Category Archives: Pandemic At The Disco

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The November Joys Edition

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Usually at this time of year, my calendar is very full with so many social events; every weekend from now until Christmas would have at least one party, dinner, or cocktail event. I would usually be busy figuring out menus and buying ingredients and packaging up dozens of homemade goodie bags for my various yoga classes, I would be deciding which dress to wear when and stocking up the liquor cabinet.

So it feels very strange and sad to have a blank calendar, to be starting the season with literally nothing going on. I know it’s a Small Thing, and we are just Doing Our Part, but right now it feels Hard. It feels Hard not to see the friends-who-are-more-like-family, it feels Hard not to see my actual family – I haven’t seen my nieces in forever – it feels Hard to know that there are no parties and no reasons to put on a dress and no reason to even stock up the liquor cabinet because I don’t tend to make mixed drinks unless we have company. It would probably feel Less Hard if I wasn’t constantly seeing posts about Other People having parties and gatherings, but I’m not going to talk about that, I’m just going to sit here and practice my ujjayi breath for a while.

Well. That’s just the Way Things Are right now, and I cannot control anyone else, only myself, and so it will be a quiet holiday season coming up. It will be Different, and that’s Okay.

Let’s turn this beat around, shall we? I actually really do like the month of November; as I’ve mentioned before it’s the kickoff to the festive season for me. So even though this November is different from previous Novembers, there are still many things that bring me happiness.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The November Joy Edition

Friluftsliv

As I mentioned before, this winter I am embracing my Norwegian heritage and adopting the concept of Friluftsliv. As god is my witness, one day I will live in a warm climate, but that day is not today, bloom where you’re planted, live in the now. It’s winter here for fully 2/3 of the year, and I am NOT going to spend 2/3 of my life being unhappy because it’s cold. FRILUFTSLIV. Yesterday was quite cold and damp, and yet I felt so much better being outside. We are in a global pandemic. I have no Christmas parties to look forward to. I am going to ENJOY THE FRESH AIR, GODDAMMIT. Also, I have lots of cozy warm clothes and I think I might buy myself a few new pieces as well.

Super cute ear warmer, with super cozy blanket scarf, with my warmest calf-length coat for walking yesterday.

See that “skirt?” It’s a BUM WARMER. A local lady makes them out of repurposed sweaters, and mittens to match. I think I might need a second one.

FRILUFTSLIV! It’s just fun to say.

Roasted Tomato Soup

I made the most incredible soup the other day; it was a riff on my riff on my grandma’s tomato soup. I roasted a cookie sheet of halved cherry tomatoes (tossed in olive oil, sprinkled with sea salt and cracked pepper) for 45 minutes at 400 convection. Meanwhile, I added 1 teaspoon of baking soda to a large can of crushed tomatoes, stirring until the bubbles dissipated. In a blender, I whirred together 1/2 cup soaked-overnight raw cashews, 3 cups of water, and a cube of Knorr veggie stock. I stirred that in with the non-bubbly tomatoes, and added the roasted tomatoes. OMG. It was LIFE. I topped it with roasted chickpeas and served it with a green salad and it was, to me, a perfect cold-weather dinner.

Kalettes

Kalettes are back at Costco! I meant to mention this last month, but, you know. Time flies, etc. The last time I raved about kalettes, they instantly stopped selling them. I realize now that they are very seasonal, and limited, and they are so good, you guys. I roast them for 10-15 minutes, after tossing in olive oil and drizzling with balsamic vinegar.

Rocky Mountain Soap Body Butter

With the wearing of socks – many layers of socks – FRILUFTSLIV!!! – my feet are not as, well, crunchy as they are in the summer, and so while I still use O’Keefe’s Healthy Feet once or twice a week, on a nightly basis I am using this stuff:

It smells exactly like candy canes, and while it’s not as intense as O’Keefe’s, it does work nicely, when paired with cotton socks afterwards. It’s cold and I’d be putting on socks anyway, friluftsliv.

Mary Oliver

Every morning before my yoga practice, I read a poem. I have been working my way through Mary Oliver’s Devotions, and I came across this one:

I think about it all the time. I watch the sun come up every day; sometimes it’s a glorious sunrise, sometimes it’s just the sky getting light, but either way I think something that more or less kills me with delight. I notice the way the sky looks when I’m out walking, I notice the Christmas decorations starting to appear, I notice how cute Barkley looks when his nose is all snowy from sniffing Every Single Place Another Dog Ever Peed. Finding extraordinary joy in every day things is my JAM, people.

Non-Dairy Ice Cream

I make all my own ice cream, but 99% of it is dairy and I cannot eat it. I enjoy making it for the guys, and there is never any fewer than three flavours in our freezer at any given time, but it’s dairy. I mean, I CAN make non-dairy ice cream, but sometimes you just want to not put a ton of effort into something that is, frankly, not amazing.

Every Sunday I make a big dessert to go with a big dinner, and last week I wanted brownies, ice cream, and fudge sauce. I couldn’t think of anything else and while it’s super easy to make vegan brownies and fudge sauce, I just did not want to put the effort into ice cream as well.

I picked up this (startlingly expensive) vegan ice cream at Superstore, and people, it is incredible. It’s almost as delicious as the cashew-based ice cream my friend Denise (HI DENISE, I MISS YOU SO MUCH) gave me for my birthday. Almost. We all loved it and while I did not take a photo of the brownie and fudge sauce, believe me, it was good.

Festive Face Masks

A local woman – a friend of a friend – (HI LIANA) made this beautiful festive mask. The material is so soft, and I think it is just so pretty. I have many of her masks, but now that it’s the festive season, I’m cycling into my Festive Masks.

I’m on an outing! To Superstore. I rarely wear my hair down, because of my (zoom) teaching schedule, but I am out on the town, people.

Wine

So I’m not much of a Mixed Drinks Girl without company, but I am very much a Wine Girl, as you know. And today is Friday, and that means that in a mere eleven hours I will be doing this:

I feel MUCH better now, recording all my November Joys. I hope you are all enjoying some joys and happiness, even as we kick off this very strange and kind of lonely holiday season. xo

19th Nervous Breakdown (in the grocery store); Thirty-Five Weeks In

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The province announced what I am going to call a very mini-shutdown on Friday the 13th, and it called to mind the last Friday the 13th, eight months ago, when the very mini-shutdown led to the total big shutdown. It’s enough to make a person turn superstitious. I’ve been oscillating between despair that a mini-shutdown is going to do anything at all, sadness that there is really no way to police what seems to be the real driver, large private gatherings and that people are just going to keep partying, slight hope that two weeks might make a difference, and a what can you do other than recite the Serenity Prayer over and over kind of feeling. I’ve been refreshing the news all weekend but so far, still a very mini-shutdown, also still the depths of despair about a looming full-scale one. Well, today I feel calm and zen about the whole thing, it’s like I’ve been constantly preparing for the possibility of a full-scale shutdown. My house is stocked, my pantry is full, my Christmas shopping is complete and I have two cases of wine in the basement.

What more could a girl need?

Two of my favourite bloggers, Suzanne and Swistle (HI SUZANNE HI SWISTLE) have been regularly writing about grocery store shortages, and I find it endlessly fascinating, the things that are available and unavailable in other parts of the continent. Forget continent, there are variances in our province. My mother, who lives two hours north of me, couldn’t obtain a ten-kilogram bag of flour, whereas in my grocery stores, flour is plentiful. In fact, last week Superstore had the ten-kilogram bags on sale for $8.98. EIGHT DOLLARS AND NINETY-EIGHT CENTS. For ten kilograms of flour. Of course I picked one up, even though I had two bags at home, which leads me to my next point.

My brain has completely changed in the past eight months; I used to be able to calmly think oh, I have flour at home, I can get some when I need it, but not anymore. NOT ANYMORE. Suzanne referred to this as Grocery Store Pathology, this panicked feeling that if you do not seize the moment and buy the things that are available to you, they may not be there next time.

Here’s the thing: circling back to the grocery store shortages, I have not really noticed anything in short supply over the past few months. There has been talk about aluminum shortages, but I bought soda water in cans last week and there certainly didn’t seem to be any shortage of that. Flour – as mentioned – pasta, rice, frozen vegetables, toilet paper and paper towel, all of those things are plentiful right now. The one thing I’ve noticed – and this probably isn’t a pandemic thing, it’s more like a weird Superstore thing – is that I haven’t been able to get my favourite kind of peanut butter, Just Nuts Crunchy.

All the other Just Nuts peanut butters are available: creamy, sea salt, honey, but the crunchy hasn’t been there for weeks, and I was starting to get into my one backup jar, so I was feeling a bit desperate. I mean, I only eat peanut butter on toast once or twice a week, so the situation was not DIRE, but it felt like it was. I took a leap of faith and bought the store brand natural crunchy peanut butter, although I was somewhat irritated to discover that it was a dollar more expensive than the name brand for the exact same size. The store brand! More expensive! This is an outrage, I want to talk to the manager.

Anyway, as I was in Superstore last week I was feeling so serene about everything – it’s fine, everything’s fine, if the worst thing that happens is I eat store brand peanut butter, well, I am better off than pretty much everyone – until I got to the baking aisle. I needed a carton of molasses with which to make my annual gingersnaps. I had finished my last carton making gingerbread a few weeks ago. I pushed my cart, humming along to the music, and then, puzzled, retraced my steps. I looked again. People, there was no molasses. I stared at the empty shelf for a solid minute and then felt like I might have an actual breakdown right there in the baking aisle, next to the dried fruit, shredded coconut, and shortening. CHRISTMAS IS CANCELLED, THERE ARE NO GINGERSNAPS. It was a 180 degree flip, from calm and serene to everything is terrible. On the outside, I’m sure I seemed perfectly fine and put together, but it’s like when your sock starts sliding off into your boot: I was not fine. I smiled at people through my mask, I chatted with the cashier, I gestured to the elderly man who had literally a loaf of bread and a package of sausages to go in front of me, but on the inside, I was like the Sadness character from Inside Out.

I made it to the parking lot, and it had not been plowed. I immediately regretted the soda water and the ten kilograms of flour, as my cart became immovably stuck in the snow. What even is the point of all this flour. I cannot make gingersnaps. Is there even a molasses substitute. All is ashes.

Literally, I could not move the cart, using all my strength and momentum. I stared up the aisle of the parking lot, seeing my car in the distance. There was nothing for it but to abandon my cart and carry each bin, one by one, to my car as fast as I could. By the time I had gotten down to the last bin, a very kind woman stopped and helped me move the cart to a packed-down part of the parking lot, and from there I was able to maneuver it to my car, the whole time wondering how many calories I was burning during this shopping trip. Her kindness perked me up, and I decided to stop at the Co-Op on the way home. I don’t like doing two grocery shops in a week but I thought I would just pop in and pop out, to see if they had molasses. People, they did, they had shelves of it, and I bought TWO, which is much more than I need but hey. Grocery store pathology. I can always use it next year.

Pandemic Reading

Apparently Toxic Masculinity was the unwitting theme of the week. Last week it was Liar’s Poker, this week:

I am unsure if I am recommending this to you or not. I mean. At its core, it’s a story about a family, told from multiple points of view. It’s also a study of toxic masculinity and the rise of supporters of a certain person who wanted to make America great again. So, it might be a wee bit raw. It was well-written. It was well done. It was thoughtful and insightful and very smart. But. I cannot say it was enjoyable.

This was a really wonderful book – by a Canadian author – about being a young woman in a secret relationship with an older, prominent politician. Well, you probably think you know where this is going. But it has turns I did not expect and an ending I did not expect, and it was very well done. It was probably the most brutally honest, yet enjoyable, book about being young and in a toxic relationship. Speaking of toxic masculinity! It’s up there, Steve.

This was the week to pull out the Christmas tea towels, coffee mugs, and music. 70s on 7 has been changed to the Hallmark channel while in the car, and my festive Spotify playlists have been on repeat. We need a little Christmas, right this very minute. Stay safe and healthy, friends. xo

The Return of Tiny Secret Festive Season; Thirty-Four Weeks In

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Last Thursday, in a single adrenaline-fuelled afternoon, I finished my Christmas shopping. I do most of my shopping online, but there are always a few things that I want to physically look at, hence last Thursday’s trip to the mall.

The mall, you guys. The mall. One thing I will say about the mall is that Covid safety precautions are being followed to a tee, from social distancing to mask-wearing to extra cleaning to hand sanitizing stations everywhere. I had to sanitize my hands each time I entered a store, RIP my skin. So, I congratulate the mall and all my fellow Thursday afternoon mall-goers for following the rules and embracing the new protocols. I only saw ONE elderly woman with a mask under her nose, which is a big improvement over any other time I have been out in public.

However, it’s still the mall. I started off in a Let’s Fucking Go kind of mood, all energized and excited because, in the very first store I found the exact perfect gift for my husband’s sister. I am not a person for whom Gift-Giving is my Love Language, but I swear I got a little burst of serotonin when I obtained the item.

I was energetic, happy, and chatty for the first hour, but by the time I got to my last stop, The Bay – what IS IT with The Bay, you guys, why is it always so dreadful and why do I continue to shop there – I was definitely flagging. I was sweltering in my mask, winter coat, and boots, loaded down with bags, and dying for a drink of water when I got to the checkout and the person in front of me was having a very long discussion with the cashier about a coupon, and why couldn’t it be used in this situation, and okay, let’s put everything on separate bills so it could, and I GET IT, WE ALL WANT TO SAVE MONEY BUT WHY ARE THERE ONLY THREE TILLS OPEN FOR THIS ENTIRE GIANT DEPARTMENT STORE.

Anyway. Eventually I was back in the parking lot, sitting in my car just staring out the window for a good five minutes before I put on my seat belt and drove home.

Once I got home, with all my shopping in the rearview mirror, I immediately became festive-feeling and swapped out all my hand soaps for ones that are named Winter Candy Apple and Frosted Coconut Snowball, so the Tiny Secret Festive Season has begun! My grocery notepad has been exchanged for a festive-themed one, on November 1 I put on my Christmas bracelet and brought out my red-plaid pajamas, and I’ve been using Vanilla Candy Cane body butter on my feet at night. Sugar cookie and gingerbread dough have been made and are in the freezer, and on Thursday I will swap out my poppy and apple-themed tea towels for Christmas ones. My Buddy the Elf mugs will make their appearance this week for morning coffee, mark my words.

We had a short streak of extremely mild weather, and so my husband and I took advantage of it to hang the Christmas ornaments in our Mayday tree. Every November there is someone who, if a person expresses even mild joy about the festive season, will sternly and austerely remind that person that no one should ever express such feelings prior to Remembrance Day, that it is disrespectful and wrong. Let me tell you: I do not agree with this character assessment. If a person wants to go full-on Clark Griswold the second the Halloween decorations come down, let your sparkly, Santa-themed flag fly. Let’s take joy where we can and if that means watching the Hallmark channel, putting up a tree, or just eating peppermint-flavoured goodies in November, DO IT.

If you think for even one moment that we are, in the Boyhouse, not going to embrace a 18 degree day IN NOVEMBER and use it to glovelessly tie ornaments onto a tree with tiny little strings, then you have another think coming. Unfortunately, this weekend was snowy with wind warnings, and subsequently we had to send the boys out looking on the street to find a couple of balls that had broken off in the wind, but that’s tradition. Calgary tradition.

Pandemic Reading

This was really fun to read, about working in the bond markets – specifically Salomon Brothers – in the 1980s. Woo! What a ride. Some of you may know that I worked on the structured products desk on a natural gas trading floor, and did this take me back. I worked during the California Crisis, when natural gas and electricity prices skyrocketed, and I remember the market volatility and all that ensued. Also, let’s just say that bond traders in the 1980s were not dissimilar to natgas traders in the 2000s. I remember one guy – Tom – who became so infuriated that he repeatedly smashed his phone on his desk until it broke. He had to go to an anger management course, but I don’t think that was as effective as the reaction of the rest of the floor. Any time Tom would walk by, everyone would exaggeratedly cover their phones. If he came to discuss a deal, someone would say Don’t fucking touch my phone, man, I need it. This went on…well, it’s probably still going on. The pranks and dares, too. I remember one guy was paid $10 to EAT a piece of styrofoam. He did it and was quite unwell for the rest of the day. There was also a bet to see who could drink more water in the span of 30 minutes and then not use the bathroom for two hours. The winner, I recall, was not feeling well after over-hydrating. Ah, good times. Anyway, this book was a lot of fun if you’re into that sort of thing, but note that it was written in 1989 and the extremely insensitive language reflects that.

This was just LOVELY and a perfect read for the festive season. So Christmas-spirit-ish. The author was born and raised in Calgary, too, so yay!

I will leave you with my newest Tiny Secret Festive items – a series of handmade bookmarks by a VERY talented, young local artist. Aren’t they adorable? I have a number of her bookmarks but I really wanted some festive ones, and now the problem is choosing which to use!

Have a beautiful week, my friends. If you’re also a Tiny Secret Festive person, how are you celebrating this week? xo

Halloween and Blue Moon Rising; Thirty-Three Weeks In

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There was a war going on in our neighbourhood and my husband declared himself the winner.

So how was your Halloween?

We had about 25 Trick or Treaters, which was a great number for our street. Our neighbours told me that they each had about six, and so I think kids were only going to houses with lots of decorations this year; a signalling thing, I suppose.

I handed out full-size chocolate bars like a Very Fancy Lady, in the most Covid-safe way I could think of. Most of the people in my neighbourhood, according to the Facebook page, had treat tables set up with little bags, and in one case, a giant spiderweb with full-size bars stuck in the web. However, I like to see the sweet costumes, and so tongs and PPE it was.

We weren’t going to carve pumpkins as the Decorative Gourds I bought are now, due to the extreme cold and snow, mush, but my friend offered me hers and so I stole an idea from my son’s friend:

I’m having a bit of a Nora Ephron I Feel Bad About My Neck moment here.

My kids did not Trick or Treat, being “too old,” but they did wander the neighbourhood for a few hours with their friends, all eight of wearing burlap sacks on their heads. Eight giant teen boys wandering around in the dark wearing burlap sacks on their heads, what could possibly go wrong.

Speaking of scary and spooky things, I have been reading Hans Christian Anderson Fairy Tales. When was the last time you read an actual fairy tale, one that hadn’t been modernized or Disney-fied? YOU GUYS. Shit gets REAL in Fairy Tale Land.

It all started months ago when I put this collection on hold at the library, as I was thinking about the original Little Mermaid. I knew it was a sad ending but couldn’t exactly remember how it went, and yes, it is definitely worth reading about the sharp and shooting pain that the Little Mermaid has once her fin is severed and she’s walking around on legs. It is a very sad story, but no more sad than most of the tales in this collection.

For example: The Little Match Girl. I vividly recall reading this story as a child; it was terrifying then and it’s even more so now. Here’s the premise for this tale geared towards children: a little girl, whose job it is to sell boxes of matches to passerby, is wandering around the street barefoot on New Year’s Eve. Let us recall that Hans Christian Anderson was Danish, and therefore it would be VERY cold wandering around the street barefoot on New Year’s Eve. She’s barefoot because she has no shoes; she wore her mother’s shoes to go out to sell matches, but as they were too big she lost them while dodging carriages in the street. Anyway, here it is, New Year’s Eve, and she is scared to go home as she has sold no matches today, and if she goes home without the pennies she would have earned for selling matches, her father will beat her.

Let’s just let all that information sink in for a moment.

So anyway, here she is, freezing cold and hungry – obviously she hasn’t eaten either – and not all that willing to go home. In any case, home is a literal shack with holes in the wall, and there’s no food there anyway. She sits down in a little corner of the street and tries to warm her hands by lighting a match, and from the illumination she starts to hallucinate things like a warm fireplace, a roast goose dinner, and a Christmas tree. She lights match after match and the hallucinations – yes, children’s story – continue until she sees her dead grandmother, the “only person who ever loved her.” She begs her grandmother to take her to heaven with her, and she subsequently dies, frozen, with a smile on her face.

WELL.

Another story I remember from my childhood – I am sure I had one of those little records with a book that you could read along with, that had a little chime when it was time to turn the page – was Thumbelina. Wow, is that a messed up story. I remember loving it as a child, and I can see why: everything is in miniature. Thumbelina has a walnut shell for a bed, a tulip petal for a boat, a little hammock woven out of grass. So sweet! And yet the story itself is Crazy Town. Thumbelina gets kidnapped by a toad’s mother so that she can be the toad’s bride. Hello meddling mother-in-law. She is, understandably, distraught about being kidnapped and marooned on a lily pad so she can’t escape her toady bridal chamber, but some fishes and a butterfly help her escape. When winter comes she seeks shelter with a little field mouse, who introduces her to her neighbour, a mole. The mole wants to marry her and all her troubles will be gone, as the mole is portrayed as being wealthy. The only catch is, because her new husband will be a MOLE, she will have to live underground forever and never see the sun.

I feel like a whole series of dissertations could be written about the symbolism herewith.

Anyway, Thumbelina finds what everyone thinks is a dead bird, but it’s really only just frozen. She nurses it back to health and it helps her escape her safe-yet-forever-underground life of Mrs. Mole; she subsequently lands in a flower and marries a little tiny prince who is in charge of all the flowers, and yay, happy ending.

Pandemic Reading

Thankfully, I did read something besides the unsettling and opium-trippy fairy tales this week.

I cannot recommend this book enough. It follows a woman who is principal of a Muslim girls’ school that is targeted by a shooter; it describes her life growing up and coming of age as a Muslim in America. It’s a very moving and important read.

On the other side of the spectrum was this book. It was the book equivalent of coming inside after shovelling snow in the freezing cold, and having a chai and a gingersnap. It’s a sweet, satisfying, warm hug of a book.

This series of essays about being a gay black Christian man in America was both hilarious and thought-provoking.

Here’s my best shot of the Blue Moon on Halloween; and on that note, Happy November! Or, as I like to call it, Happy Countdown To The Christmas Season! I’m thinking about all my American friends this week, and hoping for a peaceful transfer of power. Stay well. xo

She Died The Way She Lived, Standing In Line At Costco; Thirty and Thirty-One Weeks In

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I am not the type of person to talk about dreams or analyze dreams, but last night I dreamt I had a black cat, which I bathed, and subsequently the cat turned white. Then, as its fur dried, it went from white to grey, and back to black. The whole time, the cat was cuddling me and putting on a bejeweled collar with its own paws so I could photograph the miraculous colour change, but people kept stopping by and visiting and I never had a chance to take the pictures.

I’m not going to go into a what does it all mean thing, but a) I do not have a cat and never have had a cat, and b) I don’t know much about cats but I do know that one would never bath one in a bathtub without suffering massive bodily harm. Also, cats cannot put on their own, albeit adorable, bejeweled collars.

What does it all mean, what are we doing with our wild and precious lives.

Well. The last two weeks were “short weeks” but in the manner of such felt a bit long. I think it’s because I had two travel days, one on either side of Thanksgiving, and the week before the holiday my husband was out of town, meaning that I was solo parenting and preparing for travel all by my lonesome. Although, let’s face it, travel preparations ALWAYS are my domain; part of this is my own control-freak-about-packing nature, and part is just, well, nature.

We were gone such a short time but I found that the grocery situation was pretty bad by the time Wednesday – my typical Grocery Day – came around, and so I found myself this week at both Costco and Superstore. At this point in the pandemic, I feel like I have the mental and physical strength to accomplish this kind of epic grocery shopping without my week going off the rails. My friend Mo (HI MO) had mentioned that, the Friday before Thanksgiving, she had experienced a lineup-outside-of-Costco that we hadn’t seen in months, but I figured it was a Thanksgiving thing.

Indeed, there was no lineup to get into Costco, but it was crazily busy inside. It made me slightly concerned, in a are we panic-buying again? kind of way. As an answer to that, I am NOT panic-buying but I definitely have a very well-stocked pantry and I am not going to let the base levels get down too low, if you know what I’m saying.

When I finished my shopping I started towards the checkout…and then realized that I didn’t have far to go.

That line went from the checkout to almost the bakery, so pretty much the length of the store. Specifically, it went to the aisle that houses both Christmas and Halloween decorations.

As an aside, I realized that the end of September is a magical time where Halloween candy sits alongside Advent calendars and Christmas-themed chocolates in Superstore. What an age we live in.

Just to confirm that yes, that was indeed the line to check out and not just a bunch of people randomly stationary in a line-like formation, I asked the older lady at what appeared to be the end. “Yes, it is, but I’m waiting for my daughter and she has another cart, a whole other cart, and she is coming back.” she replied in an alarmed kind of way, as if I would explode or something knowing that another cart was going to be in front of me. I mean, it’s Costco. People have two carts all the time. I smiled and nodded, and then realized we are all wearing masks so maybe she couldn’t tell I was smiling, and then replied, okay, great in a cheerful, I Totally Understand kind of way.

After a few minutes, some line movement, and more dithering, the lady turned to me. “I’ll go get her, my daughter, she’s in the clothes I think,” the lady said, as if I was going to aggressively report her to the Costco authorities if the cart didn’t materialize immediately. “Can you watch my cart?”

Of course, I replied, and the lady bustled into the clothing section, at which point the line started moving in a big way. Well, it seemed like a big way since we are all six feet away from each other but perhaps it was just two or three carts moving.

In normal times, I would have just simply moved the lady’s cart forward without thinking about it. However, it is not normal times and I was momentarily paralyzed. I mean, is it OKAY to touch someone else’s stuff? What is the protocol here? Meanwhile, the gap between the lady’s cart and the line was getting big and there were many, many people behind me. Would my paralysis cause a road-rage-like episode in Costco?

Still no sign of the lady, and probably only a minute or two had passed, but that is a LONG time in Costco world. I took a breath and pushed her cart forward, while simultaneously pulling my cart behind me.

Side note: do you know how hard that is? It was a feat of strength that should be reserved for Festivus.

We had moved up SIGNIFICANTLY, after no small effort on my part to Keep Things Moving, by the time the lady returned, with her daughter. I quickly used my hand sanitizer and no one seemed put out that I had touched a cart that wasn’t mine. I’m actually not sure the lady even noticed we had moved, although we had moved up all the way to the candy and gum aisle. Maybe she thought that is where she had left it, maybe she thought the cart magically rolled itself to its new position, who knows.

The line that was daunting was actually not bad as they had a fellow at the front directing traffic, pointing people over to specific lineups which, in my humble opinion, is a brilliant idea and should be adopted by every single large grocery store forever.

I chatted with the lady behind me about how busy it was, and she postulated that it was because it was payday, so maybe that is the explanation, rather than pandemic panic shopping. We will see and in the meantime, I might not shop on the 15th and 30th of the month.

Pandemic Reading

With a long weekend and, well, snow, I have gotten a lot of reading done over the past two weeks!

This was one of the best books I have read in a long time, and I had just picked it up on a whim at the library, because I liked the cover. Don’t you love when that happens? This is a collection of short stories about people from Croatia – refugees and immigrants, mostly living in Canada. The author herself lives in Edmonton; it’s always fun to read about familiar places.

I really liked this; I like Elizabeth Strout so much. It wasn’t my favourite of hers, but it was very thought-provoking and, in the manner of Elizabeth Strout, beautifully written.

This was very well-done, a real page-turner, but the material is very disturbing and upsetting. That is my warning: if you are NOT easily upset, then this is a very excellent read. It deals with a Nigerian refugee and a British woman and how their worlds collide.

This was a reread for me; it is delightful and wonderful and I highly recommend it. It’s about the dwellers of an apartment building during one hour period in a day. I love stories that show how interconnected we all are, even when we don’t realize it. Plus, the author lives in Calgary!

This was an extremely silly book. If you are in the mood for something strangely long, but very fluffy and silly, this is it. A relationship advice columnist and a top-notch divorce lawyer meet; both of them have sworn off relationships but, well. I’m sure you can figure out the rest.

I did like this book, I did. But I am going to issue a major trigger warning here: disturbing content. It follows three women and deals with arranged marriage, Hindu and Indian culture, adoption, infertility, and depression.

Since I inadvertently reread Durable Goods, I thought I should purposefully reread the sequel. You know, I really like Elizabeth Berg. I like her character development, I like her style. This was a very sweet and satisfying book, which was just what I needed.

These photos were from a sweet hike we did at Thanksgiving; the area had been devastated by forest fires back in 2003 and it was interesting to hike around the burnt trees and new growth. Plus, waterfalls! DO go chasing waterfalls and have a beautiful week, everyone! xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Thanksgiving Edition

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With the Thanksgiving weekend, the amazing streak of weather has ended, leaving us with mostly bare trees and, well, some snow. I’m not sad, though; I knew the streak would end and I’m just happy, in a We’ll Always Have Paris kind of way.

“You do realize, this is what it’s like in the rest of the world?” a student said to me last week as I marvelled at the fact that we still had leaves on the trees in October. Leaves! On the trees! In October! The rest of the world is lucky, because this is a rare and precious GIFT in Calgary. Normally, we have a hard freeze in early September, followed by a gusting windstorm, which typically means that we have bare trees from September through to May. Wow, writing that down is a bit depressing. Anyway, NOT THIS YEAR.

Finally I understand what all you fall-crazy people are talking about. Usually fall is just a precursor to the long winter ahead, but NOT THIS YEAR. Any year that winter doesn’t start in September, well, that’s one less month of winter. Every day, every single day of this pandemic, I have been spending a lot of time outside, walking and/or running. The past six weeks, with glorious sunshine and warm temperatures, each walk has felt like a beautiful gift and I find myself humming look around, look around, how lucky we are to be alive right now.

Last week I went for an early morning 6 km before dropping the kids at school; I watched the sun come up and brighten the sky. When I started the run it was dark and drizzly, and when I was finishing, I saw a double rainbow.

If there is one thing that this pandemic has taught me, it is to appreciate every little thing that there is to appreciate. As Ma Ingalls always said, usually when the crop failed or they were almost literally starving or freezing to death, there’s no great loss without some small gain. Many things have been lost in this pandemic, but I am determined to keep my eyes open for all gains.

And it was Thanksgiving this weekend! So I think it is appropriate to write…

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Thanksgiving Edition

The Reno

One year ago, we started our renovation of our vacation place, which was my husband’s grandmother’s house. I am incredibly thankful for it for many reasons – reliably flushing toilet! functional kitchen! – but mostly, it has given us a beautiful place to stay in order to safely visit my mother-in-law. The aforementioned functional kitchen also means that I was able to roast a bunch of vegetables and chickpeas, and make a big salad, and contribute to the Thanksgiving dinner that I otherwise would have had almost nothing to eat at. After eating a plate of peas and carrots last year, and then later sneaking into the kitchen to scarf down peanut butter toast in secret, this is a huge gift.

My contribution!

Also, it has a perfect place for me to drink my coffee and smoothies at, while reading.

Fall Colours

A few weeks ago we visited my parents for my dad’s birthday, and I have never seen such colours at that time of the year. Am I turning into a Fall Person? What’s next? Pumpkin spice lattes? (answer: no).

It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers

This never gets old; a friend pointed out it was written ELEVEN years ago and wow, sometimes it seems like life is one of those fast-forward cartoons of pages tearing off of calendars. Anyway, the Co-Op had an assortment of decorative gourds, white pumpkins, and, of course, the regular kind. They were also selling bags of assorted decorative gourds but it turns out I have Real Opinions on decorative gourds and so carefully chose each one carefully from the bin.

There is a competition in the neighbourhood between my husband and a younger guy down the street, when it comes to seasonal decorations. As I was walking the dog, the young upstart asked me where OUR Halloween decorations were, as his have been up for two weeks already. Game on, shit is getting real this weekend. In the meantime, my decorative gourd display is the best motherfucking decorative gourd display on our street, DEAL WITH IT.

My dear friend Taryn (HI TARYN) gave me this sweet thing, so I can celebrate Decorative Gourd Season year-round. IT IS ALWAYS DECORATIVE GOURD SEASON IN THE BOYHOUSE NOW, MOTHERFUCKERS.

Grapes and Apples, Oh My

I know, I know, I just wrote about apples, but the season is full-on and I’m gorging. My mother-in-law saved me this “small amount” of Sheraton grapes from harvest a couple of weeks ago and my younger son and I tried our best to eat them all on the long weekend. We failed.

Typical conversation with my mother-in-law:

Her: Do you want me to save you some grapes?

Me: Sure! Just a small amount, you know, a few bunches would be great.

Her: sets aside ten pounds, thinking that is a small amount appropriate for one to two people to eat in three days

If I had one more day, I could have finished them. Alas.

My New Running Pants

To be honest, now that there is snow on the ground I’m going to be taking my running workouts back to the treadmill, but these funky new pants from Lululemon are my new favourite and have extended my season outside. They have pockets! And lots of support! And sweat vents! And I’m colourful like a speedy peacock!

Seasonal Masks

It all started when my older son mentioned he wanted a Halloween style mask; my friend Liana (HI LIANA) mentioned her friend Maria. She had made some masks that I had bought back in the summer, and it turns out she had just got some seasonal fabric for Halloween and Christmas. Well, and I had to get some adorable llama and birdie ones, just because.

Thank You For Being A Friend

In the spirit of gratitude, I want to extend my thanks to you, dear reader, for indulging me by reading this blog. My goodness, it has been TWELVE YEARS. Thank you for being a friend. xo

Mask courtesy of my friend Michelle (HI MICHELLE)!

Everything’s Coming Up Milhouse; Twenty-Nine Weeks In

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Two incredible things of note happened this week: I got excused from jury duty, and my son shaved off his moustache.

I am a woman who believes strongly in body autonomy, and that everyone should be able to express themselves via personal style, and yet. Yet I am happy that he – voluntarily, I hasten to point out – is no longer moustachioed.

As for jury duty, well, I do not think I need to say more. My grandmother, apparently, had wanted to serve on jury duty for her entire life and wasn’t called until she was in palliative care. Sorry, Grandma! I’m pretty relieved. I said to my husband that actually, I wouldn’t mind jury duty if I a) had nothing else to do, and b) it wasn’t a grisly or horrifying trial like a murder or assault, but something “nice.” What, you may ask, would be a “nice” trial? That I do not know. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I implore you to find this sparkly unicorn guilty of horn theft because, as you will see, SHE IS BUT A HORSE.

In any case, no jury duty and no moustache: everything’s coming up Milhouse!

Also this week I finally had my annual mammogram. All the diagnostics centres were closed for a few months in the spring, and it took me several weeks of calling and being on hold to book this appointment, back in July. I know many of you aren’t eligible to get mammograms until you are 50, but my requisition forms state “lumpy and dense” and so I go annually, and have for several years. Lumpy and dense. The feminine mystique stands to take a bit of a beating here.

Medical masks are mandatory at the diagnostics centre, as opposed to cloth ones, and as soon as I was out of the building I switched to my cloth one because this is where I am at, now, that I feel unfashionable without a mask that goes with my outfit. I have leveled up.

My sons wear masks all day long to school, and even when walking home after school, if they are walking with friends. My older son went so far as to say that he actually thinks “people look more attractive with masks,” and both sons have said to me, separately, that even when the pandemic is over, they will still wear masks in certain situations to avoid breathing in other people’s germs and to keep other people from getting sick. After all, my younger son said to me, I have all these masks, I might as well use them.

Is this Stockholm Syndrome?

I was talking to my friend Nicole (HI NICOLE) about this, and she said she hopes to see a cultural shift, in which we are not, as a society, constantly pressured to be in public while ill. This is an excellent point. Nicole is a professor and I confessed to her that while I was in university, I showed up to countless classes and exams sick, due to the stressful possibility of missing key concepts or getting a poor grade. If you recall, missing exams meant that you really needed a doctor’s note to be excused or rescheduled, and who among us goes to the doctor for the common cold? I clearly remember writing a third-or-fourth year final and using up an entire purse package of tissues while I coughed and sneezed and blew my nose. Who even knows how many people I would have passed that cold on to. Even think about pre-pandemic commercials for cold and flu medication, that advertised dosing up because no one can afford to take a sick day, least of all mothers who are busily Doing It All.

Well, maybe there will be a shift. The thought of just doping ourselves up to alleviate cold and flu symptoms and then going about our day-to-day lives seems so antiquated right now, just like being indoors in a public place without a (fashionably coordinated) mask or shaking someone’s hand.

Pandemic Reading

This, this was the palate cleanser I needed after all my heavy books last week. Perfectly fluffy and lovely, two best friends pretend to be engaged to each other, but then feelings get involved. I bet you would never guess the ending.

I cannot believe I made it this long in life without reading Virginia Woolf. Sure, I read A Room of One’s Own, or an annotated version thereof, in university, but nothing else. Until now! This was a really incredible read, although in all honesty it took me a few pages to get used to the stream-of-consciousness style of writing. The details and the theme of interconnectedness really spoke to me. Also of note: Mrs. Dalloway is described as having heart issues, in need of daily rests, and having grown very thin and pale since her illness, her illness being the Spanish flu. The other thing of note is that Septimus is suffering from what was known as shell shock, which was a topic in the book about trauma I just read, The Body Keeps The Score. Very interesting, and there are some great Downton Abbey-like party descriptions, which I am HERE FOR.

Oh, this book. This book really resonated with me as a yoga practitioner and teacher, and a longtime cardio enthusiast. Particularly after my hip injury, I find that I am constantly filled with gratitude and joy that I can move without pain; running, walking, biking, I feel is a pure gift now. However, there were many parts that made me very, very sad: for example, talking about the feeling of community and collective joy that comes with group exercise in person, and the sound of synchronized breathing that comes with a flow yoga class when we are all together. Well. We are lucky to be so connected in a virtual way, and able to be together while apart, I must keep that in mind. I’m sure Mrs. Dalloway would have had a grave sense of isolation and loneliness while almost dying from the Spanish flu and would have given anything for the kind of connectivity we have now.

Happy October! It’s hard to believe that Thanksgiving is this weekend already. I hope you all have a beautiful week; I will be practicing gratitude and thankfulness. Particularly about no jury duty and a clean-shaven face. xo