Category Archives: Housewifery

More Kitchen Love!

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So many sad things happening in the world, and I seem to be coping by not turning the news on, ever, and closing my eyes when I see any link on social media that isn’t a picture of a baby animal or a recipe. It’s maybe not the best coping strategy, but it seems to be working for me.

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We interrupt this program to bring you a picture of Barkley.

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And also a cute pineapple named Piney.

 Also I’m having a lot of solo kitchen dance parties and karaoke parties. I’m blaming it all…on the nights on Broadway! I’m in week two of the Kitchn Cure, and this week was all about appliances. One of the specific tasks was to clean the oven, and to be honest, I think I’ve only cleaned my oven two or three times in my whole life. Not too long ago, I used the self-cleaning function, which was a huge mistake. I spent the hours terrified that the oven would somehow blow up due to excessive heat, and I also did not have the foresight to do this job in the summer, so the entire house was filled with a terrible, choking smell. After the whole process, I expected the oven to be a glossy shrine, but it didn’t look that much different, to be honest. It was no fridge cleaning experience, let me tell you.

Still. I signed up for the Kitchn Cure and the Kitchn Cure I will do, dammit. I bought a fume-free, probably carcinogenic oven cleaning product, followed the directions, and…it looks marginally better. AT LEAST I CAN SAY I CLEANED MY OVEN. I also cleaned the stovetop and hood fan, but you really can’t tell all that much.

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Maybe it was clean enough before.

This week’s assignments were also to clean and evaluate all small appliances, and then BUY  small appliance if needed. I haven’t bought one yet but I am planning to purchase a crockpot in the near future. I know what you’re thinking, you don’t already have one?, and the answer is no, I do not. I know! Just when you thought I had every small appliance in the world except an electric can opener.

Digression: is an electric can opener not the most ridiculous invention ever? How many cans are we opening here, people, to necessitate an electronic process?

In any case, at some point I will be looking for a crockpot, so any advice on what to look for is greatly appreciated. Because talking about cleaning appliances is the most boring thing ever – I’m putting myself to sleep just typing this – I am going to just talk about my favourite small appliances. First, to the left of the stove is my stand mixer, which is a wonderful piece of equipment. What I did without it I do not know. It’s a thing of beauty, and it even has a timer for those recipes that are weirdly exact (“Beat at medium for 3 minutes.”).

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Coffee maker and toaster; I don’t think I need to tell you why they are favourite appliances.

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Food processor and Vitamix.

A few people have asked me if the Vitamix is a worthwhile investment, and my answer is that it depends. For me, it is, because I’m always making weird things like cashew cheese or nut butters or green smoothies that really require a high powered blender. It’s great for soups and sauces as well. However! It is NOT interchangeable with a food processor. If I’m making something thick, like a hummus or a tahini ball or a mousse pie, then I only use the food processor. I just don’t find that the Vitamix does as good of a job getting the consistency right, and also it is a bitch to get thick stuff out of the bottom, around the blade. It’s worthwhile to me to have both because it’s used for 10 smoothies a week, plus a food processor just does not do a good job pulverizing cashews or almonds for creams or cheeses, which is a big thing for me. Before you buy, really evaluate what you want it for, because a blender with less power might work just fine, or a food processor might be a better bet.

The other two appliances that I like, but don’t use enough to justify counter space are my dehydrator and my juicer. They live in my pantry downstairs, and the dehydrator is set up so that I never have to move it. It’s almost that time of the year again, when Concord grapes are in season and my mother-in-law will inevitably gift me with forty pounds worth. Homemade grape fruit leather is pretty much snack ever, and I’m looking forward to that.

Thus ends my discussion of small appliances. So, tell me, what kind of crockpot should I look for? What are your favourite small appliances? How often do YOU clean your oven (i.e., am I disgusting and lazy for almost never doing it?).

Kitchen Love

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I know this isn’t exactly a shocking revelation, but I spend the vast majority of my time in the kitchen. But not barefoot (usually). And not pregnant (definitely). Ever since the Great Kitchen Renovation of 2012, I really love being in my kitchen. It’s so pretty and bright! Someone recently told me that stainless steel appliances and granite countertops are the Harvest Gold appliances and sparkly-laminate countertops of our generation, and while I don’t totally disagree, I am also of the opinion that all home décor dates eventually, so you might as well enjoy what makes you happy now. Unless you live in Downton Abbey, the décor you choose will at some point be used as an archaeological dating method. I mean, think of those country kitchens of the 80s, with duck-themed wallpaper and ruffly curtains. Think of the French Provincial looks of the late 90s. No matter what you think will be a timeless classic, odds are it won’t. This is a public service announcement for “living in the now”.

Here’s me making coconut whipped cream in my kitchen. See? It’s pretty!

So, I love my kitchen but there are elements I don’t love, some of which are changeable, and some of which are not. I wish it was bigger, for example, but that would entail moving house and that’s not something I want to do at this time. I hate how my miscellaneous drawer gets jammed because of all the stuff I mindlessly throw in there; this is something I CAN change. I hate how my spice cupboard is a jumble of jars and random containers; also changeable.

So I signed up for The Kitchn Cure to refresh and reorganize my kitchen a little.

Week One: Clean out the freezer and fridge.

Not to be boasty, but I recently obtained a full size, upright freezer and extra fridge and it has changed my life. For the longest time, I hemmed and hawed over getting a fridge and freezer for downstairs, until finally my husband got tired of me sobbing while jamming frozen foods into the freezer compartment of my regular fridge, and went out and bought them. Life altering. I can now batch cook! And buy giant bags of frozen berries at Costco! And put extra vegetables in the fridge instead of having to run out for groceries three times in a five day span! The only reason I bring this up is that I do not need to clean out my freezer, since it’s relatively new and unsullied. Look!

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See, it hasn’t had a chance to become messy and disorganized and YES those are frozen chicken fingers. What? Like I’m the only person who feeds my kids frozen chicken fingers on a Friday night. The week is long, people.

But cleaning the fridge was another story altogether. I’ve halfheartedly wiped down shelves and drawers in the two years since the Great Kitchen Renovation, but I’ve never done a really deep cleaning.

Exhibit A: Fridge Before Cleaning

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It’s not terrible. It’s a little jumbled. There are crumbs and grubbiness, but not too bad. Also – it is not on an angle, that’s my photography.

My assignment was to take everything out, clean all shelves and drawers, throw out anything that was bad, and put everything back in neatly. Now, my fridge was mid-cycle, grocery wise, so it wasn’t as full or as empty as it could be. I did the same for the freezer compartment. I washed everything and scrubbed everything and put it all back in…

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There was caramel goop on the bottom of that shelf that is not there any more.

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Usually there is a juice carton in that door; like I said, mid-cycle.

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I’m not sure if you can appreciate it from this picture, but oh my god you guys, the fridge is so clean.

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The crispers and the meat/cheese drawer were the worst in terms of gross crumbs that had fallen in from everywhere. Pepper seeds, old garlic peels, random twist ties. ALL GONE AND ALL CLEAN.

I did the same for the freezer compartment, but the pictures do not really look any different. Trust me, it’s way more organized and clean.

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Also? That fruit blend makes the best smoothies.

Lessons Learned From Week One: Kitchn Cure

1) I am completely obsessive. I can’t stop looking at the clean fridge. I keep opening the fridge just to gaze at the contents. My husband put a bottle of barbeque sauce into the fridge and I quietly went in and moved it. This has got to stop, but for now, I’m pretty excited about it.

2) I do a pretty good job of using up the food that I buy. In other words, all that obsessive menu planning and list-making has paid off. There was very little waste and very little to throw out. Here is what I threw out of my fridge during The Great Cleaning: a jar of strawberry jam from 2011 that had 1/2 inch of jam in it, a two-inch long dried out piece of ginger, a carton of vanilla almond milk that had about 1/4 cup in it, 1/3 of a very soft cucumber, and two empty Ziploc bags.

3) I have a bad habit of putting things in the freezer and then forgetting about them. Case in point: in the freezer I found a package of bagels, 6 bags that each contained one single pita, and a bag containing five freezer burned hot dog buns. I composted the buns, and vowed not to buy any more pita or bagel until the frozen ones have been consumed. I also found two packages of hot dogs that had each contained three freezer burned hot dogs, which ended up in the garbage.

I snuck a peek at this week’s assignments, and one of them is all about small appliances. Squee, this will be fun!

Productivity Week Is At A Close

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Today is the last day of karate camp, and I’ve been SO PRODUCTIVE this week. Some of the accomplishments have been less fun – like taking the car in to get the tires rebalanced, and getting teary-eyed and having to call my husband because the guys at the tire place said we didn’t have an appointment and I’d have to leave the car there all day. Doing anything car-related, whether it be a tire issue or an oil change, makes me feel terribly anti-feminist and clichéd because I honestly have nearly zero understanding of car-related issues and my first reaction when anything goes wrong is to cry and call my husband. I know! It’s terrible. The most terrible part is that getting teary-eyed and calling my husband works every time, EVERY TIME, PEOPLE, and so I have no motivation to change this repellent behaviour. It always ends up with the car guys quickly fitting me in and apologizing for any inconvenience this may have caused me, and would I like a coffee? Sigh, I know. I hate being a cliché and yet, at the dealership where we bought our car, there is a manicure bar, a MANICURE BAR, PEOPLE, for women just like me who need to bring their cars in for oil changes but who also have anxiety attacks at the thought of it so hey, pretty lady, how about a manicure?

When I was in grad school I studied gender differences in incomes and I had two posters on my office wall: one was a fish riding a bicycle and the other was the Feminist Manifesto. Fast forward sixteen years and I’m crying at the tire place and getting my nails done at car dealerships.

Anyway, other than the tire balancing, it’s been a great week. Save for a half-day camp at the local farm/ petting zoo five years ago, my children have never been to a day camp. I’m kind of wondering why not, because they have gotten so much out of this camp, and it’s not just the improvement in their karate katas. For example, Jake has suddenly learned how to dive for rings at the bottom of the pool, which he would never do before. I realized the motivation behind this sudden act of athletic bravery when I learned that he was swimming with a very pretty thirteen year old brown belt. I see! Jake does not have any confidence issues on that front, given that he heard me singing You’re So Vain while I drove them to camp, and then casually mentioned that he thought that song WAS about him, since he’s so handsome and whatnot.

It’s been beautifully hot here, and we’ve had very few storms, which is highly unusual for Calgary. I could tell one was coming yesterday afternoon by the feel of the air and also because I am now 90 and I can feel it in my bones. Anyway, once I got the boys home from camp I threw their disgustingly dirty camp stuff in the washer, whipped up a batch of cookies and put it in the oven, and started dinner. The boys were relaxing like little non-evil Frank Underwoods, playing video games, and suddenly all went dark. The power went out! We rarely have power outages so I wasn’t overly prepared. I took the cookies out, put the just-thawed chicken breasts back in the fridge, and wondered what to do. Apparently I’m not at all like Ma Ingalls because I literally had no idea what to do. The house was super dark even though it wasn’t yet 5:00, what with the storm and black clouds. Eventually my husband came home and we all went out for dinner – being my car was trapped in the garage with the electric door. How dependent we are in this modern existence! God, I wouldn’t last a damn DAY on the old homestead. The power was off for over two and a half hours, but by the time we got home the power was on, the washer had finished its cycle, and I put the cookies back in the oven. Note: they turned out way flatter than normal but still were edible, so if you should ever be in a similar situation, try re-baking. It works, apparently.

The other day I was watching the news and there was this guy, Michael Bridge, playing the accordion. Now, my “experience” with the accordion is hearing the polka and while polkas are fun and all, they are not exactly remarkable. THIS GUY. He played a few tunes of a classical bent, and then suddenly ripped out with Sweet Child of Mine. On the accordion. It was the single most amazing thing I’d seen, music-wise, and I’ve been scouring the internet trying to find a video of it. No such luck, but if you find it, please let me know. A friend, after hearing about my fascination with this accordion-playing wunderkind, sent me this video and while it’s not an accordion, it IS pretty cool. A ukulele version of Billie Jean? Sign me up!

My productive week is almost at its end; this afternoon I will be watching two and a half hours of a karate tournament and demonstration, and tomorrow I will also be at a karate shiah tournament, and so I feel like my new identity as a sports mom is complete. I’m totally going to be Lynn Raisman, just give me a couple of years.

39 Clues…about being 39

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Yesterday was my birthday and I turned 39. It’s the start of my last year in my thirties! Some people feel gloomy on their birthdays, but not me. I love birthdays, and also, I don’t want to be dead, which is the alternative to aging. Bring on the age, I say! One step closer to shuffleboard, slacks, plastic jewelry, and sexually harassing young male orderlies in the Home. I also think that birthdays are the day to party, caramba, fiesta, forever, and to also wear tiaras.

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Thanks to my friend Rebecca and her girls for bringing it, tiara-style.

 

With the vantage point of being 39 and one day, I give you my list of 39 random thoughts about being 39.

1) I like the way “39” sounds. Not quite middle-aged, but old enough to OWN these forehead wrinkles.

2) I feel way more healthy and attractive than I did twenty years ago.

3) I’m confident enough to rock a bikini, which I didn’t do twenty years ago.

4) Still, I would like the girls to be more like they were twenty years ago, if I’m being honest. Gravity and age has been hard on my poor deflated rack.

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Ah, youth. Remember drinking before going to the bar? It was all about economics.

 

5) This would be why I’m a Victoria Secret devotee. I need all the engineering I can get.

6) I think I have better style now than I did twenty years ago, but that might be due to the fact that twenty years ago I was wearing high waisted jeans and bodysuits.

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And puffy pirate shirts.

7) Letting my hair go more than six weeks between colours is disastrous, not only for the inch long grey roots, but because the rest of my hair resembles orange straw.

8) Every morning I check my chin for long black hairs.

9) Despite checking every morning, every once in a while I will notice a one-inch black hair under my chin that wasn’t there the day before.

10) Although the whole world drools over Don Draper, the man I find most attractive on Mad Men is Henry Francis. And also, disturbingly, Jim Cutler.

11) In a similar vein, I find Mike the most attractive man on Breaking Bad.

12) I feel disappointed in a motherly sort of way when I think of Jesse. I do not find him attractive in the least.

13) I recently referred to Chris Evans as a “very nice looking young man”.

14) It’s been 25 years since my first viewing of Say Anything, and I still kind of identify with Diane Court. I AM a show pony, after all.

15) While at the salon on Friday, getting my grey roots and orange straw hair coloured, I read People magazine and realized – not for the first time – that I don’t know any of today’s hot new celebrities. Celebrities featured in People that I did recognize: George Clooney, Jennifer Aniston, and Boo the Pomeranian.

16) I am older than Sally Albright, Mrs. Robinson, and Princess Diana when she died.

17) Of all fictional movie characters, I most identify with Sally Albright, even if I have a few years on her. This is especially true of the way I order food in restaurants. “On the side” is a very big thing for me.

18) My husband took the winter tires off my minivan and put on the fanciest rims you have ever seen on a minivan. My ride has been pimped, as they say. It’s like I’m having a midlife crisis, minivan style.

19) Because of these hot new rims, I feel like I’m going to be the bitchin-est mom at pickup. I already kind of look like this guy when I’ve got the beats going, but with a minivan.

20) Damn. It feels good to be a gangster.

21) My husband says I am the easiest person to buy gifts for, because I’m hysterically excited at just the thought of gifts.

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Presents presents presents!

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PRESENTS!

 

22) This was exemplified by my squealing excitement at the receipt of a dish towel from my children. But then, it was this dish towel, so that’s pretty amazing.

 

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Easy as Pi! There’s even a graphic of a double cone. I’m sure there are some reading this who knew me in high school, and so “Conics Goddess” may have some meaning for those readers.

 

23) Last year I received a dehydrator and this year I received a juicer, and I am absolutely thrilled to receive kitchen appliances as gifts.

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But then, I guess I’ve always been excited about receiving kitchen appliances.

24) I am old enough to see not only fashions from my childhood back in style, but also from my teen years. I’m too old to wear them though, so I guess I will leave the bubble skirts and gladiator sandals to the young people.

25) I use terms like “young people”.

26) When I read magazines that have those “Beauty At Any Age” articles, I flip to “In Your 40’s” because the advice for “In Your 30’s” feels a bit irrelevant. I feel like my fertile years are greatly in the past (knock wood).

27) I cannot blame my children anymore if I’m tired.

28) I cannot watch movies that are sad, scary, or violent.

29) I did, however, recently watch Love Story on a plane, and was struck by my teenage resemblance to a young Ali MacGraw. It must be the eyebrows.

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29) I spend a great deal of effort plucking those eyebrows because these days, they would make me look less like Ali MacGraw and more like Martin Scorsese. See also: chin hair.

30) I can remember the song lyrics to practically every song I’ve ever heard, yet I need to write down “put out garbage” every second Monday.

31) I feel vaguely shocked when I hear of people going out at nine pm, even though I know I once did that too.

32) To me, a perfect evening sounds like watching Downton Abbey in my pajamas with a bottle of wine.

33) Only on weekends though, because I had one measly drink on Sunday night and my Monday morning yoga practice felt like I had turned into the Tin Man.

34) Speaking of which, I’ve never watched The Wizard of Oz the whole way through because it freaked me out as a child and it freaks me out now. Tornadoes, flying monkeys, general creepiness.

35) I actually said to my husband, when we were spring cleaning and getting rid of old toys, that “maybe we should keep that for our grandchildren”.

36) I don’t actually want grandchildren until my kids are 30 or so.

37) I point out pretty girls to my husband, who tells me that it is not normal to tell your husband “Look at that girl! She’s hot!”

38) I have friends who really get me, and every day I am awash in appreciation for them. You know who you are, you ladies who make me laugh and smile and think about things, you who I see daily and you who I only see a few times a year but it’s as if no time has passed, you who read my blog and you who try my recipes. I love you all! xoxo

39) Every day, I can’t believe how lucky I am. My family, my life, it all feels charmed. I’m filled with gratitude for every year and I’m excited for the years to come.

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Lucky, lucky me!

 

Get Off My Lawn

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Ever since I complained about my too-tight-post-vacation pants, my Facebook feed has been full of advertisements regarding the most efficient way to get rid of belly fat, the one simple exercise to rid myself of belly fat, the one surprising food to avoid to eliminate belly fat, and ways to become bikini ready in just ten days. Well, thanks, Facebook, but I think I’m good now. My pants fit again so you can go back to advertising whatever it was you advertised before (Yoga studios? Clothing stores? Makeup? I don’t really know.).

How was your weekend? Mine started off by the delivery of a new freezer and fridge for the basement; their chilliness warms my food-hoarding little heart. I am beyond excited to be able to buy tons of produce and not have to play Tetris to get it all to fit in my fridge, and now I have an actual honest-to-God freezer to freeze things instead of jamming things into the beer-fridge-sized freezer and the compartment on my fridge, breaking my nails, and crying. The receipt of these items meant that my husband and I had a lot of reorganizing/ purging/ moving things/ swearing to do in order to make everything fit. It turns out that we have differing opinions on what sort of things are appropriate to keep – old golf how-to manuals versus a box of old fridge magnets – and that if a dumpster were in the neighbourhood, I should not leave the house lest my husband gets hold of my boxes of old Christmas cards and the kids’ old art projects. Not that I’m really a hoarder – I happily packed up many boxes and bags of things to be donated/ recycled/ garbaged – but it turns out my husband is much more brutal in his spring cleaning efforts than I am. I AM NOT GETTING RID OF THE FRIDGE MAGNETS AND ART PROJECTS.

Anyway, after the excitement of the new appliances, then there was the excitement of Mad Men! I sternly told the boys to shower and read their books in silence, because I had been waiting for ten months to watch this show and sssshhhhhhh. I will say this: it did not disappoint. I was struck, watching the scenes on the plane, by how much air travel has changed in the past 40-50 years. It used to seem so glamourous; now it’s all about watching your seatmate grossly eat Cheezies and drunkenly pass out beside you.

So that brings us to Monday morning. Apparently it is Bermuda Shorts Day today, which, if you did not go to the University of Calgary and are therefore in the dark why a) anyone would wear Bermuda shorts and b) why that would occur in April in Calgary, here is a little background information for you. Basically, it boils down to the last day of classes being celebrated by much drunken debauchery. The reason I know that it is Bermuda Shorts Day today is that I live in walking distance to the university, and while I was peacefully folding clothes I looked out the window and saw hordes of students in various ridiculous shorts-based outfits, walking down the street, beers and red Solo cups in hand. I smiled to myself, thinking of my youth and many fun Bermuda Shorts Days of my own…when I saw a girl chug a beer and throw the can on my lawn. I ran – not walked – to the front door and by the time I got there I noticed people putting their empty cans underneath the tires of the cars parked on my street. Whipping the door open, I screamed “HEY! DON’T THROW BEER CANS ON MY LAWN!!!” while the students looked on, startled. One young man in cutoff denim shorts with the pockets hanging down started collecting the cans while the rest stared at the crazy red-haired hausfrau reaming them out. At least I wasn’t wearing an apron and/or hair curlers. “Have a good time, but have some fucking respect for my neighbourhood. I don’t want to see this shit ANYMORE!” and mid-sentence a cop car patrolling the neighbourhood for drunken debauchery pulled up. Good timing, sir! I left him to it while watching out the window with a furrowed brow at the state of the young people today. GET OFF MY LAWN AND TURN OFF THAT INFERNAL RACKET.

Happy Monday to everyone! On that note, it’s a good day to get to know each other better – did you know littering makes me lose my mind? – and so I bring you Meme Monday. If you want to play, either blog these questions or answer in the comments. Getting to know you…getting to know all aboooouuut you…

Is it spring where you are?

Well, yes, in that it’s “spring in Calgary” spring, and not “things are actually growing and blossoming” spring. Things are brown, mostly, but there are some tiny buds on the trees and the glacier in my back yard is starting to retreat so, yes. Also, two magpies got into a fight with a squirrel yesterday in the trees in our front yard; I’m not sure why. Maybe the magpies had a nest nearby, or maybe they were just being assholes. Either way I was rooting for the squirrel.

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Kind of depressing glimpse at my back yard. At least it’s melting!

 

What was the last book you read, and would you recommend it?

I read so many books on vacation that I was considering a “Monday on the Margins” type post in the style of my erudite friend Allison, but actually the last book I read was Bossypants. And yes! I’d recommend it. That was about the sixth time I’ve read it – it is a hilarious and entertaining read, and since I read The Bear on vacation and I cannot read anything remotely heavy for a while.

Reality TV – yes or no?

I feel like I’m the star of my own show – Real Housewives Near The U of C With Food Hoarding Issues. But no. I think reality TV is a wretched chapter in the history of television, and I will not watch any of it.

Who is your favourite cartoon character of all time?

Well, that’s easy. Ralph Wiggum.

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Do you have a song stuck in your head right now? If so, what?

I always have a song stuck in my head and it can vary from “Summer Breeze” to “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go” to “Linda Put The Coffee On” to “Empire State of Mind” – you should hear me hit the high notes. Today I have “Monster” by Eminem and Rihanna stuck in my head, over and over, I wanna be the Bruce Lee of looseleaf. But that is a post in itself.

Go ahead, play along! And Happy Monday/ Bermuda Shorts Day to all. xoxo

I Smell Sex and…Tofu

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Yesterday I bit the inside of my lip very hard, so hard I drew blood, and that spot has swollen up in my mouth such that normal chewing has led to me accidentally re-biting it over and over again. At this point I am begging my own teeth for mercy and considering a liquids-only diet, if only to cut out chewing.

So far this week has been one long domestic duty after another. Yesterday I went to Costco and ran into a friend; we chatted for a while and then she glanced at my cart. “My god!” she said, “Is this a NORMAL trip for you? Do you always have so much fruit?” Well, yes. And my Costco produce trips are not going to get any smaller, since my husband just bought me a juicer as an early birthday gift! Juice for everyone! My liquids-only-no-more-chewing diet is going to really take off; now all I need is a few good recipes. Ideas and tips, all you intrepid juicers out there?

Today I was grocery shopping at my old-people Co-Op to pick up the things that I can’t get at Costco, and lo, there were two young people there. Young people! At the “all seniors all the time” Co-Op! Not only that but these two individuals were young men who were clearly unaccustomed to grocery shopping of any kind. I saw them in the dairy section, and then I saw them in the produce section. I couldn’t help but overhear their conversation as I scrutinized red peppers and packets of basil; from their discussion I realized that they were grocery shopping to make dinner for their girlfriends. It was absolutely adorable, and I felt that full-heart feeling I get when I witness young love, like I’m a withered up old crone who receives vicarious joy from others’ youth and romance.

“Now, the problem is, I don’t know how we’re going to find balsamic vinegar,” one said to the other after a prolonged discussion about whether these are Roma tomatoes or not, and is sheep’s feta okay? I leapt into action and said the balsamic vinegar is right over there, down that aisle. “That one right in front of us?” the other fellow asked, pointing at the cereal and peanut butter aisle. No. I showed them and told them exactly where in the aisle to find it. Hey, the Co-Op is designed for the elderly in my elderly community; they rearrange nothing, ever, and I have been frequenting that place for fourteen years. I could pretty much draw a map to every item available.

Back in our romantic courting days, my husband used to cook all the time. I rarely, if ever, made dinner back then. My husband would cook, and grocery shop, and my oh my, is it getting hot in here? There’s not much sexier than having dinner made for you, now is there? If that was his seduction plan then it worked, every time. These days he mostly grills giant cuts of meat on the barbeque for the kids, and bemoans my vegetarianism. Well, and he buys juicers and other small appliances for me, which is also very sexy in its own way. Especially since I somehow just bit my inner lip AGAIN and I’m not even eating anything.

The other day we were having breakfast-for-supper, a weekly occurrence in my house, and I made a tofu scramble. For those of you who don’t know, it’s like a vegan version of scrambled eggs. I was creating a recipe and so was throwing things together and making notes about additions. I served up a small portion for him to sample and, I will tell you, I was pretty startled at his reaction. “Damn! This is great! This is really good!” he said as I stared at him in disbelief. Given that he was just cooking a pound of bacon for himself and the boys, I felt this to be quite a testament to the tastiness of the dish. Either that or he was trying to get busy with me. Or – OR – he was bedazzled by my new Victoria’s Secret push-up bra. Either way. Tofu. Enjoyed by my husband.

If he had wanted to romance me he could hardly have improved upon this.

After I helped them find the balsamic vinegar, the young guys at Co-Op thanked me effusively. I smiled at them as they eagerly unloaded their groceries in the”12 Items Or Less” line, when I noticed one of them had a giant hickey on his neck. Aww. Godspeed, young man. May your dinner be excellent.

The Wearing of the Green (Eyed Monster)

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This weekend my husband was watching “The Wolverine”. Remember the lengths I went to in order to obtain that video? It turns out I was actually uninterested in watching it, and so I puttered around the kitchen, making cookies and banana bread while my husband – who must be the world’s most confident man – would call me in to the living room occasionally to watch a scene or two. The scenes that he was bringing my attention to were solely gratuitous shirtless fight sequences. “Nicole! You’ve got to come see this!” he would say and then we would both watch in awe. How much did that man train in preparation for that movie? By all accounts the movie was kind of terrible, but the parts I saw were just fine.

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It’s a little bit funny that I should objectify the male body so much when I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the objectification of the female body. Remember that “What’s Your Excuse” mom – Maria Kang, who a little while ago posted a photo of her fit and toned body with her three young kids? Shock! Outrage! Shaming! And yet, I fail to see the issue. She’s a woman who has launched a fitness program and website for all those moms out there who are mired down in the world of early motherhood, who want to increase their level of fitness. Great, right? But no, she has been much taken to task for fat-shaming and bullying.

Very, very gently I say to you: if this bothers you, look away. Maybe I’m naive, but I do not see how a woman launching a fitness program is doing it specifically to make womankind in general feel bad about themselves. My belief is that this woman is capitalizing on what every single fitness program talks about, and that is to Just Do It, in the words of the Nike people. No fitness program is based on “just exercise when you feel like it, maybe, or don’t, whatever.” They all say, NO MORE EXCUSES, schedule it in, find the time, do it.

So what’s the difference between what every mainstream fitness program says, and what Maria Kang is saying? She’s a young, attractive mother with a smoking hot body who has obtained that figure through hard work and exercise, and flaunts it. And why shouldn’t she? What’s wrong with it? If someone else’s figure is deeply offensive to you, then I suggest not looking at the photos, reading the stories, or subscribing to her website. But why should it offend you at all?

I have mixed feelings about the expression “Things will only hurt you if you let them” because sometimes people are really assholes and do say things specifically targeted to hurt people’s feelings. Example: if you get new carpeting put in your house and show me with pride and happiness, and I say “Carpeting is for stupid people who like allergens” then I am being an asshole. But if someone posts a flattering photo of themselves, saying that they have done away with excuses and have obtained a targeted level of fitness, and that you can too, well, I fail to see how that shames anyone. This is one of those cases where if I have an issue with it, then it’s my issue to deal with.

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I’m quite proud of this photo, actually.

Sometimes when a woman celebrates a breastfeeding milestone, or talks about her pride in giving her baby the very best start in life due to breastfeeding, I get a pang. I think of my own two children who I weaned very early and it makes me sad; but is it the fault of the breastfeeding mother? Is she talking about breastfeeding specifically to make me feel bad and ashamed of my own perceived failure? Of course not. It’s my issue and mine alone. It’s not her, it’s me.

And so I find it disheartening when I hear all this bashing about women and their bodies: from “Scarlett Johansson looking “fat” in a bikini” to “Real Women Have Curves” memes, from “Marilyn Monroe was a size 16” to “Denise Richards is too skinny”. There are the things we say to each other and about each other: “I hate you, you’re so skinny,” or “She probably has an eating disorder,” or “I hate to tell you this but you’ve gained so much weight that I’m worried about you!” We fixate on these things and so someone who purports to inspire young mothers to achieve new levels of fitness is slammed as a bully or a fat-shamer. We disparage fat people and we disparage skinny people and everyone’s body is up for criticism.

Lately there’s been a meme on Facebook, a “love your selfie” game where you post a photo of yourself without makeup and with natural hair. I love it because it’s celebrating what we are, our natural selves, even though this is what I look like au naturel:

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Even with that photo, I do love myself. There are things I do not like about my appearance, certainly. There are things I would change if I could, but on the most part I’m happy with my physical self. I wake up every morning at 4:30 and practice yoga for ninety minutes, I watch what I eat, I try to get enough vitamins, rest, and balance in my life. I can do a lot of things: I can play Fur Elise on the piano from memory, I can bake awesome cookies and read story books with all different voices. I can do calculus and analyze statistics and throw on a great Southern accent from that time I was Amanda Wingfield in my high school production of The Glass Menagerie. I can do this:

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But there are many, many things I cannot do. There are lots of things that YOU do that I admire, that I do not do myself: run marathons, press up into handstands, have the patience to spend your days working with children, take courses while juggling everything else, keep it together while your husband travels, travel alone to exotic locations, tote little people around all day. I cannot decorate cakes, swim laps, knit, sew on a button, or drive to new locations without much assistance and many tears. I have never turned a cartwheel in my life. But the fact that I do not or cannot do these things does not mean that I hate you for saying that you can do them. I do not feel that your ability to do these things shames me in any way. I’m proud of you for being able to do them. When my children were babies I was more like a chewed up piece of old string than Maria Kang, but that does not mean that Maria Kang has shamed me.

What I want us to do is look at ourselves, really look, and realize how beautiful we are. We are so beautiful, so interesting, so smart. We don’t need to feel inferior because of someone else’s success, because of someone else’s figure, vacation, job, or children. WE are successful, WE are beautiful, whatever the shape of our bodies and our days. What I want you to do for yourself is to really look at your life, really look at it, and see what amazing things you’ve done: the everyday things and the extraordinary things. I want you to see yourself for the amazing and beautiful person you are. Because I know you are. We all are.