Category Archives: Hello Calgary

A Week of Summer Outfits

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With only a couple of exceptions, we have had the most beautiful summer weather over the past few weeks. In fact, we even had a HEAT WAVE. Now, before my friends in the southern part of the US start to feel sympathy for me in this heat wave, let me show you the warning from Environment Canada to give some context:

For those of you who think in terms of Fahrenheit, let me translate: the daily highs varied between 82.4 and 89.6, with overnight lows in the 50s. That, friends, is what constitutes a heat wave in Calgary. The entire city starts to melt and shrivel in such crazy hot temperatures.

Have you finished wiping away your tears of laughter?

As I’m going through the process of loving and appreciating all the clothes I have, as per The Big Project, I wanted to share with you a typical week’s worth of summer outfits; the week includes our Heat Wave but also a day or two of cooler temperatures, because it’s all about volatility in this city.

As previously discussed in A Week of Spring Outfits, the Curated Closet encourages the idea of a “uniform,” and my Summer Uniform for hot (or, “hot”) days is comprised of a skirt with shorts attached (a “skort”), and a shelf-bra yoga tank. Non-hot days call for a uniform similar to the rest of the year: fitted pants with a yoga tank or a tee, sometimes layered.

One Week Of Summer Outfits

Thursday

The week starts on Thursday, which happened to be the start of what I have been thinking of as Summer Vacation. Because of the Heat Wave, I decided to take the boys up to visit my parents at the lake. My husband was busy with work, so we decided to go up on Thursday after my younger son’s driving lesson and come home on Saturday, and it was the most perfect visit you can imagine.

Behold the Summer Uniform! I have had this skirt since at least 2015, and the tank since probably 2010, but possibly longer. Needless to say, this outfit is a longtime favourite! I don’t wear much colour as a rule, but I do like a little pop in the summer on occasion.

This was a perfect outfit for driving – very comfortable – and great for drinking wine while the boys paddleboarded in the evening, prior to a couple raucous dice games with my parents.

Friday

This day might go down as one of the best days of all time. I will be remembering it forever, I think. It was truly perfect: I went for a sweet run in the morning, and then we spent the day on the boat. The weather was perfect and the water – which only two weeks ago was absolutely frigid – was swimming-pool temperature. The boys and I jumped off the boat and swam a lot, and the boys tried out the Big Mable for the first time in three or four years, and we just had the best time. Many thanks to my dad for being our captain for the afternoon!

I spent most of the day in a bikini and booty shorts, but by late afternoon my look was more Drowned Rat than anything, so I attempted to make myself presentable for Margarita Hour and dinner.

This is an actual tank top – from Jacob, which closed its doors in 2015, so who knows how old it is – and I’m wearing an actual bra, which I feel is notable. The skirt is probably four years old and makes me feel lovely and summery.

Saturday

Sadly, time to go home! I took a solo paddleboard in the morning on the perfectly-quiet lake and then we headed home. I was only away from my garden for a day, but it needed some love, particularly the tomatoes.

Before I get to the outfit, I have to tell you about this watering wand from Lee Valley Tools. It was a birthday gift this year and it’s amazing. You know when you have an old tool that doesn’t work well but it works well enough, and then it’s replaced with a far superior model and you can’t believe how long you put up with the crappy old tool? That was my experience with this watering wand. My old one leaked, so every time I used it my shoes and pants would be wet; this new wand is like entering a whole new world of hand-held garden irrigation.

This tank top, in a subtle camouflage, feels new, but it must be at least four or five years old. Isn’t that funny how that happens? And my black skirt, well, it’s a Summer Staple.

Sunday

It was a lovely surprise that my husband decided to take this week off; something was delayed, work-wise, and believe me, if he has the chance to take time off, he should take it. This is not something that happens with any sort of frequency; more typically he is working on our holidays and weekends, do not get me started on Easter weekend this year. In any case, on Sunday he decided to take the boys out to the mountains to camp for one night. The weather was a bit cooler – no more Heat Wave – and so I wore a tank and these pants, which are the cropped version of the lululemon City Sleek trousers, which you may remember are pants that look like actual pants, with button and zipper, but feel like yoga pants.

They are comfortable for sitting and lounging, which is what I did all evening. When the cat’s away, the mouse will play, and in my case, that means eating Greek salad and hummus while watching an episode each of The Golden Girls and The Muppets. I stayed up late into the night (read: 9:00pm) reading a memoir by Valerie Bertenelli; do not tell me I do not know how to live it up.

Monday

Well, the people complaining about the heat must have been happy, as it was chilly and rainy all day, with a high of only 18 degrees, which is in the low 60s, for you Fahrenheit people. Time for simple jeans and a tee, and an afternoon of reading, laundry, and a viewing of Velocipastor with the boys. Oh, Velocipastor. Not since The Godfather have we seen such cinematic glory. And yet this film about a priest who transforms into a dinosaur was snubbed by the Academy.

Tuesday

I spent a lovely morning with my chosen sister, Janet (HI JANET)

We hadn’t seen each other for a while, so we talked and walked, to the tune of 9.5 km. After that I showered and got a little dressed up for my much-looked-forward-to pedicure. I hurried down the street, which is going through sidewalk refurbishment, so I had to keep zigzagging to avoid the cement trucks and rebar people. I burst into the salon just barely on time, only to find out that my appointment was YESTERDAY and I missed it. I had either miscommunicated or written my appointment down incorrectly. I was so upset with myself; I never make mistakes like that, and it was embarrassing, not to mention inconvenient and a loss of income for a small local business. I was able to rebook myself for today, and I’m hoping a very large tip will make up for my unexplained absence on Monday. The owner looked at me sadly and said “We waited for you, but you didn’t come!” and I felt like a bit of a monster. I wasn’t doing ANYTHING Monday afternoon, I could have been having a pedicure!

Anyway, this is the super-cute outfit I had dressed up for; it dates back to 2016 at the latest, but I think it’s probably earlier. It’s a skort, of course, and an actual bra under my tank top, that’s how dressed up I was.

My older son is my fashion photographer, and he made me retake this photo. “Mom, your face looks really grumpy. Can you smile like you’re not grumpy?”

Wednesday

My older son and I have been talking for years about biking the Banff Legacy Trail, and on Wednesday we did it! We biked from Canmore to Banff and back, and it was really a perfect morning. I knew we would be gaining elevation from on the first half, but it was gradual so I didn’t realize it until we turned around to go back; it felt like we were flying back to Canmore, and in fact we were 15 minutes faster going that direction.

This skirt, which I have had for seven or eight years, has padded shorts underneath, and let me tell you, padded shorts are a must. A MUST. I had a tank top underneath this very lightweight top, which was perfect for the temperature and to keep the sun off my shoulders. There’s very little shade on the path, particularly when we were finishing up near noon. All in all a perfect day.

Lots of summer fun this week and lots to come, I hope. I hope you are having a beautiful summer as well. Tell me: do you have a Summer Uniform? Do you like biking and hiking in the summer, or are you having an Actual Heat Wave, as opposed to a Calgary Heat Wave? Tell me everything. xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The 10th Anniversary Edition!

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This month marks the tenth anniversary of Nicole’s Favourite Things! A whole decade of writing about beauty products, clothes, food, and the occasional gadget. Two things: a) wow, I have been writing this blog for a very long time, and b) looking back at my very first Favourite Things, I still have all of those tops.

Ah, summer. I have been working very hard for this past year to really Embrace The Season, but here we are in my actual favourite season, so no hard work is needed. I love summer. I often idly wonder if I would actually miss seasonal changes if I lived somewhere like Maui, where it’s just one long summery paradisiacal day after another. Maybe I would? But it’s hard to imagine.

In my first Favourite Things, I expressed my love for summer clothes, and summery beauty products, and produce-heavy salads for dinner with berries for dessert. I still love all of those things and I probably always will! If I lived in a place where it was always summer, would I miss my sweaters and boots? Would I miss hearty winter meals and moisturizers for chapped skin and lips? Like I said, maybe, but it’s hard to imagine.

Anyway, that’s neither here nor there. The point is that I am Embracing The Hell Out Of Summer. When it’s sunny and warm, I just want to be outside all day long, and feel mild resentment when I have to go indoors. I have been like this my whole life; maybe I’m solar powered.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The 10th Anniversary Edition

Non-Psychologically-Scarring Skirts and No-Bra-Required Tank Tops

In honour of my first Favourite Things, I am going to talk about skirts with shorts attached and yoga tanks with built-in shelf bras. These are Enduring Favourite Things, and I have many of the same skirt and top but in different colours and patterns. What can I say, if it works, it works. Listen, living in Calgary there are, annually speaking, approximately 20 days total in which wearing light summery clothing is appropriate. That’s probably a high estimate, actually. The upside of this is that good summer clothing can last forever, as the chance to wear it out is limited. The moment the temperature rises above a certain point, which would probably be considered chilly for my Southern friends, I don a skirt. I think they are cute, and they are very practical with the shorts underneath; I never have to worry about accidentally psychologically scarring random passersby or, more likely, my own children when the wind picks up.

I also love a good yoga tank with a built-in shelf bra; this is a thing that works for me mainly because I am, how shall we say, not exactly overly gifted in the chestal region. I wear these year-round, as a layer mostly, but on warm days they can stand alone.

Talk To Me Goose

My love for Top Gun is well-known; I have loved it since I walked to the theatre with my cousins and older brother in Estevan, Saskatchewan, in the summer of 1986. To this day I remember my outfit on that sweltering prairie night: jeans and a pale pink, tie-dyed, off-the-shoulder short sleeved sweatshirt, despite the heat. I was smart enough by that time to realize that the one theatre in Estevan boasted air-conditioning, and let me tell you, they wanted you to know they had air-conditioning. It was always freezing, and if you were naive enough to wear summer clothing to an evening show, you would be blue by the time the movie ended. Anyway, back when Hannah, Allison, and I cowrote a fun nostalgic blog (HI HANNAH HI ALLISON), I wrote one of my favourite pieces ever, about Life Lessons From Top Gun.

All of which is to say I love Top Gun, and I love the NEW Top Gun as well. Do not ask me to tell you which one is “better.” That is an impossible choice akin to the one Sophie made, and I will not make it. In any case, my husband bought me this shirt, and I love it so much:

It must be worn with aviators. It’s a law.

Pedicures and Sandals

In the summer I swap my boots for sandals, but because I am 47, my sandals need to be of the utmost comfort. Who has the energy for painful footwear anymore? I have found Skechers sandals to be the cutest and most comfortable of all the sandals. These are my favourite, and they are good for walking too:

But I also love these sparkly slides, perfect for the days at the lake:

I have heels for the rare occasion that I need them:

I keep my feet groomed throughout the year; being a yoga teacher my feet are on display constantly, so regular pedicures are a must. I used to exclusively do my own pedicures, but there is the cutest little nail salon just down the street from me, and their prices are fabulous. With each pedicure they give a hot stone massage AND they exfoliate using orange slices, which I love. I still touch up my polish between pedicures, but I definitely go to the salon more frequently in the summer.

Lettuce Pray and Flower Power

There is a great line in Sorrow and Bliss, when the husband acquires a plot in the community garden, and he says that they will now be self-sufficient, in the area of lettuce. I feel seen. I am currently self-sufficient, in the area of kale, as we just had our third cutting. I’ve also had two cuttings of Romaine, and although my leaf lettuce has been very very slow to grow this year, I am expecting to be able to cut it next week. At least, I hope so. Harvest time! I get so much joy out of gardening, it’s unbelievable. It feels like a superpower: do you like this salad? I GREW IT MYSELF.

The first of the roses bloomed – I grow John Cabot climbing explorer roses, explorer roses being the only ones I think are sufficiently hardy to survive our winter temperature fluctuations. This is always exciting as the first one is quickly followed by a wall of blooms.

Let The Spinning Wheel Turn

This week marks my two-year anniversary of the arrival of my Peloton! It was, without a doubt, my very favourite thing to come out of 2020. I know the bar is pretty low, but still. On the actual date of my first ride – which is this Sunday – I plan to revisit the same class I did then, a 45 minute disco ride with Leanne.

It has been a really fun way for me to increase my cardio fitness, and it is measurable: that first 45 minute ride, my output was 277. My usual output these days for a similar class is around 400. If you know, you know! Do you have a Peloton and want to be Peloton friends with me? If the answer to that is YES, my leaderboard name is NicoleBoyhouse.

Wistfulness and Avocados

I have two favourite links this month, both summery in their own way. The first is from my longtime, beautiful, smart, and all-round lovely bloggy friend Suzanne (HI SUZANNE). Suzanne wrote about how you can’t go home again, and the piece, like her, is beautiful, smart, and all-round lovely.

My other favourite link is from a newer blog friend, Jamie (HI JAMIE). Jamie wrote about toxic diet culture, body acceptance, taking up space, and avocados as a metaphor for our bodies. I love a good metaphor and I love a good avocado, but most of all I love her message, particularly in the summer when we are inundated with images of “beach bodies” and “bikini bodies” and what have you.

There’s so much to be grateful for in the summer, there is so much to love, but I particularly love and am grateful for YOU, my dear readers, for being here and for listening to a decade of Things that are my Favourite. xo

Cart Karma

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This is not new information, but I am a strong believer in karma. I really do think that our actions have reactions, and that we get back what we send into the world, for better or worse. How many times have I thought I’d never do THAT and then I find myself in that exact situation, doing exactly that which I have disparaged? The answer is many. Many, many times. I have also said or done things that I have regretted, and that negative karma came right back to bite me, many times in my life.

Related to karma, a subset of karma, if you will, is Cart Karma. I think there are two things most associated with me as a person: the song Landslide, and my incandescent rage at people who do not return shopping carts to the carrel. Well, incandescent rage might be extreme. It really depends on the time of the month and what else is going on in my life at the time; my feelings range from mild irritation to disgust to despair for all humanity to incandescent rage.

When I die, may that be many decades in the future, I want my obituary to request that in lieu of flowers or any kind of charitable donation, my final wish is for people to just return their carts to the carrel. If we all did this, the world would be a much, much better place.

Also, I want Landslide to play at my funeral.

My disgust for non-shopping-cart-returners is so well known that even people I don’t know well send me memes or articles about shopping carts. Last week my dear friend Hannah (HI HANNAH) sent me this article, and it was a Very Satisfying Read. As Hannah said, I love that science basically proved that some people are dicks. Listen, I have All The Empathy for young mothers who have screaming children and for whom every second counts and maybe, maybe, maybe sometimes that means that they don’t return their carts. I give those women a pass. But I think that those women are in the extreme minority, as per my observations in the field. In fact, I have never seen a person with screaming children leave their cart askew, but I believe that they exist.

Most of my shopping is done at Superstore which, happily for my mental state, employs coin-operated shopping carts. You had better believe that even the most dedicated non-shopping-cart-returner will take their cart back to the carrel to get their dollar. I mean, children could be melting down, bombs could be going off inside their car, a tornado could be touching down in the parking lot, and they would still retrieve their loonie. No one in the history of the world has ever not returned a coin-operated cart. I know we would all like to believe that we all naturally want to work together towards the Greater Good, but if parking lots are any indication, Adam Smith was right. We need the Invisible Hand of the coin-operated shopping cart in order to achieve the social benefits and public good of an organized parking lot. Without external financial motivators, all devolves into utter chaos and disorder. It might be disheartening, but it’s true.

My general grocery routine is to visit Superstore weekly, right at their opening time. As I have said, this is good for my mental state, even if Superstore is constantly going through weird and unexpected shortages, that may or may not be pandemic-related. An example very relevant to my life: it has been very hard to get popcorn lately; Boom Chicka Pop has all but disappeared from the shelves, and so I have resorted to Skinny Pop and the ridiculously and kind of offensively-named Lesser Evil. I know. I know. I probably brought the Boom Chicka Pop shortage on myself for purchasing such a stupid item that applies a moral valuation to food, which I am against on principle. But needs must, sometimes.

Every two or three weeks, right after my Superstore visit, I head to Costco which, happily, has an opening time exactly one hour after Superstore. The later I get to Costco, the more disorganized the parking lot is, so for my own psychological health I try to get there as close to nine as possible. But sometimes, it doesn’t happen.

Let’s circle back to Cart Karma. Cart Karma, for those unfamiliar with the concept I have been broaching lo these many years, is that if you rescue a stranded cart from the parking lot, you will have a great shopping experience. I know it’s just one cart among many, but like the story of the child throwing starfish back into the sea, you might not be able to save them all but you can save THIS one. I remind myself of that every shopping trip, as I look in despair at all the carts stranded in parking spaces and awkwardly shoved onto the medians. I can save this one. It can feel overwhelming, but every cart we save makes a difference.

A few weeks ago, this is what I saw:

Even for Costco, this was a new low. You will notice in the background a cart in the parking space: that’s standard. But this, this is in the middle of the ROADWAY where people DRIVE. People driving into the parking lot would have to maneuver their cars around it, and I am not going to live in that kind of world. There were many unsaved carts to choose from but I chose this one. NOT ON MY WATCH, PEOPLE.

I saved that cart and I had a great shopping experience: no lineups, no crowds in the famously-crowded produce section, almond butter at a much-lower price than normal which is notable because everything else is much-higher, and my favourite dried strawberries were available. Dried strawberries are only available a couple times a year, and so even though I am trying not to overstock my pantry, I stocked up. (My husband, later, looked at the receipt with puzzlement. “You spent $58 on strawberries? What…kind of strawberries?” For the record, it was six bags of strawberries and that should last me a solid six months.)

Let us compare that shopping trip to the one before that. I don’t know, I was just exhausted to start out with. It took over ten minutes to just get into the parking lot, as the lineup for the gas station – selling gas at a ten cent discount – snaked through the entrances and precluded anyone from pulling in. By the time I got into the parking lot, with a trunk full of perishable and frozen items from Superstore, I just felt defeated. Faced with all the carts, I slipped into despair for all of humanity, and I couldn’t pull myself up enough to save a cart. I felt like the weight of the world was on my cart-saving shoulders, and I just couldn’t. I walked past all the many stranded carts (pick me, Nicole, pick me!) and took one from the lineup at the entry.

And I had a Very Poor Shopping Experience. Proof! Cart karma works! There were no berries in the produce section, there was no lemon juice – did anyone else notice the blip in Real Lemon supply? – and the lineups were insane. I also had a very strange run-in with a man while I was in the lineup.

It happened when I had been in line for at least eight minutes, and I was next up at the cashier. I was standing the requisite six feet back, giving the fellow in front of me plenty of room to unload. My phone pinged with a text, and I glanced down to look at it. I could hear the man behind me say, somewhat aggressively, “Move your CAAAART.”

Startled, I turned back to look at him, my eyes wide. He gave me a quick smile and said “You know, like that Ikea commercial! Move the caaaaar!” He laughed, like it was a joke, giving me a hand signal that is the Universal Sign of “Go, go.”

Two things: the Ikea commercial in reference is “Get the caaaaaar!” not “Move the caaaaaar!” and also, the fellow in front of me was still unloading and we are in a point in time where we do not crowd other people or bump their legs with our carts. What a time to be alive. Still startled, I nodded politely, and moved my cart forward less than one inch, in the Universal Sign of “I acknowledge your statement, but I shall not acquiesce to your request in any meaningful way.”

This was when I realized that my Cart Karma was lacking, and I had to do something to change it. I turned around and said, in the sweetest possible voice, “You know what, why don’t you go ahead of me? You have so few things and I have so many.” Let me tell you, the look on this gentleman’s face, this person who had behaved rudely but tried to pretend he hadn’t, was worth the price of admission. It was the picture of shock. I insisted he unload, as I moved my cart backwards. He thanked me several times as he unloaded, thanking me again as he wheeled his cart away. I smiled behind my mask, thinking about heaping coals of kindness on my enemy’s head.

It was worth the extra few minutes; by the time I got back to the parking lot I was in a gloriously good mood, despite my lack of lemon juice, and I made every green light on the way home.

Weekly Reading

Sorrow and Bliss. This was a very intense and moving book about a woman living with a hereditary mental illness; the author note states that this is a fictional mental illness, and it is referred to in the book as ____. I found this book compellingly readable and extraordinarily written, but I’m not going to across-the-board recommend it due to trigger warnings all over the place, notably suicide and pregnancy loss. If you’re okay with these topics though, I think you’ll like it. Ultimately, it’s a hopeful book, although it’s a bit of a roller coaster. It really shows how mental illness affects everyone involved, and I found my emotions were all over the place when I read it.

Heating and Cooling. Sometimes I am just blown away by talent, and this was one of those times. This woman can WRITE. I am always amazed at the depth that someone can write, in very few words. I say this after I wrote 1500 words about shopping carts. This book though. It’s a collection of “micro memoirs,” some of which are only a paragraph or two long, and the author conveys a novel’s worth of thought into each one. Absolutely incredible.

The Last Story of Mina Lee. And with that, my streak of incredible books came to a thudding halt. This wasn’t terrible. But neither was it particularly good. It had so much potential – a first generation Korean woman explores her late mother’s stories and life, discovering secrets and finally coming to understand her. It had potential but ultimately fell flat for me.

Also something that sadly fell flat for me? The Elvis movie. I wanted to LOVE it, and it was interesting enough but way too long and with not enough music or details about Elvis’ life. There was SO much detail about Colonel Parker, who was essentially criminal, and I guess that was the point of the movie. But I wanted more Elvis and Priscilla! I will have to look out my old, falling-apart edition of Elvis and Me, I guess. Have a beautiful week, friends! Save a cart! xo

Five For Friday: Nature, New Things, and No Soliciting

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  • New Dishes. I have a very loose, “let’s see how this goes” goal of making one new thing for dinner each week, or, trying one new recipe. These are two different things as I am notoriously poor at following recipes when it comes to dinners. I am essentially one of those people who I loathed when I worked at YMC, a person who changes pretty much every element in a recipe, and then comments on that recipe, but without the commenting part. So, I guess not at all like a person I loathed. In any case, this week’s new recipe was cold quinoa salad with lots of veggies and edamame, a Thai-inspired dressing, and crispy chickpeas and lentils. If you’ve never had crispy lentils, I recommend it: I tossed some drained and rinsed canned lentils in olive oil, salt, and pepper and roasted them at 400 convection for about 20 minutes; they are small little things so I wasn’t sure how long to do it, and I checked on them every five minutes. My whole family loved it, I repeat, my family of meat-lovers LOVED THE LENTILS. I normally dislike leftovers and never eat them, but I put aside a small container for myself, as it was a perfect lunch to take on our hike the next day.
  • The Path Sometimes Taken. I also have a loose goal to go to the mountains More Often, which is about as loose a goal as one can get. Yesterday the boys and I hiked around Stewart Canyon which is about seven kilometres and not as much elevation as I typically like in a hike, but it was a lovely day. Once we reached the end of the trail, there was a small path with a sign that said “Warning: Path Ahead Not Maintained,” so of course, we took it to see what would happen. What happened is that we had to climb over many fallen trees until we got to the point where the path was completely blocked, at which point we turned back and ate the afore-mentioned lunch.
  • There’s A Sign, Read It. Speaking of signs, we have a No Soliciting one on our mailbox. At least ten years ago, but probably more, our doorbell stopped working. I asked my husband, who is very handy and who has repaired many, many things in our house over the past 22 years, to please NOT fix it. At the time, I was home alone most days, and the only people ringing the doorbell were door-to-door solicitors, and I am never going to want to save money on my heating bills or purchase a paper copy of the Calgary Herald. If I was having company, I’d watch for people at the door, and all my friends know to knock, anyway. This was great for a time – it’s pretty easy to not answer the door when there’s no doorbell – but then solicitors started knocking. Can I just say the best thing about 2020 was that door-to-door soliciting stopped? Anyway, sometime in 2021 it restarted, which is when we put the sign on our mailbox, which is directly beside our door. Yesterday I was relaxing after our hike, reading, and I heard a very loud knock at the door. I looked up, thinking it was a delivery and wondering what we had delivered, when I saw a man looking in the window at me reading in my chair. I could see he had a lanyard and a Telus uniform, and I just knew, the way you know about a good melon, that he was here to talk to me about changing internet service providers. I opened the door, and as soon as he greeted me, I said “I have a No Soliciting sign, and I ask that you please respect it.” I said it pleasantly and politely, with my face arranged in a pleasant and polite way, and then I shut the door. I could see him lift up his hands and shake his head in a what’s with this woman kind of way and I will tell you, I was VERY annoyed. This is the second such interaction in as many weeks. The first was a fellow with no lanyard and no uniform who told me he was selling “organic meat and seafood,” which a) ew, b) I eat neither meat nor seafood, not that he would know that, c) who sells MEAT door-to-door, d) we are in land-locked Alberta, SEAFOOD, really, e) this sounds like a scam, and f) I HAVE A NO SOLICITING SIGN ON MY DOOR. I could have pointed out any of those things but I went with f. Anyway, after yesterday’s interaction I found myself unaccountably enraged. I mean, over-the-top, screaming-into-the-void enraged. I immediately texted my very good friend and neighbour Taryn (HI TARYN) and asked her if I was overreacting. She very gently said that I had every right to feel that way but also, perhaps, my emotions were near the surface as I didn’t have a fuzzy companion by my side when I opened the door. She was 100% right, of course. I went into the garden to calm down a little.
  • Bzzz Bzzz Bzzz. I have been spending a lot of time in my garden this week; Tuesday was a particularly low and sad day, but I found it healing to watch the giant fat bumblebees buzzing around. They seem to love the flowers just below the kitchen window, and I could watch them forever, collecting their pollen, as busy and purposeful as can be. The first of my daylilies are blooming, my roses are just about to, and my columbines are putting on a glorious show. This weekend I will have my THIRD cutting of kale, which is the upside to this very cool and rainy start to the summer. It’s maybe not great for the rest of the garden, but I have a tiny little pepper on one of my plants, so there’s hope.

  • Reliable? Or “Reliable?” This sign is on my running route and it cracks me up every time I pass it.

Happy Friday, friends! xo

Summer: It Begins

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Thank you everyone for your kind words and love on Barkley’s passing. I miss him dreadfully and the house feels so strange, like something’s missing. Probably because something is missing. Because I did a lot of the Dog Care and Maintenance, I am finding myself automatically going to do things – check the water dish, mop up around the water dish, let the dog out, take him for a walk – and then stopping, realizing. It’s a very strange and sad feeling.

This past week was the first week of summer, as the boys had finished exams on the 20th and 22nd of June. We had some beautiful warm days interspersed with cold, incredibly wet and rainy days, which isn’t atypical but it does increase appreciation for sunshine. One of the warm days was Monday, and that was a very lucky thing as I had some very special company that day: relatives from California were road-tripping through Calgary and they were stopping by for lunch.

My cousin Nikki (HI NIKKI) and I are the same age, and we were pen pals back in the late 80s and 90s. Did you ever have pen pals? I had a number of them and several years ago I found a box full of correspondence. What a treasure. It seems like such a strange notion now: we would write letters, asking each other questions and telling anecdotes about our lives, and then a month or six weeks later, we would get a response. Now, of course, we can get instantaneous responses and feedback on photos, we can ask a question and feel piqued if someone leaves us on “read.” But there is something so special about written correspondence. I wrote to so many people that I would get stationary every Christmas and birthday, and at one point I even had monogrammed stationary, courtesy of my grandma, who was a recipient of many letters and who had a vested interest in my stationary supplies.

Nikki and I hadn’t seen each other for nearly thirty years, which seems crazy. I was thrilled that the day was warm and beautiful as there were sixteen people, and my house is small but my backyard is big. Two days after this, I was driving to the grocery store and the heavens opened. Just getting from my car to the store, my jeans were soaked and my shoes squelched for the entire trip. I was very thankful, despite my gross discomfort, that the rain didn’t decide to come on Monday.

We went up to the lake for the long weekend to visit my parents, as per our Canada Day tradition. It wasn’t warm, by a long shot, but it was Warm Enough, and it was sunny, so we spent the day on the boat, and the boys went paddleboarding a few times.

I am trying to do more Fun and Interesting Things, YOLO and all that, and so I told the boys that if they jumped into the water – which, I will tell you, is not warm by any stretch of the imagination at any time, but especially this year with the long winter and cold spring – I would too. Here’s my face when they both jumped:

Well, a promise is a promise, Lieutenant Dan.

It was, I will say, refreshing.

We bustled to make hay/ get all our fun outdoor activities done while the sun shone, and then later that night as we played dice, the heavens opened, again, and almost four inches of rain fell throughout the evening and night. A good lesson to seize the moment, I guess, and also a good reason to pour another glass of wine.

Weekly Reading

Girl Gone Viral. This is second in the Modern Love series, and it’s a cute bit of fluff; a romance between a wealthy woman and her bodyguard. I have now read all three – and you do not have to read them in order, I certainly didn’t – and I think the series gets better as it goes on, which is a bit rare, I think. Don’t get me wrong, it’s mind candy, but it’s cute mind candy.

The Maid. I am by no means a book snob – see above! – but it is very rare that I feel that a “buzzy” book lives up to the hype. This one sure did! I loved this story about a non-neurotypical woman working as a maid in a hotel. She finds a dead body, and becomes central to the investigation. Part whodunnit, part treatise on friendship, family, and the differences that make up the world, it’s a really great read. I didn’t want to put it down, and I was incredibly charmed by the smart writing and the complex character development.

Euphoria. This was such a fascinating and complex novel, inspired by real events in the life of Margaret Mead. It follows three anthropologists in New Guinea in the 1930s, and there are so many layers to the plot and characters, but in such subtle ways. I love that, I don’t like being “hit over the head” with details; I love when authors explore plot points in a way that makes you think. In fact, I woke up in the middle of the night last night, and thought “ohhhhh, that’s what happened.” I will be thinking about this for a while.

Our first week of summer was certainly marked with deep sadness, and today is supposed to be another cold and rainy day, but we are grabbing every moment of sunshine we get. I hope you have sunshine, wherever you are. xo

Look At Me, I’m Growing

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All Is Well, I Hope

First of all, thank you so much for all your lovely comments about my mysterious, asymptomatic ailment, but a special thanks to Erin (HI ERIN) for sharing her story and reminding us that yes, we should be vigilant on following doctor’s orders when it comes to infections. I hasten to assure you that I did indeed finish my round of antibiotics and have been instructed to go for follow-up lab work, as apparently “lack of symptoms” is not a reliable indicator for being infection-free in my case.

A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall

We have had a lot of rain, and a few really crazy rainy days in the past few weeks, to the point of the declaration of a State Of Local Emergency, which is fairly alarming. Much less alarming, but still of personal concern, is Salvadore’s cleanliness, or lack thereof.

He became very muddy during the downpours. I brought him inside not once, but twice to give him a bath.

As I toweled him off, my older son looked at me with some concern. “Are you okay, Mom? I think you might be having a midlife crisis.” I am having a midlife crisis! And it is entirely manifesting in gnome-related care. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I am going to go sing a lullaby to my gnome.

Hurry! Or Your Memories Will Be Lost Forever And It Will Be All Your Fault.

Speaking of midlife crises, the ongoing saga between me and the graduation photography company continues. I am still getting emails about my son’s graduation photos, but they have taken on a whole new ominous level: if I don’t order soon, they will be deleted and lost forever. Deleted! Lost forever! Okay, photography company. That’s a bridge too far. I am almost at the point of unsubscribing but I haven’t got the photos from the grad ceremony yet, and by the time that happens my younger son will be posing for grad photos. I’m caught in a trap, I can’t walk out.

Fly High, Free Moth

If you know me at all, you know I have a mild phobia of moths. What you don’t know is that I have been working very hard to overcome this phobia, and I have had ample opportunity to do it because at least once a day I notice a small fluttering somewhere in the house, often first thing in the morning when I’m on my yoga mat. I try to breathe through it, thinking calmly, the moth is just living its life, just like I am, it is not going to bother me, it’s fine, ommmm. Generally this works but the other day there was a tiny moth on the cupboard where the coffee mugs are kept. I calmly took out my mug, poured some coffee, repeating my mantra, when the moth leapt (leapt?) off the cupboard door and fluttered right in my face. Luckily I didn’t scald myself by dropping the coffee. I congratulated myself on not freaking out and just stepped back away from the fluttering, at which point the moth fluttered down and flew INTO THE TOASTER.

What to do, what to do. I waited for a moment, thinking that surely the moth would fly out the way it flew in but no, no, this did not happen. I thought about what would happen if I just left everything as-is. Would the moth get toasted the next time someone wanted a bagel? Would I be the person to inadvertently eat a toasted moth with toasted bread? But how to get a moth out of a toaster? I turned it upside down and shook it. I took out the crumb tray and still, no moth exited that I could see. I tapped the toaster frantically thinking that maybe the moth would fly out. I sat down and drank a cup of coffee and stared off into space for a while. Eventually I used a flashlight to peek into the toaster and I could not see a moth so I figured it either somehow escaped without me noticing or it immediately died and disintegrated. I cleaned out the crumb tray an extra time to be sure.

It’s Lilac Season, Motherfuckers

The lilac bushes are in bloom all over the city, including, of course, my yard, and it’s absolutely glorious. I love lilacs so much; when I was a kid I wished so hard that we had our own lilac bush, because my long-suffering mother would not let me pull blooms off of neighbouring bushes FOR SOME REASON (HI MOM). Instead I would have to be satisfied with just sticking my face into the blooms on my way to and from school, and I still stick my face into blooms on my walks around the neighbourhood. Barkley stops to sniff, I stop to sniff, our walks are even slower than normal. Every day I walk around the yard to check out the gardens and I spend some time smelling the lilacs.

Other exciting garden news: I have rows of tiny lettuce and carrots, and rows of larger peas; one of my zucchinis has blooms already – IT BEGINS – and on Sunday I harvested some kale and Romaine for a salad. My Siberian iris started with one bloom and then exploded, and the columbines are all budding.

The yard is pretty soggy with all the rain which is making weeding difficult, but I’m in that happy place of having Vigorous Perennials in every bed, which cuts down on the weeds significantly. Consider this your helpful gardening tip of the day: plant perennials that want to take over the world, and the weeds will not stand a chance. I feel like there’s a Life Metaphor in there somewhere.

Weekly Reading

No one asked, but I am going to tell you how I decide what book to read next: in addition to a select few books that I own and haven’t read yet, I have a “For Later” list of 233 books on my library app. Every once in a while I will migrate some books from “For Later” onto my “Hold” list, depending on their availability, trying to time things so that I don’t get 12 non-renewable books all at once, which is what happened to me earlier this month. When this happens, I read the ones that are due first, which has meant that, coincidentally, I have read a LOT of memoirs and non-fiction books lately.

Left on Tenth. I wanted to like this. I did not like this. It sounded like something I would like: two widowed people finding love again in their seventies, but there was so much medical detail about a cancer diagnosis and subsequent treatment that I just felt exhausted and sad reading it. Also, the writing style was so choppy and disjointed that I found it difficult to focus. It could be that my reaction was because it was Another Cancer Memoir, in a long line of Memoirs, so perhaps take my review with a grain of salt.

Butter Honey Pig Bread. This was an interesting and beautifully-written novel about a woman who is an Ogbanje – a spirit who dies repeatedly in childhood and is reborn – and her twin daughters, who are somewhat estranged after one experiences a childhood trauma. Thanks to Allison (HI ALLISON) for the recommendation.

They Left Us Everything. OH GREAT, ANOTHER MEMOIR ABOUT DEATH, AND BONUS, THERE IS A WHOLE CHAPTER ON PUTTING DOWN THE DEAD MOTHER’S ELDERLY DOG. So clearly I was not in the greatest headspace to read this memoir of a woman going through her deceased parents’ home and possessions after their passing. To be fair, I did enjoy parts of it; there were some interesting stories and I liked thinking about the things I inherited from my own grandmas that are important to me and would not be at all important to anyone else – one example would be all the old magazines with Princess Diana that my Grandma Fern kept. Grandma and I watched the Royal Wedding live at 2am back in 1981, and it is one of my best memories. But the rest of the book I found to be sad and upsetting, particularly the stories about her childhood memories of her parents and her parents’ marriage. Those were distressing at best. Still, some thought-provoking parts about the nature of stuff and our attachment to things, and the memories they hold. The author believes that you should NOT go through your stuff before you die but leave everything for your kids to deal with, which I do not agree with. The author lived in this house for 16 months, going through what sounds like hoarder-level possessions, and who among us has the time to do that?

On that note, I will leave you with a teaser for my upcoming Nicole’s Favourite Things, coming this week. In the meantime, take care and keep growing and shining, you crazy diamonds. xo

Bits and Bobs, June-Style

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Happy June!

Here Is The Envelope, And I Am Pushing It To The Max

June 1st is typically considered Calgary’s Safe Day To Plant Out Tomatoes And Other Delicate Plants, but Danger Is My Middle Name and so I planted out mine on May 31.

I do like to live on the edge, and so does Salvadore; he has been moved into the garden, specifically, into the zucchini patch. It has been so much fun, the past two months, as he has magically moved every single night after I go to bed. I never know where he will end up; I could open up the cupboard to grab my coffee cup in the morning, and his cute little face is peeking out at me, or he might be behind the television or hiding behind the yoga frogs. Last weekend I noticed the paper towel roll unravelling on the countertop, and I went to fix it, only to find Salvadore ensconced in paper towel.

Zucchinis For Days

I started zucchini plants from seeds this year, and the thing about me is that I have a quirk wherein I get very attached to all of my plants, but particularly the ones I start from seed. I start to refer to them, and I am not joking here, people, as My Babies. “Look at My Babies!” I will say to my actual children, who know I would never refer to them as my babies. What this means is that I have a very hard time thinning plants, which is why I decided to use seed tape for my lettuce and carrots this year. Last year I thinned exactly zero carrots, and the result was a lot of extremely tiny carrots.

Wouldn’t that be nice if that’s what baby carrots actually were, rather than whittled down regular carrots? Just smaller-than-normal carrots that were never thinned in the garden because the gardener was a little bit crazy? Instead, baby carrots are just manufactured out of regular carrots, which begs the question: what happens to the whittled off part of the carrots? Does it go through a grater and end up in bagged salad mixes? Does it just get thrown out? If so, how wasteful. I guess I could look it up but honestly, I feel like I have already given this too much brain space and I should really move on with my life.

Anyway, I ended up with six very healthy looking zucchini plants. If you have ever grown zucchini, then you know how prolific they are, and if you know me, which you really should by now, you will have deduced that I planted every last one of them and I am going to have a lot of zucchinis this year. I mentioned this to my friend Hannah (HI HANNAH), and she suggested I just grow All The Zucchinis and then give away or donate the ones that I cannot use, rather than killing any of My Babies. This is a brilliant idea as there is a Little Free Food Library at the end of my street, which empties out daily.

Flower Power

For the past several years, I have ordered plants from a fundraiser, first for my own kids and then for a friend’s. Don’t get me wrong, I still go to the garden centre, but I love getting big flower planters for my front yard from the fundraiser: they are great quality, well priced, and I can just get them loaded into my car directly rather than awkwardly maneuver through the garden centre balancing six large planters on one cart, which is a recipe for disaster. This year the plants arrived the day after my son’s grad, because why not do everything on one weekend? It was well worth it; the plants are gorgeous and my front yard makes me so happy.

I usually buy one other thing from the fundraiser, just for fun, and this year I bought a ten-pack of assorted vegetables. The pack included four different types of tomatoes, a cucumber, a Romaine lettuce, two peppers, and…a zucchini.

Hurry! Only One Day Until The Next Sale

My son had his grad photos taken back in January, and I was so excited to get the proofs – both emailed and in the actual mail – shortly thereafter. In the envelope there was a coupon code for 30% off photo packages, which was perfect; I wanted a big package for the grandparents, his aunts and uncles, and to have some for our home and for Christmas cards. I immediately ordered, they arrived, I framed most of them, I was happy.

Ever since that day I have been bombarded constantly by Limited Time Offers, both over email and on little postcards that end up in my mailbox every few weeks. Hurry! Order your grad photos now! I am not sure how many photos the company wants me to have, perhaps they think I should wallpaper my house with my son’s smiling face and cap and gown, or maybe send wallet-size photos to everyone I have ever met? In any case, I can’t unsubscribe because this company took photos at the recent grad ceremony, and I have been waiting for those to arrive, and I am way too anxious to take myself off their mailing list because I want the ceremony photos.

I realize that this would never happen, a company that sends out physical mail as well as an email every other day is not going to forget about me when it comes to possibly selling me more photos in a different capacity. But what if they do? I don’t want to miss out! Also, there will almost certainly be another, probably meaningless, coupon code. If everything is always 30% off, doesn’t it indicate a lack of mental capacity on my part if I actually ordered something at full price? The discount is always there, therefore, meaningless.

Step One: Cut A Hole In The Box

The house next door has had a new crew working on the exterior for the past couple weeks; they have been putting up stucco by hand. It is a very arduous process, and very quiet; the only sounds emanating from the house are from the softly-playing radio and from occasional communication between the crew members. They have been working long days; normally they start before six, and they are still at it when I go to bed at night, which, granted, is rarely past 8:45.

The other morning I was opening up the windows to let in the fresh breezes, and I could hear their music playing. I recognized the song. It was Dick in a Box.

I was kind of startled as I don’t think I have ever heard that song unaccompanied by video, but there it was. Hey girl, I got something real important to give you.

When I was in grad school, I was friends with a Norwegian girl who told me that she perfected her English by watching musicals and noting down words she didn’t know, to look up later. She told me she learned the word “devoted,” by watching Grease, from “Hopelessly Devoted To You,” among, obviously, other words. From hearing the crew speak, I know that English is not their first language, and I couldn’t help but wonder if they subscribe to the same methodology, and if so, well. “What does Backstage at the CMAs mean?”

Weekly Reading

Such Big Dreams. This was a very enjoyable debut novel about a Bombay street-kid-turned-office-girl for a human rights law office. The author so skilfully weaves themes of caste, corruption, slum life, paternalism, and the role of NGOs and foreigners in India. It’s a fascinating POV and very unique. 

My Life In Full. I saw this woman speaking on BNN and I immediately went to put her memoir on hold. It’s fascinating! Indra Nooyi was CEO and chairperson of PepsiCo and under her leadership, the company transformed ethically, environmentally, nutritionally, and as a more family friendly workplace. This is an incredibly honest memoir that details her struggles with work-life-family balance, her work ethic that allowed her to rise through the corporate world, and her early life growing up in a multigenerational home in India. She never fails to credit her support system and her luck, but she also worked incredibly hard. It was really interesting to read so soon after Four Thousand Weeks; it was a completely different perspective. It was also really fun to read about PepsiCo’s transition from 1994 to today, all the inner workings of the company. For example, the logistics of shipping chips to different locations is incredibly complex, and if the company wants a sales boost, they introduce a new and For Limited Time Only flavour of chips, which I found fun to think about.

Tired As F*ck. I picked this up solely based on the cover, and so I didn’t realize this was a memoir; it’s really a series of essays that read like blog posts, so very quick and easy to read. This poor woman suffered years and years of physical and mental health issues, including a horrific dental problem and subsequent surgeries that made me shudder. Anyway, it’s about dealing with minor trauma and how stress can give your body a domino effect of problems. I liked it okay; I had her other book on my list but I think I’m going to pass on it for now. Why do I keep reading memoirs by very young women when I cannot relate to them at all? I don’t know.

First Darling of the Morning. This was an interesting collection of stories about Umrigar’s early life in Bombay, from her childhood in the 60s to her adolescence during the Emergency, to her activism in college and departure for America. I enjoyed this very honest and raw account.

This is my last week of classes, my kids’ last week of classes before finals, and it has been raining for the past two days, so everything is lovely and green. I hope you have had a happy start to June! xo