Category Archives: Hello Calgary

Summer’s Almost Gone; Seventy-Five Weeks In

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I don’t think I can adequately describe the relief I felt when I received an email from the Calgary Board of Education, stating that not only would masks be mandatory for students K-12, but all other health protocols would remain in place. With the Delta variant of Covid cases skyrocketing, again, and the general mask mandate dropped in the province, I was somewhat concerned about in-person school. I just want my kids to go to school for the year, and maybe even see my oldest have a graduation ceremony, is that too much to wish for. But I was so happy to get the email about masking; masks kept us all so healthy last year – we’ve never had such an illness-free year – and with all of us fully vaccinated, I feel even better.

I was feeling less happy to see that school starts not on September 7, like I thought it did, but September 1, which means this is the last week of summer, I’m not ready. I am just not in the headspace yet, but I’ll get there, and meanwhile, our hot summer weather ended abruptly and now it’s cool and rainy and it feels like fall. The universe is trying to prepare me, is what I’m saying.

August is a month where I always feel a little glum and melancholy and Landslide-y, and the grey, chilly, rainy days are exacerbating those feelings. Well, these days are good for getting things done in the house – when it’s warm and sunny I spend most of my day outdoors, and there were a few things I really did want to get done before school starts (NEXT WEEK OMG) and I get back to teaching yoga and we are all busy with our fall schedules. Like making jam.

My husband reminds me that we have air conditioning, if I want to make jam on a warm day I can, but I never do want to do that. Jam making is for chilly days, I will die on this hill and also we have many months of chilly days, but few warm ones.

So Many Empty Boxes

One of the things I have wanted to accomplish practically since the pandemic hit was to clean out our storage/ furnace room. My husband, god bless him, likes to keep the original boxes of any electronic equipment while said equipment is under warranty, just in case there’s an issue. The problem is that he never gets rid of the boxes after the warranty expires, and therefore we have perfectly good storage shelves that are jammed full of empty boxes. We still had the PS4 box from Christmas 2014, for example, along with boxes for stereo equipment we no longer own.

Summer is coming to an end, the pandemic has been going on for seventy-five weeks, I go back to teaching in two weeks, IT IS TIME TO CLEAN OUT THE FURNACE ROOM. I took out every single box, rearranged everything, and was able to put all the bins full of childhood art and school projects, bicycle gear, and assorted sports things ACTUALLY IN THE STORAGE ROOM instead of behind my son’s drum set. He’s thrilled that he no longer hits his elbow on the bins when he’s practicing.

This is the van full of cardboard my older son and I took to the recycle depot, and doesn’t include the three garbage bags full of packing materials, RIP our earth, that came out of the boxes.

Not one day after The Big Cleanup, my husband – in a typical act of service to make my life easier – had ordered some new windshield wiper blades for my car. As he grabbed his keys for the garage, he said “Don’t throw out these boxes, just in case these blades don’t fit.” Dear reader. I answered him with a look only and, fortunately for our marriage and everyone involved, they DID fit and my husband subsequently recycled the boxes.

No YouTube Videos On How To Break In To Your House

Speaking of the garage, a couple of weeks ago older son went to get out the lawn mower, and couldn’t unlock the garage door. We typically lock the person door with just the knob, rather than the deadbolt, and while the key fit in the knob, it wouldn’t open. Obviously the automatic openers for the big car door were in the cars that were locked in the garage, and the keypad has not worked for years. My husband searched up YouTube videos but to no avail: all videos instructed what to do if you were locked INSIDE a house, rather than outside, because I guess YouTube doesn’t want to advertise how to break into someone’s home.

Anyway, it was either call a locksmith or actually break down the door, and we took the former option. We now have a garage door that locks by deadbolt only, in case such a thing should happen again. Unfortunately, we are all in the muscle memory mode of just twisting and locking the knob, and the number of times I’ve thought oh yeah, I need the key to lock the door over the past couple of weeks is extensive.

Burn Baby Burn

Remember how my son, after his braces removal, wanted to burn all his orthodontic elastics, and, failing that, his masks? This is what happened on the Annual Boys’ Camping Trip:

Pyromaniac dreams do come true, I guess. You are still going to need masks! I admonished him after seeing these photos, but he countered with a) it was just one mask, and b) that mask was unravelling anyway. Was it? Was it really? Well, he does have at least eight other masks, and it’s not hard to get masks now anyway, and what happens on the Annual Boys’ Camping Trip stays on the Annual Boys’ Camping Trip.

I Have Found My People

You all know how I feel about Thoreau and, also, many of the widely celebrated male authors/ fictional characters (Jay Gatsby, I’m looking at you). So I was so excited to discover this podcast:

The Fuckbois of Literature! If you, like me, think that maybe a person can’t claim to be self-sustaining while living intentionally in the woods when his mother is bringing him sandwiches and doing his laundry, then this is the podcast for you.

I’ll Take The Rapists For $500, Alex

On Peloton, people have the option to add a hashtag to their user profile, and those hashtags are used to connect with other people. Sometimes the hashtag has to do with a favourite instructor – I, for example, am part of the #yestoyoucrew and my son is a #denismenace – sometimes it concerns career choices, interests, or life in general, like #teachersofpeloton, #pelotonmoms, #peloforwine, #pelotonsingles.

I was riding the other day and the person on the leaderboard ahead of me had the hashtag #therapistsofpeloton and friends, it took me a really long time to realize that it was therapists of Peloton and not the rapists of Peloton. I spent some time being shocked that a) someone would cop to being a rapist, and b) there was a whole group of rapists, connecting through exercise.

In my defense, it was pretty early in the morning and I hadn’t yet drank my whole pot of coffee.

Outfit of the Week

I’m really glad I posted all those summery outfits, because SUMMER IS OVER and it’s time to pull out my jeans, socks, and long-sleeve shirts. This top dates from 2016, and I bought it in the small town where my parents live. Isn’t it cute? It’s great for this kind of weather as it’s too thin for winter, but great for a typical Calgary summer day!

The whole reason I have started the Outfit of the Week was to appreciate and express gratitude for my wardrobe; I am thinking about taking it off the blog and onto Instagram only, where outfits of the week belong. You all know I love clothes; I love reading fashion blogs and I love seeing Outfit of the Day posts. If you, like me, also enjoy seeing what people are wearing, you can check it out on Instagram. If you’ve hated my OOTW, lucky you! No more scrolling by to get to my weekly reading list.

Pandemic Reading List

The Soulmate Equation. I have read and enjoyed a few books from Christina Lauren, and this one did not disappoint. It’s just a very sweet and fun romance with very loveable characters. The main character is a single mom and freelance statistician (how often does that happen in a romance book, the statisticians are highly underrepresented in fiction) who is matched up with the founder of a DNA-based matchmaking company. Throw in her energetic seven-year-old and her romance-writer best friend, and you have got yourself a feel-good read.

Think Like A Monk. This book was so inspiring! As you know, I love the idea of living a peaceful and purposeful life, and this book deals with the kind of mindsets that work towards such an ideal. From feeding your brain positive material to finding your life’s calling, this book is full of wisdom and inspiration.

I discovered that I have a LOT of internal work to do. I enjoyed this book so much I started listening to the author’s podcast, and the first one I listened to had an interview with an absolutely lovely young woman, who spoke intelligently and with great enthusiasm about overcoming trials in life, the biggest being the death of her mother when she was a teenager. She was witty and smart and spoke about her work to empower young girls and women, and after the podcast I looked up the show notes to see who this remarkable young woman was. The link took me to her Instagram account, and people: if I had seen her Instagram first, I would have never listened to the podcast. I would have completely dismissed her as having nothing to say, and I would have been very wrong. It was a wake-up call that I need to examine my own biases as a person. Well, it’s a journey. We all have work to do.

And on that note, it’s Monday of the LAST WEEK OF SUMMER and although it doesn’t feel summery, I am going to embrace it. I hope you do too. xo

Who Moved My…Clothes; Seventy-Four Weeks In

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Every evening I choose a yoga/ workout outfit, complete with hairband and scrunchie, and I set those things in the bathroom; that way, when I wake up early I just slip into my clothes and I’m ready for my yoga practice and workout, without having to disturb anyone. I have been doing this essentially every day since 2008; it’s just part of my day.

I had plans for a big hike with my friends Janet and Susan (HI JANET HI SUSAN) on Tuesday, so Monday night I had packed up my backpack with clothing layers and water bottles, I had set out my hiking boots and poles, I had a lunch in the fridge and my hiking clothes set out on the table, AND I had my yoga clothes in the bathroom, so I could do a nice stretchy practice before a 15 km hike.

Tuesday morning, around 4:15 am, I started the coffee maker and headed to the bathroom to get dressed, and there were no yoga clothes. Confused, I stumbled back out to look at the table where my hiking gear was: no yoga clothes. I looked all over, including pawing through the kids’ laundry baskets – in the dark – and no yoga clothes. I finally tiptoed back into the bedroom, quietly grabbed a couple of pieces, and got dressed.

Have you ever became completely obsessed and crazy about something that is really very small? It doesn’t seem like a big thing, but it was. Usually I am able to focus on my breathing during my practice, but I was completely frazzled. Where were my clothes? I clearly remembered choosing the outfit – grey pants and a striped tank – and my hair accoutrements were in the bathroom, where were my clothes? Did I put them in the fridge? Did I put them in the hall cupboard with the towels? Did I throw them in the garbage? Did I lose my mind? DID SOMEONE IN MY HOUSE STEAL MY CLOTHES AND IF SO, WHY.

I’m generally fairly chill about a lot of things but apparently, losing my clothes in my own small house is not one of them. I cannot even describe the weird agitation I was feeling, or the feeling of complete relief and befuddlement when I went into my son’s room a second time to look through his laundry basket and – since the sun was up by this time – discovered the clothes lying on his floor beside the laundry basket. Long, incredibly boring story short, he had showered, gathered up his clothes along with, unwittingly, mine, and went to bed in the dark, dropping his clothes in his basket and my clothes, somehow, on the floor.

I don’t know either.

I kept thinking about the guy I worked with, twenty years ago, who read Who Moved My Cheese and told me it was the worst and stupidest book he had ever read in his life; on that kind of recommendation I have never read it, but whenever something is misplaced I think of him.

Anyway, the hike was fabulous and I had some really good Girl Time with my friends. Janet and Susan are the kind of women who are uplifting, inspiring, and so much fun to be around that I was just buzzing for the rest of the day. The guys had gone camping and when I got home to my empty house, my neighbour shared some vegetarian Greek food he had picked up at the Greek market, which was the cherry on top of a sundae of a day.

Speaking of Girl Time, I have been thinking a lot about female friendship and the various forms it takes. This was instigated from my reading of the Anne books, and particularly this week’s reading of Anne’s House of Dreams (more below). One of the characters, Leslie, is consumed by jealousy over Anne’s seemingly perfect life – Leslie’s life is just terrible and tragic, and their friendship, such as it is, is very much darkened by her feelings of jealousy and unfairness. It made me think a lot about the cultural narrative we have that we should hate women who have something that we do not. Why is this a thing? From Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful to She thinks she’s ALL THAT to my least-favourite line from my favourite movie, What does she look like? Thin, pretty, big tits…your basic nightmare. I mean, Janet has the most beautiful hair you have ever seen in your life – I’m not kidding, it’s long and thick and wavy, and she literally just washes it and goes, IT IS EFFORTLESSLY BEAUTIFUL. If I could somehow transplant her hair onto my head, I would, but instead I just admire it. But this is the point: although I covet her hair I don’t HATE her, quite the opposite, I love her to death. It’s my goal in life to be happy for people who have things that I never will, not just hair, but anything, and to not let jealousy get in the way of friendship or admiration.

In a horrible twist, Anne and Leslie become very good friends, but only after Anne suffers a terrible tragedy: her very much wanted first baby dies one day after birth. At that point, Leslie can see that we are all human and we all suffer, and, incidentally, things end up turning out really well for her in the end.

It’s a good lesson, really, we are all in this life together; jealousy gets us nowhere. The older I get, and the further away from the hectic intensity of parenting younger children, the more I appreciate and value the women in my life. We all have our wonderful gifts, and, to quote L.M. Montgomery, “If you can’t shine like a star, shine like a candlestick.”

Outfit of the Week

Almost every week this summer, I have thought I’d better post a really summery outfit, who knows how long this weather will last! We have had just the loveliest weather, and NO MOSQUITOES, which is unheard of. UNHEARD OF. Therefore, another summery outfit it is!

Yes, another skort from lulu and yes, another tank top from Old Navy, and I will go to my grave saying that Old Navy has the very best fitting tank tops at the very best prices.

Pandemic Reading

The Anne Series – Part Two. As I mentioned last week, I have been rereading the Anne series and I’m going to just put a “spoiler alert” here for anyone who does not want to know what happened in a book written a century ago.

Anne of Windy Poplars. After I finished Anne of the Island, I thought “Yay, House of Dreams is next!” and excitedly ran downstairs to retrieve it, only to discover that the next book was Anne of Windy Poplars. I HAVE read this book before but it made very little impression on me, the only thing I really remembered from it was sad sack Katherine-with-a-K. The book itself is a strange format, and very different from the preceding books: it is almost exclusively made up of letters from Anne, working as a school principal, to Gilbert, who is in medical school. The strangeness of it can be explained by the fact that it was written in 1936, when Island and House of Dreams were written in 1915 and 1917, respectively. Montgomery had a sad life and was battling depression, and was keeping her family financially afloat with her writing, particularly at this time of life.

Anne’s House of Dreams. I love this book; it is the most interesting of the Anne books. It has some very dark storylines and it also introduces three really great characters: Miss Cornelia, Susan, and Leslie. Miss Cornelia is the ultimate “lift up other women” woman, whose catchphrase “Isn’t that just like a man?” I want to adopt for my own. “I’m not hankering after the vote, believe me. I know what it is to clean up after the men.” What a line! Susan is the devoted housekeeper – “Do not worry about the pantry, Mrs. Doctor, dear. Susan is at the helm,” and Leslie is the afore-mentioned beautiful woman who has the most tragic life: married off at 16 to save her mother from losing her home, to a man who is an alcoholic and has probably impregnated and left a “girl from the harbour,” although this is alluded to very circuitously.

The darkest of the storylines, as I mentioned, is that Anne has a baby, and that baby dies. It’s terribly sad and dark, and as an adult it reads so differently: when she has “dreams” (read: is pregnant) again, a “grim shadow” follows her throughout the pregnancy. Ah, my heart wrenched reading that part. Montgomery had three sons, one of whom was stillborn, which makes the story even sadder.

Anne of Ingleside. This is kind of a strange book. I think it is because this was written in 1939, so far after the original series, and even after Rilla of Ingleside, which chronologically comes after Anne of Ingleside. It deals mostly with Anne’s children and their adventures, but it also has some very adult themes as well, like marital issues and problems with in-laws. Gilbert’s aunt, for example, comes to stay for a week and ends up staying almost a year, wreaking havoc on the household, but Gilbert will not tell her to leave. Finally she leaves on her own volition when Anne throws a surprise birthday party for her – she is appalled that everyone knows her advanced age, WHICH IS 55. Welp. There is also a storyline about Anne thinking Gilbert is falling in love with his old flame, but it’s all a miscommunication. Anne thinks the spark is gone, and laments how they take each other for granted and her own aging looks and exhaustion from looking after many small children and DO WE ALL FEEL SEEN BY A CHILDREN’S BOOK FROM THE 1930S OR IS IT JUST ME. “Well, that was life…always change! You had to let the old go and take the new to your heart…learn to love it and then let it go in turn.” Wise words, Anne. She gets the Landslide.

Invincible Summer. Someone recommended this book – who was it? I liked it – didn’t LOVE it, but liked it a lot. It follows four friends after university graduation through the ups and downs of adult life, going from that starry idealism and invincibility of youth to the times where the shit hits the fan. I found this particularly interesting to read as the characters graduate the same year I finished my undergrad, so all of the events were relevant to my own life. A satisfying read, to be sure.

THANK YOU to everyone who asked me questions last week – the answers are coming up soon! In the meantime, let’s enjoy the rest of the summer, and I hope the sun is shining where you are. If it’s not, shine like a candlestick, my friends. xo

Face Facts; Seventy Weeks In

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I was hiking with the boys and, as I always do, I greeted a pair of women we passed on the path. We exchanged some pleasantries about the day and the steepness of the hike – we hiked Prairie Mountain, it is straight up and straight down, with zero gentle switchbacks – and then we carried on our way. I heard the women speaking rapidly in French behind us, like they were discussing something, and, later when we were taking a break, they went to pass us. They paused for a moment, and then one of the women approached me and said, “This is a very strange question, maybe, but are you an economist?”

I said yes, and then we looked at each other for a moment. It took a beat but then I recognized her from my time at the Economics Society, back in the Nineties; she was a prominent member at that time, and I was still a grad student. It had been twenty-five years since we had seen each other, and I expressed my astonishment not only that we should run into each other on a hiking trail on a random Monday morning in July, but also that she recognized me after all this time. She said, “Well, of course I did, you look exactly the same!”

I used to think this kind of statement, while very kind, generous, and well-meaning, is an objectively wrong one, but I think I am at a point in my life where I understand it. Objectively, I do not look exactly the same as I did in 1996, nor does anyone else. Twenty-five years of living changes a person physically, obviously. However, the essence of a person can be unchanged over that time period; after all, I recognized this woman immediately as well, and she would have been younger than I am now when I last saw her. It’s not unlike when you see a childhood group photo and you can instantly recognize your friends; no one looks the same as they did when they were a child, but their essence is still there.

My mother-in-law once said to me that she never really sees me as aging; to her, I just look like the same Nicole she’s always known, and I understand what that means. I see my friends and loved ones in the same way; maybe there are a few more lines or changes, but essentially, I just see the same people I know and love. It’s more than just physical, even if the last time I saw a person was in high school, I can still immediately see the person I knew then, shining through now. I never think Jesus, maybe some eye cream? I just think Yay, there’s my beautiful friend. All of which goes to show that we never really see ourselves as others see us, we are our own worst critics, and if we could treat ourselves the way we treat our friends, the world would be an infinitely better place.

Speaking of which. Lately I have had a disproportionately large number of friends and acquaintances on social media show their before and after photos, the before and after referring to Botox and dermal fillers. I am going to tell you this: they all, without exception, look fantastic. It’s quite incredible; they look like the same people, but smoother and fresher. They don’t look weird or fake in any way, they look like they have applied an Instagram filter, but in real life.

I try not to compare myself to others, but I found myself comparing my own face – which is, in repose, bitchy-looking at best, haggard and Crypt Keeper-like at worst – to their smooth and fresh faces. I am generally a confident person with healthy self-esteem, but I was kind of feeling bad about myself. This feeling was not unlike the one I get when I look at Instagram photos of women my age, but don’t realize that they are filtered, and I end up wondering how I got to looking like the Crypt Keeper when everyone else looks young and lovely.

It’s hard to explain the opposing forces in my brain. I am, as you all know, Pro-Aging, but I am also not made of stone, people. I took some time to do a little research and I discovered that my old dermatologist – who I went to for acne issues, hello Circle of Life – performs these sorts of procedures. I kept reading and realized that one of the contraindications to getting Botox and dermal fillers is skin that scars easily and, since I still have tiny little scars all over my legs from varicose vein stripping over a decade ago – complete with dots from where the stitches went in – I closed my browser and closed my mind to it.

It’s for the best, really. Isn’t it funny how these things work? Some of the most beautiful women I have ever met are the septuagenarian and octogenarian ladies in my seniors’ yoga class; they truly have the faces they deserve, as the saying goes, with their inner beauty shining through. And although I’d love to look more rested – my eyebags are sometimes steamer trunks – and less crinkly, well, this is the face I have and, ultimately, the face I deserve. I raise my eyebrows a lot, I smile a lot, I make that “Kermit the Frog scrunch face” a lot, and my face reflects that. I’m going to be at peace with it and also, keep up with the retinol creams. Jesus, maybe some eye cream?

Outfit of the Week

This is probably my very favourite summer outfit of all time. I feel so cute in it, it makes me want to twirl around like a ballerina, or like my seven-year-old niece. I COULD do that without fear of traumatizing anyone, as it is a skort, albeit kind of a short one. I paired it with a yoga tank because even though I now have comfortable bras, I still like a shelf-bra tank on hot days. Sandals are Skechers, naturally.

It’s not every day my accessories match my outfit this perfectly! That bracelet was made by my friend Amy (HI AMY)!

Pandemic Reading

A Thousand Ships. In my very first semester at university, I took an introduction to classical studies, and our required reading was The Iliad, The Odyssey, and a few other Greek plays. It is very telling that I have never read them since, and, in fact, I couldn’t remember anything about them. I think I blocked them out. I have extremely low interest in men’s stories: I could not care less about mighty warriors and their conquests, and I definitely don’t want to read about all the capturing, enslaving, and raping said conquests. However, I was intrigued by this book which explores the Trojan war through the eyes of the women. I did not love this book, but I did like the different point of view, and I did like to see women portrayed as something other than crazy, long-suffering, and vain.

When No One Is Watching. This book is marketed as a psychological thriller, but it doesn’t really read as one – at least for the first two-thirds of the book. It is more of an educational exploration of the practice of redlining and the dark, sad side of gentrification, with thrilling dramatic license. I liked this a lot as it is very mind-opening, and the end is thrilling and satisfying, but it’s not what I consider to be a typical thriller. Still, very much worth the read.

A Burning. Oh, this was so so good. I picked this up on the advice of Suzanne (HI SUZANNE) and it did not disappoint. It follows the story of a woman who is accused of aiding and abetting a terrorist act in India, through the points of view of three very different people, all of whom are trying to rise up in the world. It is an absolutely chilling portrait of what people will do to make their way up the ladder, so to speak. I love books that have a realistic description of different places and cultures, and this book describes India – its economics, culture, cities and villages – so well.

I hope you are all enjoying the summer; we are doing our best to make it A Summer, after the disappointments of last year. Have fun, be kind – especially to yourself. xo

My Own Mask Mandate; Sixty-Nine Weeks In

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The mask mandate in our city was officially dropped this week; when I went to the grocery store on Wednesday I counted six maskless faces. I will say I find it strange and startling to see actual faces indoors, which goes to show how quickly people adapt to their circumstances. After all, a year ago masks were still quite new, and now I feel strangely naked without mine.

I still wore my mask in the grocery store, and will continue to do so for a while. What can I say, I like to emphasize my eyes. I went to the post office and to pick up dog food, and I was the only person masked.

Also on Wednesday, we had a massive hailstorm which was not great for my garden, but if you are hale enough to garden in Calgary, you had better plant things that can deal with hail. Do you like what I did there? My flowers were pretty squished, but they have since perked up, and the veggies all seemed to survive for the most part, the zucchini, sadly, getting most of the damage. Well, you can’t keep zucchinis down for long, and hopefully I will still be stuck with a plethora of them at the end of the season.

I might be a little hesitant with the reopening of everything, but the boys sure aren’t. They are so happy to be able to do what I would consider very modest teenage things, like going to a movie (still masked) with their friends, and going to our fitness club. I feel like in the future we will see many theses and dissertations on the effects of the pandemic on the brains, behaviours, and well-being of all different age groups, and one thing I can say for sure is that, for my kids, being essentially cloistered for sixteen months gives a greater sense of gratitude for all sorts of fairly everyday things. They have been spending many hours at the club, working out and swimming, with plans to play badminton and bowl. We even shared an order of fries! one of them said to me, so thrilled with this tiny pleasure that it made my heart swell and break at the same time.

Well. I am happy for them, despite being somewhat nervous in general. Right now our Covid numbers are as low as they’ve ever been, but will that continue through the month, particularly with Stampede this week? Talk about super-spreader events; the Stampede is always a haven for germs. Also for pregnancy, divorce, STDs, and general debauchery. Maybe it will be different this year.

San (HI SAN) linked to this really great Atlantic article about the shift in the pandemic, personal choice and how it affects public health, and if you have ten or fifteen minutes, I encourage you to read it. It’s really smart and well-written, and also touches on things I have been wondering about, namely vulnerable groups and those who work several jobs to make ends meet. It also reaffirms my own personal mask mandate, even if the general one is dropped.

Outfit of the Week

It has continued to be hot and summery here; IT’S SKORT WEATHER, PEOPLE. God, I love skorts. This is one of the first that I ever purchased, and so it probably dates to 2015 or earlier. The tank top has made an OOTW appearance before, but never on its own.

Shoes, like all my flat non-running shoes, are Skechers. I have a tiny bit of a Skecher addiction, particularly of the Mary Jane variety.

Pandemic Reading

At Home. I love Bill Bryson’s work; his dry British wit coupled with incredible facts and anecdotes are unmatched! If you, like me, have ever wondered why we have salt and pepper shakers, of all the spices in the world, or how the modern house evolved – where did chairs come from? – this is the book for you. It focuses on the massive changes in day-to-day living in the nineteenth century. Let me tell you, the grimness of life in the Victorian age will make you grateful for the modern era. Maybe don’t read the section about how the modern bathroom came to be while you are eating, because the description of the sewer system in London, pre-mid-nineteenth century – when it was completely overhauled – is pretty gross. Having read The Body, I recognized some of the anecdotes in At Home, such as the discovery that cholera epidemics were connected with contaminated water, and how women’s health was dealt with (badly, very badly). Definitely worth the read, if only to pepper your loved ones with fun facts.

Good Neighbours. I enjoyed this kind of bonkers book about a neighbourhood gone totally…bonkers. It’s an illustration of how mob mentality works and things aren’t always what they seem. There’s an underlying theme about our environment and climate change, as the book takes place in the near future. It’s a very absorbing and thrilling read.

Wintering. “When everything is broken, everything is up for grabs.” This lovely book explores the concept of winter – figuratively and literally – and how to move through it, how to cope with, as Landslide, the seasons of your life. I suspect I would have liked this book better when it was actual winter, or when we were in the depths of the pandemic, but library holds come in when they will. Summer notwithstanding, this book is a beautiful tribute to listening to and living with different seasons of our lives, particularly the difficult winters.

This made me feel like the author was talking about me, personally: “…we make and remake our stories, abandoning the ones that no longer fit and trying on new ones for size.” Also: “That’s the gift of winter. Change will happen in its wake, whether we like it or not. We come out of it wearing a different coat.” Isn’t that a beautiful sentiment? “When I started feeling the drag of winter, I began to treat myself as a favoured child: with kindness and love.” Wouldn’t it be nice if, when we started to feel down, we treated ourselves with kindness and love?

On that note, I hope your week is full of kindness and love, and that you treat yourself like a favoured child. xo

Summer’s Open?; Sixty-Seven Weeks In

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Sixty-seven weeks! My friend Steph (HI STEPH) mentioned that at some point soon, she would stop using “Coronavirus Chronicles” in her blog titles, as she has been doing for – probably – sixty-seven weeks, and it reminded me that I, too, must consider when to stop the weekly count. The problem is, when? Do I stop when the pandemic is officially OVER, as declared by the World Health Organization? Do I stop when it’s over in Canada? In Alberta? When I can go on vacation without fear of debilitating illness? What shall I do with this entirely optional and arbitrary rule that I have brought on myself?

Sixty-seven weeks into the pandemic, and it’s been a pretty exciting one in the Boyhouse, as the boys – all three of them – received their second vaccinations on the weekend. This happened a full two and a half weeks before I thought they would get their shots, god bless the good people at the Pharmasave down the street. That Pharmasave opened up in 2019 and it has been a godsend for this community.

I’m so happy we are all vaccinated because as of July 1 our province has declared us all “Open For Summer” which means, as far as I can tell, a total free-for-all in terms of health protocols. Um, guys? Can we ease into things here? I have already noticed that the maximum capacity for places such as Costco and Superstore have been increased, as both places felt uncomfortably crowded to me this week, although people are still masked and, as far as they can, distancing. I personally do not feel ready to attend any venues, indoor or outdoor, that are crowded and possibly maskless.

So here is a question for my American friends: if your state is “open” and all the mask mandates and other health protocols have been dropped, how are you doing? Are Covid numbers spiking or is everything…normal? I guess what I’m asking is should I expect a fourth Covid wave, or are things going to be okay?

In any case, we aren’t really changing our behaviour around here, except to visit with our vaccinated friends and family, which will be nice. I have no plans to, for example, eat in a restaurant or go to any place where there might be crowds (Stampede, I’m looking at you.) I will continue to mask up when I need to be indoors; you will have to tear my cute, outfit-coordinated mask off my cold, dead face. With that in mind, we are all ready to dive into summer, and we have ALSO been having actual summer weather, as in “non-Calgary” summer weather! We have had beautiful heat interspersed with a day of intense rain, and so the garden is very happy and so am I.

Outfit of the Week

Probably the very best thing about living where I do is the proximity to the Rockies; there is so much beauty right on our doorstep.

My soul sister Janet (HI JANET) and I went on a fairly epic hike last week; it was a total of about 13 kilometres, with about 950 metres of elevation, and it felt like most of that elevation was in the last kilometre. Hoo boy, that was a booty burner. Look at that view, though!

This week’s outfit is a hiking outfit, complete with hiking poles. I cannot recommend hiking poles enough for high-elevation hikes. Going up is one thing, coming down is another. I don’t think I could have done it without my poles, I would still be up at the top. Even with poles, I slipped and fell on my aforementioned booty a couple of times on the way down.

It was a pretty hot day, and I love this old tank from lululemon for outdoor activities, as it is fairly high in the neck so as to protect that delicate skin in the chest area. These tights are technically running tights, but they are great as they have side pockets to slip a phone in for easy photo-taking access.

If you’re hiking in the Rockies, good boots and socks are a must. It seems weird to wear heavy wool socks with heavy hiking boots on a hot summer day, but both are a must for blister prevention and ankle support on rough, uneven terrain.

Pandemic Reading

A Very Punchable Face. This was a pretty fun read. Some parts dragged but mostly it was interesting to read about Jost’s life going from Staten Island to Harvard – he was in the Harvard Lampoon – to becoming a writer on SNL. He was very young when he started at SNL, like 22, which surprised me. There were lots of details about how he felt like he didn’t belong: as a child, at Harvard, at SNL. As Suzanne (HI SUZANNE) said, I could have done with a lot FEWER details about the many times he soiled his pants as an adult, although I could also have skipped that chapter, so caveat emptor. In general, it was pretty entertaining. The chapter on “notes from the censor” alone is worth the read. Oh, and he and Michael Che were in a match at Wrestle Mania and thanks to the people I live with, I actually understood that chapter and recognized all the wrestler names, at which time I stared into space for a while and wondered who, exactly, I have become. 

The Other Black Girl. Wow, this was one of the most original and unsettling books I’ve ever read. I read A Lot and I had no idea how this was going to go. It really asks the question about what POC give up to achieve success in a white world: does one go along to get along, or fight the power? Disturbing and engrossing. I really liked it.

As a privileged white woman, I believe it is my job to listen to and read about other people’s experiences in the world. It’s very common for white people to say “I don’t see colour” but what I am hearing is that this attitude is hurtful and dismissive to people of colour. Through my reading and listening I am learning about microaggressions and ingrained racism – most white people would deny racism, but I think there is more to it than that. I think there are generations of ingrained attitudes before us, and we need to listen to and learn from people of colour and what their lives are like on a day-to-day basis in a white-dominant world. This book really brought that home for me.

The Missing Treasures of Amy Ashton. I admit I nearly took this back to the library upon the reveal, in the first chapter, that the main character is a hoarder. No thanks. But I try to be an open minded person and so I kept reading. It’s a strange combination of charming, light mystery-romance, and grim and dark story about loss and undiagnosed mental illness. It’s weirdly satisfying but also kind of depressing. Throughout the book I kept thinking in my Mom Voice “MAKE BETTER CHOICES.”

Happy start-of-summer, everyone! I hope you have a beautiful week. xo

The Opposite of Trendy; Sixty-Five Weeks In

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This will be obvious for anyone who knows me or has read this blog for any amount of time, but I really love clothes and fashion. When I was a kid, I loved paper dolls so much; I loved all the different outfits slated for different activities, I loved dressing up their flat little bodies, folding the tabs over their shoulders carefully as I took my paper dolls to a fancy gala or the tennis courts.

Fun fact: I had not one but TWO Princess Diana paper doll books, one for cutting out and one for saving, and I still have them. As I recall, it was a bitch cutting out the wedding dress, all those tiny little frills.

Anyway, I love clothes but I do not consider myself to be a trendy person; when I was younger I would incorporate trends into my outfits but one of the great things about being middle-aged is that a) I don’t really care about trends anymore, I just want to wear what flatters my own 46-year-old body, and b) current trends are not aimed at me anyway.

Back in 2012, I railed against the movement from dark-wash boot-cut jeans to skinny jeans, but I eventually capitulated to the trend and I never went back. I love the esthetic of skinny jeans with a long, drapey sweater and tall boots. It is perfect for my perimenopausal body, perfect for living in a climate in which tall boots and long sweaters are appropriate at least nine months out of the year, and I cannot see trading in my skinnies anytime soon. The great news is no one expects me to because hey, you completely disappear to the public eye when you turn forty! Yay for the invisibility of aging women! No one cares what we wear because we might as well not exist after our fertility declines!

Just kidding.

Anyway, I don’t follow the trends but I do like to know what’s in style, because I am a style anthropologist – “This is so 1992!” – and so I have not YET unsubscribed from a certain Young People’s Clothing Store emails; the mystery about how I was suddenly on that email list has yet to be solved, but here we are. The other day I got an email about these hot new jeans for summer, and, friends, what do we think of them:

To me, they scream My Mom Wore Those In The Late Eighties. Do NOT get me wrong, people. If you are wearing these jeans, I am sure you look adorable. There is no judgement here. I save my judgmental thoughts for people who don’t return their shopping carts or who wear their mask under their nose. I think pants with tie waists can look really cute, but they are not for me, particularly the denim variety. Last summer I optimistically purchased a pair of very-casual yoga-style pants that have a high tie-waist and they flatter me not at all; regrets, I have them. I think I need to add them to the donation pile. The biggest problem, for me, is that such styles – along with wide-leg pants – require either a crop top or the tucking in of shirts, neither of which I am interested in wearing or doing. See also: perimenopausal body. My interest in personally wearing trendy clothing began fading a few years ago with the reappearance of crop tops, waned further with wide-leg pants, and now has thudded to a halt with these jeans.

I was thinking about how far removed I am from being trendy the other day, when I was in the mall. You read that right: I was in the mall. I initially thought the last time I was in the mall was November, when Christmas shopping, but then I realized that no, I had briefly been there in April to buy my mom a birthday present. At that time, though, we were heading into our third (fourth?) lockdown, and my “shopping” consisted of me parking to the closest exit and speed walking to and from the one store I wanted to visit.

The mall, though. It’s pretty depressing. So many stores are shuttered and so many more seem to be struggling. The children’s play park is covered with tarps and encircled by “do not cross” tape. I haven’t been shopping in so long I probably would have “helped” all the struggling stores if I had more time, but alas. I was there for Father’s Day gifts – that is NEXT weekend! Already! – and I had to stay focused on the task. Still, I noticed Skechers has some pretty cute sandals and Mary Janes; do I need another pair of sandals and Mary Janes? No, I do not. And yet the heart wants what it wants, perhaps I will gather the strength to go again soon.

Other than the depressing-ness, I noticed all the window displays of the trendy stores: so many booty shorts, so much tie-dye. I feel like the Kathy Bates character in Fried Green Tomatoes: I’m too young to be old and too old to be young. Ah, youth. I see girls wearing these things and I think they are adorable; I also imagine they think they look terrible in many ways, because our society teaches us to loathe ourselves practically from birth. I want to grab them all by the shoulders and tell them that they are so very beautiful, and that one day, they will be in their middle age and see the tie-dyed shirts and booty shorts of their youth return, and they will wish they knew just how beautiful they were.

Outfit of the Week

Speaking of clothing! I mentioned during last week’s heat wave that this week would feature cool-weather rainwear, and people, I do not disappoint.

This was my Going To The Mall outfit! I coveted Hunter boots for years and years, but I could never justify a pair since I HAD a solid pair of rain boots. Well, a couple years ago those rain boots – that I bought when the boys were in the double stroller – developed a big crack and no longer served as waterproof footwear, and at the same time these boots were on sale, and kismet. That tweedish coat is lined and only semi-waterproof, so good for Going To The Mall, but not great for Walking In The Rain, and it dates from 2014. Fun fact: I have coordinated the detailing of my mask with my lavender yoga pants. I won’t be sad to see the end of the pandemic, but mask-outfit coordinating is still really fun.

Pandemic Reading

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. Ernie (HI ERNIE) mentioned that she was reading this for book club, so I put it on hold; it came in quickly and then I…put off reading it, renewing it until I could renew no more. Fun fact: for a while it was in the same pile with The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. I was reticent to read it because a) it’s a murder mystery, a genre I do not generally like, b) it’s also kind of sci-fi, c) it’s written by a man, and d) Allison, (HI ALLISON) who DID like it, thought I wouldn’t, and she’s generally right. Well, I didn’t really like it but I didn’t hate it, it’s very cleverly written, although it felt too long and drawn out for me. I kept thinking this book has GOT to be over soon, why are there still 150 pages left to read, wait, ANOTHER new character, what is happening. Also it felt like it was written in the hopes someone would pick up the film rights which, did they? Is this a movie? I could see this being a successful movie. Not for me but if you like murder mysteries and sci-fi, you’d probably like it.

Murder On My Mind: A Memoir of Menopause. The title ALONE made me want to read this. Reading this is like having a conversation with a very good friend or a sister who is not afraid to talk about the gritty and somewhat gory details of menopause. I am all for normalizing these conversations, despite what society in general and clothing manufacturers in particular think, we do not disappear with age and declining fertility. I think we should have a Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret-style revival, but with menopause instead of first periods and bras. Fun fact: the author lives in Calgary!

Lucky. If you’re looking for a light and satisfying summer read, look no further! A grifter pulls off a heist, and also has a winning lottery ticket in her pocket. But she can’t cash it without turning herself in. What to do? 

Have a beautiful week, everyone! Here, the kids are going into final exams and everything feels very June-ish, which is not unexpected, as it is the middle of June. xo

Embrace The Season; Sixty-Four Weeks In

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You won’t believe it, but last week we had a heat wave! The term Heat Wave, by the way, is relative to Calgary – I’m sure my friends in the South would just call it a stretch of pleasant summer days – but it has made me so happy. I’m spending every available minute outside; my garden is exploding. The neighbourhood is full of flowering trees in full bloom, and my own lilacs are making their appearance.

I love lilacs; when I was a kid I wished we had them in our yard as I would sniff the neighbours’ shrubs on the way to school every morning in June. Now I have them in my own backyard to sniff as much as I like! Life is good, even if the heat wave didn’t last and now it’s cool and rainy. The garden will be happy with this turn of events as well, and so will my water bill.

I am not a podcast person, but a woman I know was featured on Kelsie Snow’s Sorry I’m Sad, and I listened to it on my walk the other day. I vaguely knew Melanie (HI MELANIE) from the yoga studio, years ago, but I’ve gotten to know her more through her blog, newsletter, and instagram. She is a mother of three who is living with metastatic breast cancer and the knowledge that she won’t see her girls grow up to be women. She is in constant pain as the cancer has spread to her bones and uterus; she has compression fractures in her spine, as well as broken ribs. If you have a chance, give this podcast a listen; she talks about her diagnosis, how life, and being a mom, doesn’t stop when you have cancer, and the strain that chronic/ terminal illness – particularly in a pandemic, my god – puts on a marriage. It was incredibly moving but also inspiring. At the end of the podcast, she mentioned that when it’s winter, she loves taking photos of the winter sun. She thinks winter is her favourite, and then it’s spring, and she thinks spring is her favourite. Melanie said that it seemed like whatever season she is in, it’s her favourite, and the podcast ended with the following message: Embrace the Season You’re In.

I cannot tell you how strongly this resonated with me, on so many different levels. If I was a Tattoo Person, I’d get it tattooed on my arm. If I was an Inspirational Signage Person, I’d put it on a sign in fancy calligraphy in my front hallway. But I am a Blog Person, and so I am going to think about it and refer to it until the end of time.

Embrace the Season! I remember when my oldest was a baby, and I was visiting with a woman who kept telling me about her toddler and how horrible the 18 month stage was. Then, when I saw her next, several months later, she told me about the Terrible Twos. All I could think of at the time was that she would just continue to do that forever: the Terrible Twos would segue into the Even Worse Threes, and so it would go all the way up to the Untenable Teen Years. I could see it happening, and I vowed at that time that I would never think that way, and I haven’t. I try to always enjoy and embrace the stage I’m in and not look back in an overly nostalgic way or forward with extreme longing. The present moment is all we really have, as they say, and so here we are. Wherever we go, here we are.

It’s a strange season we are in, the pandemic. It would be weird and tone-deaf to say that we should embrace the pandemic, given that there have been so many who have died, or lost their livelihoods, or are dealing with long-term effects that no one knows how to deal with. But because of the pandemic, there are things that have changed for me, for the better: priorities have been highlighted, things that I didn’t think I could live without I have thrived without, and I have learned to cherish my relationships in a new way.

I was talking to my kids about the things we used to do when they were little: going to the zoo and science centre, the playgrounds and play groups. I loved doing those things but I am well aware that looking in the rearview mirror puts a gloss on them; it was often exhausting, and required so much logistical planning just to get out the door. Being a mom of teens is, I think, so much fun. The teen years get such a bad rap, and of course there is angst and drama and saucy back-talk. Of course there is! But there are interesting ideas and conversations, there is new learning and knowledge and the ability to see the world through fresh eyes. The Teen Years Season can be fraught, but it’s also breathtakingly beautiful.

Anyway, it’s easy to Embrace the Season when the sun is shining and the birds chirp along with my early morning yoga practice, and the neighbourhood is in bloom and strawberries are plentiful. The challenge is, of course, to keep this attitude when things turn. We’ve made it this far, all of us, and if Melanie can find beauty in her season, her current season defined by pain and cancer treatments, then I think we all can Embrace the Season We Are In.

Outfit of the Week

Last week I enjoyed pulling out my infrequently-used-but-much-loved warm-weather clothing. I mean, I went for my runs in shorts, SHORTS, people. It’s a bizarre look for me, since I also wear long compression socks to manage my varicose veins, which meant that I felt like one of those old men who wear long black socks with everything, in all weather.

This is NOT the Outfit of the Week.

I recently complimented a friend on her outfit, and she mentioned that we are at that age where when we find a piece that is comfortable and flattering, we buy it in an assortment of colours. That is so true; I do this all the time, except my colour variety tends to be black, grey, and maybe white. The exception is skirts and yoga tanks, I tend to veer towards colour in both! I love skirts that have shorts built in underneath; it’s the best of both worlds – the flattering cut of a skirt, and the comfort of knowing that the neighbours aren’t going to see my panties when I’m bending over or if it’s windy or something.

I have this skirt in many colours and patterns, although I tend to pair them with plain black tanks, let’s not get too wild. Old habits die hard, what can I say. I also will say that Old Navy has the best plain black tanks in terms of fit, longevity, and affordability, and I will die on this hill. I also pulled my sandals out of the closet this week! (Next week look for rain boots and pants).

Pandemic Reading

It’s been hit and miss with reading this week, without any You Must Read This recommendations.

The Accidental Tourist. It’s always strange to read a book that was written in the 80s – this was written in 1985 – because there are interesting little details that date the book: descriptions of airline travel, for one, new technology such as the Walkman, and clothing. Also, one of the characters has a body perm gone wrong and I felt seen. The problem is there are also details that date the book in a bad way; talking about “foreign-looking people” and other kind of distasteful descriptions. For me, this book was irritating and strangely depressing, like watching a movie from the 80s that didn’t age well. A few years ago I rewatched The Breakfast Club and was struck by all the fat-shaming and slut-shaming and general weirdness. Some things are best left in the past, I guess. I did not enjoy this book.

Little Pieces of Me. Let’s imagine you were really close to your late father, and then, two years after he died you found out that genetically, he wasn’t actually your father and your mother has been keeping a big secret after forty-three years. That’s the premise of this book and honestly, I did not like it. I found the main character so unlikeable and so unsympathetic. I think that if I found out my DNA was different than I thought it was, I don’t believe it would change the person that I am, and yet the main character was constantly saying she didn’t know who she really was and she wasn’t the person she thought she was, blah blah blah for another two hundred pages. I mean, it’s pretty theoretical on my end, as I am an actual female version of my dad, but I can’t imagine thinking I was a different person just because my dad wasn’t my biological dad. This book is very highly rated, but for me, it fell flat.

That Summer. I thought this was going to be a beach read, but it sure wasn’t. A book about sexual assault, #MeToo and the consequences for everyone involved. It’s a great message but I didn’t love the execution – for me the plot line was a little weak and cliched , and the characters very one dimensional. Still, as I say, a great message written with several points of view.

Have a beautiful week, friends! Embrace the season! For me, I’m going to embrace my rain boots and sweaters. xo