Category Archives: My failing sanity

Small Appliance Chaos

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I spent a lot of time in the kitchen, although less time than I used to, back in the days when the kids were in school and it felt like at least fifty percent of my one wild and precious life was spent procuring, preparing, and cleaning up after said procurement and preparation of food.

It’s not fifty percent in this season of life, but it’s still a hefty chunk of the day, and it’s because of this that I am a devotee of small kitchen appliances. As it should be abundantly clear by now, the coffee maker is the number one small appliance in my house – let’s not have a murder! – and the Vitamix, used multiple times a day by multiple people, is a close second. Tied for third are my stand mixer and air fryer, the latter being a dark horse. I did not expect such an item to take a place of importance in my life, but here we are. The last in this list is my food processor, which gets used three or four times a month, and of which I have burned through several over the past fifteen years or so. What can I say, I used to test a lot of recipes for YMC, RIP all my recipes.

If you have been keeping track, you will no doubt remember the Vitamix debacle of last June, which was resolved much more happily than anyone, least of all me, expected. And of course we all know about my recent coffee maker woes, which have also been happily resolved, luckily for my family and anyone who comes into contact with me. We also all know that things happen in threes, and so it should not surprise anyone that another one, as they say, bit the dust, and that one was the stand mixer.

Now listen. This is only a minor grievance. This run of small appliance deaths is not, truly, a tragedy. It’s not even tragedy-adjacent. It’s not like having one of the big three – fridge, stove, washing machine – die. It’s a mild inconvenience at worst.

Deep down, I knew it was coming. I have had this mixer at least since the kids were in early elementary school, possibly even preschool. I have put it through its paces at least twice a week for fifteen years or more. And three or four weeks ago, as I was mixing up some banana muffins, I heard a little snap.

Well, a broken whisk isn’t the end of the world, is it? I figured I could probably buy a new attachment, if indeed this model of stand mixer still exists. In any case, it still worked. Maybe not as efficiently as before the whisk snapped, but it still got the job done.

Then, last week, I was AGAIN making banana muffins with the broken whisk attachment, and when I unplugged the mixer the electric ground stayed behind in the plug outlet. I stared at it for a few minutes, looked at the broken plug in my hand, and then stared into space. Yikes! I might be able to work with a semi-broken attachment, but I am not willing to get electrocuted. My husband suggested getting the plug replaced, but I felt that was only a delay of the inevitable.

Well, as he said last year at this time, when I had the Great Closet Crisis of 2024, it is the best time for something like this to happen. I have said it before and I will say it again: it is WEIRD that Black Friday is a thing in Canada. Do not get me wrong, I am also HAPPY that Black Friday is a thing in Canada, but it’s still weird. Weirder still is that Black Friday is now code for “the entire month of November.” Soon it will be Black Friday on the day after Canadian Thanksgiving. And then it will be Black Friday In July, and after that it will just be Black Friday every day of the year. If every day is Black Friday, then is any day Black Friday? It’s a question for the shopping philosophers.

Weird or not, I gratefully purchased myself a discounted stand mixer, which arrived on Saturday, with plenty of time for holiday baking. That hasn’t been started yet, because there was a bigger project this weekend at the Boyhouse.

The tree is up! The season has shifted to full-on festive, and it’s all holiday music, all the time around here.

Weekly Reading

I have had no fewer than twelve library books out over the past couple of weeks. Every time I take some back, more holds have arrived. But I’m diligently working on the stack!

It’s A Love Story. This book is about the stories we tell ourselves ABOUT ourselves, and how we let those stories define us, for better or worse. There are some nice themes about family and open and honest communication, and about self-fulfilling prophecies, but it took me about a quarter of the book to get invested. I found the main character hard to like, but there was a nice redemption arc and, as it should, everything works out nicely in the end.

The Enchanted April. What a charming, delightful book! This book, written post-WWI, follows four women from London who rent an Italian castle for the month of April. The women are mostly unknown to each other, and seem to be unsuitable companions, but everything works out in the most charming way. This book was written in 1922 and spurred a tourism craze to the Italy! Many thanks to my friend Pearl for the recommendation (HI PEARL).

Everyone Is Lying To You. Thrillers aren’t my usual thing, but I enjoyed this page-turner about a tradwife, homesteading influencer whose husband is brutally murdered. Who did it and why? It’s a compelling story about a very weird side of the internet. It’s also an interesting commentary on the idea of comparing your life to those of influencers, and what really goes on behind the scenes. A good November diversion!

Here we are in the very last week of November! Where did the month go? I hope you all had a lovely weekend and are feeling less salty than Rexie, who isn’t a fan of having his bed moved, even if the “moving” is a total of three feet away. xo

Minor Mysteries

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I know you were all waiting on the edge of your seat for the next thrilling episode of Nicole and Her Coffee, and I am happy to relate that you can all breathe a sigh of relief. My new coffee maker has arrived!

Isn’t it beautiful? I’m hoping that German engineering will break the long chain of leaky coffee makers that have been bolstering my mornings lo these many years.

Speaking of mornings, I noticed something strange on our walk a few weeks ago.

When was it so windy? I asked a woman who was walking by and complimenting me on my doggy model. She informed me, with an oddly curious look, that there was a terrible windstorm the night before. Didn’t you hear it? she asked, and I marvelled at the apparent coma I fall into at 8:30 pm every night, which is a bit of a downside to being an early morning bird.

There have been a few mysteries I have encountered lately, two of them very specifically app-related. I have a Garmin watch, and for a long time I have somehow been included in a “100K Step Challenge,” which is a weekly ranking between me and nine random strangers. I don’t remember joining this challenge, but here I am. I almost always hit 100,000 steps in a week, but I am never in the top three. There is always someone who blows everyone away, step-wise, and, knowing how much time I spend Getting My Steps In, I can only assume this person walks all their waking hours. Maybe it’s David Sedaris! Who can say.

But the mystery is that a few weeks ago, I idly checked my ranking only to discover that I was now in a “85K Step Challenge.” How did that happen? Did I get demoted? I didn’t get as many steps as normal while travelling in Morocco, but still. I don’t think that justified kicking me out of the 100K club, the club that I don’t remember joining but on which I am now, apparently, basing my personality. And indeed, after a few weeks of being home and taking the number one spot in the 85K challenge, I’m back in the middle of the pack in the 100K group. Perhaps this is one of those “challenges” that Garmin has to keep people motivated, rather than demoralised. I found my demotion, with my subsequent domination of the leader board, to have the opposite effect.

The other mystery is with regards to DuoLingo, the language learning app. I am on a 1358 day streak, and for all of those days I have been on a “Friend Streak” with my younger son. Every week, we receive a “Friend Quest,” which is just a little challenge that we complete together. Because this is a special thing between the two of us, I only follow my son, no one else, so that we are assured to be assigned to a Quest together.

Well. Lately DuoLingo has not sent either of us “Friend Quests,” instead telling us that we need to “sync our contacts” and “follow new people” in order to be assigned a “Friend Quest.” I WILL NOT. I am incensed by this blatant desperation for more DuoLingo users. NOT ON MY WATCH, DUOLINGO. My reaction to this lack of weekly “Quests” is probably wildly out of proportion to its actual importance in the not-even-grand scheme of things, and yet, I feel justified. I pay for the extended family plan and the “premium” edition, and this is the thanks I get? I cannot even work with my son on a shared goal to get 90% in 30 classes or 4500 XP? Nonsense! I am a Taurus, and if there is one thing Tauruses are known for, it is their stubbornness and inability to budge. My heels are dug in. THIS IS THE HILL I DIE ON.

I guess that is less of a mystery and more of a rage-inducing marketing attempt. After yet another week of realizing that we weren’t getting our Friend Quests, I headed out for a walk, hoping the steps would quell my disproportionate outrage. (I AM NOT DOING YOUR MARKETING FOR YOU, DUOLINGO!). While walking I listened to the latest episode of You Are Good, a recap of Billy Madison, a movie that I unapologetically love even though the humour is very, very stupid. I quote from it all the time: It must have been that damn Sasquatch, I’ll say when someone asks a question, and I award you no points, and may god have mercy on your soul, I’ll say randomly.

Back in my minivan-children chauffeur stage, I would frequently use I’ll turn this damn bus around.

But I got to the part when Billy debates which is better: shampoo or conditioner, and something occurred to me. When did we stop calling it “creme rinse?”

I remember it being creme rinse when I was a kid, but I do not remember when the switch happened. Is there a difference between creme rinse and conditioner? Don’t they both leave their hair silky and smooth? Does anyone else remember the product Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific? I could probably look up all of these things, but I think I will leave it as is, a little mystery.

Weekly Reading

A Home For The Holidays. Okay. Someone posted about this last holiday season, I think it was my friend Sarah (HI SARAH), and I did NOT read a synopsis nor the flap copy, instead I just put it on my “For Later” list and activated it recently, so I could read what I thought was a light holiday rom-com. A feel-good book, if you will. So you can imagine my surprise when I discovered that it is a book about grief, about a woman losing her alcoholic mother two weeks before Christmas. Trigger warning, everyone! In the weeks following her mother’s death, she begins a kind of wild emotional journey to discovery. She learns about her mother’s past, and to learn that her mother was more than her addiction. There is an almost unbelievably quick romantic sideline, as well as a nice story about family and chosen family. It was far too soon after The Bright Years to read another book about a family semi-destroyed by alcoholism, but the ending was nice. So I guess it was a feel-good book after all, albeit one about addiction and a weirdly quick romance and a surprise long-lost best friend. Maybe don’t overthink this, just go along for the ride.

Americanah. I had recently read, and loved, Dream Count and The Thing Around Your Neck, and years ago had read, and loved Purple Hibiscus – all of which written by this author. So I was excited to read Americanah, and also was curious that I hadn’t read it before. Friends, I started on the very first page and thought, huh. By the time I finished the first scene, I realized that I had read it before. But when? I started keeping track of my books read in January 2017, and Americanah came out in 2013, so I guess sometime in between. I didn’t remember how it ended, and I only remembered scenes as I read them, so it was definitely worth a reread, this book about a Nigerian woman who goes to America to live and then returns to her homeland to find it, and herself, very changed.

How are you all doing, friends? Any little mysteries in your life of late? Tell me everything. xo

Coffee Crisis

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Every single morning, the first thing I do after waking is carefully make my way down the stairs and pour my pre-measured water from the coffee pot into the appropriate receptacle in the machine, and then press start. After that I drink two big glasses of water and head to the bathroom for my morning ablutions. The only variation to the routine is that on weekends, I sleep slightly later and so I let Rex out of his crate prior to the ablutions, but always, always, always, as they say FIRST, COFFEE.

So it was that Saturday morning rolled around, and I was coming out of the bathroom freshly washed and brushed, thinking I would pour myself a cup of that sweet, sweet nectar on my way to let Rex back in. I noticed that there was a fairly significant pool of water on the countertop, surrounding the coffee maker. I don’t know about you, but I frequently spill water when I’m pouring from the pot to the receptacle, so I thought that I had done just that, although it DID register that a) it was a fairly large volume, more than my usual splash, and b) how did I not notice? Well, I have not noticed more significant things than some water, so I wiped it up, let Rex in, told him he was a good boy and I love him so much, yes I do, yes I do, and then I went on with my day.

I was a little annoyed that my mistake had led to less coffee than normal, but I moved on with my life.

The next morning, as I poured the water into the receptacle, I reminded myself to be very careful. I didn’t spill a drop. By the time I returned to pour myself a cup, there was an even bigger pool of water, and now it was spilling on the floor.

This exact thing has happened to me before, and it was April 2020. It felt like a crisis at the time, because buying anything was such a ridiculous hassle, and what could be more important than a coffee maker? Probably you are thinking many things are more important than a coffee maker, but friends, you don’t live with me. You don’t live in fear of being murdered, stabbed, or, at the very least, spoken to sharply because Nicole Didn’t Get Her Coffee. Coffee or complete mental and emotional breakdown, choose one.

Happily for everyone involved, this did not devolve into a crisis because a) the coffee maker was still brewing coffee, albeit at a lower volume than anticipated, b) my husband has a fancy espresso maker that I do not know how to use and would unlikely be able to figure out in a caffeine-less state, but he would probably get up and make me a SERIES of espressos if things got desperate, and c) I remembered we still had our old coffee maker from our Calgary house, still in protective wrapping from the moving company. I pulled it out of the pantry and it happily worked, although my son asked darkly for how long? He seemed nervous that the old one would just as suddenly start malfunctioning, and THEN where would we be? You need to buy a new coffee maker, Mom, he said in an uncharacteristically forceful way.

And indeed, he was right to be concerned, because not three days passed before I noticed a small but distinct dribble of water beside the coffee maker. My husband is on the case, believe me.

I am a terrible coffee addict, I know, and it’s not something I feel moved to change about myself. I am harming no one by consuming vast amounts of coffee between 4 and 9am every day, and, in fact, I would probably harm someone if I didn’t. At the very least I would not be radiating sunshine, let’s put it that way.

My coffee habit has been going strong lo these past thirty-eight years, which makes me marvel at the idea that there are people in this world who don’t drink coffee at all and still function normally and non-murderously. I feel true amazement and wonder at this. What is your life like? I want to ask. Some people drink their first coffee of the day mid-morning, after accomplishing many things, and some people drink coffee in the afternoon. Some people drink it after dinner! Some people have one cup a day, no more, and some people drink it sporadically during the week. Nothing gives me more of a the world is a rich tapestry feeling than hearing these anecdotes.

Well. Baby, baby, it’s a wild world. I have been the recipient of much amazement as to my own habits, non-coffee-related. I loathe pie, for example, and even the idea of a cooked apple makes me want to heave. I refuse to have celery in my house and I do not, as a rule, enjoy black or green tea. I fall asleep by 8:30pm and I prefer having spoilers rather than endure any tension in TV or movies. I reread books frequently, I’ve never worn eyeshadow, and I think Old Dutch Ketchup potato chips were the greatest snack food of all time, although I haven’t consumed them in many years. There is room for all of us and our personal opinions and preferences in this life, and as long as I get my coffee, everything is happiness.

Weekly Reading

On the topic of the world being a rich tapestry: books! What could be more varied and individual than reading tastes? I thought I was making a dent in my pile of library books, but as I took three back to the library, four more came in. So it’s a one-step-forward-two-steps-back situation.

The Bright Years. This book follows a family and their secrets, and ultimately their healing. It spans decades, and I really liked the little pop culture and current events that were peppered in through the years. There is a child given up for adoption who is looking for his birth mother, there is a chosen family, there is a supportive mother-in-law who chooses her granddaughter over her alcoholic son. Speaking of the latter, if you know me, you know I HATE plotlines about alcoholism and addiction, but I pushed through, and I was rewarded with a nice redemption arc and message.

Mean Moms. WHAT A HOOT. This book was so fun to read. I have also read this author’s Bad Summer People, and let me tell you, she has the concept of Ultra Rich People Behaving Badly down! Whereas Bad Summer People follow a crowd who “summer” on an exclusive island off the East Coast, Mean Moms follows a group of Manhattan moms at an exclusive private school. Strange things start happening to a couple of these moms just when a woman from Miami arrives at their school. Is it a coincidence? Or is someone out to get them? This book was an absolute riot and the sections are divided by WhatsApp chains, and if you have ever been in a parenting-or-school-related text chain, this will resonate deeply. I enjoyed this so much.

Not My Type. Normally I avoid any and all mentions of the current US president, so at first glance it is odd that I would pick up this book, which details his trial and subsequent conviction as to the matter of sexual assault and defamation of writer E. Jean Carroll. However, I listened to interviews of the acclaimed 81-year-old writer on a number of podcasts and immediately fell in love with her. What a fascinating and brave woman! This book is horrifying and also a triumph, and when the current president claimed that he just grabs women by the pussy, well, that is exactly what he did do in a Bergdorf Goodman changing room in 1996. This book contains official court transcripts as well as the author’s own notes on the trial. As a note, IF the current president ever pays the $83 million owed, the author has decided that all – ALL – of it will go to charities and causes that said president loathes, such as women’s reproductive rights, voting rights, and climate solutions.

On that note, I will sign off for the week. I hope you are all enjoying the things you individually enjoy, perhaps a hot beverage? Say a little prayer that my backup coffee maker doesn’t meet its maker, so to speak, before the backup arrives. xo

People Are Strange, When You’re A Stranger

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You know, Mom, you might want to consider switching up your routine, my older son said to me. That way, if someone doesn’t see you for a few days, they won’t think Rex died.

It’s not like I walk the exact same route at the exact same time every single day, but I do often enough that in the days following my return from Morocco, I was stopped no less than fifteen times while walking Rex to be told that my presence on the greenway was much missed. Some, but certainly not all, were people I know by sight and talk to regularly. One older couple said, frantically, Where WERE you, we were so WORRIED that something happened! They looked with wide-eyed significance at Rex, who was engaged in the serious business of Sniffing A Tree.

Well, it’s nice to be noticed, although as my sister-in-law’s boyfriend says Big black dog, big red hair, you’re hard to miss. In any case, it’s nice to be home, and the fall colours have been incredible.

People are very interesting and we never really know what’s going on in someone’s life, although we might think we do. We were the first zone to be called for boarding on our flight from Paris to Casablanca, but as soon as we all finished going through the check zone, we were stopped. All of us in zone 1 stood in the walkway for over thirty minutes, and although there was an announcement about it, I didn’t really understand. It was something to do with customs, which made a lot of sense after we finally boarded the plane. I settled in with my Kobo when I heard incessant screaming and yelling.

I don’t know about you, but an adult shrieking is not something I want to hear when I’m on a plane. I tried to see what was happening, and then thought maybe craning around in my seat wasn’t a smart idea, so I quietly shrank a little. What was happening, which the man next to my husband informed us, was that a person was being deported back to Morocco and that there was a large police presence on the back of the plane. The flight was delayed over an hour before the man was taken off the plane, still screaming. My husband’s seatmate, who is a Moroccan national but works in Algeria, necessitating long flights through Paris to get home, said that there is such an occurrence on almost every single such flight, which made me unbelievably sad on multiple levels.

Because of this, we were delayed getting into Casablanca, but it was nothing compared with the six Australians in our group who were delayed by DAYS and who just barely made it before our tour left the city. They were delayed in Rwanda, then stuck in Dubai, before finally making it to Morocco, and somehow 5 pieces of luggage made it there as well. The sixth, belonging to our new friend Greg, arrived five days later and the reunion was cause for much celebration in our group. He would track it daily with his Air Tags, letting us know that now, somehow, it’s in South Africa, and the like. This is why I never check luggage. I was incredibly stressed on Greg’s behalf, and I only just met him.

In any case, I was very happy to have the Australians join our group, which up to that moment consisted of another Australian, a couple from Ottawa who had defected from Romania in 1985 and who were absolutely fascinating, and a woman from New Zealand. The seven Australians and two Canadians were pure delight, but the woman from New Zealand was, to put it mildly, not.

As an example, Ms NZ made all eleven of us, plus two guides and a driver, wait for fifty minutes on the bus, and then, when she finally boarded, she did not apologize for being so late. This was at nearly six pm, after we had been on a walking tour since nine in the morning, and all we wanted to do was shower and eat. Not eighteen hours later, we were stopped by the police because she wasn’t wearing her seatbelt, which led to a prolonged, agonizingly heated discussion between our guide, the driver, and three armed policemen. I didn’t know we needed to wear seatbelts, Ms NZ said defensively, again not apologizing.

All of that could have been forgiven – we all make mistakes, although apologizing is a thing that people do in society – if she did not constantly complain. By the time the Australians joined us, I was already wondering how I could bear two weeks with this woman. She complained endlessly about our hotel: the elevator didn’t stop at her floor (it stopped at ours), the hair dryer didn’t work (it worked in our room), and the tea kettle needed a plug converter (we take a converter with us). I tried to feel compassion about these annoying little blips, but then she yelled at the desk staff that she wanted a cup of tea and she wanted it NOW, and if there is one thing I cannot abide, it is a person who is rude to service staff. After breakfast the next day she complained that no one brought her coffee, and since I had only known this woman for twelve hours at that point, I thought I was being helpful by pointing out that it was buffet-style, and one only needed to ask the man at the counter to prepare a cup of wonderful coffee. Maybe she didn’t know how it worked, I thought. All one needed to do was ask, and delicious coffee appeared. Why should I have to ask? she said to me. He’s walking around, he could just do his job.

Well. How does one respond to that, except to say You’re a cunt, which I did NOT do. Do we go into Starbucks and sit at a table, waiting for someone to bring us a Tazo chai with coconut milk? NO WE DO NOT. She also complained incessantly about garbage by the side of the road, including when we were on a walking tour in a village with a guide who lived in that village. People live here! Those people might not understand the words, but they definitely understand what you’re saying, and what you’re saying is RUDE and implies that they are living in a trash heap.

It got to the point where I wondered if our guide was starting to hate the sound of his own name, since Ms NZ would shrilly call it out every five minutes to ask another of her inane questions while the rest of us had twitching eyebrows. What are those trees, why are they all trimmed that way, who decided that it was the best way, why is it the best way to trim the trees…ad infinitum.

And I realize that had I not been, as they say, a donkey on the edge, I would have happily tuned all of this out. I would have cheerfully half-listened to our guide patiently talk about branch pruning in Morocco, but as it was, I wanted to murder her. Thank god for the Australians and the Romanian-Canadians! And was I sorry that she not only contracted the Traveller’s Tummy but also some kind of virus that caused her to sleep – on the bus, in a restaurant, in the accommodations – for almost forty-eight hours? No, I was not. I am a firm believer in karma, and we were all happy to have some blessed silence.

Weekly Reading

I have SO many books to tell you about, that I read while on buses and planes, but I think I will keep those for a separate post. For now, this is what I read this week – and wow, it was a good week!

Songs at the River’s Edge. I had such a craving to reread this book about a British social anthropologist who lives for eighteen months in a rural village in Bangladesh, circa 1987. It was a twenty-year journey for me to get this book at all, and the details of that are here. She details how she is accepted into the family and describes all the various customs, relationships, and social hierarchy within. There is relative prosperity and desperate poverty, and the stories are moving and beautiful, about the power of community and family, as well as the dire straits of the people who try to move away in search of a better life. The stories about women and their marital fate are fascinating and often very sad. 

Motherness. I have known Julie Green, the author of Motherness, for over a decade; we used to work together at YMC. Truly, I didn’t know her well; her beat was “Buzz,” and she wrote several newsy and current events-related articles a day, while I wrote one recipe post a week. She lived in Toronto and I in Calgary, and once or twice a year I would fly out to see the whole team. I remember those parties very fondly, but I didn’t talk much to Julie. She was pretty quiet and, I assumed, shy. What I didn’t realize – and what she didn’t realize, either – is that she is autistic, and these parties, she writes, were a source of terror and anxiety for her, causing her many sleepless nights and to hide in the bathroom for most of the time. I had no idea. And this is the important part of this memoir, the idea of “masking” that autists do, particularly women. They get along to get along, so to speak, and the stress of the masking, Julie says, “comes at a cost to mental health and can lead to low self-esteem, stress, exhaustion, anxiety, depression, and even suicidality.” She goes on to say that autistic women are often misdiagnosed with depression, anxiety, and mood disorders, which makes me wonder how many women are walking around without appropriate help. Probably many. She is the mother of an autistic child, and she writes openly about the struggles and joys and the agony of trying to fit your child into a world that doesn’t fit them. It’s raw and vulnerable and very moving. Highly recommend this incredible memoir. 

October has been such a strange month for me, what with travel and then birthday celebrations and then coming back to earth! I can hardly believe it’s the last week. I hope you are all, like Humpty Dumpty, having a great fall. xo

If I Had A Billion Dollars

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If you had asked me one month ago what I have in common with Mike Vrabel, head coach of the New England Patriots, I would have stared into space for a moment before responding that we are both humans living on the planet at the same time, but nothing else. That was before my husband, a longtime Patriots fan, sent me a reel in which Mike Vrabel was asked what, outside of football, makes him nuts. His response was twofold: able-bodied people who park in handicapped zones, and PEOPLE WHO LEAVE THEIR SHOPPING CARTS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PARKING LOT. Mike Vrabel, I salute you. He went so far as to say he actually confronts those people and wishes that he had a car boot to immobilize their vehicles.

Never have I felt so seen, particularly by a football coach.

Earlier in the summer I found myself reading about a certain multibillionaire who rented out Venice for his $50 million dollar wedding, and at the time I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I have so many feelings about the current distribution of extreme wealth in general and this wedding in particular, none of them positive, and I am sure you can well imagine.

But I couldn’t help thinking what I would do personally in the extremely unlikely event that I attain such massive wealth. I find it fascinating to think that, if I had a net worth of $224 billion dollars, I could give away 99.7% of it and still be a billionaire. I could give away 99.9% of it and still be fabulously rich. I could bring clean water everywhere, I could end food insecurity, I could house the unhoused, I could END DEATH BY TUBERCULOSIS. I could do all those things and still have money to fly business class everywhere I want to go.

It’s an interesting thought experiment: what would I do differently, had I so much wealth? Let’s say, in the manner of Steve Martin with his holiday wish for world peace, that I’ve already given away 99.7% of this theoretical wealth and made an enormous positive impact on the world, let’s say I’ve already bought a house for each of my children, let’s say I had a billion dollars and I had to – HAD TO – spend it on myself. What would I do?

For something that is in all likelihood never going to happen, I spent a lot of time thinking about this. I love my home and wouldn’t want to buy a different one, or a vacation house, and I wouldn’t want a new car or even a new piano. I wouldn’t travel more than I do but, as I said, I would definitely fly business class only.

I came up with an idea that I felt was absolutely brilliant, and I raised the topic at the dinner table. My family immediately and without hesitation conjectured that I would a) hire a chauffeur and b) employ a personal chef.

Well, damn. I do want those things! So I guess I have three things I want, the third being my own personal busker. If I was insanely wealthy I would hire a busker to follow me around, anticipating my moods and playing all my favourite songs.

To say my husband and sons were unimpressed with this idea would be an understatement.

I stand by it, though. Can you imagine how fun that would be? The soundtrack of my life brought to life!

All of this was before I knew about Mike Vrabel, though. So now I have a fourth thing I would do if I had a billion dollars to burn: I would hire a Mike Vrabel-sized man to go with me everywhere, in my personally chauffeured car, to confront shopping cart and disabled spot violators, and to use car boots with impunity.

My fantasy expenditures are now getting unwieldy. I’m imagining myself with my personal chauffeur, chef, busker, and Mike Vrabel all going to Superstore to fetch ingredients for the week. I might have to get a bigger car in this scenario. And maybe a second house just to shelter all of my employees. And do I want one busker or two? Or more? I want to be a good employer and maybe I’d have to have these guys work in shifts so they can rest a little between sets. Ah, the stresses of being a make-believe billionaire. First I’d have to save the world, and then I’d have to figure out the sleeping situation of my staff.

Weekly Reading

The Thing Around Your Neck. Oh, this author is so talented! I loved this collection of short stories about Nigeria and its people, gorgeous and brilliant slices of life. There is such a variety of points of view and even a few stories written in the second person. I loved every story.

We All Want Impossible Things. I first read this in 2022 and decided, after hearing Catherine Newman interviewed on a podcast, that it deserved a reread. I have read and loved everything Newman has written, since her days as a Babycentre blogger, when my oldest was a baby. She inspired me to start my own blog! I really love this book about a woman caring for her best friends in her last weeks of life. It’s about grief but so much more than that – it’s about love and friendship and the complicated beauty of hospice. Newman has a new book coming out next month and I cannot wait!

Single, Carefree, Mellow. I read this in 2021; I loved it then, and I love it now. Katherine Heiny is a gift to the world, and this collection of short stories is brilliant and hilarious and thoughtful and witty, and is everything I want in a book. A few of the short stories have the same characters, which is delightful in every way, and every one of the stories is a little slice of life with the most wonderful characters you can imagine. And so funny, she is SO funny. One of my favourite lines in the book – although basically the whole book is my favourite – “She collects garden gnomes…You had an affair with someone who collects garden gnomes.” I laughed until I cried.

I had such a fun and busy week filled with friends, and I am looking forward to more of the same this week. I also received a mock-up of my book cover design, and I cannot WAIT to share it with you. So many people have very kindly asked about details regarding its release, and I don’t have those details yet but believe me, the Boyhouse readers will be the first to know! Take care this week, friends. xo

Ducks, Dialects, Daddy Cool

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I learned something absolutely wild this week, and even though I immediately fact-checked it, I still was in shock and disbelief. I still AM in shock and disbelief.

From an episode of Were You Raised By Wolves – my current and longtime favourite podcast about modern etiquette, which is more fun than it sounds, really – I learned that, in Minnesota, the children’s game Duck, Duck, Goose is not Duck, Duck, Goose. Instead, it is Duck, Duck, GREY DUCK.

I had to turn off the podcast for a moment to stare out the window. It felt like everything I had ever known was in question. Do I, like Oprah, know anything for sure? I just cannot say, I just cannot say.

I instantly texted my favourite Minnesotan, Lisa, to ask her if this was true, if everything I have ever known was a lie? And Lisa, darling Lisa, Lisa who would never lead anyone astray, told me that yes, all is true and more. Not only do Minnesotan children chant Grey Duck before running around the circle, but so do those in North Dakota.

The world, it is a wild and wonderful place. (HI LISA).

Isn’t it wild, isn’t it WILD how things differ between regions? Let’s take language and dialect, for example. It is a common perception that Canadians pronounce about like aboot, and yet I have never in my fifty years met a single person who sounds like that, and I have met people from all over the country. Accents and dialects do differ across our great country, of course. I can tell a prairie accent from a Maritime one, I can pinpoint if a person is from Newfoundland or Quebec; I live in BC and I have friends all over Ontario, and yet never once have I heard the word aboot. Eh, I hear and say often, but aboot? Never.

Calgarians can easily identify non-Calgarians, simply from how the city is pronounced: it’s Cal-GREE, not Cal-GARY, and although I no longer live there, I will offer a gentle correction. That is the only thing I will correct, though, because so many words are pronounced differently based on regional dialect, and there is no such thing as “correct” or “incorrect” when it comes to that. When it comes to mischievous, coyote, groceries, mascara, and tomato I personally say mis-chee-vious, kai-oh-tee, grow-sher-ees, mah-scare-ah, toe-may-toe. I also pronounce tour with two syllables, too-er, rather than “ture” or “tore,” but I pronounce tournament as ture-nament. I contain multitudes.

It’s funny that language and dialect are so interesting to me, yet so dull to write about. I’m boring myself. Let’s move on.

The other day I heard the song Daddy Cool twice during a single workout: once on my own playlist while I was on the elliptical, and then once during a Peloton ride. God, I love Boney M and I love that song. It reminded me of a funny, albeit embarrassing story circa 1995. My friend Alice (HI ALICE, if you’re reading this) was engaged, and had confided to the Econ Girls, of which I was one, that she hated the word fiance. Our friend Tony, not an Econ Girl per se, but as he was studying economics we didn’t exclude him based on his sex, suggested that we refer to her fiance as Big Daddy Cool, and that stuck.

It stuck a little too well. I was at her bridal shower, and one of the games involved questions about the couple, including the correct spelling of the groom’s name. It was at that moment that I realized that not only did I not know the correct spelling of the groom’s name, I did not know his name at all. I had never called him anything at all except Big Daddy Cool, or, sometimes, Big Daddy. I was seated right next to his mother, and if there’s anything worse than being at a bridal shower and not knowing the groom’s name after meeting him dozens of times, well. There’s actually a lot of things that are worse, but still, it wasn’t my best moment. It could have landed me on a segment from Were You Raised By Wolves.

Weekly Reading

The Spoon Stealer. This book concerns a peppy old lady looking back on her life, which is divided between Nova Scotia and England. She has a talking dog and a habit of stealing spoons wherever she goes, after her brother tells her that a spoonful of kindness is all it takes to make a difference. It’s a very sweet concept and there are a lot of heartwarming messages in this book, but the writing style just wasn’t for me and I found it very difficult to be engaged with the story. In fact, I kept thinking when is this going to end, and then at the actual end, I discovered that the story was based on the author’s family, which made me feel terrible for mentally disparaging it.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. This has been on my TBR for a long time, but I had forgotten about it until Lisa and Laura (HI LISA, HI LAURA) mentioned it to me recently, so I bumped it up. I have a lot of thoughts, buckle up. This is a memoir by a very acclaimed author of her family’s move from Tucson to a piece of land in Appalachia; the move was precipitated by their desire to eat entirely locally which the author claims is impossible in the arid land of Arizona. They were motivated to reduce their carbon footprint via trucked-in or flown-in food, and I do think this is a very admirable thing to do. Each family member was able to choose one exception to this rule, and her husband chose coffee, which was extremely relatable to me. They do accomplish this locavore-style of eating, both through community purchases and their own garden and animals. I will say I skimmed over quickly the parts in the book where they discuss slaughtering their own meat versus factory farmed meat. I already know about this, I agree raising one’s own meat is a sustainable way to eat meat if one does, and also I do not want to read about it. The book is peppered with recipes – Laura had mentioned one for zucchini chocolate chip cookies, you can bet I’ll be trying that – and that is quite delightful. However, I found the book as a whole to be a bit dated – it came out nearly 20 years ago, and even the updated epilogue from 2017 was a moment in time – and also reeking of privilege and judgement. I was in my early thirties – around when this first came out – when I read The Good Food Revolution; before reading that book I had absolutely no idea what a food desert was. I had never heard of it. I had never heard of children unaware that carrots and potatoes grow in the ground, that apples are from trees, etcetera. I had never, not once, realized that there were entire communities of people without access to a grocery store or to fresh fruits and vegetables. That book really changed my perspectives and cultivated a lot of empathy in me for people who are just trying to feed their families in any way that they could, and after reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I felt that the author was a privileged white woman whose answer to climate change was to a) grow a garden, or b) go to the farmer’s market. And I love both of those things but it is an incredible privilege to do so. Gardening is a lot of work and takes a lot of time. Going to the farmer’s market requires access to one, as well as money, and I’m not sure in this day and age if that is always possible. We don’t all have a piece of land in Appalachia that we can ditch our life for, even if we could all just leave our jobs. Another thing that stuck in my craw a bit is that the author and husband takes a trip to Italy, and while I loved reading about their local eating in places I had so recently enjoyed, I also wondered how they justified the jet fuel. I suppose one doesn’t preclude the other, but it was a detail that bothered me. The last thing I’ll say is that the author speaks very lovingly and with great empathy for the tobacco farmers of her youth, who built the communities surrounding her. I do think it’s a really hard thing, seeing an industry that employed everyone you know disappear, but I wondered what her take on other reviled industries – let’s say energy, for example – would be. I wondered if she would have the same level of kindness for people who were also just putting food on their tables via an industry that is generally not looked on with love. Laura and I spent some time discussing the author’s more recent book – which I haven’t read and I WILL NOT – Demon Copperhead, which is about the opioid crisis in her very community. Was the disappearance of the tobacco industry a precursor to that? Maybe. Anyway, lots to think about, the tl;dr is that I loved the descriptions of gardens and seasonal recipes, and I hated the privilege and judgement emanating from this. The food industry as a whole, and the way we approach eating and nutrition are extremely complex and often terribly problematic, and this book does shine a light on those issues.

Whew! After all that, I am going to give you an update on my own garden! Because I am nothing if not a multicoloured tapestry of a person. I have been using garden spinach in my smoothies all week, there are teeny tiny green tomatoes on two of my plants, and the iris garden, friends, the iris garden is bringing me so much happiness. Every morning there is something new! We have so many different colours – purples and burgundies, white and yellow, peach and variegated – and I love them all.

You have no idea how difficult it is for me not to post a photo of every single iris in the garden, thus making this ridiculously long post even longer. I blame Barbara Kingsolver! No, I only have myself to blame. Have a beautiful, flower-filled week, my friends. xo

Let The Music Play

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Turkish Delight, On A Moonlit Night

I am currently in a delightful chapter in my life in which my children are grown and my husband and I are healthy and mobile, and so we have big plans to do a lot of travelling. It’s a big world out there and I want to see as much as I can for as long as I can; no one knows what the future will bring, and so I want to experience as much of other countries and cultures as I can.

Recently we have been talking about Türkiye, which I briefly visited as a teen on a school trip, and would love to see a lot more of. Unfortunately, the planning for this trip may be the undoing of my sanity. Every time I hear, see, or even think of the word “Istanbul,” I immediately follow it up in my head with was Constantinople, now it’s Istanbul not Constantinople, been a long time gone, Constantinople. And that’s the best case scenario; frequently I will go through the entire song in my head before I can rest. Why did Constantinople get the works? That’s nobody’s business but the Turrrrrkkkkksss. Istanbullll.

I don’t know what percentage of my brain is dedicated to song lyrics and other quotations, but it’s significant. I wonder what incredible things I could accomplish, were I able to clear my mind of Getting Jiggy With It, a song that went through my head incessantly when I was writing my very last exam in grad school. I got an A in that exam, so I guess it all worked out, but I’m not sure I’ve ever really recovered from scribbling down equations to the mental chorus of no love for the haters the haters mad cuz I got floor seats at the Lakers see me on the fifty yard line with the Raiders.

Speaking of which, one only need say to me here’s the situation before I mentally reply my parents went away on a week’s vacation.

Does everyone’s mind work this way, or is it just me? One of my favourite scents from Bath and Body Works is Butterfly, and every time, every single time I select that body lotion post-shower, I hum to myself See the dog and butterfly, up in the air he likes to fly.

Seriously, if I could rid my mind of song lyrics, random quotations from movies, Seinfeld, and the Simpsons, along with toxic diet culture, I would be a fresh book waiting to be filled. Staring at the blank page before you…

It’s Not Easy Being Green

We’ve had quite a bit of rain lately, which means that everything is greening up. It’s also likely the reason Kermit was hanging out on my door last week. In any case, it’s officially Garden Season, so prepare yourselves for an onslaught of Garden Updates for the next six months or so. I planted my first rows of kale and spinach on the weekend, the berry patch is all budding, and my husband and I went to the plant nursery. It is way, way too early to plant tender veggies like tomatoes and peppers, and yet I came home with exactly that.

I’ll be bringing these in every night for the next month.
Housewarming gift from the incomparable Suzanne, (HI SUZANNE), relevant to my interests.

Oh, and on the topic of green things, I have an update to my avocado woes. I bought a bag of avocados at Superstore, and, like a person completely beaten down by life, expected nothing out of them. Why did I buy them then? I don’t know. Maybe there was a shred of hope left in my soul. But then when I cut them open, every last one was perfect. It was enough to restore my faith in the world.

Ladies, Leave Those Umbrellas At Home!

My dear friend Sandi (HI SANDI) invited me along with her sister to a paint night this week, and as usual, it was so much fun. I did have doubts about my own skills, however, when I saw the sample painting. My initial thought was no way, this is going to be a mess, but you know what, it turned out pretty well!

I will say that the teacher, as well as anyone else who walked behind me and observed my painting, said repeatedly oh, that’s so interesting, what you’re doing with the skirt. To pull a quote from one of my favourite Seinfeld episodes, WHAT? I HAD A DIFFERENT INTERPRETATION! And if you can name that deep cut episode off the top of your head, let me know and I will send you a prize. What will the prize be? I have no idea.

It reminded me of my probably long-deceased childhood piano teacher, Mrs. Rechel. Along with exam pieces for the Royal Conservatory, I was encouraged to choose some “modern” pieces to play for fun. Frequently I would be playing these pieces of choice for her, and her mouth would just be a thin line. Oh, that’s very interesting, she would say, or, in some cases, Hmm. It’s certainly different.

Hot Carl In The City

Speaking of things that are different, I was reminded this week of the day back in 2012, when a car parked in my neighbourhood had a license plate HOT CARL. I remember wondering about the owner of this car, if his name was Carl and he had very high self-esteem, and then someone pointed out to me that a Hot Carl is a sex act that involves feces. To this day I think about this. Was the car owner really into Hot Carls? Or was he just a guy named Carl who thought he was all that and a bag of chips? Or – and here’s another deep cut – was he a fan of The Simpsons? This mystery is one for the ages. It will never be solved. Unless, of course, he (I assume that this person is a he) reads this and chimes in. Carl, are you there?

I came across this thought circuitously, because Jenny (HI JENNY) had posted an interesting photo of a car, a Range Rover no less, that proclaimed across its rear window Make Money Not Friends. You know what, I admire that kind of honesty. I would rather see that then some asshole who is cutting people off and behaving badly with a bumper sticker saying Choose Kindness. At least with the Range Rover, you know where you stand, and you would also expect to be cut off in traffic. Although I guess it’s not comparable after all, since we don’t know where we stand with Hot Carl.

Speaking of traffic, on my walk the other day I saw a man on a motorcycle wearing a mascot head in the shape of the Easter bunny. I wish I had the wherewithal to take a photo but to be honest, I was too stunned. I hope he had a helmet on underneath.

Mom? Mom? Was that a giant rabbit?

Weekly Reading

Girl, Woman, Other. This book blew me away; it is a work of art. I love women’s stories and I love short stories, and this really delivered. Each of twelve chapters is the life story of a different woman, and all of those short stories are interconnected in some way. The women are Black and British, and all their stories are unique and yet universal. It’s incredible to me how a good short story writer can convey so much with such an economical use of words. The writing style of this book is powerful and moving and adds to the emotionality of the experience. Loved it!

Tiger Eyes. My reread of Judy Blume continues with this, which was absolutely not a favourite of mine as a youth, but it’s a really fascinating read as an adult in 2025. The premise is very sad; a teen girl’s father is shot to death in his corner store, and her family transplants to New Mexico to be with relatives during the aftermath. The town in New Mexico is Los Alamos which is famous for being the place in which the atomic bomb was developed, and which itself was populated by physicists who research that and other weaponry. It’s a wild setting for a YA story, particularly one that was published in 1981 during the Cold War. This completely went over my head when I read it around age 11, as did the themes of grief, loss, and depression. Blume is such a master of weaving such heavy topics with those of sex, alcohol use, and family troubles, topics of deep interest to young readers. It was great on the reread, and there is quite a bit about Oppenheimer and American foreign policy, as well as changing ideas about Native Americans. There is still a bit of dated language which is unsavoury for the current climate, but it would have been still ahead of its time.

Bite By Bite. My friend Laura (HI LAURA) has never steered me wrong yet. She said this was her favourite food memoir, and the words “food” and “memoir” perked up my ears. Wow, was this a joy to read. Every chapter focuses on a different food – the majority are fruits, many exotic fruits, but she also waxes poetic about foods as varied as black pepper, gyro, waffles, shave ice, and lumpia. This book focuses on the joy of eating and how foods build community and celebration, and it is truly a delight. Talk about leaving toxic diet culture behind – this just made me want to celebrate the many delicious flavours in this world. Now, did an essay about pawpaw – a fruit I have never seen, let alone tried – bring me to tears? It sure did.

On the topic of joy and food: the grapes have all been pruned and tied and are ready for spring. Please enjoy Rex enjoying the prunings! Happy April, friends. xo