Category Archives: Okanagan Life

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Gourgeous Gourds Edition

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October is a really beautiful month around here: some trees are changing and some are not, so there is everything from green to red to look at, fresh fruit and vegetables abound, and harvest is over in the vineyard, leaving golden vines in its wake. It reminds me of the line in A Year in Provence, where Massot, the cranky neighbour, unexpectedly and poetically says that nature is wearing her prettiest clothes before spitting on the ground.

Nature IS wearing her prettiest clothes, the sunrise is perfectly timed for the beginning of our morning walks, and we have had some pleasantly rainy days which makes me feel much less apocalyptic, given the fire season we just had.

Something that did make me feel less than glowing happened on Monday, when I was serenely and happily cleaning up the garden beds. I was pulling out the nasturtiums which, if you don’t know, are flowers that give a thick and luscious vine-like groundcover along with their cheerful yellow and orange blooms. Those vines can crawl up a fence or, as I had planted them, cascade thickly and beautifully down a garden box. Those beautiful and thick vines were clearly valued by others in this natural world; as I reached in to pull out the roots, a mouse ran over my thankfully gloved hand. My soul briefly left my body. I screamed and dropped the flowers, at which point two more mice appeared from a hole in the soil, beneath the nasturtiums, and scampered away. Who knows how many more there were, because I ran, screaming, into the house. At that point, my husband gently suggested that I stay there while he finished the cleanup.

My watch informed me that I “seem to be experiencing higher than usual levels of stress” and that perhaps I should try a breathing exercise? I did that, repeating the mice are children of the universe, just like me over and over. I reminded myself that the mice had made a little nest for themselves, outside, which is just as nature intended. They’re just living their lives, and I had made a home for them by planting nasturtiums. I was briefly calmed by this feeling of good karma, and then I would think MY HAND, it ran over my HAND.

What I am saying is the true star of this month’s Favourite Things is the pair of thick, sturdy, pink-and-white gardening gloves which have protected my hands from thistles, brambles, thorns, and, now, the Hanta virus. Gloves, I love you. Without you, the skin on my right hand would be Lady Macbeth-ed right off.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Gourgeous Gourds Edition

It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers

If ever an autumn passes us by and I DON’T reference Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers, please check on me, because I will not be okay. Perhaps a rodent will have ran over my gloveless hands and I will disintegrate just like the Nazis looking at the Holy Grail in Indiana Jones.

Check out my shellacked decorative gourds, assholes!

It’s fall, fuckfaces. You’re either ready to reap this freaky-assed harvest or you’re not.

And, of course, it’s Canada, so we celebrate Decorative Gord Season as well.

It’s Also Non-Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers

We had a few rainy days in a row over the past month, and so by the time I made it to the garden, I had some not-small zucchinis waiting for me.

I also had an enormous haul of butternut squash, and here’s the thing: I love roasted butternut squash, but I dread roasting it, because it is such a bitch to peel. Or I should say that I used to dread it, because I have discovered A Hack: cut off the ends, poke it all over with a fork, and then microwave it for 1-3 minutes, depending on the size. Miraculously, the peel slides off easily with a vegetable peeler! No more breaking peelers or your spirit by trying to just make a festive fall meal. It’s all butternut squash, all the time around here now. If we are living in the Age of Information, I am going to use it to my advantage when it comes to vegetable preparation.

A friend of my husband’s gave me a few of these pattypan squashes, and I honestly had no idea what to do with them. Again, we are in the Age of Information! There is nothing you can’t learn from the internet! I cut it into chunks and roasted it with beets, to be served with a balsamic drizzle for Thanksgiving dinner.

Suzanne’s Favourite Fall Salad

We have Big Fun Salad for dinner once a week at least, and recently I have veered towards my friend Suzanne’s Favourite Fall Salad. Of course, because I’m me, I change up the inputs, but the warm fuzzy fall feeling is still there. One day I used the last of the kale from my fall planting, my butternut squash, as well as an apple that had been picked from our neighbour’s tree that very morning. How fun and local! I like to add roasted lentils, goat cheese, and some spicy candied pecans, with a dressing of 4-2-1 olive oil, red wine vinegar, and maple syrup, plus garlic and Dijon. It is a delight of a salad, very filling, and it makes me feel very Fall Forward.

Hide and Seek With My Gnomies

Speaking, again, of the garden, it is finally time to bring the gnomes in for the season. This year I decided to place my gnomes strategically so that the garden foliage would hide them. I would have been absolutely delighted, as a child, at the idea of hidden gnomes. Who am I kidding, this delights me as someone who is 51 years old. The raspberries immediately swallowed up the gnomes in the veggie garden, but it took a while for the foliage to overtake Giovanni and Salvadore.

What is life without whimsy? It occurs to me that maybe the mice were just trying to emulate the gnomes? Maybe they were wishing they too had little hats?

Ooooh Linda, Put The Coffee On

My friend Sarah (HI SARAH) sent me this postcard with the note Is this a picture of you before you drink your two gallons of coffee in the morning? It’s like Sarah is in my house. That is EXACTLY what I am like, emotionally, at least.

I am a Quantity Over Quality person when it comes to coffee: I make a pot, and then I drink it black, almost completely before 5:30 am. The exception to my black coffee is on the weekend, where I like the occasional Treat-Treat, as I say to Rex.

I can’t remember the last time I was actually in a Starbucks, but I do like a glug of one of these non-dairy creamers once or twice a week. My favourite, weirdly, for a person who doesn’t generally care for caramel much, is the caramel macchiato, but all three add a little weekend yumminess to my beloved cup.

Outfit of the Month

The weather feels delightfully fall-ish, which is to say that the mornings are cool and crisp and give way to sunny, warm-adjacent afternoons. And one fun development of this era of my life is that I am no longer freezing all the time, so I can brazenly walk around in a light, mesh-style top from Lululemon and be the perfect temperature.

It’s difficult to tell from the photo how mesh-y and see-through this top is, you will just have to believe me. I wear a shelf-bra tank top underneath, because it is so see-through. I’m pairing this with The World’s Most Comfortable Jeans, i.e., Silver brand Beau cut, which purport to “eliminate muffin top.” I mean, they kind of do? I cannot get over the comfort level, to be honest, and because, clearly, I am a woman of a certain age – overly hot, wearing no-muffin-top-jeans – I wear my Skechers sandals around the house. They are very unattractive but I haven’t had problems with plantar fasciitis for months.

This is a little early for my monthly Favourite Things, but there is a good reason for that: I am taking a blog break! Take care of yourselves, friends, and I will see you in November. xo

Unwitting Road Race Participation

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Now that it is cooler in the mornings, and I don’t worry about Rex’s paws on hot sidewalks, I have been adding “urban” walks back into my weekly routine. I say “urban” because although the routes follow sidewalks and streets, we pass fields of cows and horses, flower farms, beaches, and the Country Club at which Rex is periodically boarded. Last Sunday we were taking such a route, a loop of 7 kilometres, when we came across a large amount of backed up traffic. I thought it was a construction delay, but no. As I approached the intersection it became clear that there was some kind of road race going on, and traffic was stopped to allow a seemingly endless amount of runners to pass.

This is my biggest grievance with this city: the lack of signage for roadblocks and sidewalk closures. I cannot count how many times I have been out walking and suddenly, without warning, the sidewalk would be ripped up or otherwise blocked off, leaving me with two suboptimal options: doubling back for blocks until I found a crosswalk, or jaywalking. Would it kill them to put up a sign? On this day, there were no markers indicating a running route, merely neon-clad people with stop signs at various intersections, gesturing that-a-way. In fact, not all roads were blocked off and it was apparent that the race itself was taking place on the sidewalks and bike lanes; vehicles were driving on the roads with the runners, but of course, were blocked from driving through the runners.

I witnessed a wild case of road rage, wherein a truck tried to turn right. He had been driving on the road with the runners, but was waiting for a gap in the crowd of runners to turn, at which point he would no longer be in the running route. He started to turn when there was a gap. I suppose he would have made it just fine, without, you know, mowing anyone over, but one of the race workers ran up and started hitting the slow-moving truck with his stop sign. The truck, unbelievably, kept going while the neon-clad man shrieked and pummelled his truck. How the fuck am I going to get to work? the driver of the truck screamed back at the neon-clad man. It was upsetting but also? Some signage to say that the road would not be passable would be nice. An ounce of prevention, etcetera. We do not condone road rage here at the Boyhouse, but I was reminded of one of my former bosses, who told me sometimes he really could understand Michael Douglas’s character in Falling Down.

As it was, I was standing there, unable to cross the street, wondering what to do. I was not the only confused pedestrian: there were many walking on the other, non-running side of the street. I desperately wanted to join them, but that would involve crossing through the flood of runners and also Frogger-ing through moving cars. I neither wanted to get run over nor pummelled with a stop sign. Rex was getting more and more excited with the crowd of runners and cheering people. Let me tell you something about Rex: he is a very good dog, he is well-behaved and affectionate, he listens and understands when I talk to him. However. When he gets excited, he barks. He does not bark when a stranger enters our home, but a friend? Bark bark bark. He’s the world’s worst guard dog. He is also huge, and so his bark is loud and deep and non-dog people can be unsettled by this. I suppose I could have turned around and retraced the way I came, but I was more than halfway by that point, and I didn’t want to add an extra three kilometres to our walk. I made a choice, and I went with it. Since I couldn’t cross the street safely, I short-leashed barking Rex and started to walk against the flow of runners, keeping as far out of the way as I could. I thought if I could just get past this mass of people, I could zip across the street and be out of the crowd. Optimism! It’s my downfall.

If the beach was the sidewalk and the Canada geese were runners, you can imagine what I was facing.

Unfortunately for me, as soon as I made this decision, the 2:00 pacemaker ran by (was it a half marathon? I still don’t know because THERE WAS NO SIGNAGE), and with him was a mass of people. Now we were fully in the crowd, but going the other direction. As the bystanders cheered, so did Rex. Bark bark bark. In this grim way we walked another block and a half, which was the longest block and a half of my life. I saw a small gap in the runners AND the vehicle traffic, and I immediately seized the day and my chance. I ran across the street and broke free of the crowd. Relieved, I thought I could wind my way down to Lakeshore Road and from there make my way back to the car.

See a gap, seize the gap.

What a great plan! Except that by the time I got to Lakeshore, it became apparent that it too was part of the race route, except now we were trapped walking WITH the flow of runners. Happily, these were the super-fast runners – the Catrinas, if you will (HI CATRINA) – and so they were few and far between. Unhappily, as they passed us at their high speeds, Rex got excited with the thought of running! With people! And so again I short-leashed him and tried my best to keep out of the way. Awww cute dog! the runners said as they passed. I smiled weakly. Rex barked.

Finally, I could see more neon-clad people up ahead, directing the runners to turn left. Traffic, again, was backed up massively. Now I had a plan! I could walk past the turnoff and keep going straight. I would be free! Hopefully no vehicles would angrily u-turn onto the sidewalk and run me over, given that traffic was backed up as far as the eye could see, but I could find my way back to the car. Eventually.

By this time, Rex had calmed down. He wasn’t trying to run. He wasn’t barking. Few people were running past us now, similar to the number of people who would run past us on a normal, non-chaotic day. We approached the corner where the runners were turning left. I could taste the finish line, as it were. Not the literal finish line – who knew where THAT would be – but I would be out of this chaos. And as I approached the turnoff, I heard claps and cheering and you can do it! type commentary.

But there was no one around me.

I looked around. The bystanders were cheering for me! I smiled a little sheepishly. I’m not…I’m not in this race? I said, which felt like a statement of the obvious, to which a woman replied We know. We just like your dog. Rex barked.

Weekly Reading

American Fantasy. I wasn’t prepared for a book about middle-aged ladies on a booze cruise that features a middle-aged boy band loosely based on the New Kids on the Block to be a moving statement on midlife reinvention and revival, but here we are. It took me about fifty pages to really get into this book, because there are so many characters and it was hard to keep track of who’s who. But once it got going, it really captivated me. I was never a NKOTB fan even though I was exactly the right age, but I knew a lot of girls who were, and this felt like a peek into crazed fandom. It also felt so resonant, the musings of middle age and what it is like to be in your fifties. It did not make me want to go on a cruise, let alone a musical cruise, but it made me smile and also think a lot about the little gifts that life gives us.

Clutch. This really seemed like a book I would love – five women navigating friendships, relationships, careers, and motherhood. But the truth is that I should have DNF’d it. I should have known after the first few chapters, when the women take mushrooms in chocolate form and then go shopping, that this book was not for me. And yet for some ungodly reason I pushed through. I found it incredibly dull and tedious, with excessive detail and telling, not showing, with no nuance or emotion. I did not care about a single character except for a horrifying scene involving dogs. I cared about the dogs. The rest of this was a total slog and I wish I hadn’t wasted my time. Ah well, onward and upward.

Limelight. I really enjoyed this author’s The Sweet Spot, so I thought I’d check out her back catalogue. This book is about a woman who moves with her family from Dallas to NYC, and through a series of events, becomes a personal assistant to an absolutely odious teenage pop star, with the job to get him ready for his Broadway debut. It turns out that I really don’t like reading about odious teenage pop stars, so this book wasn’t a win for me by any stretch. However, I really do love Poeppel’s writing style, so I am going to try again with another of her books. The writing style was what kept me going, despite disliking the story.

Happy October, friends! I realized, in preparing to do another Ask Me Anything, that I have not answered a question from the last one, ten months ago. Whoops! That will be for next week, and apologies to my friend and one of my longest-term readers, Steph (HI STEPH). In the meantime, don’t forget about Elisabeth’s walking club, the CBWC (HI ELISABETH) and perhaps you too can become an unwitting participant in a road race. xo

Tent Poles Of Life

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Last week I listened to a podcast on the case against convenience and efficiency in our modern life, and it was fascinating. Who DOES benefit from people being more “efficient” with their time? If we can get lunch delivered right to our offices, is that really better than walking to go pick it up? Who benefits? It’s not us, the people working through lunch. There is always a cost to convenience, and someone is paying. Sometimes it’s all of us, from an environmental standpoint, sometimes it is a workforce in poor conditions, sometimes it is through loss of personal security and identity. It has been many years since I have worked in an office, but this still resonated with me deeply, particularly the comment that we are all trying to save time, but what are we saving time for?

It’s a good question. Some longtime friends visited us this week, and we were talking about their upcoming retirements. I’m not sure if I can claim that I am retired since I’ve worked only part-time at most since March 2004, but my husband thinks that the key to a happy retirement is to become time-inefficient. This doesn’t mean that he’s lazy or unproductive, but instead it means that he doesn’t rush to cram everything into every possible moment of the day. His workouts are no longer a rushed hour before leaving for the office, but a whole-morning affair, complete with stretching and meditation. Yard work is no longer crammed into the few weekend hours that weather would allow, which is a good thing, since we have so much more yard here than we did in Calgary. Life is more relaxed and happier, particularly since there are no longer insane demands on him, like meetings at 10:00 on Easter morning, as an example.

How we spend our days is how we spend our lives, which is a sentiment I both love and also feel uncomfortable with, given that I spent at least five hours grocery shopping, driving to and from grocery stores, and putting away all the groceries this week. Is my life just groceries now? I suppose there are worse ways to spend my one wild and precious life.

One fun thing I spent time doing this week was make a double batch of cupcakes for my friend Sammi’s birthday (HI SAMMI). There was a big party for her, which was delightful. Happy birthday to my beautiful Sammi!

Speaking of friends and ways we spend our time, my friend Elisabeth (HI ELISABETH) is hosting her semi-annual walking club. It’s my time to shine! I am the QUEEN of the daily walk; I haven’t missed one since March 2020, and before that, I walked probably 99% of the days since Barkley came into our lives in September 2008. If my day is a tent, metaphorically speaking, then my daily walk is one of the tent poles adding structure to my life. It’s a time for moving meditation and podcast listening, gentle exercise and fresh air, enjoying being outside and the beauties of nature, such as this sight from last week.

Free candy! Hold me back!

Another tent pole in my daily life, for half the year at least, is the garden. At the party on Saturday, a friend’s husband asked me how my summer was. Great! I gardened all the time! I answered, garnering a puzzled and somewhat pitying look. Well, I love it, but garden season is coming to a close and I’m going to have to figure out what I did for all those hours in previous offseasons. Oh right, I wrote a book.

As will be obvious from my Favourite Things post last week, an important tent pole is my daily shower, makeup, and hair routine, together with, at the end of the day, my makeup removal, cream application, and dental hygiene routine. These are both very vital parts of my day, as in I cannot imagine my day without them. How would I function?

I saw something several months ago that I have thought of nearly every day since. A fairly well-known Canadian writer had posted a photo of herself in a t-shirt with something witty on it, and that was the point of the post. However. I cannot remember at all what the t-shirt said because the side note of the photo was that the writer was wearing two day old makeup. I cannot get over this. I have to remind myself that the world is a vast tapestry and we are not identical robots. Still. It’s hard for me to fathom not showering daily, let alone going TWO days shower-less, short of extreme illness, surgery recovery, or camping. It is harder still to imagine going two days without washing one’s face. What would her pillowcase look like? What does her skin look like? How does one have eye makeup on for two days without it devolving into raccoon eyes? WHAT KIND OF MAGIC MAKEUP IS THIS?

Well. As I said, we are all different and have different priorities and ways in which we choose to spend our time. I am comfortable with the tent poles that give structure to my days, and therefore, my life. Well, mostly. I would prefer to spend less time vacuuming the floor, which is a tedious tent pole of my day, but that’s the tradeoff for having this guy in my life.

Weekly Reading

Reading is, of course, an important part of my day, and I finished two very good books this week.

Big Little Lies. I first read this in 2017, but decided to reread in preparation for the newly released Big Little Truths, for which I am in the library queue. The queue is pretty long, so hopefully I won’t forget everything by the time my turn comes. Anyway. Rereading this catapulted me back into the days when my kids were in elementary school: the fundraising for Smart Boards, the mom cliques, the playground gossip. This is such a propulsive, funny, and very thoughtful read about a very serious subject: domestic abuse. Moriarty is an excellent writer, and I have a little six-degree connection – a woman in our Morocco tour group taught math to her daughter! I felt starstruck just knowing that! Also, Rex would like you to know that he’s not telling any lies, big or little.

Tunnel 29. Big thanks to blog reader Allison R (HI ALLISON R) for telling me about this excellent nonfiction book that reads like a novel! It details the creation of a tunnel underneath the Berlin Wall through which 29 people escaped East Berlin, but more than that, it is a picture of post-war Germany, the division of the country, and the very grim living situation of East German people, particularly those in East Berlin. I had no idea about the Stasi – the spy network – that infiltrated every part of East German life. This was a very fascinating book and one I’d recommend if you are interested in German and Soviet history. I clearly remember the Berlin Wall coming down, I was a teenager, and this brings so much more context to that event than I have ever had. 

If I were more on the ball, I would have been singing Earth, Wind, and Fire’s September this time last week, but alas. Perhaps I’ll change it to the 28th night of September, just for today. How has your September been? I hope you have a beautiful week, friends! xo

Random Semi-Related Things

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I Always Feel Like Somebody’s Watching Me

After a very busy and productive August, the garden is starting to take its annual September Slow Down. Every single day last month, I spent hours in the garden harvesting berries and vegetables, weeding, and deadheading. I was especially proud of myself for my management of what I like to call The Annual Zucchini Situation; I had been picking them when they’ve been of medium size, I’ve been using them up or successfully pawning them off on my very sweet friends, and no one in my house has mutinied due to the zucchini-in-everything Augusts of the past. A few weeks ago I was in the garden, thinking about this in a very smug way, and as we all know, karma does not enjoy smugness as a character trait. I immediately tripped over a massive zucchini that had apparently appeared out of nowhere.

I can only imagine it had been watching me for weeks from its hiding place under a large leaf.

Raspberry Beret

In addition to an actual ocean of tomatoes, I have been enjoying a tidal wave of raspberries. There is no need to figure out what to do with all of them, because as soon as I pick a bowl, it magically disappears. But a few weeks ago I had a bigger than normal raspberry harvest, and I also had an unaccountable gap in my weekly meal plan. I decided to do something I haven’t done in years, since before we moved here in 2023, which was to make breakfast for dinner. I thought I’d use the raspberries, along with my farm market peaches and nectarines, for a fruit salad to go along with my Famed Cinnamon Waffles.

The Landslide’ll Bring You Down

My cinnamon waffles were Famed only in my sons’ circle of friends. During their teen years, the boys had early dismissal on Fridays, and most of the time on those days my house would be suddenly filled with famished teen boys. I always made them cinnamon waffles because it was such a massive recipe, and then I would bask in the glory of being the Mom With The Best Waffles Ever. There is nothing, nothing so satisfying as cooking for teenage boys. No one is so ravenously appreciative.

Filled with nostalgia, I pulled out my waffle maker and went to grab the recipe for Nicole’s Famed Cinnamon Waffles, which were not Nicole’s at all, but merely a recipe in the little booklet that came with the waffle maker. And that is when I discovered that the little waffle maker recipe book was MISSING.

To my surprise, I immediately spiralled into the same kind of sadness that I had experienced back in 2023, when my bookmark collection was forever lost in the moving process. I assumed that the waffle recipe book had followed suit, and all was ashes. I was sad all over again, thinking of all those Friday afternoons when the mudroom was piled with gigantic dirty shoes and the dining room table was sticky with syrup, when Barkley braved the noise of ten teen boys in the house in the hopes of some dropped waffles, when said boys exited the dining room all saying That was AWESOME, Nicole, thank you! Never again would that happen for me, mostly because I don’t live there anymore, I don’t have teenagers, and Barkley is, sadly, long gone. Also because I would be unable to replicate the recipe. I was surprised at my sudden and intense reaction. Just feel your feelings, I said to myself sadly. The lack of the Famed Cinnamon Waffle Recipe felt devastating. Not as devastating as the bookmarks – I didn’t cry myself into a dehydrated state – but sad nonetheless.

Guess Who’s Back? Back Again?

As I wallowed in sadness, I realized that, current fashion trends notwithstanding, we are not in the Nineties anymore. We live in the Age of Information! And not all of it is Mis-or-Disinformation! I bustled over to my trusty laptop and searched up Cuisinart Waffle Maker Recipe Book and lo. There it was, the Famed Cinnamon Waffle recipe. What a time to be alive. I immediately printed it off and filed it in my recipe book, to ward off any future breakfast item-related sadness spirals.

1/8 of the waffle recipe

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

The happy ending to the waffle recipe sadness spiral reminded me how wonderful the world is, and not just because we can access any kind of information at any time. It reminded me of how all of you, dear readers, rallied when my bookmarks were lost. I was going through such a massive transition in my life, and the bookmarks felt symbolic in the saddest way. No one, not one person, said they’re just bookmarks, get over yourself. Instead, friends from near and far provided me with bookmarks. My friend Sammi drove over to my house with a selection immediately on hearing the news, I received bookmarks from Washington State to Marco Island, from the US Midwest to California, from Alberta to Saskatchewan to Ontario, from Barcelona and Portugal. My son made me bookmarks featuring Rex, Salvadore the gnome, and Gerbera daisies for Christmas. My sweet friend Gigi (HI GIGI) cross-stitched personalized flowered bookmarks for me. I keep my collection in a tin that my longtime friend Elise (HI ELISE) sent me, and every time I start a new book, I happily choose one and think of what a gift it is to have such people in my life.

I will never forget how supported and loved I felt and still feel. Thank you, friends.

All You Need Is Love

Speaking of fun and exciting things in the mail, I received this from my friend Engie (HI ENGIE).

I literally screamed with delight when I opened it. Gnomes, love, AND math? I’m in heaven. Receiving fun mail reminded me that we are now into September, and it’s not too soon to start thinking about holiday cards. Are you a Holiday Card Person? If so, let’s exchange cards! (EXCHANGE is the key word here). Merely fill out this google form, and I will send you my address. If you are already on my list, no need to fill out the form, unless your address has changed. Now, I think that’s enough randomness – let’s get on to this week’s very mixed reading.

Weekly Reading

I had a DNF this week: Heated Rivalry. You all know I love a closed door romance, and whoa nelly, that was not this. It was way too spicy for me and I DNF’d at about the 12% mark, after the third graphic anal sex scene had me Kegeling like nobody’s business.

Her One Regret. From the author of The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano – a book about a woman coerced into having a baby – comes this book about the biggest taboo in motherhood; namely, regretting becoming one. It is touted as a mix between a thriller and a manifesto, and indeed, it does get at some uncomfortable truths about early motherhood like exhaustion, resentment, change of identity, and overwhelm due to the stunning responsibility that is caring for a tiny helpless person. I will say that it’s pretty repetitive and overly convoluted, and every man in this book is as flat and one-dimensional as can be – they are all complete dicks. The “thriller” part was less than thrilling, in fact when the big reveal occurred I thought “Huh. Okay.” and moved on with my life. It does highlight that society views mothers that leave their families VERY different than they do fathers that leave, but mostly I felt it was kind of overwritten and a bit dull.

Inheritance. What makes a father a father? How does your biological ancestry affect who you are as a person? This memoir explores such questions after the author discovers, through an ancestry DNA test, that her long-deceased father was not her biological father due to a very sketchy infertility “treatment.” I will say that the author’s journey to peace with this very disturbing discovery is quite interesting and eventually lovely, but something did not sit well with me throughout this reading. I am in no way disparaging or questioning her lived experience. I am sure it’s extremely disorienting to discover that your father isn’t who you thought he was, and in the author’s case, this had larger implications. Her father’s family was a prominent Orthodox Jewish one, and on her discovery, she felt as though she had lost her identity and was subsequently traumatized. “It’s traumatic because I’m fifty-four years old and I found out the father I adored, the father who raised me, was not my biological father. That the family I thought I came from is not my biological family. That my ancestors are not my biological ancestors.” I understand this, however, I take a bit of issue with it. I would say that a father who adored you and raised you IS your father, end of story. I suppose I feel touchy about this because my beloved Grandma Fern was my step-grandma. We were not related by blood, but she was still my grandma. She cherished me exactly the same as she did her biological grandchildren. In the author’s case, a (sketchy) sperm donation does not make a father, in my mind. Anyway, this was a very interesting and kind of wild read about the nature of infertility treatments in the early 60s. I also learned a lot about Orthodox Judaism. This was definitely worth the read, and had me thinking a lot about the nature of families. I think there is just so much more to family than blood.

Walking With Beth. During the Covid pandemic, the 71 year-old author and her 101-year-old friend Beth deepen their friendship with regular walks and talks, and this book is a record of their conversations. Both women are from very prominent Canadian families, and so their recollections of their younger years were quite interesting to me, not to mention all they’d seen throughout their lives. Beth was born in 1920, at the end of the 1918 influenza pandemic, so it’s interesting that the two bonded 100 years later. This book introduced me to the concept of Anam Cara, “soul-friend,” of whom I am fortunate to have a few. “This friendship…was an act of recognition and belonging. When you had an anam cara, your friendship cut across all convention, morality, and category. You were joined in an ancient and eternal way with the friend of your soul. This art of belonging awakened and fostered a deep and special companionship.” This is a beautiful story of aging and friendship, and I LOVED the description of Beth’s outfits. Talk about goals! Thanks to Elisabeth and Pearl (HI ELISABETH HI PEARL) for mentioning this book.

Hello to September! We are going on a little road trip this week, and I have the feeling we will be seeing lots of fall foliage. In the meantime, take care, friends. xo

I Just Called To Say I Love You

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I had the most delightful, friend-filled week. It started with a visit from my friend Suzanne (HI SUZANNE). Suzanne is a very talented writer and a dear friend, and being able to see her in person, as opposed to on a screen, was wonderful. I can’t believe you’re HERE, I kept saying, and I couldn’t. It felt too good to be true! And for those of you who follow and read her beautiful words, let me tell you something: this woman is a class act, she is absolutely gorgeous inside and out. I adore her! Then Suzanne left and before I could become bereft, my friend Tara (HI TARA) arrived. Tara and I have been the best of friends since the first day of grade nine, and we have gone through all the big life stages together. There is something just so special about that. She’s the sister I never had.

The visits were perfect, marred only by the thick blanket of smoke that billowed in on Monday, when Suzanne arrived, and didn’t billow out until Friday night, after Tara left, albeit briefly. It has billowed back in, as there are some pretty serious fires fairly close to us right now. The air became so bad that my sons, both of whom work outdoors, texted me photos of them wearing masks, along with some wry Covid-era commentary. I told them they were a couple of sheeple before stepping into the shower to scrub the smoke smell out of my hair and skin, the yellowish rinse water swirling at my feet.

For most of the pandemic, I found myself reciting the Serenity Prayer like a mantra, and I do that now with forest fire season.

I was so honoured that my friends came so far to see little old me – through the smoke no less! – and as I was thinking of my luckiness, I came across this newsletter talking about the five-year stranger phenomenon. It was the first time I had heard this theory, but I’m well aware of the concept that friendships can fade when our lives cease to physically or mentally overlap, or when we change and grow. I have always subscribed to the theory that people come into your life for a reason, season, or lifetime, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t feel a pang when a friendship fades.

It’s so easy to keep in touch these days, and maybe it is too easy. It’s easy to feel like we really know a person while looking at their social media highlight reel, but relationships with any depth require more effort than that. However, the fact is that I love these highlight reels, I love seeing updates from people who would otherwise have faded from my life. I feel sure I would have lost touch with the girl I volunteered with at the nursing home when we were fifteen, and now I am celebrating her extensive travel and upcoming nuptials. I’ve become friends with former yoga students and people I have met while travelling, reconnected with people from grad school, and have become close with a cousin (HI KAREN) through our shared love of books and dogs, all due to social media. I love that I have these tools to communicate, but I admit that sometimes they can take the place of true heart-to-heart connection, the kind of intimacy and closeness we all need from our friends. I also admit that they can sometimes reveal unsettling information about a person, information that I was happier not having, from pandemics to politics and everything in-between. Because these relationships are often surface level, I can compartmentalize, but I would still rather not know if someone is using the term sheeple unironically.

My husband has a friend who loathes texting, so much so that he will return any text with a phone call. The more I think about this, the more I like it. Not that I’m going to do this – it’s a little much to make a constant stream of phone calls all day long in response to, say, someone’s Connections results – but I do like hearing my friends’ voices. Whereas I used to worry that a phone call would interrupt their day, I now think well, they can NOT answer if it’s a bother. And sometimes it IS a bother, and they don’t answer, and that’s okay. They can listen to my I just called to say I love you voice mails, and call back when and if they are so inclined.

Many years ago, I adopted a mindset reframe that I had read about: instead of saying I don’t have time for X, I say X is not a priority for me, and then I see how I feel about that. If I feel aghast, and I reassure myself that no, no, no, X really IS a priority, then I make the time. If I feel it is a true statement, then I just let it go. Not everything can be prioritized! A big priority for me is to show up for my friends. Sometimes it’s not physically possible; one of my best friends lives in Halifax (HI HANNAH), which is just about as far away as you can get without leaving the country or falling into the ocean. But we must have the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, and be grateful for modern technology that allows us to still communicate about everything from tulip murderers to the weird guy who talks angrily on Facetime with no headphones at the gym.

It’s not the new year, but I have a resolution to make more phone calls, send more cards and messages, and physically be there whenever possible. Have the courage to change the things you can, and the wisdom to know that placing a phone call on speaker in a public place is both an act of aggression and an invitation for me to eavesdrop on every word.

Weekly Reading

Kin. This book literally took my breath away several times. I will admit I went into it a bit apprehensively, being the only person I know who didn’t enjoy this author’s acclaimed An American Marriage. But wow, this book! It is a dual perspective between two “cradle friends,” motherless girls who grew up together but whose lives took two very different paths as adults. It’s a story about the deepest kind of friendship, the kind of friendship that is more than family, the kind of friendship in which each person is truly known. It’s immersive and evocative, heartbreaking and hopeful, viscerally beautiful and moving. I loved this so very much.

The Big M. For us ladies of a certain age comes this collection of essays about THE CHANGE. It’s an inspiring and empowering collection about the physical, mental, and emotional changes that come during perimenopause and the menopause transition. Some of the essays were absolutely great, some less so, but all in all a good collection.

It looks to be a smokey week around here, with fire fighters working around the clock. Meanwhile, I will just be practicing serenity and peering at the sky, optimistically thinking I might see a patch of blue. Have a lovely week, friends. Stay safe. xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Summer Essentials Edition

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I will confess that for many years, I thought the change of the seasons was highly overrated. In my defense, I was living in Calgary, where winter is endless, spring and fall are so short they could be considered almost nonexistent, and summer was marked by cold winds, thunderstorms, hail, and mosquitoes. I could really imagine myself living in a place like Maui, where the annual temperature fluctuation was less than ten degrees, and the sun shone happily every day.

Now I’m living in a place in which each season really is three months, and each builds into the next gradually, rather than going straight from Snow to Mosquitoes. I can really appreciate the beauty in each season and what they have to offer. That said, I am truly a Summer Girl at heart.

I love summer. I love the ease of getting dressed, I love wearing skorts and sandals, I love that “stepping into an oven” feeling when I come out of an air-conditioned house, I love the abundance of fresh produce, I love my garden, I love my flowers, I love it all! I don’t love the occasional smokey skies and the existential angst of being in a drought and thinking about the state of the world, but you know what, there is no sense in being anxious about something I can do almost nothing about. Stuff your worries in a sack, and then take that sack and frolic in the sunshine. Or, as Mary Oliver says, take your old body out in the morning and sing.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Summer Essentials Edition

Hello Hawaii

Recently my dear friend Suzanne (HI SUZANNE) was talking about “signature scents,” and I realized that in summer, my signature scent is Hawaiian Tropic sunscreen.

I love that coconutty floral scent, and I also love how it adds a little shimmer to my skin, in addition to being a great sun protectant. On the parts of my body that are not exposed to the sun, I have been using Nivea “Firming” lotion this summer, and I would like to go on the record to say that “firming” is too tall an order for a bottle of lotion. However, it is a really good moisturizer, with a light scent that allows the Hawaiian Tropic to shine through.

You Otter Know

Speaking of Hawaii, some of you might remember that we took many spring break vacations to Maui when the boys were younger.

2012

Since the boys were fairly young, and since Maui is a pretty expensive place, we would always go to Costco and the grocery store, and make most of our meals at the condo we would rent. And if you are a Canadian going into a US grocery store, no doubt you will be able to relate to our feelings of awe and wonder when we did so. US grocery stores have an incredible variety of cereals, cookies, and other snack foods, in comparison with those in the Great White North. As a brief aside, I clearly remember “going across the line” when I was a very young child, and trying a Twinkie for the first time. I was so excited. Twinkies were not then available in Canada, but they were heavily advertised in Archie comics, and I Could Not Wait to try one. Imagine, then, my grave disappointment when first it hit my lips. The idea was better than the execution.

Anyway, Maui grocery stores were literal heaven for my children, who had never seen such a vast array of packaged goods, like Young Nicole as regards Hostess snack cakes. Nowhere was this wide variety more apparent than in the frozen treat aisle, where my children were introduced to Otter Pops. They had, of course, had Mr Freeze and other such treats, but we were incredibly charmed by Otter Pops, with their clever names and array of flavours. Sir Isaac Lime! Little Orphan Orange! Poncho Punch!

Fast forward to this summer, when I was in Costco and I saw Otter Pops! I immediately and nostalgically texted our family chain, asking if I should buy some, expecting that I would get, at best, a “ha ha” reaction. But no! My son said “sure” and to make a very long and quite uninteresting story short, we have been enjoying Louie Bloo Raspberry and his friends as after dinner treats.

I like that they don’t have food colouring in them anymore, I like that they are small enough to be just that tiny bit of sweetness that is sometimes required after dinner, and I love that each treat reminds me of those vacations with the boys.

2013
2014
2014

Everything Happens For A Riesling

On the topic of refreshing treats, let’s talk wine. I am a red wine girl, but in the summer, I love a crisp glass of white. I love buying local, and I cannot get any more local than Tantalus Vineyards. Their 2025 Riesling is award-winning and highly rated, and it’s a perfect drink for a Friday on the deck.

Clawing Back

I love a boozy beverage or glass of wine as much as the next person, but sometimes I want a little something that is nonalcoholic. My friend Sammi (HI SAMMI) introduced me to NA White Claw.

I was a bit skeptical as I don’t like the regular White Claw, but these are delicious and refreshing. The mango is a great flavour, as are lime and black cherry.

Getting Off

If you are having an outdoor event, you should invite me. It’s an insurance against mosquito bites, because I will get them all. If there is a single mosquito within a four kilometre radius, it is going to find me and bite me, and then the bite will swell enormously only to eventually fade into a purple welt and, later, a bruise. I am so sexy and irresistible to mosquitoes and any other biting insect. They love me. They cannot get enough of me. I am Paul McCartney at the height of Beatlemania, and mosquitoes are my screaming fans, all wanting a little piece of me and my blood. My husband sometimes victim blames me for “not wearing proper clothing” because I am often, like a dance hall girl in the Yukon gold rush, boldly exposing my ankles and arms. But I will say the victim blaming is unfair, as clothing is only a small hurdle for mosquitoes to conquer; they can and do bite right through such impermeable articles as jeans and raincoats. If you are siding with my husband right now, claiming that it is not possible, let me assure you that it IS. I have had bites on both my bum and my mid back while wearing such clothing, and I promise I did not expose those parts of my body. I think the only clothing solution would be to don a full-on beekeeper-style outfit, and I am just not willing to do that to walk the dog.

I have tried natural remedies, I have tried every hippie, plant-based, essential oil-infused product there is, and every time, every single time I have been immediately swarmed. There is only one thing I will use, and it’s DEET.

Listen, I don’t love spraying my entire body with Deep Woods Off every morning before our walk, but I would rather bathe in DEET than be covered in welts, bruises, and bites, downing Benedryl every night just to get some relief. I always shower post-walk-and-garden, and so if I’m low-key poisoning myself, it’s only for a few hours each day. Even with the afore-mentioned drought, mosquitoes still abound in the early morning near the shady creek where we walk. Or, at least a few abound. Yesterday I thought it had been hot and dry enough that I would forgo the Deep Woods, and sure enough, I have three enormous, very itchy bites. They may have been the only three mosquitoes in the valley, but they found me. At this rate I will be Deep Woods-ing myself until fall.

The creek is practically nonexistent, where are the mosquitoes coming from? Rex doesn’t know.

Outfit of the Month

Recently my friend Birchie (HI BIRCHIE) said just because we don’t live near the ocean doesn’t mean we can’t go to the beach, which I took as a sexual euphemism of some sort. I don’t know what sort. But of course what she meant was that lake beaches are good beaches, and I have many such at my disposal.

When we used to come here on summer vacation, we would take the boys to the beach almost every day. Then, we moved here, and I rarely, if ever, go to the beach. I walk adjacent to the beach frequently. I drive by the beach all the time. But I don’t go, and that is a real shame.

My friend Joy (HI JOY) suggested a picnic and visit at the beach, and I just can’t believe we don’t do this more often. She also kindly took these outfit photos: comfy coverup dress from La Vie En Rose, and Skecher sandals.

The handkerchief tankini top and swim bottoms are also from La Vie En Rose. I find they always have great end-of-season sales, and I have gotten a lot of mix-and-match pieces very inexpensively over the years. Plus, it’s a Canadian company!

Summer is half over already! I am going to take my old body out into the morning and sing. I hope you have had a beautiful July, my friends. What are your favourites this month? Tell me everything. xo

Don’t tell me what to do, whimsical rock!

House Tour

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Saturday marked exactly three years since I packed up Rex and the Subaru, said goodbye to my beloved, cosy bungalow and life in Calgary, and drove eight hours to our new home in Kelowna; the guys and the moving van followed a few days later. It feels like an actual lifetime ago. It WAS a lifetime ago. I can remember, albeit fuzzily, the absolute overwhelm that came from such a big move; the administrative tasks alone were endless. I also remember the adjustment period; it was a huge change to go from an urban neighbourhood where I could walk to every amenity to living on an acreage at the end of a dead-end road in the agricultural section of town. More than anything, I remember really missing the feeling of being a valued and known member of various communities: yoga, the neighbourhood, my friend group. It was such a sad and unsettling feeling, being an anonymous stranger who didn’t know where the post office was, let alone how to find a doctor or a dog groomer.

But time is the panacea for most things, as it was for this. I now have to factor in Chat Time every time I go for a walk, I have a fabulous group of friends, I am a familiar face at the grocery store, farm market, post office, winery, and library. It’s hard to remember that deflated feeling I had, now.

One thing that has been consistent since our move is my love for our house. This house is so beautiful, and after 23 years in a north-facing, 1962 bungalow, I was thrilled from day one with the sudden acquisition of all the things I didn’t have before: the abundance of natural light, cupboard, and closet space, a mudroom, a pantry, a laundry room, and an ensuite. The novelty hasn’t worn off. Every single day I am grateful for every single one of these things, not a day goes by when I don’t marvel at them.

In my Ask Me Anything – back in December! I am nothing if not prompt – my friend San (HI SAN) asked: What is your favourite room in the house? The answer is the same when asked about my favourite month: I don’t have one. They are all my favourite in their own way! They all have wonderful things to recommend them, but I thought I would talk about the rooms I spend the most time in.

Upon entering the house, it is a straight shot from the beloved mudroom to the kitchen, living room, dining room, and deck. I love that we have dinner every day overlooking our beautiful view, I love our cozy living room, I love my spacious and bright kitchen. And of course, I love our deck! It’s an extra room during the warm months, and it’s where I can be found, reading, for a good part of the day.

When it’s not warm enough to be on the deck, I like to curl up on the couch, reading. Rex generally wedges himself between the couch and the coffee table, because I just cannot be close enough.

Those gold-framed flower pictures in the background were painted and given to me by my dear friend Florence (HI FLORENCE) before I left Calgary, and I think of her every single day when I see them. Also, full disclosure, I started this post a few months ago and then it fell off the radar, which explains Rex’s fuzziness in some photos.

The pandemic was terrible for many reasons, but, as Ma Ingalls says, there is no great loss without some small gain and for me, that was my Peloton bike. I love our home gym; we had one in Calgary too, but it was much smaller, and this one has a squat rack, which I use for pull-up practice.

I write in our office, and although it tends to be a bit of a catchall for some items (I think there still is a box that really should be unpacked and dealt with), I love the space. The shelves are filled with photos and albums, the kids’ craft and woodshop projects, and my husband’s prized bowling trophy from 1978.

I don’t spend a ton of time in here, but I love that we have a guest room and that our bookshelves fit so perfectly!

Enroute to our bedroom is our wall of photographs; some are from recent travels and some were on our walls in our Calgary house. Every one of them is a great memory. In this photo you can see the doors to the boys’ rooms – so spacious! – and also their bathroom. Really, since there is only one boy living at home, it’s HIS bathroom.

Where the magic happens! Also, while I like to stretch out on the deck or curl up on the couch, my husband enjoys reading in the recliner. But what’s that on his bedside table?

Inhale Exhale! Not just for middle-aged women! My husband proclaims it is his favourite book, and god, I love that man. I love that it is positioned perfectly next to his blood pressure monitor.

Weekly Reading

Speaking of books! I am CRUSHING my goal of DNFing when a book isn’t working for me, and this week it was Villa Coco. Clearly this author is not for me as I slogged through his Less in 2017 and I abandoned ship on this one at page 40. It had so many elements that I thought I’d love: setting in Tuscany, a sassy 92-year-old female side character, and an illicit affair. Very Nicole-coded! But wow, was I bored. I realized there is a huge wait list for this at the library, so the best thing I could do was return it early.

Dear Monica Lewinsky. Who among us has not had a youthful indiscretion? I have long thought that Monica Lewinsky is the most maligned woman of my lifetime; imagine your youthful indiscretion resulted in betrayal by a close girlfriend, becoming the focus of international attention and intense ridicule, being slut-shamed and weight-shamed and all-around-shamed, being the frequent subject of sexist, rude, crass jokes on late night television and Saturday night live, not to mention national programs and publications, having your entire reputation precede you forever at the age of 25, being unable to find a job or to outrun your persona as a gross whore, and, at the end of the day, having the man with whom you had this youthful indiscretion deny the whole thing and then having to prove it by getting a DNA sample of the jizz he left on your dress? Let us all remember what we were like at 22, let us all remember the rush of power and the butterflies of adoration, and let us imagine our lives being forever changed afterward. Or maybe there is no imagining needed. This book deals with a woman facing her own youthful indiscretion and how it impacted her life forever; she calls for help from a canonized Monica Lewinsky. The book interweaves the lives of female saints with the story of the young woman’s time at an art history summer program, using the cleverest, wittiest writing I have seen in a long while. I loved this book and I am standing with my fist raised against powerful men who use young women for their own desires and then step away unscathed, while the women deal with the fallout. Also, fuck the patriarchy that makes girls and women feel their worth lies only in their ability to attract the male gaze.

Saoirse. What happens when the people who are supposed to protect children don’t? What happens when children fall through the cracks? Can a person outrun their past? These are all questions that are answered through this book, which features a very young American woman who flees to Ireland with a stolen identity. This is a very readable book with beautiful prose, and I liked but did not love it. I found some of the relationships and storylines strained credulity; for example, I cannot imagine housing a person, rent-free and indefinitely, in my home, whom my son sat next to on an airplane. I cannot imagine a relationship that would be love at first sight and then that love would endure after years of not seeing each other, but I suppose it could happen. I found the antagonists to be quite flat and one-dimensional. But these quibbles do not mean that this is not a good story containing characters who do have lavish and interesting backstories – it is. But it’s a little too neat for my personal taste.

Best Offer Wins. Speaking of dream homes, how far would you go to get yours? Probably not as far as our narrator, Margo, who becomes increasingly unhinged as entering the DC housing market becomes more and more unattainable. This is a wild ride; it’s very pacey and entertaining, and I was thoroughly engrossed in this absolutely insane effort to obtain the house of our narrator’s dreams.

Summer is just flying by, friends! I can hardly believe it. I’m heading to the beach today with some girlfriends, which feels like a very luxurious thing to do on a Monday! I hope you have a week with such little luxuries ahead of you. xo