Category Archives: I love my friends

Decades and Decades

Posted on by

Last week I had a letter from the government regarding my taxes, and is there any other kind of letter that can strike so much fear in one’s heart? Oh my god, am I being audited? I thought, wondering where I put the brown paper bags and should I go get one now? Happily, I am NOT being audited, and a phone call to a very nice government employee was calming and reassuring; there was just a little information that was required, on my part, to provide to Revenue Canada. “If you could just fax that over to me this afternoon, that would be great,” said the very nice government employee, to which I replied that well, actually, I don’t have a fax machine. Because it’s not 1997, I didn’t say. Do people fax things anymore? Scanning and emailing was not an option offered to me, and so it was off to the post office. Actual literal mail! Fax machines! What year is it?

Recently there have been quite a few memes going around about there being only a short time left in this decade, and what have we all accomplished? I tell you what, until these memes came out I kind of forgot that we are starting a new decade. Yes, I do know what year it is and yes, I do know how decades work. The thought of “2020” just didn’t have the kind of importance to me that, say, the Nineties or 2000s did, other than it feels kind of cool to say 2020. Plus, what have I accomplished? I think we’ve all accomplished lots of things; for example, this weekend I helped my husband and son hang the outdoor Christmas balls in the tree.

After many hours of work, there is still much to do in terms of Christmas lights, which is less a reflection of my husband’s work speed and more that we have so many outdoor decorations, we are now rivaling Clark Griswold. “Now” rivaling is a bit of a misnomer as this has been going on for years, and each year my husband and older son go to Canadian Tire for “cords” and end up coming home with more light-up animals and snowmen.

We had the cutest light-up snowman who met an unfortunate demise this past summer. Due to its gigantic size, my husband was storing it on the covered back porch, where it was partially eaten by a squirrel. The squirrel not only ate all of its hat, it also chewed through the electrical wires, rendering it not only unattractive, but also dangerous and useless. Yet another reason why to loathe the squirrels.

I have a laughably eclectic library pile right now, and since Helter Skelter took me longer than average to get through – and no wonder, it’s well over 600 pages of fairly intense detail – I checked my app to make sure I’d be able to get them all read before their due date. They are all due the first week of December, which was startling to me. December! December is many weeks away! I thought, before looking at the actual calendar and realizing that no, it’s ten DAYS away.

I did finish Helter Skelter, and you might wonder why I would even read such a thing, given that I don’t watch the news, I rarely log into the sewer that is Twitter, and I have snoozed everything on Facebook so much that my entire feed is either yoga related or photos of vacations, kids, and dogs. Just how I like it! I myself wondered why I was reading Helter Skelter literally every time I picked it up, and I still don’t know. It’s something I’ve been thinking about reading for about thirty years, and let me tell you, my life has not been enriched by the experience. Not only is it incredibly disturbing on any number of levels, it got me thinking about the importance we place on decades, ending and beginning. The Sixties were a very strange time, what with all the communes and free love and youth runaways and my god, the venereal disease. This book contains a LOT of information about the latter; did you know that Charles Manson and his harem of girls lived for a while with Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys? Wilson ended up spending a lot of money on penicillin for the “case of clap that never went away” and you know what, guys? Have a shower. Wear a condom. Good lord. That’s just a sidebar to the most horrific and unsettling details I’ve ever read, and as such I probably wouldn’t recommend this to anyone. Why did I read it? WHO KNOWS. Not to mention that every time I looked at the cover I would get when I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the SLIDE then I stop and I turn and I go for a RIDE in my head, over and over, which is not good for anyone.

Two books I would recommend, though:

Chop Suey Nation was so interesting, especially as I am a Prairie girl – those Chinese-Western smorgasbords are ubiquitous all across the Prairies. I’ll always fondly remember visiting a crude oil terminal in small town Alberta as part of my then-job; the guys at the terminal took me to the local restaurant. Over my plate of fried rice, I watched as Larry slathered Thousand Island dressing on his egg rolls. Fusion cuisine before its time! Larry was also the fellow who told me about hitting a deer with his truck on Christmas Eve; the poor thing was not dead, but badly injured, and Larry did not, as he often did, have his gun in the truck. He had to wait to flag down a friend, and after the mercy deed was completed, got back into the truck where his hysterical young children assumed that Daddy just shot one of Santa’s reindeer.

Well. That lost something in the retelling.

As a caveat, neither my cousin Karen (HI KAREN) nor my friend Julie (HI JULIE) liked The Farm. I loved it, though. It WAS a bizarre concept: girls kept on a “resort” to be surrogates for the uber-rich, but as page-turners go, it was excellent.

Why do we call them page-turners? Isn’t that just how books work? Anyway. You all know what I mean.

The season for socializing has started with a bang. Last weekend we had a lovely dinner and games night at my friend Denise’s (HI DENISE) and I will be thinking about those vegan mushroom/ cheese phyllo pastries for many weeks to come. We played Cards Against Humanity, which I had heard much about and had never done before, and it was an absolute riot. Now all I want to do is play the game and eat vegan phyllo pastry. My favourite Q: Why does my back hurt? A: Feminism.

Tomorrow I’m going out with the moms of my son’s friend group; last week a few of the friends were over at my house for our Customary Friday Afternoon Cinnamon Waffles. I said to them, “I’m going out with ALL of your moms next week! Mom’s Night Out! Woot woot! It’s going to be lit!” and all of the boys just stared at me silently for several seconds, before turning their gaze waffle-ward. Not one of them responded, although one gave an awkward smile before shoveling waffle into his mouth.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend; I shall report back on just how lit Mom’s Night Out was. xo

Princess Problems

Posted on by

Those of you who know me – not even particularly well, because this is something I have talked about at length – know that I don’t have many fears or phobias, but I do have one that stands – or shall I say flutters – above the rest. I am absolutely terrified of moths. This time of the year until the first hard frost, they are everywhere. Everywhere. However, last Saturday morning I was completely unprepared to find one in my water glass.

It started off like any other Saturday, really, with me starting the coffee pot and then blearily picking up my water glass; I like to start the day with two big glasses of water to get the hydration going before I drink my pot of coffee. Imagine my panic when I saw a moth – still alive – fluttering around in the water. I did what anyone would do: I backed away quickly and started screaming for my husband, who immediately dealt with it by throwing the water and moth outside, and offering to throw out the glass itself. I suppose I should be grateful that this didn’t happen on a weekday, when I get up at 4:30 and drink my two glasses of water in the dark. Imagine drinking water with a moth in it. 

I had to take some deep breaths just typing that.

If that wasn’t traumatizing enough, this morning after yoga a moth must have followed me into the house. There is currently a moth in the house and I don’t know where it is. I am alone in the house and there is a moth and I’m in low-level panic. The moth was last spotted in the kitchen, but who knows where it is now. It could be anywhere.

Deep breaths.

In other less-traumatic-but-extremely-annoying news, Friday night my food processor suddenly died, with all the hummus ingredients piled in it, unprocessed. While it’s true that my food processor gets a lot of use, I purchased it in May 2018, and I feel that we should be able to expect more than a fifteen-month lifespan for our expensive small appliances. After all, my old Cuisinart lasted eight years of heavy use before developing a weird thing wherein it wouldn’t stop processing until being unplugged, which struck me as a pretty hazardous feature. I went through the five stages of grief fairly rapidly, stalling on “anger” for a while as I thought of how much I loved this expensive new Breville food processor. Fifteen months is not an acceptable lifespan! My mother-in-law still has her chest freezer from 1962 and it still works.

The upshot of all of this is that I ended up a) using my Vitamix to make hummus on Friday, thus stoking my rage even more, as anyone who has ever tried to get the last bit of hummus out of a Vitamix can understand, and b) buying a new food processor. Princess Problems, I know. Princess-Who-Uses-A-Food-Processor-Several-Times-A-Week Problems. Let’s hope this Cuisinart will outlast its predecessors.

If moths and dead food processors weren’t enough to make me a donkey on the edge, I had a dentist appointment on Monday. What is it about the dentist that makes us dread it so? I said to my husband that it was because it “takes so long” but that isn’t factually correct. After my “scaling” I thought to check my watch; it had been only about forty minutes, as opposed to the three hours I thought it had been, what with the scraping and water scaling and the weirdness of someone else’s gloved fingers in my mouth. I mean, a bikini wax takes only about ten or fifteen minutes less than that, and I’d rather have a hundred bikini waxes. At least with a wax I can converse with my esthetician about her upcoming trip to Nova Scotia and how her boyfriend is a jerk. At the dentist’s, I’m forced to sit back and listen to Tom Petty. I’d rather have a Pap smear, and my doctor can never, ever find my cervix on the first try, but instead is constantly apologizing for the “discomfort.” I’d still rather do that than have dental scaling, but I guess since I want healthy gums and teeth, I will persist. I will complain about it, but I will persist.

In happier news, today my friend (HI TARYN) and I hiked up Ha Ling Peak; I hadn’t done that since 1998, when it was called something else that I will not repeat here. It was just recently reopened after a lot of trail renovations, and it was just a beautiful day. See?

It definitely made for a great day – now, if only someone would come over and find and kill this moth for me, everything would be coming up Nicole! xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Puerto Vallarta Edition

Posted on by

I just got back from my THIRD grocery trip since returning home on Friday; Friday being five days ago. Back to reality and my part-time job of teaching yoga, along with my full-time job of feeding my family. You people are pigs! I may have said to myself as I pulled out ingredients for pumpkin loaf; the banana loaf and batch of blueberry muffins that I have baked in the days since returning are both mere memories. Yesterday I read a book I picked up on impulse at the library; it is actually a self-help book about pursuing your goals and dreams. Perhaps I should have read the back cover more thoroughly. Anyway, in it is a suggestion that a person should track every minute spent doing an activity every day for a week to get an idea of how to allocate time more wisely. I should do this; I would be interested to see just how much of my week is spent in food acquisition and preparation. Not to mention putting away the groceries! Maybe I do need a fitness tracker just to see how many steps are spent in that activity.

Well, life is good no matter how you slice it, and perhaps it’s because of my full-time-feed-family job that I really appreciated our vacation last week in Puerto Vallarta. When the kids got hungry they just popped over to the poolside grill for hotdogs and hamburgers. The biggest decision we made was which restaurant to eat at in the evenings and if we wanted Cabernet or Merlot for dinner. I mean, honestly. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Puerto Vallarta Edition

The Scenery

Puerto Vallarta is a beautiful place. On a guided beach walk it was brought to my attention that Puerto Vallarta, as we know it today, did not really exist until John Huston – who lived there part-time – decided to film The Night of the Iguana, starring Richard Burton. At the time he was having a steamy affair with Elizabeth Taylor; the gorgeous locale was exposed and became a lively tourist destination. It is GORGEOUS.

That’s my older son jumping off the rock in the last photo (the other two are unknowns). This was after a very dusty Razr ride, which I will circle back to. Isn’t it beautiful? Ocean, mountains, and jungle.

Sunsets

I am generally a sunrise girl; I am always up before the sun and I do love a good sunrise. But part of the benefit of being on the Pacific Ocean was the ability to really appreciate those gorgeous ocean sunsets. I mean, look at this:

Pool Service

Because I am a spoiled princess, I absolutely love pool service. Coming home was rough; by 2:00 on Saturday I thought what the hell, why has no one brought me a margarita yet? Ah, day drinking. One must stay hydrated in that hot Mexican sun, you know! My favourite drink was a mango margarita, on the rocks, no sugar, with a spicy rim. What? I’m Sally Allbright on vacation too. I have no photo of my drink so you must be contented with this shot of the pool:

One-Strapped Bikinis

I don’t know if they are called that or not; they are likely out of style now since I bought this on massive sale at La Vie En Rose last fall. I wasn’t sure what it would be like but I can tell you it is more comfortable and supportive than any other bikini top I have owned. I also love this because it’s black, naturally, but with a little zip of embroidered colour. If you buy one, be excessive with the sunscreen and shade or you’ll end up with a weird tan line. I am always excessive with sunscreen and shade, which is why no one can tell I was actually in Mexico.

This Lululemon Bag

Every vacation I buy a beach bag and by the end of every vacation, it’s completely trashed. I guess it’s my issue, since I like to carry lots of things in it, but isn’t that what a beach bag is for? I was tired of the waste, always having to throw out a bag that became damaged beyond repair just from taking it to the beach. Last fall I bought – on huge sale – this bag from Lululemon, and even though on sale it was still three times as expensive as a beach bag, it’s durable, waterproof, wipeable, and has a little pouch to keep room key, phone, tip money, and lip balm in.

Dressing for Dinner

I feel so glamourous after spending the day by the pool or beach, covered in sunscreen, salt, and sand, to get all prettied up for dinner. I love wearing dresses and fancy sandals and red lipstick to go out for dinner. It’s a far cry from my real life, where I am wearing yoga pants and end-of-day makeup to eat my homemade stir-fry.

Zip Lining!

I have always wanted to zip line, and this trip, we did! My husband booked us into a combination Razr 4×4 tour and zip line adventure, and it was just the best day. Well, not the Razr part. My husband grew up riding dirt bikes and utility vehicles and ATV’s and so is very comfortable taking hairpin turns on dusty mountain roads. I, however, kept picturing us all plummeting off the mountain to our deaths. Well, at least we’ll all go down together, I thought at one point. But we made it, safe and sound, and let me tell you about dust!

Can you feel my terror?

But zip lining! What a blast.

I think this was the best vacation of our lives; I am already thinking about when we can return! There was live music in the evenings, with much dancing and laughing. We went with our friends which always works out so well – all eight of us get along really well. And now it’s time for me to fold the laundry and do some yard clean-up – exciting news, by the time we had returned home, all our snow has melted. Like I said to one of my senior students yesterday, who just moved here from much warmer climates to be close to her grandchildren, spring can come and go in Calgary. So I shall enjoy it while it lasts, hanging on to those beautiful Mexican memories. xo

Advent Calendars: Waxy Chocolates, Fanciness, Happiness, and Kindness.

Posted on by

When you were a kid, what kind of – if any – Advent calendar did you have? We had the kind that you could buy at the grocery store or Sears; each window opened to reveal a small waxy chocolate in the shape of a gift or a tree or – for Christmas Eve and Christmas Eve alone – a star. I shared this calendar with my two brothers, which meant that every three days one of those small waxy chocolates was mine, all mine.

Fast forward to today and my kids get these:

I kind of wish I had bought one for myself, the treats inside are so decadent. Don’t get me wrong, when I was a kid I’m not sure they even had anything other than those grocery store calendars. Now everything is available, calendar-wise, from booze to chocolate to Lego to ornaments. What an age we live in.

Besides the fancy Lindt ones, we also have a little wooden calendar I bought when the kids were small. At that time I would put little treats inside, when they got bigger I copied Lynn and wrote down a fun winter/ Christmas activity for each day. The kids would open it in the morning and see if the activity of the day would be sledding after school, reading Dear Polar Bear or decorating cookies. I still think this is a great idea but eventually I ran out of fresh, fun activities and if there was a lot of snow, every day for a solid week the activity would be “sledding after school” since they were going to do that anyway. I mean, December with young children can be tiring enough without having to be all creative about fun family activities, especially when you are the sole person in charge of said activities.

The last couple of years, as I no longer picked them up after school and so “sledding” was no longer the default, I would instead write down something I noticed that I liked about each boy, and put it behind the appropriate door. This was great until the crush of the season came along and I kept writing down “I liked how you were so helpful today” or something completely generic like that, eventually forgetting and writing down nothing at all. This year, I decided to delegate. Everyone, including my husband and I, writes down one happy thing that happened that day, and puts it in the calendar. At the end of the month, we are going to read them all to see what a great month it was. I think this is the best idea yet, and will be helpful when it comes to setting intentions and resolutions for the New Year. My enthusiasm for these projects tends to wane around December 16 but we are still going strong; it really helps to delegate.

I came across this from my friend Jan (HI JAN) and I think the idea of a kindness calendar is lovely; although I actually do most of these things all the time throughout the year. Well, other than buying a colleague coffee since I rarely go into a coffee shop, preferring instead my daily pot of home-brewed Kirkland Signature. I have also never taped money on vending machines, because rarely do I even notice vending machines. But the rest – yes.

Give someone a hug or compliment? Hold the door open for someone? Thank someone who serves you? Smile at a stranger? These things are all my jam. I’m constantly walking around looking dementedly cheerful, due to my massive case of Bitchy Resting Face, years of waitressing taught me to always be kind and thankful to those in customer service, I compliment random strangers on their hair or clothing (the lady in the gym with the Haute Mess t-shirt – amazing), and I am a walking, talking Hug Monster. I do think it’s important to focus on such things in December in particular though; life gets hectic and stressful and although I am Nicole the Elf, it is good for me to remember that not everyone embraces the season with open arms and screams of SANTA’S COMING, I KNOW HIM. Anyone who has seen the new reboot of The Grinch – if you haven’t, go see it, it is an absolute delight – or anyone with any kind of compassion or empathy knows that this season can be very hard for many, and a little kindness goes a long way.

I was thinking about this a few weeks ago when I was at – you guessed it – Costco. This was at the beginning of the month, and I had just seen that calendar, and I thought, I’m going to CRUSH this kindness thing. First, I rescued a cart from where it was stuck in between a parking stall and a snowbank, and as I sunnily pushed it through the parking lot, I saw a lady shove her cart in between her car and the one beside her, and drive off. I consider it a kindness that I didn’t chase after her, banging on the hood of her car while screaming You are what is wrong with society today. 

Anyway.

Once in the store I smiled only semi-maniacally, even at people completely blocking the aisle while they lined up for their free two-inch cup of popcorn and coffee. Costco was, as it always is, but particularly in December, a minor nightmare. By the time I got to the checkout, the lines were snaking their way around the granola bar and fruit snack displays. I chose a line that seemed decent, until the man in front of me was joined by his wife, who had a full cart IN ADDITION to his full cart. Oh well.

In the line beside me was a young mother, with a cart full of groceries, a little boy who appeared to be about three, and a baby. The baby started to fuss in the line and the mother looked totally panicked, rocking the giant cart back and forth in a gesture that every parent can identify with. I looked at her long line, and I looked at the man in front of me who was almost finished unloading the second cart, and I thought, what difference will five minutes make? I told her she could go in front of me and the sheer gratitude on her face was enough to make me want to let EVERY mother with a baby in front of me in EVERY lineup forever. Thank the nice lady who let us go first! she said to her little boy, who waved at me and said Sank youu. 

I would in no way turn down a Lindt teddy or reindeer, or a mini bottle of booze or a bottle of wine, but this kindness calendar thing is pretty gratifying.

Hashtag: No Filter

Posted on by

On the weekend the guys put up some – but, thankfully, not all – of our outdoor Halloween decorations, mainly the smaller items that hang from our eaves and our big Mayday tree: bats, spiders, corpses, and the like. Cheerful things, you know. Remember the giant snowfall from a few weeks ago? The arborist we had hired was supposed to work on our large trees, but because of the snowy circumstances his team was running a few weeks behind. Yesterday they came to prune the trees and naturally had to move our spooky decor out of the way. I’m not sure I love what they did with the skeleton who was attached to the Mayday:

I think I would have preferred having Mr. Bones facing away from the window. As it is, I feel watched.

Speaking of which, the other day I was walking Barkley and it occurred to me – not for the first time – that I am exceedingly grateful for many things, but particularly that I am not a celebrity. It’s not that I dislike the spotlight – quite the contrary – nor is it that I would turn down the material rewards that often accompany celebrity status. Sidebar: did you know that Sofia Vergara is the highest paid TV actress at $42.5 million? I would not turn that down. When discussing the big lottery that happened last week with friends, I realized that they are all much, much better people than I am, judging from their I would establish affordable housing/ a recovery centres/ free daycare for teen moms wish list. Is it bad that my first thought was that I’d move away from Planet Hoth and buy a tiara? Yes, of course I would do much good with that money too, there are many causes dear to my heart. But first on the list: a tropical home and a tiara.

Back to the original point: I am glad that Girl in a Boy House has not attained celebrity status for the simple reason that I would not want to be followed by paparazzi. Sure, it would be fine if they were following me to, say, yoga class, or even on one of my many trips to the grocery store, although if I was a celebrity I would likely have a grocery store person. I would not, most emphatically, want to be followed on my dog walks, because I am a complete idiot when I speak to my dog. He has a disgusting tendency to eat discarded tissues from the sidewalk. I know! He’s been doing it since he was a puppy and realized that discarded tissues were the one thing that I wouldn’t remove from his mouth on our walks. Discarded. Tissues. First of all, WHO are these people who use a tissue and then THROW IT ON THE SIDEWALK? You people are appalling! Put the used tissue in your pocket like a normal person and then throw it in a garbage can when possible! And while I’m on the topic, people who buy chicken wings from 7-11 and then throw the bones on the ground for every Spot, Rover, and Barkley to pick up are also the worst. Listen, I realize that you must be very drunk to be walking around the neighbourhood eating chicken wings from 7-11, but won’t someone think of the doggies?

Anyway, the other day I was walking with Barkley and every time I noticed a tissue I said sternly, “LEAVE IT” and when he did, I praised him like there was no tomorrow. Who’s a good boy! You’re a good boy! Yes you are! Yes you are! Who’s a good doggy? Barkley’s a good doggy! Yes he is! As I was speaking like this for the fifth or sixth time on the walk, I realized that there was someone walking behind me. They passed me with a sideways glance and I felt, not for the first time, that conversations between myself and the dog, one-sided though they might be, would be terrible if recorded for the public.

It’s a good thing I’m not a reality star.

The excessive praise thing does seem to be working, although we came across a dead magpie on the sidewalk, a really gross crushed corpse of a bird, and I immediately screamed “LEAVE IT!” to which Barkley responded by quickly snatching a nearby tissue and eating it. I was too deflated to scold him.

Paparazzi recording conversations would be one thing, but another would be the unflattering candid photos. We are used to seeing our celebrities photoshopped and filtered within an inch of their lives, which is also what things look like on Instagram. Then, when a candid photo shows up – or when we see someone in person – we are all shocked. What stars look like with no makeup! How So-and-So has let herself go! Best and worst beach bodies! I was speaking with a friend about this today (HI JAN) about how we might compare our own faces to those of our counterparts, and how THEIR Instagrammed youthful glow and smooth skin might make us wonder where we went wrong in our skin-care regimes. I have said it before and I will say it again: I am emphatically anti-filter. The more we look at filtered photos, the more we get a distorted view of what people actually look like.

I swear, Instagram filters are the social media equivalent of a facelift, except that when you see people in real life, they don’t look like their photos. Let’s all agree to just embrace our faces the way they are, wrinkles, uneven skin tone, and all. By all means, use good lighting and makeup and what have you for your photos, if that’s your jam, but filters that make you look twenty years younger than your counterparts are just…depressing. For the good of society, let’s stop with the filters!

Social media is where we get the idea that everyone is living this perfect life, except for ourselves. We see cute pictures of dogs, without the background information that the dogs are eating tissues off the street. We see good hair days:

But we don’t see what happens before the good hair days:

(does anyone else blow-dry their hair upside-down for extra volume?)

We see smiling faces and perfected makeup:

But we don’t see the hot messes we are first thing in the morning.

Those two photos were taken in the exact same spot, two hours apart.

To you I say, you are beautiful just the way you are. No need for filters.

Reach out and touch someone

Posted on by

This is a thing that actually happened at Superstore this week: behind me, unloading her groceries, was a mom with a small boy, around aged two, eating one of those free cookies the bakery gives any child under 12. Behind HER was an older lady, who started talking to the little boy, seated in the cart. She was talking the way you do to a two-year-old – Is that a good cookie? Are you a good helper? Are you getting groceries with Mommy? – and then suddenly, loudly and stridently, said to the mom, “You really should teach him that he shouldn’t talk to strangers! I’m serious! I just read something about a little boy being abducted and KILLED after talking to strangers!”

I whipped my head around from where I was piling my groceries into my bins. I was smiling to myself when I heard the little boy babbling, and this woman’s complete change of tone was startling, to say the least. The mom made slow and direct eye contact with me, raised her eyebrows and smiled, and then turned to the older lady. “Thank YOU for your concern,” she said in a very polite and kind voice. The woman kept talking, saying she was serious, this was a serious situation, and the mom just kept nodding and smiling. “Okay, THANK you. That’s kind of you to be concerned.” She said it in a way that was completely unoffensive and simultaneously showed that she would not give this weird busybody a single thought.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so impressed in my entire life. Also? What the actual, lady? First of all, why are you luring a two-year-old into a conversation with you, only to chastise the mother for allowing such a conversation to happen? Secondly? While of COURSE I taught my own children to be cognizant about their surroundings and not randomly begin conversations with strangers on the street, I do think there is something to be said about polite chitchat in the grocery store. I would like to think that if an older person began conversing with my children in the security of their local grocery store, that my children would be so kind and polite as to carry on with the conversation. Everywhere you go these days, people are on their phones, desperately avoiding any and all human contact, and this has made the world a worse place. Whatever happened to making small talk while waiting in line? We have enough temptations in our phones to avoid society as a whole, we don’t need weirdness about Not Talking To Strangers when that stranger is simply making a comment about the weather or the photo of the Duchess of Cambridge on the cover of Hello! magazine.

Clearly, this hits a nerve with me. I am a person who – surprise! – loves to talk to strangers. I think we, as a society, would all be better off if we took the time and extended ourselves a bit to have a light conversation with other people, people we don’t know, people we will likely never encounter again in our lives. Instead of just scrolling, liking, and commenting, making actual contact with other humans, people who may or may not be lonely, people who may or may not need a kind word, people who may or may not just want to be seen by someone, even if it’s a complete stranger asking if those Dr. Oetker pizzas are any good, because she’s never tried them, but she’s always wondered.

The world is so small now – we can connect with people half a world away with just a click – but it’s also so big. Reaching out and just making contact can really make a difference, plus, it can be fascinating. People are so interesting, aren’t they? Everyone has a story. I remember years ago, a friend posted a photo of a lovely little apartment in Italy, with flowers on the balcony, and she said, I wonder who lives here and what their life is like. I think that all the time, but with food. I wonder what that person is going to do with all those pears and Swiss chard, I might think as I gaze at the groceries on the conveyor belt in front of me, or Oooh, that looks like a birthday party to me!, or What makes Gourmet Gummy Bears gourmet? I always look at other people’s groceries, not in a judgmental way, no, but out of genuine interest. The other day I was at Costco with my usual cart full of groceries, and the older gentleman in front of me had a total of four things, which is always interesting to me when that happens. A person has to be, in my opinion, in possession of some incredible inner strength to go to Costco and leave with four things. How do they do it? I feel virtuous and strong if I leave without spending $400, let alone only putting four things in my cart and then LEAVING. But this particular gentleman made me smile because all I could think of was this guy is going to have a good time this weekend. In his cart was the following: a vacuum-pack of baby back ribs, a ten-pound bag of onions, a Costco-sized pumpkin pie, and a two-pack of the kind of whipped cream that comes in a spray can. PARTY.

Of course, sometimes the contents of people’s carts make me wonder. The other day, a young couple with a baby were behind me, and the cart – the entire, giant cart – was filled with that kind of baby food that comes in a squeeze packet. There was nothing else at all in the cart, just dozens and dozens of squeeze tubes, in all different flavours. It seemed like every squeeze tube of baby food was actually in that cart. For once in my life I didn’t instigate a conversation, because I didn’t want to sound in any way weird or judgmental (that’s a LOT of baby food you have for that one baby!). My natural nosiness was satisfied though, as I heard the lady say to the cashier that they were going to China for five months, and this kind of baby food was either unobtainable or expensive. I imagined a suitcase full of baby food on its way to China and smiled.

A cart full of squeeze-tube baby food is one thing, can you imagine a cart full of this?

I was looking for travel-sized shampoo when I saw this on display. I admit I stopped and stared at it for a good couple of minutes, completely blocking the aisle until a lady asked if she could get by. I apologized and explained that I was looking at this, to which she said, in an excited kind of voice, “Are you going to try it?” No. I’m not. I don’t want placenta on my face, no matter how revitalizing. She went on her way but I like to think that she circled back to pick one up. It could have happened!

Have a beautiful weekend, my friends, enjoy the end of September! xo

It’s Apple Season! And Snowman Season!

Posted on by

Ah, fall. The season of colourful leaves, crisp air, apples, and this:

Snow!

Well, to look on the bright side, it’s just a dusting.

I feel like the world is divided into two kinds of people: those who love and embrace summer with all their hearts and souls, and those who do not. People in the latter category, please enjoy your season for the next 8-9 months, and meanwhile, I will be busy putting on legwarmers, scarves, and other layers for eternity. It seems like a very unfair distribution, but what can you do? Complain to the management? Because I don’t feel God will suddenly decide to make Calgary a climate of beauty, just because I complain.

I might complain just a little though, as tomorrow a certain young man is turning thirteen, and there will be a total of ten teen boys in my house for SEVEN HOURS. Why or how this was arranged I do not know, but I was counting on a few hours of let’s go play war with Nerf guns at the playground and so the forecast is, shall we say, disappointing. I am sure none of the parents will judge me for indulging in a glass of wine or two whilst the Festivities Are In Full Swing. My non-drinking husband will be there in case someone loses an eye to a Nerf bullet or, more likely, falls into a sugar coma from the requested Chocolate Layer Cake With Caramel Frosting And Rolos On Top. I think I fell into a sugar coma just writing that. To counterbalance, I have a lot of vegetables to make a veggie plate, to go along with the pizza, star-shaped frosted sugar cookies, and three giant “family-sized” bags of chips. If there’s one thing I know about teen boys, it’s that they are a hungry people.

Now that I have two of them, if anyone needs me, I’ll be grocery shopping. Again.

The happy news about grocery shopping – and about fall in general – is that it is officially Apple Season! Apples are, in my humble opinion, the very best thing about fall, followed closely by pretty leaves and the return of thick black sweaters and tall black boots. I am pretty particular about the type of apples I eat; I am strongly Team Macintosh. We are all, as I tell my children and yoga students constantly, different, and I’m sure that many of you will disagree, but I firmly stand by my opinion that Macs are the Superior Apple. They are the perfect flavour and texture, and I essentially binge eat Macintosh apples the second they hit the produce aisle until they are no longer available. I also like the Scottish name; it is as if the Macs and I are namaste-ing each other in a Scottish way. The Scottish way to namaste is probably Aye Lassie It’s A Broad Bricht Moonlit Nicht Tonich or something similar.

Again, we are all different and the world is a rich tapestry and variety is the spice of life, but when I get excited about Apple Season and someone becomes similarly excited about apple pie, my response is this:

I will not judge you, you lovers of apple pie and apple sauce and apple crisps and other mushy abominations, but I will never understand you. This is the same way I feel when I hear of people making jams and muffins with fresh fruit and berries. Such things are so precious to me that I would never do anything but eat them raw. Muffins and jams, in this house, will always be made with frozen fruit, and I stand by that decision, at least while I live in this godforsaken snowy hellhole.

Oh! But I wasn’t going to complain! Perhaps I shall just go eat an apple and finish frosting all the cookies, and dream about warmer climates instead. Have a wonderful weekend, everyone! Please spare a thought for me tomorrow night. xo