Category Archives: Hello Calgary

Fancy Festivities and Friends

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Here’s Your One Chance, Fancy, Don’t Let Me Down. Back in September 2020, when the kids first went back to in-person school after lockdown, my younger son told me that just walking through the halls and being around so many people made him really happy. I had that same feeling on Friday when my husband and I went to his company holiday party. I couldn’t stop smiling, just seeing other people all dressed up and looking universally beautiful. We are at a PARTY, I kept thinking, a HOLIDAY PARTY and everyone is DRESSED UP. I have no idea if this feeling of abject delight and wonder is going to continue throughout my life, but I hope it does.

It was so much fun, even if I am so unused to wearing heels that my feet were crying by the end of the night. What are you doing to me, where are our comfy shoes, what is happening right now.

We stayed at the party until TEN THIRTY PM and I wasn’t in bed until an hour later, and did you even know there was an 11:30 AT NIGHT? There is! I had prepared for this exciting and unheard of bout of wildness by doing two things I never do normally: I had a nap in the afternoon, and then I had a strong, caffeinated chai at 4:00 pm. WHEEEEEEE!

Last week I had invited all of you, my dear readers, to Ask Me Literally Anything, and I have had so many great questions that I will be answering in the coming weeks. My wild Friday night brings me to a question Pat (HI PAT) raised: I, like everyone else, am fascinated by you 4 a.m. wakeup. When you are on vacation, perhaps at your parents place, your lake house or a sunny destination, do you alter your schedule a bit? Maybe stay up till 9:30 and get up at 5? Well, Pat, on weekends I do sometimes sleep until 6 if I can! One thing about me is that my body seems to have a natural wakeup in the hour between 4 and 5, but on weekends or holidays I can usually lull myself back to sleep for another hour or two. I do try to stay up later when we are on vacation or visiting my parents, because it’s a bit ridiculous to go to bed at 8:30 when everyone is having fun and playing games. I thought maybe I could sleep in a bit this Saturday morning, but my son had a wrestling tournament and needed to be up by six, and although he drove himself to the school and is perfectly capable of getting through his own morning routine without his mother, I was still awake and drinking coffee by 6:05. You know how it goes, people.

And You May Ask Yourself, How Did I Get Here? I will be keeping the form open, mostly because I don’t know how to close it, so ask any questions you like. On the other hand, if you’re thinking really, I already know too much, that is cool too.

One question I did want to address came not from the form but from multiple comments about my Day in the Life post, with regards to teaching and practicing yoga. Some readers expressed surprise that I would practice yoga and then teach yoga in the same day, but those things are very separate to me. My personal yoga practice is a moving meditation, where I flow through postures – the Ashtanga primary series, with some additions and subtractions – doing breath work and ending with a nice savasana. I get on the mat every single day, even if it’s just a five minute seated meditation; I don’t feel like myself if I don’t practice. Teaching, on the other hand, is a different story: it’s work. I mean, it is fun work, and it is work that I enjoy, but it is work nonetheless. I am always “on,” and talking, and watching my students for cues that something is working or not working for them. I don’t focus on my own breathing, and it is not meditative in the least, because I am generally thinking of what posture we are going into next and how to include variations for students with a variety of old injuries and concerns.

I have been teaching many of my current students since 2017, so I have a good relationship with all of them, which I especially appreciated on Monday afternoon, when I was teaching my Strength and Tone ladies. We were in the middle of a downward dog when suddenly, with no warning whatsoever, my nose started bleeding, like that of a long-term cocaine addict. Such a thing has never happened to me before while teaching, and I hope it never happens again. When I say my nose started bleeding, I don’t mean a little trickle. I mean that I had to pause the class and it took TEN MINUTES to get things under control. Ten minutes is a very long time to be stanching a nose bleed, let me tell you. Fortunately my students are very kind and understanding, and were willing to independently use my tennis balls for some myofascial release at the wall while I went through every single tissue I had in my purse, and half the scratchy, recycled material paper towels that the community centre had next to the sink. I give my students homemade chocolates every year at Christmas, and I may have dropped a few extras in for these ladies, to thank them for their patience with my dramatically bleeding nose.

This Year, To Save Me From Tears, I’ll Give It To Someone Special. Last week I was having couple of down days; I felt mired in anxiety and worry about my children and their immediate and long-term futures, myself and my ability to handle Life’s Next Chapter, and also drooping sadness because it felt like everyone I was encountering was somehow yucking my yums. Normally I am a Que Sera, Sera Person, moving through life thinking we are doing our best, things will work out in the end, all will be well, and not being overly concerned if people don’t share my feelings about silly and fun things, but I just couldn’t shake my gloom. Part of this may have been due to the fact that I was short on sleep: one of the CO detectors’ battery died in the very early hours, waking me up with its incessant chirping even earlier than normal, and also that my Garmin was telling me that “it’s almost that time again!” which generally affects my sleep as well, in addition to my mood in general. I didn’t really need the reminder from my Garmin. My feelings of despair towards humanity were reminder enough, not to mention my giant swollen breasts that were spilling out of all of my yoga tanks.

My very dear friend Hannah who I love very much (HI HANNAH) somehow knew how I was feeling and sent me this, while I was standing in line at the post office, which in itself contributes to angst and despair:

It immediately turned my mood around; it made me so happy, and feel so seen. On days that I don’t get enough Last Christmas, I have been pulling out my sheet music and playing it on the piano. I am enjoying the fuck out of it.

Then, I came home to open a package sent to me by my dear friend Elise (HI ELISE), and I think I may have blacked out with excitement for a moment when I opened it.

Longtime readers will remember my obsession with the Sears Wish Book, and you just cannot even begin to imagine how exciting this was to receive in the mail. How did I get so lucky, to have such incredible friends? What an incredible gift! Thanks Elise!

This One’s For Becky. Back to the subject of music, I was driving home from the grocery store, listening to 70s on 7 – HI SUZ, the only other person I know who listens to that station – and Coward of the County came on. Let me just say that a) my parents were big Kenny Rogers fans, and b) I know the lyrics to almost every song I was exposed to more than once from my very young childhood to today, which means that probably 90% of my brain is song lyrics. If I could free up my brain power from remembering all these lyrics, I could probably cure cancer or something. Anyway, I hadn’t heard Coward of the County for many years but I still cheerfully sang along. Wow, that is one upbeat tune, given the grim nature of the song. Gang rape! Murder leading to lifetime incarceration! Generational trauma! I remember singing this song as a small child, which is unsettling to think of. Small Nicole, with her little bowl cut and her 70s clothing, singing Folks just called him Yellow! Son, you don’t have to fight to be a man.

I was likely singing and/ or talking in this photo, but it’s unlikely it was Coward of the County. Probably it was a Christmas song, or maybe just a stream of consciousness about the ornaments. Who can say.

Weekly Reading

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes. This seems like a bit of a morbid topic – the death/ mortuary/ funeral industry – but it is actually quite beautiful in a weird way, about honouring dead bodies and death rituals. I have always wondered about things like expensive caskets and the like, in a WHY kind of way. This was fascinating but not for the squeamish! One of my nephews is interested in pursuing a career in this industry, and reading it helped me understand the motivation.

Thanks For Waiting. This was an interesting concept for a memoir, from the cohost of Forever 35, one of my favourite podcasts. Shafrir talks about being a “late-bloomer,” achieving all those life milestones much later than all her peers, from tweenhood on. It goes from life as a writer in mice-infested NYC apartments, to living and dating in LA, to marriage and the incredible heartache of infertility treatments. It’s incredibly honest and brave, and I could hear her voice as I read this.

The Holiday Breakdown. You know I love a holiday romance, and this was just so delightful and fun. I smiled the whole time I was reading this sweet story; the main character was so fun and charming. The author cohosts Were You Raised By Wolves (two podcast-host books in a row!) and I could feel her warm and delightful personality shining though.

I hope you have a lovely week ahead of you. Maybe some festivities, as well? If you have some Heel Worthy Events, may I suggest some prophylactical Advil? That is, if you can get it. xo

Three For Thursday: The “Do You Remember The (very first) Night of December” Edition

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She Puzzled And Puzzled ‘Til Her Puzzler Was Sore, Then Nicole Thought Of Something She Hadn’t Before. Happy December! One of the very most exciting things about December First is the start of Advent calendars. I don’t know about you, but for me, growing up in the 80s, Advent calendars as they are seen today just weren’t in existence. Nowadays there are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of different kinds of Advent calendars – chocolates! booze! tiny samples of cosmetics and skin care products! hot drinks! and more! – but when I was a kid, there were two kinds: the cardboard ones in which you opened a door to reveal a Christmas-themed picture, as seen on Christmas Vacation, and the kind that your mom might buy in the grocery store after much pleading, which contained a centimetre-square of waxy chocolate in the shape of stockings, trees, and, on Christmas Eve, a star. We had both kinds, but the chocolate ones I had to share with my two brothers.

All of which is to say that my Very Pampered Family enjoys the Very Fancy Lindor calendars, and no one has to share, because Pampered. I have always wanted the excitement of my own calendar, but a chocolate one did not appeal to me. You would think that, being me, I would love a cosmetic or skin care calendar, but no. Samples are wasted on me because I stick with what I like and I don’t love to deviate, especially for just one day. Last year I bought myself a tea calendar, which was an utter failure; with maybe three exceptions, I hated the flavours.

So when I saw this puzzle calendar at Costco – at the beginning of October, but if you know anything about Costco, you snap up what you see because you may never see it again, and indeed I have NOT – I knew this was the calendar for me. A daily puzzle! Featuring DOGS. In SANTA HATS. If there is a more perfect calendar, I do not know what it is.

It’s A Wrap. My older son was so excited when I got home the other day, to tell me that Spotify Wrapped was out! This is a big day in the Boyhouse, let me tell you. I immediately opened the app to see my top songs and artists, and it was just as amazing as I thought it might be. I never have any idea what song I have listened to the most over the year; it is a constant surprise.

I absolutely love that my top song was Everyday People by Sly and the Family Stone, followed by i by Kendrick Lamar. I mean. I feel like this says something about me. Midnight Train To Georgia was last year’s number one song, so I wasn’t surprised to see it – I do love that song – but who knew I listened to You Can Call Me Al so much? I did not! Rounding out the list is the Marshall Tucker Band, which probably tells you a lot about the eclectic nature of my playlists.

My son is very put out that Spotify Wrapped only goes until October 31; that’s two MONTHS of data that is missing in a year. To be honest, it’s probably good because once November 12 hits, I play nothing but my Nicole Christmas playlist, which has 97 songs on it but many are just different versions of the same song. For example, I have five versions each of Baby, It’s Cold Outside (no, not the modern one, I prefer the weird hey what’s in this drink version) and Last Christmas (naturally). There are three versions each of Driving Home For Christmas, Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, River, This Christmas, and Santa Baby. I have four Little Drummer Boys, as well, and several other duplicates. This doesn’t even take into account the Jazzy Christmas, Mellow Piano Christmas, Michael Buble Christmas, and Charlie Brown Christmas that are in constant rotation. In other words, should November and December be included, my data would be very skewed.

I Got Mugged. The lovely and kind Elisabeth (HI ELISABETH) sent me a beautiful package for the #SecretSantaMugSwap2022, hosted as always by the wonderful community builder San (HI SAN). Just look at these wonderful treats! What a joy to delve into. Thank you so much, Elisabeth! I am especially intrigued by Hot Honey, and in fact I may start calling my husband Hot Honey. Or insist that he call me that. We shall see! I was thrilled with each and every item in this very fun package! December is Fun Mail Month, and I feel like Elisabeth has started things off with a bang.

Speaking of my wonderful, supportive, and inclusive blog community, so many of you participated in NaBloPoMo, where bloggers post every day in the month of November, and many of you did Ask Me Anything posts. To be honest, I had a little bit of FOMO; I wanted to do one of my own, but I thought it would be better for me to wait until December, when the flood of posts faded to a mere stream. So do you have questions for me? Fill out this form! I will answer them to the best of my ability! I have no shame! Literally anything!

Congratulations to all of you NaBloPoMo participants! What an accomplishment by you all! I know one of you in particular is quite sad it’s over – HI ENGIE – and I thought of you as I wrote this, on December 1. I thought you may never speak to me again if I didn’t include a few fuzzy photos, so don’t worry, I will not disappoint my readership. Happy December, everyone. Baby, it’s cold outside here, so I hope wherever you are you are cozy and warm. xo

Rex will not share his doughnut with you, so don’t even ask.

Rex loves to lie in the corner where the tree is currently residing. His second choice is to wedge himself between the table and the wall. Maybe he thinks he’s a gift under the tree? If so, he’s right. Best gift ever.

Sudden Season Shift

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This is the time of year when my friends in milder climates are talking about crunchy leaves, and the beauty and splendor of fall, and meanwhile, we are in full-on winter!

The Weather hit November 1, which felt very appropriate for Tiny Secret Festive Season. Temperatures plummeted to the minus double-digits, a ton of snow fell, and the roads were pure chaos, as is usual for the first few snowfalls. Because I am apparently an idiot, I decided to go get groceries on Designated Grocery Day, even though that was the day of an actual blizzard, with ice under the snow and the streets not yet cleared. I will just say it was a pretty unnerving drive, going up a slippery hill with a lot of traffic, wondering if I would lose momentum and either stall out or start to slide DOWN the hill. Anyway, I made it, and to no one’s surprise there were very few customers, so it wasn’t long before I was on my way back home, vowing not to take the car out again for any reason. Of course, Rex needed a walk, so we went five kilometres in unplowed, unshovelled, ankle-deep snow, which was delightful for him and a massive leg workout for me. Win-win?

I am feeling festive, people! In a tiny and secret way. I’ve also finished most of my Christmas shopping; I still need little stocking stuffers, but I’m done, done, done. Here’s a question: do you have gift-giving anxiety? I don’t generally, but there are two people on my list who I do worry about, along the lines of is this the right thing, will they like this, what if they don’t like it. Intellectually, I think this is silly. It’s a gift! I’m trying my best to be thoughtful! When I receive a gift I am universally delighted! But emotionally, well, it’s a different story. This is possibly because last year, I thought I had hit on the exact perfect thing, FINALLY, after all these years, and I was so excited, and I really realized what all those people for whom gift giving is their love language felt like, and then I never heard a word about the gift from the recipient. So that was disheartening.

Well, no matter. The shopping is done! I tried my best! This is all we can do, and now I’m faced with The Great Wrapping And Shipping Task.

One thing I haven’t done yet is creating and ordering photo calendars. Ever since the boys were small – I can’t remember how small, because honestly 2004-2007 is just one big blur – I have made a photo calendar for each set of grandparents and one of their aunts. This year, I thought, you know what, they are too old to do this now. I mean, they are 17 and 18! I’m not even sure I have twelve photos of the two of them together in 2022 and if I do, it’s guaranteed they will feature ridiculous posturing and facial expressions. This gift, I thought, has had its day and now that day has passed.

Well. I will tell you, people, what I thought was a natural end to something brought massive consternation and angst to the involved parties. My mother (who is probably reading this, HI MOM) and mother-in-law reacted with sadness and a LOT of passive-aggressive commentary (my mother-in-law informed me that she has saved every single calendar and when she’s feeling blue she looks at them in order to see their age progression), but my dad went full-on aggressive-aggressive. Why WOULDN’T I make a calendar? Age doesn’t matter! If my mother-in-law was unhappy, and my parents were unhappy, why wouldn’t I do something, something SO EASY, to make everyone happy? Their happiness was in MY control! This continued until I finally broke down, like a prisoner being waterboarded. Fine! FINE! I’LL MAKE A GODDAMN CALENDAR! I think those were my exact words. Essentially, my dad bullied me into making another calendar, and so evidently I will be making calendars until the end of time.

Well, maybe I’ll try something new and add photos of them throughout the years; that would be pretty cute, to have toddlers next to high school graduation next to a day at the zoo. Or Rex photos! I used to put Barkley in our calendar, so this seems like a natural progression. I guess I better figure it out soon because a) I have a coupon for printing, b) I want to just finish the job and get it in the mail, and c) everyone’s happiness is depending on me so I must start immediately.

Speaking of happiness or the opposite, Time Change. It is hard to believe that this ridiculous imaginary construct is still going on, but here we are. Let’s send out all our love and good wishes to the moms of little ones who are now waking up at ungodly hours (and, let’s face it, me, because I get up between 4 and 4:30 normally, so you can imagine what my internal clock is doing) and who will be having meltdowns and falling asleep in their dinners this week (again, me). (Lisa, you okay? HI LISA) I have been ranting about Time Change for years, and so I won’t repeat myself, but for god’s sake, can we just pick a time and stick with it? There is a great article about it in National Geographic, and I love that it possibly started with a satirical letter by Benjamin Franklin; if indeed that is true, that seems fitting.

Weekly Reading

Well, one benefit of finding myself awake extremely early on a Sunday morning meant that I got some extra reading done. It was a week of two hits and a meh.

The Marriage Bureau. One of my yoga ladies loaned me this book, knowing my love for The Crown and Downton Abbey. I was under the impression that it was historical fiction but it’s not really; it’s more like a collection of anecdotes from researching the archives and old interviews of the founder of the Marriage Bureau, a matchmaking service in England in the 1940s. I did enjoy thinking about how people meet other people, and possibly marry, at that time but I didn’t love the writing style. I found it stilted and a bit clunky. It’s in development for a television series and I think it would play well on the screen, but it’s kind of tedious to read. Still, interesting to think – how did people meet during a war? During colonial times? Were these marriages successful? Out of all the marriages that resulted from the matchmaking, only two ended in divorce, which is a pretty good success rate.

Book Lovers. I will admit that I was a bit hesitant because this is such a popular book, and sometimes these popular reads do not live up to the hype for me. However! Nothing disappointing about this! It was tremendously fun and just a delight to read! It’s like a very witty, twisty Hallmark movie, in the best way possible. I loved it! What a feel-good book!

Blue Nights. Whenever I read Joan Didion, I become obsessed with Joan Didion. I end up looking at photos and reading her biography and imagining life in the Sixties, being a writer in Southern California with all the other famous writers. I imagine working at Vogue in the Fifties – think of that! Anyway. Blue Nights is a very moving book about the loss of her daughter, reflections on their life together, and her own struggles with the aging process and loss of health. It is in no way uplifting, and it is quite tragic, more in what is left unsaid than what is said, to roughly quote Hemingway (did I just quote Hemingway, obviously I am affected by Time Change).

It’s shaping up to be a very cold week here, as in “minus twenties” kind of cold. It’s officially Legwarmer Season, as well as Tiny Secret Festive Season! Whatever Season you are celebrating this week, I hope it’s warming and lovely. xo

Halloween and Teens

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Happy Halloween, everyone! Whatever your plans today, I hope they at least contain some Fun Sized chocolates. Because I am a Very Fancy Lady, I have a big bowlful of full-sized chocolate bars, and because I get weirdly paranoid about Halloween, I also have purchase three giant boxes of mini chocolate bars and fruity candy, because what if we get swarmed by children and I run out of the big chocolate bars? What if? This has never happened, but there is a first time for everything.

Does Rex want to be a cowboy for Halloween, or would he prefer a tiny sparkly sombrero? We don’t know. We also don’t know what he’s going to think of Trick-or-Treaters. He doesn’t bark when people come to the door, but he is very interested in people, so we are going to have to make sure he doesn’t accidentally bowl small Paw Patrollers over.

This is my Annual Reminder that Teens Are People Too; my very strict rule is that if someone comes to my door on Halloween, they will get a treat. There is no age limit to this, I don’t even care if there is a costume involved, and I certainly don’t have a performance or singing requirement. I’m not telling anyone else what to do with their stash of Fun-Size Kit Kats, but in this house, everyone gets a damn chocolate bar, and I don’t care if the Trick-or-Treater is 6’2″ and is just wearing regular clothes. Halloween is for everyone!

My own teens are not Trick-or-Treating and haven’t for a few years now, but they have been pilfering from my boxes of mini chocolate bars, so maybe I should buy another box, just in case?

No. I need to stay strong. I HAVE ENOUGH.

Besides which, the guys have a lot of sugar cookies to eat, because it isn’t a festivity if there aren’t cookies involved:

The snow mostly melted, just in time for more snow coming this week. Prior to that we had a lot of heavy winds, and some of the decorations took the hit, particularly our hanging mummy:

My husband was out of town for a few days, but the boys managed to fix the decorations that ended up tangled in tree branches, but the ground was so wet from all the snow that they couldn’t get the mummy to stand back up. It took some effort but they jerry-rigged it to a tree. Between that and my younger son putting the winter tires on my car, I am really celebrating having teens, even more than usual. Even when they eat into my stash of mini chocolate bars.

The guys gave me this shirt for Christmas, and it has spurred a whole series of Fuck Things around here. For example, the song September only needs to play for someone to comment “Earth, Wind, and Fire. Fuck water.” There was a restaurant in a small town that we drove past this summer, called “Breakfast Matters…Lunch Too!” at which point, my younger son said “Fuck dinner.”

Good times. Today I teach my Strength and Tone Yoga class, and I think I’m going to take my ladies some Lindors from my secret stash that no one but me knows about, which is why it still exists; maybe I’ll dig out my little witch fascinator as well. Will it stay on during downward dog? Who can say.

Weekly Reading

The Wild Iris. I have been reading this beautiful book of poetry each morning prior to my yoga practice, over the past couple of months. It’s gorgeous. Thanks so much to Suzanne (HI SUZANNE) for introducing me to the incredible Louise Gluck!

The Dictionary of Lost Words. I think it was from reading a Bill Bryson book that I realized…the Oxford English Dictionary didn’t always exist. I mean, obviously! Someone had to write it! But imagine the work that went into that. It took decades, and that is the basis of this novel; the writing of the OED. Importantly, the story deals with words the dictionary DOESN’T include. There was absolutely a bias in the writing of the dictionary; words predominantly used by women and lower classes were typically not included. (There is a whole chapter on the c-word.) Given the fascinating topic, this book should have been a home run for me, but it wasn’t. There were good parts and it was thought provoking, but the story didn’t grab me; I had a hard time getting into it and I found the characters flat. I liked it okay, but not as much as I thought I would. This book got rave reviews, so take my review with a grain of salt, but I just could not CARE about the story as it was written, although I spent a lot of time thinking about the Educated White Man bias that decided which words were important enough to end up in the dictionary.

Unmask Alice. Now, this WAS a home run for me. This book was bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S. Did you read Go Ask Alice when you were a teen? I sure did and it scared the bejesus out of me. I credit it for keeping me from ever trying LSD or any hard drugs, and believe me, I was no angel. Who could forget the final freak out? Who could forget her ripping out her own hair and skin because she thought she was crawling with maggots? Who could forget when she ran away, got her period, and had no feminine supplies. Not that these things are equal, but all distressing. Anyway, the “diary” was completely fake and as an adult, of course, I can see it. I mean, no one goes from acid to speed to HEROIN to…pot. What I didn’t know is how insidious the author of Go Ask Alice was. This book is nuts and it takes you on a wild ride. It covers everything from Satanism to Art Linkletter, of “Kids say the darnedest things” fame. It’s wild and the side notes are supremely funny. At the same time, the religious background of the author makes things like the homophobia of Go Ask Alice even more disturbing than it was on first read. I had no idea that the author of Go Ask Alice went on to “edit” “real diaries” of many other troubled teens, right up until before her death in the early 2000s, always pretending that those diaries were completely authentic, although they all SOMEHOW backed up her own belief system. And just as soon as you think you know what’s happening, this book takes a crazy turn at the end.

Happy Halloween, everyone! Tomorrow is the start of Tiny Secret Festive Season! My Christmas bracelet is waiting in the wings, I have festive-scented hand soaps for every sink, and the fall-themed tea towels are preparing to go back in the closet, to be replaced by all the holiday ones. It won’t be long before I bust out the Christmas playlists and songbooks.

Rex will probably be glad for some Christmas music; I have been learning Bridge Over Troubled Water and it is a BITCH with key changes and difficult fingering.

Enjoy the festivities tonight, whatever you are doing, and best of luck to all my friends starting NaBloPoMo tomorrow! I’ll do my best to keep up with you, but no promises! Have a great week. xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The It’s Fall, Y’all Edition

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We have had the most beautiful October with the longest stretch of sunny and warm weather; it’s been the kind of weather that evokes that Anne Shirley quote – I’m glad I live in a world where there are Octobers – which, believe me, is not a normal state of affairs in Calgary. Our first snowfall came fully 2/3 into the month, which is late for us. Here are our Halloween decorations before the snow:

And here is the after:

This is fall in Calgary! You just never know what the day might bring. All of this means that it’s time to pull out the thigh high wool socks, the bumwarmers, and the winter boots. It’s also time for a Favourite Things!

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The It’s Fall, Y’all Edition

It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers

Well, you didn’t think that I would get through an October Favourite Things post without talking about decorative gourds, did you, motherfuckers?

After last year’s fiasco with local wildlife stealing my little gourds and eating them, I decided to keep my miniature gourds inside. Those soft crafted pumpkins were gifted to me by a friend (HI TARYN) and regularly get wagged off the piano stool by SOMEONE. The piano stool was my great-grandmother’s, and I only recently incorporated it into my main-floor décor.

The Girls

Sometimes I can really visualize my future self, and one of those iterations of my future self is Crazy Plant Lady. I mean, I can really see it; me, at an advanced age, lipstick on, wearing flowing black old-lady tops, talking to houseplants, and referring to them all as her babies. It’s already happening, to be truthful.

It all started when my friend Denise (HI DENISE) relocated to Houston, and gave me her 17-year-old Christmas cactus. This Christmas cactus is as old as my youngest child, people. I am a Garden Person but I haven’t had indoor plants for years, other than my almost-zero-maintenance jade plant; still, I promised to care for it tenderly. I immediately named it Noelle and started researching How To Care For A Christmas Cactus.

The first order of business was to re-pot it, and for that I needed some more soil. Too long, didn’t read; I should never be left in the garden centre alone. I decided that along with a new pot and some soil, Noelle needed a friend, and this decorative pepper plant was just the ticket. I named her Pippa. If I had more space Noelle would have had a whole clique of friends, alas, I do not have space.

I had this cute little plant vignette for a week or so, but when we found out that Rex was coming to our home I moved them to the top of the hutch. I wasn’t sure if Rex was a plant-eater – he decidedly is NOT – but I thought his gigantic wagging tail might easily knock over The Girls. This turned out to be prescient, as the aforementioned soft gourds are often flying across the kitchen.

Scrub-a-Dub-Dub

I have loved the Rocky Mountain Soap company for years, but I have always ordered their products online. This generally worked great, but sometimes I ended up with a scent that I disliked. A few months ago I was at the mall which is five minutes from my house, and discovered that they had a new, REAL LIFE store! How exciting! I was able to sniff to my heart’s content, and I bought this lovely Blood Orange Body Scrub:

It’s orange, so I feel like it suits a Fall Favourites. It smells like a creamsicle, or The Body Shop Satsuma line. It’s the perfect blend of scrub and oil, so that it really moisturizes while exfoliating. It’s great for those of us who – pardon me for being indelicate – tend to get ingrown hairs in the bikini area.

Hair

I saw this gorgeous photolog of a woman’s journey to grow out her grey hair, and I was kind of inspired, but not inspired enough, if you know what I mean. One day I shall stop dying my hair, but that day is not today. However. My hair seems to grow fairly fast, if my roots are any indication, which means that in the days leading up to Colour Day, they are fairly dramatic. My roots are almost totally white, which means I am always playing the game of is that my roots or is my scalp showing, am I losing my hair or is it just white. It’s not the most fun game.

I wear my hair up in a bun fairly often, particularly on teaching days, or on days that I don’t wash my hair. I found this hair band, which has trailing ends to make it look like a scarf, and I love it. It makes me feel like a fashionable hippie, or a fortune-teller, but in the best possible way.

I love it because it’s quite wide, so it covers up my roots nicely. I have many hair bands, but this is my new favourite because of the long scarf detailing.

Rex, Enthusiastic Subscriber to Friluftsliv

It’s been over two years since I decided to embrace my Norwegian heritage and the concept of friluftsliv; winters in Calgary are long indeed and I was tired of dreading them. I mean, what can you do about weather? There are two options: you can be miserable, or you can adapt. Well, I guess there are three options: you could move, but I didn’t foresee myself packing up and moving to Maui, the only place that I know of that has perfect weather year-round, so really, there are only two feasible options.

So here we are with quite a bit of heavy, wet snow on the ground, and the stunningly beautiful warmth of this fall in the rearview mirror. In years past, I may have felt a bit disheartened at the prospect of cold, cold, and more cold for the next six or seven months, but NOT TODAY, SATAN. I have layers and I shall wear them, I have many pairs of winter boots, I have bum warmers and thick coats, and I have Rex.

It’s impossible not to be moved by his pure joy at the first snowfall. What a dog! In the ayurvedic world, I believe Rex would be pitta. Bernese mountain dogs are built for winter conditions, so I have a lot of vicarious joy coming my way, as we come into the season. And hey, there’s nothing like winter to soothe those hot flashes, am I right?

Hot Stuff; Heart Stuff

Speaking of hot flashes, Kari (HI KARI) had written this post about menopause, from a Gen X woman’s standpoint, and it is tremendous. All 34 menopause symptoms, each with a song from the 80s. This post was from 5 years ago, but I like to reference it from time to time because High and Dry.

Specific to that point, this How To Apply “No-Makeup” Makeup: A Guide For Mature Women is absolutely worth a read.

This month, Suzanne (HI SUZANNE) wrote a post about measuring with your heart, and I felt seen. I never use the amount of vanilla that a recipe calls for; I at least double it or I just glug glug glug it in. Other things I measure with my heart: to-be-read book lists, grated ginger in any stir-fry recipe, chocolate chips in desserts and cookies, and nut butters in my smoothies.

Speaking of nut butters, has anyone else noticed how tiny the Reece peanut butter cup “fun size” treats are? What the what? When did this happen?

Peanut butter chocolate is still one of my favourite things, but as of next week we will be entering my favourite flavour season: MINT CHOCOLATE! But that is a topic for another post. What are your Favourite Things this month? Tell me everything. xo

First Step

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Happy Thanksgiving! I hope all my Canadian friends are enjoying this holiday Monday, and I hope you all – Canadian and beyond! – have had a beautiful weekend filled with delicious food and lots of love. I have so very much to be thankful for, not least of which was the Friday night with my parents. Due to my son’s work schedule, we headed up to visit on Friday, when my mom made an enormous dinner with three pies, and a chocolate cake for me, her spoiled daughter who does not like pie. We had a great night with lots of food, wine, and raucous dice games.

Last Monday one of my students brought up the quote “Gratitude is the first step to joy,” and I have been meditating on that all week. I have so much to be grateful for, the number one of which is my family; sometimes I just feel like my heart is going to explode thinking of it. Health, of course, is also a great source of gratitude. At my age, I am seeing more and more friends and acquaintances with health issues, both minor and, sadly, severe. One of my favourite Peloton instructors has a motivational phrase that goes along the lines of I woke up this morning, I put my feet on the ground, not everyone has that privilege. I am starting to completely understand why, when you talk to older people, the conversation veers towards all their friends who are sick and/or dead. Not to be grim, but the older we get the more of that we see, and so I am grateful, so very grateful, for my good health. I woke up this morning! I put my feet on the ground!

Good health is, of course, a broad umbrella. I have found that, with my kids going maskless most of the time, we are all like toddlers on their first foray into day care. Sniffles abound! But this is a minor complaint. In general, our health is good, and I hope tomorrow’s mammogram will confirm that as well.

It is, I will admit, that time in my cycle when my emotions are bigger and for me that means my feelings of gratitude for the mundane cannot be contained. But what better day to list such things than Thanksgiving?

Food, Glorious Food

Supply chain issues and my weird obsession with lemon juice and popcorn notwithstanding, isn’t it incredible that we can go into a grocery store at any time and purchase almost anything? Sure, prices are through the roof and yes, sriracha is still unavailable, but just think of the bounty and variety there for the taking. When I was a kid, the fruit that was available to me in the winter was restricted to bananas and apples, with the occasional bunch of green grapes and mandarin oranges at Christmas. Vegetables were largely frozen or canned, and that was that. Now look at the produce section. Strawberries! Available any time of the year! Somewhere in the world, there is a farmer who is growing strawberries, and Mother Nature is providing sunshine and rain for those strawberries, and people are picking them, and then people transport them, and then the lovely people at Superstore unload them into beautiful displays. So many factors go into our fruit and vegetables, and if I let myself think about it for just a moment, I feel overwhelmed with gratitude.

Now think of all the ways we can prepare food. A mere fifteen or twenty years ago, if I wanted to make a dish I would have to find a recipe in a cookbook, and figure things out. Now there are multitudes of recipes, for free, right in the literal palm of my hand, even the most obscure. A world of flavour at our disposal! Not that I’m great at following recipes, mind you, but inspiration has to come from somewhere.

Home, Sweet and Warm and With Running Water, Home

Maybe this is due to my son’s recent backcountry camping trip, but good lord, I am grateful for clean water. Isn’t it amazing that we can turn a tap and there is clean, safe water? Not only that but we can choose the temperature and it just HAPPENS. There is a water pipe system in place, a sewage system in place, there are people who treat water, and there are scientists who figured out what we need to do to have safe water, and here we are. Every shower and glass of water and load of laundry is a miracle of engineering and technology.

Not only is water heated with absolutely no effort from me except by turning the tap a certain way, but the house is also warm and snug. There’s no fire to stoke. There’s no fuel to haul. I touch the thermostat and the temperature adjusts. Isn’t that incredible? And if it doesn’t, I call Tony the Hot Plumber Who I Have a Bit of a Crush On, and he comes and fixes it. Within the DAY.

Baby You Can Drive My Car

A little while back, Elisabeth (HI ELISABETH) mentioned how grateful she was for being able to drive, and I see her, and raise her. Yes, I am incredibly grateful to a) have learned to drive as a mere 16-year-old, b) have a reliable vehicle, and c) be able to afford to put gas in the car. There are many places where women cannot drive, and there are many who cannot afford a vehicle or gasoline. But more than that I am grateful to have two children who drive. Specifically, I am so grateful my son can drive himself to wrestling practice in the evenings so that two evenings a week I don’t have to keep my regular clothes on until 8:30, at which point I can finally don my jammies and go to bed.

The Awesome Power of Nature

A few years ago, my friend Taryn (HI TARYN) and I were hiking in the mountains when we came across a rushing stream, at which point Taryn said in a booming, PBS-nature-special-voice, “BEHOLD! THE AWESOME POWER OF NATURE!” This was a running joke between her and her husband, and when she shared it with me I started thinking of it every time I saw something pretty in nature. I thought of it every day this week as I walked or ran, with the leaves turning and the skies so blue. Isn’t it amazing? Crunchy leaves underneath our feet, indicating that the trees are preparing for their wintering, just as I am, by digging out my boots and sweaters.

Our Community, Big and Small

I absolutely love the community I live in. I can walk to any number of amenities – grateful for those amenities! – and the people here are generally wonderful. I love my friends, who are all so special in different ways, and I love our blogging community. When I started this blog in 2008, I was part of a lovely little community of bloggers, only one of whom – HI ALLISON – is still blogging today. The blogging world changed for a while – remember sponsored content? – but then a few years ago, I started to belong to a new community. This community strengthened during the pandemic, and I am so grateful for all of you.

If you’re reading this, yes! I am talking to you. I am grateful for YOU. Thank you for being here.

Weekly Reading

Barreling Forward. We all know I really enjoy short stories, and I enjoyed this collection by a new Canadian author. I feel like she might be from Newfoundland, her stories have that flavour, if you know what I mean. If you know, you know.

Lessons in Chemistry. I had heard good things about this and it did not disappoint! It was truly a delight to read BUT…I started it at that time in my cycle when my always-simmering rage about our patriarchal society and institutionalized misogyny boils over. Reading the first fifty pages, with the gross and sexist treatment of the lovely, brilliant scientist main character, my rage boiled all over the stove and left burned on crusts, almost impossible to scrub off. Happily, before I gave up on it and threw it across the room, a dog was introduced as a main character and I was charmed enough to keep reading. It’s a wonderful book that is ultimately about the power of women and the importance of lifting each other up. Oh, and that dogs are smart and wonderful.

This Will All Be Over Soon. I heard about this on a podcast and I thought it sounded interesting enough: it is a memoir by SNL’s Cecily Strong, about mourning the loss of her cousin and then experiencing the early days of the pandemic. The podcast mentioned it was written in diary form, but it reads like her actual diary, which is to say from a writing point of view, it is not great, Bob. It’s not terrible, and it’s a fast read, but I didn’t find it to be particularly compelling or interesting. It did, however, make me feel hopeful as it reminded me just how bleak and scary those early pandemic days were. Over the past ten months or so, almost everyone I know has been boosted and also has had Covid, as have I on both counts, and so I kind of forgot just how deadly and terrifying the virus was back in 2020. It was also interesting to read about experiencing Covid in NYC, which was a different experience, I think, from the rest of the continent. On the whole though, I did not enjoy this.

Fun fact about today’s title: I cannot say the words “first step” without mentally singing “ask her out and treat her like a layyyydayyyy.” It’s impossible! Sometimes I am able to stop there, but mostly my mind will go all the way through the old Eddie Rabbit song. It’s fun to be me! There’s always music. Happy Thanksgiving, my friends. xo

All Creatures Great and Small

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It has been quite the week! We just got back yesterday from a whirlwind visit to my mother-in-law; we flew in on Friday morning and were home yesterday before noon. I am a wee bit exhausted by this; I am used to having weekends being more restorative, and to be honest, I am a bit scrambled. I’m glad we went, of course, my mother-in-law isn’t getting any younger, and this trip was in lieu of our usual Thanksgiving visit. Flights on Thanksgiving weekend were more expensive than, say, flying to Europe or Hawaii would be, and so we went this weekend instead. Not that we are flying to Europe or Hawaii, but the thought of paying upwards of $700 per person for a flight that is less than one hour in duration feels very wrong.

I was in need of a restorative weekend as it had been a busy week, what with the preparation for my son going camping and then all the necessary preparation for this, albeit brief, trip. We are still flying carryon only, which is not a big deal for only two nights away, but was a little bit tricky as the plane we were on was a tiny prop plane, and so a larger carryon item wasn’t going to fit very well. I didn’t want to be THAT person, jamming an oversized carryon into the overhead bin, only to have it taken away and checked. It took some finagling, but I managed to squeeze everything I needed into the tiniest carryon we had, and the guys ended up taking their changes of clothes in their gym bags. I had the foresight to leave all necessary toiletries, other than my makeup and night cream, at our vacation house, so it wasn’t too bad.

I’m sure I could travel with fewer products, but which of these can I do without? Well, no matter, they fit in the bag.

My son got back from his camping trip on Thursday, and he had a great time. You will all be happy to know that the water pump was shut down for the winter and so they had to haul fresh water; no one got any kind of explosive diarrhea, which I think is an accomplishment. My son loves camping and had the best time; one of his teachers took a group of kids on a midnight walk to a bear breeding ground. No bears were seen, because what bear would be within five kilometres of ninety teenagers? Funnily enough, on the weekend my older son spotted this guy right off of our deck.

Speaking of wildlife, we have had a few strange scenarios with the woodland creatures around our house. I was putting my hair up in my room and I idly looked out at the tree in our front yard. There were two squirrels, one chasing the other, and just as my brain formed the thought oh, cute, one squirrel mounted the other and started just going to town. Squirrel porn, right in my front yard. I averted my eyes but I could still see frantic, fuzzy activity in my peripheral vision. Then the squirrel popped off, and seconds later, remounted. Wow, that was a quick recovery. This happened TWICE MORE and honestly, god bless. I was confused, though, because I didn’t realize this was Squirrel Mating Season. Is it Squirrel Mating Season? Who can say. I’m not up on my squirrel reproductive habit research.

Shortly after this amorous display, I was having coffee in the kitchen and I saw a squirrel curled up in the backyard. This is the time of year that they are digging and gathering grass for their winter homes, and so I figured that was what this squirrel was doing. As I sipped my coffee, staring out the window, I realized that the squirrel hadn’t moved for the duration of my Out The Window Staring. Uh oh, I thought. I have never seen a stationary squirrel that hadn’t been run over by a car or something, so naturally, I feared the worst. I opened the back door and clapped my hands loudly, thinking that if that didn’t get the squirrel moving, then we had a problem.

It didn’t move.

For the first time since Barkley’s passing, I was relieved my fuzzy friend wasn’t here to discover death firsthand. Imagine prying that out of his mouth.

My younger son was having breakfast and I informed him that he would have to be a squirrel undertaker, as it were. That kid. He’s game for anything. He grabbed a garbage bag and the garage key to get a shovel, but came back immediately asking for help from my other son, who was getting ready for work. It turns out that the squirrel was not intact, and I’m not talking about that weird scene with Charles in The Crown where he refers to Camilla as such. I’m saying that it was apparent that the mythical neighbourhood bobcat, who I’m always hearing about on our neighbourhood Facebook page, was in our backyard, and the squirrel was not, as I thought, just curled up under its tail. It didn’t exist other than its tail and a small amount of rear end. I texted my neighbours with cats to let them know, to which one of them replied that that explained the half-eaten rabbit found in their front yard.

What is HAPPENING in my neighbourhood? Is it not enough that I cross paths with coyotes on a weekly basis when I’m out running? Well, between squirrel mating and squirrel dismemberment, I guess it’s the circle of life.

Another little life came to an end, and it was my fault, I’m afraid. Before I get to that, I must explain to those who don’t know about Superstore, the grocery store that receives most of my patronage and a lot of my time. One of the ways that Superstore keeps its prices low is by not having grocery baggers; shoppers bag their own groceries. Bags are available for purchase, but I have some plastic bins I use for the purpose, as well as a number of cloth bags. Generally I leave these bins in the garage before popping them in my car on grocery day, and here is where my story begins. I had just finished unloading my groceries on the conveyor belt and I zipped over to the other side of the cashier, to pack them up. I grabbed my bins and a little spider scrambled out of one of them, right onto the conveyor belt, probably surprised it wasn’t in my garage anymore. Listen: I live in Canada, not Australia, and any spiders around here are completely harmless; in fact, they are beneficial as they eat all manner of irritating insects. I did think, though, that as not everyone shares my view I should move the spider somehow, but as I was puzzling as to the how, it disappeared before my very eyes. Okay then. I started packing up my groceries at the same time the cashier started shrieking. She grabbed several tissues and made panicked grabs at the conveyor belt, telling me that THERE IS A SPIDER! WHERE DID IT COME FROM! And although I do think in general honesty is the best policy, in the face of this hysteria, because hysteria it was, I was not going to be truthful in this situation. I awkwardly said “Oh,” while the cashier smashed her tissues on the conveyor belt, and then showed me the successful result of her spider hunt. All this – from the spider’s appearance to its demise – took place in under sixty seconds, but honestly it felt a lot longer. The cashier let out a deep breath and said “Whew, that was a close one,” as if we were in mortal danger and moments away from shuffling off this mortal coil.

On the topic of mortal danger, I had a dentist appointment this week. Mortal danger may be an overstatement, but the dentist, even for a run-of-the-mill appointment, is never that pleasant. Unlike many people, I don’t get anxiety about the dentist, nor do I find it particularly painful. I just dread the dentist because the appointments take so LONG. Here’s the thing: I can often expect a long wait at the doctor’s office, and so I always take a book with me. That way, if I’m waiting 45 minutes, it doesn’t feel like a waste of time because I’m reading. When I’m at the dentist, the appointment is – and this is just for cleaning and a checkup, so nothing invasive – at least ninety minutes. Ninety minutes of lying on my back with my mouth open, and let me tell you, in the best of scenarios – and you know what I’m saying here – I don’t want to be lying on my back for ninety minutes. With my mouth open. I think you know what I mean, let’s circle back to Mating Season.

It just feels like such a waste of time, and I know, I know, it isn’t. Dental health is very important, etcetera, etcetera, but the appointments are JUST SO LONG. And there is nothing for it but to lie there, turn your head when asked, and use that gross suction thing to suck up excess saliva “whenever you need to.” I really like my hygienist, she is an absolute dream of a hygienist, but I find myself having weird open mouthed conversations between suctioning and scraping, and that doesn’t make my appointment any shorter, either. Fun fact: telling someone that you are a yoga teacher leads to extensive conversations about what can be done about tight hamstrings, sore knees, and anxiety. Our conversation about knee replacement surgery and also what I did this summer probably added a good fifteen minutes to my appointment, god bless whoever had the slot after mine. But, and this is a fault of mine I am sure, I have no idea how to stop conversations that have gone on too long. When having an earnest conversation about someone’s bone health, I’m not sure how to say can we just get on with the appointment. Well. It’s fine. It will be another six months before I have to worry about this, I guess.

Weekly Reading

The Startup Wife. You know what is enraging? Women who do all the work while men get all the credit. This book is exactly about that. It was a sharp, satirical, and very fast-moving story about a woman who starts an app with her husband and their friend. She does all the work, all the coding…but her charismatic husband gets all the adulation. Things start to get weird, because it’s an app about rituals and spirituality. An interesting, albeit enraging, read.

The Dead Moms Club. This author is the cohost of a podcast I enjoy called Forever 35, and because I enjoy her so much so I picked up this book. What a wonderful book about grieving and loss – it is warm and funny, but very thoughtful and informative (how to help when someone is grieving, for example). A beautiful book and I look forward to more by this author. 

It doesn’t look like it will be a very relaxing week around here, but I am hoping to make it to Friday when I can get a bit caught up on sleep. I hope you all have a wonderful week! xo