Category Archives: OOTW2021

Summer Solstice; Sixty-Six Weeks In

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All By Myself, No More

As of Tuesday this week, the boys will be finished their final exams and this very strange school year will be in the rearview mirror. I am always pretty Landslide-y in June – another year gone, children get older, I’m getting older too – and even though it was been a very weird year, I am really feeling it. In fact, I might be feeling it more since these are my kids’ HIGH SCHOOL YEARS, they should be enjoying them to the fullest, and they are, but the “fullest” has different meanings during a global pandemic. Also, this time next year, my oldest will be 18 and have graduated, which fills me with ALL KINDS of feelings, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Speaking of my oldest and the high school experience, he mentioned that he met a girl at school, and she’s really funny and nice. He was talking about her quite a bit, and so I said in that Teasing Mom Voice we all have, Oooohhh, is she CUTE? He replied yes, with a smile, and then stopped. “I mean, I think so. I haven’t actually seen her whole face.”

So there’s that.

The final exams this year, like last year, were “non-jeopardy,” meaning that they can boost final marks, but they cannot lower them. Both of my boys were going into their finals with high marks, so you can imagine the level of motivation around here, knowing that no matter what happened on the exam, their transcript marks would remain high. I was trying to encourage them to give it their all, it’s good practice for the future, and who knows, maybe your mark will go up a percentage point or two, but you know what, I give up.

So the boys are home and my husband has been back working from home and will be for the next while, and my quiet house is quiet no more; we are back to Everybody Is Home All The Time.

What An Age We Live In

Fun fact about high school teachers: they have fewer in-class hours than teachers in younger grades, and so to satisfy that part of their union contract, the school institutes mandatory tutorials during the exam break, which was last week and this week. Final exams are taken in the mornings, each day a different subject, and then in the afternoon are these mandatory tutorials. The tutorials are mandatory even after the final exam in that subject has been written, and in classes in which there was no final exam, such as phys ed. It was widely acknowledged BY THE TEACHERS that no actual work would be done in class, no new learning, and one teacher even shook his head “no” as he told the students that tutorials were mandatory. I told the boys that of course they didn’t have to waste their time going to the tutorials, unless they needed extra help, just study at home – insofar as “studying” was required – and found out later that they were in the minority in their friend group. Almost all of their of their friends were forced by their parents to go. Oh well. I’m not a regular mom, I’m a cool mom.

I might not have been so cool had I known I would be inundated with messages from the school about their truancy. The very first day of exams, after one son had written his science final and the other spent several hours at home studying for math, my phone pinged with PowerSchool notifications that the boys were marked unexcused for their afternoon classes. Including, for my younger son, gym. Then both my husband and I received emails from the school and I even got a PHONE CALL on my landline to inform me of their absence. This continued throughout exam break and honestly, I understand that it is part of the job and attendance is important for optimal learning outcomes but my god.

I do genuinely believe that there is merit in forcing oneself to perform arbitrary functions, even when those arbitrary functions are ridiculous and meaningless, because we live in a society and occasionally such things are required of us. For example, sanitizing your hands upon entering a store in the mall, even though you JUST sanitized your hands three minutes ago upon entering a different store and have touched nothing since. It’s important to model good behaviour and signal your citizenship in society, even to the detriment of your skin and possibly your microbiome.

However. It’s June. The boys have been really, really great for this whole school year. They have been engaged in their classes, even when bouncing between online and in-class learning, they have not missed a single class, they have kept their marks higher than I could have even hoped for. I am going to stand by my possibly shoddy parenting decision and in any case, the tutorials are – I hope – wrapping up this week, which will cut down on the truancy notifications I receive. Also, I am really glad this technology did not exist when I was in high school.

The Same Nicole You Know And Love, Now With Superpowers

On Saturday I got my second Covid vaccine shot, and my superpowers are officially activated. If a certain section of the anti-vax people are correct, I am now magnetic, and will possibly be dead in two years! Well, I had a good run.

I am so grateful to be vaccinated, I am so grateful for all the hard-working people who have made this happen, and I am really hoping that we will never walk this path again. Mostly I am just looking forward to being my normal huggy self, without feeling like we are all vectors of disease.

For those who are interested, as per current recommendations I received the Pfizer vaccine, as a follow-up from my Astra Zenica. In terms of side effects, I was extremely tired and sleepy afterwards. I mean, I took a NAP on Saturday afternoon, which never happens, and then I went to bed at 8 and slept until 6:30. I wasn’t my usual peppy self the next day, but I was perfectly functional; this morning I have a bit of a sore arm and nothing else to report.

The Long March To Winter

Today is Summer Solstice! The great thing about getting up at four-something in the morning at this time of year is that I can still see the sunrise and by the time I start my yoga practice, it’s fully light outside. The sun sets at ten o’clock, and did you guys know there is a ten o’clock at night? I never see the sunset, is what I’m saying.

I knew a guy who would say on Summer Solstice that every day is getting shorter until we are back to winter again, and sir, that is a true statement but can we just enjoy the moment? I think about it every Summer Solstice. Well, we’ve started the Long March to Winter again! It cracks me up every time.

It’s been warm enough that I open the windows in the morning, to cool the house down and to listen to the birdsong as I practice yoga. There are magpies nesting in the neighbour’s tree, which means that there will be long stretches of musical chirping punctuated by the staccato cadence of magpies screaming. It’s quite unsettling, not unlike listening to classical piano music with sections of hard-core Eminem, complete with fake gunfire and many, many f-bombs. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy both classical piano music and hard-core Eminem, just not at the same time.

Outfit of the Week

Speaking of summer! We have had some really lovely weather and so I’m pulling out all my favourite lighter pieces that I have had for many years but don’t wear out because, let’s face it, summer is fleeting and these pieces do not get to see the light of day very often.

This is a teaching outfit; my teaching days are going to be non-existent this summer, sadly. Today is my last registered class at the community centre, to be continued in the fall, and my other class is on pause for the summer, and I’m unsure when that will continue. So a teaching outfit to celebrate the last teaching day for a few months! Pastels are usually a no-go for me, but I like myself in blue, and I like the darker blue tank underneath. My favourite mala goes perfectly with this outfit, and one of the best things about summer? No socks!

Pandemic Reading

Revival Season. This follows a young girl whose father is a revivalist evangelical preacher; during Revival Season the family travels around the southern US so he can save souls and heal people. The girl witnesses her father commit an act of violence, which has massive repercussions for the family and for her own faith. At the same time, she discovers she has healing powers. I enjoyed this book – didn’t LOVE it, but I enjoyed it – and it is written in present day, which is important. I have since discovered that the idea that women are inferior and subservient to men is still widely accepted in the evangelical community TODAY, which is disturbing, and is a major theme in this book.

Truths I Never Told You. Ugh, this book was NOT for me. It was my own fault, right on the cover the author is compared to two well-known authors whose writing I do not care for. I found the first-person narrative to be so overwrought, the dialogue stilted, the plot super-contrived. One of my pet peeves about writing that supposedly takes place in the past is the application of today’s views on yesterday’s beliefs. It feels very unrealistic to me, as did the journal entries that are used as a literary device to advance the plot – usually I like that device, but these journal entries were SO ridiculously over the top with drama. Anyway, not for me.

American Dirt. I was about a third of the way through this book when my friend Nicole (HI NICOLE) alerted me to some troublesome controversy with regards to the author. It didn’t totally colour my reading experience, but it was certainly in the back of my mind while reading. Honestly, I don’t know what to think: the morality of writing a work of fiction about a culture and experience that is not the author’s is really beyond the scope of my blog. The author discusses her hesitations about writing the book in the afterword, and does mention that her own husband was an undocumented immigrant, hence her interest in Central American migrants.

Anyway, controversy and debate notwithstanding, this book is excellent. While I don’t think anyone who supported the 45th president and his anti-migrant views would read this and change their minds, I think this book humanizes the migrant experience. This incredible book sheds light on the horrors of the migrant experience, shows how desperation leads people to grasp at any chance, no matter how dangerous, to seek a new life. It is breathtaking, and heartbreaking, tragic and hopeful.

Happy Summer Solstice, friends! May you enjoy our ever-shortening days this week! xo

The Opposite of Trendy; Sixty-Five Weeks In

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This will be obvious for anyone who knows me or has read this blog for any amount of time, but I really love clothes and fashion. When I was a kid, I loved paper dolls so much; I loved all the different outfits slated for different activities, I loved dressing up their flat little bodies, folding the tabs over their shoulders carefully as I took my paper dolls to a fancy gala or the tennis courts.

Fun fact: I had not one but TWO Princess Diana paper doll books, one for cutting out and one for saving, and I still have them. As I recall, it was a bitch cutting out the wedding dress, all those tiny little frills.

Anyway, I love clothes but I do not consider myself to be a trendy person; when I was younger I would incorporate trends into my outfits but one of the great things about being middle-aged is that a) I don’t really care about trends anymore, I just want to wear what flatters my own 46-year-old body, and b) current trends are not aimed at me anyway.

Back in 2012, I railed against the movement from dark-wash boot-cut jeans to skinny jeans, but I eventually capitulated to the trend and I never went back. I love the esthetic of skinny jeans with a long, drapey sweater and tall boots. It is perfect for my perimenopausal body, perfect for living in a climate in which tall boots and long sweaters are appropriate at least nine months out of the year, and I cannot see trading in my skinnies anytime soon. The great news is no one expects me to because hey, you completely disappear to the public eye when you turn forty! Yay for the invisibility of aging women! No one cares what we wear because we might as well not exist after our fertility declines!

Just kidding.

Anyway, I don’t follow the trends but I do like to know what’s in style, because I am a style anthropologist – “This is so 1992!” – and so I have not YET unsubscribed from a certain Young People’s Clothing Store emails; the mystery about how I was suddenly on that email list has yet to be solved, but here we are. The other day I got an email about these hot new jeans for summer, and, friends, what do we think of them:

To me, they scream My Mom Wore Those In The Late Eighties. Do NOT get me wrong, people. If you are wearing these jeans, I am sure you look adorable. There is no judgement here. I save my judgmental thoughts for people who don’t return their shopping carts or who wear their mask under their nose. I think pants with tie waists can look really cute, but they are not for me, particularly the denim variety. Last summer I optimistically purchased a pair of very-casual yoga-style pants that have a high tie-waist and they flatter me not at all; regrets, I have them. I think I need to add them to the donation pile. The biggest problem, for me, is that such styles – along with wide-leg pants – require either a crop top or the tucking in of shirts, neither of which I am interested in wearing or doing. See also: perimenopausal body. My interest in personally wearing trendy clothing began fading a few years ago with the reappearance of crop tops, waned further with wide-leg pants, and now has thudded to a halt with these jeans.

I was thinking about how far removed I am from being trendy the other day, when I was in the mall. You read that right: I was in the mall. I initially thought the last time I was in the mall was November, when Christmas shopping, but then I realized that no, I had briefly been there in April to buy my mom a birthday present. At that time, though, we were heading into our third (fourth?) lockdown, and my “shopping” consisted of me parking to the closest exit and speed walking to and from the one store I wanted to visit.

The mall, though. It’s pretty depressing. So many stores are shuttered and so many more seem to be struggling. The children’s play park is covered with tarps and encircled by “do not cross” tape. I haven’t been shopping in so long I probably would have “helped” all the struggling stores if I had more time, but alas. I was there for Father’s Day gifts – that is NEXT weekend! Already! – and I had to stay focused on the task. Still, I noticed Skechers has some pretty cute sandals and Mary Janes; do I need another pair of sandals and Mary Janes? No, I do not. And yet the heart wants what it wants, perhaps I will gather the strength to go again soon.

Other than the depressing-ness, I noticed all the window displays of the trendy stores: so many booty shorts, so much tie-dye. I feel like the Kathy Bates character in Fried Green Tomatoes: I’m too young to be old and too old to be young. Ah, youth. I see girls wearing these things and I think they are adorable; I also imagine they think they look terrible in many ways, because our society teaches us to loathe ourselves practically from birth. I want to grab them all by the shoulders and tell them that they are so very beautiful, and that one day, they will be in their middle age and see the tie-dyed shirts and booty shorts of their youth return, and they will wish they knew just how beautiful they were.

Outfit of the Week

Speaking of clothing! I mentioned during last week’s heat wave that this week would feature cool-weather rainwear, and people, I do not disappoint.

This was my Going To The Mall outfit! I coveted Hunter boots for years and years, but I could never justify a pair since I HAD a solid pair of rain boots. Well, a couple years ago those rain boots – that I bought when the boys were in the double stroller – developed a big crack and no longer served as waterproof footwear, and at the same time these boots were on sale, and kismet. That tweedish coat is lined and only semi-waterproof, so good for Going To The Mall, but not great for Walking In The Rain, and it dates from 2014. Fun fact: I have coordinated the detailing of my mask with my lavender yoga pants. I won’t be sad to see the end of the pandemic, but mask-outfit coordinating is still really fun.

Pandemic Reading

The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. Ernie (HI ERNIE) mentioned that she was reading this for book club, so I put it on hold; it came in quickly and then I…put off reading it, renewing it until I could renew no more. Fun fact: for a while it was in the same pile with The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. I was reticent to read it because a) it’s a murder mystery, a genre I do not generally like, b) it’s also kind of sci-fi, c) it’s written by a man, and d) Allison, (HI ALLISON) who DID like it, thought I wouldn’t, and she’s generally right. Well, I didn’t really like it but I didn’t hate it, it’s very cleverly written, although it felt too long and drawn out for me. I kept thinking this book has GOT to be over soon, why are there still 150 pages left to read, wait, ANOTHER new character, what is happening. Also it felt like it was written in the hopes someone would pick up the film rights which, did they? Is this a movie? I could see this being a successful movie. Not for me but if you like murder mysteries and sci-fi, you’d probably like it.

Murder On My Mind: A Memoir of Menopause. The title ALONE made me want to read this. Reading this is like having a conversation with a very good friend or a sister who is not afraid to talk about the gritty and somewhat gory details of menopause. I am all for normalizing these conversations, despite what society in general and clothing manufacturers in particular think, we do not disappear with age and declining fertility. I think we should have a Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret-style revival, but with menopause instead of first periods and bras. Fun fact: the author lives in Calgary!

Lucky. If you’re looking for a light and satisfying summer read, look no further! A grifter pulls off a heist, and also has a winning lottery ticket in her pocket. But she can’t cash it without turning herself in. What to do? 

Have a beautiful week, everyone! Here, the kids are going into final exams and everything feels very June-ish, which is not unexpected, as it is the middle of June. xo

Embrace The Season; Sixty-Four Weeks In

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You won’t believe it, but last week we had a heat wave! The term Heat Wave, by the way, is relative to Calgary – I’m sure my friends in the South would just call it a stretch of pleasant summer days – but it has made me so happy. I’m spending every available minute outside; my garden is exploding. The neighbourhood is full of flowering trees in full bloom, and my own lilacs are making their appearance.

I love lilacs; when I was a kid I wished we had them in our yard as I would sniff the neighbours’ shrubs on the way to school every morning in June. Now I have them in my own backyard to sniff as much as I like! Life is good, even if the heat wave didn’t last and now it’s cool and rainy. The garden will be happy with this turn of events as well, and so will my water bill.

I am not a podcast person, but a woman I know was featured on Kelsie Snow’s Sorry I’m Sad, and I listened to it on my walk the other day. I vaguely knew Melanie (HI MELANIE) from the yoga studio, years ago, but I’ve gotten to know her more through her blog, newsletter, and instagram. She is a mother of three who is living with metastatic breast cancer and the knowledge that she won’t see her girls grow up to be women. She is in constant pain as the cancer has spread to her bones and uterus; she has compression fractures in her spine, as well as broken ribs. If you have a chance, give this podcast a listen; she talks about her diagnosis, how life, and being a mom, doesn’t stop when you have cancer, and the strain that chronic/ terminal illness – particularly in a pandemic, my god – puts on a marriage. It was incredibly moving but also inspiring. At the end of the podcast, she mentioned that when it’s winter, she loves taking photos of the winter sun. She thinks winter is her favourite, and then it’s spring, and she thinks spring is her favourite. Melanie said that it seemed like whatever season she is in, it’s her favourite, and the podcast ended with the following message: Embrace the Season You’re In.

I cannot tell you how strongly this resonated with me, on so many different levels. If I was a Tattoo Person, I’d get it tattooed on my arm. If I was an Inspirational Signage Person, I’d put it on a sign in fancy calligraphy in my front hallway. But I am a Blog Person, and so I am going to think about it and refer to it until the end of time.

Embrace the Season! I remember when my oldest was a baby, and I was visiting with a woman who kept telling me about her toddler and how horrible the 18 month stage was. Then, when I saw her next, several months later, she told me about the Terrible Twos. All I could think of at the time was that she would just continue to do that forever: the Terrible Twos would segue into the Even Worse Threes, and so it would go all the way up to the Untenable Teen Years. I could see it happening, and I vowed at that time that I would never think that way, and I haven’t. I try to always enjoy and embrace the stage I’m in and not look back in an overly nostalgic way or forward with extreme longing. The present moment is all we really have, as they say, and so here we are. Wherever we go, here we are.

It’s a strange season we are in, the pandemic. It would be weird and tone-deaf to say that we should embrace the pandemic, given that there have been so many who have died, or lost their livelihoods, or are dealing with long-term effects that no one knows how to deal with. But because of the pandemic, there are things that have changed for me, for the better: priorities have been highlighted, things that I didn’t think I could live without I have thrived without, and I have learned to cherish my relationships in a new way.

I was talking to my kids about the things we used to do when they were little: going to the zoo and science centre, the playgrounds and play groups. I loved doing those things but I am well aware that looking in the rearview mirror puts a gloss on them; it was often exhausting, and required so much logistical planning just to get out the door. Being a mom of teens is, I think, so much fun. The teen years get such a bad rap, and of course there is angst and drama and saucy back-talk. Of course there is! But there are interesting ideas and conversations, there is new learning and knowledge and the ability to see the world through fresh eyes. The Teen Years Season can be fraught, but it’s also breathtakingly beautiful.

Anyway, it’s easy to Embrace the Season when the sun is shining and the birds chirp along with my early morning yoga practice, and the neighbourhood is in bloom and strawberries are plentiful. The challenge is, of course, to keep this attitude when things turn. We’ve made it this far, all of us, and if Melanie can find beauty in her season, her current season defined by pain and cancer treatments, then I think we all can Embrace the Season We Are In.

Outfit of the Week

Last week I enjoyed pulling out my infrequently-used-but-much-loved warm-weather clothing. I mean, I went for my runs in shorts, SHORTS, people. It’s a bizarre look for me, since I also wear long compression socks to manage my varicose veins, which meant that I felt like one of those old men who wear long black socks with everything, in all weather.

This is NOT the Outfit of the Week.

I recently complimented a friend on her outfit, and she mentioned that we are at that age where when we find a piece that is comfortable and flattering, we buy it in an assortment of colours. That is so true; I do this all the time, except my colour variety tends to be black, grey, and maybe white. The exception is skirts and yoga tanks, I tend to veer towards colour in both! I love skirts that have shorts built in underneath; it’s the best of both worlds – the flattering cut of a skirt, and the comfort of knowing that the neighbours aren’t going to see my panties when I’m bending over or if it’s windy or something.

I have this skirt in many colours and patterns, although I tend to pair them with plain black tanks, let’s not get too wild. Old habits die hard, what can I say. I also will say that Old Navy has the best plain black tanks in terms of fit, longevity, and affordability, and I will die on this hill. I also pulled my sandals out of the closet this week! (Next week look for rain boots and pants).

Pandemic Reading

It’s been hit and miss with reading this week, without any You Must Read This recommendations.

The Accidental Tourist. It’s always strange to read a book that was written in the 80s – this was written in 1985 – because there are interesting little details that date the book: descriptions of airline travel, for one, new technology such as the Walkman, and clothing. Also, one of the characters has a body perm gone wrong and I felt seen. The problem is there are also details that date the book in a bad way; talking about “foreign-looking people” and other kind of distasteful descriptions. For me, this book was irritating and strangely depressing, like watching a movie from the 80s that didn’t age well. A few years ago I rewatched The Breakfast Club and was struck by all the fat-shaming and slut-shaming and general weirdness. Some things are best left in the past, I guess. I did not enjoy this book.

Little Pieces of Me. Let’s imagine you were really close to your late father, and then, two years after he died you found out that genetically, he wasn’t actually your father and your mother has been keeping a big secret after forty-three years. That’s the premise of this book and honestly, I did not like it. I found the main character so unlikeable and so unsympathetic. I think that if I found out my DNA was different than I thought it was, I don’t believe it would change the person that I am, and yet the main character was constantly saying she didn’t know who she really was and she wasn’t the person she thought she was, blah blah blah for another two hundred pages. I mean, it’s pretty theoretical on my end, as I am an actual female version of my dad, but I can’t imagine thinking I was a different person just because my dad wasn’t my biological dad. This book is very highly rated, but for me, it fell flat.

That Summer. I thought this was going to be a beach read, but it sure wasn’t. A book about sexual assault, #MeToo and the consequences for everyone involved. It’s a great message but I didn’t love the execution – for me the plot line was a little weak and cliched , and the characters very one dimensional. Still, as I say, a great message written with several points of view.

Have a beautiful week, friends! Embrace the season! For me, I’m going to embrace my rain boots and sweaters. xo

Three Teens In The House; Sixty-Three Weeks In

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As of yesterday, I now have three teenagers in the house!

Sorry, the photo is a little fuzzy.

Every week that Barkley is still wagging and sitting at my feet as I make dinner is a good week. He’s pretty slow these days – his big lump trips him up quite a bit – and he has Old Man Selective Hearing as he bolts up from a dead sleep when he hears me take the carrot peeler out of the drawer, but somehow can’t hear me when I tell him not to walk through my garden, squishing the hostas, but he still gets excited to eat, go for our slow-boat-to-nowhere walks, and receive daily eyedrops.

Speaking of good weeks, THE BOYS WENT BACK TO SCHOOL, HALLELUJAH, THE BOYS WENT BACK TO SCHOOL.

With the boys in actual, in-person school and my husband in the actual, in-person office, it’s just the two of us at home, and I cannot remember the last time that happened. One of us is happier about it than the other, I will leave it to you to guess who is who.

I think it would be impossible to overstate the positive impact on the household energy that going back to school has had. The boys LEAVE, and then around 3:30 both Barkley and I excitedly await them COMING HOME. They come home, sit at the kitchen island as I prep vegetables for dinner, and talk to me about their day. This is a thing that didn’t happen when they were at-home schooling – the coming and going, obviously, but more importantly, the talking. They were becoming more withdrawn by the day, crouched over their laptops in their room for hours on end, socializing with their friends online for the hours they weren’t working. My younger son is in gym class, and I think there’s not much sadder than an extrovert who loves gym doing burpees alone in his room and then watching a video about making healthy choices. Now, they are literally beaming with happiness when they come in the door, full of stories about their day, their classes, their friends. I chop vegetables and they talk about taking lacrosse, the English class short story presentations, upcoming matches in WWE, and Wings Paul McCartney versus Beatles Paul McCartney.

For the record, we all agree Wings Paul McCartney is superior to Beatles Paul McCartney, because although the Beatles were more innovative and creative, Wings is more fun to sing along to.

They only have about three and a half weeks of school until finals start, but I am so happy they can finish the year off this way.

Outfit of the Week

The sun came out! The sun came out! It was an amazing week for gardening; even though it’s not quite June I put all my herbs in pots and also took a deep breath and planted my tomatoes, peppers, basil, and cucumber plants, all of which really should wait until after the magic date of June 1. I mean, that’s tomorrow, so it’s not a huge stretch (IT IS JUNE TOMORROW, PEOPLE). Will I yield actual peppers and cucumbers in a Calgary garden? It’s unlikely. However, in the words of a young family friend whose brother challenged her to wear a stuffed banana on her head for their entire road trip vacation, I will probably fail but it will be fun to try.

Anyway, gardening calls for gardening clothes!

I love my Kindness is Magic tee; it came from the Yoga Shala back in the day. I always feel happy when I slip it on. Kindness IS magic, you never know when someone needs a smile – or a smize, it’s mask life – or a kind word. I’m wearing it over a yoga tank, because who wants to wear an actual bra while gardening? Not me. Now, a little note about the jeans and shoes:

THOSE LITTLE MUFFINS. That photo is from 2008, and those are the same shoes and jeans. Do I hold onto things forever? Apparently. The jeans have developed holes in the knees and the shoes are really only good for around the yard, but I cannot quit them.

Pandemic Reading

Swimming Back To Trout River. This was an absolutely beautiful book spanning the years between the Cultural Revolution in China and the 1980s, spanning the lives of four interconnected people, some who left China and some who were left behind. It’s very nuanced and wonderfully written; ostensibly about a girl whose parents send for her to come to America, but it’s so much more.

Uneasy Street: The Anxieties of Affluence. This was an absolutely fascinating book about people who have benefitted greatly from rising economic inequality in America. The author interviewed fifty people in New York City, which, as we know, is a totally different planet when it comes to wealth. In fact, NYC is the most economically inequitable city in North America; the median income is $52K, but the people interviewed either earned at least $250K (most of them much more) per annum, or had millions in amassed wealth (either through earnings or inheritance), or both. All of them owned apartments in NYC which, whew, that alone is a huge financial asset. There is just SO much in this book; from entitlement to parenting with wealth, to who holds the power in the family (guess what, it’s usually the man), to being secretive about income and possessions, to gender division of labour. You will not be surprised to know that in heterosexual couples with children, the woman ALWAYS is in charge of the emotional labour, even in the case where the woman earned $1.2M per year, over ten times what her husband earned. She was the person to stay home with the kids when they were sick, to make appointments, to know what the homework was, etcetera. GOOD TO KNOW. Some other interesting points: nearly everyone in the study hid the cost of their purchases from the people who they hired, such as their housekeeper, and the people who came from working class families of origin tended to be very silent about their lifestyle. As one woman put it, how could she really talk about her problem of which private school to send her children to, when the cost of the private school exceeded her brother’s annual income. Another thing that really struck me was, for the people who earned a lot of money (versus those who inherited), there was a high level of anxiety that it would all disappear. This was written after the 2008 crash. One man who had a few million in assets and a $2M annual salary said that his fear was that he would lose his job, and therefore health insurance, and someone would get sick, with cancer or something, and all that money would be gone. This is something that I, as a Canadian, never consider. I was talking to my husband about this book, and he mentioned that a friend of ours – who is a pretty high-rolling financier – knew many people who committed suicide after the 2008 crash. I guess if your lifestyle reflects your income, and you lose that income, things can really derail. Almost none of these people considered themselves to be wealthy, despite NYC brownstones and houses in the Hamptons. They all said they were pretty much “middle class, maybe upper-middle class.” Their attitudes towards money, especially inherited money, was pretty fascinating. It’s a very thought-provoking, interesting read.

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies. This was, on the surface, a very juicy collection of short stories, some of them quite scandalous. Each story has so many layers, though, and the writing is very nuanced and powerful. I really enjoyed this. Short stories are one of my favourite things and when they are done well – as this collection is – they are kind of mind-blowing.

Have a great week, everyone! I hope things are blooming for you, inside and out. xo

Do You Want To Build A Snowman; Sixty-Two Weeks In

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Today is the Monday of the Victoria Day long weekend, which is essentially meaningless to me.

But not for long! Tomorrow the boys go back to school, and I am so happy about it. They’ve been coping just fine over the past five weeks, but it just feels so unhealthy to have them sitting in their rooms, in front of their laptops, for hours each day. It feels unhealthy because it IS unhealthy, and I am just going to be grateful that at-home learning has been the exception for them, rather than the rule this school year. I really feel for parents of younger kids who need actual supervision with their schooling, particularly those who are trying to work from home or worse, having to go to work and figure out child care. What a mess.

Anyway, tomorrow we are back in business!

What a dreary week we have had. It started off so beautifully with sunshine and actual warm temperatures – what passes for heat, even, in this city – and then we got snow.

It’s melted now – and now it’s just raining – and I am happy to report my garden is just fine. Many years ago, when I first started gardening, I joined the Calgary Horticultural Society, which had a chat group. This was around 2000-01, so that was the height of internet communications at the time. Anyway, in this chat group there would always be that one person who would take great pride in growing plants and flowers that were not at all suited to Calgary’s climate, and it always seemed like a waste of effort to me. I mean, you do you, gardening lady, but for me, I think the key to successful gardening is to plant what actually thrives in your climate. In Calgary, if you plant flowers in May, you had better make sure they can take the snow and frost. For the record, the formerly snow-covered petunias and pansies are thriving.

There’s a metaphor in there somewhere.

Outfit of the Week

After a brief foray into the world of short sleeves, we are back to Sweater Weather! I think that it’s Sweater Weather in Calgary for at least ten months of the year, possibly eleven, depending on the weight of the sweater. So we are in Sweater Weather, but Light Sweater Weather, which brings us to the Outfit of the Week:

This is a typical teaching outfit – yoga pants and tank with a long sleeved top underneath a sweater. I always keep a long sleeve top on when I go to the community centre to teach as it’s cold there even when the heat IS working. Thanks to zoom yoga, I am a packhorse when I go: I take a speaker, an iPad, a block to hold up the iPad, and a bag of yoga blocks and straps. Since the heat debacle, I also now take a spare pair of legwarmers JUST IN CASE. Not pictured: my mat and my giant handbag that holds all my regular going-out-of-the-house stuff, plus a water bottle. It’s a workout just getting from the parking lot to the community centre.

I wanted to give you a close-up of the bags. They are just too cute. My friend Monique (HI MONIQUE) gave me the Babar Yoga bag, which holds all my blocks and straps, and the Everything Happens For A Riesling bag came from Tantalus Vineyards, which some of you may know is on the site of my husband’s family’s former vineyard and winery. My husband actually planted some of those Riesling vines that yield my favourite white wine, way back in the day.

Oh, and do you love that mala? I sure do. My friend Amy (HI AMY) made it and it’s so beautiful and meaningful to me.

Pandemic Reading

The upside of the return to snow and lack of gardening duties is that I had some extra time for reading this week, which is good, as I’m still working through my giant pile of library books and TWO MORE JUST CAME IN SOMEONE HELP ME I HAVE A PROBLEM.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. This was a nice palate cleanser after the psychological trauma that was The Push. Nothing life-changing here, but it was a fun, old-timey Hollywood read about love, romance, and family. It was also a good reminder of how things have changed for the LBGTQ+ community; things can always improve, of course, but I have seen such a sweeping change in my lifetime, and I see how inclusive my teens and their circle are, and it gives me lots of hope for the future.

How the Penguins Saved Veronica. Oh, this was just delightful. What a lovely, sweet little book about a crusty octogenarian who is looking for someone to leave her millions to. She becomes interested in penguins and travels to Antarctica; along the way she connects with the grandson she didn’t know she had. Just an absolute sweetheart of a book.

The Last Thing He Told Me. I am not usually one to pick up mysteries, but this was very fun and absorbing. It was a bit of a complex story involving white collar crime, a secret past, and different kinds of love.

Oh, I loved this book! Eli is in a relationship with a woman his family considers inappropriate, so his mother arranges a marriage with Afi. Afi happily agrees to this as it will raise her widowed mother out of poverty; Afi leaves her village to live in luxury in the city. What she doesn’t realize is that the other relationship didn’t end and Eli has no intention of ending it. This was an absolutely fascinating book; the juxtaposition between rural, traditional Ghana and modern, urban Ghana is incredible. What a book!

Time to gear up for a week that’s sure to be exciting in the Boyhouse; hopefully with more sunshine than last week! xo

Ups and Downs; Sixty-One Weeks In

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Good News/ Bad News

The bad news is that, with the latest lockdown restrictions, lineups to get into Costco are back.

The good news is that I was there right at opening and so the lineup moved quite quickly, and, more importantly, there are no shortages of anything that I could see. The fact that there are no shortages, and there haven’t been for many months, has motivated me to use up all my stockpiled pantry staples in a way that is deeply uncomfortable for me. This week alone I used up the last of my stores of the following: spaghetti, chickpeas, and taco seasoning. That’s right: there are none of those items left in the house. I felt a little Pandemic At The Disco at using up the last two cans of chickpeas, but I did some deep breathing and reminded myself that I could simply buy more this week, there is no chickpea shortage, and there has never been a chickpea shortage. It’s a whole mindset change and I do not know how long it will take me to get over it.

What’s Up, Doc

Perishables, however, are another matter. If you have small children – particularly, it seems, boys – and you despair of their picky eating habits and you wonder if it’s okay that they seem to survive on air and the occasional strawberry yogurt, I am here to hug you and say: wait until the teen years. My god. Every Wednesday I find myself playing Tetris with my two fridges, using up every square inch of space as I put away the groceries, and then one week later, both fridges look like they belong to Old Mother Hubbard. This week I went to Costco AND Superstore, and after a solid three hours of driving, shopping, standing in line, unloading and putting everything away, I stood at the fridge for a moment and realized something: I forgot to buy carrots.

You may be thinking, so what, but let me tell you: carrots are right up there with bananas as a produce staple in this house. We go through four pounds of carrots a week, and buying carrots is a reflex for me, one that apparently was broken this week. I have no excuse; I bought sweet potatoes and ginger root, both of which are in the same aisle as the carrots. Carrots were, as they always are, on my paper grocery list. I didn’t know what happened but I did know that this could not stand.

But I’ve already been to two places today, I thought to myself. Then I thought of May (HI MAY) and her comment about measured decisions in a low-risk way that don’t totally abide by the rules does not mean we are on the slippery slope to anarchy. I put on my mask and boots, grabbed my purse, started my Garmin, and speed-walked over to the local Co-Op where I grabbed a bag of carrots and an avocado (I am not made of stone, Co-Op avocados are second to none) and walked back home, all in the span of thirteen minutes and thirty-six seconds.

Important Garden Update

I am so excited to tell you that all the vegetable seeds I have planted have sprouted! I go out to look at my new garden boxes at least twice a day to check their progress. Little green shoots! It’s so exciting. Not only that, Saturday was Pick-Up Day for the flowers, herbs, and veggies I bought for the Growing Smiles Fundraiser – the BEST fundraiser there is, in my humble opinion – and, well, let’s just say my trunk was full.

We are not out of the woods yet in terms of frost and snow, but I rolled the dice and planted some pansies on a beautiful Friday morning in various spots in the front yard. Pansies, it seems, can withstand anything except heat and drought, which isn’t really an issue in May in Calgary. I am enjoying their happy little faces every time I go up my front walk.

Oh! Oh! Another upside to having teenagers who go through hundreds of dollars of groceries a week is that I always get the “free” gift with $300 purchase at Superstore, and this week’s gift was flowers!

Our gardening season is so short here that I am going to squeeze every last moment of pleasure out of it.

LFG

This week vaccine eligibility opened up for the age 12+ group, and let’s fucking gooooo. I chose not to spend my entire Monday refreshing a screen to get appointments, and so when I went to book – the day AFTER bookings opened – I got them in at the end of the month in Red Deer, the small city ninety minutes north of us. Huh. Well, road trip, I thought, and then later that week my friend Nicole (HI NICOLE) mentioned that she was able to get her kids in at the pharmacy down the street from me. LFG. I HAD phoned them the previous week and was put on “an email list” but no email ever came and, you know what, it’s a pandemic, things happen. I popped in to the pharmacy – IN PERSON – and got them appointments for YESTERDAY, which means all four of us have had our first shots, and I am SO relieved and happy. PLUS my parents got their second shot, which fills me with immense joy. Steps forward.

OOTW

I mentioned to Swistle (HI SWISTLE) the other day that choosing a mask to wear is the best part of wearing a mask. I mean, it’s certainly not the wearing of the mask that is the great part. But choosing a mask and coordinating it with your outfit, well, that’s fun. And sometimes, sometimes the mask coordinates so perfectly that it becomes part of the Outfit of the Week:

Just look at that match!

That’s a very, very old Lululemon tank – I’ve had it since at least 2010 – under a light Gap sweater that really, really requires something like a tank underneath, unless I want to be obscene and horrify myself, my children, and everyone around me. Fortunately I rarely wear a bra anymore, only tanks under tops, so it works. Those leggings are also at least a decade old; I know some people have much to say about Lulu but their quality is unmatched.

Pandemic Reading

A Short History of Nearly Everything. I loved Bill Bryson’s The Body so much that I immediately put A Short History of Nearly Everything on hold, without looking into what it was about. I figured it would be human history, and I eagerly looked forward to ancient civilizations, the Roman Empire, the Renaissance, etc., up to modern times. So imagine my dismay when I opened the nearly 600 page book to discover that it’s literally a history (a short one) of nearly everything – i.e., the universe – and well over half the book deals with cosmology, astronomy, geology, and physics, subjects of which I have low interest. Eeep. Luckily for me, Bryson’s incredible writing made such topics engaging, accessible, and entertaining. It’s an excellent book that can make such dull – to me – subjects fun. Next time you’re having a bad day, just be glad you’re not the guy who sailed from France to India to watch and calculate the transit of Venus, only to a) miss it, b) wait eight years for the next one and have the sky cloud over and miss it again, c) contract dysentery and suffer for a year, d) get almost shipwrecked on the way home, e) get home after 11 1/2 years, having accomplished nothing at all, only to discover your family assumed you died and they plundered your estate. Or the people who spent nine years trying to measure the earth at the equator, and just before finalizing their results got scooped by another team doing the same thing at the poles. According to my friends who are actual scientists, this is something that happens a lot: you spend your entire career working on something and you a) get scooped, i.e., someone gets the results before you do, b) get your results disproved, or c) never get the results at all. Well, I’m glad that is not my career of choice.

The 4% Fix: How One Hour Can Change Your Life. I have enjoyed all of Karma Brown’s novels – especially Come Away With Me and Recipe For A Perfect Wife – so I was eagerly looking forward to her first non-fiction book. I was not disappointed! There is so much good stuff in here, from the time suck that is the Internet and my phone to prioritizing and focussing, this book is really great and motivating. The key that Brown focussed on is getting up early, so I feel seen and validated. I get up at 4:30 every day, and have for well over a decade. I started early rising when the kids were small, to practice yoga. It was literally the only time I had to myself in those days and it made me a better mother: more patient and happier, as I had my time before anyone woke up. Brown likens a day to a cake sliced in 24 pieces, and by getting up and using that first hour, you’ve served yourself first. I LOVE that concept. It really resonates for me. This book is about working towards your goals and if I’m being honest, I’m a bit goal-less at the moment. But I like to think my early morning yoga practice ultimately led to my current job as a yoga teacher. So maybe I’m not so goal-less? With or without goals, I really liked this.

The Push. Well, Allison warned me. (HI ALLISON). Allison warned me but did I listen? No. This is a crazily disturbing and absorbing book. She said “I thought The Push was well written and I wish I’d never read it and that I could erase it from my brain” and that pretty much sums it up. I am not generally a Psychological Thriller type, and this is a very well done Psychological Thriller in that I couldn’t put it down, but also, I kind of had nightmares after reading it.

And here we are, Monday morning after a very restless Sunday night sleep. I hope you have a week ahead of you that has way more ups than downs. Be well, take care. xo

Downward Spiral, Uphill Climb; Sixty Weeks In

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There are a pair of woodpeckers in our neighbourhood, wreaking havoc and inflicting damage everywhere. One of my neighbours has a giant hole in his house stucco, at any time of the day you might hear the loud rat-tat-tat of a woodpecker on a chimney, and, this week, the pair decided to put our Manitoba maple on its path of destruction.

We tried all sorts of humane, non-violent deterrents, to no avail. Every time we tried something, I would look out the window, and there would be a woodpecker hammering away at the giant hole it had made in the trunk of the tree, the rocks and cement pieces we had lodged in there scattered on the lawn. I watched it scare off squirrels in the tree and wondered what it would take to attract the neighbourhood crows to nest there. It says something that I would rather have a murder of crows nesting in my front yard than a pair of woodpeckers. At first I would run out and try to scare it away, but after the twentieth time I just stood at my window, staring despondently. Well, I guess the tree is going to die, I thought sadly.

It felt like a weird metaphor for life right now. We are now in another lockdown – I have lost count of what number this one is – because Alberta has the highest Covid cases per capita in the entire continent. This whole time, this WHOLE TIME, I have been following the rules and so has my family. My teenage boys have been nothing but great about rule following for the past SIXTY WEEKS. We have been careful and have adhered to the rules, and I have been thinking the best of people: we are all in this together, everyone is doing their best. It turns out that is not true, if it was, we wouldn’t be the worst in North America. If we were all doing our best and following rules, we wouldn’t be in Lockdown Number Who Even Knows. It is extremely disheartening. I try to think compassionately and with empathy, and yet deep down I know that there are clearly enough people who do not care enough about other people to change their behaviours, and that is a hard thing for me to face.

The one thing I was looking forward to, the one thing I wanted to do for Mother’s Day, was to visit my parents, along with my sister-in-law and family, and we had to take that off the table because even outdoor gatherings are restricted to less than five people. That was a pretty modest thing to look forward to, given that my kids have been at-home schooling, her kids have been at-home schooling, and I am the only person going anywhere, and that is to the grocery store or pharmacy. All the adults have had their first vaccine shot, and STILL we had to cancel.

Isn’t it interesting that shitty things tend to happen in clusters? In a space of 24 hours, not only did we have a lockdown announced, plans cancelled, and a tree that was being damaged extensively, but I also found out that the company that hosts my blog – this blog – is not going to do that anymore, and I had 90 days to migrate it to another server or let 13 years of memories disappear into the ether. This all happened after I went to the community centre where I teach zoom yoga on Monday afternoon, and the heating system was broken. Teaching yoga to a screen is one thing, but teaching a 90 minute class to a screen in a completely empty community centre – literally, I am the only person in the entire building – when the cavernous room is eleven degrees Celcius is quite another. I am an intelligent woman but the technological side of blogging is not my strength, and the thought that I had one more thing to deal with was my breaking point, particularly \when my actual bones hurt from spending nearly two hours in yoga clothes in an 11 degree room. I discovered all this, put on two sweaters and my warmest legwarmers, and sat on the bed with my knees tucked under my chin, staring at the wall for a long time.

I find that once I start spiralling, if I can solve one thing, just ONE THING, then the other things tend to follow. I googled best blog hosting platforms and then I PHONED a person at Bluehost, who was so kind and patient and reassuring that I felt that after our 30 minute conversation we could be best friends, but more importantly, I got my issue resolved. This site has been migrated successfully, and no one (read: me) had a nervous breakdown while it happened. I found out that my kids will be eligible to be vaccinated as of this week, omgomgomg, let’s fucking gooooooo, and the guys told me that for Mother’s Day they would be making dinner Saturday AND Sunday night, with no help or input from me. People, there was even a CAKE baked. My husband went into the office one day this week and came home with a box of Purdy’s that a client had sent at Christmas, and two of the pieces in it were mint fudge and raspberry creme, my favourites. It took hours of trying but I finally got through on the phone to a local company that would deliver an orchid to my mom to tide her over until we can actually visit. Remember the crappy company that charged me for flower delivery but made my parents pick up their arrangement instead? That company never responded to me. GO SUCK IT, BLOOMEX. There’s a new kid in town, and that kid delivered on their promise of a beautiful orchid.

Oh, and the woodpeckers? My husband strapped a flat rock to the hole the woodpeckers had made in the tree and although at first I just assumed that the woodpeckers would peck through the strap, the rock would tumble down and it would all be for naught, it seems to have worked; we have had five days with no woodpeckers. It’s been an emotional roller coaster of a week, but it feels like things are turning around and coming up Milhouse/ Nicole.

Outfit of the Week

This week’s outfit is workout wear. I find it very motivating to have cute clothes to wear while working out, even though literally no one sees me. I mean NO ONE. On weekdays I finish my workout before my husband starts work, as the desk is beside the cardio equipment and it’s better on all counts if his colleagues are not subject to background noise of my heavy breathing, countdowns, and singing along to Girls Just Want To Have Fun. On weekends my workout is finished before anyone even wakes up, which goes to show that these outfits are just for me. As it should be! Dress for your own pleasure, not anyone else’s.

I’ve had this top for probably five years, and I think it’s so cute, even when I wear it for non-yoga activities. You cannot tell from the photo but these leggings are padded, which is good for spin bikes, and I have a scrunchie in my hair, proving that you can go back again.

Pandemic Reading

This was my library reading pile last Sunday:

I was feeling great about my pace of reading, until six more books came in before Friday.

Eeep! Well, we should get started.

Caste. This incredibly important book should be read by all. It explores the caste systems in three countries: India, Nazi Germany, and America. Back in the early 1930s, during the rise of the Third Reich, legislators took notes from America as to how to legislate discrimination. Let’s sit with that for a moment. Nazi Germany took a page from the US as to how to oppress a group of people, how to make it legal to discriminate and, ultimately, actually end people’s lives, based on Jim Crow laws. I cannot even describe how important this book is, you have to read it yourself; from Confederate statues to everyday micro-aggressions, from redlining to lynching for imaginary crimes, the dominant caste’s inhumanity – in all three countries – is breathtaking. Wilkerson is a brilliant writer. By the way, we Canadians tend to get smug but we have a long dark history as well, concerning our treatment of Indigenous people. A friend pointed out that South Africa took a page from Canada’s book as to the treatment of Indigenous people, so let’s keep that in mind. It is absolutely a challenge to keep our minds and hearts open when it comes to ingrained feelings about people, based on the way they look, but we can rise to the challenge. More understanding breeds a better world. I cannot recommend this book enough.

Just As Long As We’re Together and Here’s To You, Rachel Robinson. On a completely different note, my rereading of Judy Blume continues. These two books are great. No one understands youth like Judy Blume, and these two books perfectly capture being thirteen, with friend and family issues. They follow a trio of friends, and I think if you are female, you know what it is to be part of a trio. With a trio of friends, there is always one left out. Even as an adult woman I have experienced this feeling. One interesting thing I found about these books is that there is a character who I completely identify with. I could see my young teenage self in Rachel Robinson, and if I had read these when I was 13, I would have felt very seen. I think that’s the key with Blume, is that she really sees young people for who they are, flaws and all.

Such A Fun Age. It’s really exciting when a book that you have had on hold for months and months finally comes in. For MONTHS I have had people ask me “Have you read Such A Fun Age?” many, many times. I really did enjoy this book about a young Black woman who babysits for a wealthy white woman, and who is dating a man who, unknowingly to all, has a connection to her employer. I will say, though, that I liked this book better as a social commentary than as a novel, if you know what I mean. I found a couple of the plot points to be puzzling, but in a good way, in a way that made me think harder. I think that’s why it was more of a social commentary to me. Two out of three of the main characters I found quite gross and despicable, which is a sign of good writing.

I hope you all have a beautiful week; keep shining. To my friends who are going through lockdowns and are losing hope, we really are all in this together. xo