Category Archives: My failing sanity

Nature, Nurture, Nerd

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I am very accustomed to drawing a lot of attention on my daily walk, because I am accompanied by a living embodiment of a gigantic cartoon dog whose facial expression is exactly this for the duration:

Every day people pass me and actually laugh at him, in a good-natured, look at that silly dog kind of way. He’s a happy guy is something I hear many times a week. I am constantly being stopped and asked what breed he is, how much he weighs, what is his name, can they pet him.

So I’m used to attention and being stopped and spoken to, and therefore I thought nothing of it as a gentleman jogger approached me and started talking. He wanted to let me know that there was a vole on the path that didn’t seem to be moving. I was happy for this information so that I could be on guard. Last week on a walk Rex pounced into a garden full of daylilies and, startlingly, half-killed a small bird, leaving it flapping and bleeding on the sidewalk. It was, needless to say, very upsetting.

It reminded me of how Barkley, who looked exactly like a Gund stuffed animal, was actually a blood-thirsty killer. He once cornered and caught a squirrel and then tried to break its neck, he mangled a bird in our backyard that I THINK was already knocked out by hitting a window, but who knows, maybe Barkley was faster than I thought, and, unspeakably, ate an entire mouse, which I found out the hard way. Do not ask me what that hard way was, let us never speak of this again.

What I am saying is that I am no stranger to horror masked in furry adorableness.

I appreciated the public service announcement about the vole, not wanting another to deal with another harrowing Rex-versus-small-wildlife incident. Less appreciated was the way the man kept looking at my chest as if I was Marilyn Monroe reincarnated. I thanked him and went on my way.

It was so strange, every man who passed me kept glancing at my chest and then smiling at me. This would have been par for the course back in my youth; in those days, men had no compunction about ogling a young woman’s chest in a not-secret way, and also I was a lot more, shall we say, gifted back then. However, in the year of our lord 2024, I like to think that ogling isn’t the socially-sanctioned pastime it used to be, and also, the girls are not the glorious globes that they once were. Not to be too descriptive, but let’s think of semi-deflated water balloons, and you’ll probably have a good idea why I never go braless. Well, that and I can’t stand the feeling of being free and floppy.

On the way to the family reunion in August, we had stopped at my aunt’s house and I ended up visiting with one of my older cousins who I don’t see often at all. He told me that he had stopped using social media as his wife was worried about internet safety and stalking, to which I replied that I had reached a stage in life where I would be a little flattered to have a stalker. I was, of course, joking – NO ONE STALK ME PLEASE – but I thought of that as I walked with Rex, being the recipient of many chest-glances. I had this strange mix of what is with all these creepy perverts at 7:30 am and still got it, baby. As I have said many times before: life is a tapestry.

It wasn’t until I got back to my car and caught a glimpse at my reflection in the window when I remembered what tee I had pulled on that morning.

Well. That explained that.

It is widely believed that dogs react to the energy of the household and take on personality aspects of the owners, and I think that has been very true in my case with both Rex and Barkley. Those aspects do not, however, overpower their inherent nature, as evidenced by the fact that when opportunity strikes, they become killing machines disguised as fuzzy cutesters.

And for me, there is no overcoming my natural nerdy tendencies, particularly when it comes to announcing such tendencies to the world, and completely forgetting such announcements.

Weekly Reading

Speaking of (book) nerdy tendencies, I had a couple of interesting and thought-provoking reads this week. I have a lot to say, so buckle up!

Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story. About her best friend, the author of this memoir wrote: “It was that she felt, in certain ways, fatigued by our friendship. I was always in the midst of some dramatic transformation…I was always poised at the threshold of some major change, or reeling in its aftermath. She said ‘It gets exhausting.’” I feel like that summarizes my experience reading this book – which, I will hasten to add, is absolutely gorgeously written and completely compelling. But it is kind of exhausting and I feel like if I was this woman’s friend, I would feel similarly fatigued. The author is a sober alcoholic who essentially transfers her neediness and addictive behaviour to the care of her infant daughter. I mean, I feel for this child. I cannot imagine what her life is going to be like in the future. Anyway, the author separates from her husband, who, by the way, is a widower and still grieving his first wife and really, THIS IS A BAD IDEA. They were in couples therapy when they decided I know, let’s have a baby to fix this marriage, which, no no no no no. Surprise surprise, the marriage is in shambles, and the author rails against custody for him, not because he isn’t a caring father – he has a child from his first marriage who is mentioned only as a passing fact once – but because she doesn’t want her baby to be away from her. She doesn’t want her baby to have two homes. The description of her marriage reminds me of my theory that relationships between two creatives are usually doomed. I’m sure the blame goes both ways, there are two sides to every story and her ex does sound like a dreadful, angry man. But also? His first wife just died of cancer and he was writing a book about the experience while he was married to this author. SO MUCH TO UNPACK. Anyway, post-separation she very quickly becomes involved with a man who doesn’t believe in monogamy, but she can CHANGE HIM. Well, until he gives her chlamydia. Here is the PSA I will put into the world: girls, you will never change him. People are who they are, do not go into a relationship thinking well, I can fix that. It’s not fair to either party. This is such a chaotic memoir but who wants to read about a dull life? I couldn’t put this down, honestly, so well done, I guess? I applaud the author for her vulnerability and also her self-awareness. It takes a lot of bravery to paint such an unflattering portrait of oneself.

A History of Burning. CANADIAN AUTHOR ALERT! Wow, this is an absolutely incredible epic story of a family, spanning 1898 in India to 1992 in Canada. The family starts with a teenage boy living in poverty in India; he is promised a job and a better life, and ends up, unknowingly, getting on a rickety boat heading to what is now Kenya to build the railroad. He realizes the terrible things he needs to do just to survive and to find that better life, and he does them. He ends up in Uganda, where his family lives for seven decades before being ousted by Idi Amin’s rule. There they go to Canada, which ends up not to be the promised land for “their kind,” but they work to build that better life and community. It is devastatingly sad, heart-pumpingly terrifying, and incredibly touching story. It is so well done, so thoughtful, so perceptive, so eye-opening. There is a very interesting literary device: each chapter is told from the point of view of a different character, in the third person close, until about 2/3 of the way through the book, in which it switches to first person for one character only. This line near the end summarizes everything: “They left to keep their family whole, something their ancestors had understood. But this time, it was their choice…How sometimes, holding on required letting go.” Chills!

Speaking of letting go and nature versus nurture, this weekend I listened to a podcast about, of all things, Finding Nemo. It has been many, many years since I have seen that movie, but it was interesting to hear the discourse about parenting styles and anxious overparenting. I listened to this podcast just after I had been subjected to a very tiresome conversation about being a parent of adult children, and as I listened I couldn’t stop considering it. I think I have completely morphed, parenting-wise, into Crush the turtle. There was a Dory quote discussed a lot in the podcast: If nothing ever happens to him, then nothing will ever happen to him and here I am, quoting words of wisdom from a cartoon fish.

On that note, I hope you all have a wonderful week in which lovely things happen to all of you. xo

Don’t It Make My Pink Jobs Blue

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In grad school I had a copy of the Feminist Manifesto, along with a poster of a fish riding a bicycle, taped to the walls of my office, and I feel that says everything you need to know. I am firmly a Rosie the Riveter woman at heart, and yet in the past two and a half decades, I have become a little lazy and complacent. My husband is an incredibly handy person, and so I have just let all jobs requiring handiness to slide into his corner; in theory I do not believe in gendered division of labour, but my practice seems to tell a different story.

Right now, my husband is on a weeks-long trip with my older son, and is mostly out of cell phone range.

In the past week since he has been gone, I have dealt with a non-working air conditioner along with a weird communication problem with the air conditioning people, I have learned about the issue with the air conditioner and how to keep it working until the part for the permanent solution arrives, I have destroyed and cleaned up an ant infestation, and I have resolved an issue with our water filtration system. All of these situations arose the second he left town, and really could not wait until his return. Particularly the ants.

Actually, dealing with the ants was the easiest of all. After using the shop vac and some seemingly useless ant traps, I overcame my distaste for harsh chemicals, and committed what can only be described as chemical warfare on my baseboards. It was ant carnage. Typically I am a person who saves insects and puts them outside, but a colony of ants taking up residence in my kitchen is an entirely different story. Once I saw a few of them on my countertop it was an all-out war.

The problem with the air conditioning means that I am checking the heat pump every morning for error messages, and happily it has been working. Less happily, while checking the heat pump I heard a beeping alarm and figured out it was coming from the water filtration system, something I know basically nothing about. I started to low-level panic, but I remembered what my cousin Cory’s wife Barb said to me last weekend when I told her about my complete ineptitude regarding vehicular maintenance: You know, Nicole, there is always a user manual.

YES. I am a smart woman, I thought, I can figure this out. I found the user manual. I discovered that the UV lamp and something called a quartz sleeve needed replacing. There were many pages of steps to do so, and I am extremely poor at doing anything requiring mechanical ability or hand-eye coordination, but my younger son is very good at those things. If there is one thing I can do, it’s read, and if there are two things I can do, it is to dictate and delegate. I thought he could do the work and I could read the directions and talk him through it.

We just needed the parts.

I searched the product’s website and found a local distributor. I called, and talked to a lovely fellow named Brent, who assured me that they did have that exact UV lamp in stock, and yes, they were open all day. I cheerfully said I would come by and pick it up, and oh, by the way, did they have this quartz sleeve thing? At this point, Brent interrupted me, in a voice that was tinged with what can only be described as alarm, to ask if I was a “mechanical kind of person.” Probably he wouldn’t ask a man that, but believe me, I was happy he did, because he said it was a “pretty complicated fix” and that many had tried, but not many had succeeded in replacing the quartz sleeve. The uptake of this whole conversation was that this was a service he could provide, and am I free Tuesday? I sure am, and knowing this was a service I could pay for would have saved me twenty minutes of conversation, but I was relieved that this precluded me probable crying bouts and possibly a having flood or contaminated water.

Speaking of floods, the family reunion took place in a campground, and my parents, along with other relatives, had secured the services of a company that rents trailers; the company sets it all up, and all you need to do is show up. Perfection! I was sleeping in a bunk bed, which I haven’t done since I was at actual sleepaway camp, and, predictably, I fell out of it on the first night. I was climbing down to use the bathroom at 3 in the morning but my foot got caught up in my sleeping bag, and I ended up falling on the floor with a dramatic bang. My mother sat up, screaming What happened? She was right to be alarmed, not because I was hurt – I wasn’t really – but because so many things had already gone wrong with our little trailer. She probably thought the whole thing exploded or something. Prior to my tumble, the handle broke off of what we learned the hard way was a non-working fridge, slicing my finger as it broke, we discovered that the water heater and shower were both non-functional, and, probably relatedly, the water in the trailer was slowly leaking out of the bottom, resulting in an enormous puddle underneath. Do you know your trailer is leaking? every single person asked us, but fortunately, the aforementioned Cousin Cory, a seasoned RVer, managed things. Cory also thought that the loud bang in the night was someone breaking into his storage container, and so he was pretty happy that it was just me, falling out of bed. By the end of the next day, every single relative, including small children, had asked me if I was okay after my fall, so news travels fast.

Coming home to the ant situation was actually better than the biting fly situation we had at the campground. If ever you want to be protected from biting insects, please sit beside me. I am a magnet for them. Everyone else is safe around me. My lower legs, and my ankles in particular, look like I have a mix between the chicken pox and leprosy. I guess my foot fetish Only Fans page will have to wait another day.

On the topic of feet, Rex was absolutely filthy by the time I picked him up from the boarding kennel; his white paws were a gross shade of beige. He was pretty grubby going in, but after a week of playing with all the other dogs, the situation was dire. This is not my first dog boarding rodeo, so I had the foresight to book him in a few days after his return, and he was so beautifully clean for three hours, at which time he went rolling in the dusty dry grass. I knew the gig would be up after his walk the following day anyway.

As Rex repeatedly rolled around, getting dirty, I was busy in my garden, which, in my absence, had gone completely rogue. I had picked all the zucchinis before I left, and still, this was waiting for me on my return:

That was from one day, and I have picked multiple zucchinis since. I am overwhelmed by zucchini, and also tomatoes:

Also: my first red peppers!

The greens are all done for the year, though, and so I am going to replant in a week or two when it’s not so hot. I’ve always dreamed of having a “fall garden” so I hope this works.

Weekly Reading

I Capture The Castle. I had never even heard of this book until Engie (HI ENGIE) suggested it for the Cool Bloggers Book Club, which I highly suggest you join! You neither have to be cool nor a blogger, but you should probably read the book. I won’t put my thoughts here – I usually read the books on schedule but I had this from the library and it had to go back, so I raced through it – instead, I will be commenting at the book club. I will say that it was absolutely NOTHING like I expected, and also, I am happy to be alive in the year 2024. Look around, look around, how lucky we are to be alive right now.

No One Tells You This. The author of this book is the creator of the excellent podcast Wilder, which I totally recommend, but that’s not why I picked this book up. I heard her speaking on another podcast, and she told an anecdote about her mother, who had struggled with her weight her whole life. The author went to see her when she was dying of Parkinson’s-related dementia, and was taken aback by how terribly thin she was. The author’s mother was excited – so very happy – about her newfound thinness, in the face of her imminent death, and this was so poignant and moving that I knew I’d have to read it. “Look how thin I am! Can you believe it?” she says over and over. This is a very engaging memoir of a single, childfree woman in the year after she turned forty. Two parts especially of note: when she is a waitress, and tells a coworker she’s envious of a starlet who walks in. “‘Oh no’, she said, turning to me sternly, ‘don’t you think that. She has plenty of her own problems which are just as terrible to her as yours are to you.'” She also talks about her friends: “It was only fifteen years later…that I understood that sometimes saving someone simply means opening the door, letting them in for a deeply mundane holiday celebration, and asking absolutely nothing of them other than that they take up the space you’ve made for them.” It was a beautiful story of a woman working through her own life.

Speaking of a woman working through her life, last week felt like it was three months long, dealing with so many issues. Let’s hope that this week is much more smooth, and that you all are gliding through August with style! And hopefully not broken air-conditioning. xo

Poison

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My husband is always incredibly supportive and encouraging of anything I decide to do, and so last August when I told him that I wasn’t up to teaching yoga in our new city – the thought of starting over was overwhelming and discouraging, and it felt like time for a pivot – he was in full agreement. When I quietly mused about taking a creative writing course with the thought of writing a book, he was one hundred percent on board immediately. Of course I could write a book! It would be a best seller! Maybe even on Oprah’s book club! I don’t even know if Oprah still has her book club, and it feels aspirational just to get it finished and maybe published, as well as highly unlikely it will ever get to best seller stage, but it’s nice to have such blindly enthusiastic support.

That same supportive husband accidentally poisoned me last week.

Now, clearly I am not writing this beyond the grave – or am I? – so this poisoning was pretty mild. And there was nothing nefarious to it – I think? – but before we get to that, I was reminded of an exchange between myself and my mother-in-law several weeks ago.

She was pulling up her rhubarb in the garden, and my feelings about rhubarb are not as strong as my feelings about celery, but they are close, and so I was assuring her that no, I did not want any. The leaves were enormous, I would say almost three feet long, and my mother-in-law asked me if I knew that the leaves of the plant are poisonous.

I did know this, which begs the question: what person in history found this plant with incredibly toxic leaves, the root of which is so sour and awful that it requires pounds of sugar to make it palatable, and thought hey, what a great idea for dessert.

Getting back to the foliage, I recapped an Alice Munro story for my mother-in-law, one in which the protagonist concocts baked goods with the toxic leaves, in order to seek revenge on her cheating husband. My mother-in-law listened intently, nodding, and then said That seems pretty slow. I can think of a faster way to get rid of the cheating bastard. True, but also, that would be an entirely different short story.

Now, lest you draw any parallels between these two story threads, my semi-poisoning was not a result of me stepping out on my marriage, nor did it have anything to do with rhubarb and baked goods. It did, however, involve a veggie burger.

My husband was festively preparing to grill burgers for the family plus our houseguest, and while rummaging through the freezer, he noticed that I had not one but three different kinds of veggie burgers. He mentioned that in addition to a few boxes from Costco, there was an open box with chickpea and sweet potato burgers; ever since Costco discontinued my beloved chipotle black bean burgers, life has been but dull and meaningless from a veggie burger standpoint, and so I agreed to the latter type. It all seemed very innocuous, until later in the evening, when I was feeling uncomfortably bloated. I chalked it up to eating a big slice of Guinness cake, took a Benadryl for my many mosquito bites, and went to bed.

I woke up a few hours later feeling like Count Almasy returning from the desert – I have been WALKING for three DAYS – and I could not get enough water. The next morning I dragged my strangely exhausted self out of bed and, getting dressed, I couldn’t help but notice my stomach. Now, perimenopause has given me a soft, cuddly tummy, but this was not that. It was distended to resemble, both in size and firmness, that which I had when I was approximately five months pregnant, which extended to six months after drinking my morning water. I and my stomach went through my normal morning routine, but I was dizzy and fatigued, and, distressingly, when I got home from my Rex walk, I was completely uninterested in breakfast. Not only was I not hungry, but I was also strangely repulsed by even the thought of consuming anything at all, except more water.

I continued on with my day, but by the time I had showered and not had lunch, I was exhausted from just existing, so I thought I should sit down for a moment. Something that you should know about me is that during the day I am almost never tired, and I never “sit down for a moment” without some seated project like reading, writing, or Duolingoing in mind. I immediately fell asleep in my chair.

At this point in the Trifecta Of Weird Things, I was getting suspicious. No one else felt off in any way, and so my husband inspected the package of veggie burgers, and they had expired eight months ago.

Now, typically we cycle through food very quickly, the exception being veggie burgers as I am the only one who eats them. But we have been in this house less than a year, and is it too much to ask of a frozen food to still be good after eleven months? I really don’t know.

You poisoned me! I kept saying to my husband before dozing off again, as he gave the package the side-eye. Now, to be sure, it wasn’t terrible in a Praying For The Sweet Release Of Death kind of way. I wasn’t – how to put this delicately – expelling anything in any way, but I was experiencing considerable stomach pain, so much so that I started googling things like intestinal blockage signs of and sudden onset Crohn’s disease. My algorithm should be interesting now.

It took 24 hours of no eating, plus another two days before I felt like myself again, and my faux pregnancy has subsided to my usual soft, cuddly tummy. But you can bet I’m keeping my eye on that husband of mine. If he starts concocting suspicious-looking baked goods, I’m sounding the alarm.

Weekly Reading

A huge upside to enforced rest due to accidental poisoning is that I got quite a bit of reading done.

Refuse To Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts. This book has some very helpful advice about editing and revising, which I am taking to heart. One of the books I read this week could have really used this. Thanks for the recommendation, Laura (HI LAURA!).

Peacocks of Instagram. WOW. You know I love a collection of short stories, but a collection of interconnected short stories by a female Canadian author? SIGN ME UP. I loved these slice-of-life, ordinary-yet-extraordinary stories about safety, privilege and the lack of it, and when a person can call a place home. Big thank you to Pearl (HI PEARL) for mentioning this!

The Idea of You. Okay. First of all, this book has legions of fans and has been made into a movie, so kudos to the author for this level of success. In fact, the way I heard about this book was from one of those fans, and the premise sounded kind of interesting: 40-year-old woman meets her 12-year-old daughter’s favourite boy band, and ends up having an affair with one of the 20-year-old members. I think this band is roughly based on One Direction. Given all the real life examples of wildly May-December relationships – Al Pacino, Robert de Niro, BILL BELICHICK WTF GRANDPA, LEAVE THE 24 YEAR OLD GIRL ALONE – I thought, hell yeah, older woman, let’s fucking go. Well. Was I wrong. As I said, a very successful book but so not for me. The writing is SO bad, I can hardly even describe how bad it is. About 80% of this book is soft-core porn-level sex scenes in a variety of luxurious locales – think Aspen, Anguilla, Cote d’Azur – and the other 20% is worry about her daughter finding out about the affair, angst when she does find out about the affair, the ocean of fans who suddenly hate this woman for having sex with this Harry Styles-like boy band member and how they make her life hell, and some boring parts about art. Here’s an example of the writing that probably says it all: “And how in God’s name had I ended up here, on my knees in a five-star hotel, sucking some guy in a boy band’s dick? And dear Lord, please don’t ever let my daughter do this.” I mean there’s a part where she is upset because a paparazzi photo of them in flagrante goes viral, and she talks about her life being ruined, how she’s going to lose her daughter, her gallery, everything. Her life is a complete shambles, she says. Then, the next sentence: “But you are really, really good at eating pussy, so maybe it was worth it.” Honestly, I think the author could have used an editor, or at least the Refuse To Be Done book, but what do I know, she’s crying all the way to the bank.

Amazing Grace Adams. Well this was quite the ride! This novel follows a woman who has just Had Enough and has a bit of a breakdown, leaving her car parked in traffic to walk to deliver a cake for her daughter’s sixteenth birthday. It’s kind of wild, this book that both takes place over just a few hours, interspersed with multiple timelines from the past. We, the reader, are meant to believe that this breakdown is entirely spurred on by perimenopausal symptoms, the stress of mothering a teen girl, and her work-life balance, and the whole time I kept thinking okay, okay, a bit dramatic, but okay. But then! There is a big reveal, and things started to make sense, but then! There is a OMG HUGE REVEAL and everything, everything clicks into place and wow, what a well done book. In the acknowledgements, the author says she was inspired by the movie Falling Down, and yes, that really tracks. Thanks to Anna (HI ANNA) for the recommendation!

We are having a bit of a heat wave right now, and other than having to walk Rex super-early in the morning to beat the heat I am so here for it. Summer! Bring it all on! I hope you are having a beautiful, summery week as well, with no poisoning, accidental or otherwise. xo

Influential

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It’s been a hectic week, full of super-boring and tedious errands and chores, including, but not limited to, Costco, Superstore, the post office, the mall, a meeting with the lawyer to get our updated wills signed, and not one but two trips to Service Canada for passport applications.

At Service Canada, there is a lineup to be assessed for what kind of government service is required, where the desk person ascertains that all paperwork and documentation is in order, and then a number is given to wait for the actual service. On Monday, the fellow in front of me was applying for a passport and I overheard him admit that no, he did not have his birth certificate, at which point he was turned away, dejectedly, to apparently drive back across the lake to the west side to fetch it and return later, on this, his only day off. My husband and I merely needed a straightforward renewal, but because the boys are now adults, they are not able to do this, instead they needed to apply for an adult passport; I inwardly sighed with relief because I HAD brought their birth certificates, so I felt this would be a relatively easy process.

At this point, of course, you should realize that in the soundtrack of my life, ominous music would be playing.

It turns out that birth certificates and their old, non-expired passports were not enough; I needed to also bring their drivers’ licenses. Now, I did not ask what if they don’t have one, because of course they do, but I did ask how I could possibly do this, since they work and need their licenses to, you know, drive to work. Well, the answer was that I needed to simply photocopy both sides and then get their guarantor to sign and date them, and then come back, easy peasy. I was frustrated, but as we know, there is zero upside to vocally or visibly show frustration with any kind of service employees; as well as being unkind it will not change the situation. So I went ahead with my husband’s and my passport renewal, and then left to continue on with my epic week of errands.

The next day I came back with the photocopied and signed drivers’ licenses, and found myself once again sitting in the waiting area, patiently reading a book. I noticed a woman across from me with her daughter, who was maybe six or seven; she had paper and a clipboard, and they were passing the time by playing a word guessing game, like hangman without the death-figure. It was so like something I would have done with my own kids at that age, that I couldn’t help but gaze fondly at them; she caught me looking, and I smiled and looked down at my book, which was, appropriately enough for this fuzzy warm moment, Momfluenced.

Recently Lisa (HI LISA) said to me that parenting is so performative now; I kept thinking of that statement as I read this deep dive into the strange world of momfluencers, women who earn money on Instagram photographing their lives and their children for all the Internet world to see.

Performative parenting has not been part of my experience at all, in fact, the entire concept of momfluencers really passed me by. When my kids were babies, I didn’t even have a smartphone, let alone social media; I think I obtained an Instagram account when they were nine and ten, and so I never was touched by that whole trend. What I did have, introduced to me via Babycenter newsletters, were mommy blogs.

I wonder if it’s a generational thing. Mommy blogs in the 2000s were almost exclusively devoid of advertising dollars, and almost exclusively written by Gen X women who were not afraid to say Huh, this really sucks sometimes, rather than write about motherhood in the glowing, sugar-coated way that it had been written about up to that point. Viciously mean commenters aside, we all felt free to express that sometimes things were really messy and hard, and we didn’t feel a need to put a filter on our lives. We were all just doing our best, even though that “best” was not picture-perfect by any means. Mommy blogs were a source of comfort and community for those of us stunned by the dissonance between what we thought going to the playground would be like, versus the reality.

I remember very little from 2004, and almost nothing at all from 2005-2007, which is something no one really warns you about. I vaguely remember how difficult it was to leave the house, particularly in winter, and I also remember how chronically exhausted I was, but mostly I remember being really, really lonely almost all of the time. There is nothing more isolating than being home with two babies under two; it’s so hard to go out and do things, the days are so busy and yet there seems to be so little to show for that busyness, and everything is so mind-numbingly boring. I wonder how I would have felt, if scrolling through Instagram was possible during late-night feedings, as opposed to the informercials I found myself watching, or the reruns of MASH.

I guess comparison is a game we all play at some point in our lives. I found this book, Momfluenced, pretty fascinating because it was so well balanced and thought out, and written in a very casual and informal way, which made for an easy read of a very complicated subject. I have pretty mixed feelings on influencing in general; I want women to be able to earn money, and if they are earning money from their daily lives and even, maybe, from their parenting duties – what detergent do YOU use to get your kids’ vomit out of bedsheets – well, that’s great, it’s an upside to unending, typically unpaid drudgery. But I do find it kind of distasteful and morally ambiguous to use kids as props for your soft-focus, photographic earnings, particularly children who cannot give permission for this. On the other hand, if those earnings are put aside for those children…I suppose it’s no different from children working as actors or models, but then, I have mixed feelings on that as well.

It’s a complicated subject, and an interesting book, and meanwhile, as I looked at the woman with her daughter, I wished I had my own word game to play, pencil to paper. Did I just get momfluenced to buy some old-school word puzzle books? Maybe I did.

Weekly Reading

Besides Momfluenced, I got quite a bit of reading done, thanks to waiting areas and a rainy weekend.

Old Babes In The Wood. A new collection of short stories by Margaret Atwood! Fans of Moral Disorder, like me, will be thrilled to find that the first three and the last four stories feature Nell and Tig, if you know, you KNOW. The last two are very touching, and if you recall, Atwood’s longtime partner Graeme Gibson sadly passed in recent years; these stories seem like a loving tribute to him. The stories that are sandwiched between the Nell and Tig stories are a bit too paranormal and supernatural than I tend to like, but if you’re a person who enjoys that, you’ll enjoy those too.

What My Bones Know. The role that mental health plays into the physical body is so interesting to me; trauma can surface as physical symptoms many years later. This memoir replays the author’s terrible childhood of abuse, and how it affected every area of her life: her personality, her relationships, her ability to communicate, her mental health, and, also, her physical well-being. It’s a fascinating discussion of healing, intergenerational trauma, and the immigrant experience. 

One Last Summer. I have been so excited to read this, as I loved In A New York Minute, by the same author. I liked, but did not love, this book about friends reuniting for one last summer before their beloved camp is sold to a big glamping corporation. There is a nice storyline about friendship, and a sexy crush, and lots of camp shenanigans, but something about it left me feeling kind of indifferent. Maybe my expectations were too high? Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice beachy, summery read; I think I just wanted something different.

Speaking of summer, this week has been absolutely gorgeous and I have had full-on summer feelings, but this weekend was pretty chilly and rainy. Do you know who doesn’t like getting caught in the rain? Rex.

The trouble is, when we are walking a 5-6 km loop, and rain starts halfway, there’s nothing for it but to keep going. I got up super early on Sunday morning to walk him before the rain started, just to escape those accusing eyes. I hope you all had a beautiful weekend. xo

The Return of Baloo

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At about 2:30 in the morning last Thursday, I woke up with a start. I could hear a loud, strange, repetitive noise; sort of like a scraping sound. At first, in my sleepy fog, I thought one of the boys was either coughing or vomiting, and I got up to investigate. Their bathroom door was open and the room was dark and empty empty; both of their doors were firmly shut with no lights coming through the bottoms. I stood there, listening for a few minutes, but I didn’t hear anything. I chalked it up as a weird dream – I have been taking magnesium at night, and I find I sometimes get strange, vivid dreams – and went to bed.

My usual wake time is 4:00, and that day was no exception. I trundled out of bed, whispered good morning to my younger son who also gets up at that hour for work, and padded downstairs. At the bottom of the stairs is a very large window that looks out towards my mother-in-law’s house and, crucially for this story, the side lawn. There, on the side lawn, directly outside the large window, was a very large bear, tearing up a garbage bag and eating its contents.

I stood there, stunned, for just a moment before running up the stairs to grab my son who was, understandably, a little confused at my scream whispers to come here come here come here. He followed me down the stairs so we both could stare at the bear, wondering what to do.

I had to do something. As anyone who has been around wildlife knows, one cannot allow wildlife to eat garbage. Particularly one cannot allow a bear to eat garbage; bears can get easily habituated to it and to people, and that can end up with a problem bear, one who would be in danger of being “destroyed,” as they euphemistically say. But what to do?

The next day, when I related this story to Kate, the woman who does my sugaring, she immediately asked if I had heard about all the internet discourse about whether a woman, alone in the woods, is safer if she meets a man or a bear. “What my first question is,” Kate said, pausing mid-sugar as I had my knee into my chest, naked from the waist down, “Is what kind of bear are we talking about?” That was exactly my question too; the answer is very different between grizzly and black bear, and although I would never discount another woman’s lived experience or trauma, no matter how you slice it, bears are really fucking scary.

This bear, I could tell, was a black bear with brown fur. Because it wasn’t a grizzly, I took a chance on what to do. I knocked on the window. The bear looked up at me and continued to go through the garbage. I knocked a few more times, locking eyes with it in the most aggressive way I could, through a window and still kind of terrified. It got up and lumbered up through the vineyard, to go paw through the neighbouring houses’ garbage, as I found out later that morning.

The reason I bring up the type of bear is that a grizzly could charge, possibly through the window, with that kind of aggressive behaviour from me. I had to take a few deep breaths just typing that. As it was, a giant bear ten feet away from me, even through a window, was extremely unsettling.

I had to go out and clean up the garbage, because I couldn’t risk it coming back for it, but I was terrified. My son and I ascertained the coast was clear, and I ran out, where I discovered where the scraping noise had come from – the black bin we share with my mother-in-law was knocked on its side and pulled away from its usual spot. I cleaned up the garbage, trying not to heave as I picked up my mother-in-law’s kitchen waste that included a lot of slimy eggshells and various meat bones. I locked the garbage up in the shed, which we should have been doing weeks ago, after hibernation season. Better late than never, I guess.

By this time Rex was awake in his crate, and I knew he had to go out. Dogs need to go out in the morning! But I also didn’t want him to be mauled, obviously, and I sent out deep exhalations of gratitude for the large windows. Typically I let him out without a thought, and imagine if I had done that first thing in the morning? I don’t want to imagine it, actually.

I took my big flashlight and went out with him, shining the light around and checking the area frantically. Rex was also checking the area frantically, sniffing and following the scents of the bear on the lawn and into the vines. I looked up to see my mother-in-law at her kitchen window, with the light on. She waved at me and I scurried over to her house. She met me at the door, mistaking the look on my face for concern over her well-being. “I’m fine, dear,” she said, “I was just getting up to use the bathroom and I could see you out here with your flashlight.”

At that point I started incoherently saying words like “bear” and “garbage” and “ahhhhhh!” Here’s a hint for all of you living next door to your octogenarian mother-in-laws, maybe don’t barrage them with bear information at 4:30 in the morning. Maybe wait until later in the morning when you’re calmer. As it was, my frantic demeanor got her so worked up that I literally worried that she was going to have a stroke, but on the upside, she texted everyone in the neighbourhood, who informed her that they too had had an ursine visitor, with scattered garbage to show it.

She missed one person, though, which I found out the next day when Rex and I went in the early morning hours to take the garbage to the street for pickup. Someone had brought their bin up the night before, and it was knocked over, garbage scattered all over the street, to the delight of the magpies.

It’s a stressful situation. It is very unnerving to know that I could look out the window to see a bear; it’s fuel for nightmares, honestly. Even after moving the garbage, the next day it meandered around our house, going through our recycling, which is probably disappointing for it to find nothing but cardboard and washed-out yogurt containers. The very best case scenario is that, in the absence of easily-accessible garbage, the bear will move on in time, and I don’t really want to think about any other scenarios.

Later on Thursday, my son came home from his job at the golf course to show me a photo of a mama coyote with seven – seven! – pups, not fifty feet from the bunker he was working on. Between this and the deer, marmots, and thousands of birds and squirrels I encounter every day, I’m starting to feel like I’m starring in an episode of Lorne Greene’s New Wilderness. Or maybe a Disney movie, with less fluffy dresses and animal harmonizing. I’ll tell you what it’s not: a reenactment of the 1976 Governor General Award winning book, Bear. Do NOT get any ideas, Baloo.

Weekly Reading

Kind of a meh week in terms of reading; I read some very buzzy books that just didn’t hit for me. Here they are:

Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone. Let’s say you go to a family reunion in an isolated mountain resort, and let’s say someone at that resort turns up dead. Now let’s say your family is infamous, due to a legacy of crime and murder. Let’s also say that you write “how to write a murder mystery” books for a living. Well! This was an entertainingly and cleverly written murder mystery set in Australia – I had NO idea there were snowy mountain resorts in Australia – but you know what, I am just not a murder mystery person. I keep trying different genres and I just don’t enjoy them – I get confused and then because I’m confused I get bored, I don’t love a lot of action in my books, and so this didn’t really do it for me. BUT if you are a person who likes murder mysteries, particularly the tropes that go with them, then you will probably love this. Definitely this was a “it’s not you, it’s me” problem.

Family Family. First of all, in the author’s note she says she was inspired to write this novel about a woman who is both a birth mother placing babies for adoption, and an adoptive mother herself, for her own child, who was adopted. She wanted to put a novel out there that shows a warm, happy, non-traumatic perspective about adoption, and if that is the goal, then goal accomplished. This is a very sweet and heartwarming story about what makes a family, and a family coming together in the face of a (kind of silly) time of need. It is also a very readable book; this author writes in a smooth, easy-to-read book. I will say that I did not think the storyline was great, and there were many plot holes that I found annoying (i.e., the mother chooses closed adoption, but somehow everyone is able to contact everyone else and knows everything about the adoptive and birth families, the adoptive children are easily able to contact and find the birth children, etc.) but you know what, sometimes a book isn’t meant for in-depth analysis. Sometimes it’s just meant as a love letter, and this is what I think the author set out to do, and did.

Grief Is For People. I have had friends, and friendly acquaintances, die by suicide, and it is a terrible, shocking thing, so I cannot imagine the pain of losing my best friend that way, as the author of this memoir did. The memoir processes her grief, from the burglary of her home one month prior to her best friend’s death, through the pandemic, living in NYC without her best friend. I am sorry to say that the book itself left me feeling flat and kind of confused. I wanted to love it but didn’t. 

Happy June, everyone! I hope you all have a great first week of the month. I have a bit of a busy week ahead of me, all good things, and hopefully bear-free! xo

Poetry In Motion

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If I were a Mary Oliver or a Maya-type person, I would be sitting at my desk, crafting a moving poem about the beauty in the mundane everyday, about the ordinary suddenly becoming extraordinary, after a little tiny bird, a chickadee, flew right in front of my cart at Superstore in the middle of the bakery section. I gasped, I was so filled with wonder. I watched it flutter up, up, up, and perch on one of the high ceiling beams.

If I were Mary or Maya, (HI MAYA, yes I DID group you with Mary Oliver, deal with it), I would write about thinking to myself what a wonderful world, I would write about going placidly amidst the noise and haste that is Superstore ten days before Christmas, I would write about reveling in the natural world among us. I might somehow craft a poetic sentence about thinking that there were no more tiny tubes of decorator frosting in the baking aisle, but then finding them behind a box of carrot cake mix; I would talk about how they are actually kind of gross but they work great for decorating gingerbread men, which I did this past weekend with my actual grown-men children, and then I would write about traditions, my heart, and the many blessings that surround me. Somehow this poem would reach its apex with the little bird flying between the displays of Danish and cookies in their plastic clamshells, crossing my path and filling me with delight and all the warmth and wonder of the holiday season.

I would not, however, include in my poem what happened when I joined the checkout lineup, a short line with only one woman with a full cart behind a gentleman who seemed to be just finishing checking out. I would be tempted to include the detail of the man who lined up behind me with only a small basket of items, and how I, filled with the holiday spirit, insisted he go ahead of me, and then the woman in front insisted he go ahead of her. She and I were conjoined in that little joy that is spreading happiness to others by allowing them to jump the queue, and the gentleman was gracious enough to inform the cashier that he had received two Christmas gifts from these lovely ladies, who allowed him to go first.

Alas. The first gentleman, the one who had ostensibly been already checked out, had some issues. There was a problem with one of the prices on his bill, and then there was a problem with one of his items. This problem was such that customer service needed to be called, but it was ten days before Christmas, and customer service was slow to respond. I coped by talking to the woman in front of me, who informed me that the reason she had so many groceries was because she was a) hosting a dinner for thirteen that very evening, and b) hosting a dinner for 160 at her church on the weekend. While I digested that information, we talked about her pink hoodie dress, her boots, and the raspberry Bubly in her cart. She realized she forgot eggs; I told her I would hold her spot until she came back. My offer was not one of significance, because by the time she came back we were still waiting for customer service for the first gentleman; the one who we allowed to go ahead of us was still standing there awkwardly holding his basket, waiting. Probably he thought it would be faster if he just left and found another, less-problematic lineup, but likely he did not want to throw our unfortunately meaningless Christmas gifts back in our faces.

Twenty minutes later, it was the lady’s turn, and unfortunately for me, it turned out AFTER the cashier had gotten through half the items that the woman remembered she needed her items separated into two different bills, one for her own personal party and one for the church’s, and so everything needed to be voided and re-entered. At that point I had a really hard time remembering the little chickadee.

If I were a poet I would be able to craft a beautifully haunting poem about the wide variety of the human experience, but I’m me, and I can tell you, I was feeling pretty salty by the time I loaded up my car. I had to aggressively listen to a podcast on holiday decor on my way home and then equally aggressively put together my daily Advent dog-themed puzzle before I could settle myself down and regain a sliver of my holiday spirit.

Ah, life. Sometimes it’s like this:

And then sometimes it’s this:

Here we are, one week until Christmas, can we even believe it? Last week my older son wrote four finals in 47 hours, and so he came home for a few days to decompress before heading back to prepare for his last final, late this week. I used that opportunity to corral the troops into, as alluded to earlier, our annual tradition of gingerbread decorating.

There was some interesting creativity this year – not from me, never from me – and yet not a single one with anything obscene written on it. We are growing as people.

Weekly Reading

A Manual For Cleaning Women. Someone mentioned this book, and now I can’t remember who. Was it you? Anyway, I do enjoy a collection of short stories, particularly linked short stories, but I want you to know that the word for this isn’t “enjoyable.” These autobiographically-inspired stories are well written and incredibly moving, but holy moly they are gritty. This is a grim and gritty book about mining towns, alcoholism, poverty, and illness. Huge content warnings ahoy for pretty much everything but particularly infanticide (whew, that was a ROUGH story to read), graphic descriptions of the physical side of alcoholism, child abuse, sexual abuse, domestic abuse, and a really gross story about pulling out teeth. I’m not squeamish about teeth in general but this had me feeling queasy. So, yes, a talented author and excellently written, but DARK AND GRITTY. Possibly not the right thing to read in December, is what I’m saying.

But Have You Read The Book? After the last book, I desperately needed something light and fluffy and that did not require thinking. This was PERFECT. I have never been reticent about my general dislike for book-to-screen adaptations; there are only a couple that I actually enjoy. But who knew so many movies were book-to-screen adaptations! Certainly not me (Mildred Pierce, really?). Anyway, this is a fun little book put out by TCM that talks about 52 movies that were made from books. Of the 52 titles, I have read OR seen 25, and of those I have read AND seen only five (Little Women, Clueless (Emma), One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, The Godfather, and The Color Purple). If you’re a movie buff – or know one, this would make a great gift – this is a book you’ll enjoy, particularly if you love older movies. Birchy (HI BIRCHY) I’m looking at YOU.

Contemporary Canadian Women’s Short Stories. All the short stories in this collection were written by Canadian women, which, hello, checks a lot of boxes for me. This did NOT disappoint. Of course my favourites Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood are featured, both in stories that I have read independently many times, but I was excited to see stories from the two women who taught the online creative writing courses I took this fall. I felt like Buddy the Elf: I KNOW THEM, I KNOW THEM! (I don’t really but kind of?). As with any short story collection with a variety of authors, there were some stories I absolutely loved, and some I did not. A couple of stories were incredibly moving but the subject matter was so upsetting I had to take a break and do something else for a while. If you love CanLit and women’s writing and short stories, this is a marvellous collection.

I get asked a lot about books – here for it! – and I was thinking, maybe there are other questions my dear readers may have. To that end, I am doing an Ask Me Anything! If you have a question for me, please fill out this form; I thought this would be a fun thing to do post-holidays. I will answer pretty much anything, books included! Then again, you may be thinking god no, I already know too much, in which case, well, I understand.

I shall conclude with a small addendum from last Friday’s post. After writing I was slightly concerned that my memory of the alien Christmas movie was part of a fever dream of childhood, but IT WAS NOT. Dailycrossword (HI DAILYCROSSWORD) who, coincidentally, grew up in Alberta, also remembered that movie, called A Cosmic Christmas. As soon as I saw the photos I was instantly transported (cosmically?) back to it. I had misremembered part of the plot, which involved the theft of a pet goose by the town bully who – in a bullies are bullied plot point – stole it because he was hungry. Ah, pet slaughter for food. Again, so much to unpack. But the part about the human chain to pull the child out of the frozen lake and the aliens helping, discovering for themselves the true meaning of Christmas was accurate. Wishing everyone holiday spirit this week, and no falling through the ice into hypothermia-inducing water, metaphorically or otherwise. xo

Five For Friday: The Charlie Brown Deep Dive Edition

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  • I’ve been noticing this little tree on my morning walks, and it reminds me of Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree. I feel like it would tip over with the addition of a little red ball, and although I dislike 90% of the actual television program, I really resonate with the symbolism of the tree. I wrote back in December 2020 that sometimes we are the tree, sinking under the weight of the season and all the various performative pressures that are placed mainly on women in our society to create a certain jollity and magic. Sometimes, though, we are Linus’ blanket, seeing that our friends are bending under the symbolic red ornament and are ready to snap, and we wrap those friends in our metaphorical blankets, propping them up so that they are suddenly and somewhat improbably able to not only face the season, but they grow all new branches and stop dropping needles and are able to withstand the weight of not only that one red ornament but an entire treeful, including a star on top and many layers of tinsel. I aim to be a Linus’ blanket but I have definitely been the tree at times.
  • I cannot watch that show anymore. I find it so incredibly mean-spirited generally. However, I really do like the railing against the commercialization of the holiday, despite the fact that I definitely purchase many gifts at this time of year and I always will. Who knew that 45 years after Charlie Brown Christmas and the complaint that Christmas had become too commercial, Tim Minchin would release what has become one of my favourite and most resonant Christmas songs, White Wine In The Sun, which includes one of my favourite song lyrics ever: I really like Christmas…And yes, I have all of the usual objections to consumerism, to the commercialization of an ancient religion, to the Westernization of a dead Palestinian, press-ganged into selling PlayStations and beer. But I still really like it. If that line does not resonate with you, please do us all a favour and simply skip it because you certainly will not like the rest of the song, and I really cannot face any more public loathing of my favourite holiday songs. I will not have it, people! I will not have my go-to-holiday-stress-cry-therapy song besmirched by anyone. So just don’t listen.
  • Speaking of music, the Charlie Brown Christmas has, hands-down the best Christmas album in the history of time, in my humble opinion. Second to that is Michael Buble’s, and a distant third is Harry Connick Junior’s When My Heart Finds Christmas. I dare you to find three more uplifting and Holiday Spirit Consciousness Raising albums.
  • I also really like Snoopy, and I strongly identify with the little dancing girl with the straight dark hair and the pink dress. That is my dancing style and also was my aesthetic back in the day.
  • On the topic of Media I Consumed In My Childhood That Seemed Normal But Was Really Weird As Fuck, there was an animated movie I recall, entitled The Small One. It had to do with a donkey who was too old and frail to be of any use, and so the owner’s son had to take it to town and sell it. There was no question keeping it, as it would do nothing but eat without contributing at all to the household income. The man who offered to buy it – this is a bit fuzzy in my mind, but bear with me – was abusive and was going to essentially work the donkey until it died, and then use it for glue, like poor old Boxer from Animal Farm (RIP Boxer). Somehow either the donkey escaped or he didn’t, but he ended up in the hands of Joseph, to carry Mary to Bethlehem, showing that a seemingly-worthless animal can actually be a vital part of a most-worthy task. How a crippled old donkey could possibly carry an enormously pregnant woman on a long journey is a question no one asked, but also there is a lot to unpack here. This children’s program about animal abuse, the lack of choices for those experiencing extreme poverty, and the role of those deemed unworthy in our society was probably shown to me at Sunday School, although it could have been in regular school, the public school system not being so inclusive of other religions at the time. Another animated holiday movie I do remember clearly seeing at school had to do with aliens landing on earth and everyone being mean to them for being different, because symbolism needed to be heavy-handed back then. The movie climaxed with one of the neighbourhood children falling through ice on some kind of body of water, and the aliens helped to form a human/ alien chain to pull that child to safety. We are all one. I will not try to look up anything more about this, as I have had a lifelong phobia of aliens in media, the blame of which can be placed directly on E.T., but I clearly recall the grasping of hands and one of the local anti-alien bigots hesitating a moment before allowing his hand to be taken by an alien. Then everyone got anal probes. Just kidding! I believe it ended with the aliens leaving, which would seem to be going against the probable theme of welcoming people from other cultures, but again, it was the 80s. Things were different.