Category Archives: My failing sanity

The Week of My Discontent

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Two weeks ago I received an email from my web host provider with regards to my storage usage, and yes, that sentence IS just as boring as anything could possibly be, but bear with me a moment. The web host was unable to back up my site – this very site that you are looking at – because my storage exceeded my usage limit. My storage jumped from 1 GB to 16.5 GB over the last ninety days.

I understand the need for an automated system, but I feel like any person with any kind of critical reasoning skills might be able to deduce that there is an issue here that was not generated by my five monthly posts. However, we live in an automated world, and so I took it upon myself to follow the step-by-step procedure to discover from where such a jump in storage usage originated. And indeed, I found the issue: on July 7, 42583 files were added to my site.

CLEARLY THERE IS AN ISSUE HERE. And let me just say that this is not my first web host issue rodeo. At least twice before, I have encountered fairly significant issues, and it is always, always a problem originating from the provider: the extra files from a site migration ended up being duplicated, for example, or there is a problem with the firewall that mysteriously leads to thousands of spam comments crashing the site. It’s all very, very tedious and boring, but there is no way out but through. I contacted the web host provider, which led to a most trying afternoon. I spent a total of two hours in some kind of weird circular conversation, in which I would say that there was a problem on their end of things, they said no, there certainly wasn’t, I said there was, and they said I just needed to buy more storage.

I capitulated. I spent ten dollars on upgraded storage, because my site had not been backed up and I live in fear that it will somehow disappear without a trace and eighteen years of talking about grocery cart returns will evaporate into the ether. And not just grocery cart returns: the story about the professor with the absolutely monstrous body odour would be gone, forever, to live on only in my memory. I would never be able to recall that I had a similarly trying conversation with technical support almost exactly 16 years ago to the day; that particular incident ended with me sobbing and the technical support person calmly telling me he would stay on the line for as long as I needed to collect myself, and that perhaps I could get a glass of water while he solved my issues. I wouldn’t be able to remember when it was exactly that I gave myself a bikini wax and ran out of wax. What can I say, in the early days of the pandemic the honeypot spiralled out of control. It was a hairy situation, if you will. Imagine a world in which such important stories are not readily available for public consumption!

The point is, I have a lot of attachment to this blog, and so if ten dollars would give me a little extra security, then so be it. However! I wanted to get at the root cause of this issue, because if life has taught me anything, it’s that if you ignore a technological problem, it will grow and swell and eventually burst, like a giant bubble of gum that gets stuck into your hair and eyelashes. And so the weird gaslighting conversation between me and the web hosting help desk continued, with me saying there was a problem, them saying there wasn’t, me saying there was, and them saying not to worry, my site was now safe and secure, thanks to the upgraded storage.

Me: There is still an issue. There were 42853 files added on July 7. How did that happen?

Them: No. That’s just your site. You have 42583 files.

Me: I did not add them all on July 7. There has to be a mistake. Something had to have changed on your end. Did something get duplicated?

Them: No. Nothing changed. Everything is the same.

Finally, after 75 minutes on their online chat and 45 minutes on the actual phone, we had a breakthrough.

Me: Please, can you just look into the files on the backend. I am sure you’ll see something there.

Them: I cannot.

Me: *stares off into space, breathes deeply* I’m sure if you look…

Them: I am just a customer service representative. Only a technical support person can access the backend.

Me: *questions what just happened over the last two hours, questions sanity* Okay. Could you please put me in contact with a technical support person?

Them: Yes.

Me:

Let’s just gloss over the fact that I had requested technical support in the first place. The upshot is that I eventually received a message from technical support with the information that backup settings had been changed, resulting in a significant increase in storage usage. NO SHIT, SHERLOCK. After some investigation, I discovered that they had changed their backup system provider, which led to a duplication of everything. Technical support assisted me in a fix, which I stoically and dutifully applied. It’s fine, I’m fine, everything is fine.

So imagine my surprise when, a few days later, I received my annual renewal notice, and learned that the new and improved backup system was not a mere $10, but quadruple the previous cost for a third of the time period. Now listen. Writing is a hobby of mine and as with any hobby, there are costs involved. If I played golf or pickleball or tennis, if I was a crafter or fibre artist, if I was into photography or painting, if I had a dollhouse, all of those hobbies would come with costs in the form of fees, materials, or equipment. Web hosting fees and backup programs are part of the cost of having a writing hobby, and I have no plans to introduce ads or sponsored content or affiliate links in order to offset those costs. HOWEVER. This uptick seemed over-the-top, not to mention I did not consent to it, which is how I found myself on chat with customer service, again, for another 75 minutes at 5:00 am on a Friday morning. The happy news is that I was able to switch to a less-expensive backup platform. The sad news is that I was charged for BOTH platforms, which required yet another conversation with customer service to reverse the charges.

Weekly Reading

I was on a road trip this week, which called for lovely light reads!

28 Summers. I have read a number of Elin Hildebrand books, and this is far and away my favourite! I loved this story of a “same time next summer” affair that spans, as the title suggests, 28 Summers. The story really captured me and I became very invested in these two people who, despite everything, continue their once-a-year affair every Labour Day. I read most of it ON Labour Day this year, which was fun. Each chapter starts with “what we were thinking about this year” and it starts in 1993, the year I was 18, so I have very vivid memories of all of the references. What a lovely book of romance and friendship – and a steamy, sexy, kind of scandalous, affair.

The Shippers. This was a cute, fluffy, totally predictable and a little bit silly story of childhood friends who discover they love each other while on a cruise ship for her sister’s wedding. Listen, it’s just fun. Let’s not overthink it! Plus, the love interests are both mathematicians!

Part of Your World. A big-city, wealthy doctor accidentally drives into a ditch, and is rescued by a B&B owner and small town mayor. They come from different worlds and are in very different tax brackets. Can they make it work? Well, I think you know the answer. This was a sweet and satisfying book.

The remedy for a week of discontent is a road trip! We had a great time travelling to see friends and my parents; good times were had, wine was consumed, and games were played. Now it’s time to get all caught up on regular life – and to prepare for a very special 21st birthday tomorrow. Have a beautiful week, friends. xo

Midsummer Plant Murders

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We have reached the point in the summer where, with the exception of a couple of rows of very hardy kale, all my greens have bolted in the heat, necessitating their removal from the garden. I am reduced to shopping at the farm market for all my leafy green needs; how they are keeping them from bolting, I have no idea, but I feel like shade is involved. What the garden is lacking in greens, it is more than making up for in zucchinis and raspberries, as well as tomatoes. I am drowning in tomatoes.

But as god is my witness, I will never plant bell peppers again. There are two reasons for this, and the first is because we consume far more peppers than I could possibly grow, unlike the aforementioned produce, which exceeds even the outside amount that one family can reasonably consume. The other reason is that, for the second year in a row, the peppers have been foiled by some manner of animal, most likely a rat. Or, as seems to be the case, several rats.

Let’s pause for a moment, Winston Smith-style, to shudder.

Last year, almost every single bell pepper had been gnawed on precisely when it would have been happily picked and consumed by me, and this year has seen every one disappear in such a way. But worse than that was that Something – Ratty McRatface, I presume – gnawed off TWO of my plants, leaving a mere three inch stick where a healthy plant once was. The thing that really gets me is that there was no pepper on those plants at all, and the plants themselves were just strewn merrily in the garden box. I am sensitive with regards to animals, and if one was EATING something, I would feel low-level sympathy, even while being annoyed at the bell pepper disappearance. But this is not that. This is just wanton destruction of plants. It’s plant murder.

Three weeks post-murder attempt.

Is the rat an out-of-control juvenile delinquent? Is this some kind of rat frat party? Maybe. It’s now set its sights on my smaller zinnias, because a few of them have also been snipped off at three-inch level.

I am typically a live-and-let-live girl when it comes to local wildlife, but I draw the line at a) the house, and b) the garden, especially the flowers.

And by “war,” I mean I will be glaring sadly and impotently at the destruction. Well, at least they have not touched the big zinnias or nasturtiums, which is important, as they are keeping those garden boxes busy since the Loss of the Greens. I like to have something nice to look at while I’m enjoying my afternoon read and sip.

Speaking of which, I was in the grocery store buying San Pellegrino, when I came across this.

I stared at it for many moments. Carl…Jung? The…Swiss psychiatrist? The…father of analytical psychology? Isn’t he…dead? Why is he…I thought that maybe I had conflated names somehow. I do that often. I confuse Tom Holland with Tom Hiddleston, Burt Lancaster with Burt Reynolds. I even once talked about Jimmy Page when I meant Jimmy Buffett. It wasn’t until I read Doppelganger in 2024 that I realized that – instead of confusing Naomi Wolff and Naomi Klein, which is the theme of the book – I had been conflating Naomi Klein and the 1970s YA author NORMA Klein for decades. I didn’t know Naomi Klein was a Canadian! I didn’t know she was a social activist! The author of Sunshine? That book about the woman with cancer?

As it turns out there are two famous Carl Jungs: the tell me your dreams Carl Jung, and Carl Jung the German non-alcoholic winemaker. I cannot fault myself for conflating the two because who knew? Certainly not me. And I certainly did not purchase any of the product, because although a non-alcoholic cooler is acceptable to me, a non-alcoholic wine is just a bridge too far.

Weekly Reading

I had a DNF this week, and that was The Kiss Quotient. My sweet friend Stephany (HI STEPHANY) had mentioned it as one of her favourite romances, and – this was the detail that sealed the deal for me – the protagonist is an econometrician. AN ECONOMETRICIAN. My people! It immediately evoked many happy memories of running regressions, data cleaning, and economic modelling. I was so excited that I even pulled out my master’s thesis, which I haven’t looked at for a few decades at least.

But, unsurprisingly for a romance, there was very little econometrics involved. WHO KNEW. Who knew no one else is interested in econometrics? The romance itself was a little spicy for my tastes, and it was a gender-swapped Pretty Woman-type story. I have to tell you that Pretty Woman is one of my least favourite movies of all time – ALL TIME – and so I sadly put the book aside and hung my head in shame as I told Stephany I had to DNF. She was so lovely and gracious, which reminded me to be lovely and gracious when and if someone DNFs my favourite books. Even though that book was not for me, I am happy that an econometrician was the sexy star of a romance. Justice for econometricians!

Speaking of books I maybe should have DNF’d:

The Names. What’s in a name, and can a name change the trajectory of a life? That is the premise of this book, which involves three parallel universes over a period of thirty-five years, based on the name given to the baby boy of a family. I will say that I found this book very difficult to read, and not just because it deals with terrible domestic abuse, but also because the middle was a bit of a slog to get through. It is not an uplifting book, although the prose is quite lyrical. It made me think of all the wasted time and lives, of all the sadnesses of the world, of how lives can be short or long but often are full of trauma and hardship. I can appreciate the book from a literary point of view, but from an emotional one I did not enjoy it. 

Sunshine Nails. From the author of Cleo Dang Would Rather Be Dead! In other words, Canadian author alert! This story follows an immigrant family’s struggle to keep their nail salon open when a fancy chain day spa opens up right across the street. It’s a story of resilience, family ties, and the importance of community. The bravery of people who leave their home countries to try to make a better life for themselves and their families – including the ones left at home – is astonishing to me. This story has a lot of heart, and I enjoyed it a lot.

Good People. My reading certainly got better as the week went on because wow! This is not only one of the best books I’ve read all year, it’s one of the best books I’ve read ever. It is written in an original way: a series of interviews, documentary-style, about the death of a teen girl. Information about the family involved is slowly released throughout the interviews, and it is incredibly engrossing and compelling. I loved it so much. It is, in my opinion, a perfect book.

I have such an exciting week ahead of me. I have not one but TWO sets of out-of-town visitors coming in, and I could not be happier. If you need me, I will be floating around in a cloud of joy. xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Brain Health Edition

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After reading a few books that featured dementia last week, it occurred me to talk about my Favourite Things to improve brain health. I mean, who can’t use tips on cognitive function these days? My friend Allison (HI ALLISON) and I were talking about perimenopausal brain fog, but Allison called it brain frog. You know when someone slips up a word, but that word ends up feeling exactly right? That was this. It will be brain frog for me now and forever.

Somewhat related: at least twenty-five years ago, I messaged one of my colleagues to see if she wanted to go for a walk at lunch. She replied “I can’t, I’m swampled” and to this day that typo is part of my daily lexicon. I’m swampled when I’m feeling overbusy. And also when I have brain frog!

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Brain Health Edition

Work That Brain Muscle

I know. I know. Everyone has been doing the Wordle for years now, and for years I have had zero interest in it or in any of the other NYT games. Then my older son was over for dinner, and he was telling me about Connections. I said that it sounded interesting, but I didn’t need another thing to be obsessed with. But Mom! he said. That’s the great thing! You can only do one a day, and then you move on with your life.

Well.

That was speaking my language and now I have joined People Who Do Connections. Once I finish Connections, I do the Wordle, and then I quickly play another game that same son introduced me to: a world geography map quiz. If you had asked me one month ago to point out, say, Uzbekistan or Kosovo on a map, I would be able to give you the general area, but now I can accurately zone in on those and every other country in Asia and Europe. Next up: I’m working on Africa.

Along with the Little Women puzzle, my son had also given me a Pride and Prejudice puzzle for Christmas. It contains one of my favourite lines, which I have mentioned before: I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! It makes me laugh every time I think of it, as it is ascribed to Caroline Bingley, one of literature’s most vapid characters and absolutely NOT a reader.

It’s cut off in the photograph, but the line It’s been many years since I’ve had such an exemplary vegetable is also there.

Exemplary Vegetables

The Mayo Clinic advises a vitamin-rich diet, one with lots of fruits, vegetables, and leafy greens, as a way to prevent dementia. Exemplary vegetables! Done and done! Our meals are all very vegetable-heavy around here, and a couple of the best examples are Big Fun Salad and Stir-Fry Night, both of which occur weekly.

In only a couple of months, Big Fun Salad will be Homegrown Big Fun Salad, but for now, I’m buying mixed greens.

Historically, Stir-Fry Night coincides with Night Before Groceries, to clean out the crisper in a delicious way. I typically wing it when it comes to sauces, but I very roughly follow Vegan Richa’s Teriyaki Sauce recipe on occasion.

I say very roughly because never do I follow a recipe exactly: for this one I double all the ingredients but halve the sugar, and I measure ginger and garlic with my heart. The pages are all stuck and messy, which reminds me of when I was a kid, Grandma Fern told my mother that if anything ever happened to her, Grandma would be able to cook all of our favourites, just based on the shape of my mother’s very stuck-together cookbook pages. This was a bit of a joke, since Grandma Fern was an incredible cook and we would have happily eaten anything she made. But my mom and I both have the same messy habit of cookbook-splattering.

In terms of leafy greens, every single day I have a green smoothie for breakfast, except while travelling. I use a cup of cashew milk, a couple of tablespoons of almond butter, a sprinkle of cinnamon, a frozen banana, and about six to eight cups of spinach. I feel like it’s a power move to start the day like that; it is chock-full of vitamins, fibre, iron, calcium, and protein.

Something that low-key bothers me is the demonization of carbohydrates these days. It reminds me of the Snackwell-obsessed low-fat 90s, and I think we all learned a lesson from that. Carbohydrates are very important for our brains and their processes, as well as for good sleep, so let’s not lose our minds over basmati rice. Or even carrot cake! There’s space for everything.

Working On Our Night Moves

I am a bit of a Sleep Evangelist, for good reason: sleep is good for every part of our lives, including our brains. Also, if I don’t get enough sleep, I am an emotional, bitchy zombie. I make it a priority by going to bed early and performing my nighttime routine at least an hour before bed, so I can wind down. I wash my face and apply serums, I brush and floss my teeth, I put on a cute pajama set and foot cream, and then I curl up on the couch to read calmly for a while, with my phone turned off. The result is that I average about 7 1/2 hours of sleep a night, which feels right for me.

But we are not robots, and no matter how good our intentions and sleep hygiene, there is always the possibility of a hot flash, there are upsetting news stories, there are things to be anxious about and, for reasons that no one can articulate, these things usually visit us in the middle of the night, where we lie awake staring at the blinking illuminated numbers on our 40-year-old clock radios. Sometimes these thoughts will be accompanied by a nearly-lyricless song, going on a loop through our heads. Cuz you RIDE on time, RIDE ON TIME. Etcetera.

As I said, I am a sleep evangelist, and so I will stop at nothing to get those 7 1/2 hours, including these:

Not all at once, of course, and not every day, but I have no compunction about using a little “helper” to get me to get a good night’s rest. I am not recommending this to you! I am not a medical professional by any stretch of the imagination! All I am saying that these work for me, depending on the day and the need.

Get The Funk Out

It’s officially the start of garden season, and so I have been busy weeding. This might sound like a chore, but I actually find it kind of soothing and meditative. It’s also instant gratification, even if the weeds do grow back in a matter of days. Maybe it’s like one of those sand mandalas made by Buddhist monks to show the transitory nature of life on this earth. I feel like this kind of practice has to be good for cognitive health, if only for the meditative aspect.

Walking is a moving meditation for me; often I do listen to a podcast (Double Love or The Rest Is History, NOTHING IN BETWEEN), but sometimes I just walk in silence and look around me.

Physical activity and vitamin D are linked to dementia prevention; walking checks both those boxes.

People Who Need People Are The Luckiest People

One of the most important – and most fun – keys to preventing cognitive decline and dementia is to stay socially active and to nourish relationships. This past week alone I have had ample opportunity to do this: there was a book club meeting, a night out with The Squad to a murder mystery at a local winery, and a visit from one of my dearest, longest-term friends (HI TARA) and her family. Old friends and new, life is good. Although, it must be said that as bad as I am about figuring out murder mysteries in books, I am much, much worse at figuring out murder mysteries in musical revue form. None of us guessed the killer, and I kept losing the thread of the plot and forgetting which character was who. Wait, who’s that guy? What happened to the girl with the sparkly skirt? Who’s THAT guy?

When Tara and family were over, her husband asked if we had any favourite places to go out for dinner. My husband and I just looked at each other. Nicole goes out with her girlfriends, sometimes, my husband responded, and we had to admit that Date Night Out is not a thing with us. Instead, we have weekly cocktail hour, which gives us time to just reconnect and chat without any distractions.

This past week we were able to have rose on our deck, which felt like a little burst of spring. Alcohol is NOT good for preventing cognitive decline, but we cannot be perfect, can we?

Outfit of the Month

Spring must have sprung, because look how COLOURFUL I am!

Navy! I’m wearing NAVY, just like a fancy peacock of a woman. I believe this sweater has been a part of an Outfit of the Month before, but a) I think it’s cute, and b) I am trying not to buy new clothes these days for environmental reasons. I cannot be too smug though, because I HAVE bought new clothes recently. I needed to replace some extremely worn-out and hole-riddled tees as well as my ripped medical-grade compression stockings, but those felt a bit more urgent and necessary, and less I’m bored of my clothes. I also have recently purchased a pair of slip-on house sandals, because I seem to have accidentally given myself a case of plantar fasciitis, due to some extremely ill-considered shoeless farmer’s carries. HOWEVER. This cute, very lightweight sweater deserves another place of OOTM honour, along with Silver jeans and little ankle boots. It’s a perfect spring outfit, in my mind.

I hope this last week of March is treating you well, friends! Do you have any Favourites this month? Do share. xo

Dissociation

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History, Repeating

I seem to be dissociating from current events and the world at large, and this dissociation is manifesting in strange ways. I have entirely eschewed my old self-care and beauty podcasts in favour of either Sweet Valley High recaps OR extremely detailed historical analysis of terrible world events. My downloads are unhinged. An episode of Elizabeth’s desire to go to boarding school in Switzerland is followed by a graphic explanation on the mechanics of crucifixion, both of which are topics I have thought about since I was a child. A four-part series on the causes, effects, and economic impacts of the American Civil War is followed by deep dive into the book Secret Admirer, when a prank personal ad in the Sweet Valley Oracle, which leads to some awkward encounters and hurt feelings. I honestly don’t know if I’m losing my mind or saving my sanity.

If you’re wondering, the exact cause of death from crucifixion is a combination of dehydration, exhaustion, and suffocation. Also, birds had a field day with the eyes and genitals of the crucified. On that gruesome note, which may or may not be appropriate for Lent, I will move on.

Let Us Be Elegant Or Die

Speaking of the American Civil War, my son gave me this puzzle for Christmas.

The border is made up of quotes from the book, and it has one of my all-time favourite quote, one that I have thought of lo these forty plus years since I first read Little Women.

The full quote is dear me, let us be elegant or die and I think about that at least once a week while getting dressed.

Another quote that has been burned on my brain since childhood comes from Anne of Ingleside, which is one of my least-favourite Anne books but contains one of the funniest scenes of all time. Here’s the setup: Gilbert’s aunt, Mary Maria, comes for a visit, and ends up staying for months. Seasons pass, and this houseguest – who is passive-aggressive, rearranges the furniture, and dramatically takes to her bed with the slightest provocation – is STILL THERE. Anne, with her usual determinedly joyful outlook, decides to throw Aunt Mary Maria a surprise party for her birthday, which is NOT well received by the birthday girl, who is incensed that now everyone knows her advanced age, which is fifty-five. Fifty-five! Anyway, she leaves in a huff, to the relief of everyone. But the quote I have thought of all these years comes when Susan, the housekeeper, has made four cakes. She says “When we give a party, we give a party.” I think of this literally any time we have people over. We give a party. If only I had four cakes!

In that book and the previous one, Anne’s House of Dreams, we are introduced to one of the greatest character in all of children’s fiction. Her signature quote, “Isn’t that just like a man?” is something I think of every day of my life.

Long Island Compromise?

My friend Birchie (HI BIRCHIE) was writing about workouts and the feeling that it is a constant cycle of hard work and exhaustion with no clear end game. I have mentioned before my downward trajectory, where fitness is concerned; it can be very disheartening. But on the other hand, practicing non-attachment and having zero goals when it comes to fitness can be very freeing. I suppose that’s an inaccurate statement; I don’t have ZERO goals. My goal is to continue to be mobile, ambulatory, and to heft my own carryon into the overhead compartment on a plane. If I ask one of the guys to empty Rex’s 35 pound bag of dog food into the lidded container, it’s because I’m lazy, not because I can’t do it. All of these things are a bit nebulous, and they lack the urgency of a specific outcome by a specific time.

The nebulous goals and non-attachment are working well for me, so that I can just enjoy the time I spend walking, practicing yoga, or on the Peloton. A few weeks ago there was a woman on the leaderboard with the name McKinzieWithAnI, and I read that as McKinzie With Anal. Wow, I thought, That’s really advertising your preferences until I realized that it was a spelling thing.

It must be fairly common these days to go through life with that particular verbal tic of spelling one’s name immediately after divulging it. Back in the Sweet Valley High days, it would be mostly confined to Sara(h)s and C(K)atherines, with the occasional C(S)heryl, although I have had to specify the no H spelling in my own name a few times in my fifty years. I also automatically say “That’s M-A-C” immediately after divulging my last name. I would assume that automatic spellings would be the norm now: is it Jaxon or Jackson? Cailen or Kaelin or Kaylyn or Kaelynn? Ciaran or Kieran? Ashley or Ashlee or Ashleigh? Madeleine or Madelyn or Madilynn? McKenzie or MacKenzie or McKinzie? With an I!

Weekly Reading

The world is upside down. Let the record show that this week I read – and enjoyed – not one, not two, but THREE books penned by male authors. And not just male authors: heterosexual white male authors. I know what you’re thinking. Finally, FINALLY, someone is giving straight white men a moment in the sun! Let’s hear it for the boys!

Grace and Henry’s Holiday Movie Marathon. A holiday romance in March? The heart wants what it wants, or, more accurately, the library holds come in when they come in. Let me tell you, this book is an absolute delight. It was just pure happiness, this story about two widowed people who, dreading the first holiday seasons without their respective spouses, strike up a friendship by watching holiday movies together. OBVIOUSLY the friendship becomes more than that, but this book is more than that too – it’s about love and loss and grief and how no marriage is perfect. Plus there is a dog named Harry Styles. How can you resist? Yes, I know it’s March, but this holiday romance is perfect any time of the year. It’s delightful, no notes.

Abundance. Did I follow a holiday romance with a non-fiction book about unaffordability and the climate crisis? Yes. This is an excellent, well-researched read about some big issues facing the US, namely the housing crisis, climate change, and shortages of all kinds. It delves into the economics of progress and the failures of institutions to focus on forward movement. It’s well-written and accessible. Also I learned that cement production is responsible for 8% of the world’s CO2 emissions. 8%!!! I had no idea.

Brideshead Revisited. I confess I would have never picked up this book about a disillusioned army man who comes across the estate of a large country house during World War II, and finds himself reminiscing about his complicated and extensive relationships with the former inhabitants of that same estate, had I not heard it mentioned on The Rest is History. Evelyn Waugh (ROUGH name for a man, I am sorry to say) wrote this while on medical leave from the army, and so it feels rather like auto-fiction. Which perhaps shows that Waugh was not quite as straight as one might imagine, given the storylines. Also, he had married a woman named Evelyn, which would lead to some awkwardness, I would think. Anyway, the book itself is quite entertaining, if you’re interested in English country life in the 1920s and 30s, which I am.

Wow, I do not know if I could have gotten three more different books this week!

How are you coping with things, friends? I hope you’re all taking care of yourselves. xo

PC LOAD LETTER?

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Last week my phone lit up with a notification from my friend Glenn (HI GLENN), from whom I hadn’t heard from in a while. We used to practice early morning Mysore yoga together, many years ago, and he kindly followed along with my family’s adventures, specifically the time when my younger son was the drummer for a band called Ded Brik, whose practice session was cut short one day when the guitarist’s neighbours called the police for a noise complaint, at two o’clock in the afternoon. Ah, pandemic days. It’s great how we were all collectively insane. In any case, I hadn’t heard from Glenn in a long while, and so I quickly opened his message.

I cannot take ALL the credit for BC’s decision to adopt Daylight Saving Time year-round, but I have been publicly raging against that particular pointless machine for 17 years. I’ll take a little credit, although I will believe it when it happens. My fragile heart cannot handle being shattered again. I am still scarred from the Alberta referendum which ended NOT in favour of stopping the ridiculous practice of changing clocks twice a year, merely because people could not agree if Standard or Daylight Saving was superior. I am Team Pick A Time And Stick With It, For Fuck’s Sake, I Don’t Care. There are pros and cons on both sides, LET’S JUST STOP THE MADNESS. I for one will be happy when the sun doesn’t set at 3:56 pm in December, and YES, the flip side is that it won’t rise until 8:45 am but it’s Canada. We don’t get much daylight in December, accept it and MOVE ON.

Anyway, the news we will not be going through this spring-forward-fall-back construct and that parents throughout this province will no longer be emotionally destroyed twice a year was a bright spot in an otherwise terrifying, bleak, and spiral-into-despair dystopian news cycle.

I texted the above gif to my older son, who immediately responded with I’m a fake? How’d you like to be dead, which reminded me of one of my favourite things: the call and response of pop culture. I know that if I texted my friend Hannah (HI HANNAH) with only the words Maybe it’s the beer talking that she would immediately respond with You got a butt that won’t quit. My friend Suzanne (HI SUZANNE) and I share an affinity for 1990s Adam Sandler; I know that I could tell her that she is a nice piece of ace and she would know exactly what I mean.

After Hannah responded to my It WAS a good name, until that no-talent ass clown started winning Grammies with Why should I change my name? He’s the one that sucks, we talked about this phenomenon, how the call and response makes a person feel seen and known. Hannah said that it was all about pattern recognition and identifying your people, and that rewatching media is about comfort and predictability. I think she is exactly right; I never before or since felt such a strong feeling of connection with my sister-in-law’s boyfriend than when he once said genially IT’S ALL PIPES.

Hannah said I actually think the increasingly fragmented media landscape has contributed to loss of social cohesion and she’s right. Obviously, not everything that is happening these days can be attributed to a lack of a must-see TV night, but it doesn’t help that we are all over the place, all the time when it comes to pop culture.

I tried to join the modern world last week by watching A Love Story, which is the story of JFK Jr and Caroline Bessette. I will go to my grave saying that Carole Radziwill’s What Remains is the best celebrity memoir of all time, and I have been low-key obsessed with it since I first read it in 2006. I thought she would be a key character in A Love Story so I tuned in, only to be constantly enraged by the idiocy and entitlement that comes with being a Kennedy man. After a quick search, I learned that Carole Radziwill isn’t even a character in this show, as she is not deemed to be important enough to be in the story. She was Carolyn Bessette’s best friend, and married to JFK Jr’s cousin and best friend Anthony Radziwill, who IS in the show, which feels PRETTY IMPORTANT. I immediately abandoned ship, as I’m Team I’m Here For Carole And No One Else, and also, I don’t need to be constantly enraged by JFK Jr and his stupid hats.

Before you ask, I have not and I will not watch the Real Housewives franchise that features Carole Radziwill, not because I’m a snob – given the chance, I’d watch Family Feud until the cows come home – but because there are just too many seasons. It’s overwhelming. Also I really don’t want to watch women screaming at each other, which I assume is a large part of the “storyline,” if indeed there is a storyline on a reality television show.

I did, however, recently watch a movie that I cannot stop thinking about, and that is The Best You Can starring Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgewick. First of all, how is Kevin Bacon still so hot? He might even be hotter than he ever was, or my tastes have just skewed older. I was on the plane from Vancouver to Hong Kong, and the premise intrigued me, but the headphones provided with the system did not work. I watched it silently, with closed captioning, and then on the next leg of the flight – mere hours later – I watched it again, this time with working headphones. It’s only available for purchase right now, or I would be watching it every single day. Alas. To fill the void, I have been watching Vladimir with my husband, which is also excellent – sexy but not porny, so I don’t feel weird if one of my sons is at home – and features John Slattery, who you may remember from Mad Men.

I cannot speak for all women, but what I wanted was to stop changing clocks and now – hopefully, please, let this happen – I am going to get it.

Weekly Reading

I had another DNF this week, it was So Old So Young. I abandoned it at 53 pages, and those 53 pages were a draggy slog for me, with SO many characters, none of which I cared about. My resolution to DNF more is resolution-ing! But maybe I should have done that more this week.

Wild Hope. Would you like some uplifting poetry? Of course you would! This is the collection for you. I have been reading a poem a day (or thereabouts) before my morning yoga practice, and they have been so uplifting and inspiring. The theme is – obviously, from the title – how to find hope in the world when things seem broken. THIS RESONATES. It’s a really beautiful collection about finding happiness and hope within ourselves and with our relationships with people and the natural world.

The Latecomer. Wow, wow, WOW. This book! I loved every word of this dense, nuanced, character-driven novel about a family with triplets who – despite their mother’s desperate best efforts – cannot wait to leave home, and each other. As the triplets prepare to leave for college, their mother has what seems like a Landslide moment and promptly adds another baby to the family. But things are not what they seem – secrets abound, and things are unravelling. Every character in this book is layered and rich and interesting. There was a plot twist I did not see coming, and the ending was eminently satisfying. I loved this so much.

Finding Grace. I…do not know what to say. I really don’t know how to review this book without spoilers, but I’m going to try. There is a wildly unexpected occurrence in the first chapter that sets everything in motion, namely a very weird series of coincidences which lead to a very weird relationship. I would go so far as to say a creepy and inappropriate relationship. And the ending was weirdly unexpected and tied everything up in a weirdly neat bow. So. I guess this book is about grief and also about a marriage that sounds kind of shitty, and about how keeping secrets can be toxic and how people aren’t always what they seem? I guess? Other than the children, the characters are across the board pretty unlikeable, and the story itself goes in a lot of directions. 

The Stationery Shop. It’s not you, it’s me. I know – I KNOW – that historical fiction rarely works for me, and this didn’t. I was optimistic that I would enjoy this, after listening to The Rest Is History’s fascinating series on the 1953 ousting of the Iranian Prime Minister and the subsequent Revolution of 1979, which is the backdrop for this love story. I should have known better. It did not work for me; these sorts of books are just too contrived and stilted for my taste.

My husband asked me if I have become more critical in my reading, from my own writing experience, and I would say that I have become more analytical. My mind, like our society, has become polarized: on the one hand, being transported by a book like The Latecomers fills me with awe and admiration. It’s really hard to write a book, and to write a book like The Latecomers is an incredible feat indeed. On the other hand, I find it kind of disheartening when I read a book that has a lot of buzz and love, and it leaves me cold. Well, there’s something for everyone, I suppose, and tastes differ. On a literary note, the lovely Jacqui (HI JACQUI) mentioned a zero-cost way to support me, should you be so inclined, which is to request a copy of Inhale Exhale at your local library. That would be a huge help – there are literally millions of books coming out every year, and mine is but a tiny drop in the ocean. I’d love it to be as accessible as possible. Thank you, friends, for reading along. Have a beautiful week! xo

The Highlight Reel

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I ended 2025 as a War History Buff, having listened to every episode on the World Wars and the leadup to those wars and interesting one-offs like the Christmas truce of 1914 on the podcast The Rest is History. I learned so much! And now, here we are, fully into January 2026, and I have become obsessed with a podcast about Sweet Valley High, Double Love, in which two Irish women around my age deep dive into each book in the 180 book series.

Hopefully this isn’t having a negative impact on my brain. I hope all my World War knowledge won’t be nudged out by dramatic 80s teen antics, but I don’t see how it won’t be. I mean, Elizabeth gets kidnapped by an orderly while candy striping at the hospital, the very same hospital that Annie is recovering in after an intentional overdose following her failure to make the cheerleading squad, due to Jessica’s bullying and rumour-spreading. How can reality compete with THAT?

There is SO much drama. There are so many dances, and dates, and tragic events! It’s making my daily drudgery so much more enjoyable. Never have I been so entertained while folding the laundry. On the topic of drudgery, in a recent discussion about social media, a friend expressed astonishment that I follow a number of authors on Instagram. What could authors possibly be posting on Instagram? she wondered. Wouldn’t their lives just be boring, sitting in front of a laptop all day?

Well. I was quite perplexed by this question because really, what does anyone post on Instagram? Most, if not all of us lead very ordinary lives filled with many dull and monotonous tasks every single day, and what is Instagram for if not to highlight little glimmers that add sparkle to those lives? It feels like the social media equivalent of Mary Oliver-ing, of paying attention and being astonished. Yes, we might spend hours in front of a laptop screen, or folding laundry, or chopping vegetables, but that doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate our blooming amaryllis, or a sunset that knocks our socks off.

We might also appreciate how unhinged and weird Duolingo is these days.

Eddy! I am scandalized.

Not every moment is a flower or a sunset or even a weirdly sexual language app. But the truth is I actually DO love seeing the very mundane aspects of other people’s lives, and I probably WOULD enjoy seeing a whole scroll of photos of people typing busily away on laptops or folding laundry. And if a person posts a photo of their hair or outfit? I am HERE for it. I am nosy, is what I’m saying.

I have had a number of meetings lately with promotions and social media specialists, in advance of the release of Inhale Exhale, which is coming out next month, if you can believe it.

I’m very excited, of course, but am also practicing non-attachment. Sending creative work out into the world to be examined and critiqued and possibly loathed is a very vulnerable thing. This week I read The Ten Year Affair, which is one of the best books I have ever read, and guess what: it’s largely panned on Goodreads. I did what I never do, which was to read reviews, and I was absolutely shocked by them. Everyone has different tastes, of course, but I felt like so many of these reviewers completely missed the point of the book. I started to wonder if we had even read the same book, at which point I put my phone down and slowly backed away.

I was looking at my Ask Me Anything form and typing away at my laptop over the holiday break, when I looked up at my older son, who was milling around. My blog readers want me to talk about parenting adult children, I told him. But the thing is, I don’t really do anything. He shrugged. Maybe that’s the point, he said.

Putting a book out into the world feels a little bit like that. It feels like letting go and seeing what happens. I had so much fun writing it, and it turned out the way I wanted it to, and that feels like the whole point. It was pure joy to write, and I hope it brings joy to readers.

And if that doesn’t, maybe my next project will be Sweet Valley: The Midlife Years. A Botoxed Jessica gets lip fillers and they are way too overdone! The mole on Elizabeth’s shoulder has changed, and it turns out all those years of tanning on the beach were unwise! Lila’s getting her third divorce after having an affair with the guy who cleans her pool! Everyone’s skin has turned to leather! Todd’s depressed because his dreams of being a basketball star amounted to nothing and now he spends his days watching General Hospital and eating onion dip! Bruce Patman gets drunk and drives his Porsche off a bridge! Can Roger, who against all odds did make it to medical school and is now a renowned emergency medicine doctor, save him? Tune in!

Weekly Reading

Of course, anyone who follows my Instagram knows that my feed is largely made up of books that I’ve read, but one thing I don’t do is talk about my DNFs. This is mostly because, in the past, I rarely DNF a book, but that is going to CHANGE in 2026, people. I am going to DNF whenever I feel like it! And I had one this week, but I will say I hesitated greatly before putting it aside, and that is because this is a book that actually lives on my shelves. I bought a copy of The Dud Avocado after a friend recommended it, because the library didn’t have a copy. Maybe it’s because I started it after The Ten Year Affair, and I was adrift not knowing what to read after a masterpiece, but it just seemed stupid to me. But I didn’t want to abandon it because I spent money on it. This is very silly. It’s a sunk cost and if the worst comes to the worst and I never pick it up again, I can give it to a Little Free Library, where hopefully it will be loved, or at least tolerated, by someone else.

Best Laid Plans. From Childhood Reread Week to Important Adult Behaviour! Some of you may already know this author as Sarah from The Shu Box– she is part of the blogging community and also a podcaster (HI SHU). It was great to “hear” her voice on these pages. There are a lot of takeaways here for planning and organizing one’s life to achieve goals. The book has templates for annual, seasonal, monthly, weekly, and daily planning, but my favourite part was seeing quotes and anecdotes about my friends in the blogging community, shoutout to Jenny, Lisa, Elisabeth, and Kae. I felt starstruck! I KNOW THEM! (HI JENNY LISA ELISABETH KAE).

The Ten Year Affair. As noted above! Wow wow WOW. Friends, this book blew me away. Absolutely blew me away. It follows a woman who escapes the drudgery and disappointment in her life by having an affair…but only in her mind. This mental affair with a man she meets at baby playgroup lasts for years, and then the lines blur from fantasy to reality. At the end of the day this book is about the sublime and also the mediocre, the little boring ordinary details that make up a life and also the striving to make something extraordinary. The characters are complete and nuanced, and there is a lot of subtext and unwritten backstory that makes this a literary gem. It is also really, really funny. I cannot say enough about this book except that it is truly an exceptional read about a non-exceptional world. A perfect book!

Games and Rituals. After I finished The Ten Year Affair, I was in a bit of a slump, a bit bereft, a bit “what now.” So I stared at my bookshelves and saw my Katherine Heiny books and thought YES. YES, that was exactly what I needed, to reread a collection of pure delight. Friends, I cannot say enough about this author and her ability to convey deep emotion and build worlds in only a few sentences – her writing is so tight, so smart, so evocative, and so incredibly funny. This collection of short stories is just one wonderful read after another. Every single one is perfect and absolutely delightful and made me both laugh out loud and stare at the wall thoughtfully.

Happy Monday, friends. I hope you are all taking care of yourselves in these very distressing days. May I suggest listening to Sweet Valley High recaps to dissociate from the news? It works like a charm. Take care, friends. xo

Five For Friday: The 2025 Five Star Edition

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  • My New Personality and Identity as a War Buff. Spotify Wrapped was released a few weeks ago, and I looked dispassionately at my top five podcasts, all of which were chatty-style, women-hosted, independent podcasts. It felt like a far-off memory, a whole different world, because over these same past few weeks, I have listened to nothing but the podcast The Rest is History, specifically about the lead-up to and the specifics of World War II. The same Australian man who bonded with me over White Wine In The Sun had recommended it, and, interestingly enough, his wife had recommended Palace Confidential, which I was obsessed with until The Rest is History. I can now listen to nothing else. It’s like my life has been divided into two parts: before the podcast, and after. It has become my entire personality. At this point I have lost count of the number of episodes I have listened to, but I think I am well into thirty hours. In the time Before the Podcast, I would have said that I was pretty well versed in this subject, having received an A in a 300-level German History From 1870 to post-World War II, back in 1995, but I was wrong. I have learned so much. This podcast is incredibly detailed; for example, it took three episodes just to recount the invasion of Poland. I have been robotically reciting facts left and right about the Beer Hall Putsch and the fight for iron ore in Sweden and the 1938 German annexation of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. I have drawn parallels between the slow build of the Nazi party to other international current events. I have been astonished by the vast number of German spa hotels which serve as a backdrop for the strategic goings-on in the 1930s. I have no other topics of conversation. If I am not listening to the podcast, I am thinking about the podcast. When I finished all twenty episodes of World War II, I started in on World War I. I don’t even recognize myself anymore. I am out of control. Next thing you know I will eschew women’s literary fiction and will start reading nonfiction tomes about military strategy. Maybe The Art of War. I have become A War History Buff. I have turned into my own dad. What’s next? Will I start watching the six o’clock news? Will I take up curling? Will I drive into town every morning to pick up a copy of the Calgary Herald and then get into long and involved conversations with the women who work at Shopper’s Drug Mart? I mean, if we substitute “Shopper’s Drug Mart” and “Calgary Herald” for “any place in which I am interacting with a customer service representative,” then I’m already there. If I start swanning around town wearing Dockers, my transformation will be complete.
  • I’m a Weirdo, What the Hell am I Doing Here? Although I listen to podcasts – or, lately, A Single Podcast – as I go about the more mundane tasks of my life, I also enjoy a lot of music, and this is where Spotify Wrapped becomes most interesting. When it comes to my top song of the year, it’s never what I think it will be. Indeed, this year’s came as a big surprise. What an eclectic mix of songs! Longtime readers may remember that Dog and Butterfly was, once, my top song, and that was astounding enough. Creep! To be sure, I don’t listen to any one song a lot – Creep had a mere 33 listens – because my favourite playlists are all so long. “Nicole Karaoke” and “Nicole Workout,” my two most-listened to playlists, are 19 hours each, and even “Nicole Christmas” is five and a half hours, which is a lot since, as my sons tell me, there are only six songs in various versions. This is obviously not true, I have more than six songs on my Christmas playlist, although it is a fact that I have five versions of Baby, It’s Cold Outside, and an entire playlist curated by my friend Peggy (HI PEGGY) that is six hours of Last Christmas covers.
  • Queens, A King, and Country. When it comes to Top Artists, not one is connected with my Top Songs. Aretha has been my number-one artist for years, and Whitney certainly wasn’t a surprise, but Zac Brown was the dark horse in this race. Truly, things got a bit skewed as my husband insisted on listening to our son’s “Country Bangers” playlist for at least half of a twenty-hour road trip, and “Country Bangers” is, by my estimation, at least 75% Zac Brown. I like Zac Brown just fine, but a number three spot seems excessive.
  • Five Star Books, or the Books That I Can’t Stop Thinking About. I know, it’s madness to discuss five-star books two weeks before the end of the year, but this is my third year in a row of doing this exact post at this exact time of the year, and I don’t want to break the chain. Also, I am sure I’ll be noting five-star books of late December next year, just as I am going to mention my final three five-star reads of 2024: The Wedding People, The Knockout Queen, and Tell Me Everything. For 2025 (so far): Moon Road, Isola, Notes On Your Sudden Disappearance, Girl, Woman, Other, Death By A Thousand Cuts, Animal Instinct, What Are You Going Through, Sky Daddy, Show Don’t Tell, So Late In The Day, Shark Heart, Dream Count, Audition, Maggie; or, A Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar, The Thing Around Your Neck, The Love Haters, The Correspondent, The Road To Tender Hearts.
  • Five Star Re-Reads, or the Books I Love Beyond Belief. What, I ask, is the point of having shelves full of books if you’re not going to reread them until they literally fall apart in your hands? It’s a great joy of my life. Here are my five-star rereads of 2025: All Along You Were Blooming, The Husband’s Secret, Mansfield Park, Devotions, Hateship Courtship Friendship Loveship Marriage, Standard Deviation, Single Carefree Mellow, Sandwich, Songs At The River’s Edge, The Joy Luck Club.

There were lots of five star experiences in 2025: we had some great travel, the garden was a success, and I turned fifty. Although, according to Spotify, that’s inaccurate.

I mean, honestly, it’s not wrong. Do you have five-star books, playlists, podcasts, music, or anything to share with me? Tell me everything. xo