Category Archives: I am really 90

…and I scream at the top of my lungs, “What’s going on?”

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I am a person who really has to make a concerted effort to have just one or two backups of any given staple in my house, whether it be food, toiletries, or paper products. I have to work at not hoarding things, with the thought in mind that I can always buy it next time I’m here. So you can probably imagine my state of mind, and also the state of the pantry, fridges, and freezer right now.

Interestingly enough, as of yesterday my local Co-Op had toilet paper in stock, but I got the last two bags of round tortilla chips, and the chip aisle itself was pretty much decimated.

This is usually one of my most hectic weeks of the whole year, getting ready for spring break and all that comes with it. Suddenly I’m thrust into a quiet state and I hardly know what to do with myself. Our spring break trip to Mexico is, obviously, cancelled. Hence the extra avocados; if we can’t go to Mexico, I guess Mexico can come to us. Although – and I just realized this in a panicked way – I was going to stock up on vanilla on my way home at the duty free, and now I will have to buy expensive vanilla, all is ashes.

Anyway, I am very disappointed and sad, for the lack of a Mexican trip and also, disproportionately, the lack of vanilla. These are Princess Problems, of course, but I am still sad. Never mind all my groceries, I have a serious plethora of sunscreen that I stocked up on, as well as new bikinis and coverups. My son’s sailing trip has not yet been cancelled, but of course it will be, and I guess I will be donating the giant rubber boots I bought for him, because no ninth-grader is actually going to wear giant rubber boots unless he is actually on a sailboat on the west coast.

All that angst about the poinsettia fundraiser, all for naught.

I am also a person who has always washed her hands countless times per day; I open up doors in public places using the bottom of my shirt and I hand-sanitize after touching keypads or buttons. I have indoctrinated my kids to do the same; from the time they were little they knew to wash their hands after coming into the house, they would hold out their chubby little hands for a squirt of hand sanitizer in public places. So you can probably imagine my state of mind right now, not to mention the state of my hands. If you were to judge my age by my hands – as they say – I would be 102 years old.

Well. I’m trying very hard to be positive, thinking that we are all working together to mitigate the coronavirus, to “flatten the curve,” as they say, and at the very least, I will be spending a lot of time with my family. My husband’s office is closed, so he’s working from home. The schools have not yet been closed, and perhaps they won’t be, but in any event, spring break starts on Friday. I just read that the virus is not transmitted through sweat, so tomorrow I am going to go to the gym, and I’m feeling confident about my yoga classes.

Just as an aside, it’s minus twenty and snowing right now. It is a full fifty degrees warmer in Puerto Vallarta AND they have mango margaritas there.

Positive thinking, POSITIVE THINKING. I am going to get a lot of reading done, I have un-paused all of my library holds and I have a number of books at home that I was looking forward to reading on my beach chair. I will read them in my comfy chair at home! That’s almost as good. I remembered earlier in the day that today is Pi Day, and so I baked a cherry pie for the guys. I will never cease to be amazed at mathematics. Any circle in the world, any circle, take the circumference and divide by the diameter, and you get pi. ANY CIRCLE, ANY ONE AT ALL. Is that not amazing? Anyway, cherry pie. Together with that and the coconut chocolate cookies I made yesterday, we are awash in baked goods. Baked goods or not, we are luckier than 99% of people, I think.

Earlier in the week there was a lockdown at the high school, caused by a student who brought a gun to school; it was quite terrifying but ended up that the gun in question was an Airsoft one, and so everything is fine. The point is that we are all here and healthy. My beautiful friend Florence, of amazing hair fame (HI FLORENCE) said she was taking this opportunity – this forced quietness, this forced pause – to stop rushing around and just spend time with family. Given that my plans for the next week would have had me in a literal frenzy, I feel that I should take this time as a gift. It’s also an opportunity to practice loving-kindness towards ourselves and others, to remember the people who are not as fortunate as ourselves, and to eat any manner of delicious things and – as I have been doing – to drink a lot of wine. After all, I have a fairly full rack of wine, lots of gin and vodka, and if all else fails, I can figure out how to make my own mango margaritas. Although, that will require a trip to the grocery store and honestly, I do not think I have the stamina to do that again for a few days. But, sometimes, needs must.

Stay well, my friends. Wishing you lots of wine and yummy things, and, above all, health. xo

It’s tiny cauliflower season

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The day after – literally, the VERY NEXT DAY – I posted about misreading Gental Fitness as Genital Fitness, the sign was changed. I was driving my son to school and exclaimed that the sign now read Gentle Fitness, to which he expressed relief that I would no longer be alluding to elderly men doing something mysterious to strengthen their genitals. Are the people at the fitness centre reading my blog? Or did someone show up at the fitness centre hoping to alleviate incontinence, only to be introduced to aquasize and low-impact aerobics? We may never know the answer.

Oh, you guys, it is SO COLD around here; dropping the kids off at school, my car reads minus 30, and that is without windchill. “It feels like minus 39!” the weather person on the radio said. This should never be a surprise in January, and it isn’t, not really, but it’s quite dreadful. I always think I should re-read The Long Winter at this point in our own winter journey because it SHOULD make me more grateful and thankful to be living in the modern age. I mean, what do I have to complain about, really? That it’s difficult to walk the dog? I have a beautiful, warm, cozy home, I have many warm items of clothing, I have a garage so my car doesn’t freeze. I’m not snowed into some isolated town waiting for the trains to come in with food and supplies and – spoiler alert – those trains never arrive. Sure, my hands hurt, but am I sitting in my dark lean-to in below-freezing temperatures trying to frantically twist hay into little sticks just so I don’t literally freeze to death? Am I grinding seed wheat in an old coffee grinder in the hopes that I will stave off starvation, literal starvation? Am I spiraling into madness because I have been stuck in a tiny dark house for months with nothing to listen to but the howling wind outside? No I am not. My biggest issue is that there was no cauliflower at Superstore.

It’s tiny crappy expensive cauliflower season, which isn’t my favourite but which illuminates something about myself and that is that I cannot – or will not – go without cauliflower for a week. There’s a limit to how much I will pay, because there is always a limit, it is not infinite, but I am willing to pay some pretty high prices for pretty tiny cauliflowers. My demand curve is, shall we say, price inelastic. Am I an addict? Do I have a problem? Probably. There are worse things to spend money on, in my humble opinion.

It is exam time at the high school, and so after one full week back at school my older son now has three weeks off. Well, he has a couple of exams to write in that time period, but really. Three weeks! He doesn’t go back to class until February 3, making my younger son insane with envy. He will get to experience this excessive time off next year, as Thursday is his high school orientation day. Two kids in high school! The children, they get older. I’m getting older too. 

Speaking of getting older, ladies, lean in. The perimenopause thing? A couple of years ago I asked my mom when she stopped getting periods, as that is the number one indicator as to when it would stop for me. When she replied I couldn’t believe my ears – it indicated another full decade of these ridiculous symptoms. Well, what can you do. The symptom I am finding the most difficult to deal with is breast swelling and tenderness. 

“Tenderness.” That seems like a bit of an understatement. It used to be a day before my period my breasts would be slightly sore. Now it’s a week to ten days of my entire chest hurting and my breasts swelling to my pre-kid glory. Even if I do manage to fulfill my New Year’s Resolution of buying a new bra, I’m going to have to hang on to these old ones just for premenstrual comfort. It’s silly, really, my cleavage goes from “bra is gaping around my deflated breasts” to “spilling out of my bra like an old-timey centrefold.” The other day my husband’s eyes bugged out when he walked in on me getting dressed; it probably gave him flashbacks to when we first met.

I for one do not want to relive my Glory Days, the sheer relief I feel when I actually get my period and my yoga tanks go back to fitting properly and I don’t feel like my sports bras are actively trying to kill me softly with their song is immense.

This too shall pass; there will be a time after this.

I had my hair appointment on Friday so once again I feel relatively youthful, at least for another few weeks until the roots start coming in. Life is a roller coaster, I swear. I had a roller coaster emotion as I gazed into my Daylight 10x Magnifying Mirror, and noticed that one of those black chin hairs has turned…white. You know those chin hairs, the ones that are nonexistent in the morning but somehow are an inch long by evening. I’m mixed on this development because a white chin hair is infinitely less noticeable than a black one, and yet. I have also noticed white hairs in my eyebrows, which, I do not know what to do about it. If I start plucking them out will I eventually be bald above my eyes? Do I start using an eyebrow pencil? I just don’t know.

Anyway. It is going to be an odd few weeks; my schedule is exactly the same, or a bit busier as I’ve scheduled some appointments for my older son in during this time. One child at school, one child at home save for the three exams…as I write this I am listening to some amped-up electric guitar as someone is taking a study break. Everything feels a bit unsettled. This week has been too cold to even walk the dog; poor puppers hasn’t had any exercise since Saturday. Since I’m having my ladies’ holidays, AND it’s insanely cold, I’m doing restorative yoga in the early mornings instead of going into the studio. This would be lovely except that I keep forgetting to leave the dog in his crate until after I’m done, which means that he thinks I’m dead or injured, and need to be roused.

With the cold, I wondered how I was going to get my steps in, on non-exercise days. Yes I am a slave to my Garmin watch, what of it? Monday I had to run an errand – at the mall – and noted all the elderly and also moms with strollers, desperate to get out of the house. Hmmm…they are on to something. Yes, I lapped the mall a couple of times before making my purchase, which feels like it goes nicely with the white chin hair. Hey, it was an extra 5000 steps, that was worth it.

That was startling

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My husband, with no effort whatsoever, lost four pounds over the Christmas holidays. I feel I could close out this post without saying anything else. It’s like one of those one-line stories; an entire story captured in just a sentence. Men, am I right? But the real issue here is that our household is apparently a zero-sum game as I gained that same amount over that same time period. One cannot expect two weeks of unbridled culinary hedonism without some consequences, however, sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be a man.

Add that to the fact that, while shopping for protein powder, the salesman asked if I was fifty-plus. On the one hand, there are many whose lives were cut short, who would love to be fifty-plus. Life is a gift, every damn day is a gift, we must celebrate each year that we are on this planet. On the other hand, I’m forty-four.

In his possible defense, I was at the end of my hair colour cycle and with each passing month the contrast between my now-almost-white roots and the rest of my hair is more and more pronounced. See?

It’s even more pronounced because today my hair appointment got rescheduled to Friday; I was torn between feeling, well, GREY, and also feeling excitement at having a couple of unexpectedly unscheduled hours. Unfortunately, a lot of that happily unexpected free time ended up getting consumed by the discovery that our scanners have mysteriously stopped working, right in the middle of my paperwork for insurance renewal.

My friend Janet (HI JANET) was telling me that at her Hollywood peak, Marilyn Monroe had her roots touched up weekly. WEEKLY. Imagine having the resources to do that. Imagine having the TIME.

As it is, I spent the first part of Monday morning at the orthodontist’s office, where I thought we were going to be able to book the braces-coming-off appointment but were instead told that it could be a few more months. It felt, very much, like a January piece of news. I had been holding off booking a dental cleaning for my son with the thought that he would be braces-free very soon, but alas. After the orthodontist I spent a solid 45 minutes on the phone booking various dentist and doctor appointments for both boys, trying to juggle my own schedule with their schedule with the doctor/ dentist schedule, and let me tell you, after that I thought a little bit about day-drinking. Only a little bit though. It was like my old linear programming days, where if you added too many parameters and restrictions prior to solving for x, you would end up with no feasible solution.

Back in those days, the computer programs took forever to run, and it would feel so disheartening to do so much work and wait so long – the computer would often time out or die while calculating – to get the response no feasible solution. The first full week of January feels similar, not to mention that the really cold weather has arrived. The weekend lows are in the minus 30s and the highs in the minus 20s; just going out to get groceries or to take the kids to school feels like an epic feat of strength. I’m living in my legwarmers and layers, and it takes a great deal of willpower to get undressed and then into the shower, and then great willpower to get OUT of the shower, and even more willpower to just put clothes on afterwards. That’s a lot of mental energy and willpower, considering that doesn’t take into account leaving the house.

I am trying not to be too bitchy about the cold weather; this is where I live, cold weather is part of life, let’s just move on. However, my Raynaud’s is in full-blown weirdness; I was driving home from class – with gloves on, of course – and by the time I got home this is what my left hand looked like.

That finger still hurts, and it brings to mind what my doctor said, that the only real cure for this is to live in a warmer climate. Maui? Where my fellow Renaud’s sufferers at?

Well. There are many lovely things about January. Be present, cherish the moment, I chant to myself, over and over like I’m institutionalized a la One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Not out loud, though. Speaking of this, something I really dislike about our society today is the ubiquitous Bluetooth. I cannot even begin to count the number of times I have heard someone speaking, and, thinking they were addressing me, I turn to answer only to discover they are talking on their Bluetooth. It startles me EVERY TIME. I was mentioning this to one of my seniors and he said that he has a different perspective. When he hears someone ostensibly talking on Bluetooth, he avoids eye contact in a stay away from the crazy person kind of way. I mean, I probably shouldn’t judge as I am a person who sings out loud in the grocery store. Perhaps that’s why people avoid eye contact with me? Just kidding, I have yet to notice people avoiding my gaze as I ask them random questions as regards the items in their cart/ how old their baby is/ have they ever tried this before?

SPEAKING of that, I have been meaning to mention these “kalettes” I found at Costco a few months ago.

There were several of us women milling around the display in the giant refrigerator, all of us asking each other if anyone had tried them? And if they were good? No one had so I volunteered as tribute and grabbed a package. Later, in the lineup, a woman asked me about it. Well, for all of you wondering, THESE ARE DELICIOUS. I have bought them every time I have been to Costco ever since; they are glorious roasted with olive oil and balsamic. I’ve also made them with nutritional yeast, which was also good.

They don’t LOOK that appetizing, but believe me. BELIEVE ME THEY ARE DELICIOUS.

Circling back slightly to Things That Startle Me Constantly, there is a sign in my neighbourhood for a fitness centre that offers Gentle Fitness. The only thing is, Gentle is misspelled; the sign actually reads Gental Fitness. Every Single Time I drive past it, I am startled anew at the idea of Genital Fitness. I mean, what is that? Kegels? Pelvic Floor Exercises? Something Else I Am Not Aware Of And Probably Don’t Want To Be? All that goes through my head within a second, and then I remember, oh. They mean GENTLE.

Reality Bites

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My husband got home from work and turned on the television. I heard familiar music and turned to look at the screen.

Me: That’s weird. What kind of football is on Tuesday nights?

My husband: Um, Monday Night Football. It’s Monday.

Who among us has not woken up Thursday morning, thinking it was Friday? It is rare, for me at least, to be that confused about the day of the week so early in the week. It felt like an ominous sign.

I think we are all there this week; it’s the week that we go from the frying pan to the fire, so to speak, and for me things have been hectic. Full school schedules! Lunches! Being An Involved Parent And Listening To All The Stories! I have picked up two new classes for the fall and while I love them so much, it has required an even higher level of organization to just keep things running smoothly. I was thinking about writing a whole series of posts on getting organized, and I may still do that, but the main takeaway is WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN. It’s all about the list, baby.

Did you ever read Still Alice? I maintain that it is the most beautiful and terrifying book I have ever read. For weeks, maybe even months after I read it, I would have low-level anxiety every time I went to the pantry and forgot what I was looking for. I no longer have this panic, but I can’t help but compare my endless lists to Alice’s sticky notes and Blackberry reminders. It is just a good coping mechanism, it does not mean I have early-onset Alzheimer’s. 

As an aside, I had told my mother about this book when I had first read it, and not too long ago she said that she had taken it out at the library and “wondered why I recommended it to her, it was so sad.” Mom, I said NOT to read it!

Wednesday is now my designated Get Everything Done Day and last weekend I realized, with a start, that I was running dangerously low on wine so today I went to the liquor store after buying ALL THE GROCERIES at Superstore. They had one of their crazy specials in which a very tasty Shiraz was on sale for – get this – $8.98 a bottle. I immediately stocked up with two cases, justifying my purchase with the thought of the eleven teenage boys who will be at my house on the weekend for my son’s birthday party. This is what I looked like fourteen years ago:

I was clearly not drinking any wine at the time.

Fourteen years, and this is what I look like today:

I kid, I kid, except not about the lipstick and there is a strong possibility that I will get reading glasses soon. Back in 2000, I had laser eye surgery and it worked perfectly, but at the time they mentioned that I would likely need reading glasses sometime in my forties. Reader, at age 25 I had no concept of what it would be like to be in my forties, except “old.” Now in my forties, I consider “old” to be anything north of 80, and I’m sure when I hit 80 that line in the sand will move again.

Speaking of awkward, let’s file this one under Things You Couldn’t Do Even If You Tried. I always wear silver sleeper hoop earrings; I never take them out except for fancy occasions when I replace them with larger and slightly more ornate silver hoop earrings. The other morning I was taking off my yoga top in preparation to shower and somehow got the spaghetti strap caught in my earring, which apparently opened and closed just to accomplish this, like a Venus flytrap. It wasn’t until I went to drop the top on the bathroom floor that I noticed that, instead of dropping, it was heavily hanging off my ear. It is not easy to open a sleeper hoop with one hand while supporting the weight of a yoga top so as to not rip the aforementioned earring right out of ones earlobe with the other. However, I did it, and I felt like I could easily take on the world, which is why I ended up taking my car for an oil change. I am woman, hear me roar. People, for those of you with flexible schedules, apparently 12:30 midweek is a perfect time to get your oil changed. There were literally no other cars and the entire process took less than twenty minutes.

I know everyone the world over is in love with fall and yes, I do like cozy sweaters and boots and all that, but honestly, mostly I just feel cold. I know that in a few months 8 degrees will be considered an amazingly happy turn of events, but right now it just feels cold. Even in the sun the air is sharp, not that we’ve seen the sun much lately, it’s been so cold and grey and damp, which is a bit depressing, particularly if you find yourself thinking of the fleeting nature of time and how there are not that many back-to-school days left in your future. OR MAYBE THAT’S JUST ME. Perhaps that’s why I’m eating my apple-flavoured feelings; possibly the best thing about fall, in my mind, are McIntosh apples. There were some “orchard run” Macs last week at Superstore, but they have since disappeared, so I’m waiting in eager anticipation. My mother-in-law always talks to me about apples and how she makes them into pie filling and applesauce, which is always sort of horrifying to me – it’s a waste of an apple! I would never put an apple I liked in pie. Of course, she lives in the land of orchards, whereas I am in the middle of the Prairies, and so I view things differently. Fall is also the season where everyone in the city who has crabapples or ornamental apples are now trying to give away the excess, which is always kind of funny. No one wants them. No one. I’m sorry for your luck of having a crabapple tree, but for the love of god please don’t try to give them to me. That isn’t real fruit, I am sorry, people. It’s like a much kinder and fruitier version of multi-level-marketing; everyone avoids eye contact and makes excuses about not having time to go to the party. xo

Blasts from the past

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Today I learned that there is a place called Babyland General Hospital, and it is a destination for those who really, really love Cabbage Patch Kids; there are tours available and Cabbage Patch Kids up for adoption. Admission, says the website, is free and you can see Mother Cabbage on display beneath the branches of the Magical Crystal Tree. Did you know that each Cabbage Patch Kid is the result of Mother Cabbage being pollinated by “fanciful Bunnybees” and if you happen to visit Babyland General Hospital, you can “witness the birth of a hand-sculpted Cabbage Patch Kid.” Who knew?

Frankly, I am a bit curious about the birthing process as it was my understanding that each Kid was just plucked from the garden, like an actual cabbage. How very wrong I was, apparently. And who knew there was one massive Mother of all Cabbage Patch Kids?

The world is a marvelous place, full of interesting twists and turns. You never know what the day is going to bring and what you might learn.

For example, this week I learned that people still use film in cameras. I know! I was surprised too. I was picking up prints at London Drugs and there was a sweet, friendly girl beside me who had several canisters of film to be developed. She and I started chatting when I expressed my amazement at her old-school method of photography; she told me how excited she was to get the film developed as she had no idea what photos were actually taken. Remember back in the day when you’d take film in to be developed? Half the roll would be no good as the photos would be bad quality, or someone would have their eyes closed or head turned. The other half would be photos you didn’t remember even taking, particularly if it took you a long time to actually take the film in to the developer. “Get the camera!” would be the chorus whenever something noteworthy would happen, but often it came too late and the photo opportunity was gone.

Now we have carefully curated selfies and dramatically filtered photos of our dinner to fill our creative needs, and no one ever says “I wish I had brought a camera!” as our cameras are ever-present in our hands and back pockets.

I don’t miss those days of the film camera, I love being able to capture important moments in an instant, like when my mom and I were sitting on her deck this week and the resident eagle flew overhead and perched in his favourite spot in the yard:

Or, just as interestingly, when I was making myself some lunch and came across this cherry tomato:

Without my phone, important moments like this would be missed, and eventually forgotten. The memory of that sexy tomato would just fade into oblivion.

I was having coffee with a good friend this week (HI NICOLE) and she was impressed that I actually print out photos and put them into albums. I try to do this every few months, but generally it becomes a thrice-yearly labour of not-exactly-love. What a tedious job it is to upload, crop, and adjust the lighting on hundreds of photos, and then arrange them by approximate date and put them into albums. Yet I persist, mostly because one of the things I love to do when I visit my parents is to peek at our old albums; group photos where half the people are unflattered by the camera or the lighting is bad or my dad took the photo and no one at all is even aware he’s taking a picture and so every person is turned the wrong way. Oh, the memories! Each photo that features myself is a fantastic timepiece; take, for example, this photo of me on my thirteenth birthday:

Everything about this is great, but my hair in particular is tremendous. Also of note is my mother’s spoon collection on the wall – remember when people would collect spoons? – along with the serenity prayer in cross-stitch and a “God Bless My Kitchen” plaque. The brown fridge! The decorative fake fruit and flowers in the background! Tacos for dinner! The next photo is photographic proof that I have always enjoyed a pink birthday cake:

And so I print out photos so that my own kids can, in the future, take a trip down memory lane by paging through the photo albums, to remember the chilly day we biked around the lake and discovered that the town has followed in the lead of many places by adding comically large novelty Adirondack chairs for fantastic photo ops. Tiny people in huge chairs! What fun.

Don’t you love when you meet people who are just so in love with their lives that they glow? In talking to the girl with the film, it was revealed that she works for the Alberta parks division, and lives in a little hut in the mountains, far from wifi or cell reception or people or anything at all, in Peter Lougheed Park. “It’s so amazing!” she said to me. “When I come into the city it feels crazy, and I’m so happy to get back to my job! It’s just the greatest!” Shine on, you crazy diamond. It was a brilliant reminder that we are all so very different, and also that I love meeting people so wonderfully happy. I mean, to me it sounds nightmarish, and if I was in a similar situation I would either end up like Jack in The Shining or I would just wither away to nothing. A furry, grey-rooted nothing. There’s a place for everyone in this jigsaw puzzle that is life.

Speaking of The Shining, the boys rented it from the library to watch with their friends one afternoon at our place. As they were planning the viewing, my husband and I talked about how terrifying we found it, to their bemusement. “We’ve seen clips on YouTube and it seems really lame,” was their response. Well! I have to say that they are actually correct; the movie does NOT hold up well. “That wasn’t scary, it was just weird,” their friend said after the credits rolled and the lights were turned back on, adding that it should have really been a psychological thriller instead of a horror film. Was it not?

Well, I’m not going to re-watch it to find out; the few scenes that I did see did seem pretty dated and silly. I put the book on hold at the library though, as I’ve never read it. I will report back! Meanwhile, have a lovely weekend, everyone. xo

Age is just a number: FALSE. Age is a word.

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“I finally figured out who you remind me of!” a man, who I have known these past two years, said to me the other day. I waited, smiling, and was not at all prepared for the big reveal. “Charlene Prickett! You are so much like Charlene Prickett.”

There were a few other people around us at the time, and they all chimed in that yes, they could really see that, and yes, that’s exactly it. Charlene Prickett, local celebrity and the star of the television fitness program It Figures, whose popularity soared in the 1980s.

I take this in the spirit in which it was intended; our personal styles might indeed be very different, but Charlene Prickett was a BOSS when it came to accessible home fitness routines. And I might not be one for brightly-coloured bodysuits and tights, but I think we can all agree that legwarmers make for an amazing wardrobe.

The last time anyone told me that I reminded them of a celebrity, it was in the mid-nineties. A very inebriated man told me I looked exactly like Shania Twain; our hair colour and cut were fairly similar in that era, and also I was wearing a denim vest over a white tank top. As I said, though, the man was not a particularly accurate judge, given his level of intoxication and probable intent of obtaining some sort of sexual favours from me, a woman who should have been thrilled to be compared so favourably to a country music sensation but was, instead, nonplussed.

Thanks to the recent Facebook “aging challenge,” the last few weeks have seen an influx of photos comparing a person’s current appearance to that of many years ago, a comparison that I find very interesting. I truly think that the people I know have all improved with age, not just in appearance, but also in spirit and personality. Society likes to disparage aging but really, it’s a wonderful gift. I may have massive Bitchy Resting Face and hair that requires colouring every five weeks due to grey roots that I am unable to embrace just yet, I may have Crypt-Keeper-level forehead wrinkles and marionette lines, but I am very happy with my life and, by extension, my appearance. Happiness makes you shine, or some such inspirational quote.

Sure, I might not have the youthful look and perky bust that I did in the mid-nineties, but at least I’m not wearing ill-advised denim vests. With age comes wisdom, I suppose, and hopefully better fashion decisions.

If you look closely, you can see where the belt buckle is situated on my torso – approximately two inches from the bra line – and also that I am wearing a knotted crop top. With denim shorts. This was in 1997, in my defense, and is likely in style right this minute. Well, it’s January, so perhaps not, but let’s wait to see what happens when the snow melts.

I’ll tell you what has not aged well: my kitchen sink. This is perhaps an overstatement; the sink itself is just fine. However, on Saturday I was washing dishes and suddenly the sink became detached from underneath the countertop and started to slowly tip forward. I did what any strong, invincible woman would do: I started screaming. My husband – after draining the sink – jerry-rigged a support beam from an extension rod used for paint rollers before whipping out his circular saw and building a more solid one out of wood. Where did he get the wood? I have no idea. It’s a good thing he didn’t Kondo his workshop, I guess.

The plumber came to fix the sink more permanently on Monday, and praised the solidity of the support beam. Even though it’s fixed now, I’m planning to leave the beam in probably forever, just in case. We don’t see undermount sinks come apart very often! the plumber said cheerfully, which made me wonder about the workmanship of everything in my house. Can ALL the sinks come detached now? Is this just something that’s waiting to happen?

I am not, obviously, very good with house-related issues, but I’ll tell you what I AM good with: quoting the entire screenplay of When Harry Met Sally. I discovered that the greatest movie of all time was released THIRTY YEARS AGO last weekend, and since I saw it in the theatre, well. Thirty years! It’s been three decades since I discovered my fictional twin; even back in 1989 I was too structured, completely closed off…but in a good way, and I am always cold when it’s 72 degrees out. I do not have days of the week underpants, but there’s still time! As far as I’m concerned I haven’t even hit middle age yet – I’m hoping to live past 86 – and so maybe that will be a thing for me when I’m in the Home. But there definitely won’t be a Sunday. Because of God.

Yard-work fashion on point

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I admit that I’m very surprised that several of you have tried growing your own cilantro with no success, for the reason that I have had very little success with other herbs, but for me cilantro grows like a weed. Is it the super-dry climate I live in? Is it my basement grow-op that is never warmer than twenty degrees, and is frequently as low as 14 degrees in the winter? Is it the extreme love I put into it? No, the latter can’t be true – I’m sure you all were beaming your hearts like Care Bears at your own cilantro seeds.

Honestly, I can’t explain it. The only other herb that I’ve had any success with – and “success” is very loosely defined here – is basil, and even that was finicky and difficult and never amounted to much. Cilantro though! Here is my current crop:

And here is the set-up, from a distance:

I have two sets, and one I allow to lay fallow, like I’m an actual farmer. Then when my cilantro plants are at the end of their little life spans, I plant the other set so that I can smoothly dovetail between old cilantro and new sprouts and so that I am never – save for this summer’s incident – without.

Anyone still here? I didn’t really come here to talk about cilantro, although I COULD. I could talk about cilantro all day long. I could also talk about how happy I am that the snow is melted and we are suddenly into FALL, like an actual autumnal season that people in normal climates have. Who knows how long it will last, and so carpe diem, carpe diem all damn day. I’m just thrilled not to be wading through the snow for a few weeks. I managed to rake up the still-soggy leaves and I had enough spring in my step to make my sole contribution to Halloween decorating:

Aren’t they the most perfect pumpkins? This weekend the house will be transformed into something haunted, but it won’t be me doing the work.

What I really wanted to talk about today is current fashion, specifically one facet of current fashion: ripped denim. About a month ago I was at the mall shopping for a birthday gift for my dad, which was notable in itself as this was well in advance of my dad’s actual birthday. For some reason, I am usually scrambling at the last minute, like my dad celebrates on a lunar calendar and it is not actually the same date year after year.

Small digression: my dad is fantastic to shop for. He is the kind of gift recipient who immediately incorporates the gift into his life to show his appreciation, which I in turn appreciate very much. His gifts from me are strictly in three categories: shirts, golf balls, and aftershave, and I cycle through those categories throughout the year.

Another small digression: the last time I bought him aftershave, the woman at the counter – despite my clearly stating that I was shopping for my father – kept trying to steer me towards all sorts of pheromone-type sexy aftershaves with names like SEXUAL and similar. Lady, I am shopping for my DAD. I will leave the pheromones to my mom, thank you very much.

Back to the story at hand. I was in the Bay – an excellent dad-place – and I noticed a clearance rack of ladies’ clothing. I am not made of steel, and so I took a peek. This is what I found:

Further down the aisle:

I would have LOVED those when I was the age my own kids are now.

“I hate milennials!” my 14-year-old said to me just yesterday, and when I reminded him that he himself would be considered such, he replied, “I know, but still, we are terrible.” I was laughing so much I didn’t even get the context in which this statement was made. Note: I do not share this opinion, mostly because I do not like making sweeping statements about entire groups of people. Also, to quote my dad, we shouldn’t HATE anyone.

However, kids these days do have a lot of things easier than we did, that’s for sure. For one thing, google. If you wanted to know the primary export of Argentina or the capital city of Ethiopia or Tom Cruise’s height or the calories in a Reece’s Pieces Blizzard, you had to either a) look it up in the Encyclopedia Brittanica, which your parents had purchased volume by volume, b) hope for a Tom Cruise expose while paging through your mom’s copy of Star magazine, c) buy one of those calorie counting books and hope for the best, or d) spend time in the reference section of the library.

When I was in university, I had an actual preference between microfilm and microfiche.

Now, all kids have to do is grab their phones and google things. They don’t know what a busy signal is, they can shop for literally anything they want online, and, these days, they can buy their denim pre-shredded.

Back in MY day, if you wanted ripped denim – and who didn’t? – you had to do it yourself. There was none of those artful tears and frays that are sold at a premium. Back in MY day, we took scissors to our jeans and spent hours fraying them so it looked natural, and we LIKED it that way. Goddammit.

I am not one to revisit my youth, particularly in terms of style – BEEN THERE, DONE THAT – but this week as I was raking leaves I considered my yard-work outfit: old Skechers that have flowers on them (my special garden shoes!), my old Goodnight Moon t-shirt that I bought for Blissdom 2013, and these:

Look! I’m on point, fashion wise! This is what happens when you have the same jeans for six years. I earned that! Kids these days, sheesh.