Category Archives: Luckiness

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The “Isn’t Nature Wonderful” Edition

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I have taught hundreds of yoga students over the years, and I don’t like to play favourites – as my dear friend Tara (HI TARA), who teaches kindergarten once said, they’re all my favourites. But if I am being completely honest, I will paraphrase George Orwell and say that some students are more favourite than others, and one of those was a woman in my senior’s class named Judy.

Judy was in her mid-eighties when she joined my class, and she became a most devoted student. I looked forward to seeing her every week because she embodied my entire Life Goals: she brimmed with positivity and light, she was always happy to be there, and when a new student would join she would go out of her way to talk to them and make them feel welcome. She would come to class with her lipstick on, wearing a cute little yoga outfit, and she’d always be a bit early to chat with me about her orchids, her garden, her life. I adored her, and more than that, I want to be her.

One day we were chatting: it was early April in Calgary, which can be nice sometimes, but often it is cold and snowy, and that is exactly what it was like that day. I mentioned to Judy the very hopeful news that I saw a rabbit that was brown; it had lost its winter coat, which meant that warmer weather was coming soon. “Oh,” she sighed with pure delight, “Isn’t nature wonderful?” Ever since that day, which was five years ago now, I have thought isn’t nature wonderful at least once a day, but now, in the spring, it’s more like a dozen times a day.

Every single morning when I’m out walking I notice something new; every morning the world is a little more green, the trees are a little more leafed out, and something new is blooming. Isn’t nature wonderful?

My whole life this week has been overtaken by a different type of nature: the yard is being landscaped. The end result will be so exciting: lush grass for Rex to roll in, big beautiful garden beds to be filled, and the colourful plants that will fill them. The journey to this result, however, is wild.

Within a day, our lawn was ripped up, giant piles of dirt taking its place. Every day there is immense progress, and I am very much looking forward to this journey’s end, a beautiful new yard. That’s a week or so away, though, and until then, I will just revel in the wonders of nature.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The “Isn’t Nature Wonderful” Edition

Ready For Veggies

When my husband retired, I received an enormous amount of unsolicited advice about this event; most people I talked to spoke in worried tones about what my husband was going to do all day. I find this amusing because since the beginning of February I feel like I’ve hardly seen him. He’s been working on this:

Isn’t it amazing? He built the whole thing by himself: measuring and cutting wood, shovelling gravel and dirt, rototilling the ground, and putting up the fencing to keep out the deer. We are going to be very busy this weekend with all the planting. Stay tuned for many, many updates on the harvest.

What Did I Do Again

There are lots of details in my day to day life that I think I will never forget, but I do. I bought this five-year garden journal to keep track of when I plant, how the plants grow, and when everything is ready to be harvested. It has grid pages for planning, and lots of room for details about the varietals of the plants. For example, some of the raspberries need to be completely cut down in the fall, some in the spring, and some only need old wood pruning. There is zero way I am going to keep all of this straight without a written record.

World, Meet Friedrich

While we were at the garden centre, my husband noticed a display of gnomes. I love all gnomes but I really want one to speak to me in order to bring it into the fold. He held his hand over each gnome until I nodded, and now I have Friedrich.

Garden Fashion

My husband gave me this tee for Valentine’s Day, thinking that it would be the perfect gardening attire, what with all the gnomes.

It’s Asparagus Season, Bitches

Asparagus used to grow wild on this property, years ago, when they used a different irrigation method. It’s too dry for that to happen now, so I am just enjoying the asparagus at the grocery store.

All the local gardeners have warned against growing Brussels sprouts, because they are magnets for pest infestation, so, like the asparagus, I am consoling myself by purchasing bags of them at Costco. Would you believe that I’ve never roasted Brussels sprouts before? I have always enjoyed eating roasted Brussels sprouts – and my friend Sammi (HI SAMMI) always cooks them in her air fryer and my god, they are amazing – but I’ve never actually made them myself. Why? I have no idea. But I did this month and drizzled them with a balsamic glaze, and they were delicious.

Outfit of the Month

I went to lunch with some girlfriends a few weeks ago, and it was a gorgeous day, perfect for just a light layer and some unlined tall boots. My boot collection is the reason I still love skinny jeans, despite them purportedly being very out of style. Also? I will be 49 in a couple of days, and I feel that my time for caring about what is in style is in the rearview mirror. Skinny jeans and tall boots for LIFE.

This long black sweater is from Lululemon, circa 2015. It’s a perfect sweater to wear out for lunch, but not really to wear around the house when anything practical is required, because the drapes and folds, while cute and fun, get in the way of everything. My friend Sammi, of air fryer Brussels sprouts fame, gave me that scarf for my birthday YEARS ago. In fact, I think Rex is the newest part of my outfit. Not that he was accessorizing me at lunch – there are many dog-friendly patio places around here, but the thought of taking my big galoompa to a restaurant is alarming – but he makes for a cute photo.

Speaking of cute photos, on our hike last Sunday I was trying to take photos of the flowers, when Rex snuck in front of me and sat down. I’m a flower! Take a picture of me! Well, who am I to say no?

Ah, nature. It really is wonderful. And so are you, dear friends. If you have any Favourites you’d like to share with me, I’d love to hear all about them. xo

Sassy, Sea Breeze, Stationary, Smoking

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This week I read, and was completely absorbed by, a book that was set in 1998, and I think that is the reason I have been awash in nostalgia. I don’t know what you were doing in 1998, but I was in grad school, taking step aerobics classes, and crushing it during Name That Tune night at the graduate students’ lounge.

I was so good at that game back then, and I could still crush it now, probably, provided all the tunes would be pre-Y2K (remember Y2K?). Disco? I can get down on it. 1970s folk or classic or mellow rock? Take it easy. Anything with a synthesizer, guitar riff, or drum solo? Yes. Grunge, country, pop, rap, techno beats? I can name it all. But I’m pretty hit and miss once we get into the 2000s, and I’m much more miss than hit when it comes to anything at all from the past decade; unless it was featured on the Peloton, I probably haven’t heard it.

There is a Peloton instructor who frequently teaches 80s themed rides, in which she always says that she admires us Gen Xers, who left the house with only “keys and a dream.” It’s true; if you wanted to meet someone at a bar, you just had to use your home phone to call their home phone, and then hope for the best. You had to look up places on a map, and if someone failed to meet up with you, then they failed to meet up with you, and that was the end of the story. You might find out later what happened, or you might not, but in any case, there was no way at all to track down a person. Or hardly any way. I remember when I worked as a waitress, sometimes I would get a phone call for a person desperate to get a message across to another person who was ostensibly in the restaurant, waiting. I would walk through the restaurant, looking for a person of the description provided for me. Are you Cheryl? You are? Dave’s going to be late.

In 1998, I had had an email address for about a year, and mostly I was the recipient of really stupid jokes, chain letters, or erroneous information about how antiperspirants caused cancer. It’s not unlike social media, to be totally honest. I did use it in a pen pal kind of way, though, to keep in touch with people who had moved away.

I still use email in this way for my former yoga students; one octogenarian lady in particular sends me very long emails about my old classes and all the people in them, and I send her long emails back about my life now. There are gaps of a week or more between our emails, which makes it feel like those long-gone pen pal days; she even starts every email with “thank you for your long letter,” which I love.

I was always a person who had a lot of pretty stationary and a lot of pen pals; I would write to my cousin Nikki in California (HI NIKKI), and most of these letters were about boys we liked and our summer vacations. I wrote to all my camp friends; if there is anything more intense and bonding than a week of summer camp when you’re thirteen, I don’t know what it is. I kept up that correspondence for years, even if I never saw that person again.

It reminded me a lot of something I heard about on a podcast recently, about what the hosts called “Little While Friends,” people you have an experience with or are friends with for just a little while, but you end up having them on your social media forever. Around 2010 or so, any time I met someone new, I would end up adding them as a friend on Facebook, which means that a solid percentage of my Facebook feed is made up of people I barely know, but I feel like I know, because I have experienced their entire life journeys over the years. I know about their kids, and their divorces, and their remarriages, and an alarming amount about their dietary and fitness odysseys.

That said, I do love Facebook, there’s no better way to keep in touch with people from my past and present, people who I feel warmly about simply because we have shared life experiences. Some of those life experiences are less savoury than others, but they are what makes us who we are.

My friend Jen (HI JEN) sent me that photo, circa 1992, which made me think of a meme I saw lately, about our high school signature scents: mine was cigarettes and Vanilla Fields perfume. I haven’t smoked anything in well over three decades, and I feel low-level shame that I ever smoked at all, but I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who carried perfume and mints after hanging out at the smoke doors at school. Isn’t it crazy that there WERE smoke doors?

Does anyone else remember butane curling irons? It says a lot that we didn’t accidentally light ourselves on fire, with all the smoking and excessive hairspray that was necessary for those weird hairstyles of that time. And beyond that, some of us were bringing butane curling irons to school – not me, but I coveted one. I had to make do with scrunching my hair in the girls’ washroom and spraying it with Aussie Sprunch Spray, then setting it with Salon Selectives. Given that I always had a lighter with me, it’s incredible I didn’t just combust right there. It’s probably good that I never had a butane curling iron.

I just discovered, upon googling, that butane curling irons are still in existence!

One thing that I wish was still in existence, or, at least, that I had kept some of my copies, is Sassy magazine. Sassy was, and remains, the best magazine for teen girls, because it treated them like actual intelligent humans. One of the most impactful articles I ever read in my young life was the one that they put out to explain the Gulf War and Operation Desert Storm, an event that, naturally, caused me much stress and anxiety. This article detailed the war from all viewpoints, including the Iraqi people and, separately, Saddam Hussein. It was the first time I had ever read anything that showed anything other than a North American point of view, and it was absolutely eye-opening and formative, and made me realize that things were not always black and white, and that what I read in our media was not always the whole story.

In addition to increasing my information about the world around me, Sassy was instrumental in the creation of my skin care and beauty routines. Unfortunately, the girls of the 80s and 90s were sadly misled. Much has been said about the “Sephora Teens” of today, with their Drunk Elephant products and their anti-aging serum usage at age 17, but I think they have the right idea. After all, where they are moisturizing and pampering, we were scouring our poor faces with St. Ives Apricot Scrub, followed by the sting of Sea Breeze astringent; it’s no wonder we were plagued with acne and redness. Suz (HI SUZ) reminded me of that weird little product, the Buf Puf, which we used for EXTRA exfoliation, and we should all be in awe that we didn’t erase our faces altogether. Maybe this was the precursor to today’s Instagram filters, where girls and women filter so much that facial features become obliterated. We were just trying to obliterate our faces physically, rather than digitally. Or maybe that was what we were doing with those deep cleansing mud masks that would dry and crack on our dear little faces, leaving trails of whitish dust in our wake.

Weekly Reading

My Last Innocent Year. Wow, wow, WOW! I loved this book so much, I don’t even know where to begin. It is an exquisitely but sparsely written novel about a young woman in her senior year of college who enters into a relationship with a visiting professor. Tale as old as time, right? WRONG. This was just so well done, and so real, that I did something I haven’t done since I read (and loved) Girls They Write Songs About: I slowed down the last few chapters because I didn’t want it to be over. It’s set in 1998, which, coincidentally, is when I was in grad school, and so this book gave me all the nostalgic feelings. It was just so resonant of a time in my life which was brief, but felt like an age, when it was all about small classes and big camaraderie, hard work and thesis writing, and also parties and romantic interludes, when we all were on a first-name basis with all our professors and knew a lot about their personal lives, which seems wild now. This book, though. The time period details are spot on. 1998 was also when Monica Lewinsky was in the news, which I have a lot to say about, but I will keep it to this quote from the book: “Monica had become every girl’s worst nightmare, the equivalent of having your seventh-grade diary read over the school loudspeaker or walking into class with a period stain on your pants. We identified with her, which should have made us kinder but instead made us mean.” This book resonated with me so much and made me wonder about paths not taken; every single character is so well developed and complex. I wish I could go back in time before I had read it, so I could have the pleasure of reading it again for the first time. This will be a reread for me in the future, I am sure.

The Women In The Castle. When I first read this book in 2018, I really enjoyed it and found it incredibly thought-provoking in terms of divisiveness between people in society. I don’t know if you remember 2018, but it was KIND of a divisive time? I saw this at the library (in large print, no less!) and thought I could do with a reread. After all, since my first reading we went through a pandemic, which has to be THE most divisive time in my memory, and also, here we are, deep sigh. I will say I enjoyed this book as much or even more than before, maybe because I knew what was coming. I will also say that, generally speaking, I think historical fiction is one of the hardest types of book to get right: the language and dialogue is tricky, and it’s often overwhelmingly difficult not to insert modern sensibilities into the past. BUT this book does an excellent job on both fronts – it can be a little “explainy” at times, but I think it’s really well done. It’s about three German women and their families who come together right at the end of WWII, through the efforts of Marianne, the widow of a member of the German Resistance. She brings in the other two women, both ostensibly widows of the Resistance, to help care for them and their families. This book really shows how people can contain multitudes, how complex humans and society can be, how people can get swept up and find themselves in places they cannot fathom, and, most of all, how interconnected we all are, and how we are all responsible for one another.

Well, it’s been a fun trip down memory lane this week; this week is going to be full of lovely things like a trip to the garden centre, lots of writing, and, most exciting, not one but two events with my lovely girlfriends. I hope you all have a beautiful week ahead of you. xo

A Tuesday In The Life

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Whenever I read a post about someone’s day to day life, I find myself fascinated. I would like to say that I am highly interested in the everyday mundanity we all experience as a whole, the extraordinary in the ordinary, the details that make our lives unique, and I am, it is true. I also, I think, am extremely nosy.

But I do love those posts and I often think of doing one myself, but then, as I am going through my day, I wonder is this interesting in any way? Well. I have never regretted recording tiny details of my life, as I often look back on posts fondly and with great nostalgia. Did I really spend precious minutes of my day doing Halloween crafts with the children? Did I really make playdough, go to the park, stand in the playground for hours, cut out pieces of milk cartons to make birdhouses? Did I really teach yoga, grocery shop for hours, spend inordinate amounts of time slicing up fruit? It’s so fun to see these snapshots, and so I offer you one of this past Tuesday, where I do grocery shop, but none of the other things apply.

4:10 am. I wake up – no need for an alarm – and toddle downstairs to the kitchen. The very first thing I do in the morning is start the coffeemaker, which I have filled and prepared the day before. Recently Elisabeth (HI ELISABETH) was talking about everyone’s favourite kitchen appliance, and no one was saying coffee maker. No one, that is, except me. No coffee, no prana, as they say, or, more truthfully, no coffee, someone is going to get stabbed. Anyway, first I start the coffee, then I drink water, perform my morning ablutions – brushing my teeth and hair, washing my face, and moisturizing (ALWAYS with SPF!!!) – and then I get dressed in my first of many, as Big Edie would say, costume changes. This one consists of a yoga tank, cropped leggings, and a tee. Here’s a little Nicole By The Numbers Fact: I drink around 4 litres of water a day, half of which happens before 10:00 am. Also before 10:00 am, circling back to my first point, I drink an entire pot of coffee. What can I say, I like my liquids. I also brush my teeth at least six times a day; even when I had a life in which I was out and about a lot, I would keep a travel toothbrush and paste in my bag. I like a minty-fresh mouthfeel for most of the day, what can I say. Back to the routine, where I am not going to detail every last toothbrushing and glass of water, so as to not bore my dear readers. Just know that those things are happening in the background. Anyway! At this point I let Rex out for snuggles and to feed him, and then open up my laptop. This is my designated blog-reading time. I might read one or two posts at some other time during the day, but this is when I get the majority of it done. If you’ve had an incoherent comment from me, likely it’s 4:45 and my coffee hasn’t activated my brain yet.

It’s also the time where I read a poem before getting on my yoga mat, and I’m currently revisiting my favourite Mary Oliver collection. The baby redbirds, they don’t even know they have wings, and if you know, you know.

5:20 am. This is my time for yoga and meditation, interrupted only to say goodbye to my younger son, who starts work at 6.

6:15 am. Workout! On Tuesdays I do a little extra cardio, which means elliptical and Peloton, and I also do some stupid strength training for my stupid bones.

The gym! Nicole’s Cardio Corner is in the lower left corner.
All the weights, 90% of which I don’t use.

7:25 am. I look like this after a workout; not to be too gross, but you could wring my clothes out to make a solid puddle of sweat, so now it’s time to change my costume. Is this a function of all my liquid intake? Or do I need liquids because of my sweating problem? Who can say. I put on a non-sweaty yoga tank, full length yoga pants, a long-sleeved top, and my coat and light hikers, because it’s Rex’s favourite time of day – walkies! I puff on some face powder, swipe on some mascara and tinted lip balm, because I am a very vain person who does not leave the house with a bare face, even if it’s just to walk the dog. Tuesdays are the day I launder all the sheets, so I throw those in the washer before I leave. For today’s walk I decide to take us on a loop down to the lake, and to see the spring changes in this gorgeous weeping tree by a nearby pond. My son tells me that these trees may look pretty, but they are hell for the grounds crew at his golf course. Ah well, I neither am part of the grounds crew, nor do we have this kind of tree on our property, so I will enjoy it as such.

9:00 am. After our walk, it’s time for my smoothie; for anyone interested, it includes cashew milk and nut butter, a little cinnamon, a frozen banana, and about eight cups of spinach. Soon I’ll be using spinach from my new garden! I wash up the blender and the rest of the smoothie accoutrements; this will be the first of many times I do the dishes during the day. Yes, I do have a dishwasher, but I would never consider for a minute putting the blender in there, nor the plastic strainer I use to wash the spinach.

9:25 am. I put the sheets in the dryer, and throw a load of towels into the washer. Now it’s time to shower, moisturize (don’t forget the SPF!), put on makeup and clothes (Costume Change Number Three), and do my hair. I also give the bathroom a quick cleaning, put the sheets back on the beds (who has the energy to actually fold fitted sheets?), and go down to the garden to see what my husband is doing. He’s busy with landscape fabric and wood, and upon looking at the time, I hustle to the office for something very special.

10:45 am. It’s time to get ready for one of the highlights of my day – a writing date with Suzanne! (HI SUZANNE).

Rex is my everyday writing partner; he’s very helpful.

12:45 pm. After catching up with Suzanne, I manage to hit, and slightly surpass, my writing goal of 1000 words. The towels are done, so I fold them, and I go downstairs for lunch and hair supplements; I wash up the blender and smoothie accoutrements, AGAIN, and get ready for the next big thing on my list.

1:15 pm. It’s time for a Costco trip, and when I enter the store I experience an immediate sense of doom. There are people everywhere, the lineups are snaking all the way down the store, and it takes me several minutes to just work my way through the crowd to get to the aisles I need. I do manage it, and happily, by the time I finish my shopping the crowds have all dispersed and there is no lineup at all. Sometimes the Costco gods smile down at me. I think it was because I rescued an errant cart from the parking lot. I drive home, where both sons greet me – my younger son finishes work at 2, and my older son, whose university is close by, stopped by for dinner and to do his laundry. This is an unusual, but welcome surprise for a Tuesday. The boys bring the groceries in – my husband is still working on the garden – and I am faced with the overwhelming task of putting everything away.

3:15 pm. Everything is put away, and I start some dinner prep. I’m making Suzanne’s Fall Salad, with modifications, because it is a Suzanne kind of day; I spread out chickpeas on a tea towel to dry and candy some pecans. I take a break from food to brush Rex’s teeth and to give him his dental treat; while he’s outside chewing and probably rolling in the grass, preparing to bring the outside in, I chop up sweet potatoes and cook some quinoa, I make a maple-Dijon dressing for salad, and, for the guys, take some chicken out of the freezer to thaw. I prep the sweet potatoes, chickpeas, and quinoa to go into the oven, and I do the dishes. Again.

4:05 pm. It’s a really beautiful day, so I decide to pop out on the deck to do a little reading and Duolingo while the chickpeas roast. I catch Rex in the act of rolling, which means I’ll be sweeping up later.

I read for a while, and Rex keeps me company. I’m reading My Last Innocent Year, which is excellent so far.

5:00 pm. Time for a musical interlude; I play the piano for a little bit while the sweet potatoes and quinoa are in the oven. My general rule is three songs, of any length or style, unless I’m learning something new. After that, I sweep the floor, I HAVE NO IDEA WHY.

5:45 pm. I put the chicken in the air fryer, put the salad together, and slice the baguette. I also perform the very important job of filling the coffee maker for tomorrow. A few hours ago, my younger son, who was heading downstairs to work out, asked and answered his own question about what was for dinner, as he saw me prepping earlier. “Oh! The fun salad!” See how much joy Suzanne brings into my life? Dinner time is our time to catch up on everything that happened during the day; all our days are very different, so it’s a fun time. After dinner the guys do the dishes while I read for a little bit, before going upstairs for the final Costume Change of the day.

7:15 pm. I start my nighttime process; I put on pajamas, I brush and floss my teeth, I brush out my hair and apply a scalp serum from The Ordinary, I wash my face and apply retinol eye and night creams and foot lotion. Then I choose tomorrow’s workout outfit and take it to the bathroom downstairs, where I will start all over again tomorrow. I read on the couch for a little while, chatting with my husband as he watches TV. He worked for seven solid hours, laying landscape fabric and cutting wood for the fencing, and so he’s a bit tired.

8:30 pm. I’m tired! Time for bed. I head upstairs and nestle into my cozy bed, ready to start again tomorrow.

It’s April!

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It’s April! It’s not even an April Fool’s joke, it’s actually April. I do not know what it was, but, as I mentioned before, March felt like it was three months long; not in a bad way, this is not a complaint, but it seemed to stretch on and on. Maybe it was because we had a short trip mid-month, who can say. All I know is that it is April, my birthday month!

I don’t play favourites with months, because I anthropomorphize everything and I don’t want to hurt any months’ feelings, but I love April. I especially love it here, because GUESS WHAT IT IS ACTUALLY SPRING! I had a weird seasonal cognitive dissonance back in October and November; I felt like it was September during those months, and now I feel like it should be May or June. My mind is on its own strange Daylight Savings-esque journey; my mind is falling back in fall and springing forward in spring, but instead of an hour, it’s months. Forty-eight years in the Canadian prairies, forty-six of which were in Calgary, have conditioned me to never let my guard down in April, because snow can easily continue into late May. But here, that is unheard of, and so I am in full-on garden preparation mode.

This is our new veggie garden, do you love it? I am so excited about it. My husband has been working nonstop on this project for over a month now; he built all the garden boxes and brought in many loads of dirt, he rototilled the flat part, and last Friday, he rented an auger and he and my son drilled holes to put up a giant fence, very necessary in this place where the wildlife roam and eat everything.

I cannot wait to start planting. One of the boxes we are reserving for my mother-in-law, who has been starting her own tomato plants from seeds that she saves from the previous year’s tomatoes, something which she has done for decades now. The rest of the boxes are going to be filled with cherry tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers – my Greek salad garden! – spinach and kale and lettuces, and so many herbs. The flat part will be a berry patch, plus there’s room for some squash. I’m planning butternut, zucchini, and pumpkin. I’ve only ever grown zucchini, so I’m quite excited to try something new.

A friend very sweetly said that, given our over-the-top vegetable consumption, we would be saving so much money on our grocery bills, and while I agreed with that in principle, I also thought of the expense of the wood, and the drainage rock, and the soil, and the new miter saw to cut the wood, and the new rototiller. Will the garden pay for itself? Not in our lifetime, Clifford. However, there is nothing like eating fresh vegetables grown in one’s own garden, and seasoning one’s meals with one’s own herbs, to make a person feel like Ma Ingalls. An incredibly spoiled and privileged Ma Ingalls, but Ma Ingalls nonetheless.

The veggie garden isn’t the only thing we are undertaking; we are also overhauling the grass and having giant flower beds put in. We are actually consulting with a garden designer who specializes in this area, and who is well-versed in the problem of deer, and also knowledgeable about drought-tolerant plants. She has some really great ideas and I can’t wait; the gnomes are anxious to get outside into their natural habitat.

Salvadore is so bored with manifestos in general.
Slider and Fernando, looking out toward the window, wishing they were outside.

If it were up to me, I would have no grass at all, just one giant garden, but having a nice lawn is very important to my husband, and having a lawn, not necessarily a nice one, but an existent one, is important to Rex. He needs somewhere to roll around in so that he can track grass and leaves all over the house, after all. The grass around our house is just a complete mess from the construction; it’s patchy and bumpy and still has some gravel in it. But! In six short weeks from now, Rex will be rolling around in soft, green, all new grass; he will be chewing sticks in it and leaving little shards everywhere, and my husband will be happily mowing up those shards along with the grass.

Is this going to become a gardening blog? Maybe! Well, probably not, but you can certainly expect many, many plant-related updates in the months to come.

Weekly Reading

How To Be A Better Person. As many of you know, I like to read a little inspiring something something right before my yoga practice; typically this means poetry, but at the start of this year I thought I’d try something else – a reread of a book that was already on my shelf. I met Kate Hanley in 2014 at the Blissdom Canada conference (bring back blogging conferences, except instead of panels about how to monetize, let’s just have parties and cozy chats, who’s in?), and in 2017 she very kindly sent me both of her newly-published books to be reviewed. I haven’t read either of them since that time, and I thought it was time to revisit. This is a lovely little book with helpful ideas on how to make small changes to improve your life and the world around you. It’s so interesting, I had made many notations in this book about things I felt were very important, when I read it in 2017. Some of these resonated seven years later, and some didn’t. Interesting how life changes and evolves. 

Tropical Attire Encouraged (And Other Phrases That Scare Me). If you don’t know by now that Alison Rosen’s podcast is one of my favourites, well, then, you haven’t been listening to me! It’s a delight and so is this entertaining book of short essays. The fifth anniversary edition has five new essays, the remainder were written around 2012-14 I think? It’s a fun trip down memory lane (skinny jeans!) (I’m still wearing them). Fans of the show will love this.

None Of This Is True. I have been learning a lot lately about the craft of writing, and one of the keys to a successful novel – particularly a psychological thriller! – is to “plant curiosity seeds” and then “water them” throughout the book, so that readers are interested to see the plant in full bloom, so to speak. This author is really excellent at that; even though psychological thrillers are not generally a genre I reach for, I was hooked from the beginning and dying to know what was going on. I think this was a pretty good read; I had a few issues with a couple of the reveals and details, which I shall obviously not go into here because I don’t want to be a spoilsport, but this was a solid, engaging read. I liked the lead up to the climax better than the actual denouement itself, which I found a little flat, but, as I said, a very compelling read.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend, and even if it doesn’t feel like spring – hello, I love you, Calgary friends! – I hope you have a little spring in your step and sunshine in your heart. And maybe some chocolate? Do you have an Easter candy preference? I sure do; it’s Cadbury Mini-Eggs or NOTHING. Nothing, I say! Well, probably I would eat something else, but there is something amazing about those little shells. And aren’t these nests so cute? Happy April, everyone. xo

Various Views on Vegas

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Fly High Free Bird

The soul-crushing airline industry has completely ruined my idea of what is normal and what is not. To me, flight departure and arrival times are completely nebulous, an approximation at best. I just assume that no flight will ever take off or arrive on time, ever, which is why I will do almost anything to avoid flight connections. So you can imagine my surprise when not only did our flight to Vegas was on time, but so was our flight home. We arrived home at 4:00 pm, which meant that I could pick Rex up from the boarder’s, rather than waiting until the next day. “Our flight got in early!” I excitedly said to the woman at the boarder’s, and my husband reminded me that no, it wasn’t, but it was on time. I guess I just assumed 4:00 could mean anything from 5:00 to midnight.

We had booked these flights before I became incredibly spoiled by our recent, premium seat flight to Mexico, but we did have the exit row, which is quite comfortable for me and my swollen, badly circulated, here-are-the-warning-signs-for-blood clots legs. On the way there I was seated beside a lovely Australian woman who had been rerouted to Vegas in the strangest way: she was heading for Calgary, where she would connect to go on to Houston, but as she was driving to the airport she was notified that her Calgary flight was delayed for over ninety minutes, and she would miss her connection. Back in the day there were many flights from Calgary to Houston, but apparently not anymore, and so she was flying to Vegas, of all redirections, and then getting an evening flight on a different airline to Houston. It sounded exhausting and reinforced my deep distrust of airline connections.

On discovering that the woman was from Australia, the fellow in the window seat struck up a conversation, and continued the conversation for the entire three hour flight. I was in the happy position of being in the aisle seat, so I could eavesdrop easily but I could also just read my book. The conversation almost entirely consisted of his recounting of The Times He Got Drunk In Australia, along with one horrifying description of the Time He Tried To Barbeque Kangaroo Meat.

I had a brief conversation with this young gentleman when he arrived to his seat, and that conversation was about the Superiority Of The Airport White Spot as a Drinking Destination. “Their liquor license starts at 6:00 am, and there’s no difference in the price of a beer at the airport versus the White Spot on Harvey,” he said, “And no one has to drive because we are all getting on a plane!” He has a point. The flight attendant came by with the drinks cart and when he asked for a beer, she told him there was Molsen and Coors available. “The Silver Bullet!” he said happily. It was just after 9:00 am. I lost sight of him after deplaning but I feel sure he had a great time in Vegas.

My Milkshake Brings The Instagrammers To The Yard

For the second year in a row, St. Patrick’s Day completely fell off my radar and I didn’t realize until just before we left that we would be in Vegas for that occasion. I assumed that all of the pubs would be very busy, but either there is just a glut of pubs or people were partaking in the festivities elsewhere, because every pub we passed seemed pretty quiet. People were definitely partaking in festivities somewhere, as dramatically demonstrated by the fellow in a tall green hat and a shirt emblazoned with “Pat MeCrotch” falling into the elevator with us, followed by his apologetic wife, who was wearing a gigantic glowing green necklace made up of shamrocks and the words “Kiss Me I’m Irish.”

In any case, my husband and I had a lovely lunch at a pub at the Venetian, which is near the Sphere. We had tickets for the 2:00 show, and so we leisurely sat at the bar and had some really great pub food, including a vegan falafel burger. This was the type of pub that had a whole page of the menu dedicated to extremely decadent and extravagant milkshakes: the rims were coated with frostings and sprinkles of all sorts – Fruity Pebbles! Jimmies! Oreo crumbs! – and then topped with ice cream or whipped cream, with some kind of large baked good on top of THAT – a strawberry Pop Tart! A jelly doughnut! A cinnamon roll! – and then THAT was topped with, somewhat anticlimactically, a cherry.

I saw one such milkshake being delivered to a woman, around my age, sitting alone. It was bright red, with a slice of what appeared to be cheesecake on top, and I was filled with curiosity as to how someone would actually consume this. Would there be a side plate? Would this person just pick up the cheesecake and eat it with her fingers? I watched out of the corner of my eye to see what would happen.

First, the woman took several photos of it, which, well, is relatable. Then she started taking selfies with the milkshake, including one in which she was holding the cherry with a big, wide, open mouthed smile. I waited to see what would happen with the cheesecake slice, but then it was apparent that she was videoing herself with this milkshake – I could see her talking. Was this an Instagram reel? Was she posting on TikTok? I kept waiting for her to eat the cheesecake, or at least sip from the milkshake, but she just kept filming.

My husband chided me for creepily watching someone not-consume a giant milkshake, but to be honest, I didn’t think it was any creepier than watching an Instagram reel of a person I don’t know, the creation of which was more than likely what was happening. All I was missing was her handle. I never did see what happened with the milkshake because she still hadn’t partaken in any of it by the time we left to go see the show. I hope she enjoyed it.

Mars Ain’t The Kind Of Place To Raise Your Kids

As I alluded to before, we went to see Postcard From Earth at The Sphere in Vegas. The Sphere, in case you don’t know, cost two billion dollars to build and the outside consists of thousands and thousands of lights. It is really a feat of technology and engineering, the inside filled with all sorts of technological wonders. During the movie, the seats move and vibrate – no, not THAT kind of vibrate – and there is wind and scent and it’s a real sensory experience. I cannot even describe how amazing it is.

I loved 85% of the movie, which is about the glory of nature and our mother earth, the ways in which we honour her and the beauty of nature. It also shows how we have abused her, and how she is protesting via climate change and crisis, and I was on board with all of this, one hundred percent. We are in a climate crisis, I think that much is obvious, and it is our doing, as a global population. This, I think, would have been a great place to give the viewer practical information about the changes we all can make on individual and corporate levels.

However, this is where the movie took a turn. The solution to the climate crisis, said the movie, was for everyone to leave earth in order for it to heal. So, everyone on earth got to get into a space ship and go to another planet, presumably to fuck that one up as well, although that thought was left unstated.

Now, I know, as the man behind me said to his sobbing child who did not want to go to space, Daddy, it’s just a movie. But really? THAT is the thesis regarding the solution to the climate crisis? For us not to be here? Honestly, the film should have a warning on it for anyone suffering depression or extreme climate anxiety, because the thesis is that the world would be better WITHOUT US IN IT. Surely there could have been a better conclusion than that, but since space travel for seven billion people is exactly not a practical tool, the implication is that it’s just better if we don’t exist anymore. You can’t find a hotel room with a balcony or a window that opens in Vegas, so you’d think they would know that your existence is the problem isn’t maybe the best theme for a movie in that particular location.

Obviously there are no clear answers or quick fixes to the climate crisis, but maybe there could have been a lesson here about mindful, reduced consumption rather than let’s go to Saturn, it will be fine. Perhaps stop using single use plastics, or don’t buy into the fast fashion industry, or, maybe, don’t go to Vegas.

Las Vegas is probably right up there with the Disney resorts when it comes to environmentally disastrous tourist destinations, and I found it incredibly ironic that this movie would be shown in a two billion dollar, electronically powered, round theatre. It felt like getting a lecture from Leonardo DiCaprio about the environment just before he boards his yacht with all his buddies. So thanks, but no thanks, on the suggestion of flying to space and never coming back to earth ever again.

Glory Days, They’ll Pass You By

If you can believe it, I have been a mother for twenty years! Well, twenty years and two days.

It was a bit of a hectic weekend, what with cake baking and guests and a funeral and feeding people and just general life, but it was lovely all the same. And now we are looking down the barrel of a really normal week, albeit one in which we are busy gearing up for gardening season. Preparing to garden in March will never not be a novelty to me, after so many years of snow and ice.

I have many books to tell you about, but it will have to wait until later. I hope you all have a beautiful week, the first full one of spring! xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Viva Las Vegas Edition

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One of my very Favourite Things about air travel is the insane cultural whiplash you can experience in only a few hours. It’s pretty incredible, when you think about it. One moment one is involved in their sleepy little life, and the next moment one is on the Vegas strip, being bombarded with sights and sounds and lights and people. And then? Back to the sleepy little life.

We had an absolute blast in Las Vegas; we got back on Monday and things have been smoothly puttering along since then. We have houseguests arriving today, but not for a happy reason: our friends from Ottawa, who we will be visiting next month, are here for his father’s funeral. What this means is that we have our anniversary, two birthdays, and a funeral, all on the same day. Well, we celebrated our anniversary in Vegas, really, and my son is spending his Saturday night 20th birthday NOT with his parents, and I have always vowed that Rex’s special day shall be October 10, the day he came to us, and NOT on his actual birthday. I only have so much bandwidth, people.

But Vegas! As I mentioned before I am a non-gambler, and yet this is my fourth time in Vegas. There are many things to do in Vegas for people like me, but of course, gambling IS the main event there. I find it fascinating and wild to walk through the casinos; it’s exciting, seeing people at the craps tables, and also depressing, seeing people glassily hitting the spin button on the video terminals at 7:00 in the morning. One thing that was very surprising to me is that all of the casinos allow smoking. It’s been so long since I experienced cigarette smoke indoors that I found it kind of shocking. There was a lot of pot smoke too, and while I dislike cigarette smoke I absolutely loathe the smell of pot. It makes me feel actually nauseous, but happily the casinos do have great ventilation systems and unless a person is right beside someone smoking, it’s not noticeable, to me anyway. Another thing I noticed was that there were many fewer cocktail waitresses bringing free drinks to the gamblers, with the exception of the people at the card tables. Vegas in general is insanely expensive, much more so than the last time we were there, in 2015.

Speaking of that last trip, prior to it I had stayed healthy and virus-free for months leading up to it, which is remarkable considering I had elementary-school-aged kids at that time, and the morning of our trip I woke up with a head cold. Back then I doped myself up with cold medication and that, with the addition of a lot of alcohol, led to me having a prolonged and dramatic nosebleed in the middle of one of those super-expensive shops at Caesar’s Palace. I had to make a run down the fake-marble floors to the washroom, where people averted their eyes at what they assumed was a cocaine-addled hot mess. It wasn’t my best moment, and so I wasn’t super excited to wake up last Tuesday with a sore throat and general malaise. Not wanting history to repeat itself, I kicked it into High Gear, Tender Loving Personal Care-wise, and did almost nothing but sleep and eat for the days leading up to our flight and I am happy to report that I was mostly recovered, energetic, and, crucially, public nosebleed-free for the trip.

Was that too much information? Perhaps. Anyway! I have much to say so I will start with all of my Favourite Things.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Viva Las Vegas Edition

This Flower Loves Flowers

We stayed at the Bellagio, and arrived around noon on Friday, and it was absolute mayhem. There were so many people everywhere, and I noticed this amazing indoor garden, but the number of people there made it impossible to move through it. Happily the crowds are almost non-existent in the morning hours, and so I was able to walk through and admire it all.

The garden was a tea party theme, and all the flowers were spring ones. I am delighted to tell you that two of my girlfriends were there recently, and the themes change with the seasons; my friend Megan (HI MEGAN) was there when it was Lunar New Year-themed, and my friend Karin (HI KARIN) was there at Christmas to see the Nutcracker theme. I love thinking that this is someone’s JOB, to create a new garden regularly, and in the morning I watched the grounds crew replanting and watering, and it just seemed to me to be the loveliest occupation possible. Am I excited to get started on my own gardens? YES I AM.

Food, Miraculous Food

Right next to the garden was a delightful breakfast and lunch place called Sadelle’s, a gorgeous place that had the most incredible avocado toast. We went there every morning for breakfast and every morning I ordered this:

For our anniversary dinner we went to another restaurant in the Bellagio called Harvest, and let me tell you, it was absolutely incredible. They had a full, separate vegan menu that was so divine that my husband ordered off of it. We had other great meals too, including a falafel pita at this crazy little hole-in-the-wall place that was to die for.

This drink was called You Broke My Heart, Fredo, so of course I had to order it. Times two. It was delicious albeit expensive, although probably pretty average for Vegas prices. I mean, don’t apply the exchange rate or think too hard about it, is the moral of the story.

Show Me The Way

We went to see Cirque de Soleil’s KA, which was absolutely incredible. In 2015 we went to see O, which I think is actually a better show, but our seats for this were perfect and the performers were acrobatically swinging right above us at times. The breathtaking strength of the performers has to be seen to be believed.

We also went to the Sphere, which is a pretty amazing work of technology and engineering. The show we saw there was Postcard From Earth, about which I have much to say, but for brevity’s sake will tell you that it is an incredible experience and is absolutely stunning.

Not So Still Waters

The Bellagio has a famous water and, if you see it at night, light show that happens…well, I don’t know how often it happens. It seems like it happens every half hour, but it could be more frequent than that. There is music playing, often some old school Elvis or Frank Sinatra, which I am HERE for, although my husband and I had a great conversation on what life would have been like for those two specific performers prior to the days of the 24-hour news cycle, social media, or, you know, feminism. Pardon me while I separate the art from the artists here, because I do love that music, even if the performers themselves were pretty suspect.

I also loved the water show both during the day and at night:

It’s a gorgeous hotel and I’m so glad we stayed there.

A Miracle of Chocolate Engineering

Speaking of fountains, the Bellagio also is the proud home of the World’s Largest Chocolate Fountain, which impressed me to no end and which my husband probably does not want to hear about ever again. But you guys! It’s the World’s! Largest! Chocolate! Fountain!

You might be wondering if I partook in any of the chocolatey delights, and sadly, the answer is no. There was a glorious patisserie and gelato assortment, but all of it was very dairy-heavy. Whomp whomp.

That’s It! You People Have Stood In My Way Long Enough! I’m going to Clown College!

Remember the episode of The Simpsons when Homer goes to Clown College, and then he admires himself whilst wearing the requisite pants? Homer incessantly talks about how comfortable the pants are, while Krusty yells that the pants are supposed to be baggy. Baggy!

This is how I felt in my new plane pants.

I know, I know, I JUST talked about skinny jeans and the horror that are wide-leg pants, but we should all know that I cannot be trusted when it comes to advertising. To be completely honest, I really wanted a pair of pants to wear on the plane that would be cute, stylish, and, most of all, comfortable. As some of you may know, I have some pretty serious circulation issues that require the wearing of full-length – up to my bra line, people – medical grade compression hose for any flight over about an hour. My hose are “nude” and I only need to put on a patterned housedress with white open-toed sandals to display the reinforced toe to become my own grandmother. Anyway, a fun little side effect of my myriad circulatory issues is that my legs also actually swell up on planes, even with the compression hose, which makes any non-yoga pants to be very tight and uncomfortable.

So I was on the search for new travel pants and Lululemon had these on clearance; it’s a risk, buying pants online, but I have what is known as a “Sweat Membership” at Lulu, and one of the many perks is that I can return clearance items. Full-length, they look like frumpy palazzo pants from 1996, but I cuffed them and added boots and a close-fitting top, and I think it worked!

By the way, “kale salad” on that sign was only an advertising gimmick. There was no kale salad.

Outfit of the Month

Speaking of boots, having the right footwear is so important in Vegas.

Those heels are normally very comfortable, but after 20,000 steps and a day of walking and a couple of You Broke My Heart, Fredos, wearing them made me feel like Lotus from The Good Earth. Except with giant swollen feet. So not at all like Lotus, but I was walking like Lotus with tiny, painful steps, and I ended up carrying my shoes and classily walking in my stocking feet after dinner, through the casino, and back up to our room. Huge shout-out to Sheertex stockings, because they are still intact after all that abuse.

What I am saying is my little Sorel boots are the unsung heroes of this trip. So comfortable, so grippy, so cute, they held up for miles and miles of walking, and I did not have sore feet for even a minute with them on.

I bought this Lululemon rain coat when I moved to Kelowna: it’s unlined, which is a completely impractical item while living in Calgary, because when it rains, it’s freezing and probably raining sideways. But in Kelowna it can rain and still be warm, so this coat is perfect. It was also perfect for Vegas, because look at this forecast:

It was actually warmer in Kelowna than in Vegas, which wasn’t actually as bad as that sounds; I find cooler weather to be better for walking around and exploring. The Sorel boots are also unlined and waterproof, which was perfect because, as Vicki, our world-weary Uber driver originally from Oregon said, Vegas has no drainage and can flood with less than an inch of rain. It’s true, there were giant puddles of standing water everywhere. The sun came out when we were leaving, and our other Uber driver, Vernon said that he hadn’t seen a nice day like this in months. Months! The day we were leaving! Ah, well, one cannot control the weather. Vernon, in case you’re wondering, was originally from Miami but has lived in Las Vegas for twenty-eight years, and the only thing he misses about Florida is access to his eleven grandchildren. When I said wow, eleven grandchildren, how nice, he talked for a while about how his two sons make choices, and he does NOT have an opinion on those choices, but one of his daughters-in-law practices a religion that will not allow her to get her tubes tied, and he doesn’t know why and he doesn’t WANT to know why, it’s not his business, but yes, ma’am, he misses his grandchildren. It was a ride. A literal ride!

People are SO interesting, and I have a lot of people-watching to tell you about – we were inadvertently there during St Patrick’s Day, and there were thematic green clothing items and shamrock headbands as far as the eye could see – but it will have to wait until later. In the meantime, if you’d like to tell me your Vegas Vacation Stories, or any story about your favourite things this month, I would love to hear them. xo

Mind Over Matter

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I was so nostalgic the other day when I saw a woman with two young children in the produce section. It brought me back to grocery shopping with the boys, something I genuinely enjoyed: counting out the apples, picking out strawberries, pretending to tickle them with cucumbers. I smiled at the warm memories and then was jolted out of them when I saw them again at an adjacent checkout line to mine, where one of the children was hysterically screaming and the other one kept saying “Mommy, I need to go potty. Mommy, potty. MOMMY.”

The little girl kept screaming and screaming, her shrieks and sobs echoing through the store. The old lady in front of me in line turned to me. “That kid needs attention! She’s been bawling for this whole time I’ve been here!” she said sharply, and I was actually relieved because in the millisecond before she spoke I thought she was going to say that the child needed a spanking or something, and then it would have been a whole thing. As it was, I didn’t love her tone.

I looked up to see the mother, carrying her still-screaming daughter and pushing the cart full of groceries and her son towards the really gross public washroom. I looked at the old lady and said mildly, “Wow, that mom has her hands full. I feel for her. It’s hard to be a mom.” And then I smiled, and did not break eye contact, in an only slightly-psychotic way. The woman gave a little huff and turned back to her groceries.

In my semi-recent Ask Me Anything, Suzanne (HI SUZANNE) asked Besides people who don’t put their shopping carts away, what are some of your top pet peeves? Suzanne knows me well and rogue grocery carts are definitely number one on my pet peeve list, followed by the statement of opinions as facts, particularly, or maybe even exclusively, negative opinions. Also on my list is when people judgmentally cannot empathize with the plights of other people, tied with the inability to feel joy in other’s happiness or success.

I think this last point has to do with the patriarchy in which we all reside, which dictates that there is only so much room at the table, that a limited amount of women are allowed success in the same area, that life is a zero-sum game in which to succeed, someone else must fail. And honestly, it makes me sick. It makes me even more sick to think that I have, on occasion, bought into this idea in the past, and I have had to work to overcome it.

As an example, back when I worked for YMC as a vegan food blogger, there was an independent Canadian vegan food blogger who, at the time, was achieving great success. She was publishing cookbooks to many accolades, and I will tell you now that I did not feel a glow of happiness for her success. I could appreciate the beauty of her cookbooks, I talked about them positively to my friends, yes, but secretly I harboured many negative thoughts about them. They’re too complicated! I would think. There’s too many obscure ingredients! I would also think, ominously, She’s not THAT great.

Recently I read On Our Best Behaviour, and the section about Envy really recalled those feelings. The author suggested that rather than make envy a poison that eats away at us, women could use the feeling to light the way to the things we want in the world. Instead of tearing each other down – even mentally, maybe especially mentally – we could use envy to our benefit. I’ll have what she’s having.

And the truth is, if I had really wanted that kind of success, I would have had to sacrifice a lot of time, money, and energy to get it, and those sacrifices I was not at the time willing or able to make. That woman worked really hard to get where she was and perhaps if I had channeled all my energies the way she did, I could have had a chance at a similar level of success. But I didn’t, and that’s perfectly fine.

San (HI SAN) asked what is your best personal quality, and right now I think that it is my ability to see myself clearly and make changes when necessary. I think we all are much more malleable than we think we are, and if we want to make changes in ourselves and in our lives we can. It is a fallacy to say this is just who I am, this is just my personality, because although we are all born with personalities and tendencies, and our life experiences exacerbate those personalities and tendencies, for better or worse, we CAN change things we don’t like.

I think it’s pretty common to have a who does she think she is, she’s not that great feeling towards other women. After all women – particularly, I think, of my generation and older – have been indoctrinated since infancy to instinctively dislike and discount other women who are prettier, younger, thinner, or more successful, in whatever metric “success” is measured, and honestly, it’s really distasteful to me, especially when it’s inside me. I don’t blame myself or anyone else; we were raised in a society that made us believe that life is a finite pie and we all have to compete for our slice. I have worked very hard to overcome that conditioning; now when I see a woman who is thriving I automatically think Wow! She’s incredible! rather than She’s not THAT great, and I’m proud of that, to answer Engie’s (HI ENGIE) question what is something you’re proud of?

Elisabeth (HI ELISABETH) asked what was the best and the hardest decision you made in 2023 and this question stumped me for a while. I experienced a great deal of change in 2023, but all of the decisions relating to those changes came much earlier. I realized the answer the other day, when I thought about how I dealt with the changes. There was a months-long period last year when I genuinely thought I might have a nervous breakdown. It wasn’t until I made a mental shift wherein I said to myself that this is my life, I choose how to respond to my life, and, to quote Desiderata, whether or not it is unclear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. That decision, to choose how to respond to everything out of my control, was the best decision I could have made. It was also the hardest, at least the hardest to achieve.

Weekly Reading

Roman Stories. Right off the bat, I have to tell you that I am absolutely fascinated by and in total admiration of people who not only speak more than one language, but write in it too. Jhumpa Lahiri, an author I deeply admire, moved to Rome, learned Italian, wrote these stories in Italian, and then translated them to English. I mean, what. How. Anyway, I love short stories and these are so good, showcasing the ordinary but extraordinary lives of people living in Rome, a variety of people from a variety of backgrounds. She mainly focuses on the immigrant experience in Rome, and the daily hardships, big and small, that people face in everyday life.

My Brilliant Friend. Another Italian book, this one courtesy of Engie and the Cool Blogger’s Book Club. I voted for this book as a friend had read it and loved it; I cannot say I loved it, but I did have a pretty interesting experience with it. At first, I found it hard to read; I think that if you read this book at face value, it is a terrible slog, at least in my view. But if you read this as a symbol of post-World War II Italy, it becomes a very interesting tale of a nation’s growth. Each character I thought of as a symbol of a part of Italy: Elena, education and scholastic achievement, Lila, the fashion industry. The neighbourhood in Naples where the book takes place is dominated by the grocer’s family, symbolic of Italian food exports, and by the owners of the bar/ pastry shop, who symbolize, in my view, the mafia. There is also the gentle Antonio – the automobile industry – and the Sarratore family – arts and poetry. I found that reading this book in this way, with an eye to symbolism, was interesting, whereas when I did not read this way, it was boring and confusing. As it was, I was incredibly grateful for the list of characters at the beginning of the book, because there was no way I could keep them all straight and remember who everyone was and how they were connected. As it was, even up to the end I was thinking wait, who’s Ada? Who’s Nino again? And those were pretty main characters, the fact that I was constantly forgetting who they were and what they were doing there is telling.

The Five-Star Weekend. After her husband dies suddenly, an Internet famous woman decides to host what’s known as a five-star weekend: a girl’s weekend with four friends from different stages of her life. Pandemonium ensues, as would be expected with five women with secrets, various pasts, and current stresses. Listen, let’s not overthink this. It’s just a fun, light, fluffy beach read that will probably make you hungry with all the food descriptions. Next beach vacation I’m downloading more from this author. It’s candy in book form, in the best way. 

Thank you to everyone who submitted questions to my Ask Me Anything; I am in the midst of answering them all, and I welcome anyone who still has a question to submit it. In the meantime, have a beautiful week, friends. xo