Category Archives: Pop Cult-ure

Canadiana

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Our local library branch has pop-up, electronic advertisements for various events in town, and a few months ago, there was one for Weird Al. Weird Al! I don’t really think of Kelowna as a hotspot for concerts, but here we were. Some of you might be thinking Big deal, Weird Al is not a huge get but I was a little starstruck at the thought of the creator of Like A Surgeon and Pretty Fly For A Rabbi breathing the same air as me. I zipped home with plans to purchase tickets immediately, thinking it would be a pretty fun outing for me and my husband.

Well.

My plans quickly dissipated at the discovery that it would be approximately $700 at a minimum for the two of us to attend, which felt a little steep just to hear a live performance of Amish Paradise.

What was the first concert you attended? For me, it was INXS in 1988 for their Kick tour, and I believe the tickets were about $20. This Kicked off several years of concert-going on my part, and with one exception – Billy Joel in 1990 – the shows were all under $25, which was good, as my babysitting income was about $2.50 an hour at the time.

It will be news to no one that I have a song, if not in my heart, then definitely in my head at all times. I usually have a song in my heart too, but my brain is full of song lyrics from every genre in any decade. I am, as Spotify says, genre-fluid. I enjoy all kinds of music – almost anything can make me shimmy my shoulders and swing my hips, even while seated – and I associate many songs strongly with different eras of my life. My favourite genres are from the 70s: disco, yacht rock, soul and funk, as well as rock, but I am open to anything, and I most likely will be able to sing along to it, which tends to startle my husband. How do you remember that? he’ll ask when I sing anything from My Grandfather’s Clock to Parents Just Don’t Understand to Kryptonite.

For my birthday I was thinking of writing about all the songs that have meant a lot to me over the years, but then I realized that a) I could not narrow the list down to less than 200, and b) a massive list of songs felt boring to write and to read. Then I remembered that Rachael (HI RACHAEL) had asked me an interesting question on the Ask Me Anything I did back in December, which was Who are your favourite Canadian musicians/ groups?

First of all, I would like to shout out three out of four Gords for Canadian Decorative Gord Season:

Two of these Gords I saw in concert: the Barenaked Ladies for their Gordon tour, which I consider their best work. I have such great memories of it coming out when I was in high school; my friend Tracy (HI TRACY) and I would sing Hello City while we worked together in chemistry class. I was, I am embarrassed to tell you, nearly fifty years old before I realized that Hello City was about Halifax. Well, we are never too old to learn something new. The other Gord I saw was Gord Downey of the Tragically Hip. I think they take away your citizenship if you are a certain age and didn’t see the Hip in concert. It might be written in the Constitution, now that I think about it.

I don’t think a Gordon Lightfoot concert would be exactly bumping, but I love his music very much. Also, he’s dead. From that same era, I adore Joni Mitchell and the Guess Who. All three are national treasures, in my humble opinion. I also have a soft spot for Corey Hart, particularly because I wrote to his fan club and received a photocopied letter in return. Also, he filmed his Never Surrender video a mere 20 minutes away from our Calgary home.

I saw a number of Canadian music stars in concert back in the day, notably Alanis Morrisette for her Jagged Little Pill tour, and Tom Cochrane at a Canada Day music festival. This was pre- Life is a Highway, when his huge hit was the excellent Big League, which is SUCH a Canadian classic. Not many ways out of this cold Northern town, you work in the mill and get laid in the ground. And if you got a jump, it’ll be with the game. Oh, the dreams of hockey players of yore, hoping to be the next Fourth Gord. This was before youth hockey became A Thing, and anyone who knows Crazy Hockey Parents will know what I mean. My husband worked with a man who coached his kindergartener son’s Timbits hockey team. At the beginning of the season he cheerfully said that they were all there to have fun, after all, no one was going to the NHL. Several parents withdrew their kids from that team in protest of his attitude. THAT is what I mean. And as far as I know, none of them did go to the NHL. So.

Back in the 80s, after INXS I saw a few Canadian bands that would mean nothing to anyone not around in that time and place; notably 54-40 and the Grapes of Wrath. I have a couple of six-degrees of separation for both of those bands. The lead singer for 54-40 was the son-in-law of my junior high principal, which certainly made me look upon him with greater respect than a junior high principal typically gets from its student body.

As for the Grapes of Wrath, I had a titanic crush on guitarist Tom Hooper, to the point that my fourteen-year-old self would dream that we would one day meet and get married, and I would live in the magical place called Kelowna, from where the Grapes hailed. Life is funny; I DID marry a man from Kelowna and am now living in that magical place, and that man has friends who went to school with the entire band. As is probably typical, they were all high school misfits who absolutely hated their hometown, as evidenced in the song Backward Town. To be fair, Kelowna isn’t exactly on the cutting edge of anything. But still! It is a magical place where the flowering trees bloom in April.

When I was that angsty fourteen-year-old, I really thought that the kind of music a person listened to said something about the character of that person. I thought that people who enjoyed pop music were vapid and silly, while those who liked deep cuts of obscure bands were deep as the ocean. I mean, I dated a guy in part because he was really into obscure Depeche Mode tracks. Also, he wrote me a whole pile of bad poetry, typed it out, and presented it to me in a yellow duotang, which struck me as a very romantic gesture at the time.

Ah, the pretentiousness of youth. Popular music is popular for a reason, Young Nicole, and that is because it is FUN and also generally pleasing to listen to. These days, I think that the kind of music a person enjoys merely indicates that they enjoy that music, there is no character or moral assessment to be made. After all, I really like Nickleback.

Weekly Reading

Is This A Cry For Help? CANADIAN AUTHOR ALERT! This author also wrote the wonderful Everyone In This Room Will Someday Be Dead, which I read in 2021 and loved. I love libraries, and not just because they lend us books; they are also safe public spaces that run important programs for all different people, they allow access to the internet, and they are inclusive spaces. This book centres on a librarian who is just back from having a mental health crisis due to the sudden death of her ex-boyfriend. As she looks back on her time with him, she begins to deal with a small but vocal group of people who are calling for book bans and who believe the library has an “agenda.” Yes, its agenda is to be inclusive and to help the public. Anyway. This was a very good read and I enjoyed it so much.

The Rom-Commers. This is a rom-com about two screenwriters writing a rom-com. Cute, right? Well, Katherine Center’s brand is a cute rom-com with some serious tragic backstories, and this is no exception. One person is recovering from cancer, the other is the caretaker for her disabled father, who is FIFTY FIVE YEARS OLD. If you’re keeping track, that’s two books I’ve finished in less than four days in which the romantic lead is a caretaker for her fifty-something parent. Small digression here: this is part of the reason I wrote Inhale Exhale, because there are very few romances that feature people in the fifty-plus demographic. WE LIKE TO GET RAILED TOO, YOU KNOW. Some of us, despite our advanced ages, are not in need of caretaking and are totally DTF. Maybe even more so than before, because our children are grown and we have the house to ourselves, I hope my own sons are not reading this. Anyway. Back to the book at hand. It was pretty silly and contrived, but it was a fast and easy read, which can be a nice distraction from the whole…international situation.

The End of My Life is Killing Me. In June 2020 this author had a cough, and went for a Covid test. She found out she had stage four metastatic lung cancer. The book is a collection of essays about that time and the years after, dealing with treatment, the US health insurance system, weird public perceptions about lung cancer (hint: it’s victim-blamey), and well-meaning friends who suggest things like juicing and positive thinking as curative measures. Honestly, this was pretty dull and grinding, although there were a few interesting observations.

Thanks Rachael for the fun question; I realized there are a few questions I never answered, and I will do so post-haste. In the meantime, here are some of the many flowering trees that have been blooming these past four weeks. I wish you could smell them! You’ll have to believe me. xo

PC LOAD LETTER?

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Last week my phone lit up with a notification from my friend Glenn (HI GLENN), from whom I hadn’t heard from in a while. We used to practice early morning Mysore yoga together, many years ago, and he kindly followed along with my family’s adventures, specifically the time when my younger son was the drummer for a band called Ded Brik, whose practice session was cut short one day when the guitarist’s neighbours called the police for a noise complaint, at two o’clock in the afternoon. Ah, pandemic days. It’s great how we were all collectively insane. In any case, I hadn’t heard from Glenn in a long while, and so I quickly opened his message.

I cannot take ALL the credit for BC’s decision to adopt Daylight Saving Time year-round, but I have been publicly raging against that particular pointless machine for 17 years. I’ll take a little credit, although I will believe it when it happens. My fragile heart cannot handle being shattered again. I am still scarred from the Alberta referendum which ended NOT in favour of stopping the ridiculous practice of changing clocks twice a year, merely because people could not agree if Standard or Daylight Saving was superior. I am Team Pick A Time And Stick With It, For Fuck’s Sake, I Don’t Care. There are pros and cons on both sides, LET’S JUST STOP THE MADNESS. I for one will be happy when the sun doesn’t set at 3:56 pm in December, and YES, the flip side is that it won’t rise until 8:45 am but it’s Canada. We don’t get much daylight in December, accept it and MOVE ON.

Anyway, the news we will not be going through this spring-forward-fall-back construct and that parents throughout this province will no longer be emotionally destroyed twice a year was a bright spot in an otherwise terrifying, bleak, and spiral-into-despair dystopian news cycle.

I texted the above gif to my older son, who immediately responded with I’m a fake? How’d you like to be dead, which reminded me of one of my favourite things: the call and response of pop culture. I know that if I texted my friend Hannah (HI HANNAH) with only the words Maybe it’s the beer talking that she would immediately respond with You got a butt that won’t quit. My friend Suzanne (HI SUZANNE) and I share an affinity for 1990s Adam Sandler; I know that I could tell her that she is a nice piece of ace and she would know exactly what I mean.

After Hannah responded to my It WAS a good name, until that no-talent ass clown started winning Grammies with Why should I change my name? He’s the one that sucks, we talked about this phenomenon, how the call and response makes a person feel seen and known. Hannah said that it was all about pattern recognition and identifying your people, and that rewatching media is about comfort and predictability. I think she is exactly right; I never before or since felt such a strong feeling of connection with my sister-in-law’s boyfriend than when he once said genially IT’S ALL PIPES.

Hannah said I actually think the increasingly fragmented media landscape has contributed to loss of social cohesion and she’s right. Obviously, not everything that is happening these days can be attributed to a lack of a must-see TV night, but it doesn’t help that we are all over the place, all the time when it comes to pop culture.

I tried to join the modern world last week by watching A Love Story, which is the story of JFK Jr and Caroline Bessette. I will go to my grave saying that Carole Radziwill’s What Remains is the best celebrity memoir of all time, and I have been low-key obsessed with it since I first read it in 2006. I thought she would be a key character in A Love Story so I tuned in, only to be constantly enraged by the idiocy and entitlement that comes with being a Kennedy man. After a quick search, I learned that Carole Radziwill isn’t even a character in this show, as she is not deemed to be important enough to be in the story. She was Carolyn Bessette’s best friend, and married to JFK Jr’s cousin and best friend Anthony Radziwill, who IS in the show, which feels PRETTY IMPORTANT. I immediately abandoned ship, as I’m Team I’m Here For Carole And No One Else, and also, I don’t need to be constantly enraged by JFK Jr and his stupid hats.

Before you ask, I have not and I will not watch the Real Housewives franchise that features Carole Radziwill, not because I’m a snob – given the chance, I’d watch Family Feud until the cows come home – but because there are just too many seasons. It’s overwhelming. Also I really don’t want to watch women screaming at each other, which I assume is a large part of the “storyline,” if indeed there is a storyline on a reality television show.

I did, however, recently watch a movie that I cannot stop thinking about, and that is The Best You Can starring Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgewick. First of all, how is Kevin Bacon still so hot? He might even be hotter than he ever was, or my tastes have just skewed older. I was on the plane from Vancouver to Hong Kong, and the premise intrigued me, but the headphones provided with the system did not work. I watched it silently, with closed captioning, and then on the next leg of the flight – mere hours later – I watched it again, this time with working headphones. It’s only available for purchase right now, or I would be watching it every single day. Alas. To fill the void, I have been watching Vladimir with my husband, which is also excellent – sexy but not porny, so I don’t feel weird if one of my sons is at home – and features John Slattery, who you may remember from Mad Men.

I cannot speak for all women, but what I wanted was to stop changing clocks and now – hopefully, please, let this happen – I am going to get it.

Weekly Reading

I had another DNF this week, it was So Old So Young. I abandoned it at 53 pages, and those 53 pages were a draggy slog for me, with SO many characters, none of which I cared about. My resolution to DNF more is resolution-ing! But maybe I should have done that more this week.

Wild Hope. Would you like some uplifting poetry? Of course you would! This is the collection for you. I have been reading a poem a day (or thereabouts) before my morning yoga practice, and they have been so uplifting and inspiring. The theme is – obviously, from the title – how to find hope in the world when things seem broken. THIS RESONATES. It’s a really beautiful collection about finding happiness and hope within ourselves and with our relationships with people and the natural world.

The Latecomer. Wow, wow, WOW. This book! I loved every word of this dense, nuanced, character-driven novel about a family with triplets who – despite their mother’s desperate best efforts – cannot wait to leave home, and each other. As the triplets prepare to leave for college, their mother has what seems like a Landslide moment and promptly adds another baby to the family. But things are not what they seem – secrets abound, and things are unravelling. Every character in this book is layered and rich and interesting. There was a plot twist I did not see coming, and the ending was eminently satisfying. I loved this so much.

Finding Grace. I…do not know what to say. I really don’t know how to review this book without spoilers, but I’m going to try. There is a wildly unexpected occurrence in the first chapter that sets everything in motion, namely a very weird series of coincidences which lead to a very weird relationship. I would go so far as to say a creepy and inappropriate relationship. And the ending was weirdly unexpected and tied everything up in a weirdly neat bow. So. I guess this book is about grief and also about a marriage that sounds kind of shitty, and about how keeping secrets can be toxic and how people aren’t always what they seem? I guess? Other than the children, the characters are across the board pretty unlikeable, and the story itself goes in a lot of directions. 

The Stationery Shop. It’s not you, it’s me. I know – I KNOW – that historical fiction rarely works for me, and this didn’t. I was optimistic that I would enjoy this, after listening to The Rest Is History’s fascinating series on the 1953 ousting of the Iranian Prime Minister and the subsequent Revolution of 1979, which is the backdrop for this love story. I should have known better. It did not work for me; these sorts of books are just too contrived and stilted for my taste.

My husband asked me if I have become more critical in my reading, from my own writing experience, and I would say that I have become more analytical. My mind, like our society, has become polarized: on the one hand, being transported by a book like The Latecomers fills me with awe and admiration. It’s really hard to write a book, and to write a book like The Latecomers is an incredible feat indeed. On the other hand, I find it kind of disheartening when I read a book that has a lot of buzz and love, and it leaves me cold. Well, there’s something for everyone, I suppose, and tastes differ. On a literary note, the lovely Jacqui (HI JACQUI) mentioned a zero-cost way to support me, should you be so inclined, which is to request a copy of Inhale Exhale at your local library. That would be a huge help – there are literally millions of books coming out every year, and mine is but a tiny drop in the ocean. I’d love it to be as accessible as possible. Thank you, friends, for reading along. Have a beautiful week! xo

Five For Friday: The 2025 Five Star Edition

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  • My New Personality and Identity as a War Buff. Spotify Wrapped was released a few weeks ago, and I looked dispassionately at my top five podcasts, all of which were chatty-style, women-hosted, independent podcasts. It felt like a far-off memory, a whole different world, because over these same past few weeks, I have listened to nothing but the podcast The Rest is History, specifically about the lead-up to and the specifics of World War II. The same Australian man who bonded with me over White Wine In The Sun had recommended it, and, interestingly enough, his wife had recommended Palace Confidential, which I was obsessed with until The Rest is History. I can now listen to nothing else. It’s like my life has been divided into two parts: before the podcast, and after. It has become my entire personality. At this point I have lost count of the number of episodes I have listened to, but I think I am well into thirty hours. In the time Before the Podcast, I would have said that I was pretty well versed in this subject, having received an A in a 300-level German History From 1870 to post-World War II, back in 1995, but I was wrong. I have learned so much. This podcast is incredibly detailed; for example, it took three episodes just to recount the invasion of Poland. I have been robotically reciting facts left and right about the Beer Hall Putsch and the fight for iron ore in Sweden and the 1938 German annexation of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. I have drawn parallels between the slow build of the Nazi party to other international current events. I have been astonished by the vast number of German spa hotels which serve as a backdrop for the strategic goings-on in the 1930s. I have no other topics of conversation. If I am not listening to the podcast, I am thinking about the podcast. When I finished all twenty episodes of World War II, I started in on World War I. I don’t even recognize myself anymore. I am out of control. Next thing you know I will eschew women’s literary fiction and will start reading nonfiction tomes about military strategy. Maybe The Art of War. I have become A War History Buff. I have turned into my own dad. What’s next? Will I start watching the six o’clock news? Will I take up curling? Will I drive into town every morning to pick up a copy of the Calgary Herald and then get into long and involved conversations with the women who work at Shopper’s Drug Mart? I mean, if we substitute “Shopper’s Drug Mart” and “Calgary Herald” for “any place in which I am interacting with a customer service representative,” then I’m already there. If I start swanning around town wearing Dockers, my transformation will be complete.
  • I’m a Weirdo, What the Hell am I Doing Here? Although I listen to podcasts – or, lately, A Single Podcast – as I go about the more mundane tasks of my life, I also enjoy a lot of music, and this is where Spotify Wrapped becomes most interesting. When it comes to my top song of the year, it’s never what I think it will be. Indeed, this year’s came as a big surprise. What an eclectic mix of songs! Longtime readers may remember that Dog and Butterfly was, once, my top song, and that was astounding enough. Creep! To be sure, I don’t listen to any one song a lot – Creep had a mere 33 listens – because my favourite playlists are all so long. “Nicole Karaoke” and “Nicole Workout,” my two most-listened to playlists, are 19 hours each, and even “Nicole Christmas” is five and a half hours, which is a lot since, as my sons tell me, there are only six songs in various versions. This is obviously not true, I have more than six songs on my Christmas playlist, although it is a fact that I have five versions of Baby, It’s Cold Outside, and an entire playlist curated by my friend Peggy (HI PEGGY) that is six hours of Last Christmas covers.
  • Queens, A King, and Country. When it comes to Top Artists, not one is connected with my Top Songs. Aretha has been my number-one artist for years, and Whitney certainly wasn’t a surprise, but Zac Brown was the dark horse in this race. Truly, things got a bit skewed as my husband insisted on listening to our son’s “Country Bangers” playlist for at least half of a twenty-hour road trip, and “Country Bangers” is, by my estimation, at least 75% Zac Brown. I like Zac Brown just fine, but a number three spot seems excessive.
  • Five Star Books, or the Books That I Can’t Stop Thinking About. I know, it’s madness to discuss five-star books two weeks before the end of the year, but this is my third year in a row of doing this exact post at this exact time of the year, and I don’t want to break the chain. Also, I am sure I’ll be noting five-star books of late December next year, just as I am going to mention my final three five-star reads of 2024: The Wedding People, The Knockout Queen, and Tell Me Everything. For 2025 (so far): Moon Road, Isola, Notes On Your Sudden Disappearance, Girl, Woman, Other, Death By A Thousand Cuts, Animal Instinct, What Are You Going Through, Sky Daddy, Show Don’t Tell, So Late In The Day, Shark Heart, Dream Count, Audition, Maggie; or, A Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar, The Thing Around Your Neck, The Love Haters, The Correspondent, The Road To Tender Hearts.
  • Five Star Re-Reads, or the Books I Love Beyond Belief. What, I ask, is the point of having shelves full of books if you’re not going to reread them until they literally fall apart in your hands? It’s a great joy of my life. Here are my five-star rereads of 2025: All Along You Were Blooming, The Husband’s Secret, Mansfield Park, Devotions, Hateship Courtship Friendship Loveship Marriage, Standard Deviation, Single Carefree Mellow, Sandwich, Songs At The River’s Edge, The Joy Luck Club.

There were lots of five star experiences in 2025: we had some great travel, the garden was a success, and I turned fifty. Although, according to Spotify, that’s inaccurate.

I mean, honestly, it’s not wrong. Do you have five-star books, playlists, podcasts, music, or anything to share with me? Tell me everything. xo

Bounty and the Bust

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Who Loves You?

I was listening to an interview with Anne Lamott, who is a writer and person that I very much admire. She was talking about the concept of self-care, and how her entire life these days is based on self-care, which felt quite resonant to me. Recently someone asked me what I do with all my time, now that I’m neither teaching yoga nor raising children, and I was quite puzzled. I fill it? It seems like my days are all full and busy and very little of my time feels wasted. But I think the better answer is one like Lamott’s, in that my whole life feels like one giant self-care project at this stage in my journey towards the grave.

Lamott spoke of everything she does as a radical act of love towards herself, stating that if she so much as makes herself a cup of peppermint tea or eats a cookie she thinks Someone is taking care of me and loving me, that “someone” being her own self. I’m going to start thinking this way. Someone loves me so much that they made me this hummus, I’ll think at lunch, eating my own homemade hummus. Someone is taking care of me by making me sit on the deck and read for an hour, I’ll think. After all, one cannot be a writer without being a reader, and so it’s career development as well as self-care.

Is It A Robot?

I have a real aversion to AI and Chat GPT and other things that are destructive to our environment and also to our collective intelligence. I realize – YES I REALIZE – that there are benefits to the medical community and research, sure. But also? It is making us collectively stupider. I am sure you can, for example, develop a travel itinerary using AI, but you know what else you can do? Google. It’s already supremely easy to access information about literally everything in the world, I do not think we need to make our brains lazier, particularly given the environmental damage AI wreaks. Do not even get me started on AI-created pictures or writing.

This aversion did not, however, stop me from listening to a podcast about Chat GPT romances. Did you know this was a thing? I certainly did not. There are a lot of lonely people out there who are embarking on romantic, and even sexual, relations with a chat bot. And if you, like me, were thinking how do you have sex with a chat bot, then you are not thinking outside the box enough. It would be similar to phone sex, let’s put it like that.

So this is a thing now. I listened to an interview with a man who, apparently, has a REAL LIFE GIRLFRIEND but also a chat bot one, and the reason for the latter is that – wait for it – his girlfriend doesn’t understand him. To quote Miss Cornelia, ISN’T THAT JUST LIKE A MAN? This “relationship” started when his actual human girlfriend was uninterested in watching the lunar eclipse with him, and so he now goes to his chat bot girlfriend for all his astronomy conversation-based needs.

If you’re thinking woof, that is fucked up, then you are in the exact same mental space as I was, until I started giving it a bit more thought. It’s not much different from chat rooms of two decades ago, or even those 1-800 numbers to talk to “singles in your area,” but the difference is that there is not a human on the other end of it. Which brings me to my question: which is worse, finding out your spouse is cheating on you with a robot, or finding out your spouse is cheating on you with a random stranger in a chat room? Or paying for phone sex? Or – and I actually think this is the worst of all – having an online affair with someone on social media?

Bounty and Bust

A vastly better use for our planet’s water is for food production, I think we all can agree. Which brings me to a long-overdue garden update!

This was my harvest last weekend, before I started shutting the garden down. It’s a little early for it, but we are going on vacation soon and I’d rather get things done in the beautiful September sunshine than later, when it might not be so lovely. The tomatoes and raspberries are, improbably enough, still going strong. I have enough squash and zucchini (omg, so much zucchini), to last me all year, and I have more onions and jalapenos than I can possibly use, so I have been sharing them with the winery staff.

Not everything has been so bountiful, though. I have six gorgeous bell pepper plants that have, through the summer, been absolutely covered with beautiful, perfect peppers. Despite this, I have harvested only seven peppers in total, because every time one starts to ripen and change colour, I go to inspect it only to find that it has been nibbled on. Worse, sometimes the peppers look amazing and then disintegrate when I pick them up, because water has gotten in through the nibbles and rotted the pepper from the inside out.

The only possible explanation is that it is a squirrel, and indeed, I have seen those little bastards zipping around the garden boxes. We have a tall deer fence, and there isn’t anything else that could be getting in. Squirrels! They have been my gardening nemesis since my Calgary days, when those assholes would merrily dig up all my plants for no good reason or chew all the wires on our outdoor Christmas decorations. One year, squirrels ate the entire hat off of a light-up wire snowman, and another year they dug up and ate all 150 fall bulbs that I had painstakingly planted. As we all know, the Eastern Grey Squirrel is not even native to Calgary, and I will tell you that once Barkley caught one and tried to kill it and I did not feel bad about it. Me! Animal loving me! I was like FUCK THAT SQUIRREL, GO BARKLEY.

Anyway, next year I shall sprinkle cayenne in my pepper beds to keep the (actually native) squirrels out. If that doesn’t work, I give up. I will just buy from the farm market.

The other bust was my fall planting of spinach and kale. I enthusiastically planted seeds in mid-August, like I did last year, and then we had warmer than normal temperatures. The heat stunted the germination process and now, a month later, I have only the smallest scatterings of seedlings. I suppose I could try again now, but as I said we are leaving for vacation soon and it feels like it will be a wasted effort.

Weekly Reading

Not a wasted effort? This week’s reading. One of these things is not like the others!

I Who Have Never Known Men. Rex’s face says it all. I read a dystopian novel and I liked it. I think it was because it is an entirely character-based novel that takes place entirely in the narrator’s head, the narrator who is not only unnamed to us, but unnamed at all. She is known as “the child,” as she was taken as a child to the underground bunker with thirty-nine women. One day a siren goes off and the guards disappear immediately. The women escape to discover they are all alone in the world, whatever world they are in. This book asks such interesting questions: what happens to a person brought up in isolation from the rest of the world, how does a person make sense of the world, what is the nature of hope and when is hope lost?

Bad Summer People. Do you love juicy, gossipy, scandalous stories about rich people behaving badly? Me too! This was so much fun to read; we start with the discovery of a dead body and then the story backtracks from there. There are multiple (read: SO MANY) points of view and characters, and I was here for every single one of them. What a ride! Also, I love the kind of intensity that something like a low-talent tennis tournament can bring about, that’s all I’m saying.

The Identicals. I recently started listening to Elin Hildebrand’s podcast Books, Beach, and Beyond, in which she – given her own star power – interviews absolute literary stars and talks to them about their writing process. Recently she mentioned that her books follow a formula and she does not deviate from this formula, and I have to say, when you’re right, you’re right. There is something SO lovely about reading a book which you KNOW will end happily, and as you read it, you can see those happy things taking shape. This is a book about estranged identical twins living on Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, and they basically trade places for the summer. Capers ensue, everything turns out perfectly, I loved it, the end. A perfectly lovely beach read that I read with the actual beach in view.

Today is the first day of fall! It’s fall, fuckfaces! And so it is the start of Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers, and also – in Canada only! – Decorative Gord Season.

I mean, that will never get old. You’re either ready to reap this freaky-assed harvest or you’re not. Let’s go! xo

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Memories of My Yoga Students Edition

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For the past few weeks, I have been doing a careful line read of my upcoming novel Inhale Exhale for final submission. It’s a book about a middle-aged yoga teacher who is looking for love, and while reviewing it, this middle-aged former yoga teacher has been reflecting a lot on the hundreds of students I have taught over the years. All of them meant something to me; some of them meant a LOT to me and have impacted me to this day. This month’s Favourite Things is an homage to them.

Nicole’s Favourite Things: The Memories of My Yoga Students Edition

Boney M(acPherson)

Every winter – starting in October, because it was Calgary – I would caution my senior ladies about slipping on icy sidewalks. The best way to recover from a fall is to not fall in the first place, I would say as we worked on balance and core strength. But sometimes that is not enough; one of the ladies told me about a friend who fell and broke her hip, but it wasn’t the fall that broke it – her hip spontaneously broke, causing her to fall.

I’ve been concerned about my own bone density for years, and I work hard at improving it through strength training and lots of calcium and Vitamin D. I became curious about the weighted vests I had been seeing all over the internet, and decided to get one of my very own.

I feel RIDICULOUS in it, like I am Sipowicz about to bust into a sketchy-looking apartment without a warrant. With my waist leash, fire hydrant-shaped poop bag carrier, cross-body bag, and workout clothes, I look deranged. But hopefully deranged with strong bones!

I really like the functionality, if not the looks; it has little sandbag-weights that can be added or subtracted, and with all of them the vest is 18 pounds. Is it working? Who knows! I don’t have a home bone density testing machine. But I feel like it can’t hurt.

Entering My Elastic Waistband Era

My senior ladies, such a lovely, fun bunch, also talked a lot about the joy of elastic waistbands, and they were right. Last month I bought a pair of Lululemon Dance Studio Crops, and whoa nelly. They might just be the most comfortable pants ever.

I mean, they LOOK comfortable. It’s not like these are sexy structured pants that surprise everyone by being comfortable. But I am embracing this New Pants Era of mine. In fact, I bought a second pair in black!

Judy, My Guiding Star

I have talked before about Judy, the octogenarian who embodies everything I wanted in life, and everything I wanted to BE in life. I adore her. Once, she visited her sister in Nashville, and brought me back this little set of bracelets, because they reminded her of me. They go perfectly with my new pants!

It’s All About The Literary Merch

I taught Yoga for Stroke Survivors for a few years, and one of my students was the personification of one of those before/ after yoga memes.

I mean, I don’t blame him. This man suffered a debilitating stroke in his forties; he went from being someone with a successful and lucrative career who enjoyed international travel and home improvement projects to having difficulties with things like walking and, um, filtering his language. He was angry. Every Thursday afternoon he would come blustering in to the studio, speaking VERY loudly about those fucking morons at the City, they can’t even get the buses to run on time, and no one cares about the fucking ICE on the sidewalks, he slipped and fell, what the FUCK, and by the way, his goddamn neighbour won’t even shovel HER sidewalks, and she can’t hire anyone because she’s POOR and it’s not HIS fault she’s poor, why should he have to deal with HER problem. It wasn’t something you’d expect in a yoga studio, let’s put it that way. But after yoga? After yoga he was an absolute doll. He would be laughing and joking and speaking kindly to everyone. Really, it made the job very satisfying, if a bit trying at times.

One day he came in with a shirt that read Nolite te bastardes carborundorum, and I asked him about it. Don’t let the bastards get you down! he said to me, and two things popped into my head; first, that saying must have been extremely resonant for him, as he felt pummeled down by the bastards – his stroke, the city, his neighbour, literally everyone in his way – every day. But also it seemed very familiar to me in some way, like I had seen it before but couldn’t place it, and it wasn’t until 2020, when I reread The Handmaid’s Tale in preparation for The Testaments, that I remembered.

A few months ago I saw this tee at Redbubble – I credit the popularity of the TV series which I have not watched and I WILL not, do not come at me – and I thought YES. I thought of my student but I also thought of the political situation we are living through now, particularly in Elbows Up Canada, and I thought I must have this.

On another literary note, I have been meaning to talk about my Most Ardently tee, which I love.

It goes great with the mug my son gave me for my birthday:

I have heard Austen novels criticized as being nothing but fluff, just stories of women seeking husbands, but I think that is an extremely ignorant and narrow view. Her novels are about so much more than that! Yes, there is a lot of marriage talk, but what could be more economically powerful for women throughout time? Women had literally no power at all, no choices, no money, no ability to hold property. Poor Mrs Bennett is universally thought to be a ridiculous figure, but let’s just think about this for a moment: if her husband predeceased her, she’d be homeless. She had five daughters and not one of them would be able to live in their home once their father died. The only thing that could be done is to have at least one of them marry in a financially advantageous way. LITERALLY THERE WAS NOTHING ELSE, NETHERFIELD PARK IS LET AT LAST. The whole inciting incident of Sense and Sensibility is that the women WERE homeless after the death of Mr Dashwood! They had to rely on the kindness of a distant relative who let them live in a cottage at a reduced rent because they couldn’t even take the dishes from their house that they had lived in for twenty years. So DO NOT TELL ME that marriage wasn’t an important economic decision for women, because it WAS. Do NOT disparage Miss Jane Austen, because I will not have it! NOT ON MY WATCH. Also, she is the wittiest writer that ever lived. I will hear no arguments! I will also enjoy my Jane Austen merch!

Woo, I got a little worked up, I have to take a breath here. Let me calm down by looking at this face:

Heads Have Rolled For Less

On the topic of women and economic power and “things that seem fluffy but are far from it,” I am obsessed – obsessed! – with The Gilded Age. It’s by the creator of Downton Abbey, of which I have watched every episode and every (not great) movie, and you can really tell the similarities between the two series. There’s even an American heiress marrying a cash-poor English Duke – shades of Cora! The Gilded Age has it all: high drama, secrets, betrayal, upstairs/ downstairs people, making money, losing wealth, living the American Dream, fabulous older ladies with complicated storylines. It’s all about society and power and oh my god, the costumes. The costumes are SO good, there are so many wild hats, and we are now done Season Three and I’m a bit bereft. I hope this show runs for another ten seasons. IT IS AMAZING, I love it, the writing is SO sharp and tight, and did I mention the costumes?

The stories are still pretty relevant today, honestly.

I love how Julian Fellowes really creates characters for older women with a lot of depth, romance, and wisdom.

Outfit of the Month

First, I would like to stave off any criticism about my clotheshorse ways by giving you an old/ new outfit:

YES THOSE ARE THE NEW BLACK COMFORTABLE PANTS. They are just as comfy as the beige ones, but the lady working at the library told me I “always look so elegant and pulled together” while I was wearing them, so score one for elastic waistbands. Speaking of comfortable, those sandals are Skechers circa 2022, and I don’t know how old the top is, but I bought it at Jacob, which went defunct in 2015.

Isn’t it cute, with the little ruffles? Proof that I’m not just wildly shopping, I like to hold onto pieces for years and years.

Ah, I have such lovely memories of all my students, from the enthusiastic Ashtangis to the devoted Hatha practitioners, from the Seniors and the Stroke Survivors to the chilled-out Restorative students, from the Strength and Tone ladies to the Thursday Morning Foundation class, every single student was special to me and I learned so much from all of them. Happy almost-long-weekend, friends. I hope it’s wonderful. xo

Together Again

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The Boys Are Back In Town

My husband and son have returned from their hiking trip in Scotland! They hiked the West Highland Way, which worked out to be 154 kilometres over eight days, and they enjoyed Edinburgh as well. It was quite the adventure, and it’s great to have them home.

After two weeks of eating out, they were pretty excited for some, as my husband put it, home cooking. For some reason that phrase feels like a weird sexual euphemism, I blame Paul Newman. In any case, both of them requested a Big Fun Salad, and I was only too happy to comply.

Salad Days

They had great timing, as it turned out, because I just cut what was the last of the kale and spinach. I have pulled the plants and will be reseeding in a few weeks, when the bulk of the hot weather has subsided for the year, and hopefully I will have a nice fall harvest.

I guess it will be farm market kale and spinach for me until mid-September, but in the meantime, I am not short of tomatoes or zucchini.

Zen and the Art of Gardening and Piano Playing

These vegetables don’t grow themselves, people. Well, the zucchinis kind of do. But the garden itself takes a lot of work and I spend at least an hour a day tending to it, the perennials, and my flower pots. I always leave my phone in the house and just concentrate on the plants, and it is a very zen practice. There is something so meditative about weeding, which, along with laundry, is one of the most Sisyphean tasks ever. Other Sisyphean garden tasks include picking tomatoes and zucchini, but those tasks at least result in yumminess.

I read The Connection Cure this week – more about that in the Weekly Reading section – and it sparked a lot of thinking about the things we do for our mental and physical health. Gardening is one of them for me, but I don’t know if I would say that I am always in the moment while doing it. More likely, while I weed or deadhead or harvest, my mind is wandering about what the hell am I going to do with all these tomatoes, do I have time to roast them later to freeze, and how long will it take to grate up all these zucchinis, and also what am I going to write about this week, and would anyone be interested in a deep dive on The Duchess, and how sexy was Ralph Fiennes, and I wonder if The English Patient is on Netflix and would it be weird to just fast-forward to all the sexy scenes, and how Lady Chatterley’s Lover was basically soft-core porn, and also they changed the ending, and oh my god, look at that butterfly!

Similar things happen in my brain when I’m walking or cooking or doing anything household-task-related, but almost never while I’m exercising or practicing yoga. The one time I can guarantee that I will 100% be in the moment is when I’m playing piano. I have seen people carry on conversations while playing, but I absolutely cannot. I don’t even think about the next note, I am only ever thinking about the note I am playing the second that I am playing it, which makes it, for me, the most Zen practice of them all. I mean, if I so much as thought of Ralph Fiennes I would lose my place in the music, let alone any idle thoughts about my husband pretending to be a gamekeeper on a large English estate, asking me if I would like coarser treatment.

Freshen Your Drink, Governor?

As I mentioned last week, I have taken the opportunity of alone time to watch several British period dramas, and they have not disappointed. Despite my general dislike of book-to-screen adaptations, I rewatched Sense and Sensibility, which, along with Emma and Pride and Prejudice, cycles in and out of being my Number One Jane Austen Favourite Book. I also watched the aforementioned Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which contains not only full frontal nudity but also such graphic sex scenes that I did wonder how they could possibly be filmed without actual penetration, or at least a massive boner on the part of the gamekeeper. I score pretty much zero on the Kinsey scale, and yet I never want to see full frontal male nudity on the big screen, even when the screen is just my TV. As Elaine Benes said, The female body is a work of art. The male body is utilitarian. It’s for getting around, like a Jeep.

Nudity or not, the movie was completely engrossing, as was The Duchess – so good! – and The Other Boleyn Girl, which, along with a rewatch of the first three episodes of Downton Abbey, completed my British Period Drama Fortnight.

There is a growing movement among streaming services to cater to what is called second-screening, which is the phenomenon of watching TV while being on a phone. Streaming services are creating shows that are meant to be watched while distracted, and so there will be a lot of repeated dialogue and summarization of events.

I put the blame entirely on the glorification of multitasking, which I consider to be an incredibly harmful and focus-fracturing concept. Just like I cannot talk and play piano simultaneously, no one, but no one, can actually put mental energy into two things at the same time. It’s just not possible! Sure, we are all listening to podcasts while folding laundry, but I would submit that folding laundry requires very little mental energy. The idea that we can scroll on our phones while watching a movie and absorb any information at all is ridiculous. Bring back single-tasking! Let’s just focus on doing one thing at a time! Including watching TV!

I’m Your Biggest Fan, This Is Stan

Something that almost always absorbs all my attention is a good book; I love that feeling of just sinking into a delicious state of reading. If you follow me on Instagram you know that I post all of my book reviews over there, and I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, I want to be honest in all my reviews, but on the other hand, I don’t want to be mean or negative if I don’t enjoy a book. It’s a tricky balance, but on the flip side, I want everyone to know when I truly love a book, and if you remember from last week, I posted a glowing review about Standard Deviation by one of my favourite authors, Katherine Heiny.

I casually logged into Instagram to see that I had a new follower, and friends, I cannot be calm or casual about this: KATHERINE HEINY HAD FOLLOWED ME. Not only that, but she sent me a direct message saying that she was “flattered to be anyone’s writing goals, but you are very funny already.” OH MY GOD PEOPLE.

I might have passed out for a moment. Katherine Heiny! Sent me a message! I have all of her books on my Favourites Shelf! I am as starstruck as a person could be! Katherine Heiny, who I adore and whose writing is over-the-top incredible!

NO I CANNOT CHILL.

And speaking of books…

Weekly Reading

The Connection Cure. I heard this author interviewed on the Ologies podcast, and I found her so fascinating that I knew I would have to read her book. Social prescriptions are growing around the world, and address environmental factors in wellness; instead of asking “what is the matter with you,”’ the question is “what matters to you.” There is a growing body of empirical evidence that links positive health outcomes with movement, time in nature, artistic endeavours, acts of service, and a feeling of belonging. It is all very common sense, but still it was shocking to me to read about the loneliness epidemic, how it has increased since 2020, and the debilitating impacts it can have on health. An important note is that social prescriptions – finding a community, helping a person discover a feeling of belonging, or joy through art, along with movement practices and time in nature – are to be used in conjunction with modern medicines and therapies. Overall an interesting read.

How To Be Married. Jo Piazza is a pretty buzzy author these days, but this book – part memoir, part non-fiction dive into how marriage is viewed in other countries and cultures – came out in 2017, before the buzz. It’s been a while since I myself was a newlywed – in fact, I don’t really remember what our first year of marriage was like – but I found this to be an entertaining and touching read. The tagline mentions her “really hard” first year of marriage, and my thoughts ran to infidelity, dark secrets, and disagreements about loading the dishwasher, but the reality was much sadder. Four months after she was married, the author learned that she had the genetic mutation for muscular dystrophy, which had left her own father extremely disabled and her mother – his caretaker – to have a nervous breakdown from the stress and resentment that comes from being a caretaker. She also lost her job right after they signed a mortgage on a house in San Francisco, a notoriously expensive city. I found the book very interesting and the peek into other cultures to be fascinating. Apparently I am like a Frenchwoman, I learned, as I would never in a million years use the toilet with the door open. Some things, as the Frenchwomen said, should be private.

The God of Small Things. My friend Maya (HI MAYA) had mentioned this book and I was surprised that I hadn’t already read it, as it was published in 1997. It is a heartbreaking, beautifully written book about a family in Kerlala, a terrible tragedy, and the shocking aftermath. It concerns caste, family ties, and dark secrets, and it is so moving and absolutely compelling. The story jumps timelines which might be confusing to some, but I found I was completely immersed, and so I was able to absorb it in stride.

I’ve wanted to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat for thirty years, and on Friday I finally did! We were in the front row, which meant two of my girlfriends ended up receiving leis from one of the cast members – cue getting lei’d jokes – and it was a really great night out. As a child, the story of Joseph was one that was incredibly wild and disturbing to me – parental favouritism, selling one’s sibling to slavery, tricking another sibling into thinking he was going to be imprisoned or killed – but the musical itself is a hoot. I hope your week is filled with delight and music, and doing only one thing at a time. xo

Woes and Wins

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In the past two months, four podcasts that I follow have recorded their final episodes ever. Four! Two of those were the kind of podcasts that I would actively look forward to and would download and listen to as soon as I could, and those two are as different as can be: Dear Prudence, an advice column show that featured some really unhinged questions, and Cookbook Club, which can only be described as the Schweddy Balls SNL sketch, but with cookbooks and food topics. And now they are OVER and I am low-level bereft.

The other two podcasts – Fat Mascara and A Thing or Two – were recent finds for me. Oh yay, these podcasts are so fun, they are exactly what I was looking for, I thought, mere weeks before they announced that they were shutting down their chatty operations. I am sure if I wanted to I could go back and listen to a decade’s worth of a back catalogue, but I don’t want to. I would rather sulk, I guess.

Not quite as distressing but almost, one of my longest-loved podcasts, Forever 35, switched co-hosts a year ago, and I have tried, lord, how I have tried to embrace the new woman with open arms, but friends, I cannot. The whole energy and focus of the podcast has changed in a way that I don’t enjoy, and I find the new host grating. Stop complaining about your dog and spend some time with him is a thing I said out loud, while walking my own dog, to the podcast host who cannot hear me.

While sulking, I listened to a music podcast that talked about – of all things – General Hospital. I have not, in the entirety of my life, watched a single daytime soap episode, much less the longest-running one of all time, but I did know about the supercouple Luke and Laura, thanks to my endless perusing of my grandma’s stack of Star magazines in the eighties (“the paper“). What I did not know, and what was alluded to in the podcast, was the scandalous way they met, and so of course I immediately looked it up, and was startled to discover that they met when Luke RAPED Laura. Their wedding remains to this day the most-watched daytime television episode, with over thirty million viewers, including Princess Diana, and it guest starred Elizabeth Taylor. This celebrated soap opera couple started with a RAPE? It’s true the 70s and 80s were a different time and yet this rape of an 18-year-old woman by a 33-year-old man doesn’t really feel like the start of an epic romance that one might wish for.

As a brief aside, I have previously discussed the Peloton hashtag #therapistsofpeloton, which never fails to amuse me, but the other day I was riding with a person whose leaderboard name was none other than Therapistrides. I went back to search it to see if I had been hallucinating, so early in the morning, and found not only that person but also Therapistdad, which felt infinitely worse. Are these people just totally lacking in SNL Jeopardy awareness? Or are they, like my son suggested, not therapists but actual rapists who have found community through spin bike exercise? And you’re SHAMING them, Mom, he said.

Back to General Hospital: the podcast also mentioned a plotline in which an evil scientist was building a machine which would freeze the world and plunge its inhabitants into an Ice Age, which made me think a) is that evil scientist actually Dr. Doofenschmirtz, and b) where can I find recaps of every plotline on General Hospital? The latter was easy, but overwhelming; a quick search revealed thousands of such websites, Reddits, and blog posts.

I feel judged that DuoLingo thought I needed to know this phrase, although given this unhinged post, it’s not wrong.

In other news, I hit a blip in my 100-Day Project. When I decided I was going to play the piano daily for 100 straight days, I did not have any travel planned; but because our semi-last minute road trip to visit my parents, I missed four days. I gave myself grace for this: obviously pianos are not portable, and I just thought I’d add on the four days at the end. But then! Then two Fridays ago I was busy all day and I simply forgot, and this forgetting made me feel completely derailed. I have, as I see it, three options: a) add another day to the end and just get on with my life, b) start over from Day One, or c) lie down on the Train Tracks of Shame and allow myself to be run over by the Steam Engine of Failure. I am going to go with a), mostly because we have so many travel plans coming up that I am not actually going to be home for 100 consecutive days over the next year and a half.

I am home for the remainder of the summer, however, which is wonderful because it means I can enjoy my garden every single day.

I have been able to harvest a lot of spinach for my smoothies, but I seem to be able to only get one cutting before it starts to bolt, which means I’ve reseeded several times. I think we are entering in the “too hot for greens” season, unfortunately, but on the upside, this is great for my jungle-like tomato plants and for the peppers. Also on the downside:

Not a single chive sprouted! What the what. Well, they can’t all be wins.

Weekly Reading

Woes and wins continue with reading! Well, “woe” might be a bit much for this first read, more like “not a win.”

Deep Cuts. First off I will say that I finished this book on a Sunday night, and when I went to write a review of it for my records, I couldn’t remember how it ended. Less than ten hours had passed and I couldn’t have told you the ending. So. There’s that. This book takes place in the early 2000s and deals with the indie music scene, and when I say “deals with” I mean “we are deep in the details of songwriting, music writing, becoming a music critic, recording, and performing.” DEEP. At its heart is a story of romance and of friendship, of support and betrayal, and of being heard. It got a bit in the weeds for me, although I did like the dissection of songs and lyrics. The author is from Hope, BC, which was very exciting for this BC writer!

Show Don’t Tell. I have enjoyed Sittenfeld’s earlier works, most notably her novel Romantic comedy and her short story collection You Think It, I’ll Say It, and so my expectations for this new collection of short stories were high. I was not disappointed! This exceeded all my hopes; this could not be more Nicole-coded if it tried! Short stories about women’s lives, the ordinary made extraordinary, slice-of-life tales. It was an absolutely perfect book for me, no notes! I loved every word of every story but particularly this line: “Other people have unhappiness inside them, and they want to get rid of it, and it comes out as meanness.” Brilliant.

One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. This is a very emotionally draining and moving book by a renowned Egyptian-Canadian journalist and author, about Western involvement in the Middle East generally, and in Gaza in particular. It questions the West’s ability to effectively dehumanize and dissociate from frank horrors, but, apart from asking for a ceasefire, offers no answers. And maybe that’s the point. This is an important read to be sure.

A funny thing I’ve noticed, living in Retirementland, that every weekend is a long weekend/ no weekend is a long weekend/ what is a weekend. The same could be said for mid-week holidays, like when Canada Day falls on a Tuesday. It nearly went completely unnoticed by me, which felt unacceptable given the state of things these days. I celebrated by ditching my black wardrobe for red and white:

And although I don’t typically imbibe on a weekday, what better way to mark the holiday than with a local (VERY LOCAL) rose?

Red plus white equals rose; Canada Day Rose should be a thing, and I’m making it so. Elbows up, nolite te bastardes carborundorum, etcetera. I hope you all have a beautiful week, with more wins than woes. xo