Category Archives: My failing sanity

Menu for when it’s too hot to cook, and things I don’t understand.

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I’m not trying to make any political statements here, honestly, but there is something I really do not understand. In the past week, I have seen three separate writings about the horrors of cargo shorts and I have to ask my dear readers: why? Why are cargo shorts such reviled things? I’m asking honestly here, since I am not a person who likes shorts to begin with, and I fail to see much difference between regular shorts and cargo shorts. Shorts, in my humble opinion, are unflattering at the best of times but I recognize that occasionally practicality must prevail. Just like giant puffy coats in winter, sometimes shorts are a necessary evil to survival in the summer. Not, I hastily add, for me, but for others.

Well, I say this, but I actually have a pair of booty shorts that I will occasionally don when it is very hot and I don’t want to completely dehydrate while doing my cardio workout. I have not yet worn them off my own property yet, to be viewed by people not related or married to me, but I do wear them on occasion nonetheless. Again, reiterating, the need for practicality sometimes – SOMETIMES – surpasses the desire to be fashionable.

Back to cargo shorts. Why are they any different from regular shorts? Sure, they have huge pockets, but aren’t pockets a thing we enjoy in life? At least I enjoy being able to carry things with me, not unlike a turtle. My overstuffed purse is testament to this.

I guess I just don’t understand. I also don’t understand the hate for Nickleback, which probably says something about me. Hey, I understand not liking certain bands or musical genres – not everything floats everyone’s musical boats. I just don’t understand the vitriol towards them, or, seemingly relatedly, cargo shorts.

But I am open to (reasonable) debate on those topics.

I will tell you one thing that I don’t understand the seemingly universal love and infatuation with: the poop emoji. Last week when I was at the local amusement park with the kids, I noticed that the majority of the large prizes at the (rigged) games were stuffed poop emojis, replacing the Spongebobs and Pikachus of yesteryear. Why. WHY. Why is this a thing? Why do we want to have our children snuggle with cartoon versions of piles of defecation, or worse, wear those cartoon versions of piles of defecation ON THEIR HEADS.

A smiley face does not counteract the grossness.

A friend (HI JENNIFER) pointed out that there is – and I cannot believe that I am typing this – a “poop emoji cafe” that serves food in toilet shaped bowls, features toilets for chairs, and specializes in chocolate soft serve ice cream someone please stop the madness. I feel ill just thinking about it.

Unless a person is a medical professional specializing in intestinal issues, I do not want to discuss bowel movements. I will talk about facial hair, waxing, ladies’ holidays, and underwear, but this is a bridge too far. What happens in the toilet should stay in the toilet, so let’s pretend that the poop emoji was never invented and instead bring our focus onto the unicorns, diamond rings, coffee, wine, and heart emojis. MAYBE even the taco and/ or eggplant ones if we are feeling saucy and in the mood for sexting, middle-aged style.

Anyway. This is not what I meant to write about today. What I had been meaning to write about was a menu for when it’s too hot to cook. I swear to you that it has actually been – for a couple of days – too hot to cook in Calgary, and that is a thing that is uncommon and rare. My husband took the kids camping on the weekend and for my evening “off” I made a single-girl meal of pesto, guacamole, crackers, dried mangoes, and vodka. It was a thing of beauty. I have an indoor herb garden and the basil was ready to be harvested, and so I made a glorious pesto. I just wish there was more of it! However, I am not suggesting this as a meal plan for everyday.

Lately, when it’s been too hot to cook, I’ve been resorting to simple meals like Greek salad with pita and hummus – for those of you non-dairy types, you can find my recipe for almond feta here. Although, frankly, Greek salad with pita and hummus is on the regular rotation here – it’s a Friday night meal that the guys round out with some sauteed chicken breast.

Other great ideas for simple summer suppers: Lemony Lentil Salad, Sundried Tomato Pasta Salad, Avocado Pasta Salad, and pasta salad with homemade ranch dressing. I also have been making a Thai noodle salad using stir fry noodles, veggies, and a sauce made up of 3 tbsp each soy sauce and rice vinegar, 2 tbsp sesame oil, 1 tbsp each lime juice and brown sugar, with fresh grated ginger and minced garlic, with a spoonful of chili garlic sauce. Veggie wraps (the guys add chicken) are also popular, as are tacos and, of course, barbeque. I am a person who does not use a barbeque because I am terrified of blowing everything up/ burning my hair off, but my husband is quite the griller.

And there is no need to skimp on desserts just because you don’t want to use your oven! Here are some ideas: Avocado Key Lime Pie, Homemade Healthy Fudgsicles, Homemade Dole Whip, Chocolate Covered Strawberries (perfect for the season!), Chunky Monkey Bites, Strawberry Dreamsicles, and YES, I also cannot believe I’m saying this given the political/ emoji climate but HEALTHY CHOCOLATE SOFT-SERVE “NICE” CREAM.

So you see, we have come full circle.

The Ship Is Not Sinking

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Yesterday my yoga friend mentioned this quote in one of her classes:

Ships don’t sink because of the water around them; they sink because of the water that gets in them.

This felt to me like the most profound and apt metaphor for life. This is my new mantra, replacing In The Depth of Winter I Found Within Myself An Invincible Summer, and Serenity Now.

As a sidebar, it is again the depth of winter since it apparently is never going to stop snowing. Well, it’s not currently snowing, but intermittent snowstorms are expected all week, along with freezing temperatures and high winds. Find The Invincible Summer.

They sink because of the water that gets in them, I said to myself several times yesterday as I spent ninety minutes with the internet service provider and then with the router support centre, trying to fix my desktop computer and the internet connection in our house, trying not to panic as I thought of the unfiled tax returns on said desktop. It did, eventually, get fixed and then I FIXED IT AGAIN, MYSELF after a crash immediately following hanging up with router support. Am I an IT person now? I might be.

All is well and my sanity is still intact, the water didn’t get inside my ship. I kept imagining waves of increasing violence slapping up against the starboard bow, as I breathed deeply and tried to calmly describe to the person on the other end of the phone that no, it says I have internet access but I do not actually have internet access. Yes, I did unplug it and then plugged it back in. No, it is still not working. 

After spending the entire afternoon on this issue, I sprinted through a quick cardio workout before grabbing the dog and the leash and heading out to meet Jake on his walk home from school. I was still wearing my workout clothes – athleisure, if you will – and my little ankle socks as I slipped on my waterproof boots, for the slushy walk. I wasn’t more than five steps out of the house before my sock started to slip off my foot, reminding me of that meme that says I Walk Around Looking Like I Have It All Together And Everything’s Fine But Deep Down, Inside My Shoe, My Sock Is Slipping Off.

I kept soldiering on, with my sock half off. The waves are slapping the port bow. 

I have been very much looking forward to my hair appointment, for good reason: I don’t know if my hair is in a super-fast-growth-stage or if I’m just getting more and more grey, but my roots are in an Emergency Situation. This, coupled with the Extremely Dry Ends and Orange Straw Hair has made me eagerly anticipate my rendez-vous with my Hair Therapist. I had written down in my agenda – I use a paper agenda and calendar because I’m an Old Fashioned Girl – that the appointment was for today, at one o’clock.

This morning I was in the shower, not washing my hair, when I thought, Hmm, it’s strange I didn’t get a confirmation phone call. I was putting on my makeup, with my unwashed hair in a bun, and I thought, Hmm, it’s strange I made the appointment for a Tuesday. I always try to book for Wednesdays. Do I even need to say the punchline? I found the little card that I write the appointments down on, that I keep in my wallet, and it said, very clearly, April 26 1:00. I had written it down incorrectly. I had written it down incorrectly and now I was forced to go about my day with dirty hair for no reason.

The truth is that having an appointment today would have been a bit inconvenient; traffic was a snarl all day what with the incessant snow storms, and I was busy all morning which meant I would be out of the house all day, which isn’t great for Barkley, and also Mark had – strangely – an early dismissal day and would be home all afternoon. All signs point to Wednesday Is The Superior Day For A Hair Appointment and yet, I have felt off all day. I am trying to embrace the admittedly much happier situation, but I still feel all weird and unmoored, not unlike a ship out to sea on a stormy day. BUT THE GODDAMN WATER IS NOT GOING TO GET IN.

Clearly, my mental flexibility is a work in progress.

Accomplishing Things and Reading Motivational Quotes

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You guys, the Mayday tree is budding, the tulips are up, all sorts of hardy plants – yarrow, daylilies, ornamental sage – are making their appearance in my backyard, and today it RAINED. Do you know how rare it is to get rain in Calgary in April? Usually it’s snow. I feel like I’m in some exciting new world where winter doesn’t last eight months.

Now that I’ve said that, it will probably snow tomorrow.

Similarly, I realized that it has been over a year since I was last ill. I made it through the entire winter – including close-quartered yoga teacher training when a number of my fellow students were hacking up lungs and feverish – without getting sick. I thought, perhaps I should write a post about that, but then decided that was hubris, and in doing so I was guaranteeing I would be immediately struck down with the bubonic plague. So this brief mention is all you, dear reader, will have to endure. In any case, my “stay healthy” regimen consists mainly of daily smoothies containing 8-10 cups of spinach, washing my hands like a surgeon, never directly touching doorknobs, and having children who are no longer mobile petrie dishes.

I currently have five library books piled up on my side table; four of them came in within two days of each other, and the other one was a title I picked up on a whim, so I’ve been reading a lot. I finished What Alice Forgot, and while it wasn’t my favourite by that author, it was certainly thought-provoking. The premise is a woman falls and hits her head and is suddenly missing the past ten years of her life; she doesn’t remember her children, her friends, her impending divorce.

If you woke up tomorrow with no memory, none whatsoever, of the past ten years, and had to just reintegrate into your regular life, can you imagine what that would be like? Imagine if you still thought you were the same person you were in 2007. It boggles the mind. I had only just started practicing yoga in 2007, I wasn’t 100% vegetarian, I didn’t have a blog, and I looked a lot like this:

Well, I FELT like that, anyway, since I hadn’t slept through the night since 2003, and by that point I was pretty tired. I really looked like this:

Whatever happened to that denim jacket? I guess I donated it; I barely remember it.

Anyway, it’s an interesting thing to think about, if you just erased the past ten years. All the friends that you would have made in the past ten years, you’d have no memory of. The children’s school years, family dramas, deaths, home renovations, etc., all of those would be GONE. My god, I wouldn’t even remember Barkley. I would just suddenly be thrust into a home with a super cute fluffy dog who insistently nudges me when he wants to be petted, and begs for carrot ends.

Well. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.

It’s been a real Get It Done week in the Boyhouse. I don’t know if it’s post-vacation energy or the fact that I’m reading motivational quotes, but I have been Down To Business around here. You know those little jobs that take hardly any time, but are annoying and you hate them? I’ve been doing all those jobs! And I have to say, it is incredibly Empowering (motivational quote-inspired) because damn, now those stupid little things are Done. Going through the pile of mail and filing things and recycling others, picking up boring items at Walmart, vacuuming the stairs. That kind of thing. I feel a vast, and probably greatly overstated, measure of accomplishment in doing those little chores.

I will confess to one of the stupidest jobs that I always put off; I hesitate to even call it a “job” because really, it’s almost nothing. I don’t think this can even qualify as a job, but here goes: Sunday nights I make a big dinner, and usually there is gravy. My gravy boat resides in the cupboard above the fridge, and every Sunday night after the dishes are done, I just let the gravy boat sit on the counter for a day or two before I put it back, because it seems like too much work after all that cooking. Because pulling a chair two feet and then getting on the chair and putting the gravy boat back in the cupboard is just a Bridge Too Far. But having the gravy boat on the counter is incredibly annoying to me, and I keep thinking to myself, all Monday and Tuesday, I need to put the gravy boat away, I need to put the gravy boat away, I need to put the gravy boat away, before I finally do it.

This is a long and boring way to say that last Sunday I just PUT THE GODDAMN GRAVY BOAT AWAY ON SUNDAY NIGHT and honestly, it was – is Life-Changing too dramatic? – Life-Changing. I mean, I have to do it anyway. It takes literally thirty seconds. Why do I aggravate myself by not just doing it? This thought spiraled into other areas in my life. Why put off something that can be done right now, and get it off the Giant List of Things To Do? Why have something as stupid as a gravy boat hanging over me? FREEDOM.

So, I urge you, dear reader: go DO IT. Do whatever it is hanging over your head. Do the thing on your to-do list that will take no time but you don’t want to do it. Make the phone call. Schedule the appointment. Just Do It And Then It Will Be Done, is my new motto. It is incredibly Freeing, I tell you.

Just in case you’re wondering, no, no one else in my house will put away the gravy boat because I have somehow created a Reign of Terror around putting things away incorrectly in the kitchen. I know! I need to figure out how to rectify this issue but in the meantime, Gravy Boat Serenity rests on my shoulders.

The hardest part is getting started

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It’s frigidly cold right now; cold enough for me to drive to pick the boys up from school, when they normally walk home. While I was waiting at the junior high, two girls walked by in the snow, purple and shivering, dressed in ripped skinny jeans, light jackets, and running shoes with no socks. Girls! It’s minus 24! Put on some socks. I had to restrain myself from grabbing the unknown girls and wrapping them in my car emergency blanket.

Last night was the junior high school play and I had promised to go. I was supremely grumpy at the thought: not only was I exhausted, but the thought of going out in the cold and snow AGAIN was too aggravating to even contemplate, not to mention that neither of my kids were actually involved in the play. However, their friends were, and they really wanted to go, so I put on my best Adult Attitude and my favourite lipstick, and drove over to the school. I am happy to report that The Little Mermaid was actually very delightful, and I was impressed with the quality of the singing and set. The boys’ bestie was in one of the biggest roles, and he rocked it. Best of all, I was home by 8:30, so I consider that a massive win.

The whole evening reminded me that, as for everything – exercising, attending something you don’t want to, cleaning up the kitchen after a massive cooking-fest – the Hardest Part Is Getting Started. I’m almost always happy to have Done Something, even when I Desperately Do Not Want To Do Something.

Speaking of things that I’m happy to have done but desperately did not want to do, yesterday I went bathing suit shopping. I know! I wasn’t supposed to buy myself any clothes until my birthday but a) I have been very good about this and b) needs must, sometimes. I needed a bathing suit and for various, uninteresting reasons, I found myself in a bathing suit deficit situation. So I took a deep breath and off I went.

Now, I have no issues with my body. I like my body. I am in the best shape of my life, including those years in university when I went to five step and boxing circuit classes a week, followed by weights and a quick turn on the Stair Master. And still, bathing suit shopping is agonizing.

I think part of it is the lighting. Why is the lighting so poor? Is it like a cult, or prison, where they just want to break your spirit so that you just desperately grasp at anything that fits moderately well, just so you can leave? Another thing is the selection. I went to La Vie En Rose Aqua, and in general I like that store very much. Their online store has a ton of selection but – as I am finding is often the case – instore is a different story. And much as I’d like to just buy something online, with bathing suits it can be tricky, if not impossible. The salesgirl, who was young enough to be my daughter, and not in a “teenage mother” kind of way, either, kept offering to call other stores to see if they had certain items in my size, as if it isn’t actually 2017.

Anyway. I did end up with something I’m very happy with – a black bikini with polka dots and a bandeau-style top – so all is well that ends well. I went into the store thinking I would step way, way out of my comfort zone and buy a NAVY bikini with white polka dots, based solely on the fact that my friend Liv (HI LIV) thinks I should wear more navy, or “black light,” as she calls it. Hilariously enough, her opinion on that stems from this photo of me in my swanky navy mammogram gown. Discovering your colours vis a vis mammogram gowns! But I do agree that it IS a good colour on me, but as soon as I tried on the navy bikini I knew I couldn’t do it. What can I say, colour and I have a shaky relationship. But you knew that already.

Another thing about bikini shopping specifically is that there are two types of tops: those for the busty, and those for the less-gifted. One semi-unpleasant realization, as a Less Gifted Girl, bikini tops geared towards Our Kind seem to be all padded. Sure, you can remove the padding, but who is going to do that in the change room? It is startling, to say the least, to become some kind of Mrs. Robinson-type while trying on bathing suits. I mean, suddenly I had a rack to rival a Victoria Secrets model, in stark contrast to my Sophia Petrillo face. It’s kind of tempting to keep the massive padding in but my bikini goals are now to be comfortable and relatively attractive, but not in a way that will embarrass tween boys. Thus, the bandeau-style top.

And while we are on Unpleasant Topics, it is time change this weekend. So, gear up for a week of crabbiness and general ennui. There is an MLA who has put forth a motion to abolish time change in this province, and I will say that I never thought I would be so positive about our current provincial government. I can’t even go with the semi-sarcastic saying about a blind squirrel getting a nut, because I am so thrilled with the mere possibility. YOU GUYS THIS COULD REALLY HAPPEN! My angst about time change for all these years may be coming to an end! I can’t believe it either! The sham that is time change MAY BE OVER.

I have one simple request: to have sharks with fricking laser beams attached to their heads.

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This week has been a seemingly endless series of irritations, both of the minor kind and of the more sweeping variety, and I have been – possibly due to Female Cyclical Emotional Upheaval – unable to keep my usual Om Shanti outlook and am instead empathizing with Cersei Lannister. Yesterday, I felt that I, too, could happily burn the whole city down while pouring myself a glass of wine.

I won’t go into the sources of all my various irritations, just know that they ran the gamut from pinprick to outright rage-inducing, and yes, I am putting some of the responsibility on myself and my Lady Emotions, but honest to god, encounters like I’ve had this week make me despair for Common Sense and Logical Thought Processes. How does one not suffocate from having one’s head up one’s own ass all the time?

Anyway. Deep breathing and on to less rage-inducing subjects. It is Teacher’s Convention right now, and Family Day is Monday, so the kids are home from school. Yesterday I took Mark to get a haircut at the barber shop in our neighbourhood that we have been frequenting lately (and by “we,” I mean “the kids.”). I walked inside and went to sit down and lo, on the table next to me was a large pile of pornographic magazines. I have so many questions. For one thing, why is porn in barbershops still a thing? It’s pretty awkward when walking in with your twelve-year-old son, who is, happily, oblivious to it. Or so it seems. But really, how many people are going to the barbershop for porn and a haircut? It’s always made me wonder, who are these men (I assume men) who walk in, ask for a trim, and open Penthouse to the centrefold, tilting their heads to get the full view? For another thing, who buys porn anymore? Has the barber never heard of the internet?

Coincidentally enough, I was driving home from yoga and I had the News Talk Radio on, for reasons that I do not understand myself. The radio host mentioned that Playboy is going back to nudes now. Going back to nudes? I thought – and honestly, I am not a person who has ever bought or even really looked at a Playboy, so it could be my own naivete – that Playboy was all nudes. I know people used to say they “bought it for the articles” but I always thought that was just a weird excuse to look at Kaitlyn, age 21, who likes margaritas, movies, and walking on the beach. But I could be wrong, and I probably am, and in any case it was pretty early in the morning so I could have misheard the whole thing. I am not about to look it up, you can believe that. I don’t want anything like that on my search engine and I most certainly don’t want that kind of advertising popping up in my Facebook algorithm.

Last week I was at Costco, and when I was leaving, the older man who checks the carts – and flirts with me – said I had the healthiest cart he had ever seen, and that compliment has been a source of pride and happiness all week. All week. Clearly I have issues that go far beyond the excessive amount of fruit and vegetables I load up with. In a week of annoyances, the memory of that exchange has made me stand straight, with my head up high, even more so than when the drunk guy in front of Walmart said that I sure am a pretty lady.

Well, we all like a good compliment, don’t we? Even when the giver of the compliment is inebriated at 10:30 in the morning.

I was at the salon getting my hair cut and coloured – my hair seems to be growing more rapidly now, which is gratifying but also results in more startling roots – and I spent much of my time reading The Opposite of Loneliness by Marina Keegan. If you haven’t heard about it, the backstory is that Keegan was a rising star in the literary world, and had just graduated from Yale when she was killed in a car accident. When I say “just graduated,” I mean that she died FIVE DAYS after graduation. This book is a compilation of her stories and essays, and is tragic in that she was a beautiful, thought-provoking writer already, at age 22. It’s worth a read, although I found I liked her non-fiction essays much more than her fictional stories. Perhaps I am too old to appreciate the type of fiction that she was writing.

In her title piece, that went viral after her death, she says, quite poignantly in retrospect, “We’re so young. We’re so young. We’re twenty-two years old. We have so much time…What we have to remember is that we can still do anything. We can change our minds. We can start over.” Despite the fact that I am NOT so young – in fact, I am two decades older than the stated age – this spoke to me, as someone who has reinvented her life a number of times. We can do anything, you guys. We can.

And on that note, I am going to get my Friday started, and hopefully it will be less angst-filled than this week has been. It will definitely end with wine though, and I haven’t yet burned the city down OR commissioned sharks with laser beams attached to their heads, so things are looking up. Have a good weekend, my friends. xo

I, for one, welcome Shakira Law and look forward to much dancing in the future.

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This morning I was at the barber shop with my youngest, and I popped on to twitter for only a moment. That moment was long enough to see this:

unnamed

YOU GUYS.

I laughed and laughed because a) I am not and never have been a Tolkien fan, but even I know the Lord of the Rings reference, b) STARBUCKS is giving out FREE ISLAMIC DONUTS, and c) SHAKIRA LAW.

I, for one, would welcome Shakira law, because my hips don’t lie either. We would all be dancing and hip-swiveling until the end of time.

The whole thing is so funny and ridiculous, and it really amused me until the realization hit:

Someone spent time and energy to make an anti-Muslim meme using a photo of a doughnut that was probably created on Pinterest for some kind of Hobbit party. Someone took the time to do this and also conflated Sharia with the fabulous Shakira, which, while funny, is the reason checking spelling is so important. This person also evidently had a grudge against Starbucks, probably because of their red cups.

This right here is the problem with memes. Anyone can say anything at all, and if that meme catches on, it’s passed around Facebook and Twitter and immediately becomes the gospel truth. This is how things like “Irish people were the real original slaves” happen.

Side note: the Irish were undoubtedly mistreated by Americans during their wave of immigration and were certainly, collectively, plagued by hardships. However. If ANYTHING this should be a warning to the public about the dangers of xenophobia.

So I’m sure that doughnut meme probably had a bunch of people up in arms, people who were not interested in Our New Hip Swiveling Overlords, people who immediately boycotted Starbucks and called the police about their brown-skinned neighbours’ suspicious activity of bringing doughnuts to the neighbourhood potluck. I am going to say this once: DO NOT JUST BLINDLY PASS THINGS ALONG IF YOU HAVEN’T DONE ANY CRITICAL THINKING OR RESEARCH REGARDING THE TOPIC. This goes for “news articles” and the like.

Oh, and this isn’t limited to people of a certain political background, because mass meme hysteria can come from any side of the spectrum. For example, the other day I saw one circulating about a certain famous football player who shall remain nameless and it made him look ridiculous. Well, since my husband has had Superbowl talk on all week, I actually saw the interview that the quotes were taken from, and I can tell you that they were not only massively taken out of context, they were not even correct. However, the meme generated a lot of hate for this love-to-hate-him player, which is the goal of the meme-maker, I suppose.

Remember So I Married An Axe Murderer?

Charlie: Hey Mom, I find it interesting that you refer to the Weekly World News as, “The paper.” The paper contains facts.
Charlie’s Mom: This paper contains facts. And this paper has the eighth highest circulation in the whole wide world. Right? Plenty of facts. “Pregnant man gives birth.” That’s a fact.

This should be obvious, but strive not to be like Charlie’s mom.

Actually, maybe it would be kind of fun to make my own meme, like Colonel Sanders Puts An Addictive Chemical In His Chicken To Make You Crave It Fortnightly, and then see how many people immediately boycott KFC. No, that’s not harsh enough. I would have to say that KFC uses kittens that they get from the pound, instead of chicken. Or fetuses*. Because this is what the world has come to.

*KFC does not use fetuses or kittens in their chicken. They use chicken in their chicken. They are still pretty gross, in my humble vegetarian opinion.

Ooh! I know! I could circulate a meme saying that KFC is a front for crystal meth distribution and money laundering*! That’ll get them, those kitten/ fetus fryers!

*That was Los Pollos Hermanos, from Breaking Bad.

The moral of this story is that we should all do our research because in this age of social media, information and misinformation can travel fast. Do your part and do your research. And only pass along memes like this:

Best-funny-Memes-Funnies

Because that is HILARIOUS.

It’s a Festivus for the Rest of Us.

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I am BUZZING on caffeine. It’s 7:14, I’ve been awake for over three hours, and I have people coming over this afternoon. Whee!

Note: I say this like it’s something unusual but the fact is I am almost always awake around 4, so it’s just like a regular day, with the exception that it is December 23:

I’ve been on a bit of a tear this week, with baking too many things and cleaning way too much. On Wednesday, I had that feeling that all is a shambles and so I recruited the children for some good, old-fashioned housecleaning. You know the kind: scrubbing down the kitchen cupboards, cleaning behind the garbage cans, dusting all surfaces and baseboards, and re-sealing all the granite, all to the tune of “80s Yacht Rock” on Spotify. The children went along with it, probably in fear for their lives.

I am a very organized person and I’ve been “ready” for Christmas for a while – gifts purchased long ago, wrapped weeks ago, baking done (and consumed by the children, so this is more of an ongoing thing). However, purchasing groceries is not something that can really be done in advance, unless you’re into rotten vegetables and mouldy bread. So, yesterday I took a deep breath and went to Superstore.

Holy moly, even in the morning it was insane: the parking lot was packed, people were everywhere. I listened to Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch “Good Vibrations” on my way, just to get myself in the right head space. The only way out is through, I said to myself, as I breathed deep ujjayi breaths, maneuvering into a parking spot far from the entrance. I vowed to just smile at everyone I saw, to really embody the Christmas spirit.

The first person I smiled at was an old man at the cart corral. This led to a brief flirtation – what can I say, I’m irresistible to the septuagenarian set – and I noted that there were very few cars in the corral, an ominous sign. The old man wished me a Merry Christmas and said “I hope we all took our patience pills!” as we went in. I’m going in.

It was pretty crazy but I kept smiling like an escaped lunatic who just wanted some nice produce and also some Motrin and tofu. It doesn’t matter how long this takes, I kept thinking to myself as I tried to wheel my giant cart around a crowd of other carts and an employee with a giant dolly of items to restock, It doesn’t matter in the long run. I can be here all morning. What difference will it make? I did make it out, finally, and then I went to the liquor store along with – apparently – every old person within a ten kilometre radius. What is with all the elderly? This isn’t Co-Op.

One of my favourite wines, as I’ve said before, is Middle Sister. It speaks to me, as a middle sister (well, middle child and sister so technically Middle Sister is an accurate description). I love how they often change the labels. My favourite was “After waking up at Stupid O’Clock this morning, I’m looking forward to Wine O’Clock tonight.” which aptly describes every Friday of my life. But they’ve changed the labels again and this is my new favourite:

 middlesister2 

Santa Baby, just slip a bottle of Cabernet under the tree, for me. Been an awful good girl.

All of which is to say I am now completely “ready for Christmas,” food and all. There were many, many awful things in 2016, but there is much still to celebrate, and I hope you and yours can enjoy a peaceful, joyful, wonderful holiday season, with or without feats of strength and airing of grievances. xo

tree

ball

charlie

barkley

littlecreche