Category Archives: Illnesses

Paparazzi

Posted on by

Do you ever wonder what it would be like to be a celebrity, photographed by the paparazzi at the most inopportune times? I imagine it would feel like running into an ex for the first time in decades when you have dirty hair and no makeup and you just needed to get one ingredient from the grocery store, but times a thousand. I’m not pitying the famous, not really, because I’m sure the piles of money would help the pain go away, but still it would be very weird to be photographed constantly, with people speculating pregnancies when really you just had a big lunch. Imagine going out for groceries, and then later seeing a photo of yourself with a headline about how you’ve let yourself go, or speculation that you have a terminal illness or drug problem, when really, you were just tired.

As is the usual order of business in September, a cold virus has visited our house. It’s just an irritant, certainly not debilitating, but yesterday I came down with it and felt plagued by general malaise and total exhaustion. Luckily for me I had no classes to teach; I did, however, have to get groceries and that in itself felt like I had accidentally entered myself into the Ironman competition. It didn’t help that Superstore is currently rearranging things in the cosmetics and skin care section; I stood staring at the four aisles filled entirely with tissue boxes and – oddly – cotton balls, wondering what happened to the liquid soap. I was probably frozen in space for a good three minutes before a woman wheeled her cart up next to me and stared around her. It’s good to have a companion in this kind of thing. Where do you think the deodorant is? she asked me, snapping me out of my Where am I what happened reverie. Eventually we both came to our senses and started to slowly mill around, finding deodorant in with the shampoo and liquid soap with the toothpaste.

If I had to teach yesterday, I think it would have been entirely one long savasana. I briefly wondered if it wasn’t so much LUCKY to be sick on a day with no classes, but rather my body letting down its guard. I’m a big believer in yin and yang, and when you’ve had a lot of yang, your body craves yin. In other words, adrenaline can keep you going when you need to, but then your body revolts and makes sure you get the rest that you need, after a busy period. It’s why, I think, I always would get sick right after final exams in university, or after any kind of period when I burned the candle at both ends.

Fortunately today I am almost back to my Energizer Bunny self; two nights of ten hour sleeps and a totally unexpected afternoon nap will do that. I say totally unexpected because I sat down to rest after bringing in all the groceries and woke up an hour later. I am not totally back to normal, but neither do I feel like crying at the prospect of folding a basket of laundry.

Circling back to my original point: yesterday I found myself too tired to get dressed before taking the boys to school, so I left the house in my pajamas. I know many people will be like what is the big deal, I do that every day, to which I say I do not. As much as I love my pajamas, leaving the house in soft grey pants that have pictures of mice on them is not something I want to do. I mean, I rarely leave the house without lipstick on, let alone unshowered and undressed. As a slight digression, I posted a photo of myself and my younger son, a few months ago, when he surpassed me in height. One of my friends immediately commented “You’re not wearing lipstick!” which shows that, other than the 5:00 am yoga crew, no one really sees me without My Face On. For someone who put makeup on before going to the hospital to give birth, leaving the house in pajamas is a non-starter. Honestly, how hard is it to put on pants? Well, yesterday that felt like a bridge too far, and I briefly thanked the powers that be that I have never achieved celebrity and so there were no paparazzi hiding out behind the garage to photograph me with circles under my eyes, unwashed hair, and pajama pants. Drug problems? Sources close to Nicole say yes. 

I often feel like walking with Barkley is like walking with a celebrity because it is rare that I go unnoticed. Or, rather, it’s rare that HE goes unnoticed. This is what it’s come down to: if I only have twenty to thirty minutes for a walk, like I have to quickly zip one in between classes, I try to take quiet sidewalks in the neighbourhood that have little foot traffic. I am a person who at the very least nods and smiles when passing people on the sidewalk, and frequently that means I get into extensive conversations with strangers about what breed he is, how old he is, and how he is a very, very good dog. Sometimes these conversations turn to the heartbreaking, like the many lonely seniors I encounter who pet Barkley and talk about how very much they miss their old canine companions, and then I can never break off the conversation because it’s just too wrenching to pull away. Often, though, I will run into a group of kids and then things get wild. The other day I walked by a school group apparently walking back after swimming lessons at the local pool, and of maybe sixty kids, at least fifty-five of them squealed and waved at me. “Hi! Hi! Hi! Your dog is so cute! Hi! Hi! I like your dog!” ad infinitum. My very favourite are teenage girls, as they often unintentionally turn into the little girls from Despicable Me, “Oh my godddddd your dog look at your dog he’s so flufffffffyyyyyy! Oh my goddddddddd!”

Not that I am one to talk. Today Barkley and I were out walking, and he tried to chase and capture a leaf blowing on the sidewalk. “Oh Barkley!” I squealed, “You’re such a Silly Billy! That’s just a leaf! Yes it is! You’re a good doggy! It’s a leaf!” At that moment, I looked up and saw a man standing in his driveway, holding a rake and a compost bag, with the kind of look on his face you might imagine someone to have after witnessing a mid-forties woman talking in a high-pitched baby voice to her dog about chasing a leaf.

Speaking of leaves, I am enjoying the fall colours very much right now. I think that if I lived in a place that had three months of sunny, crisp days with warm-coloured leaves and – while I’m fantasizing – actual non-crab-apple trees, I would be one of those women who embrace fall with open arms. As it is, it’s supposed to snow tomorrow, so we can bid these colours adieu for now, and look out the snow shovels and toques. Happy Fall, everyone! xo

 

Hello November!

Posted on by

Yesterday a friend asked me how much Halloween candy I had eaten while waiting at home for Trick or Treaters, and I will tell you this: zero. My secret? I buy the candy that I don’t like, which is for me a giant box with a mixture of those little Kit Kats, Coffee Crisps, Smarties, and Aero bars. The new young couple down the street – who reminds me of my husband and I many years ago – came by with their two little ones. This is their first Halloween in the neighbourhood, and the woman told me enthusiastically she had bought 100 little bags of chips and hoped that would be enough. I was loathe to tell her that we have never had more than 20 Trick or Treaters, and that she would be munching on chips for some time to come. See, that is a mistake I would never have made – it’s not that I don’t buy hundreds of tiny chocolate bars, it’s that I would never buy that many potato chips, for the simple reason that I cannot resist them. For me, salty beats sweet any day.

Next year I think I’ll buy full size chocolate bars, because I want to feel like one of those fancy ladies; a princess distributing largesse to the populace, as it were.

Thursday after classes I took the Halloween decorations down, with the help of the boys. Normally this is something I would leave to my husband but a) it’s completely dark by the time he gets home and b) today is supposed to be a “rain/snow mix” which would be a bit disastrous for our animatronic thingamagigs. Electric shorting out might add to the creepiness though:

The kids went Trick or Treating with all their friends; I was very happy to see them come back candy-laden and happy, with no one commenting on their giant statures. Does it seem to you that EVERYTHING is a divisive topic nowadays? You name it, everyone has a STRONG and IMMOVABLE opinion on it. Teens trick or treating is definitely one of them. I am of the camp that would give candy out to literally anyone who comes to my door; they could be in university – hell, they could be senior citizens and they would still get a handful of Kit Kats from me. As for my own kids, they can Trick or Treat for as long as they want as far as I’m concerned.

So here we are in November, and I for one am happy about it. Our house was hit by an absolutely deplorable virus, and I seemed to have gotten the worst of it. I recovered enough to be on my feet but the residual exhaustion has been something else. It’s been a week of just setting one foot in front of the other, and occasionally bursting into overwhelmed, exhausted tears. Today I’m finally starting to feel like myself again; I spent some days last week wondering how on earth I usually had the energy to do my normal day-to-day things. Here’s how poorly I felt: I haven’t had a sip of wine in two weeks. Dark times, people.

This morning, after napping all yesterday afternoon and sleeping ten hours last night, I felt well enough to return to my usual Saturday morning spin class. You know how they say the first time back is the hardest? I certainly hope that’s true. All during the class I kept looking down at the little orange warning on my bike: Over exercise can result in serious injury or death. Death! It seemed like a terrible portent. Usually I am filled with all sorts of personal-best goals during the class; this morning my aim was to just make it through without death. If I have a choice in the matter, I would rather not Meet the Maker while wearing sweaty padded leggings.

Fortunately, I am still here to tell the tale.

The kids are in that teenage phase where every morning, they seem taller than the day before. This has resulted in them completely outgrowing their single beds; my older son in particular is several inches longer than his bed, which has led to some uncomfortable nights. We decided to buy them both extra-long-full-size beds, which is more complicated than you might think, given we live in a 1960s bungalow. There has been much jenga-like moving of beds, and there were twenty-four hours when the new beds were delivered into the front entry, in which the entire entryway and front door were completely blocked off. The chaos of this has not added positively to my mental and emotional state this week, but the final result is extremely satisfactory. At one point I looked at all the wrappings and cardboard and craziness and repeated to myself the only way out is through over and over. Happily, after much rearranging and quite a bit of purging, things are looking up! The only problem is that I lay down on one of the beds and damn, it is way more comfortable than my own bed. The only thing keeping me from surreptitiously bed shopping is the thought of going through all this chaos again so soon. Maybe I’ll feel well enough for a glass of wine tonight, to give me some courage. Let’s hope!

Hallelujah, where’s the Advil Cold and Sinus?

Posted on by

I’m going to preface this post by saying that I’m on my eighth cup of coffee and I have taken two Advil Cold and Sinus, so things could get interesting. Also we are at less than eight hours of daylight, it’s almost a new moon, and holy moly things are dark. I’ve been fighting this virus that we all seem to have this week; it’s the first time I’ve been sick since sometime in 2015, so I have kind of forgotten what it is like to be incapacitated. The great news is that the whole-body fatigue that had taken me down is gone; in its place is a bit of a stuffy head, but since I feel okay being upright, I think I am on the mend.

Me: I think I’m almost totally back to normal!

My husband: You realize that you are totally out of breath just walking up the stairs, right?

I have a tendency to overdo things a little and I am really trying not to. I am trying to take advice I give friends, which is to rest and recover. Apparently it’s easier to give advice than to follow it, who knew? But yesterday I knew I had to do something and so I took the whole day off. I did literally nothing except watch The Price Is Right and five episodes of The Crown.

Princess Margaret looks like I feel.

Looks like Drew Carey got new glasses, I said to myself, despite the fact that it’s been a few years since I’ve watched The Price is Right and who knows, really, how new those glasses are. There was a Canadian fellow on and I became very invested in his progress. Sadly, he only spun $0.10, followed by $0.65 on the big wheel and so was not eligible for the Showcase Showdown. This might have been a blessing for him though because the Big Prize on one of the Showcases was a Trip To Canada. Yes, a trip to “Toronto, Canada” where the winner would enjoy a three-hour sailing tour of Lake Ontario. A three-hour tour started dolefully repeating itself in my brain. But really – it’s December. Who wants a trip to Toronto, let alone a sailing tour (a three-hour tour) on Lake Ontario IN DECEMBER. Although maybe it was taped earlier in the year, who really knows.

I feel like I have more to say about my television watching but it’s not coming to me right now.

Oh, I know, the bananas. I have a banana update for you! At three weeks post-purchase, the bananas were a strange mix of green with blackened stems:

But disturbingly, today, all is ashes. 24 days after purchase, here is where we are:

I’m getting quite a few “When are you going to throw those things out?” queries, and the truth is, I don’t know. I’m tempted to just freeze them all for later banana bread, but they are kind of grody looking, so I’m not sure if it would affect the baking or not. The peel, while still yellow with the exception of the one banana which went completely black and feels like it will disintegrate at any moment, looks weird and is strangely dimpled. The correct thing to do, probably, is to just throw them in the compost, but I don’t know if I can. Maybe it’s the Advil Cold and Sinus talking, but that seems like a decision I cannot make at this time. I have become attached to these bananas.

Recently I saw an article saying that Christmas really sucks for moms, because we are so busy making magical memories we don’t have the time to experience any magic ourselves. I cannot speak for anyone else but I will say that Christmas does not suck for me, in fact it is the opposite, and if it is sucking for you, then back off the throttle a little. Christmas was amazing for me as a kid and you know what my mom did? She bought gifts, sure, she made a metric tonne of baking, yes, and that was pretty much it. AND IT WAS AWESOME. I was thinking about this the other day as my kids enjoyed their super-luxurious Lindor advent calendars, purchased at Costco, naturally, that have not only the usual amazing truffles, but also chocolate icicles, angles, and Santas. They each have one and you know what I had as a child? Those waxy tiny chocolate calendars that I shared with my two brothers.

Side note: if anyone wants to stock up on waxy tiny chocolate calendars, they are still available at Superstore for a very low price.

This was taken nearly three weeks ago, now they are thirty-eight cents each.

Anyway, not to victim blame here, but I think we put way too much pressure on ourselves to be all magical and elvish and whatnot. I feel like our kids will have great Christmas memories no matter what, even if they have to, god forbid, share an advent calendar. Wait, I wrote about this before! Hold please.

Here it is, How To Enjoy The Holidays Without Losing Your Mind. I won’t repeat the sentiments here, but let’s be kind to ourselves. I mean, one year my mother’s oven broke on Christmas Eve and she ended up making Christmas dinner in the microwave and on the barbeque, and it was kind of awesome. So really, all will be merry and bright, so long as we don’t lose our minds like Clark Griswold. Hallelujah! Holy shit. Where’s the Tylenol?

Actually I can really relate to that right now because I think my Advil is wearing off. I will leave you with these offerings: my children’s and my gingerbread men. Which ones do you think I made?

Yes, that one is exactly what you think it is. Welcome to life with boys!

God Bless The Bus Drivers

Posted on by

For weeks, it seems like everyone around me has been sick with this weirdly debilitating cold that’s been going around. Everywhere I go, there’s coughing and sneezing and nose-blowing. So far I’ve been able to stave it off with my signature trifecta of near-obsessive hand-washing, over-the-top vitamin intake, and homeopathic hoo-ha. Today Jake is home with it and I feel an impending sense of doom, like my healthy days are numbered. In the meantime, I will continue to scrub my hands like I’m going into surgery, all the while downing weird concoctions with a side of Vitamin C.

Things feel a touch gloomy because it’s completely dark and snowy outside, although I’m pretty relieved that the snow held off until today. Yesterday Mark – along with the entire Grade Seven body – went to the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, which was, from all accounts, EPIC. It meant a four hour round trip on the bus, however. God bless those parent volunteers, is all I can say. Not to mention the teachers and bus drivers.

Mark told me that a few kids screamed hysterically, in that Grade Seven Humour kind of way, every single time they saw a dinosaur statue, so we should have all probably invested in ibuprofen stocks prior to this field trip.

In any case, yesterday was warm and sunny so it really was a good day for a field trip. I took under-the-weather Jake for his own field trip, to Superstore, for groceries, pumpkins, and Halloween candy. Somehow we have ended up with 250 little chocolate bars, which will surely be more than enough for the eight to ten Trick or Treaters we are sure to have.

Speaking of which, the guys set up all the decorations on the weekend, and although they haven’t yet put up the animatronic ones, I have noticed a number of people stop and look at our creepy, creepy house. I have gotten used to it, but at first I was pretty startled every time I would go to the living room and see this out the front window:

view

Gah! There are two of those guys in our front yard.

scaryguy

Not to mention zombie dogs:

zombiedogs

A number of bats:

dsc_0657

In this house, we bury our secrets:

rip

And we hope no one is arachnophobic:

spider

At least we have pity for the poor mail carrier who has to make his way through all our festive creepiness. He only really has to deal with this guy, swinging in front of our mailbox.

pumpkinhead

This is the first year that I haven’be been really involved in the creation of the kids’ costumes. They are making some kind of weird mash-up (a MONSTER MASH, perhaps? It was a Graveyard Smash!) of old costumes and by old, I mean things they wore when they were in first and second grade. I’m not one hundred percent sure what the result will be, but most likely they will be wearing their parkas and toques to Trick or Treat anyway.

I wonder what the reaction will be to them Trick or Treating. Most of our street is filled with elderly people who have, by and large, known the boys since they were small, and they usually give out tons of candy. However, I know some people have a problem with older kids Trick or Treating, particularly those whose costumes are somewhat suspect. Personally, I don’t even care if someone is dressed up or not, or is a toddler or nearly-legal. I have 250 chocolate bars in my house, and you can be damned sure that I am going to give away as many as possible. Especially since one box contains Wunderbars, which are one of the greatest chocolate bars ever invented, in my humble opinion. I don’t need that kind of temptation just sitting around in my cupboard.

At least I had the fortitude not to buy Rockets! That would have been debilitating in every way, and since sugar is bad for immunity, I would be sure to be on death’s door by next week. As it is, I JUST sneezed! Time for an orange and some more of that weird echinacea tea. Have a great weekend, everyone! Happy Halloween. xo

Rod Stewart performs Sound of Music favourites, and other reasons to live.

Posted on by

This weekend I got so much done; in addition to all my usual things, I also made sugar cookie dough, gingerbread dough, gingersnaps, banana muffins, and squares. I cleaned the house and we put up the Christmas tree and decorations – no, it’s not too early! – and I was about to finish up addressing my cards when I suddenly started feeling very unwell. I was feeling so unwell that my husband commented on it. Are you okay? Because you don’t look okay. You look terrible.

I’d be insulted if I wasn’t so grateful that he noticed my plight. It turns out that I had suddenly come down with the virus that had the rest of the family down a week earlier: sore throat, tight chest, and fatigue.

Fatigue! Yesterday I felt like I was in a fog; I wandered around the house for five minutes trying to figure out what I needed to do. It turns out, I needed to put a load of laundry in, but the thought process to get there was so taxing I wasn’t sure I could make it. I actually napped, which I never do. Ninety minutes of napping, and then it took me several minutes to figure out how to use my vegetable peeler while I prepped dinner. I was, alarmingly, reminded of Still Alice. It’s just a cold, I’m not coming down with early onset Alzheimer’s…or am I? I thought this over and over until I forgot about it and stared blankly at the sink for a while.

Happily, I feel much better today. I shovelled the snow from the sidewalk and only felt a little bit like dying.

This whole weekend, while I was in festive production mode, I was listening to the Sirius Holly channel, that I mentioned previously. For the most part, it is delightful. I can easily hear multiple renditions of the same song in a three-hour time period, and I will sing along with all of them. I even enjoyed ROD STEWART singing My Favourite Things, which is one of the more bizarre sentences I have written. Me, rolling gingersnap dough in sugar: Brown paper packages tied up with string, these are…hey, this sounds like Rod Stewart. It IS Rod Stewart! That’s weird.

Until this weekend, I would have said that I enjoy all Christmas music immensely, with only one exception: Paul McCartney’s Simply Having A Wonderful Christmastime. That song, to me, is the festive equivalent of Might As Well Go For A Soda. I start to twitch like someone is scratching their nails down a chalkboard. Does anyone actually have chalkboards anymore? You know what I mean.

Anyway, I had always thought that was the worst ever Christmas song. I have a very high tolerance – nay, adoration – of cheesy Christmas songs such as Barry Manilow’s White Christmas or Neil Diamond’s Little Drummer Boy. But once that “Simply having…OH GOD MAKE IT STOP” gets in my head, I feel like I need some kind of medication/ alcohol to remedy the situation. However, from listening to Sirius Holly, I have discovered something even worse.

It’s called Christmas Wrapping.

It is the most tuneless song ever with the most insipid lyrics – and this is coming from someone who goes NUTS to hear Last Christmas by Wham! so I know a little something about insipid holiday lyrics – and it is six and a half minutes long. It also is played on Sirius Holly FREQUENTLY.

My weekend with Christmas Wrapping:

Me, the first time I hear it: Is this song still playing? Wow, it’s really long.

Me, the second time I hear it: Oh god, it’s that song again. What the hell is this song?

Me, the third time I hear it: What the hell? Why are they playing this again?

Me, the fourth time I hear it: THAT IS IT. I AM WRITING AN ANGRY LETTER TO SIRIUS. RIGHT AFTER I FINISH THIS GINGERBREAD.

Me, the fifth time I hear it: I’m losing the will to live.

Me, the sixth time I hear it: *changes channel*

So I’m a little slow. Clearly, I should have gone with step six in the first place. But then I might have missed Bruce Springsteen’s Baby Please Come Home, and that would have been tragic.

Not THE most boring post ever, but close.

Posted on by

All week, I’ve wanted to write more about my Las Vegas trip. I wanted to write about the rowdy plane ride down there and the near-silent plane ride home. I wanted to write about the guy next to me on the plane who took off his shoes and passed out, leaving me to stare at his purple socks with pink toes, heels, and colourful polka-dots, that I thought my five year old niece would appreciate. I wanted to write about going to see O, and how amazing and beautiful it was, and how one of the acrobats missed their mark and dived gracefully into the water below, crawling out quietly. I wanted to write about the pianist who paused, looked at me, and smiled because I was so appreciative of his rendition of Let It Be. I wanted to write about the weather, how I finally, for the first time in my life, got to say “It was 100 degrees today!” It was actually 108, but who’s counting? I wanted to write about the topless pool that I was so curious about, and that I kept seeing a pretty lady in a white bikini handing people cards with the pool’s name on it, Bare. Were these people especially selected for their topless-ability? It turned out that the pool was more of a nightclub, but in the day, and pretty much anyone was allowed to go, although the crowd tended to be self-selecting. In case you’re curious, I did not, but it kept my imagination busy for a while. I wanted to write about meeting new friends and how I always think Americans are the friendliest, most hospitable people in the world.

But then, I got sick. Remember the little non-debilitating sniffles? It morphed into a full body exhaustion and sinus ache, which I’m sure was due entirely to my attitude of “mind over matter” and “just push through.” This only works for so long.

Wednesday was a bad day; I had to drag myself out of bed at 6:30, after a full TEN hours of sleep. After dropping the kids at school, I took the dog for a walk, feeling like I was actually running a marathon. Then I went to Costco. People, Costco is not the place you want to be when you’re under the weather. At one point, I stopped in the frozen fruit aisle, listening to the whooshing noise in my head and wondering what would happen if I passed out. I was pretty sure that would be an awkward scenario. I managed to finish my shopping and even put away all the groceries, though going up and down the stairs made my heart feel like it was going to explode. I picked the kids up for lunch, and Mark said in a concerned way, “Maybe you should lie down, Mom. Maybe a nap would help you.”

A nap! Brilliant! Except…in what can only be described as a very bad decision, that morning in a “everything’s normal and I’m fine” fit, I stripped all the beds and laundered the sheets. My couch is very uncomfortable for napping, and so I needed to put the sheets back ON the beds prior to napping. It felt like a K2 expedition at that point but somehow I did it, and slept the afternoon away.

Things are better today, or they were, until I started to feel terrible about an hour ago. Oh no! Relapse! Until I realized that I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. FEED A COLD, NICOLE. I thought guacamole would be medicinal, so I chopped up some tomatoes, and then grabbed my lone avocado. It wasn’t until I sliced it open and then couldn’t get the pit out, and tried to cut around it and mash the rock solid flesh, that I realized that it wasn’t ripe. Sadness.

I then – dear reader, you must realize my desperation by now – made some sort of makeshift “nachos” using Mary’s Gluten Free Seed Crackers, non-dairy cheddar slices, and the chopped up tomatoes. It was seasoned by my tears. Just kidding. It wasn’t terrible with salsa. I mean, there are probably a thousand things much better than eating a plate of gluten-free crackers topped with a product whose first two ingredients are water and tapioca starch, but it wasn’t actively awful.

Well, it can only go up from here, right? It’s Friday, and there is only one week left of school, so that’s something. Happy weekend everyone. xo

According to Buzzfeed, Elvis is my boyfriend from a past life.

Posted on by

Happy Belated Thanksgiving! I had full intentions of writing an emotionally-charged gratitude/ thankfulness post, but then my post-Blissdom cold morphed into a Super Cold which left me unable to sleep or function in a semi-coherent way. I was also at my in-laws’ for five days and now I’m catching up – again – on the mountain of laundry that somehow appeared although I actually did laundry twice whilst at my in-laws’. I also cannot comprehend the date: how is it halfway through October? Jake was looking at his calendar last night and said “Hey, it won’t be too long until Christmas, and then I get a new calendar. The year is just flying by!” Tell me about it.

I’m thankful for many things, not the least of which is the approximately one hundred pounds of apples I currently have in my house, and the fifty pounds of grapes. Fruit leather, coming up. Now that I think about it, I really am not sure why I thought this was an appropriate amount of fruit to take home, but there it is. My husband suggested last night that I make some grape juice, but the thought of the juicer and the insane cleanup afterwards just seemed overwhelming, especially after we spent the majority of the day in the car. Fortunately there was not much traffic, and so my husband had very few people to swear at; another thing to be thankful for.

I was so sick last week that I actually missed a School Council/ Parent Association meeting. Such a thing has never happened before. I made it to the meeting, but my friend looked at me and said “Um, I think you should go home. NOW.” Meanwhile, I blinked at her uncomprehendingly. What? Nicole doesn’t understand. By all accounts it was quite the dramatic meeting so I guess it was for the best, since I probably would have passed out, drooling on my notes, while the activity took place. Staring blankly into space and drooling is probably not the best way to chair a meeting, although it might be an interesting experiment.

There was a music tag game going around last night, in which one puts their music on shuffle and notes down the songs that come up. It’s quite an interesting portrait, this peek into people’s playlists. Here’s mine, and I must note that I thought I had written down ten songs, but it was pointed out to me that I actually wrote down nine. I was a queen in calculus but apparently I can’t count to ten. I blame the road trip!

Nicole’s Shuffle Playlist: My Personality, as represented by music

Dreadlock Holiday (I don’t like reggae. I love it.)

Islands in the Stream (Sail away with me. To another world.)

Fast Car (Take your fast car and keep on driving.)

Me and Mrs Jones (We got a thiiiiiiing going onnnnnnn)

Nights on Broadway (Blaming it all on the nights on Broadway. Blaming them love songs. Blaming them straight to the heart songs)

Linda Put The Coffee On (I got sunshine and red wine, a friend of mine taking it easy)

Thrift Shop (Is that your grampa’s coat?)

Over My Head (And it sure feels nice)

BUST A MOVE (Okay smarty, go to a party.)

When I did this exercise, I actually fretted for a moment, as to whether or not I should post these songs. I mean, Islands in the Stream? Really? There are two ways to face it: with total confidence that this is a fabulously eclectic collection of music, or with shame. I’m going for the former.

meandboys

Happy Thanksgiving!