Category Archives: Pop Cult-ure

On a warm summer’s evening, on a train bound for nowhere.

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I think I have writer’s block or something; today I sat down to write the preamble to a recipe and the only thing that came to my mind was the lyrics to The Gambler. As you may or may not know, I have an insane memory for song lyrics/ movie lines/ random trivia, but I have an especial knowledge of Kenny Rogers’ entire catalogue. I attribute this to my parents, who had many vinyl albums and listened to them during my childhood. The soundtrack to my childhood: The Coward of the County, Lucille, Islands in the Stream, She Believes in Me. THE GAMBLER.

I have a bit of writer’s block, so let’s talk random Friday things:

1) I have been re-watching old episodes of Mad Men, and I’m wondering if I would look awesome or terrible with a Betty Draper haircut. I’m thinking terrible. At the very least, I wouldn’t be able to put it up, which would drive me crazy. And I feel like I would need to have a once-a-week set, like so many old ladies. Still, it’s a cute look.

2) Speaking of Mad Men, I think the styles of 1966 were pretty fantastic: post-giant crinolines, pre-shapeless hippie skirts. Also, go-go boots. How hot are go-go boots? I want to wear go-go boots and cute A-line mini dresses every single day.

3) The kids and I are reading James and the Giant Peach, and man, is that some funky shit. Who thinks of these things? Who imagines enormous insects inside an enormous peach that ends up impaled by the Empire State Building?  Not me, evidently. I think of Kenny Rogers songs while writing about bean burgers.

4) I miss reading the Little House books. I read – on my own, not to the kids – The Wilder Life, and I felt a strong connection to the author. I also felt a strong urge to wear a bonnet and calico dress and also go buggy riding on a date.

5) There has been a red 1970s muscle car parked outside my house every day this week, and I am dying to see who the owner is. I see it parked there in the morning; by evening it’s gone. Who is driving it? I imagine a moustachioed, hirsute man with many gold chains. I’m going to be very disappointed if it’s just some guy in Dockers and a golf shirt. At the very least I’m hoping for a cabana style or Hawaiian shirt.

Nobody Puts Nicole In The Corner

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The Stampede is almost over and I have not worn my new denim skirt even once. This seems like a travesty. I think I’ll put it on today even though I’m only going to the esthetician and the grocery store. I had been planning on taking the kids to a neighbourhood Stampede breakfast, but we decided to hit the road instead and head up to my parents’ place at the lake. It was a lot of fun, although my hands were sore from white-knuckling on the highway, where people were driving anywhere from 85 to 150 km/hour. I had to pass not one but two houses being moved on semi-trailers, and also a woman driving very slow, weaving dangerously, and talking on her cellphone. I don’t like highway driving at the best of times, and I really don’t like it when my fellow drivers are a) talking on their hand held phones, b) taking up more than one lane, or c) driving super fast with a giant load of pipelines on the back of their semi-trailer. It’s quite unnerving. However, we made it in one piece and had a great time, marred only by Jake getting a wasp sting on his ankle one hour before we were due to leave for home.

Last night I watched that SharkNado movie everyone was talking about, and it was everything I had hoped it would be and more. Sharks flying through the air! Sharks in the house! A woman falling out of a helicopter into a shark’s mouth, who was later saved by a man chainsawing his way into and out of that same shark. Good times.

Speaking of movies, I read this very fun piece on how Dirty Dancing was a subversive film, which makes me feel like an edgy person for watching it approximately one thousand times. The funny thing is that I clearly remember watching it in the theatre, and then renting it on VHS, and while it didn’t escape me that there was a back room abortion, a 17 year old girl getting it on with a 25 year old man, and a whole bunch of class separation, I didn’t really care about those plot twists. I hardly thought about them. All I really was interested in – and all I still am interested in – was the dancing. I still love when nobody puts Baby in a corner and the not-at-all-era-appropriate I’ve Had The Time Of My Life starts up. Whenever the kids play Just Dance 4, I immediately budge in so I can dance to this song, although no one ever wants to play Johnny to my Baby.

Digression: I remember my very first viewing of Saturday Night Fever. I was so excited to watch the disco dancing, and I still do enjoy the scenes about dance competitions, walking with paint cans, and John Travolta blow-drying his hair in his underwear. However, innocent young thing that I was, growing up in the “safe sex” AIDS-and-STD-aware 80s and 90s, I was shocked – SHOCKED – at the sheer volume of anonymous casual sex portrayed in such a normalized way. I was also shocked and revolted by my newfound knowledge of the origins of the term “sloppy seconds.” Just writing that makes me shudder. More dancing, less deflowering of virgins in the back of a car while the buddies wait their turn in the front seat, please.

Anyway, although I really enjoyed Dirty Dancing back in the day, I didn’t feel it to be a very formative or influential movie for me, with one regrettable exception. The shorts. How many of us had this exact outfit:

I sure did, right down to the white Keds that made everyone’s feet smell terrible. I don’t remember buying jean shorts – probably they were not available – we just all cut our high-waisted jeans off at the knee and then rolled them up, after tying our white blouses at our waists. Unflattering though this look may be, I found myself thinking nostalgically about it, the uniform for teen girls in 1987, when I took the boys to the amusement park a few weeks ago.

I knew we were in for a busy day when I pulled up into the parking lot right at the opening time and saw 50 school buses parked there, all filled with teens from surrounding rural communities. If I had been thinking, I would have turned around right there, because the sheer volume of people guaranteed that there would be lineups everywhere. If I had turned around and went home, however, I would have missed out on Teen Fashion Education. I needed to be schooled, since I had no idea that all the girls aged 12-19 are wearing short shorts and giant oversized tank tops. VERY SHORT SHORTS. Baby’s outfit is unflattering, certainly, but at least it precludes strangers seeing buttocks and, in one horrifying case, ingrown pubic hair. MY EYES. I should probably mention that it was 17 degrees that day and overcast. I was cold in my sweater and pants, although I do remember that teenagers run at a different temperature than I do. I do recall wearing mini skirts in the dead of winter because, in my crazed teenage mind, tights were every bit as warm as pants. HOWEVER.

One girl did seem to think ahead about the chilly weather, as she had what appeared to be very sheer tights with the feet cut out of them underneath her camo-print short shorts. I applaud her for wearing somewhat weather-appropriate clothing, although I cannot agree with the fashion statement entirely.

But who am I to say anything? At that age I was wearing jeans that I had ripped myself and washed twenty times to make them look worn out – “You look like a homeless person!” my mother would say, snappishly, to which I would roll my eyes at her complete lack of fashion savvy – or I was wearing tiny black babydoll dresses paired with army boots. Dear lord. Well, that’s part of growing up: making terrible fashion choices that make you cringe twenty-five years later. We all have our what was I thinking? moments, and mine certainly had a lot to do with spiral perms and Jim Morrison silk-screened t-shirts.

I said selzer, not salsa!

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We took the boys to see Man of Steel yesterday, which means that my husband and I have gone to a grand total of four movies in a theatre since 2005. Three of those are from 2011 and on, so I really feel like we’re bringing up the average here. Annual movies! Man of Steel was pretty good – kind of explosion-y and action-y for me, but after all it is a superhero movie. The boys loved it, even if they were a bit freaked out by the very freaky Coming Attractions. Hey, I realize that we were there for Man of Steel, not some romantic comedy or historical drama, but seriously what is up with the super-violent futuristic trailers?

We were comfy in our seats near the middle of a row, when four women came in and sat down directly beside me. There were ten completely empty rows in front of us, many, many empty rows behind us, and even more seats to the left of my husband. But no, these women sat directly beside me, the one nearest taking up our shared armrest immediately. Is that strange? Maybe my scented lotion was attracting them like moths to a flame? Maybe they wanted to be near my children and their whispered questions and hilariously obvious statements – Is that guy Zod? I think that guy IS Zod. Who’s that guy? I think that baby is actually Superman! – although I cannot imagine why, frankly. I ended up feeling like a princessy asshole as I made my family move down a couple of seats so I didn’t have to share an armrest.

Today is pouring rain and 12 degrees, the sky is dark grey, the house is gloomy, and I’ve been baking muffins and roasting tomatoes in the hopes that constantly running the oven will negate the need to turn the furnace on, today being July 8. What better thing to do on a rainy day than take the children to Costco?

I know what you’re thinking, but actually it was not bad. I haven’t taken the children grocery shopping with me in so long, I wasn’t sure what to expect. It turns out that they were very helpful, if a little too encouraging with regards to buying perfectly reasonable items. “Do we need two of those? Because then we can each put one in the cart!” More often than not my answer was, well…okay. I mean, who wants Costco related sibling rivalry when I know for a fact that we WILL use all that salsa? In any case, I now have enough items in my pantry to guarantee me a spot on that deplorable show about hoarding, or at least to get me through the summer without having to take another trip to Costco.

One small onion in the ointment was our checkout lady. This poor beleaguered woman had the exasperated air of someone who has been doomed to deal with complete morons, now and forever, amen. She sighed audibly several times, muttered under her breath at how she had to tell the lady packing the carts “the same thing a million times, goddammit”, and I thought she was actually going to have a nervous breakdown when a customer pushed his cart too hard which had a domino effect for all the other empty carts lined up, ultimately resulting in her thigh being nudged by one. Poor girl. I’m sure she does have to deal with idiocy on a daily basis, but all the same next time I’m choosing the line with the hyper friendly guy who looks like Ryan Stiles. But not until September, hopefully. We should at least be able to cruise into the new year with our salsa reserves, as I realized on unpacking that we really didn’t need to buy any.

Reasons I’m Losing My Mind, or How Did Lee Garner Jr Make You Hold His Balls?

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There have been, strangely enough, tornado warnings around here.  Tornadoes!  Where AM I?  In any case, yesterday the rain held off all day until the moment I had to leave to pick the kids up from school.  I stood in the playground, in a torrential downpour, while I waited for them.  The rain tapered off and the sun came out five minutes after we arrived at home.  I cannot help but feel somewhat slighted by Mother Nature.

Ah, June in Calgary.  The sky is pitch black and the house is completely dark in the middle of the day; this in spite of the fact that the sky is bright when I get up at 4:45, and the sky is bright long past my bedtime.  The local meterologists swear that the average June temperature is 20 degrees Celcius, but to my mind of thinking, the meteorologists are either in possession of some very flawed data or they do not know how to calculate an average.  There is no way the average temperature can be 20 degrees Celcius, I demand you show me your data source.  These are actual thoughts that go through my head every time I see a weather forecast.  It is possible I have lost my mind.

This derangement is also apparent with regards to my feelings about my neighbour across the street, who has in recent weeks set out a collection of garden gnomes beside his front door.  I am tempted, every time I look out the window, to run across the street and steal one, and then take pictures of it in various locales and costumes, leaving photographs in his mailbox.  I think about this all the time.  It’s not a passing thought, I seriously consider what kind of clothes I could dress the gnome in, how I could take him to Menchies’ and photograph him with a fro-yo with gummy bear toppings, how I could strap him into the front seat of my minivan and take him for a ride. 

What is wrong with me?  I also find myself giggling uncontrollably when I think about Mad Men and the scene with poor pirate-y Ken, talking about Chevy, and the pain-in-the-assedness of clients in general.  “A client once cupped my wife’s breasts,” says Jim, helpfully, immediately followed by Roger’s earnest statement, “Lee Garner Junior made me hold his balls.”  WHAT.  Wouldn’t you love the backstory on that one?  It’s just so random.  The conversation is so casual, yeah, this guy sexually harrassed my wife, oh, and this guy made me hold his balls.  How does that happen?  What sequence of events have to occur before a guy holds another guy’s testicles, and how does that come up in casual conversation, like it’s totally nothing?

Maybe it’s the end of school looming near that has me collapsing in near-hysterics about everything.  I don’t know how else to explain it, but this article about embracing the furry au naturel look rather than waxing has me laughing until I cry.  Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against the furry au naturel look, although for me personally I would be more likely to don a knee length, sleeved, 1910-era “bathing costume” than my regular swimwear while brazenly displaying a lack of a bikini wax.  What can I say, I like my esthetician. However, this has nothing to do with – as a young man quoted in an article suggests – heightened expectations due to pornography viewing.  Women of the world, take note: if a man has an expectation on how you should look in the nude based on what he’s seen in pornographic films, then probably he is not a man you should consider sleeping with.  It’s all fun and games until he wants you to pretend he’s the pizza delivery guy.  I mean, that might be fun and all, but if his entire outlook about the female body is based on porn, then he’s probably watching too much porn.  

But why am I laughing until I cry, as I mentioned before?  It’s because of this quote, and honestly, TRUTH SISTA and fist raised in the air:

“I think most guys are so delighted that they’re about to get laid they wouldn’t notice if you had a full-on Zach Galifianakis-style beard down there.”   

Something about the term “full-on Zach Galifianakis-style beard” makes me think of the dog-beard trend, but with Zach Galifianakis in a Michael Douglas-esque, um, situation.



My best attempt at dog-bearding.  Even Barkley thinks I’m lame.
 
 

Willie Wonka’s Factory of Near-Death Experiences

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I’ve been having a lovely day, despite of an inauspicious moment this morning when I was getting dressed and wondered what happened to my sweater.  I wondered if I had somehow shrunk it, which seemed unlikely since I never put sweaters in the dryer.  The usually long, drapey sweater was fitting bizarrely like a crop top.  I finally realized – and don’t think too hard about how I achieved this – that I had put it on upside down. 

The boys and I have been reading Roald Dahl books lately, and it occurred to me while reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that no book of that type could be written in today’s cultural climate.  For one thing, Charlie and his family are starving to death and take much joy and salvation in being offered a lifetime supply of candy.  I need not reference the obvious objections to excessive sugar intake, childhood obesity, etc., but I will mention that throughout the book I kept thinking lawsuit waiting to happen.  I mean, the children constantly going missing and then ending up a) stretched b) emaciated c) blue?  I kept thinking that Mr. Wonka had better have a good lawyer, and then I recalled that back in the day of Charlie’s inception the children’s downfalls due to their own gluttony, greed, and general assholishness would have been considered just desserts (see what I did there?).  In any case, the dramatic conclusion was much cheered by my own children. 

Speaking of chocolate, I managed to get all of the teachers’ gifts purchased and arranged today, and chocolate featured strongly.  I also stopped by my local Planet Organic to buy hazelnuts, and realized I also needed raw cashews, and hey, that’s a great price for tofu, and wow, coconut milk is $1/can less than at my regular, old-people, non-pretentious grocery store.  I went to the cashier with four cans of coconut milk, two packages of tofu, and two large bags of bulk raw nuts, and I felt a bit like a pretentious douchebag.  Then I realized where I was and felt that probably there were many, many more people who were many times the pretentious douchebag that I am, and so instead I just felt the kind of excitement that only comes from buying so many thrilling ingredients for various vegan recipes.  Because yesterday I made the most delicious dessert from coconut milk, dark chocolate, hazelnuts and – of all things – dates; it was so scrumptious that my husband, my red meat loving husband, said it was the single best thing I have ever made.  Honestly, he probably high-fived himself for marrying me, it was THAT GOOD.  Or maybe he was just saying that to get me into bed; either way.  Everybody wins!  And nobody, hopefully, meets their maker in a violent ending a la Willie Wonka’s factory of near-death experiences.

Okay, by now everyone who watches Mad Men has seen this week’s episode, right?  So I can say this without fear of spoiling it for anyone?  OF COURSE BOB IS GAY.  I called that weeks ago, based entirely on his short shorts.  Also, was I the only one who loved the line “Imagine if every time Ginger Rogers jumped in the air, Fred Astaire punched her in the face!”?  I giggle every time I think about it, which seems to be more often than is appropriate.  That is quite the mental image.  Also fabulous was the scene when poor demented Mrs. Campbell talks about her nurse, Manolo, awakening feelings in her loins and Pete snaps “Do NOT be more specific!”  Hee hee, I feel like the line do NOT be more specific could be used in so many different situations.  I’m saving that for later.  Not to mention “Diplomacy Club is just another excuse to make out!”  I have to disagree on that one; having been in Model Parliament in high school, there was no making out that I could discern.  Although I could be wrong on that front; I may have been too absorbed in backcombing my spiral permed hair to notice.

Happy early Father’s Day to all you daddy-o’s out there.  Hey Daddy-O.  Don’t be a square.

So stabby.

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I feel like I must be mere minutes away from the start of my ladies’ holiday, given my current state of stabbiness.  It is a good thing for the world that I am not walking around with a knife tied to a broomstick, a la Peggy OIsen, elsewise everyone I encounter today would find themselves impaled.

I won’t go into enormous ranting details, except to say that I am going to be chaperoning a field trip to the museum tomorrow, under duress.  This is in addition to volunteering for Jake’s in-class field trip on Friday, and also in addition to the approximately one hundred hours I have spent volunteering this school year.  I understand that not everyone can volunteer, not everyone has the resources to volunteer, but dammit, do I have to volunteer for everything?  I mostly feel put-upon about the field trip, given that I hate – HATE – going on field trips, being responsible for groups of children that are not mine, and riding on the deplorable school bus.  Well, there’s nothing for it except to lay in a supply of Advil and start my ujjayi breathing now, and to impotently shake my fist at the world at the thought of spending the day with seventy seven-to-nine-year-olds. 

Whew, just writing that made me think longingly of a bottle of wine.

There are lots and lots of happy things in my life, however, and so I will go through them now, so as not to become a bitter old woman who runs people over at the Co-Op with her cart, and complains viciously of slow service and the price of butter.

1) My girls’ night away was fantastic, even if my husband has dubbed it the “world’s lamest girls’ night ever” because we went to see a display of the late Princess Diana’s dresses.  What, it was awesome.  Also we had some good food, good wine, and went hot tubbing, during which activity we were apparently checked out by men twenty years younger than us.  I say apparently because I tend to be oblivious when it comes to these situations, and was only informed of it later, but I always welcome the chance to feel like a chaste Mrs. Robinson.

2) Chalking this up under the “even filial love is blind” category, I was watching The Avengers with Jake and he told me I look JUST LIKE Black Widow, who is played by Scarlett Johansson.  JUST LIKE HER.  There ARE undeniable similarities: we both have red hair and we both wear all black.  However. On a related note: Jake can have any dessert he wants this week.

3) After our poor fireblighted tree was taken down, we were left with a stump and the contact information for “The Stump Doctor”.  The Stump Doctor came last night and ground up our stump.  I don’t know why, but just saying The Stump Doctor gives me a fit of the giggles.  Thank you, Stump Doctor, for grinding my stump.

4) Despite my husband’s assertions that I bought too many bedding plants, I managed to plant them all in an attractive manner.  This occurred between rainstorms, so I’m happy that I don’t need to “water until established”.

5) One very, very kind person told me that my hair reminded her of an old Finesse commercial, and since I have, shall we say “issues” about my hair, this was a very welcome compliment.  It also reminded me of the shampoo line called Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific.  Remember that?  Man, I wish I had some.

 

 
 
Just looking at that makes me feel much less stabby.  Hardly stabby at all, actually!  I feel much less like this and much more like this.  IT’S MY JOB.

Nicole’s Favourite Things – Spring Edition!

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It was such a long, cold winter, wasn’t it?  Snow on the ground from October solidly through April, but I tell you this: May has been absolutely stunning in YYC.  I keep expecting snow in the forecast every day, or at least hard frosts, and yet it’s been warm and beautiful.  It feels like spring, but not Calgary spring – regular actual spring! 

And so it’s time for the Spring Edition of Nicole’s Favourite Things!

My Garden

On the fourth of May, this is what my front yard Mayday tree looked like:

This is what it looks like now:

Leaves!  Flowers!  All in a nine day span, which is not great for the allergy sufferers in the house, but it sure is pretty.  Speaking of pretty:

This is the prettiest the Nanking cherry has ever looked.  Usually the buds freeze before the flowers come out and/or the flowers get blown off by gale force winds, but not this year.  I’m soaking up every second. 

I know people in other parts of the world have had lilac bushes, the blooms of which have already come and gone, but look at the adorable little buds on my lilac:


There are many, many other exciting things happening in my garden right now, but if you are NOT a gardener, you may be falling asleep with boredom at all my squee flower talk.  Moving on. 

Embracing Colour

Well, kind of.  I was shopping with a girlfriend who just so happens to have gone to design school and has a fabulous sense of style, and she practically forced me to buy this top, which I was unsure about, but now I love.

IT’S SO COLOURFUL!  I feel a little bit peacock-y in this outfit, but my husband informed me that I am now no longer allowed to shop without my friend in tow.  Hope she doesn’t mind her new career as my personal stylist.

I also wore a blue – BLUE – scarf to my 20th high school reunion.  I don’t know if it’s spring fever or what, but all this colour is going to my head.


Anyone else feel like I need to clean my bedroom mirror?  Seems a little dusty.

Mascara

I am a sucker for different formulations of mascara, and yet I don’t actually notice a difference between any of them.  None of them transform me into a Megan Draper lookalike, possibly because I don’t look anything like Megan Draper and also she has fake eyelashes and professional makeup artists and she’s a TV character, not an actual person.  Anyway.  I did buy this mascara called “The Falsies” and although I was at first disappointed with it (see also: non transformation into a TV character) the more I use it the better I like it.  My husband snapped this picture of me on Saturday night and I can actually notice my eyelashes in it:


Spring Food

I am in love with everything berry and green these days, so I’m enjoying these recipes I have up at Yummy Mummy Club: Green Goddess Bowl of Goodness, Overnight Coconut French Toast, and Lemon Mini-Cakes with Whipped Coconut Cream.  Fun fact: that last recipe is a vegan riff on my dear friend Hannah’s famed Lemon Muffins. 

Mother’s Day

I’m not hugely invested in Mother’s Day, but this weekend my boys gave me homemade cards and hugged me approximately one zillion times.  They also had a blast playing in the sprinkler, which NEVER happens in May! 

 
 


That series of photos just makes my heart happy.

Ground Control to Commander Hadfield

Commander Hadfield is the BOMB.  I have never been a person even slightly interested in space.  In fact, one of my strongest memories from Grade One is lying to the teacher of the gifted enrichment program about already reading a book about a dog who becomes an astronaut because, hey, books about space?  Snore.  I think they gave me an equally snore-worthy book about a dog who dug a hole in a garden but whatever.  At least I didn’t have to read about space.

But here comes the amazing Canadian Chris Hadfield and suddenly I’m completely obsessed.  I can’t wait to watch him come home tonight, with the kids.  Is there anything that man cannot do?  Plus, his song Is Somebody Singing makes me tear up every time I sing it (which is often, in the shower).  The kids sang it for Music Monday and it was just so special.

This Fabulous Spam Comment

Anonymous wrote: I don’t even understand how I stopped up here, however I believed this put up was good.  I do not know who you are but certainly you are going to a famous blogger in the event that you aren’t already.  Cheers!

Anonymous goes on to post his/her website entitled “tits movie”.  Oh boy!  Thanks Anonymous!  I sure hope you’re right, and I think I’ll just go click that link now.