Category Archives: Housewifery

Do you feel lucky, punk?

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Yesterday I got an email saying that I was the possible recipient of $6.5 million dollars, due to the passing of someone who MAY be related to me. All the money was in a Tongan bank just waiting to be transferred. Then, this morning I got TWO emails from “China Shenhua” saying that “company picked your email as a lucky person for $1,000,000 and a new car.” All I could think of was Bob Barker’s voice: A NEW CAR.

By the way, have you seen Jesse Paul on a 2008 episode of The Price Is Right? I love The Price Is Right (PLINKO!) and I absolutely adore the super-excited audience members. Jesse Paul, however, takes the cake. Watch the clip and tell me if you don’t think he’s the single greatest contestant to be on the show. I still get to spin the wheel, right, Bob?

Anyway, I’m feeling pretty lucky, with my super-exciting inbox of winning today. Plus, you guys, it’s almost my birthday! I love birthdays. I love that I’m turning forty. It feels like this exciting new era, and also that I’ve joined a super-special club of the over-forties.

So I’m having a few people over on the weekend, and last week I went to Costco to stock up on snacky things and other necessities. Since we had the painters at the house, I went to Costco after lunch and OH MY GOD YOU GUYS what was I thinking? I guess I was thinking nothing at all, since I never go to Costco in the afternoon. In fact, the only time I’ve been there not first thing in the morning was the one time I zoomed over there when the kids were in karate and I had 45 minutes to get there and back. On that occasion, I didn’t even take a cart, I just loaded up four items in my arms and popped in and out. I did not realize what afternoon Costco was like.

I expected it to be busier, but it wasn’t significantly so. The issue wasn’t with the number of people, it was with the samples.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not hating on people getting samples. It’s cool. I’m sure they have lots of tasty treats, and for free, and fill your boots, but for the love of god, people, please move your carts. Those giant Costco carts are bad enough, but when there are six or seven of them lined up to get a free spoonful of Greek yogurt, it is impossible for the non-sampling population to get by and get on with their lives. I was literally trapped in the aisles, trying to edge past the lines of people sampling the wares. It was like a weird nightmare; I’d get to the end of the aisle and would not be able to get out. I’d turn my cart around, but by the time I did that more people were lined up on the other side for more samples. I even got a side-eye and under-the-breath muttering from some man who was under the impression that I was trying to budge in front of him, rather than get around him to get to the frozen berry section. Buddy, I’m not interested in your portion of ham on a cracker. You can have my share.

I’ve been on a kick lately where I am trying not to stock up on things; I’m trying to just use up what I have in the house, and only buy things I need. My canned goods cupboard was getting out of control. So, I’ve put myself on a buying moratorium; I make a list and I stick strictly to the list. Too many times I’ve thought maybe we need soap, bought a 12-pack of Dove, and come home to three unopened Costco-sized packages. In any case, while I was wheeling around the sampling population of Costco, I saw the giant Dove shampoo and conditioner bottles that I buy for the boys and my husband. I briefly wondered if I should buy some, but then I said to myself Nicole, it is not on the list, do not buy it, you do not need it. I stood in a giant lineup to check out and then I drove home, making several trips up and down the stairs to put things away. THIS is why Costco shopping is so exhausting – it’s the stair climbing that finishes me off.

Later that night, after his shower, Jake said to me, “By the way, Mom, the shampoo is empty.” I went downstairs to fetch another bottle and LO. There was no shampoo. There was no conditioner.

At this point, I fairly exploded. “I WAS JUST AT COSTCO!” I said. “YOU NEED TO TELL ME WHEN YOUR SHAMPOO IS ALMOST EMPTY!” I said this angrily to everyone in the house, including my husband, who said that the shampoo had a pump – he never picks it up – he didn’t know it was empty. People, I had to leave the room. I was disproportionately upset about this shampoo debacle. We did have other shampoo in the house. We just didn’t have that kind, and that was a tipping point for me. I was at Costco and I had to veer around herds of carts and people acted like I was going to take the popcorn sample right out of their mouths, and goddammit, we were out of shampoo. Kind of. I had to actually do some deep breathing, this was how upset I was. I kept trying to rationalize to myself that it wasn’t a big deal, but dammit, it was a big deal.

The very next day I got my period, which kind of cleared things up for me. It was, as Oprah says, an AHA moment. AHA! Do not shop at Costco right before ladies’ holidays, especially not in the afternoon.

Old at heart.

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I had a hair appointment this week – thank god, something had to be done about the orange straw and grey roots – and as I was getting my colour rinsed out, an older gentleman came into the salon. He explained that he was Marjorie’s son, Marjorie being an elderly lady who gets a weekly hairdo every Friday morning. He had never been in the salon before, but he drives Marjorie every week. What a good son! Except that he had made arrangements for her to go out of town to visit her granddaughter this Friday, which meant that all was ashes. How could he take her out of town with undone hair?

And so this gentleman was coming into the salon personally to see if there was any chance Marjorie could be squeezed in on Thursday. The salon I frequent is a busy one – I book my colours months in advance – but they accommodated his request. After he left, my hair therapist smiled and said, “Oh, those old ladies. They hate to have their schedules messed with. It ruins their whole week!” I nodded sympathetically, all the while thinking, I can relate.

You see, I am not elderly, and yet I too find myself getting worked up when my schedule is thrown out of whack. I can only imagine me in forty or fifty years. Changing a weekly hair appointment would be akin to burning down the nursing home or running out of hot water and lemon in the dining room. We don’t have much time left, I am not leaving this earth with messy hair.

Digression: what kind of food will they have in the Home in forty or fifty years? Will it be things that are trendy and popular now, like kale and quinoa, or will we all just start eating mashed potatoes and veal cutlets? I cannot imagine that I will ever tuck into a plate of veal cutlets, but what kind of vegetarian options will they have for the elderly, circa 2060? Also, will we all naturally just slide into Sears’ “pull on” slacks and blouses, or housedresses? Or will we be clinging to the styles we like now? Will we be a generation of skinny jean wearing, kale chip eating old people? Will I still wear coconut-scented lotion or will I just start wearing Lily of the Valley talcum powder? I’d like to think I’ll go straight to Chanel Number 5 but really, who can tell?

In any case, I don’t do well with schedule interruptions or changes. Case in point: the painters. We’ve been talking about painting the kitchen and bathrooms. We’ve had a colour consult with the painter who painted our basement and exterior. The only thing we didn’t have was a firm date. Sometime in early April, was what had been settled on, when we got an email from the painter saying that he might have to change that around. Well, we had nothing firm anyway, so I blithely went on with my life.

At least, until Tuesday night, when my husband informed me that the painters were coming the very next day at 9:00.

In retrospect, this was the best possible scenario. I had a meeting, but not until 11, the kids were staying for lunch for Tech Club, and I didn’t have time to work myself up into a frenzy about omg people working in the house! I was able to be home to let them in, the day was sunny and warm and so I could lock the dog outside, everything was fine. The colours turned out beautifully – photos to come – and as of Thursday morning everything was finished.

And yet. I am the crabbiest person to have people working in the house. Maybe it’s my Type A personality, which makes me feel like an elephant is sitting on my chest when I see drywall dust on the kitchen counters and tiny scraps of paint chips on the floor, and the furniture all askew. Maybe this is a sign that I need to look into my control-freak behaviour when I physically have to leave the room so that I don’t implode and wither to the floor when everything in the house is chaos and I cannot even get to my water bottle or use the bathroom without explaining myself.

Well, it’s all over now, and as I said, it’s beautiful. My husband claims not to be a Type A person, but he is quite a perfectionist, especially when it comes to handy work. He is very handy – if you’re not handy yourself, you are best to marry someone handy, is my motto – and has done a great deal of work in our house with his own two hands. He’s the ultimate “measure 20 times, cut once” guy, everything has to be exactly leveled and exactly centred and there is no eyeballing involved. MEASUREMENTS COUNT, PEOPLE. It works out great, because he is very exact. The only problem is that if someone ELSE does the work, then he can find fault in about thirty seconds flat. He’s the one who spots the tiny piece of roller fluff that got painted onto the wall, or the slightly-less-than-perfect paint line. And the biggest problem about this is that I am the one who is at home, so it is my job to inform the person working on our house that their work is suspect. I don’t like that job. There was a not-great job done in a not-too-prominent part of the bathroom which resulted in some coloured paint being on our cream trim, but my husband threw up his hands, decided he was going to just repaint the trim and door himself, because he could do a better job. This kind of defeats the purpose of getting painters in, but maybe it’s for the best.

Princess problems, am I right? I guess it’s time for me to work on my mental flexibility. Either that, or just continue with my deep ujjayi breathing.

Seriously, what is with the moustaches?

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Mad Men, you guys, Mad Men. Did you watch it last night? Don’t worry, there will be no spoilers here, except to observe that 1970 was evidently the beginning of the Great Moustache Era. So many moustaches! And I confess, from my 2015 viewpoint, I immediately assumed that the first glimpse of Roger Sterling was some kind of circus-like dream sequence, entirely due to his ridiculous moustache and puffy shirt. Then I realized no, that was merely the style.

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He reminds me of a ringmaster in a circus, although those ladies look kind of fabulous.

COME ON. And yet as we all know, styles often look ridiculous, looking back. I’ve worn my fair share of stupid-looking styles, most notably the vertically-teased bangs of the Eighties, the puffy pirate shirts of the Nineties, and the flowy clown pants paired with fitted blazers of Y2K. We’ve all worn styles that we’ve regretted, so I’m not sure why I find thick moustaches and ruffled tuxedo shirts to be quite so hideous, but I do.

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Everything about this look is regrettable.

 

Even as I write this, I look like I’m about to audition for a Flashdance reboot, so I feel hypocritical criticizing menswear circa 1970, and yet.

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All I’m missing is a sweatband and leg warmers.

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Hoo boy, those are some roots. I need a colour job, stat!

The other thing that last night’s Mad Men made me think about (I promise, no spoilers) is how promiscuous the Seventies were. I remember excitedly watching Saturday Night Fever for the first time – and I was an adult – and I was completely shocked by the amount of rampant sex in it: back seat of a car sex, bathroom sex, anywhere sex. Then I read Fear of Flying and was completely grossed out by the promiscuity and corresponding venereal diseases – and I was in my early twenties at the time. YOU GUYS, USE A CONDOM, EW. But that was the Seventies, I guess. As Mona Sterling said in last season’s Mad Men:

Margaret, darling, these people are lost, and on drugs, and have venereal diseases.

Ladies and gentlemen: the Sexual Revolution, summarized nicely.

How was your long weekend? The kids decorated eggs twice – once at my parents’ place, and once at home. There was also a LOT of chocolate. The chocolate combined with two weeks of vacation and vacation-related imbibing has had a negative impact on the fit of my clothes. My skinny jeans are feeling a bit too skinny, if you know what I mean. But that is what vacation is for, and so today I grocery shopped and came home with a plethora of spinach for green smoothies; I’m also congratulating myself on not buying any more Mini-Eggs – it’s a lot harder to sneak the kids’ chocolate when that chocolate is in the form of individually-wrapped chocolate chicks and bunnies.

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Aren’t they pretty?

It’s the Ultimate Pi Day! And other fun topics.

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I’m so excited for tomorrow; it’s the Ultimate Pi Day! 3/14/15!!! ππππππππππ all day long. Maybe I should write this entire post in Greek letters for celebratory reasons.

We are having a celebration of another sort tomorrow; it’s Mark’s birthday party. This afternoon is dedicated to party preparation: Jake is tasked with cleaning up the Lego pile in the basement, Mark is tasked with putting together candy-filled loot bags, and I am taking the boys to the nearest Dairy Queen to buy a Treatzza Pizza. This Treatzza Pizza has been the subject of many a conversation and much excitement and anticipation. I can’t wait to try the Treatzza Pizza! one of the boys has said at least twice a day for the past month. I’m not sure where Mark even got the idea for one; to my knowledge he has never tried such a thing. Marketing! It works, apparently.

Anyone else ecstatic that it’s Friday? Friday the 13th notwithstanding, I am pretty relieved that this week is behind me. The week we switch to Daylight Savings Time is the most exhausting week of the year. I love that several people separately sent me this article, “Alberta Senior Hits Pancake Circuit To Petition Against Daylight Savings Time.” I love this on so many levels. I love that people see someone petitioning against DST, and THINK OF ME. I love that I have something in common with this Alberta senior. I love the term “Pancake Circuit” and want to insert it into every conversation from now on. “I ate a lot of pancakes last year because I went to every pancake breakfast I could.” That, my friends, is dedication. I especially love the opening paragraph:

An 81-year-old senior whose body gets thrown “out of whack” by the annual switch to daylight savings time hit the pancake breakfast circuit to gather signatures to petition the province to end her misery.

She goes on to talk about how difficult it is for staff in seniors’ residences to rouse residents in the morning to ensure they don’t miss their breakfast. YOU DO NOT WANT THE OLD PEOPLE MISSING THEIR BREAKFASTS. No one wants light-headed, grumpy seniors. It’s the same way with the kids – I’ve had to coax my own early-birds out of bed every day this week, and they are usually the bounce-out-of-bed type. Will no one think of the children or seniors?

I’m telling you, this woman is my people.

Also this week was my second-to-last School Council/ Parent Association meeting that I chaired, and that I was almost late for. My husband had a painter in to do a quote for us, and it required so many decisions and colour swatches that I ended up running out the door to make it on time. When I got home later that night I had a list of possible colours, but no actual paint chips, so I had to run to the paint store to figure out what, exactly, the painter had recommended. Right now I’m waffling between a very deep avocado green or a deep blue for the kitchen and a bluish grey or darker bluish grey for the upstairs bathroom. We have settled on a dark rust colour for the downstairs bathroom, which will be quite a change from the current baby blue. On the one hand I’m very excited for the change. Changing paint colours makes the house feel brand new! On the other hand, I’m tired just thinking about having painters in the house, with all the mess and disruption, and possible “dog-brushing-against-wall-and-getting-all-painty” issues. Princess problems, I know.

Here’s some fun news: I buy all my various vitamins and supplements online, and so I get a lot of “20% off! Free shipping!” emails from the company I patronize. Yesterday, I got an email from them with the subject line, “Nicole, slim down for spring! Save 20% on all fat burners!” Then, today I received an email with the subject line, “Nicole, crank up your libido with help from Supplements Canada – 20% off plus free shipping!” WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO TELL ME? This wouldn’t be so bad except for the newsletter I received in my in-box with the subject line “Why Your Husband Doesn’t Want Sex.” I swear, opening my email is becoming very damaging to my self-esteem.

Robbing my children of joy and wonder since 2004.

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It’s only 12:45 and I feel like I’ve already accomplished SO MUCH today; one of those accomplishments was “going to Costco.” I have discovered the key to non-frustrating Costco trips – other than Shopping Cart Karma – and that is to go more frequently for fewer things. Of course, this would not be feasible if I lived in a rural area, but I’m 15 minutes away from my nearest Costco and so that half-hour round trip made more frequently is well worth it to not almost die from the physical exertion of pushing several hundred pounds of things through the parking lot, and then unloading all those things from the car and putting them away, necessitating several dozen trips up and down the stairs. Smaller frequent trips = Costco happiness.

Longtime readers will remember how I used to loathe Costco with all my might; I’d spend all the time shopping steeped in resentment, and also I would be deep breathing for fear all those gigantic boxes would suddenly let loose and fall on me, killing me instantly. This was a silly fear for in all these times, I’ve only been almost killed once by a falling pile of tampon boxes. Well, “almost killed” is probably an over-statement. In any case, I actually ENJOY my Costco trips now; possibly because the children are growing so rapidly that they eat every single thing in sight. They MIGHT even have eaten these, if I had deigned to buy them:

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Ha! Just kidding. They’d never eat those. Hell, I don’t think I would eat those, and I am exactly the target market for such things. Kale and chia tortilla chips. Please. That’s too sad even for me.

It was insanely busy in there, but I amused myself the way I usually do when I’m in a giant lineup: by surreptitiously peeking at other people’s cart contents. It’s so interesting. I often wonder what people are going to make/ cook/ do with the variety of items. It’s a fun little game. For example, the man in front of me had nothing whatever except a giant pork tenderloin and a 1000-count box of Splenda packets. I wonder if people are looking at my cart, wondering about me, although my cart was a little boring today: mostly fruit – fresh, frozen AND dried – nuts, and chocolate, with a flat of Perrier thrown in for balance.

I also bought a few candy-type things for loot bags because…we’re planning a birthday party for Mark! This is big news; we haven’t had a kid birthday party for a few years – neither boy has wanted one, but this year, Mark does. Mostly, it’s going to be eight kids “hanging out” in my basement. I’m not going to lie: I’m slightly nervous at the thought of having EIGHT KIDS IN MY BASEMENT FOR FOUR UNSTRUCTURED HOURS but maybe it will be fine. Mark isn’t interested in party games or the like, so the vague plan is for the kids to play Just Dance and watch a movie on DVD, but we shall see. Hopefully it will be fine; as long as I remember to put away my husband’s free weights and reiterate that no one is allowed on the elliptical machine, there should be few injuries, at least. I’m sure the kids will have fun – there’s going to be pizza and a DQ Treatzza Pizza so ALL WILL BE FINE, RIGHT?

One thing that we are doing, and have done in the past, is eliminate the gifts and instead ask guests to bring food bank donations. This works well for us; Mark is a pretty charitably-oriented guy, and really doesn’t need a whole bunch of gifts – he has two sets of doting grandparents, aunts, and uncles, plus gifts from us. But the other day I saw an article in Today’s Parent about “No Gifts, Please” and the Facebook comments were as full of anger and vitriol as a piece on measles outbreaks. I know, I know, don’t read the comments. But really, you would have thought that, instead of focusing more on “good times with friends” and less on “unwrapping a ton of things to add to the million things in the kids’ room” meant “depriving child of all joy and wonder in life.” Well, if that’s true, so be it. My children will look back on their childhoods and say well, it was pretty good, except for the total absence of joy and wonder.

Speaking of joy and wonder, yesterday I had my hair coloured and cut – a week late, due to my pressing commitments as Book Fair Lady – and today I am having the best hair day ever. Soft, bouncy, shiny…and the only witnesses were the people shopping at Costco and the girls at the dog park. Due to the miracles of the modern age we live in, you are now witness to Nicole’s Best Hair Day of March 2015. Yes, I’m calling it now, I don’t care if it is only the fourth.

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SO much better than the before photo, am I right?

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Photo of my rack

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Well, okay, since you ALL want to see my amazing rack:

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It’s beautiful!

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Look at the well-designed cutlery section. GAZE AT THE BEAUTY OF PRACTICALITY.

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There are lots of benefits to living in a senior-heavy community: my children are doted on by my neighbours because they are novel on our street, someone is always peeking out their window and willing to report suspicious behaviour and/ or unsafe parking, and lawns and gardens on our street are generally very well maintained. One of the main drawbacks: parking lots. Parking lots in my community are terrifying: there’s always some old man in a giant boat of a vehicle who can barely see or walk backing aggressively out of his handicapped parking stall at the Co-Op, and if you’re not constantly on high alert your chances of getting run over are close to one. I am loath to patronize certain shops that share a parking lot with the nearest Safeway/ London Drugs/ chiropractor, because driving through that lot feels like I am taking my life into my hands. The combination of elderly drivers and impatient university students feels deadly. But when the parking lots are snow-covered, well, that’s when shit gets real.

Today I went to the nearest lab services to get some routine blood work done. As I drove around looking for a spot, I realized something strange. Instead of rows of vehicles two deep, there were vehicles everywhere. Some rows were one car deep, some were two, and all of them slanted off in strange directions. There was really no rhyme or reason to it. Some cars were parked in the middle of what should have been two front-to-back parking spots. It was the least efficient parking I have seen in my life.

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This photo does not do it justice. Can you see how tight it is for the car to drive through, and then how the line sort of shifts over to prevent people from parking? It was weirdly chaotic. Now add a bunch of elderly drivers in the mix and you get terror in the parking lot.

The parking lot was small potatoes compared with the actual lab. It was full of irate old people and three very ill-looking young women. I actually considered taking one of the medical masks offered at the desk for people with cough and fever. There is a dad at school pick-up who has lately been showing up wearing one such mask, and I’m curious to know if he’s ill or just trying not to get ill.

Anyway, the way the lab works is that it takes appointments, which can be made online or over the phone, and if there is time they will take walk-ins. I am fairly risk-averse, and so I always make appointments, and cannot for the life of me understand why anyone would try to walk into a lab with such a policy. And yet! One should never underestimate the anger of the old man who is forced to wait for his blood work. One such fellow was shouting at the receptionist because he phoned at 10:30 and they said they had space for him at 11:00. It was 1:30, and the receptionist was trying to explain that they did have a cancellation 2 1/2 hours ago, but now there was a wait. Another old man kept loudly muttering that his daughter had made an appointment for him at 1:20, and now it was 1:30, and why the hell did anyone even make an appointment if they had such a casual disregard for his valuable time. At that point, he did get called in, and I could hear him complaining about the ten-minute wait all the way down the hall.

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Did you watch the Super Bowl on the weekend? I sure did, and I deserve the Good Wife Award because I wore this:

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And then the Patriots won. Coincidence? More importantly, there has been a ruling from the CRTC that bans Canadian broadcasters from simulcasting during the big Super Bowl commercials starting in 2017. Those of you in the US are probably puzzled right now – you mean you can’t see the multi-million dollar commercials that are an integral part of the Super Bowl experience? That’s right. Instead we see commercials for the local plumber who is famous for his tiny dog, Dino the Toilet Dog, or “live on location at a furniture warehouse” commercials, or commercials for syndicated television programs running on that channel. And while that might not seem like an issue in the grand scheme of the world, it is an annoyance nonetheless. My Super Bowl prediction for 2017: at least 50% less yelling at the television by my husband and others like him. There will still be yelling, but it will be game-related.

 

Professional Internet Commenter, or “PIC” for short

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Happy New Year! And thank you to everyone who offered your kind words. I promise to keep on keeping on, because what if the mannequin came back? If a mannequin shows up in Nicole’s alley, and Nicole doesn’t write about it, does it really exist? We may never know.

I hope you had a lovely start to the New Year. We all – yes, even me – stayed up to midnight. This is the first time that the kids stayed up to ring in the New Year – and to be honest, I kind of dozed on the couch until the clock struck twelve. But we all saw 2015 come in, disappointing the children because I was unable to say “see you next year” like I normally do at bedtime on December 31.

When you were young, what did you picture your life to be like? I wonder about people who are what I like to call “professional internet commenters”. You know what I’m talking about; people who – apparently – search the internet for terms that are important to them, and then comment – generally in a negative fashion – on what they find. I used to think that these people had a lot of spare time, but now I’ve come to the realization that this is what these people DO. This is their career choice, albeit a poorly-paid career choice, and so they take it seriously.

My first encounter with Professional Internet Commenters was many years ago. My friend Veronica had written a blog post, casually and in passing saying that Esperanto was a silly, made-up language. Oh! So many internet comments about that. I had never even heard of Esperanto but it was a topic that drew many passionate supporters, who were incensed at the usage of the words silly and made-up.

I once had a Professional Internet Commenter say that he hoped someone locked me up for child abuse, and that someone should call the UN. Oh, Professional Internet Commenter. I know you meant to shame me but really, it amuses me no end. Someone should call the UN. THE UN! Yes, someone SHOULD call the United Nations about my views on health, wellness, and necessary medical procedures. The UN!

Recently a friend pointed out a recipe for muffins on the Yummy Mummy Club site that had a massive divisive comment section on the amount of sugar in the muffins. There was name-calling and much agitation about the muffin recipe. Muffins: today’s hot-button topic. You can almost see Tucker Carlson and James Carville taking sides. Resolved: muffins are an appropriate breakfast food. Today at 11.

Lately I’ve been getting Professional Internet Commenters getting upset with my usage of the words “cleanse and detox” when it comes to juice and smoothie recipes, which perversely makes me want to use “cleanse and detox” in every single conversation from now until the internet blows up. I had one such person tell me that no one could take me seriously when I use the words “cleanse and detox” because “cleansing and detoxing” is a bogus concept with no scientific backing; I happened on a “cleanse and detox” article in Canadian Living and the exact same person left the exact same comment. It made me feel kind of famous, to be honest. I mean, I’m getting the same Professional Internet Commenters as Canadian Living! Looks like we made it!

Speaking of CLEANSING AND DETOXING, are you making any New Year’s resolutions? I have one, and that is to learn how to decorate cakes, cupcakes, and cookies, and not just like this:

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Technically that is not my work of art, but it’s about at my current decorating level.

So I’m pretty excited about that. I have a few friends who I’m going to call on for advice, and then watch out, world! It’s going to be a cupcake-palooza around here. And after that? A CLEANSE AND DETOX.

I’ll be over here waiting for the internet to blow up. But do share – what are your resolutions, if any?