglecting my children, but I only really received one such comment. The rest were more of the “me too” variety, which was completely surprising. On discussing it with the YMC Editor-in-Chief, I realized that this generation of young moms is much more comfortable with the concept of self-care than MY generation. This is a very very good thing. When I had babies, lo those many years ago, it wasn’t the done thing to admit that you showered every day, put on makeup, and blow-dried your hair. Back when my kids were babies, many of my peers were into that martyr thing: I was so busy I didn’t brush my teeth all weekend, and I haven’t had a shower for days. Hygiene, oral and otherwise, was frequently scorned because my generation seemed to be made up of High Powered Career Girls Who Are Now Putting 100% Energy Into Child-Rearing And Have No Time To Spare On Vanities. Not everyone felt that way, of course, but motherhood did feel a bit like a Project back then. I mean, I had a book – which I have since donated – about how to raise smarter babies, and another one that was all about brain-enriching and sensory-stimulating activities to do with your baby. Such activities included making a pulley system for teddy bears, to illustrate cause-and-effect, and the concept of impermanence. And I actually did those activities. Now, thinking about how my children enjoy such things as Grand Theft Auto and jokes about farting and people getting hit in the testicles, I cannot help but smile at my younger, optimistic self.

But I digress. The only negative comments I had from that Pulled-Together piece were that, in the photos, I didn’t appear to be wearing makeup at all. I had several such comments, and I was taken aback by it a little, because YOU GUYS, if you could see me without makeup. HOO BOY. In particular, today, when I have eye bags under my eye bags, well. I promised my husband I wouldn’t post any more unflattering photos of myself on this blog, but you can see a few here and here. And those are from two years ago, so as you can probably imagine, I have aged somewhat since then. Anyway, I love the thought that some people think I’m all au naturel when really, the opposite is true.

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Eyebags with a side of grey roots.

Speaking of oral hygiene, a few months back there was some kind of expose about Big Dental and the Flossing Conspiracy. Did you know we’ve all been conned into thinking that flossing is beneficial, when in fact there has been almost no empirical evidence to suggest that it prevents cavities and gum disease? Quick, everyone burn your dental floss!

Just like that, but with floss.

Fun fact: I had that fish without a bicycle poster on my office wall when I was in grad school, along with a copy of the Feminist Manifesto.

Anyway, I think I’ll keep my floss, since I’m not a fan of having decaying bits of food between my teeth, studies be damned.

There have also been a number of studies saying that vitamin supplements are essentially useless, and you may as well set your money – along with your dental floss – on fire. Well, I will say this: you will tear my bottles of vitamins out of my cold, dead hands. Especially my Vitamin D, since it has been grey and gloomy and foggy here like you wouldn’t believe. Yesterday my friend and I were walking our dogs at the off-leash, and it was so foggy we could barely see twenty feet in front of us. It was very eerie, like something in a horror film. Maybe it’s just the lead up to Halloween (YOU GUYS, HALLOWEEN IS ON MONDAY! MONDAY!) but it was really creepy.

On that note, I have things I need to cross off my to-do list, and if I start talking about my love for vitamin supplements, or how virtuous I feel because I haven’t yet bought and eaten several boxes of Halloween candy, I’ll be here until the cows (or children) come home. Signing off, xoxo.

Life is a destination. No. Wait.

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I feel like I’m in some weird time warp and also, like I’m Laura Ingalls at the beginning of the Long Winter, with a sense of foreboding about the months to come. There’s snow on the ground and it’s cold, cold, cold. I dug out my thick woolly legwarmers and enormous warm mittens today, to take Barkley for a walk. It snowed all weekend, much to my dismay.

Friday my husband loaded up the van and took the boys and dog to my in-laws’ for Thanksgiving, eight hours away. It snowed or sleeted most of the way, but was otherwise uneventful. I had teacher training until late Saturday afternoon, so the plan was for me to fly out Saturday night, and drive back home all together on Monday.

Side note to say that Friday was the first time in years – I don’t even know how long – that I was all by myself in the house, without even the dog to keep me company. It was bizarre, not having anyone else’s schedule or needs to think of. Mind you, the days prior to that were a blur of preparing and packing and getting everyone else ready, but come Friday, I realized it was just me. I didn’t have to let the dog out, I didn’t have to feed anyone except myself. All I had to do was make it to class on time, and that’s it. It was a little surreal.

Another side note: since my husband took the van, I was driving his three-quarter-ton truck. Technically I could have taken his car, but the thought of it possibly getting dinged in the parking lot of the yoga college was too much to bear. I don’t think I could stand that kind of pressure. Plus, the snow had started and the plain fact of the matter was that if I – god forbid – was to get in an accident, being in the giant truck would be much preferable than being in a little sports car, on so many different levels. One of those levels would be that my husband would be much less upset if the truck was in an accident, than his girlfriend/ car. The other was that I felt eminently safer in the truck. You can’t hurt me, motherfuckers, you can’t even try, I thought to myself from my much-higher-than-normal vantage point. This is what driving a three-quarter-ton truck will do to you. I’m not excusing my behaviour, I am just stating a fact. You try it, and tell me it’s no different from driving a minivan. You cannot. I felt like one of those guys on one of those gold mining shows, but with much lower stakes. And less gold.

I will admit I felt a little strange when I drove it to the homeopathic dispensary. I mean, it has an elk decal in the back window.

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I am pretty spoiled, on account of my nice van with its heated seats and its sharp turning radius and its keyless entry. Despite my newfound extreme driving confidence, I found myself feeling slighted at having to actually use a key to turn on the engine, like a barbarian. And the radio stations were not tuned to my favourite Hits of the 70s and 80s. However, those inconveniences paled in comparison to my new Don’t Mess With Nicole I Am Woman Hear Me Honk The Horn of This Big Truck kind of way.

I also felt slightly ridiculous in that I left a lot of extra time, in anticipation of the roads and traffic being awful with the snow, and it turned out there were no delays at all. I ended up at class a full fifty-five minutes early, so I sat in the cab of The Truck, pressing “Like” on all the Instagram posts that had cute animals and photos of food in them.

Saturday was even gloomier than Friday; the snow kept falling intermittently and, alarmingly, a fog started to creep in. It is hardly ever foggy here, being landlocked in the middle of the Prairies, but the fog indeed rolled in. The last time it was foggy I was also due to fly out of town, if you recall. All through class on Saturday I kept glancing out the window, where it was evident the fog was getting thicker and thicker. I kept checking my flight status app and all was on time, no delays. O-kay. I rushed home after class, caught a cab to the airport, sailed through security, checked again. Flight – on time. I sighed with relief and sat at the bar to order a glass of wine. No sooner had my wine appeared than my husband called, to tell me my flight had been cancelled.

Indeed, one check of my app and I saw the truth, updated one minute prior: CANCELLED.

Cancelled, and me with a full glass of wine.

Thirty minutes and 2000 steps later, I found I had been bumped to another flight, that was going through Edmonton. Edmonton! My one hour flight was now going to take much longer, but I would still get there. I sat down at the bar – again – and ordered a glass of wine – again – only to find out, ten minutes later that the flight to Edmonton was delayed and I now had a mere ten minutes to make the connection.

At least this time I had made a dent in my wine.

I trundled back to the gate, where I was chirpily informed that the plane hadn’t even arrived yet, and if it did arrive, I would hopefully still make my connection. “Hopefully” was not the term I wanted to hear, particularly since I had sent all my luggage in the car with the guys, and all I had with me was my makeup bag, a toothbrush, a hair brush, and my blow dryer. I was extremely unequipped to be stranded in Edmonton.

Too long, didn’t read; I ended up on the 8:05 am flight Sunday morning, which meant I had to grumpily get up at five after an anxious, unrestful sleep. The good news is that everyone was happy to see me, and we had a nice visit with a lot of people. I missed seeing my friend Sam (HI SAM) and I could have done without paying for three cab fares in less than twelve hours, but it’s all about the destination, not the journey, right? No? Oh.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Thanksgiving Edition

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Last Friday our roof was re-shingled and, as the old shingles were tossed into the big bin, so went my sanity. My husband asked why I didn’t just leave the house for the day, but it happened to be one of the only days that I had slated in my week to get some work done at home. All day long was the scraping of the old shingles off the roof, then the hammering and nailing and sudden startling bangs that made me wonder if something had just fallen through the ceiling. Through it all was the faint, tinny sound of the roofers’ radio playing. The music was especially audible in the bathroom, so whenever I went in there I could hear the strains of various popular songs of yesteryear. Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy, but here’s my number, so call me, maybe. It wasn’t the music that I would have expected the roofers to be listening to.

Fortunately both house and garage are now done, to Barkley’s extreme relief. Having a sound like someone is loudly knocking at the door for eight hours will stress a dog out, not to mention seeing unknown persons in the yard. The occasional shingle would fly off the roof in unexpected ways, and so I was paranoid to let the dog out, or have the children come home, lest someone get concussed.

September flew by but this week has been a long one, and it is only Wednesday. I have been feeling a bit dreary and complain-y the past couple of days; this morning an article entitled How To Complain Less popped up on my Facebook feed. Oh, omnipotent Facebook. The article was prefaced with Complaining is almost never a positive response to our circumstance. See also: feeling judged by my Facebook feed.

It’s true, complaining gets us nowhere, but on occasion we must all vent a little, lest we explode, like when Homer gives up swearing and ends up kicking down his shoddily-made doghouse. So I will own up to being a big complain-y pants yesterday, and will make up for it with things I’m thankful for right now. ‘Tis the season for thankfulness, at least up here in Canada.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Thanksgiving Edition

Nature Is Wearing Her Prettiest Clothes, But She’s Also Kind Of Nude

Sure, most of the leaves are already off the trees at the dog park, but there are still some pretty fall colours out there.

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The trees might be naked, but look at that sky!

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The trees are still in full colour at my parents’ place.

Boring, Yet Somehow Satisfying

I have become a person who has an actual, strong preference for dish soap, and that preference is this:

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This is the part where I say no, this is not a sponsored post and no, I did not receive anything for free. I just really, really like this dish soap. Don’t we all have funny little frugalities? Mine is with dish soap; I usually buy the Palmolive brand that is “Original” scent, because it’s about $0.50 cheaper. But for some reason I SPLURGED on this brand and now I don’t feel like I can ever go back. I get much more than fifty cents’ worth of satisfaction from this Oxy brand. The marginal benefit I receive is much, much higher than the marginal cost, for all you economics types.

Stop! Smoothie Time.

My current favourite is spinach, almond butter, almond milk, frozen banana, and cinnamon. It has gotten to the point where I eagerly look forward to smoothie time, because I love this combination immoderately.

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Ugly, and yet beautiful.

Pasta Night Is The Greatest Night Of All

Wednesday night is Pasta Night in the Boyhouse, and some of us are happier about that than others. I love pasta night, and I love that I have this sundried tomato sauce simmering on the stove right now. It smells divine, it tastes divine, and it makes enough for three Pasta Nights. I roast cauliflower and zucchini and add it to my pasta, and it is just the best, most satisfying meal of the week.

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I’ll Make Him An Offer He Can’t Refuse. And In The Morning, I’m Making Waffles

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On our morning constitutional, up at my parents’ place this weekend, I spotted this guy. There’s nothing like a severed stuffed donkey head to make you wonder what’s going on with the neighbours.

Those are the things I’m thankful for and happy about today. I hope you have many things that are making you smile – perhaps your own severed donkey head? I don’t know what’s going on in your life. Happy Thanksgiving! xo

Five Things For Friday

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Decorative Gourd Season

Everyone’s talking about the first day of fall, oh, the excitement of the crispness in the air and the leaves turning and pumpkin spice everything taking over the world like alien overlords. I don’t mean to be a curmudgeon about things but I swear, I thought it was going to snow last night. The rain had that sleety feeling and the already-changed leaves were rapidly being blown off of trees. You want crispness in the air? That’s crispness. Today is much more temperate but Winter Is Coming and also I loathe pumpkin spice. However. I do like sweaters and boots and scarves so I guess that’s something. The leaves that are still on the trees are also very pretty.

We’re Jamming

Today I really wanted to make peach jam but I didn’t have quite enough peaches. I wondered what would happen if I added pears, so I did. I was completely befuddled as to why the recipe, which I had cut in half, made over twice the amount of jam. Was it pear related? Was it some kind of jam-chemistry that I wasn’t aware of? Was I magic? Then I realized I cut the fruit in half without cutting the sugar. So I now have eight very sweet jars of jam. I am gravely disappointed in this.

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How Did I Get On This Mailing List

I received a catalogue in the mail today; I don’t know why or how but I am really not the target audience for it. It is almost entirely velour capes and “country classics” and is pretty much the opposite of clothing that I wear.

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There is an entire section based on Fall Leaf Motifs. As I flipped through I kept thinking wow, there are a lot of pajamas in this catalogue, but no. Those are not pajamas.

I Cannot Stop Staring At My Fridge

Yesterday I was having a conversation (HI SHARYL HI LINDA) and the words You Should See Her Fridge came up. My friend’s sister keeps her stainless steel fridge spotless, and because I am apparently Heloise, Queen of Household Hints, I immediately asked to be let in on the secret. Linda told me and I implemented within five minutes of walking in my door. People, it’s so simple, and yet so glorious. Fill your sink with very hot water and dish soap (wash the dishes later, so as to not waste it – Bonus Heloise Hint!) then scrub your fridge down with a sponge. If it’s really gross in parts, use the non-abrasive side of the sponge. Then – this is the key – dry it off with a flannelette cloth. I have a plethora of old flannelette receiving blankets I have kept since the boys were babies, and they work perfectly. They are decorated with puppies and giraffes, but they are effective.

Anyway. I must tell you that this has been life altering. For as long as I’ve had my fridge I’ve been trying things with vinegar and coconut oil and everything else, and the secret is hot water, dish soap, and drying with a flannelette cloth. I keep admiring my fridge in all its shiny glory.

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Five Fictional Characters That Describe Me

There’s a little meme that’s going around on social media and I find it fascinating, what fictional characters people identify with. I have always identified with Sally Albright on so many levels, but what about the other two? I thought about this for probably longer than I should have, as I sat in traffic and exercised on the elliptical trainer and stared at the sleet on the windshield as I waited for the kids at karate. Finally, I had it! I think we can all agree, it’s perfect.

sally

monica

buddy