Category Archives: I almost failed Home Ec

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.

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?

Cherry Cherry

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Sometimes, in order to get motivated, one needs to have a period of complete sloth, and that was me last week. I didn’t exercise. I didn’t work. I did the bare minimum around the house. Basically I spent a lot of time on the couch, with a glass of wine and this:

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Between my kids, husband, and mother-in-law, I received fifteen books for Christmas. My husband had wrapped them all but when we got an Amazon delivery on December 23, he decided he had enough of wrapping paper and tape and just handed me the book. It has essentially taken up every spare second I have had since then. I will have much to say about this – the Ingalls family saw much more scandal and poverty than one might think from reading the children’s books – but it will have to be at another time.

On Christmas morning, my husband handed me a small package, saying in a discouraged tone that he wasn’t sure I would like it, and that he did keep the receipt. It’s very unusual for him to be so unsure about a gift, since he normally bats things right out of the park. For example, this was in my stocking:

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Santa sure knows how to stuff MY stocking.

Anyway, my husband was uncharacteristically filled with insecurity, but when I opened the gift I couldn’t understand why. This choice shows how well he knows me!

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I’m not going to say it’s the greatest Christmas album ever, but it’s definitely close.

So I was mostly slothful and busy eating lots of snack mix and drinking lots of wine, but I had to haul myself off the couch on Christmas day, because I was hosting Christmas dinner. It was my very first that I hosted, and I think it went really well.

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After all this relaxation and festivity, I woke up on Boxing Day with a bee in my bonnet. I was filled with my usual urge to rip down the tree and

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But for reasons unknown, I had agreed to go Boxing Day shopping with my husband. Every year he takes advantage of the sales to purchase new suits, ties, and other expensive work wear. I had, for some reason – marital harmony, perhaps – said I would go with him while the kids stayed at home and played with their new video games. And I will tell you this: it was a huge mistake. For one thing, since Jacob closed its doors, every other clothing store means nothing to me. NOTHING. While my husband was busily fitting new suits, I was wandering from store to store amongst hordes of people who were foaming at the mouth. I wandered into Guess only to be completely shocked by the clothing. I wandered into H&M and wandered back out when I was confronted by the same black acid wash jeans I had in junior high. I was a person without a destination, which is not the way to Boxing Day shop, as evidenced by the stampede of people at Aritzia. In the end, I was bitterly regretting the one hour I spent at the mall, and by the time my husband was done I was pretty much ready to run home, just so I could clean the house.

The second we got in the door, I took off my “nice shopping clothes” and put on yoga pants, fuzzy socks, and an old waffle-weave shirt and began boxing things up. All Christmas-card glitter and dust was wiped away, the floors were washed, the bathroom scoured, the laundry done. It was, as always, a most satisfying project, Project End Christmas On Boxing Day.

And once again I will remind everyone that there are two types of Christmas Elves in the world, of which I belong to the latter category: 12 Days of Christmas Elves, and Advent Elves. We Advent Elves start Christmas festivities early. We are the ones who finish shopping in November, dig out our Christmas CDs the second Halloween decorations are put away, and fight the desire to tear down the tree at 10:00 am on December 25. 12 Days of Christmas Elves are the ones who keep their trees up into the New Year, who wrap gifts on December 24, and who think Advent Elves are insane. It’s okay! We think you’re kind of crazy too. We can still be friends!

As an important side note: the 12 days of Christmas START on Christmas. They do not start 12 days prior to Christmas.

In any case, around the Boyhouse things are pretty quiet this week. It’s terribly cold, so we are in hibernation mode: the kids playing with their new things, I’m enjoying my new books and clean house, and Barkley is just happy to have things back to normal.

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Clark, that there is an RV.

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Today is not only a no-school day, but it is also a moon day, meaning that I have had a slow, lazy day with the kids, making truffles, roasting squash, and pulling teeth. In the interest of veracity, I should say “pulling one tooth”, rather than giving you the image that I’m spending my day with a pile of baby teeth. In any case, it’s been a great day, punctuated by the excitement I’m feeling over being nominated for the Canadian Weblog Awards in the categories of humour, life, and parenting. Not to be all, it’s an honour just being nominated, but it is, actually, an honour being nominated.

It’s a nice cap to what has been a very strange week. After last week’s bake sale, I swore that I wasn’t going to volunteer for anything for a while; after that decision I immediately signed up to provide a main dish for the teacher’s potluck dinner. What is wrong with me? In fact, I had three dishes to make for three separate potlucks in a 48 hour span, so I’m feeling a bit fatigued. I am attending the Ladies’ Advent Dinner with my mother at her church tomorrow, so I’m hoping the elderly ladies will enjoy my quinoa dish. Years ago someone brought hummus to the Ladies’ Advent Dinner and it caused a bit of a stir. I’m hoping a funky quinoa dish will show that I’m just as much a rebel as I used to be. It has quinoa and kale in it – and that is how you spell wild and crazy.

Other than cooking a lot of things, I’ve also spent a lot of time standing in lines this week. I went to Costco, on a Tuesday morning, and I was reminded why I hate going anywhere in the month of December. Costco is especially terrible, what with the hundreds of giant carts blocking the aisles and what seems to be a company policy against plowing the parking lot. I had to position my entire body at a 45 degree angle just to push the cart back to the car, and I felt like I had been actually run over by a stampede of giant carts by the time I got home. It was like when the kids were small and I had to walk two blocks to the grocery store with them in the back-to-front double stroller on snowy sidewalks. It was an epic workout, just going to the store for some crackers or milk.

After the exhausting Costco trip I headed to the post office for stamps. It’s December. People are mailing things. There was one employee working, and the lineup snaked around the post office. Twenty five minutes and a long, detailed conversation with the elderly woman in front of me about her grandchildren and the price of stamps later, I purchased my stamps and went home, where I was immediately faced with a “Missed Delivery” notice from Canada Post. I was instructed to pick up my parcel the following day at the post office that I had just left.

What can you do? The following day I headed for the post office, notice in hand. After standing in line for 20 minutes at the post office while the single person in front of me – an elderly man – had discussed every single option for sending a package to Manitoba, and asked about delivery estimates for what seemed like every possible location across the country, I decided to stop at the photo centre next door to the post office; I had received an email that the photo calendars I had ordered were shipped. I stood in line for another twenty minutes, only to be told that “shipped” did not mean “in store”. We’ll call you when it’s in, the lady at the counter said cheerfully, to which I very consciously smiled and answered as pleasantly as possible. I went home and one hour later received a phone call that my photo calendars were in.

So it’s been that kind of week. At least this is no longer parked in front of my house:

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I looked out my window one morning and there it was. Clark, that there is an RV. I guess, technically, that a somewhat decrepit fifth wheel is not an RV.

When I was in university, I was taking a special statistics tutorial from a guy who, when he used “RV” for “Random Variable”, began discussing the actual recreational vehicle that one of our professors owned. It was the most simultaneously interesting and disturbing digression from statistics ever, since he talked about how he once peered into this professor’s RV (the recreational vehicle, not, obviously, the random variable) to see what was housed inside. I do not remember the result of this RV peeping Tom, but all these years later I remember wondering a) how the tutor knew where the RV was, and b) why he would want to see what was inside. Now, though, I understand his compulsion to look past the little frilled curtains, because I wanted to see if the mannequin was inside. I did not look, however, because the only thing weirder than me looking inside the strange fifth wheel in front of my house would be to find something like the mannequin. OR WORSE. In any case, the mystery of the RV’s appearance and disappearance – in the middle of winter, no less – will remain unsolved, just like the mystery of the mannequin.

Here’s Looking At You, Kid

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Well, hello there, December! It’s absurd to say that a date snuck up on me, what with the availability of calendars and all, but the date snuck up on me. This morning the boys cracked open their Advent calendars, and here we are. December. I have so much to chat about!

First: Sexiest Man Not Alive. It turns out there is an entire tumblr account dedicated to this exact thing, called “My Daguerreotype Boyfriend” and I do not recommend visiting it unless you want to be sucked down the rabbit hole of captivating men of yesteryear. There are some very attractive not-alive men on that account but this fellow is my favourite:

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That is one sexy criminal. A bad boy in need of reform and possibly temperance? He went to jail for “stealing a fur necklet”. What does that mean. I do not know. Anyway, go look at http://mydaguerreotypeboyfriend.tumblr.com for more fun.

 

The only problem with looking at sexy dead guys is that I know with 100% certainty they would have smelled bad, and although I’m happily married and just looking at men that died a century or two ago, it still affects my feelings for them. I mean really, how often would these guys bathe? And their dental hygiene would be abhorrent.

Speaking of sexy dead guys, I’ve been re-reading an autobiography of Lauren Bacall. I read it years ago and I’m finding it different now, from my almost-forty vantage point. For one thing, they started their affair when she was 19 and he was 44, which requires no further comment, I think. But the big issue I’ve had from reading this book is that I’ve had Key Largo stuck in my head for a week now. I had mentioned this book to my friend, who said “Wasn’t there a song about Bogie and Bacall?” ONE WEEK LATER I’m still randomly singing lyrics: I was your hero. You were my LEADING LAAYYY-DEEEE. I’ve tried to replace the song with all sorts of music from Uptown Funk to Mele Kalikimaka, and it only works for a while. Moments later: We had it all, just like Bogie and Bacall. Starring in our own late late show. Sail away to Key Largo. And repeat.

The other day Might As Well Go For A Soda came on the radio, so I quickly switched the station, denouncing the song along with the much-loathed Patio Lanterns. My older son took umbrage at my labelling of those two songs as the “worst ever”, saying that the B52’s Rock Lobster was “way worse”. We got into quite an involved discussion about it; the upshot was that once Mark had that song stuck in his head for two days. MY BOY. “I couldn’t even concentrate on SCHOOL,” he said, “Because I just kept thinking of that song.” Well, I can certainly empathize. I once had “Getting Jiggy With It” stuck in my head while writing my microeconomics final in grad school, so I know pain. Who’s the kid in the back? Who else – Will Smith! Living that life some consider a myth.

And speaking of getting jiggy with it, this past Friday was our school’s Costume Carnival, and I was in charge of the bake sale.

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Pre-Festivities

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So much baking.

People had brought the most interesting and creative baked goods, and it made me think I need to up my cupcake game a little – perhaps I need to FINALLY buy a pastry bag and some of those decorating tips, or at least add some gummy candies to my frosting because DAMN those candy-covered cupcakes are hot items at a bake sale.

I was a little worried that I would end up with this entire table of baked goods, because Friday was minus 30 with blizzard conditions. I drove through white-out conditions to set up at 3:00, and I only live a few minutes away from the school. I was a bit nervous that we would host this carnival and the only people there would be me and the other two organizers, but happily we did have a reasonable turnout, mostly from people in the neighbourhood. A good time was had by all, and the DJ even played a few songs at the end to get the parents up and dancing: I Like To Move It (Move It), Cotton Eye Joe, and, of course, the YMCA. You could almost see his thought process: If I play songs from the parents’ clubbing years, they will get up and dance. Hilariously, the DJ was the same DJ that played at my husband’s office Christmas party the very next night. I wondered if it was kind of weird for him to go from playing Shake It Off and Let It Go to playing music appropriate for a largely middle-aged crowd, i.e., Billie Jean. We left before Cotton Eye Joe could make it’s appearance.